An hour later.
The excommunication trial that marked a new chapter in the history of the aristocracy had ended. After receiving the repaired excommunication letter, I got into the carriage provided by the Imperial Palace. It boasted a slow speed, making it difficult for even the reporters and paparazzi who followed to catch up and get their scoop. It was as if the carriage had deliberately slowed down.
I dozed off in the carriage and woke up repeatedly. It was a very strange journey.
As I got closer to Academy Street, where the stationery store was located, the sound of a grotesque hammer began to be heard loudly. I opened the window and measured the distance to the stationery store.
"I'm almost here, what do you mean?"
Dominic shrugged and said, having broken the invisibility spell. "Yes."
I looked at Dominic and asked seriously, "Isn't something noisy?"
Dominic also lowered his eyes and muttered seriously, "Apparently something happened."
The carriage was running towards its destination, neither slow nor fast. I opened the window. When I opened the window, even though I was in the carriage, I heard a loud sound that seemed to tear my eardrums. There must be a problem.
I shouted loudly at the coachman through the crack in the open door, "I'll get off here!" The coachman quickly and accurately stopped and dropped us off.
It's really too noisy.
As soon as I got out of the carriage, I heard something breaking so hard that my ears hurt, and I couldn't help but feel it. I came down outside without being escorted by the coachman. It was just over a block away from the stationery store.
I walked step by step with Dominic, who had cast the invisibility spell. And the moment I finally reached my stationery store, I immediately recognized the identity of the loud noise.
"This is…"
"Mel."
I shook my head slightly at Dominic and whispered to myself, "That's what I expected. Everything." I nodded. "Hildegard must have smashed it properly, right?"
"Oh, maybe."
In front of the yellow stationery store building, ten people from the company were gathered. They were smashing them with hammers and sickles as if they were demolishing their own buildings. The sturdy building was being hammered by men as big as mountains. My precious stationery store building was crumbling, crumbling, and collapsing.
Bang!
I saw the benches in the garden I had made shattered with a sound louder than lightning. Even the things I made one by one were lying on the floor like garbage.
I bit my lip tightly. I definitely expected it. But it must be such a miserable sight. A wooden bench that divided the floor. Broken windows. And even the collapsed doorknob and front door. Looking at the precious objects piled up on the mud floor, I glared at Hildegard, who was standing far away and observing the situation.
I expected everything, and it went according to my intentions. But the fever had risen enough. Meldenik's trauma, which had been dormant in my head, resurfaced.
Seven years old.
Hildegard saw the sandcastle that Meldenik had created, and stomped on her hand.
'Everything you have created will be ruined.'
It was when Meldenik, who was mentally unstable, mustered up the courage to launch his first business.
'Didn't you say that I would ruin everything about you?'
Hildegard sent three jaks (presumably her agents) and ruined everything Meldenik had done.
I pressed my sticky temples.
I'm not as helpless as I was back then.
I stood ten steps away from the stationery store and walked briskly toward Duchess Hildegard, who stood side by side with her maid holding a parasol.
"Madam."
Even when I said that, she didn't seem to want to stop the situation. She just gave an arrogant nod to the maid. "Demolish it quickly."
The maid made a funnel with her hands, brought it to her mouth, and shouted loudly, "He tells us to demolish it faster!"
The men moved their bodies in unison. The sickles and hammers they had in their hands began to smash my building even more chaotically.
Whoa, bang!
My stationery store building collapsed at a faster rate. The exterior wall of the yellow building was left with rough footprints.
It's a dog, really. (This is an idiom for something being completely ruined or a terrible situation.)
Duchess Hildegard, who was glancing at me with her fists clenched and fluttering, distorted her eyes. "So I should have figured out the topic. Isn't that right?"
I looked at Duchess Hildegard and smiled brightly. "I understand. He must have intended to smash all my private property so that I could not recover."
"Don't think about it, baby."
"I'm a commoner anyway, so I'm just going to get out of the way, right? If a nobleman steals the private property of a commoner and harasses him in a hurry, it will only end in a fine."
This world was such a place. A place where the status distinction between commoners and nobles was strict.
"Whatever I think, shouldn't you worry about your body first?"
There was no way I didn't know that it was a warning that she would kill me, who had no reliable backing. Hildegard approached me without trying to hide her grumpy expression.
"Child, can't you stop?"
She believed that I was no longer an aristocrat, so there would be no one to vouch for me, so she was the last person to leave. I looked at her from a distance, pretending not to know.
"Are you ordering me and treating me with humility now?"
"Stupid. Do you know that you are still the daughter of Babyloa?"
"No, I have nothing to do with Babyloa anymore."
I looked behind her back. The bright red striped awning was torn off.
"Oh, I bought that for a high price."
Boom!
I also looked back at the broken and tattered window. The stationery store I decorated nicely was smoothly closing. The benches that were stained with hands and the tables full of memories with the children were all broken and pushed outside.
Swept over the stationery store, a small magic circle that no one could see flashed and then disappeared.
I expected it, and it was intentional, but when I actually saw it, I was a little…
I giggled at Hildegard. She took a step back with a puzzled face, as if she were treating me like a crazy person.
"You have to compensate, right? Now you are arbitrarily infringing on the private property of other nobles."
Hildegard frowned. "What nonsense, are you dreaming? What is compensation for commoners!"
I smiled and held up a small document to her. "Look, this is it."
Boom! Bang!
In the meantime, I continued to hear the sound of my building breaking apart. At that moment, a maid holding a parasol beside Hildegard whispered with a pure white face.
"…Duchess. It's a document that recognizes that you're a real nobleman."
Hildegard, who had laughed at me to the fullest, immediately hardened her expression.
"Your Majesty's seal is stamped."
I nodded to the dazed maid. "That's right. Your eyes are working properly." It was a compliment. I was a person with that level of gentleness.
Hildegard stretched out her hand with a grin. I smiled softly as I sent the papers back.
"Why, Madam?"
"Cheeky, even stupid! Noble titles cannot be given so quickly. Forgery of official documents is illegal! It's like someone who doesn't know the future." Verbal abuse poured out endlessly above my head.
But I answered calmly. "I didn't get a new title." I shook the documents I had received directly from the Emperor last night. On the eve of the excommunication trial, the Emperor recognized me as a legitimate blood relative of the Marquis of Kinnoa. He handed me a shortened document recognizing me as the Marquis of Kinnoa. On the white paper, there were words testifying that I was the rightful successor of the Marquis Kinnoa. To be precise, it was a document that stated that I had received back the title of Marquis, which had been temporarily assigned to the Imperial Palace.
The maid said to herself without realizing it, "Marquis Kinnoa…"
Hildegard's eyes widened as he read the papers. "You, then why did you know His Majesty…"
"Were you afraid that you asked me to pass on the excommunication?" I grinned at her and nailed it perfectly. "He promised to take over Kinnoa's succession. It is a title that is currently temporarily assigned to the Imperial Palace. It is the work of a Marquis that I deserve to be legitimately inherited."