Chapter 176. Scheming (7)
Serena Renoir had a timid soul. She was simply born that way — a natural coward from the very start.
Lately, tumbling about in Y&P Trading Company had fattened her bank account considerably, and she had even received the title of Viscountcy. But that didn't mean she had suddenly grown a backbone she never had, or acquired any power to speak of.
And yet.
"Don't wanna."
She had gone and done it. To Clarisse Rosemore — ruler of the North, one of the most powerful figures in the entire Kingdom.
"What did you just say?"
Clarisse's eyes narrowed to a cold, sharp line. A lethal aura. It felt as though she had become a rabbit placed before a wild beast.
She suddenly had the feeling she had made some kind of terrible mistake. She wanted to drop to her knees right then and there and beg, 'I'm sorry! Please just spare me and Renoir Workshop!' Her legs trembled like leaves.
And yet. Serena did not.
"……"
Clarisse tilted her head. For her part, she could not understand this tiny technician standing before her.
Was she truly in her right mind? Or was she simply mistaking her warning for a negotiating tactic?
With the power of the Rosemores, Renoir Workshop was less than chaff before the wind. She couldn't possibly not know it could be crushed with a single finger.
"I'm curious."
Clarisse's voice was colder than it had ever been.
"Why you would make such a choice?"
Serena swallowed hard.
She's even scarier in person!!! Penelope was frightening enough as it was, but Clarisse in anger — perhaps because she was the elder sister — was even more terrifying.
"I, I……"
The innate weakness that made her want to take back her decision even now. The urge to flee made her heart pound like a drum.
"I'm not exactly a thriving noble myself…… but, b-but still……"
Serena knew Penelope.
The way she would weep talking about her sister every time she drank. How she put on a brave front and pretended to be unaffected, but inside was festering with the wound of having been abandoned by her own family.
How much that prickly-seeming woman truly cared for Serena beneath the surface. How much warmth she held inside, how gentle and tender she really was.
She knew all of it.
Serena parted her trembling lips.
"I don't betray my most precious friend."
Silence.
"……"
"……"
Serena quietly opened her tightly shut eyes and looked at Clarisse.
"……Eek!"
Clarisse was staring straight at her. Serena immediately ducked her head back down.
A moment later, the sound of Clarisse's derisive snort reached her ears.
"I thought you were a mere opportunist. You have quite the stubborn streak in you."
A brief remark — impossible to tell whether it was sarcastic or a genuine note of admiration. Clarisse turned away without a shred of lingering attachment.
"Let's go."
"Yes, Miss."
Vroooom.
The sedan's engine sound faded away, and the moment it had vanished completely—
"Haaaaaah……"
Serena crumpled to the ground like a balloon with all the air let out.
"Huheeee……"
The tears she had been holding back came flooding out.
"I'm insane……! That was insane……!"
What on earth had she just done?
If she was going to refuse, she could have simply declined politely or stalled for time. She had nothing to back herself up and had gone and thrown herself at her anyway.
"Wh, what do I do now? What do I do now?"
Serena stamped her feet frantically.
It felt as though a Rosemore assassin might leap out at any moment to kidnap her. Dread came crashing over her.
But just then. A face flashed across her mind.
"Hanbin!"
That's right, there was Hanbin. A brilliant Alchemist, and the most dependable person Serena knew in all the world. Surely even in this situation, he would protect her.
"Psh, I'm sure he'll protect me."
That thought alone eased her heart somewhat.
"He'll…… protect me, right?"
Still anxious, Serena loaded Brigitte into the car and fled to the factory all the same.
***
Inside the car on the way back to the Rosemore Villa.
The attendant kept glancing at the back seat through the rear-view mirror.
He had naturally expected a furious dressing-down. The Rosemore offer had been refused outright, and with such a flippant attitude at that.
But Clarisse was simply resting her chin on her hand, gazing at the darkness beyond the window.
Unexpected. Even Serena, who had been considered the weakest link of Y&P Trading Company, was bound that tightly to the others.
Even so, Serena's choice to stand directly against the Rosemores was nothing more or less than sheer recklessness.
"Trying to recruit individuals and crumble them from within won't mean much."
"Then……"
"We need to change our strategy."
Clarisse's long, slender fingers tapped lightly against the leather seat.
"We'll have to move more overtly."
She would not stoop to hiring cheap thugs to smash machinery. That was beneath her dignity.
"As soon as dawn breaks, contact the Director of the Water Bureau. And look into the original owner of that printing house building as well."
Even without resorting to such barbaric methods, there were any number of ways to proceed.
***
The next morning. The printing house, where the renovation works were still in full swing.
"And so I went — just like this! — eyes sharp as triangles! And declared, 'I, Serena, will never betray my comrades!' and stormed right out!"
Serena was worked up first thing in the morning. She had waylaid Jurgen and Penelope, who had arrived for work on the late side, and was busy regaling them with her tale of heroism from the previous night.
Serena exhaled vigorously through her nose.
In truth, she hadn't been quite that brave — but there was no evidence to the contrary, was there?
"Oh ho, is that so. Well done. So Clarisse's side is making moves to interfere after all."
Jurgen nodded along, studying the schematics. Penelope's reaction beside him was rather different.
"Hold on — you said that to whom, exactly?"
"Young Lady Rosemore. Clarisse."
"……Are you out of your mind?"
Penelope was genuinely aghast.
"You pulled a 'Don't wanna' right to that person's face?"
"Hm? Yes, I wanted to demonstrate the absolute firmness of my friendship with Penelope……"
Serena shrugged her shoulders. Penelope rubbed her face dry.
"You have no fear at all, do you?"
"I, is that so?"
"Even I couldn't do something like that to my sister."
"B, but betraying Y&P Trading Company is something that simply cannot exist in my vocabulary!"
"No, that's not what I mean — you even provoked her."
The colour drained from Serena's face in an instant.
'Then please just say you'll protect me……!!!!'
She knew. She hadn't slept a wink for fear of retaliation.
She had wanted to grab Hanbin by the sleeve and beg, 'Please save me', but saying something like that so openly would look rather undignified, wouldn't it?
"Ah, ha ha…… well, the Rosemore family is frightening, I'll grant them that."
"……My sister especially."
"Hmmm! Well, I, I, I, I suppose so! Ah, anyway! As a key talent of Y&P, if something were to happen to me personally, wouldn't it cause a great deal of trouble for the project…… I find myself having that sort of worry, you see? I've had rather a hard lot in life, as you know. I might get kidnapped again."
And that was why she had resorted to the strategy of speaking in roundabout circles……
"Speaking of kidnapping, that reminds me of the time Serena escaped."
"Right, you escaped by driving, didn't you?"
Jurgen was absorbed in the schematics; Penelope had a bread roll in her mouth and was reviewing documents related to the Birthday Banquet.
"No no, that's not what I—"
Just as Serena was about to pull a long face—
Pushushshsh……
A sound like steam escaping came from the direction of the boiler, which had been running vigorously.
Simultaneously, the urgent shouts of the Renoir Workshop employees operating the machinery burst out.
"Huh? What's going on!"
"No water! The water pressure is dropping!"
"What?"
Serena started and rushed over.
Squeak, squeak.
She tried turning the boiler feed water valve, but all that came from the pipes was a sputtering sound of air. No water came out.
"A water cut-off?"
At a time like this? Serena tilted her head and inspected the factory's water supply valve.
The water pipe hadn't burst. And yet the newly installed water tank was completely empty.
This……
"It looks like the Water Bureau shut it off……?"
The heart of this factory was steam. They needed high-pressure steam to cook the rice and heat the meat. Even the power to run the machinery came from the steam turbine.
In other words, if the water was cut off, this factory could not function.
And that was not the end of it.
―Creeak!
The factory's front gate was wrenched open, and a swarm of men in black suits came flooding in.
Lawyers, obviously expensive ones at a glance. And amongst them, a middle-aged man with a round belly was sweating profusely.
"Who are you?"
When Penelope asked, the middle-aged man shot a nervous glance at the lawyers, cleared his throat, and cried out,
"I am the original owner of this factory!"
"I beg your pardon?"
Had Jurgen not drawn up the contract and paid the full final balance? As Penelope looked on in bewilderment, a sharp-featured lawyer stepped forward.
"Are you the representative of Y&P Trading Company? I am acting on behalf of the building's owner."
The lawyer produced a thick bundle of documents from inside his jacket and handed them to Jurgen.
"We hereby notify you that the present contract has been rendered entirely void due to a 'material breach of obligation' on the part of the purchaser."
"We completed the full final payment, and as I understand it, only the ownership transfer registration remains."
Jurgen asked, perfectly composed.
"Because a defect has arisen. A material defect, at that — a violation of the Metropolitan Water Administration Act."
The lawyer gave a contemptuous snort and adjusted his glasses.
Then he began rattling off a string of difficult legal terms.
"Your party is currently in violation of Article 12 of the Metropolitan Water Administration Act and Article 45 of the Urban Planning Act. Accordingly, your party has received an administrative water supply suspension — constituting 'administrative enforcement' — from the Water Bureau."
"What does that mean?"
Serena blinked.
"Shall I explain it simply?"
The lawyer smiled thinly and continued.
"This building is a facility licensed only for 'manufacturing use.' However, your party has conducted unlicensed 'food processing activities,' thereby disrupting the hygiene and water distribution order of the industrial district. This constitutes unlawful occupation in violation of the contractual terms."
"So, so that means……"
"In short! Because an administrative disposition has been issued due to your party's unlawful activities, the grounds for 'contract termination attributable to the purchaser' have been established."
The building owner chimed in from the side, squawking loudly.
"You heard him! Because of you people, I'm being held jointly liable! It's a contract cancellation due to illegal activity! Everyone out, right now!"
The eyes of the original printing house owner were flickering with anxiety. Yet the logic the lawyer was laying out seemed watertight at first hearing.
The Water Bureau cut off the water. Why? Because you acted unlawfully. Because you acted unlawfully, I'm being dragged into harm as well. Get out.
That was what it amounted to.
In truth, there was no real need to go this far.
The final balance had already been paid, meaning ownership had effectively transferred. And even granting every concession, even if the zoning violation were upheld, using that alone to void the sale contract outright would be a pointless exercise that gained the building owner nothing.
"What are you doing? If you intend to continue standing there blankly, we will have no choice but to report this as unlawful occupation."
It was an airtight plan assembled overnight by a team of elite lawyers at a top firm.
It would certainly succeed. The lawyer, secretly retained by Clarisse, triumphantly announced checkmate.
And yet……
'Why do they all look so completely unruffled?'
Right up until they had appeared, everyone had been carrying on as though they were frightened little lambs…… But Penelope Rosemore, who had apparently been forewarned, was entirely too calm.
She was simply chewing away on her bread roll with an expression that said, 'Ah, I see how it is.'
Just as the lawyer was tilting his head in puzzlement—
"My good lawyer, did you just say Article 45 of the Urban Planning Act?"
Jurgen, who had drafted the Urban Planning Act himself, stepped forward.