[Side Story] Two-Arm Scale (10)
― ‘It’s already been a long time since the Golden King Elte left this world. It’s time to abandon the name ‘Elte Company’…’
This is what Slog calmly declared in the conference room when this whole story started.
Now is the time to carry out that resolution.
*“The sun is so… dazzling.”
A voice that seems to go off at any moment. Slog spoke with a pale face on the conference table.
“Yeah… Anyway… the sun rises. “The era of Elte Kecheln has been lost, so the old ways must go away.”
Slog closed his eyes and whispered quietly.
The next shareholder is Lortel Kecheln. As if saying that fact is natural.
The appearance even feels unnatural.
A colossus struggling to somehow survive.
It was a whisper-like voice, compared to the desperate slog of trying to get out of a situation by screaming, swearing, and even using one’s tongue.
In that voice… he spoke slowly.
“How much do you know, Ed Rosstaylor?”
“—Even the fact that you had no intention of becoming a leader in the first place.”
“I thought I hid it well enough, but you were so quick-witted… I even fooled that fox-like Lortel…”
Slog is a merchant who has survived in this Old Deck for decades.
He probably knows better than anyone else what kind of outcome he will face if he recklessly attacks a prestigious noble family.
Nevertheless, he went ahead with that ridiculous plan.
By persuading everyone, even deceiving the allies, that there was a ‘back party’ that didn’t even exist.
Even with blood dripping from his waist, Slog kept his eyes wide open. Soon, a trickle of fresh blood flows from the corner of the mouth.
“It looks like there are a lot of things you want to ask me…”
The blood flows along the surface of the conference table and eventually seeps into the floor.
This was the part I didn’t like while handling this matter.
It would take too much time to dig through each and every one of them.
The scattered clues seem so chaotic on the outside that it is not easy to gather them in one place and organize them.
Nevertheless, if I look back on my memories… there were quite a few.
― ‘Hmm… Honestly, this regression magic wasn’t that efficient. There are so many things to prepare and so many conditions… You know those basic things well…’
– ‘That merchant is also strangely kind. It feels like I’m moving within a line that doesn’t endanger my life.’
Lucy’s words analyzing the regression curse placed on Lortel.
Why did they use a lukewarm and ineffective means like the regression curse to subdue Lortel, even though there were many reliable means such as assassination and kidnapping?
– ‘Are you here to provoke me? Why would you go this far and leave after saying something that could have been said in writing…’
– ‘There is no way we would give up Senior Lortel. I probably knew about Slog, but why did I have to go this long way…’
This was the question Tanya had when she saw Slog come all the way to Ross Taylor’s territory.
Why did you go to the middle of the enemy lines and provoke me as if you were declaring that I was the enemy?
It’s not like there was a reasonable return to take such a risky action.
Not only that, it was the same even after arriving at Alldeck.
I attached a separate bell to protect Lortel, but in the end, Slog did not take any action to secure Lortel.
Even though they knew that Lortel had been subdued, they made no move to end the matter by immediately accusing her of embezzlement.
It would have been clear that they would have moved on immediately after confirming that Lortel had been suppressed, but instead, there was a strong feeling that time was dragging on sluggishly.
As if waiting for something.
In addition, all kinds of unnatural details piled up, and in the end, I had no choice but to remain as a question.
“The only thing I haven’t figured out yet is why you do such stupid things as if you’ve suddenly gone crazy. “Why does a man called the Colossus of Old Deck, who knows everything… do something so reckless?”
He did justify his reckless actions by giving off the nuance that ‘someone big is watching his back.’
That was probably a device to keep fellow merchants and Slog’s supporters from being suspicious of Slog’s actions as much as possible.
Slog laughed at my words.
“Well… I’m just trying to close an era.”
The sky I looked up at was high and blue.
Still, he just chuckles.
“The era of the Golden King Elte Kecheln is now over. “It is time for me, who has been his limb for over a dozen years, to completely close the curtain on that stage.”
“…”
“I will take all the factions that Elte left behind. Tell this to Lortel Kecheln.”
The low voice makes you feel as if you have become a different person.
“Congratulations on entering your era.”
I feel like everything I guessed was correct.
Slog Keldlux planned to thoroughly clean the inside of the store before handing it over to Lortel.
He gathers all the forces opposing Lortel and the colossus trying to bring her down into his forces, and then falls together into the fiery pit of hell.
The more urgent the situation, the better. And the more cornered Lortel is, the better.
The more the situation reaches its peak, the more those who will eventually betray Lortel and stick by Slog’s side will stick their heads out.
“I didn’t know you thought so much of Lortel.”
“Kkkkkk… That’s funny. “I just hate a girl who has been so rich and cruel since she was young.”
Slog took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“I have worked in middle management my whole life. “I’m just finishing my job.”
It was several decades until the Golden King Elte brought Lortel to the Chamber of Commerce and raised her into a colossus.
As Slog was Elte’s confidant, he would have always helped him, so he would have watched the young Lortel’s growth process most closely.
The process of a girl from the slums enduring and surviving under a cold-blooded giant and being reborn as a merchant.
It is a record of her struggle to not let go of her heart as a human being, even though she was instilled with commercial knowledge under a father who was not even her father.
The life story of a girl who started with empty hands and struggled to survive… what it looked like in the eyes of the old colossus who survived under the Golden King.
All of that… I couldn’t figure it all out. That’s something only Slog can know.
However, the slog is the same as always… I would have just bowed my head and knelt and performed my duty as a middle manager.
“okay. I did think it was strange. “At the point when Ed Rosstaylor, the prudent and skilled aristocratic master, broke into the business building in such a flashy and haphazard manner… I should have noticed, too.”
Slog Keldlux would have wanted his downfall to be as spectacular and grand as possible.
Only then can you safely and cleanly take Lortel’s opponents down the cliff. Lortel’s subsequent administration will have much more justification and justification.
So, I called a saint and brought her there.
The commercial building was broken and destroyed as if all Old Deck citizens were watching.
“I thought it was going to be a slow battle with documents, but since it was completed so neatly, it really shows that the work is done… Cough… Cough… Cough…” He
is truly a troublesome person.
The fact that he tried to keep all of this as a secret that only he knew until the end.
“If I had been honest with Lortel, I wouldn’t have had to go through this much trouble. “He would have cooperated as much as he could because it was a necessary process for him to take the position of leader.”
“I can only say that because I don’t know this group called Elte Company.”
Slog chuckled and laughed.
“Do you know what this sentence is that everyone at Elte Company, from the lowest apprentice to the core executives, memorizes like the Bible?”
“…”
“Oh my god…”
Slog spoke slowly, blood pouring out.
― ‘There is no such thing as a perfectly horizontal two-arm scale in the world.’
To them, human relationships are like that.
Lortel, I will fall after gathering the opposing forces to make you the leader.
So please remain incapacitated for a moment so that your opposing forces can come together as one.
If Slog said that, would Lortel really trust Slog and nod his head?
“Merchants are a very tiring people.”
Even after working together for decades, they do not trust each other.
They try to please each other, but they never communicate emotionally.
So… the widened gap forms a parallel line forever.
That’s why Slog moved arbitrarily.
He pretends to support Persica and uses Dune Grex to slander Lortel.
Among the great merchants, they gossiped about Lortel and showed off their hostile relationship with her.
They occasionally expressed their greed for the position of head of the association and continued to spread hints within the association that they would split at some point.
He probably decided on this whole plan after watching Lortel push out Elte Kecheln.
Then, the timing of all movements roughly matches.
The Elte Company, filled with merchants like snakes, is a swamp of traitors who will see through your intentions and take advantage of the situation even if you let your guard down even a little.
If you try to plan something in a place like that, you have to be prepared to fool everyone in the world.
Old fox Slog Keldlux knew this very well.
“It seems like there are a lot of things I want to ask…”
Slog smiled with difficulty, looking haggard.
“When will Lortel’s regression curse be lifted?”
“The effect will wear off soon. “One day, when I wake up naturally, it will be resolved.”
“Why do you have to use such a troublesome curse…”
“Well…”
The sound of a crowd praising the saint can be heard from the vacant lot in front of the store.
Slog listened to the sound and spoke quietly with his eyes closed.
“I was just a little curious about what that little boy who had not lost his days as a merchant would have looked like…”
Fuelan and Kaldenheim run into the underground warehouse that Slog was talking about.
After kicking down the door, the only place you enter is a dark, empty space. I heard that there is a means to subdue Ed Rosstaylor here, but there is nothing visible.
At that moment, the two men hiding in the dark grab the forearms of Fuelan and Kaldenheim, bend them backwards, and press them to the floor.
The men who were holding down the two people who supported the slog… were mercenaries hired from outside the Elte Company.
The two embarrassed giants look back with trembling eyes… and a woman commanding the two mercenaries comes into view.
The person there was Lortel’s chief secretary… Rienna Clemson.
Only then did the two people realize that they had fallen into a trap.
