Adopting the Male Protagonist Changed the Genre - Chapter 118

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 118

“That noble?”

“My brother’s master. I’ve never seen my brother so blindly devoted to anyone other than our parents. I know he’s the benefactor who saved Father’s life, but sometimes it seems a bit excessive.”

Terry rested her chin on her hand at an angle and looked back at Jerry.

Her younger brother had inherited their father’s quick wit and their mother’s deft hands, making him skilled at disguise.

Even his unremarkable appearance was a perfect half-and-half blend of their father and mother, so no one could deny he was of Sewer Rat blood.

Terry, on the other hand, usually erased her presence and killed her aura so she wouldn’t stand out much, but if you looked closely, she had delicate features.

People would mock Terry, saying she was too striking to be a proper Sewer Rat, joking that the rat pups were raising a cat.

Terry had personally smashed the noses of those who talked like that, but deep down she thought blood couldn’t be deceived.

Unlike Jerry, she was a complete stranger who didn’t share a single drop of blood with her parents.

So Jerry would never be able to understand.

What kind of feelings she had when repaying her debt to Belinda.

Terry smiled bitterly, thinking that the only ones who could understand her true feelings were not the family who had taken her in, but her former colleagues who had bitten and clawed at each other in the slum’s fighting pits.

“There’s something called fate that children don’t understand, foolish little brother.”

“You’re always treating me like a child when we’re not even that far apart in age.”

Jerry puffed out his cheeks, pretending to sulk like a young girl. Terry barely suppressed the urge to punch that detestable head right then and there as she continued speaking.

“Enough. Let’s move now.”

I had suspected that perhaps Schubel’s mother had used her family’s influence to conspire with the notary to alter the will.

But contrary to the suspicious circumstances I had thought, no connection could be found between the notary and Count Barbet.

Moreover, Count Barbet, while not exactly virtuous, was quite aristocratic and knew propriety, and wasn’t the type to privately interfere in other families’ power struggles.

Therefore, I had reached the somewhat unsatisfying conclusion that the notary’s hiding in Barbet County was purely coincidental.

However, instead of immediately nodding at Terry’s words, Jerry gestured toward the short note Belinda had sent.

“Are you sure it’s really okay to do this?”

Terry’s gaze fell to the note. There was a postscript that Belinda had added.

According to information gathered through Mary, Schubel’s aide had been mysteriously absent for the past few days.

I had urgently ordered the Sewer Rats to track the aide’s whereabouts, but there was still no word about his location.

“He’s a former Stray, right? I think it would be better to track down this aide’s whereabouts completely before we move.”

Terry knew that following Jerry’s advice could help avoid potential traps or dangers, but she shook her head impatiently.

“No, we’ll move as planned. If the aide is really plotting something, we need to resolve this matter as quickly as possible and return to Master’s side.”

Belinda had already been thoroughly deceived by ‘Cecile’s Lullaby’ once before, but habits are not easily changed.

This time too, she pushed forward somewhat hastily.

* * *

“I, I, I don’t know anything.”

The notary, who had been enjoying a leisurely retirement life, turned pale the moment Terry and Jerry, who had come to his hotel room, mentioned the Blanche name.

Terry smiled warmly and offered him cold water as if she were in her own home.

“We haven’t asked anything yet. You should wet your throat with some water first.”

Only after the notary gulped down the water with trembling hands did he finally calm down and examine the person before him.

The person claiming to be a butler serving Marquess’s Daughter Belinda Blanche was a very young woman, unsuitable for such a position. Or perhaps it might be a man.

But gender wasn’t what mattered.

The notary pressed down his trembling hands and opened his mouth.

“The truth is… being a lawyer is a profession with a fairly high possibility of ‘accidental death’ just before or after revealing a will. Unwanted trouble can arise… And I haven’t built much of a relationship with either Lord Schubel Blanche or Lady Belinda Blanche…”

The notary kept wiping his sweat and stammering.

Terry could fully understand his feelings.

The heavier the value tied to a will, the more innocent lawyers caught between power struggles would die.

Terry had also heard stories of people who would kill lawyers for no reason other than their names not appearing on wills.

However, the notary’s reaction was excessive. As if he knew something.

Terry gently squeezed his hand as if feeling sorry for him.

“Oh my, how much mental anguish you must have suffered. The Marquess’s Daughter sent me here understanding your feelings.”

“The Marquess’s Daughter did?”

“How could someone who has spent their entire life in the Royal Capital spend their remaining years in such an outlying territory?”

“Well… it’s a bit stuffy, but there’s no major inconvenience…”

The notary couldn’t strongly deny it.

Though it was just a pastime, he was someone who enjoyed gambling as a hobby.

Someone accustomed to gambling at the continent’s most famous casinos and the luxurious culture of the Royal Capital would probably be restless living in the outskirts where all there was to see were fields and barley, with only small stakes to gamble.

“Lord Blanche sent me to make a proposal to you.”

“A proposal… you say?”

“Yes, it will certainly not be a loss for you. Rather, you’ll be able to lift a burden from your heart.”

Finally, the notary’s posture became much more earnest. He leaned toward Terry and swallowed his dry saliva.

“Both Lord Schubel Blanche and Lady Belinda Blanche lost much from this will. Lord Schubel gained only a hollow victory of title, while Lady Belinda obtained only gold without glory.”

“That’s right.”

Thanks to that, only the notary was in a truly difficult position. He had earned the anger of both Belinda and Schubel.

If the entire fortune and title had been left to just one of them, he could have simply sided with the designated heir.

Watching the notary’s reaction as he swallowed nervously, Terry continued gently.

“Since both parties are unsatisfied with the will, how about you make that will invalid?”

“Wh… What?! How, how could I possibly do such a thing!”

The notary’s face turned pale again.

“I’ll, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. I, I heard nothing!”

This was an extremely dangerous deal.

The moment the notary, sensing this instinctively, jumped up and tried to hurriedly leave his seat.

“Notary, you must have noticed that the pen pressure in the front and back parts of the will left by Lord Jonas Blanche is different.”

His feet were nailed to the spot.

“I, I have no idea what you’re talking about…”

“Lady Belinda told me that at the time, she was so shocked by the will’s contents that she didn’t notice anything strange. But thinking about it later, she found it suspicious that the handwriting in the front and back parts of the actual will she saw was quite different.”

“Th, that’s…”

“Oh, of course I’m not saying the will was forged. The handwriting analysis has already been completed, and you were present when the will was written, so who would dare tamper with it?”

Terry continued speaking gently while softly grasping the notary’s shoulder and pressing him back into his seat.

“However, the investigator who analyzed the handwriting left this opinion. The front part about transferring the title to Lord Schubel Blanche was undoubtedly Lord Jonas’s usual handwriting, but the part specifying Lady Belinda Blanche’s marriage dowry was written quite hastily. As if it had been hastily added later.”

“…”

The notary squeezed his eyes shut as if he couldn’t bear to hear the rest.

“Notary, Lord Jonas Blanche rewrote the will, didn’t he?”

“A, a will can be rewritten as, as many times as the writer wants while they’re still alive…”

“Yes, of course that’s true. But what I want to ask is this.”

Terry stood in front of the notary and handed him the water glass.

“It seems Lord Jonas wasn’t in his right mind when he revised the will.”

The notary’s hand holding the water glass trembled so violently that the water overflowed and soaked his pants.

“I understand Lord Jonas was suffering from delirium. A will written by someone not of sound mind – wouldn’t that be a case where the will could easily be invalidated through litigation?”

Terry asked this with a kind smile still lingering on her lips.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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