Rewriting the Trash Ending - Chapter 62

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

62.

“Do you truly not know what your son has done in this place?”
“……!”
The Elderly Noblewoman’s sobs cut off abruptly at those words.
Her clouded eyes wavered.
Her wrinkled lips trembled slightly, as though she wanted to speak but dared not.
The sorrow drained from her face, leaving only tension in its wake, and a hollow laugh escaped me.
Her expression made it clear—she knew exactly what this place was.
Yet there she was, playing the victim before those she had wronged, appealing for sympathy.
I felt the last thread of pity for her snap and fall away.
“The world keeps its silence not because your son is innocent, but because I choose to hold my tongue.”
“That is—no, Your Highness, innocent? My son merely carried on his father’s noble work……!”
“I saw it with my own eyes. What your son has done.”
“…….”
The Elderly Noblewoman fell silent, her mouth closing slowly.
“I do not lay bare your son’s crimes to the world out of respect for your late husband, and out of consideration for those who have suffered in this place.”
Upon investigation of the Welfare Facility’s true operations,
the Previous Baron Ruan had proven to be a man of genuine integrity.
For twenty years, he had lived as the Elderly Noblewoman claimed—helping those with nowhere else to turn, giving freely without thought of return.
The number of those who grew to adulthood under his kindness was beyond counting.
Yet the moment his crimes were laid bare,
the honor of the Previous Baron—a man who had lived for others despite his meager means—would be trampled, and worse, those women locked away and exploited would be marked with shame.
“Whether it is your son you wish to protect or your lands, I will not ask.”
“Your Highness, I…….”
“But I would preserve your late husband’s honor, and so I ask only this: spend your remaining days in peace and silence.”
Lumiere rose to her feet, adding one final word.
“That is the only mercy I can afford you.”
The Elderly Noblewoman remained on the ground, her lips moving soundlessly.
“See that the lady is escorted with proper respect.”
The soldiers brushed the dirt from the Walking Cane they had dropped and helped the Elderly Noblewoman to her feet with care.
Though they were supporting her rather than dragging her, her back was bent as though she walked toward the gallows as a condemned prisoner.
“…….”
I hoped she understood.
She watched the receding figure for a moment longer, then turned away.
First, she needed to comfort the frightened women and children.

***

Bellia sat before her vanity, tending to her nails.
Since hearing from her father yesterday that she should attend the Fund Association’s founding ceremony,
she had ordered her personal attendant to gather rumors circulating through the Grand Duchy and information about the Previous Baron Ruan’s wife.
The Grand Duke’s favor alone was not enough—now that woman would gain both status and wealth through the Fund Association?
And worse, she would command her family’s fortune as though it were her own, all while Bellia was expected to smile and appease her.
She had her apologies to her father, but she had no intention of doing so.
She meant to see that woman brought so low she could never raise her head again.
Only then could she wait for the day that woman died with a clear conscience.
“The Grand Duchess personally led soldiers to arrest Baron Ruan, it is said.”
“Not the Grand Duke himself?”
“No.”
It was absurd.
She should stay home managing the household.
Yet there she was, leading soldiers to apprehend a criminal?
The woman had become Grand Duchess and now wielded military authority as though it were her birthright—it was laughable.
Clearly the woman, who had been nothing in the Empire, had been intoxicated by power granted to her freely and lost her mind entirely.
“And the Previous Baron Ruan’s wife?”
The attendant answered Bellia’s question.
“After her son was taken, she has been half-mad. The other day she was thrown out after rummaging through the Welfare Facility, and has not left her house since.”
“Is that so? Then go and tell her only the stories she’d wish to hear.”
An old woman whose husband was dead, whose son faced Life Sentence of Hard Labor, and whose wealth had been confiscated.
A person with nothing left to lose was the most dangerous card to play, and she couldn’t simply be left idle.
“What sort of stories, ma’am?”
Bellia laughed softly, her gaze still fixed on her fingernails.
“After the Archduchess took her son away, suddenly the Fund Association’s headquarters appear in the very building her husband had maintained his entire life, isn’t that so?”
“…….”
“If you tell her that the Archduchess stole not only her son but the family’s very land to establish that headquarters, wouldn’t it be entertaining to see what unfolds?”
The Welfare Facility had been the only sanctuary for the starving throughout long years.
The symbolism that building held could not be purchased with money.
And yet.

“As the Dowager says, the funds will be used for the people of all Winterheim.”

If word spread that the Archduchess, who claimed the funds would serve the common people, had seized the Welfare Facility to establish her headquarters?
Only that woman would know the truth, but that hardly mattered, did it?
The nobles who had been emptied of their purses would welcome any excuse to suspect the Archduchess.
As these whispers accumulated one by one, the Fund Association would either collapse entirely, or even if it limped forward, it would appear nothing more than an ugly, desperate struggle.
“Make the Elderly Noblewoman weep with grievance at the inaugural ceremony.”
Bellia gazed at her reflection in the mirror and smiled with evident satisfaction.

***

Ruan Manor.
Unlike when the virtuous Previous Baron Ruan had lived, the house overflowed with furniture and ornaments unmarked by time.
These were the furnishings her son had sent money to acquire, piece by piece, month after month.
The Elderly Noblewoman sat alone in the darkened sitting room.
‘Mercy, she calls it……?’
The more she thought of it, the more her teeth clenched.
That husband of hers had spent his entire life doing good for others before he passed.
Thanks to all his vaunted charity, he’d gained his title, but all he left his wife and children was a decrepit mansion and a Welfare Facility that was little more than an empty shell.
They had to maintain appearances as nobility, yet all they possessed was their name.
She’d thought that finally, thanks to her son, she was escaping that grinding poverty…….
She was not ignorant of where that money came from.
But was that truly her son’s fault?
It was all because of that husband, forever pouring out what little they had.
After twenty years of giving nothing but away, was it such a crime to finally receive something back?
And yet.
“She threw my son into a mine, cut off my livelihood, and calls it mercy…….”
Her fists, clenched until her skin turned deathly pale, trembled violently.
But what could she do?
Her opponent held everything, while she was nothing but an old widow who had lost even her husband and son.
It was then.
“Madam, you have a visitor.”
“A visitor at this hour? Send them away.”
“It’s that……they say they have an urgent matter concerning the Baron.”
They have something to say about her son?
‘Who could it be?’
The Elderly Noblewoman hesitated before allowing them inside.
Her son had been caught doing dangerous work.
There was good reason to fear this might be someone bearing a grudge against him.
“…Tell them he’s already retired for the night and is not available.”
She was just gathering her things to withdraw to her bedchamber, seized by an inexplicable unease, when——
But then.
“They insist they must meet with you, ma’am, that it’s nothing ill-intentioned. They say that if all goes well, the Baron might be saved…….”
Her son might be saved?
“Show them in.”
Those words seated her again.
Moments later, a Hooded Woman entered the room.
Though her face was completely hidden, her upright posture and the callused fingertips marked by hard labor indicated she was surely a servant from a noble household.
“Who are you?”
“My identity hardly matters. I’ve simply come to deliver a message from someone who shares your sentiments.”
“My sentiments?”
“That the Grand Duchess cannot be allowed to continue playing mistress of Winterheim as things stand.”
At these weighted words, the Elderly Noblewoman’s eyes narrowed, the creases deepening.

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