The Youngest Son of the Eunhae Merchant Group - Chapter 7

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Youngest Son of the Eunhae Trading Company – Chapter 7

Chapter 7. Prevent the Fire at Jae-gyeong Pavilion (3)

When Yu Chief Manager died, I vividly recalled Father blaming himself, saying he had died young because I was inadequate.
‘So I can be trusted?’
A moment of joy flickered through me, but it vanished just as quickly.
The image of documents precariously stacked on Yu Chief Manager’s desk surfaced in my mind.
‘I should focus on preventing Yu Chief Manager’s death from overwork.’
.
.
.
Time slipped away, and soon it was nearly time to leave for the day.
And I continued to turn the problem over in my mind.
Tonight, I needed to create a reason to visit Jae-gyeong Pavilion as naturally as possible.
Already, dozens of methods had occurred to me.
All I needed to do was decide which approach would work best,
when one officer handed a ledger to Yeochang’s Officer.
“Here is the night duty log.”
“Yes.”
Seeing this, I asked Yeochang’s Officer.
“It seems you have night duty tonight.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Night duty is usually two people, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I’ll be on duty tonight with In Dae-su Officer, my senior.”
At those words, I tilted my head in confusion.
That’s strange?
It’s different from what I remember?
One of tonight’s night duty officers was indeed Yeochang’s Officer. But the other was not In Dae-su Officer.
The reason I remember this is because Yeochang’s Officer died in tonight’s fire.
And the other officer suffered severe injuries that forced him to retire.
Just then, a stout officer approached from a distance and asked the people around him.
“Is there anyone who could take the night duty shift for me today? I’ll buy you a proper drink later.”
His expression showed considerable urgency.
It was In Dae-su Officer.
‘Ah, so that’s why. He switched shifts with someone else, which is why it differs from my memory.’
Then a brilliant idea struck me.
‘How perfectly this timing aligns.’
I quickly called over In Dae-su Officer.
“In Dae-su Officer.”
“Ah, yes! Young Master. What is it?”
“It seems you’re facing quite a difficult situation.”
“Ah… well, the truth is, my wife is about to give birth today.”
“Then you should go at once.”
“Yes, but I’m scheduled for night duty today…”
I smiled as I spoke.
“I’ll take your night duty shift for you.”
“Pardon?”
“I have nothing planned for this evening anyway.”
“B-but how could the Young Master possibly…”
I waved my hand dismissively at his words.
“Though I hold the status of special apprentice, I am still a member of Jae-gyeong Pavilion, so I believe I have the qualifications to stand night duty.”
I looked toward the officer responsible for the night duty roster and asked.
“Is that not correct?”
“That’s right. There would be no problem with the Young Master standing night duty.”
Hearing that answer, I turned to In Dae-su Officer.
“There you have it. So I’ll take your night duty shift today.”
“Thank you so much! Young Master!”
The reason I had been contemplating how to naturally gain access to Jae-gyeong Pavilion today was that the arsonist who would set fire to the pavilion in this timeline was extraordinarily cautious.
In the future I had experienced, no one suspected him as the culprit until he left a confession and took his own life.
So I too was being careful, pretending to know nothing—and now a perfect opportunity had presented itself.
Thus I had naturally obtained a legitimate reason to remain inside Jae-gyeong Pavilion.

* * *

Night was deepening.
The Jae-gyeong Pavilion of the Eunhae Trading Company.
A man surveyed his surroundings.
Confirming that no one was nearby, he quickened his pace.
His destination was the Night Duty Room.
He lit the lamp in the darkened Night Duty Room and opened the lid of the teapot.
He pulled out a paper containing white powder from his pocket and shook the contents into the teapot.
Tap, tap, tap.
Then he heard footsteps approaching.
“…!”
The man quickly opened the other door of the Night Duty Room and pressed himself against the wall.
Two figures dressed in the uniforms of Jae-gyeong Pavilion officers were approaching, conversing in hushed tones.
“Ah, so that’s what happened.”
“Truly, my head was spinning.”
“I would have felt the same.”
They were people the man knew well.
Yeo Chang-ui, an officer of the Jae-gyeong Pavilion, and Eun Seo-ho, the third son of the Merchant Guild Master, who was learning practical work as a special apprentice.
They entered the Night Duty Room while conversing.
“Oh, do you have some overtime work tonight?”
“Yes. It just happened to work out that way.”
“Let me help you.”
They moved busily, entering the Document Storage and retrieving materials.
After working diligently for quite some time, the two took a break.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
“That would be nice.”
They each drank a cup of tea.
And shortly after,
The two, who had been examining documents, began nodding their heads like sickly chickens, and eventually fell asleep with their heads resting on the desk.
‘Perfect!’
The man exulted.
Considering the amount of sleeping medicine in the teapot, they would sleep soundly for at least two hours.
He had planned this entire affair to enter the Document Storage Vault undetected.
The Document Storage Vault was located within the Night Duty Room, and this was a quiet hour when no one would come except those on night duty.
He entered and exhaled quietly.
‘I should never have frequented the Gambling House in the first place….’
Regret came too late.
Curiosity and the encouragement of those who preyed on gamblers had led him to begin gambling, and ultimately he had accumulated a staggering mountain of debt.
He had sold inherited land and household goods, but it was nowhere near enough.
If things continued this way, he would lose his family.
In such circumstances, he had received a proposal from someone claiming to be a subordinate of the Money Master of the Gambling House.

“If you do our Money Master a favor, he’ll forgive all your debts,” the subordinate said.
“Really? Is that… truly possible?”
“It’s true.”
“What… what do you need me to do? I’ll do anything. Please, just spare my family…”

The Money Master’s subordinate spoke in response to his plea.

“What we need is simple. You work as an officer at the Jae-gyeong Pavilion of the Eunhae Trading Company, correct?”
“…Yes.”
“Set fire to the Document Storage Vault.”
“…What?”
The man was startled.
“Why… why there?”
“So you’ll do it? Or refuse?”
“But… I…”
“Would you prefer to lose your family?”
“…I’ll do it.”

The man bit his lip.
Today was the final day of the grace period the Money Master had given him.
During this time, I had carefully observed my surroundings.
I was worried someone might notice something suspicious about my behavior.
But so far, no one had suspected me.
‘Could it be… I have a talent for this sort of thing?’
The Money Master had promised to ensure I could continue working at the Eunhae Trading Company.
For my future, no one must ever discover that I’m the culprit.
That’s why I move with such caution.
I entered the Document Storage Vault and began examining the shelves.
‘There it is!’
A bound ledger containing transaction records.
The Money Master’s subordinate had instructed me to completely destroy this very document.
I had asked the Money Master’s subordinate about it.

“Couldn’t I simply steal it? Arson is far too dangerous.”
“No. If you do that, we could identify the culprit. You must make it look like an accident and burn the ledger along with the other documents.”

I couldn’t help but nod—he wasn’t wrong.
That’s why I’d prepared the oil.
Splash.
He sprinkled oil around the area and pulled out a flint striker.
That instant.
“That’s far enough, don’t you think?”
At the sudden voice, the man flinched violently and spun around.
A voice that absolutely, positively should never have been heard.

* * *

I clicked my tongue at the man holding the flint striker.
His name was A-seung.
A Grade-9 Officer of Jae-gyeong Pavilion.
He’d always been so quiet that his existence barely registered, so when A-seung Officer was revealed as the culprit, everyone at Jae-gyeong Pavilion fell into profound shock.
Yeochang’s Officer looked more startled than if he’d seen a ghost.
“H-how… how are you awake? You definitely drank the tea…”
“That was just smoke.”
“H-how did you…”
“How did I know? What good does knowing do you?”
I grinned wickedly.
“First, shall we settle this?”
Crack!
Thud!
I threw a punch at him, and he crumpled backward.
In the future I’d experienced, the two night duty officers who drank the tea had fallen asleep.
The fire spread viciously, and Yeochang’s Officer died while another officer suffered critical injuries.
The next day, A-seung Officer was found hanging from a tree on the Back Mountain, a cold corpse.
Beneath him lay a confession.
It claimed he’d been suffering greatly from excessive work, and in a fit of rage, he’d drugged the night duty officers to sleep and set fire to the Document Storage Vault.
The case was closed that way, but truthfully, I and the members of the Eunwol Society involved in operating the Eunhae Trading Company never believed that confession.
A man who commits a crime in a fit of rage wouldn’t obtain sleeping medicine to administer and then set a fire—it made no sense.
And A-seung Officer’s family disappeared.
Anyone could smell something rotten about it, but we lacked the resources to pursue a lengthy investigation.
No significant clues emerged, and recovering the documents destroyed by the fire took priority.
For nearly a year, I worked overtime after overtime, and I wasn’t alone in that.
Even after a year of continuous overtime, we ultimately failed to restore half of what was burned.
In any case, it was truly exhausting.
The punch I threw at Yeochang’s Officer now carried all the rage from that time.
As I threw the punch, I swiftly snatched the flint striker and secured it safely.
I picked up the document that had been lying on top of the pile of papers.
“Th-that’s!”
The face of Yeochang’s Officer drained of all color as he saw the document in my hands.
“So this was it. The document you truly wanted to destroy.”
The document bore the name [Hwayeonru] written across it.
In the future I had experienced, it was revealed that Yeochang’s Officer was the arsonist, but I never uncovered who was behind him.
Rather,
there were those who profited most from the Jaegyeong Pavilion fire, and among them, three places seemed suspicious.
But there was no evidence.
Because of that, I had no choice but to move forward with lingering doubts—but not this time.
“You certainly spilled quite a lot of this precious oil. At this point, there’s no room for excuses. Wouldn’t you agree?”
That was when it happened.
Yeochang’s Officer suddenly pulled another flint striker from his bosom.
“Don’t move!”
I was caught off guard by the sudden turn of events.
I hadn’t known he was carrying a second flint striker.
This was my mistake.
“I have to burn it! I have to! Otherwise my family will be sold off!”
“Sold off? What do you mean by that?”
His words made me realize there was something more to this.
‘Now that I think about it…’
When I had investigated Yeochang’s Officer back then, I learned something.
His entire fortune had been transferred to someone else just days before the incident.
And his family had disappeared as well.
There was only one circumstance where an entire fortune and family would vanish all at once.
“Could it be that you have debts?”
“…”
And when I saw his eyes waver at my question about debts, I was certain.
He had borrowed from loan sharks.
But then, why would he borrow from loan sharks?
The Eunhae Trading Company’s wages were generous.
And the Yeochang’s Officer I knew was an unremarkable man without particular problems, yet recently there had been testimonies that he had been associating with those who carried a dangerous air about them.
If that were the case…
“It’s gambling debts, isn’t it?”
“…!”
Yeochang’s Officer flinched.
‘That’s the answer.’
I could only offer a bitter smile.
He was truly a pitiful man.
Not someone of note, but someone who had been living quietly and ordinarily well—now fallen into ruin, having lost everything.
In the end, his family was sold off, his assets were seized, and he himself was murdered.
That’s right.
He didn’t take his own life—he was killed.
Of course, there was no evidence that Yeochang’s Officer was murdered, and it was closed as a suicide.
But every circumstance pointed to his death being homicide, not suicide.
I watched Yeochang’s Officer trembling violently.
“Yeochang’s Officer. Look at me.”
“….”
“Please, look at me.”
At my words, Yeochang’s Officer lifted his head.
“You want to protect your family, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer my question, but his eyes spoke for him.
“Then tell us everything truthfully. If you do, our Merchant Guild will protect your family.”

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