Chapter 49 Anson's Reply
Virlet Manor.
Thanks to the generous compensation offered, recruitment through the guild was nearly complete, and the vacancies for servants and maids at the manor had been filled. Now they just needed to get familiar with their duties, and the manor could finally run normally.
Anne put down her quill pen and tiredly rubbed her temples.
Since returning home, she had been hunched over her desk until late at night almost every day. Although Elisa and Kyle helped manage the manor's staffing, the estate's affairs had gone unattended since the massacre. Now, with so much piled up for so long, she needed to deal with everything quickly.
And at night, she would return to the basement to practice swordsmanship and archery for an hour before finally dragging her exhausted body to take a bath and rest.
Without the Titan family's influence, Anne quickly prepared herself for the battlefield—where she truly wanted to be. She didn't care what the nobles thought or what the Titans did.
Elisa looked up from the desk on the other side, her face also showing exhaustion. Although Anne had promoted her to head maid, she was still no different from before, even having to help Anne process documents. Every day she was so tired she could fall asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.
"How much more do we need to handle today?" Anne asked, seeing her expression, a smile unconsciously forming at the corner of her mouth.
Dulcina, who was standing by to serve, flipped through the records and said with some delight, "Almost done."
Anne's brow relaxed. "That's good."
But just as she was about to pick up the next document, there was a knock at the study door. Dulcina put down the scroll in her hands and quickly walked to the door.
"My lady!" The messenger who had been sent to deliver a letter to Anson hurried in. "I'm back. This is the letter from Master Anson."
Dulcina took the letter from him and handed it to Anne. "My lady."
Anne had already stood up excitedly when the messenger entered, but as she unfolded the letter and read through it, her expression gradually grew heavy. By the end, there was even a hint of murderous intent.
Elisa couldn't care about being tired anymore. She looked at Anne anxiously. "My lady, has something happened?"
Elisa had grown up with Anne and rarely saw her like this. Remembering why Anne had sought Master Anson's help, worry crossed her face.
Could there really be another reason behind what happened to the Virlet family a year ago?
She took a deep breath and waved to dismiss the bewildered Dulcina and the others from the room. Then she quickly walked to Anne's side, knelt down, and held her hand. "My lady."
Anne bit her lower lip, her eyes changing expression several times. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she had regained her composure.
Right now, she was the only person in charge of the Virlet family. She couldn't show weakness at a time like this, and she absolutely couldn't lose her rationality.
"Elisa, there really is something wrong with what happened a year ago."
Anne lowered her head. "We were wondering before how Candy managed to make the Zotfort army leave. After all, as a knight from an enemy country, she couldn't possibly have the ability to threaten another country's general."
Back then, even with her father Duke Skoda present, his reputation wouldn't have scared off the enemy. You have to know that Skoda had the reputation of being a killing machine on the battlefield.
Her gaze fell on the words "prisoner" and "noble" on the paper, her eyes cold.
"Back then, Father dueled with a duke from Zotfort on the battlefield. After the duke died in battle, his follower took over command."
Although that follower hated Skoda for killing the duke, the duel had been initiated by the duke himself. Both sides had signed a life-and-death contract. It was an honorable one-on-one combat that no one else could interfere with, so the duke had died with honor.
What allowed Candy to force back the Zotfort army was the hostage in her hands.
The dead duke only had one young son, who happened to be near the battlefield at the time and was captured by Candy. After learning the child's identity and seeing how much the enemy general valued him, she threatened the child's life and ultimately forced the Zotfort army to retreat.
As for them ignoring the agreement and going back to ambush and kill the enemy afterward, no one heard any news about that child. The only thing learned from the investigation was that the family's power eventually fell into the hands of a branch family.
This wouldn't have happened unless there was no one from the main family left to inherit.
The only possibility was that Candy hadn't followed the battlefield conventions for handling prisoners, causing that child to die directly or indirectly at her hands.
Looking at it this way, if you trace it back, the person who killed that duke happened to be Skoda of the Virlet family.
Later, the dominant force in the southern battlefield was the Empire's First Knight Order, whose elderly but still dignified commander was Anne's grandfather, Duke Daniel.
And among those who gave chase, the leader Holden was Anne's husband.
If the people from Zotfort added up all these old and new grudges, two generations of that family's bloodline had been lost at the hands of people related to the Virlet family.
The first one could be considered an agreement, but later directly breaking the convention was no different from a blatant provocation.
How could they not hate?
But...
Anne pressed her lips together. What she couldn't understand was why, after Candy did such a thing, her grandfather, who valued military discipline so much, hadn't punished her. And over this past year, she had heard almost no news about her grandfather.
Even after the southern campaign ended, her grandfather's knight order didn't return to the royal capital but went directly to the eastern battlefield, bypassing their territory.
So Anne never had a chance to see him.
The only thing certain was that the Virlet family suffered this massacre because Candy would stop at nothing.
To get a chance to stand out in the war, she didn't hesitate to violate conventions and disregard others' lives, and then broke the agreement to pursue and kill them.
Such a person could actually become the commander of a knight order and proudly claim those military achievements as her own!
Anne believed that if Candy were standing in front of her right now, she might not be able to resist running her through with a sword and then demanding to know why she did it.
But now the two of them were thousands of miles apart, and even though Anne was full of hatred, she had to suppress it for now.
Suddenly, as if thinking of something, she quickly said, "Elisa, go get the map from the shelf."
Getting from Zotfort to Virlet territory meant crossing half the Soth Empire. Despite their hatred, the size difference was obvious, and sneaking through would leave traces. But investigations showed no such people had appeared on that route.
But what if they came from another direction?
Elisa brought the map over and spread it on the desk. Anne carefully studied the terrain, her gaze moving eastward until it fell on the border between the Soth Empire and the Viller Empire.