Chapter 93: Tattling and Trickery (1)
A long, long time ago, there lived a private who was slow on his feet. He got kicked in the shin all the time by his seniors. So one day, the private made a wish.
Dear stars above, please help me bond well with my seniors. And boom! The stars descended into the unit!
And the wrath of the two-star general carried the nasty-tempered senior to military prison. Oh, what a happy ending. A happy ending.
A corner of Lloyd’s lips lifted upward. His days in the military came to his mind. He had a comrade who came into the military around the same time as Lloyd. The comrade was kind, but the military wasn’t exactly the place where he thrived the most. He moved slowly, and was a bit socially slow as well. Making things worse, he was unlucky. Some of his seniors were foul-tempered, so they summoned him just to kick him in the shin. There were even worse things that happened to him. Fast forward a few months, almost breaking into tears, he confessed to Lloyd that he planned on running away from the base. Lloyd advised that he shouldn’t be the one to leave. Instead, he ought to report the wrongdoings of his seniors. Two weeks later, the entire unit was turned upside down. The division commander visited to inspect the unit, and all of them were swept into military prison. It was the power of taking the courage to report. That was how he became happy. Happy ending.
Whew… The exact same thing happened today. Lloyd threw off his superfluous dress coat and tossed his necktie on the chair after loosening it. His tired body flung itself toward the sofa, and the pleasant fluffiness brought an onrush of sleepiness and the memories of events that had taken place during the day.
It’s a relief. That everything went according to plan. There was a ceremony marking the completion of the suspension bridge, and the queen bestowed the title of master craftsman to Lloyd as well as the promised rewards and prestigious benefits. And in return, he told the queen about what was happening down at the academy. He couldn’t forget the expression on Queen Magentano’s face was deathly.
“Corruption…? Inequality? And, on top of that, sordidness?”
The queen’s icy voice filled the air. Having a just and fair character, Queen Magentano especially despised the act of using wrongful force to harass the weak. It was something mentioned several times in The Knight of Blood and Iron. That is, it was true until she lost an arm after an assassination attack. And so, Lloyd figured that tattling on the queen would work. Plus, she gave him full trust at this point in time. So now that he had the chance, he needed to make hay while the sun shone. Missing it would be a foolish thing to do. Convicted of such, Lloyd nodded at the queen.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
This was the most important part. He needed to choose his words carefully. They had to be strategically ordered.
“Please forgive me for saying this, but the reality of the academy I have witnessed is extremely far from the mission of its existence.”
“Far from it?” said the queen.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Do expound more,” she added.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
His scheme worked. Now, he spoke in a more forceful tone.
“The students, who are supposed to give everything to their studies, are only interested in forming cliques. Instead of competing with their knowledge and wisdom, they parade their family ranks and status. The sons of the marquess and count join as one to persecute the son of the viscount, and he is forced to trample the child of the baron. Furthermore, everyone is silent about it. When every minute should be spent on academics, they indulge in the sweetness of power, and instead of forming great ambitions for a better world, students despair over the wall that is their family rank.”
Lloyd was unreserved about letting out the harsh thoughts that he had held in until now.
“What is more, the attitude of the academy is no better than the students it should be guiding. The housemaster, who should be pointing out what is wrong, accepts money behind everyone’s back. Professors, who ought to be alarmed and fearful over the corruption of the world, are scared that they might make a bad impression on the nobles. And the dean, who has the duty to put an end to this wretched reality, is busy silencing the pitiful outcries for help from the students from less influential families.”
What Lloyd said was true. Ever since Lloyd got Julian out of the academy, he used whatever time he had left in building the bridge to meet up with the cleaners and cafeteria workers in the academy. He even once visited a weak noble alumni. Countless testimonies and reports were revealed through them. The dirty corruption of the housemaster and dean, along with their habit of taking bribes in exchange for turning a blind eye, was laid bare. The sons of the powerful nobles acted more boldly, as though the world was theirs. A culture of corruption spread throughout the academy like rotten roots. Lloyd collected such witnesses, accounts, and pieces of evidence as much as possible. He fished the evidence out of his pocket, which was a rolled-up piece of paper.
“I have investigated when and where the workers in the academy took bribes for personal gains. In each item, I have attached the incident and witness right beside it.”
“Spread it open,” demanded the queen.
Lloyd opened it up according to the order and carefully handed it to her. Afterward, everything went smoothly. The pieces of evidence and witnesses were so perfectly organized in the paper that the queen’s gaze changed the moment she checked. She looked like the division commander of Lloyd’s comrade when he reported harassment in the military.
“This means that from now on, the queen’s going to summon everyone involved and beat the daylights out of them.”
Lloyd spoke as he was jostled out of his reverie. He turned to look at the door, and Julian was standing there. He had become darker than when Lloyd first saw him a few months ago, and his petite physique had grown a bit firmer. But his unique round and youthful impression was still the same. The boy mumbled as he looked to Lloyd’s side.
“Tell me if you got something to say,” Lloyd said as he tapped the side of the sofa with his hands.
Julian awkwardly approached, and instead of sitting in his designated seat, he remained standing, crinkling his nose.
“Uhm, so what’s going to happen from now on?” Julian muttered.
“What do you mean?”
“Them.”
“Do you mean the folks in the academy?” asked Lloyd.
“Yeah.”
“Are you worried?”
“It’s not that. I’m just curious.”
Surely, he would be curious, Lloyd thought to himself. After all, they harassed and bullied Julian for a long time. And there was a large group that remained silent about the whole thing. But now, they were seconds away before the iron mace of the queen hit them. Lloyd laughed.
“I don’t know.”
“Huh?” asked Julian, raising his brow.
“Who cares what happens to them. They can die, and I won’t care.”
“They might even die…?”
“Well, I don’t think the queen is going to punish them that severely. But…”
“But?”
“It’s going to sting considerably. Some might end up in jail for bribery, and a thrashing might await one young master. Some may even be confined to the manor and won’t be able to set foot outside for several years,” drawled Lloyd.
“…”
“And anybody who has an iota of involvement in your harassment will seriously have their future as a noble jeopardized. Why? Because they’ve been singled out by the most powerful person in the kingdom.”
“Wait, did you plan the whole thing from the beginning?”
“Somewhat.”
That was true. The moment he sought the opportunity to teach Diego a lesson and brought Julian out of the academy, he devised the plan to annoy, provoke, and destroy them.
“It’s really nothing complicated. I had just gotten the construction deal from the queen. Since the construction held much meaning to the royal circle, I thought that the success of the construction would let me earn some brownie points from her. And earning her trust like that would help me tattle on them,” explained Lloyd.
“…”
Lloyd shrugged as if it was nothing. Julia found himself gulping. There was something awesome about Lloyd. He was never like this. The man was a spontaneous drunkard who only caused trouble, but not anymore. Ever since Julian was forced into a LOA and dragged out of the academy, he received the feeling that Lloyd Frontera wasn’t an alcoholic hooligan anymore. He didn’t drink. He became industrious. Most importantly, he was even gentle with him!
He never got angry at me for several months. A gentle and kind Lloyd Frontera. That was something unimaginable. Julian wondered at times if Lloyd was the same person he always knew.
Him being gentle… It was awkward at first, but it wasn’t so bad after a while. It was the same case with shoveling. This was the first time in his life he did an activity like that. So, it went without saying that the work exhausted him. For the first few days, muscle pain throbbed all over his body. Blisters appeared on his palm, and his skin became scraped. But such soreness and muscle pain hardly meant anything. It wasn’t anything compared to his agonizing days in the academy when he faced harassment on a daily basis.
Actually, I felt good. Julian sweated and shoveled all day. Something in him changed each time he used the tool. He moved the piles of sand, and Bangul chomped it up to produce wires. Ppodong interlaced the wires to turn them into cables, which were used to support the suspension bridge in the capital. Julian found satisfaction in the work. The entire process of construction was facilitated by his shoveling. So, in a way, his shoveling was what allowed the suspension bridge to be realized. An overwhelming sensation swept over him as he thought so. He felt confident. And just as his stamina increased after months of hard shoveling, Julian began to have more belief in himself.
It could be that Lloyd entrusted me with the job to make me feel this way. Julian’s gaze moved to Lloyd. He was scoffing in his loosened clothes. Lloyd was an older brother Julian had always hated and was ashamed of. But for the first time ever, Julian saw him differently. It could be, perhaps, that was what made Julian say something he never ever thought he’d tell Lloyd.
“Thank you.”
“What?”
“I said thank you,” Julian said louder this time.
“You must have eaten something weird.”
Lloyd spoke as he poked and scratched his ear. And then it occurred to Julian that he had made a mistake. Grimace formed on his face.
“Yeah. I think I did. I feel like vomiting,” said Julian.
“That’s the same thing for me. I feel like I’m going to puke from my ears.”
“Yeah? Well, I’ve got goosebumps right now.”
“Just goosebumps? Even the taste buds on my tongue stood up,” Lloyd said as he stuck his tongue out. Julian scoffed at him.
“By the way, Lloyd.”
“What is it?”
“When are you going back home?”
“Not sure. Maybe tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? That soon?”
“Yeah.”
Lloyd nodded his head. There was no need to stay around here any longer.
“The construction is finished, and I received everything I need from the queen. So, it’s time to go back to the fiefdom. A mountain of work await me since I’ve started a lot of projects there, too.”
It was true. The coal mine, Maritz land, and waterway. He had several things to check over.
“Plus, I’ve earned enough to pay the debt. If I goof and stick around here, I might be arriving after the interest date. I’d have to pay the interest again. So, I have to pay every penny of my debt before the interest date comes up.”
“Oh, that is so true. But you see…” Julian scratched his cheek. “I didn’t know about it, actually.”
“Didn’t know what?” asked Lloyd.
“The debt you mentioned.”
“Oh. The debt?”
“Yeah, I really didn’t know since all I did was study here. My parents sent me letters every month, but they never ever once mentioned it. So, I was entirely in the dark that they had it so rough back there.”
Julian hung his head down as shame started to creep up inside him. He had thought that he had it the toughest among his family. He was the one living a hard life away from home, and he had it worse because he withstood the harassment even when studying alone was difficult to keep up with. So, he considered himself proud for enduring the situation and not telling his parents. But when he learned about their financial situation, he gained a new perspective. Javier had explained everything to him about how his father got conned, how much debt his family owed, and how Lloyd acted differently amid such a situation.
“At first, I was a bit skeptical,” confessed Julian.
“How can I when he told me that you changed. Sir Asrahan told me that you are really awesome. Sometimes, you can be petty but you’re trying very hard. He said that the family would have collapsed into ruins if it weren’t for you.”
Javier’s words fell like bombshells. Julian clenched and unclenched his fists several times and sighed at length as he imagined the pain and suffering his family had to go through. When that fact was made clear to Julian, he severely rebuked himself.
It turned out that I had it the easiest. But Julian didn’t know that. He simply grumbled that Lloyd would be the same as before. He acted like a child.
“So I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Yeah.”
Julian nodded, even though he couldn’t meet Lloyd in the eyes. He was too embarrassed. Still, Julian had mustered up the courage to say it. The only chance to say so was today since Lloyd would be returning to the fiefdom the next day. He had to say what he wanted to say now. And so, he carefully uttered the very words he had wanted to say for a few months but was too shy to say out loud.
“I’m not going to hate you anymore.”
Just then…
Ding Dong.
[Julian Frontera is being sincere with you.]
[Julian Frontera’s resentment is going away.]
[Julian Frontera has accepted you as his older brother.]
[Your likeability with Julian Frontera has increased by 65 points.]
[Current RP with Julian Frontera: +6]
[You have earned 910 RP by slightly improving your relationship with the main character.]
[Current RP: 3,929]
[The intimacy level with Julian Frontera has increased three levels from
[You have earned 100 RP as a bonus for the improvement.]
[Current RP: 4,029]
Unexpected, sweet, and satisfying emotions knocked on the door to Lloyd’s heart.