Unscrupulous Sneak Attack

"Still as a mountain, moving like thunder,"

Having thoroughly understood this principle, Ogesha was either agreeable and indifferent, or she acted directly, leaving no room for negotiation.

When the messenger returned from the Imperial Capital of Demacia to Silvermine City, Lux's convoy was already less than three days away from Silvermine City.

In the eyes of the nobility of Silvermine City, this was clearly an unscrupulous sneak attack.

Upon receiving the reply and learning that Ogesha had dispatched Lux to provide disaster relief and Nunu to audit the accounts, the collateral nobility of the Crown Guard family, who had gathered to divide the spoils, were stunned on the spot.

After a moment of silence, the entire room exploded as if a pot had boiled over, and the noise instantly became deafening.

"How could Ogesha do this!"

"I was the one who introduced her to Pete back then!"

"I held Lux when she was two years old!"

"..."

"..."

Everyone was chattering, expressing their dissatisfaction, and the reason for such dissatisfaction was that they were anxious.

Ogesha's guess was correct; these scoundrels were indeed swindling their relatives—except for the first year when Silvermine City truly suffered from frost, the following three years saw Silvermine City enjoy favorable weather, and even the barbarians to the north were docile.

Under such circumstances, they naturally collected the full tax.

Then, as long as they reported frost, the collected land taxes would become their discretionary funds. They would divide it among themselves, and everyone would be happy, except for the main family, who remained loyal and dedicated to the country, filling the deficit with their private funds.

Ogesha had sent envoys before, but that time it wasn't a surprise attack, so Silvermine City received advance notice, made preparations, and after bribing them with a portion, they successfully passed the envoy's inspection.

But this time, the situation seemed to be a bit off.

They had just received the news, and Lux was already nearing Silvermine City. This was clearly a surprise attack!

"Silence!" Amidst the uproar, an old man with white hair and beard, sitting in the main seat, finally spoke. "Quiet down, have you no aristocratic composure? Where has your usual etiquette gone?"

This old man was Cordora Crown Guard. In terms of seniority, he was even a generation older than Pete, and he had always been the spokesperson for Silvermine City.

"What are you all shouting about? Isn't it normal for our Crown Guard family's matriarch to provide disaster relief and audit accounts?" Cordora said with righteous indignation. "If she wants to provide relief and audit accounts, let her do it—our Lux needs a bit of experience in this area. Let's all work together to set up a scene for her and achieve a perfect outcome!"

Cordora's words brought a sigh of relief to everyone present.

At this moment, they finally realized that the person arriving was Lux!

Considering her age, Lux was only twelve this year, right?

What could a twelve-year-old girl understand?

Disaster relief... wasn't it just for show!

If they all worked hard, found farmers in their territories to put on a play, and composed a song praising them when they left, wouldn't everything be perfect?

It was the butler who accompanied her...

To shut that guy up, they would probably have to bleed a little more.

"Don't think about making things difficult by offering extra," Cordora seemed to have seen through everyone's thoughts and continued, "As long as we get through this, our lady of the house can give the King an explanation—once the King exempts Silvermine City from land taxes, she won't bother us anymore."

Right!

If Lux came to provide disaster relief and everything went smoothly, it would mean that Silvermine City's frost disaster was an "officially certified" natural disaster.

Originally, it was a group of collateral relatives colluding to fool the main family. Now, as long as the act was well-performed, after Lux's visit, it would be the collateral relatives and the main family together fooling the King!

Recently, the attention of the Noxians was focused on Ionia. Demacia's situation was stable, and the King was wealthy!

Following this line of thought, everyone present began to speculate about Ogesha according to their own intentions, and quickly came to a ridiculously absurd conclusion that they would all be swindling Demacia together, without realizing anything was wrong...

At this moment, they completely let go of their worries.

According to their usual way of doing things, if they, as collateral branches, had swindled the main family's money before, Ogesha would have held them accountable—but if they swindled the money of the Demacian state together with Ogesha, then they would still be family!

That made sense, they were all on the same side!

Therefore, as long as they performed this play well and let Lux complete the disaster relief smoothly, everything would be fine, and Silvermine City would have frost every year from then on.

After all, in present-day Demacia, there were more than one or two places frequently suffering from disasters—Freljord, not far away, even claimed "perpetual rain and insufficient sunlight"!

Wasn't that more absurd than frost?

Thus, the relieved collateral nobility of the Crown Guard family began to discuss again. This time, they were no longer anxious, but had regained their aristocratic composure, appearing full of confidence, as if they had a ten-tenths certainty of dragging the entire family down with them.

As they talked, they found that bribing the envoy was easy, and finding a few farmers to pretend to be grateful was also easy, but disguising the frost scene was difficult.

In the eyes of these nobles, a twelve-year-old girl like Lux could only be deceived, not won over—or rather, they had nothing to win over the little princess of the Crown Guard family with.

However, on the question of how to deceive her, the nobles had some differing opinions.

Most of them believed they should put on a play.

Of course, some had different views.

"We could also send some young people to deepen their relationship with her," among the nobles present, a handsome man with curly, platinum-blond hair loudly suggested. "The little princess is young and should be able to chat better with people her own age--"

This fellow originally did not have the surname Crown Guard. He was a knight born into a small noble family in Silvermine City, whose real name was Dili Mallick.

Later, he married into a fringe family of the Crown Guard family and changed his name to Dili Crown Guard, thus barely entering Silvermine City's upper-class circles.

However, before he could even finish speaking, the eyes of everyone else looking at him were already filled with disdain and impatience.

Although no one directly interrupted, Dili's voice grew quieter and quieter...

Clearly, even to the nobility who were ruthless in exploiting their own people, Dili was at the bottom of the moral hierarchy.

Amongst a large group of people surnamed Crown Guard, this once outsider felt somewhat out of place.

Finally, surrounded by pairs of unfriendly gazes, Dili could only swallow the latter half of his words.

Reading people was his forte; he had only spoken out because he was too excited and couldn't hold back – now that everyone disagreed, he naturally couldn't continue.

"Cough, cough." Just as this guy was making a fool of himself and sheepishly shutting up, Kordora cleared his throat. "As for the frost problem... I'll handle it. When our little princess arrives at Silvermine City, I'll definitely let her see a frostbitten wheat field with her own eyes, along with a group of pitiful disaster victims, to satisfy her noble lady's compassion!"

And so, with Kordora's promise.

Believing everything was ready, the nobles also rose one after another and left gracefully, without any of the previous panic.

They were full of confidence, even already thinking about how to steal the spotlight during the welcoming ceremony for Lux.

Dili, who was among the crowd, lowered his head as he left, a slight smile playing on his lips – these idiots, with the greatest opportunity right in front of them, were only focused on concealing tax revenue.

A wild goose is just a wild goose; the phoenix's perch is right above, yet they still keep their heads down searching for spilled rice on the ground!

It serves you right to be a branch family, a side branch!

Almost at the same time as the Crown Guard side branch nobles in Silvermine City were holding their meeting, Kuren found Lux.

After much consideration, he believed Lux was mature enough, so he decided to inform her of Ogesha's plan and intentions.

In other words, through their interactions along the way, Lux had passed Kuren's test. The butler fully recognized his young lady's capabilities and no longer intended to hide the true purpose of their journey.

Lux was completely stunned when she learned all of this.

Is that even possible?

Even within the noble circles of Demacia Imperial Capital, Lux was considered a quite influential "political figure," but she had never seen such a situation before.

Or rather, she had never witnessed such brazen behavior!

Falsifying a disaster to extort taxes?

This wasn't skirting the rules or exploiting loopholes; if the Crown Guard family's actions were true, it was a textbook case!

There are scum like this within the Crown Guard family?

This deviation was partly due to the extremely high level of politics in Demacia Imperial Capital, where even the pursuit of interests followed the rules, leaving no apparent flaws on the surface. On the other hand, it was also because Karyl helped her make judgments and decisions, and Ogesha would personally handle more complex issues. Therefore, even if she had heard rumors, Lux had never directly encountered such straightforward and malicious matters.

As if anticipating Lux's disbelief, Kuren quickly produced the letter Ogesha had left him.

Lux took the letter, broke the intact wax seal, and soon saw her mother's familiar handwriting.

The situation described in Ogesha's letter was almost identical to what Kuren had recounted. In addition to introducing the situation in Silvermine City, Ogesha added a bit more content – this part was mainly words of caution and encouragement for Lux, and it also mentioned that if she truly encountered any danger, Lux could seek help from the Silvermine City garrison.

After reading the contents of the letter, Lux took a deep breath, then slowly and deliberately folded the letter and held it to the candlelight.

The flame licked at the letter.

As the letter turned to ash, Lux finally calmed down completely.

It was only then that she realized, perhaps due to Karyl's training, she had already psychologically prepared herself to face such a situation.

"So, Mr. Kuren," Lux's golden hair flickered in the dancing candlelight, "what should I do?"

"You need to clarify the disaster situation, distinguish between the real and fake disaster," Kuren's eyes were full of admiration. "And also... utilize your status. Many things will be much more effective if you do them than if I do."

"Understood," Lux nodded thoughtfully, then confidently lifted her face. "You handle the accounting matters, and as for my 'relatives,' they're naturally my responsibility to deal with!"

(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ Recommendation Votes

(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ Monthly Votes

Please, dear readers, take a moment to turn the page and finish reading. Read-through data is very important!

You are all welcome to leave comments and posts in the review section!

Thank you all!