Episode 66 17. Girl, I will be eaten by debt #2(2)
After a moment of thought, Andrew raised his doubts again.
“But wouldn’t we have no reason to pay that debt? I don’t think your brother would be like that because of me.”
debt owed by the lord.
Rockefeller had absolutely no obligation to repay it.
“Of course not. We’re not philanthropists, so why pay it back?”
“Then why are you paying it back?”
Rockefeller opened his mouth in a calm tone.
“If you want to become a lord here, to be precise, it is inevitable to capture the hearts of the people here. And in the process of doing so, of course, there is room for improvement in your relationship.”
“Will our relationship really improve?”
“Well. But if we let it go, it’s bound to fall completely into hell. Because there is no one in this world who will protect the powerless debtor lord who is located on the outskirts.”
“that… … Yes.”
“If that’s really your wish, then it’ll be fine.”
“Something feels odd.”
“Whether it’s weird or good, it’s your choice anyway. I said it clearly. If you want to get involved, you have to get involved with another woman. This is your choice.”
“that is… … Than you think.”
“Then take her. It won’t dry out.”
With the conversation going like this, it wasn’t something Andrew didn’t like, but it wasn’t that he didn’t like it either.
“Anyway, that’s what Rockefeller thought.”
“Yeah, I’m going to do that.”
The thing that people think most sensitively, but say, is that money is everything.
And the savior who solved it.
“People here have lost all their gold coins because of the lord. Now he has his gold coins tied to a piece of a meaningless IOU.”
“Are you saying that your brother will solve all of that?”
“If you do that, you will unconditionally win public opinion here.”
Before Andrew, who opened his mouth involuntarily, exclaimed, someone from the inside of the store appeared, and he was also welcomed by Andrew’s visit.
“Brother Andrew!”
Joshua, who was working as a goldsmith in the store, greeted Andrew, who had come without a word from me.
“When did you come? Without a word of coming!”
“How did it happen? Joshua, you’ve grown a lot too. I really don’t know.”
“You’re welcome! How I missed Andrew!”
Seeing the friendly atmosphere after a fierce year, Rockefeller also stood up and raised his voice.
“It was unexpected, but now that Andrew is here, let’s have a nice dinner tonight.”
“Of course!”
joy for a while.
Andrew asked the youngest who was not present.
“Is Lucia doing better than that?”
“Lucia has grown up a lot too. It’s not the old-fashioned immature you used to know.”
“Is Lucia now nine years old?”
“yes! I’m good at covering the front now. Are you going to be married soon?”
“That went a little too far.”
“ha ha ha!”
Rockefeller, who looked at his two younger brothers with satisfaction, was lost in thought.
‘After all, it’s good to have a family.’
“Andrew, after talking, how about going to see Luciana? As Joshua said, Lucia has grown a lot too.”
Andrew asked.
“Then what are you going to do with the store?”
“I have to protect the store. The two of you go.”
When Andrew, who came to Carter Banco, maintained a friendly atmosphere, Stella, who returned to his hometown like him, was somewhat embarrassed by the unprecedented atmosphere.
‘Even if people’s perspectives change, so much has changed. What the hell happened?’
It was hard to believe that she was the lord’s daughter, and the people in the castle were looking at her coldly, and only a few servants who were loyal to the lord treated her as the lord’s daughter.
But even that, he could tell right away that Stella was not an idiot.
Stella, who went to visit the lord under the guidance of a servant, was able to see her father, who had become much more exhausted than before.
“No, why did you come all of a sudden without saying you were coming?”
The lord Chester was greatly surprised to see my daughter who had come without any news.
To such a lord, Stella wanted to hear the story of the situation here first.
“Father, how are you? I got a rough idea of what’s going on here because the messenger officer sent me a hastily letter. How much do you owe?”
Youngju wrinkled his expression.
“That bastard Hamilton said something useless to you. I’m going to go get him right now!”
“father! That’s not the case now, is it? What happened?”
When the daughter, who should have been at the military academy, came down to her hometown and asked, the lord began to explain the past in a creeping voice.
The day that Yeong-ji was upset by the deed of loan he wrote.
The lord, who barely managed to put the poets on his side, was able to barely suppress the riot of Young Ji-min with force.
However, at this time, it was easy to prevent it because not all of the residents were moving, and the riots that continued after that gradually grew in size and reached their climax, to the extent that most of the residents of Yeong-ji came to Yeongju-seong and started a sit-down.
In this situation, at the crossroads of whether the territory will collapse or not.
Due to Overseer’s persuasion, the lord has no choice but to face the creditors made up of the lords.
The creditor’s representative, of course, became Rockefeller of Carter Banco, who lent the lord the most gold coins, and Rockefeller made several proposals to the debtor lord on behalf of his creditors and angry residents.
The lord started talking about the proposal he had received at that time.
“First of all, I agreed not to pay taxes on people holding the IOUs I wrote. He told me to pay off my debt slowly with that. I said I would know. If it wasn’t for borrowing gold coins from anywhere, that would have been the case.”
“Anything else?”
“And they told me not to collect taxes on the land that was taken as collateral until I paid off all my debts. This, too, had to be accepted. The debt was so great that I was embarrassed to exercise my rights in the land held as collateral. So I decided to accept that offer.”
“father.”
The lord sighed and continued.
“If I hadn’t accepted those offers then, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today. It was a time when the poets were also very agitated, so no one knew what was going to happen.”
The majority of Young Ji-min were holding the loan certificate written by Young-ju.
The Gold IOUs issued as collateral for the IOUs he wrote were being used all over the territory like money, so in fact, all the residents of the territory became creditors who should receive gold coins from the lord.
In other words, the current lord’s income was zero.
“Father, if we make an agreement like that, there will be no taxes here at all, right? My father doesn’t even run a separate business, so how did you come to an agreement now?”
“know. I know I know… … .”
Youngju also had something to say.
“Is there no way? I couldn’t live without accepting it. That’s why you said that because you couldn’t see the crowd of Young Jimin who came to me with your eyes wide open at that time. Were they really going to get money from me somehow?”
“so why… … You owe so much. useless.”
“It wasn’t useless. Because it was all for Youngji. This is a land inherited from ancestors from generation to generation after being abandoned by the Dwarves. It is a place that has an obligation to protect somehow.”
Even a foolish father was his father after all.
In order to overcome this situation, Stella first wanted to know the exact condition of the estate.
“Father, then why aren’t taxes being collected here?”
“tax? Everyone is coming to me and clamoring for gold coins, so what kind of tax will I get?
“Then is that all? Everything else okay?”
Young-joo began to shake her head relentlessly to her daughter who asked her with some hope.
“It is not.”
“No? Are you in debt again?”
It all stems from debt.
Stella’s eyes became sharper than ever before, and she looked at her father, Yeongju, terrifyingly.
“Really?”
“no. That’s not it. Would I have played again? There are sins I have committed in the past. And he’s not that ignorant enough to open his hands.”
“Then what?”
“What? There is no interest to pay on the banco because the tax is not lifted at all. So the interest kept on rising, and now I can’t afford it.”
“I beg your pardon? Is that real?”
There was no money to pay interest because the tax was not lifted at all.
And as the interest accumulated and accumulated, this became a debt again, and the debt was horribly strangling the lord’s neck.
“As interest accumulates, it becomes debt again.”
High interest rate of 6% per month.
It was a very hated existence for the lord.
“Since I didn’t have the ability to repay it, I had to take the land as collateral again. That vicious cycle continues to this day.”
“father!”
Young-joo felt that he had no face toward his daughter, who called her out loud.
If I had known that things would turn out like this, I wouldn’t have listened to the advice of my predecessors like that… … .
‘My father told me to be so careful with debt… … .’
“Anyway, it happened. I really have nothing to say to you.”
She knew for sure why Young Ji-min’s gaze wasn’t the same as before.
If he had been a lord with teeth and claws, he would have been treated accordingly.
But now her father was a decrepit beast with no teeth, no claws, and no energy to get up.
So everyone has no choice but to openly ignore it.
“I am really sorry for you. How did it happen… … .”
He didn’t have the courage to die.
“I just thought about dying. But what about you when I die? Just because I die doesn’t mean the debt will go away.”
“How did someone who had been honored all his life become like this?”
“I do not know. It really happened without me knowing.”
The two women were speechless in a gloomy atmosphere.
But you can’t die like this.
Unlike the lord who made things to this level, she wanted to live somehow.
“I’ll go to Carter Banco and talk to him. I have to live somehow.”
Young-ju had strong doubts.
What difference does it make to say that the job he gave up on is his daughter?
“Will it make a big difference if you go? Maybe they, no, the bastard intended all of this. I should have been suspicious from the beginning when I asked for the land as collateral.”
“But it was your father who borrowed the money, right?”
“That’s it… … .”
“Then your father has nothing to say. It’s because they lent them to their father and he couldn’t pay them back. And my father had bad thoughts.”
“What bad thoughts did I have?”
“You used a lot of borrowing without even thinking about it. You thought I didn’t know that?”
“That’s it… … .”
Hearing that from his daughter, Yeongju felt like dying.
“right. You’re right. Even if I hadn’t been overusing that IOU.”