At the End of Ruin, There You Are (56 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 30

Rolf, the butler who had managed Lusenford Castle alongside the housekeeper for over twenty years, was a viscount with no land.

Before Pheon arrived and the territory was elevated to a grand duchy, this place had been merely a county—and even that, a county without a count, managed only by generations of stewards who held the honorary title of viscount.

Yet, when Pheon unexpectedly became a grand duke and vast lands and castles befitting such a title were incorporated into Lusenford, both Rolf and Housekeeper Doris felt, somehow, as if they themselves had truly become someone important.

Even though those newly acquired lands and castles had mostly been ravaged by the Mad Dragon’s minions and were now snow-covered wastelands where not even a blade of grass grew, they still felt that way.

Because he was a grand duke—and the Empress’s son—gifts and gold coins poured in from the Empress herself.

Though the amount was pitifully small to the grand duke, to those who had fought the Mad Dragon and endured the cold in this barren land, it was an enormous sum.

Their shoulders rose involuntarily. No matter how much people pointed fingers at Pheon as a bastard, to Lusenford, he was their precious bloodline, a member of the Imperial Family, who protected them.

“You summoned me, Your Highness?”

Rolf had raised Pheon together with Doris, who had just been exiled. He had stayed up through the night nursing Pheon whenever the boy was injured sparring with knights or fell ill with a fever, celebrated his birthdays, and rejoiced each time Pheon showed academic progress.

Pheon was not a Klein; he was a Lusenford. He embodied the pride and strength of the North.

Yet, out of nowhere, he married a southern duchess.

“Where is the key that the housekeeper should possess?”

“I am temporarily holding onto it, Your Highness.”

“Bring it to me now.”

“Now? Yes, of course.”

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