Those who praised Elzere’s beautiful appearance began to extol her even more when she made a splendid debut in the central social circle. Thanks to this, even the imperial family began to take considerable interest in the Marquis’s family. However, the Marquis did not reveal who was behind this.

Rather, people praised Elzere’s keen intellect, thinking that she, as the official heir to the Marquis’s family, might have been responsible.

‘I wonder how it will turn out this time. The Marquis’s family… can they truly survive?’

Recalling past events, Sesenia smirked and lay down on the bed.

**

Perhaps because she had done it before in the past, Sesenia’s business preparations went quite smoothly.

The money the butler gave her was about the same amount as when Sesenia had bought up all the Hepria cotton in the past.

It was money that Elzere would never have given if she had known in advance. But it seemed the Marquis had set it aside separately. Fortunately, while in the past she had to get the Marquis’s permission for every little thing, now she could act on her own thoughts.

In the past, she had conducted business as the Marquis’s proxy, so the butler had acted on her behalf, but this time it was Lizbeth, not the butler, who moved for her.

More precisely, it was Rohan, Lizbeth’s brother and the eldest son of the nanny.

Rohan was the nanny’s sore spot.

So Sesenia hired him directly.

‘In the past, the nanny had to lose two of her children around the same time.’

When she was young, Rohan, whom Sesenia had met a few times following the nanny, was extremely mischievous and full of pranks. But from about the age of ten, Rohan no longer came to the Marquis’s house. Sesenia learned the reason for this after she became Empress.

Lizbeth hardly spoke about her brother at that time, so Sesenia didn’t know. Lizbeth acted as if she shouldn’t talk about her brother at all.

Rohan was, in fact, not the nanny’s biological son. He was a child abandoned at an orphanage at a very young age, whom the nanny had taken in. A child who was particularly weak. Rohan was the child who had entered the orphanage where the nanny used to go for volunteer work.

Although she had no particular intention of adopting a child, the nanny seemed to be drawn to something and ended up adopting Rohan.

And when Rohan was ten years old, he learned that he was not the nanny’s biological son.

Moreover, he discovered that he was the illegitimate child of the Azwick Count family, famous for their swordsmanship. Count Azwick had no son to continue the family line, so he found Rohan, born to an unknown woman. And he took him to his family.

Thanks to this, Rohan learned swordsmanship there and became a knight at a young age, but his life became unhappy.

At the time of adoption, Count Azwick had no son, so he did his best for Rohan. But when the Countess, whom he married later, gave birth to a son, Rohan became a thorn in their side.

This happened when Rohan was just 13 years old. For over seven years, until he became an adult, Rohan was hated. At the same time, he felt his life was threatened. Fearing that Rohan, known as a genius swordsman, might threaten his late-born son, Count Azwick decided to kill him.

‘When Rohan became a royal knight due to his genius in swordsmanship, the Count’s anxiety intensified.’

He tried to poison him, send him to dangerous places. Yet Rohan survived each time, and in the meantime, when Rohan turned 20, he returned to his nanny. Without saying anything about what he had been through.

But thinking Rohan had become a threat, Count Azwick finally sent an assassin to kill him, and when the nanny was also put in danger, Rohan lost his life trying to protect her.

‘Lizbeth told me this while crying. The story of Rohan’s desperate life… which neither the nanny nor Lizbeth knew about.’

So Sesenia immediately sought out the 20-year-old Rohan and called him here. She wasn’t sure if she could protect him, but things were different from the past, so she thought he might be able to live a little.

Count Azwick’s sudden aggression happened after Rohan became a royal knight. Sesenia’s prediction was that if he didn’t become a royal knight this time, the danger would be minimized as much as possible.

Perhaps it was because of this series of events, but when Sesenia met Rohan again, not a trace of his past self remained.

‘It’s truly a shame to make him put down the sword when he had such a natural talent for it… but it can’t be helped for the sake of everything… Still, he did the work of the merchant guild quite perfectly.’

Sesenia launched the merchant guild with the help of Rohan and Lizbeth.

It was the ‘Iar Merchant Guild’, named after her mother who had been the Marquis’s wife. She put herself as the representative and Rohan as the butler and manager. Lizbeth couldn’t be included because she was tied to the Marquis’s family. And Sesenia immediately proceeded with the business.

She used half of the money the Marquis had given her to buy Hepria cotton, and secured a warehouse with good ventilation and warm sunlight. This time, she didn’t buy firewood, but instead, Sesenia headed to the slave market.

‘For my future.’

In this life, she would break off her engagement with the Crown Prince. But at present, she couldn’t rashly break off the engagement, nor did she want to.

Sesenia intended to give hope to the Crown Prince, who wanted to become Emperor and thus wouldn’t annul their engagement, that he could become Emperor, and then crush him to the ground.

She would put someone else on the throne as Emperor.

Prince Ian, who was a friend of both the Crown Prince and herself. To ruin both of them, she needed new timber to become Emperor. So she decided to raise someone to become Emperor.

Sesenia moved to bring in the man who was the Emperor’s son but whom no one knew about, rather than the Crown Prince who would obviously become Emperor in the future, or her friend Prince Ian who would betray her.

**

It was exactly a week after starting the business. After finishing the weekly family dinner, Sesenia immediately headed to the slave market.

Although she had freedom to go out since starting the business, she didn’t want to tell anyone about going to the slave market, so Sesenia, along with Rohan and Lizbeth, secretly put on hoods and walked to the slave market.

“My lady. Why are you suddenly going to the slave market?”

“Let’s call it increasing manpower.”

“No. But buying slaves is a bit…”

“Right. Isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Lizbeth nodded her head vigorously.

“But what I’m buying isn’t a slave.”

“You’re going to the slave market but not buying slaves?”

“Lizbeth. The young lady must have her reasons.”

Rohan stopped his sister and stuck close to Sesenia’s side.

“Aren’t you worried about the young lady, brother?”

“I’m worried, that’s why I’m not saying anything.”

“…What are you saying. You’ve been really strange lately.”

Lizbeth shook her head as if disgusted by her brother. Nevertheless, Rohan’s face was filled with determination. As if he was trying to firmly believe in whatever Sesenia was doing.

But Sesenia still couldn’t fully trust people. After all, Ian, whom she had trusted so much, had betrayed her. She disliked people. Nevertheless, Sesenia felt comfortable being with these two.

Perhaps that’s why. Sesenia smiled more comfortably than ever before, and walked ahead. Of course, she didn’t seem to realize it. Only Lizbeth seemed to notice her change and smiled.

The imperial capital. The slave market existing within it.

The slave market was basically both legal and illegal. It was legal to bring in war prisoners and sell them as slaves, but it was illegal to sell citizens of their own country in the slave market.

When the war was in full swing, there were no cases of selling their own citizens in the slave market. But now that the war had ended, there were no legal slaves. So those who gave up their status for money became slaves, or those who became slaves for other secondary reasons frequently appeared in the slave market.

In particular, there were cases where orphanages secretly diverted children whose parents didn’t come to find them to the slave market.

Although it was illegal, since they had nothing to prove their status, if they just said they were war slaves, that was the end of it, so even the country had no way to stop them. Slaves had no human rights.

Moreover, since the war slaves looked almost the same as the imperial citizens, they couldn’t even defend themselves.

And today, Sesenia came to this slave market to buy a slave that wasn’t selling.

“This isn’t a place for a young lady to come for fun.”

The slave market that could only be reached by going through back alleys. They quite restricted those who came in, perhaps for fear of getting caught for illegal aspects. The gatekeeper guarding the gloomy place stood loosely and shook his head.

Even when she was Empress, Sesenia didn’t like the slave market very much. So she came several times to find illegal things, to overturn this place by finding those illegal things, but in the end, she couldn’t do anything and only had to see the pitiful slaves.

She eventually asked her husband, the Emperor, and raided this place by imperial order, but by then, the slave traders had already been notified and disappeared without a trace.

“It’s a shame you can’t distinguish between a customer and someone coming for fun.”

“Haha. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but this isn’t a place just anyone can enter.”

“Just anyone? I’m a merchant too.”

“You say such interesting things. A young lady running a merchant guild?”

It was unheard of for noble ladies to run merchant guilds. The gatekeeper’s judgment was correct. But Rohan couldn’t hold back and spoke up.

“This is Lady Sesenia of the Iar Merchant Guild.”

Although the merchant guild was established to buy and sell goods, it hadn’t actually shown any prominence, so the man guarding the door just shook his head.

“These days, young ladies play at making merchant guilds? How amusing. Go play house at parties.”