Mother-in-Law Refuses to Regress! - Chapter 66

Guinevere picked up Larisa and said.

“You’re going to borrow? Do you know what a loan is?”

“It’s borrowing money by putting up the mansion as collateral, right?”

Guinevere was surprised that a young child like Larisa knew the concept of a loan.

“I went to the pawnshop a lot with mom. But we never got anything back.”

“I see.”

Thinking about how difficult it must have been, Guinevere hugged Larisa tightly. Larisa giggled and nuzzled her cheek against Guinevere’s shoulder.

Siod said to William.

“It’s certainly possible to borrow money using the mansion as collateral. But you know you’ll lose the mansion if you don’t repay it on time, right?”

William hesitated and said.

“Well… Couldn’t we pay it back little by little with mother’s income?”

Siod scolded William’s naive attitude.

“William, I know you want to help those people right away, but taking responsibility for people isn’t something to be done carelessly.”

William lowered his head.

“It’s not possible with just Guinevere’s income.”

‘I think it might work?’

But Guinevere kept quiet for now. She thought Siod must have his reasons. He had also said it was better to teach someone to fish than to give them a fish.

“If you don’t create jobs for the people of the estate and enable them to pay taxes with stable income, the estate can’t be maintained. In the end, you’ll just have more people running away because they can’t pay taxes.”

“If we cultivate farmland and exempt them from tenant fees for a few years, the taxes could…”

“How are you going to repay the loan without receiving tenant fees? A self-sufficient estate that can also generate profit is like a small country. You need to build roads, establish trade with other estates, do you think you can do all that alone? It’s not something you can start recklessly. It will take a long time to set up a proper estate, and the mansion will be taken by the bank before that.”

Guinevere looked at her dejected son and thought.

‘Then can’t we just earn money first?’

While Guinevere receives money from the country even without working, William needs to earn money in other ways.

“How do nobles usually make money?”

Siod calmly answered Guinevere’s question.

“They earn through investments.”

“Investments!”

William suddenly exclaimed excitedly.

“I should invest too, Mother!”

Guinevere took a step back at William’s enthusiastic attitude.

“Y-yes.”

“You know the future, don’t you, Mother?”

“Huh?”

It was a gaze burning with passion.

“What should I invest in?”

“Investments, I don’t do such things so I don’t know…”

“But you know the future! You must at least know what will do well, right?”

She doesn’t know. Guinevere had only been cooped up in her laboratory. The master of magic who only pursued magic, Guinevere Rodante, was cornered and broke out in a cold sweat.

“What? Mother, please tell me quickly. You must know at least one investment item, right?”

She doesn’t know. But she tried to wrack her brain somehow. Had her son William ever made such an earnest request before?

Guinevere sincerely wanted to grant her son’s request. She desperately searched through her past. Suddenly, a thin thread of memory came to mind.

“Come to think of it, you once invested in someone who was obsessed with science and said they would invent something called a steam engine.”

“A steam engine?”

“Yes. I don’t know the details, but…”

“What happened?”

It had failed. Guinevere hesitated to answer. Seeing her expression, William seemed to guess the result and looked disappointed.

“Did it fail?”

“Yes. I heard the firewood wasn’t enough to generate sufficient heat. You tried to increase the heat using alchemy, but the unit cost was too high for commercialization, so it ended up just being a toy.”

It was a memory she recalled because she had nagged him to study instead of wasting time playing with such things. Guinevere quietly reflected on it inwardly.

Siod, who had been listening quietly, interjected.

“Have you tried coal?”

“Coal?”

“You haven’t tried it? Why… There’s even an open-pit coal mine in this estate, isn’t there?”

William asked.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the black stones that the vagrants here used to burn. Since there are no trees in this wasteland, everyone gathers coal to make fires.”

“Ah, that…!”

Finally recalling what coal was, William brightened and asked.

“Could that be worth money?”

“It should be.”

“We need to develop the mine. Right now!”

William exclaimed excitedly.

*

William’s entire fortune of one million linars was far from enough to develop the mine.

First, they needed to hire an estate manager, a mine manager, and miners, and provide lodging, a dining hall, and houses for their families.

As they calculated everything they needed, it turned out to be like building a small village, so they had no choice but to take out a loan using the mansion as collateral.

After getting the loan from the bank, William said to Larisa.

“Um… I’m sorry, Lara.”

“For what?”

“Just… It feels like I’m dragging you into this too…”

William answered sheepishly. He had shamelessly demanded money from his mother and Professor Siod, but for some reason, he felt guilty towards Larisa.

Larisa answered maturely.

“It’s okay. It’s not really my mansion anyway.”

“What are you saying? If Mother gave it to you, it’s really yours.”

And he was trash for borrowing money using someone else’s property as collateral. Once again, William resented Guinevere, the source of this situation.

Yet he couldn’t completely resent her, knowing that his mother was giving everything to Larisa for his sake.

“Anyway, I’ll definitely repay it without any late payments.”

“Please protect our home, William. I’ve never been able to retrieve anything I pawned.”

Our home. William choked up and lifted Larisa.

“Don’t worry. I’ll repay all the money and even give you interest.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Think of it as an investment.”

William said confidently. Larisa didn’t believe William at all, but she giggled and patted his head.

William was a boy with drive. Before long, Guinevere received an invitation from William.

Near the open-pit coal mine that Siod had taught them about, several houses had already been built, and miners were working.

“That was fast.”

“The butler helped.”

“The butler?”

When Guinevere turned around, butler Leonard was talking with some people.

“Leonard!”

When William called, Leonard approached.

“Madam, you’ve arrived.”

“Butler, what are you doing here?”

“I’m helping with the young master’s estate development.”

The old Leonard’s face was full of pride as he said this.

“Young master, shouldn’t you introduce these people to the madam as well?”

“Right. Mother, this is the newly hired estate manager, Mr. Jason Ramsey, and the mine manager, Mr. Mark Henderson.”

The two men took off their hats and bowed their heads in greeting.

“This is quite professional.”

“It wouldn’t have been possible without Leonard. Leonard even gave me this.”

William proudly unfolded a map. Guinevere looked down at it quietly, suddenly realizing it was a familiar landscape.

“This is…”

“I thought it might be helpful for the young master, so I looked for it.”

Leonard said carefully, as if making an excuse. Guinevere nodded with an expressionless face.

It was a map of the Rodante estate from when it was still called Dante, before Guinevere destroyed it. Guinevere couldn’t say anything as she looked at the old map that showed traces of time.

“I thought it might be needed when rebuilding the estate… It even shows the locations of wells, which could be useful.”

Leonard continued to speak as if making excuses. William, watching the flustered butler, looked at Guinevere’s expressionless face and said.

“I asked for it. I was at a loss without anything to reference.”

“You did well.”

Guinevere patted Leonard’s shoulder as she returned the map.

“Thank you for helping my son.”

“Not at all, madam. On the contrary, seeing the Rodante estate being developed has been my lifelong wish. Yes…”

Leonard’s eyes reddened. Rebuilding the Rodante estate had been a dream and wish passed down for three generations since his grandfather’s time.

It was an era when the dignity of the nobles they served became the pride of their servants. Although he was the butler of the Rodante ducal family, he was more often called the witch’s butler.

How frustrated he had been in the face of such subtle contempt. When Leonard was younger, he too had hoped to persuade Guinevere to rebuild the estate.

Although he gave up out of respect for his mistress’s wish to contribute more to Arendia’s magical world.

So when William stepped forward to develop the estate, Leonard even offered a prayer of thanks to the goddess.

“I’ll be counting on you from now on.”

“Yes, I will serve the young master well!”

Guinevere nodded awkwardly. William excitedly said.

“Mother, shall I introduce you to the miners too?”

“No need. I’d just scare them.”

Guinevere walked in the opposite direction, already feeling the fearful gazes directed at her.

“Then would you like to see the miners’ quarters?”

“No. It smells.”

“Then let’s go to the village. It’s not far from here, we’ll be there soon by carriage.”

Guinevere obediently got into the carriage, as teleporting to a place without designated coordinates could lead to accidents.

“Why did you tell me not to bring Larisa?”

William blushed at the sudden question.

“It’s not even finished yet, what’s the point?”

“This is quite impressive already.”

William was just embarrassed and didn’t answer. The place where the carriage arrived was still more appropriately called a construction site than a village.

“We haven’t finished building the houses yet. We’ve built a temporary village hall where everyone is living together.”

As they got closer, the sound of a baby crying could be heard.