‘How should I explain this situation?’

Seol Jihu fell into deep thought. Roselle was still frozen with shock plastered all over her face.

“Princess, there’s something I want to ask you.”

Seol Jihu leaned toward Teresa, who was sitting right by him and whispered a question.

“Is the Empire collapsing that shocking?”

“Yes.”

Teresa answered without a shred of hesitation.

“It’s not just humanity. Their magic engineering far surpassed every other race in Paradise, so much so that they weren’t even mildly comparable. Including the native races that are part of the Federation, the Empire reigned over all of Paradise for well over a thousand years.”

Teresa spoke with strength.

“A country where the sun never sets. That was the Empire as a nation.”

Seol Jihu smacked his lips.

“But… the invading force is a god…”

“It wasn’t as if the Empire didn’t have gods on their side.”

Teresa shook her head.

“Even if the Parasite Queen was stronger than the Empire’s gods, the Empire still fell too quickly. I had a similar reaction when I first heard that the Empire fell. I thought some fool was cracking a joke.”

‘It was that absurd…?’

Seol Jihu turned to Roselle once again.

Clang! Ah, the teacup fell and broke.

“Um…”

Just as Seol Jihu was about to rekindle the conversation…

“Wait!”

Roselle quickly pushed her open palm out. She looked extremely anxious.

“P-Please give me a more detailed explanation…!”

Perhaps because she had read everyone’s minds, she seemed to be certain that the fall of the Empire wasn’t a lie.

Seol Jihu looked back at Teresa. When it came to history, it was much better to have someone who had experienced it first-hand to give the explanation.

“You don’t have to say anything. Just recall what happened slowly and in-order.”

Teresa calmly closed her eyes. Seol Jihu observed Roselle’s face during this time, which was rather interesting.

Shock, doubt, disbelief… By the end of the imagery, her eyes rolled back to her head.

Now unmasked, Roselle displayed emotions with rich expressions. The only downside was that most of the emotions she showed were negative.

Soon…

“How foolish!”

As Teresa opened her eyes, Roselle shot up from her seat. The slender white face reddened like a ripe apple. Then, she turned around before wandering back and forth in the garden.

‘Wait! That action!’

It happened when someone really didn’t like something. For example, Seol Jihu had done the same thing when Gula gave him his old class name.

Her eyes narrowed, Roselle wet her lips with her saliva…

“What… another universe? But still… Hah!”

And she muttered while fiddling with her fingers. She even picked up her tray forcefully and slammed it down.

‘Why is she angry?’

Seol Jihu tilted his head. He could understand her being taken aback, but Roselle was someone who hated the Empire. He felt like she should be clapping her hands in joy knowing that it had fallen.

“Damn it! For what reason did I…!?”

But when he saw her tilting her head back and shaking her tightly-clenched fists, he finally understood.

Roselle must have waited for hundreds of years for a chance to exact her vengeance. But the target of her vengeance had crumbled like a sandcastle and vanished. The difference between personally exacting vengeance on her sworn enemy and having it done coincidentally must be like the difference between heaven and earth.

“….”

Seol Jihu couldn’t fathom the sense of loss Roselle must be feeling. It wasn’t until 40 minutes later that Roselle stopped fidgeting and showed signs of calming down.

During this time, the expedition team shut their mouths and maintained their silence. Roselle was seething so much that they feared she would break something if provoked.

“Huuuuu—”

After an earth-shattering sigh, Roselle swept her forehead up in frustration before pausing. Looking at the expedition team sitting awkwardly around the table, she lowered her head in embarrassment.

“I apologize for my unsightly display.”

“No, it’s totally fine.”

Rather than unsightly, her actions were rather funny. Seol Jihu and the rest of the expedition team knew they shouldn’t laugh, but they couldn’t help but find this situation funny.

“We should be apologizing for saying something unnecessary….”

Roselle shook her head.

“No, not at all. I’m glad I found out… Yes, I’m glad, but…”

Roselle covered her face with her hands, unable to finish her sentence.

“Empire, you son of a gun…”

She muttered to herself, but everyone clearly heard what she said.

“…Ah…”

After a moment, Roselle slowly took her hands off and spoke powerlessly.

“You… You said you were here to take the Rothschear House’s inheritance, yes?”

“Yes.”

Seol Jihu replied immediately.

“Promise of Temperance and a blood-related soul of the Rothschear House… There’s no room for doubts… haa…”

This was already the second time she was sighing. After hesitating for some time, Roselle nodded her head and spoke.

“By the name of Roselle La Grazia— no, I’ll skip the formalities since I’m fuming. For now, let’s go ahead with returning the inheritance.”

‘For now?’

Just as Seol Jihu was about to raise a question—

Chak! A clap rang out.

At the same time, the scenery changed once again. This time, no one was surprised. Everyone fell on their butts because they were transported while they were seated, but no one let out even a tiny groan.

They seemed to be in the basement of the palace. Although the place was generally dark, there were several stones on the ceiling illuminating the ground, so it wasn’t difficult to see.

The only problem was that there were countless rooms around them, so much that they couldn’t begin to count. It felt like they were standing in the middle of a maze of doors.

“Let’s see… the Rothschear House’s inheritance…”

Roselle looked around the doors, then snapped her fingers. Then, something surprising happened. The tens of thousands of doors began to rotate in a clockwise direction before abruptly coming to a stop.

Looking at a white door at the front, Roselle nodded her head.

“Here it is. I remember expanding the storage room quite a bit because of the volume of the items.”

Seol Jihu’s expectations went up, hearing that there was a large volume of the items.

When Roselle walked up and caressed the door, the door opened on its own. Seol Jihu looked on with a beating heart as his eyes tensed up.

As soon as the door opened, a murky fog flowed out before a multicolored light shot out.

No one had entered the room and its inside was still invisible, yet a brilliant light illuminated the entire space.

‘Just how much is in there…?’

The inheritance buried here was the ‘Spear of the Empire’ and the Rothschear’s secret techniques. There shouldn’t be much gold, yet it was shining so brightly?

Seol Jihu doubled his efforts in calming his beating heart and stared at Roselle.

Roselle quietly backed off before gesturing at the room.

“This inheritance is yours. You do not need my permission to take it.”

Several gazes fell on his back. Everyone was clearly eager to go in.

‘This particularly stinging gaze must be Miss Maria’s.’

“Alright.”

Seol Jihu wanted to run inside, but he kept himself in check and walked slowly on purpose. Maria’s aroused panting was getting on his nerves, but he forgot about her the moment he entered the room.

“….”

He almost couldn’t breathe.

A mountain of treasures.

He couldn’t describe the scene in any other way. Gold, silver, and all sorts of jewels were stacked on top of each other, forming a hill.

Seol Jihu walked in as though he was entranced and reached out. When he grabbed a handful of riches and then loosened his hand, a colorful waterfall trickled down.

Tok, tok, tok! Drrrrr….

The sound of riches striking the ground enhanced the emotions he was feeling. What shocked him even more was that these weren’t gold coins, but gold eggs. They weren’t the egg-shaped gold nuggets he found at the emperor’s villa, but prettier spherical eggs.

‘My god….’

This was meant to only be a fraction of the Rothschear’s wealth. Seol Jihu finally understood why the emperor got so greedy.

A rectangular glass casket was placed in the middle of the room, and lying inside it was something that was wrapped in a blue cloth.

Next to it, Seol Jihu could also see a fairly big, faded treasure chest. The symbol engraved onto the side of the chest caught Seol Jihu’s eyes.

‘The Rothschear’s insignia.’

He recognized it instantly as he had seen it before in historical records.

That wasn’t all. On one side of the room were ten rectangular wooden chests neatly organized like parcels.

“What a mess. It’s because I never tended to them after I received them….”

Following Roselle’s voice, the mountain wiggled.

Clang, clang!

Along with the pleasant clattering of riches, gold bars and gold eggs separated themselves from the mountain and moved to the left.

Swish!

Next, the various jewels all shot up and moved to the right.

‘A mountain of gold, a mountain of silver, and a mountain of jewels…’

Seol Jihu trembled.

“This young lady will step aside for a moment.”

Roselle’s voice rang out. Judging by her cold voice, she still seemed to be in shock. By the time Seol Jihu turned around, Roselle was nowhere to be found.

Only then did a loud cheer burst out.

“PIEEEEEEEEEEK!”

Maria howled and charged into the gold mountain at a frightening speed.

“Ha… ha… it’s real….”

“Dream… this must be a dream….”

Chohong speechlessly stared at the mountains with her jaw dropped, and Marcel Ghionea rubbed his eyes in doubt.

“Uwoaaaah!”

Hugo roared.

“Moooooom!”

And Teresa searched for her mother before running into Seol Jihu’s embrace.

“I’ve never seen anything like it….”

Kazuki muttered in a daze before glancing sideways and asking.

“Did you know about the inheritance?”

Seol Jihu pushed the clinging Teresa away and narrowly smiled.

The expedition team’s minds were all over the place. The three mountains were quite a bit smaller thanks to Roselle cleanly separating the huge mountain, but the expedition team’s shock had not diminished in the slightest.

Maria, who was lying in the mountain of gold eggs and jamming her mouth with them, rubbed her puffed up cheeks with sparkling eyes.

“It was my dream to try this!”

She then got in a diving pose, catapulted herself into the mountain, then started swimming.

“Argh, fine!”

Chohong threw herself at the mountain of jewels. Meanwhile, Hugo was grabbing handfuls of silver and throwing them into the air.

“Uhehehehe!”

“Kuehehehehe!”

Elated didn’t begin to describe them.

Haha, hoho.

Seol Jihu smiled, seeing his overjoyed comrades, and then clapped his hands. Hearing this, everyone flinched and looked back.

Because of Roselle, they seemed to be conditioned to respond to claps.

“Ah, jeez~”

“You surprised me~”

Normally, they would have thrown a fit at his prank, but the bountiful rewards must have broadened their hearts, as Chohong and Maria both smiled adorably.

Seol Jihu spoke while laughing.

“As you all know, Lady Roselle didn’t seem to be in a good mood.”

Maria, who was gracefully doing backstrokes in the ocean of gold, abruptly stopped.

“Since she is exercising courtesy as the master of this palace, we need to do the same as her guests. Don’t be too loud. Let’s get what we came for and hurry back.”

Seol Jihu could tell at a glance that everyone fully agreed. They had experienced first-hand how absurdly powerful Roselle was. Leaving this place as soon as possible was clearly a thousand times better than staying unnecessarily and potentially offending her.

Now that they had obtained such unprecedented wealth, they would be too bitter to ascend if they died without spending any of it.

At last, the expedition team began to bag the riches by category. As Seol Jihu had prepared several large, weight-reducing backpacks, there was no need to worry about not being able to bring them all back.

Just as everyone was busy stuffing the bags, the ceiling began to tremble faintly.

Rumble…! Thud…!

Listening carefully, it sounded like things were breaking and crumbling down. A few members looked up at the ceiling in a daze.

—Kyaaaak! Kyaaaaaaaak!

—FUCK! FUUUUUUCK!

Screams and heavy curses were fired out loud.

Seol Jihu, who was in the middle of bagging gold bars and eggs, furrowed his brows and warned solemnly.

“Maria, didn’t I tell you to quiet down? I understand how happy you are, but you don’t have to curse like it’s your last—”

“Huh? I didn’t do anything!”

Maria rebutted resentfully as if to ask why he was accusing an innocent person.

‘It wasn’t Miss Maria?’

Seol Jihu tilted his head.

In any case, the sound subsided, and everyone went back to work. Because of the sheer amount of riches, packing them all up was taking a long time. However, no one uttered a single complaint. In fact, they worked hard not to leave out a single thing.

“Don’t just stuff them in like they’re rocks on the side of the road. If anyone gets even a single scratch on any of the treasure, expect to get smashed by my mace.”

Chohong even gave an intimidating warning while laughing.

“I’m looking. I know I’m not the one to speak, but let’s not fill up the wrong pocket today.”

Hugo also growled with his eyes lit up.

Seol Jihu was astonished inwardly. This was the first time he saw the duo so focused and passionate.

‘Master Jang would be overjoyed if they acted the same while training…’

After the team bagged more than half of the riches, Seol Jihu suddenly felt something poking his side. Teresa was pointing at the door.

Seol Jihu saw Roselle standing outside the door, watching them quietly. From the way she was staring at him fixedly, Seol Jihu figured she had something to ask.

Seol Jihu gave the bag in his hand to Teresa, then walked to the door.

“You seem to be having fun.”

“Ah… haha.”

Seol Jihu laughed awkwardly and studied Roselle’s face. Her eyes were faintly curled up to a smile.

She seemed to have calmed down a bit.

“I apologize for leaving so suddenly. What I heard was just too shocking…”

“No, it’s totally fine. I fully understand.”

“I thank you for your generosity.”

Roselle sighed. Then, she looked up with pitiful eyes, like a tragic heroine of a story.

“I thought about it while watching the serene lake at the silent flower garden.”

Seol Jihu glanced at Roselle. For some reason, rock crumbs were littering her tiny shoulders. Roselle dusted her shoulders off in a startle.

“Ah, please ignore these. I fell down while staggering.”

“Oh, my.”

“Anyway.”

Roselle changed the topic immediately.

“I’m sorry to bother you while you are busy, but can you give me some time? It won’t take long.”

Roselle’s expression lacked the composure it once had and was very serious. Seol Jihu’s intuition told him that Roselle would make another request.