In This Life I Will Be The Lord Novel - Side Story, Chapter 2

Pffft.
As our eyes met, Chanton Sheshou tilted his head and smiled at me.
It was a rather infuriating attitude, but I wasn’t someone who would get worked up over such a small provocation.
What do you take me for?
I maintained an expressionless face and simply stared at Chanton Sheshou.
“I knew it would come to this.”
During the process of putting Perez on the throne, Chanton Sheshou and I were on the same side.
I had supported Ivan in the North and opened trade routes for Luman in the East, while Chanton Sheshou had cut off Angenas and the former Empress’s funding and seized their land.
But after defeating our common enemy and achieving our goal, the cooperation ended.
Chanton Sheshou’s subsequent actions were exactly as I had predicted before inheriting the family head position from my grandfather, in front of the vassal families.
Even though it was to bring down Angenas, too much Sheshou-produced grain had been released throughout the Empire.
The long-standing bountiful harvests in the South, and the struggling East and West due to poor harvests.
Naturally, the Empire’s dependence on Sheshou grain, especially wheat, became excessively high.
Chanton Sheshou unhesitatingly exploited this.
He began to gradually raise the price of Sheshou grain.
Naturally, many families who needed wheat began to curry favor with Chanton Sheshou, and a faction centered around Sheshou rapidly formed.
As a result.
“Lord Luman, I see.”
“They said you arrived from the East yesterday. It seems you rushed here without resting.”
Indith Luman, Avinox’s father, sat in the chair directly to Chanton Sheshou’s right, which had been empty.
Seeing this, a noble near me sneered.
“Hmph, ungrateful.”
“Lady Lombardi has shown so much favor to Luman. And yet, look at him, sticking to Sheshou.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the grumbling of the pro-Lombardi nobles.
Just a year and a half ago, the Luman family of the East was Lombardi’s closest ally.
My initiatives, Eastern trade and cruise travel, had revitalized the entire isolated East.
Furthermore, Lorraine was even engaged to Avinox, Lord Luman’s son.
However, today, the Luman family was one of Chanton Sheshou’s closest confidants.
“In this political arena, where are eternal friends?”
“Welcome, Lord Ivan.”
Migente Ivan, the head of the Ivan family from the North, with whom I had once been trapped in a carriage, said, setting down his cane.
He had to use it due to a leg injury from the carriage accident, but true to the head of the Ivan family, famous for their underground minerals,
His cane was studded with several large, precious jewels.
“We in the North can be self-sufficient and have abundant resources, so we don’t have to worry about Sheshou. But the East is not in such a fortunate situation, are they?”
“That’s true, but.”
“Lord Sheshou, who exploited that weakness so well, is merely a snake. Don’t you agree, Lady Lombardi?”
A snake, he said.
If a snake is that big, shouldn’t it be considered an imugi (a lesser dragon)?
I laughed at Migente Ivan’s question.
And leaning closer, I looked at Chanton Sheshou and Lord Luman, who were secretly conversing, and said.
“The saying ‘there are no eternal friends’ quite appeals to me.”
I wish they knew that too.
“It seems the Brown family won’t be attending today either?”
“Chanton Sheshou, that man is tormenting them by holding their food hostage, isn’t he? To make them cast votes favorable to him.”
“It’s best not to attend. If the Brown family, who owe a great debt to the Lombardi family, sided with Sheshou, wouldn’t that truly be a betrayal! A betrayal!”
At Lord Berne’s shouted ‘betrayal!’ Lord Luman’s shoulders flinched significantly.
However, on the contrary, a deeper smile appeared on Chanton Sheshou’s face.
It was a relaxed demeanor, as if saying, ‘Bark all you want while you can.’
“As the harvest season approaches, Lord Sheshou’s attitude becomes even more arrogant.”
Soon it would be time to harvest the wheat.
The families in the regions that needed that wheat to get through autumn and winter had no choice but to grovel before Chanton Sheshou.
“He is a smart man.”
It was a political sense one wouldn’t expect from someone who had spent his life knowing nothing but the sword and whose true calling was a knight commander.
That’s why it’s more fun to contend with him.
Chanton Sheshou was now staring at me.
His gaze was different from Angenas, who always burned with overt hostility; it was a cool, competitive look.
Alright, let’s have a go.
I tilted my head and smiled, just as Chanton Sheshou had.
“His Imperial Majesty enters.”
At that moment, the doors of the council chamber opened, and the Imperial Palace’s chief chamberlain announced.
Everyone gathered in the Grand Council Chamber rose from their seats.
A moment later, Perez appeared.
His black uniform, intricately embroidered with gold thread, his smoothly swept-back black hair, and his striking, sculpted features, including his red eyes.
Perez had always been handsome, but he was steadily gaining an indescribably profound charm.
Whose fiancé is he? He’s truly magnificent.
As I proudly watched Perez ascend to the Emperor’s throne on the dais.
“Hmm?”
I tilted my head.
Perez’s expression, when our eyes met, was strange.
He paused for a moment, then seemed subtly downcast.
To others, his face might have seemed equally expressionless, but to me, it was clearly different.
His eyes were slightly downturned, you see.
Although Perez’s expression bothered me slightly, I quickly composed myself.
“The Grand Council will now begin.”
With the chairman’s words, the doors of the council chamber closed tightly.
Everyone focused on Perez, who was seated on the high throne.
After a moment of heavy silence.
“Today’s agenda is the trade conflict between Lombardi and Sheshou, it seems.”
Perez’s low voice, now back to the perfect Emperor’s demeanor, just as I had set aside my personal feelings, resonated through the large council chamber.
At the same time, I felt some nobles around me tense up.
Unlike during the time of the former Emperor Jovaness, the nobles found Perez difficult and feared him.
He had not received help from any other factions besides Lombardi and Sheshou in ascending the throne, so he owed nothing.
An Emperor who did not have to worry about the nobles’ opinions would naturally possess absolute power.
Perez skimmed the documents submitted by the chairman of the noble council and said,
“It seems that all trade activities of the Lombardi Merchant Guild and the Pellett Merchant Guild entering Sheshou territory have been suspended.”
This was what Chanton Sheshou had done recently.
He had been preventing the Lombardi Merchant Guild’s trade activities from passing through the entrance to Sheshou’s land, which was the border of the South.
To be precise, all logistics of the Lombardi Merchant Guild and the pro-Lombardi families who had entrusted their goods to the merchant guild were blocked.
“I hear Lombardi raised this issue. Lady Lombardi, please explain.”
Perez never revealed our private relationship in public.
It was something I had requested.
And Perez had followed my request without a single exception.
As I slowly rose from my seat, I felt hundreds of gazes pierce me.
I met each of those eyes, then opened my mouth.
“Since ancient times, it has been a long-standing principle among us nobles not to block merchant guild trade activities unless a territorial war is underway. Furthermore, the Lombardi and Pellett Merchant Guilds have annually paid vast sums in tolls to Sheshou, in return for a promise of cooperation to ensure smooth trade activities.”
I lightly held up the documents Clerivan had handed me and said.
“Despite this, Sheshou has unilaterally blocked trade, causing immense damage. I, Florentia Lombardi, as the owner of the Lombardi Merchant Guild and the Pellett Merchant Guild, demand prompt resumption of trade and appropriate compensation for damages from Sheshou.”
With nods of agreement from the audience, Perez then asked Chanton Sheshou.
“Lord Sheshou, do you have anything to say about this?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Chanton Sheshou, whose loyalty to the imperial family was fervent, stood up, bowed once to Perez, and began his statement.
“Blocking the merchant guild’s entry was an unavoidable measure taken due to security issues in Sheshou caused by them. Fugitives were mixed in with the trade caravan, almost endangering the local residents, and isn’t this more important than fulfilling the contract?”
Then Perez silently looked at me.
Meaning I was free to speak.
I countered Chanton Sheshou.
“Why do you omit the fact that it was the Lombardi Merchant Guild, not Sheshou’s security forces, that weeded out those fugitives, and that the only Sheshou land the fugitives stepped on was the checkpoint, Lord Chanton Sheshou?”
“If it weren’t for the Lombardi Merchant Guild, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
“You’re being unreasonable. If there was a security issue, it should have been addressed by strengthening security. Suspending all trade activities due to an incident that ended in an attempt is not only a breach of contract but also a matter where both sides stand to lose more than gain, and you must know that.”
“The safety of my territory’s residents is paramount to me, and I simply took action accordingly. Even if there are a hundred benefits, it is unavoidable to protect the one most important thing.”
He was pretending to care deeply about the residents of his territory, but that was pure nonsense.
The ones suffering the most from Chanton Sheshou’s decision were none other than the residents of Sheshou’s territory.
It was a natural consequence, as the trade activities of the Lombardi and Pellett Merchant Guilds, which accounted for more than half of Sheshou’s export volume, had ceased.
Those who did business with them and the farmers of Sheshou who had contracted to supply grain to the merchant guilds were left with nothing to do but stare at the sky.
Chanton Sheshou was merely a person who would chew and swallow a hundred losses like bitter medicine for the sake of the one thing he desired.
“Prohibiting trade was merely a choice made by Lord Sheshou as a lord for the sake of his territory’s residents.”
“Are you saying it’s okay to let the grain they cultivated with blood and sweat rot in the warehouses?”
At my words, Chanton Sheshou’s eyes, which had been relaxed, sharpened.
I didn’t avoid his gaze either.
We were arguing as if circling on ice, but both Chanton Sheshou and I knew what lay beneath the surface.
Chanton Sheshou’s objective, while enduring a hundred bitter pills and pressuring the Lombardi and Pellett Merchant Guilds’ trade, was clear.
The place where those two merchant guilds transported countless goods daily, like lines of ants.
The land surrounded by Sheshou territory like the yolk of a broken egg, once Sheshou’s, and the center of Eastern trade.
It was Chesayu, my father’s territory.
“Since Lord Sheshou has made a choice as a lord, then perhaps I, as the owner of the merchant guilds, should also make a choice.”
And I couldn’t just stand by and watch that happen.
“For example, how about the Lombardi Merchant Guild and the Pellett Merchant Guild completely cutting ties with the South?”