Chapter 116: A Family Conspiracy

It had been a few days since Neo returned to the Draven mansion, and the thoughts of the Desolate Land had slowly faded from his mind. Still, he had told his father and mother everything he had found out in the Desolate Land, including the humans from an empire who were entering it.

Neo didn’t know what the exact truth was. If the humans residing there were from a different empire, then it was not much of a deal, as not every empire banned entry to the Desolate Land. But if the people were from the Velkrath Empire, then that could be the reason for a massive internal conflict within the empire in the future.

Neo walked out of his room, bored and not knowing what he should do. In Veldra, he used to train, play with the children, help the villagers, and do his own work, but in this mansion, everything he wanted or needed was already handed to him, so he had nothing to do to pass his time.

He walked steadily through the corridor, deciding to go to his father’s office.

After descending the stairs, he went straight to the office, where two guards stood beside the door. They didn’t stop him and just bowed in respect, as Neo knocked on the door.

"Come in."

A voice answered from the inside. His father must have already sensed who was outside the door, so the door was only there for convenience, so that no outsider would be able to see what was going on inside, while his father could still sense who was standing outside.

Neo pushed the door open and entered.

"Father, I want to help you with your work..."

Inside the office, large piles of papers were scattered across the tables. His mother was sitting a few seats away from his father, working through paperwork, while his father sat at the centre, holding a far bigger bunch of papers than Sylvia’s.

Neo swallowed hard, feeling that he shouldn’t have come here in the first place. He could at least have trained outside, but here he was guaranteed to be stuck in one place for hours.

"I think I remember something. I’ll go!"

He immediately turned around, ready to walk out and get away from this place before he got caught in some trouble, but of course, it was already too late to save himself.

"Wait, Neo. It’s good that you arrived right now. Come here..."

Neo’s forced smile trembled as he looked back.

"Yes... Mother..."

His mother looked at him with a gentle smile, the kind of smile which didn’t leave any room for refusal, as she patted the empty chair beside her. "Sit here. Your father and I were just saying that we could use another pair of hands, and here you are, offering them yourself. How considerate of you."

"I... I only meant that I wanted to help a little, Mother, not that I wanted to..."

"A little help is still help. Come, sit."

Neo glanced at his father, hoping for some mercy, but Cassian had already lowered his gaze to the papers in his hands, the corner of his lips twitching slightly as if he was trying very hard not to laugh. Neo understood at that moment that nobody in this room was going to save him, and with a heavy sigh, he dragged his feet towards the chair and sat down.

Sylvia pushed a thick stack of papers in front of him. "These are the reports on the northern trade routes. Check the numbers on each page and mark anything which doesn’t match the totals written at the bottom. Don’t skip any, even the small ones."

"All of these?"

"All of these."

Neo stared at the stack, which was almost as tall as his forearm, and he felt his soul slowly leaving his body. He picked up a pen with trembling fingers and began to read the first page, though the rows of numbers swam in front of his eyes the moment he started.

’In my previous life, I wouldn’t have even needed to do this much for a whole year. Why does being a noble’s son mean I have to suffer like this?’

An hour passed in silence, broken only by the scratching of pens and the soft turning of pages. Neo’s back began to ache from bending over the desk, and his eyes grew tired from checking the same kind of figures again and again. He had found three mistakes so far, and each time he marked them, his mother nodded with satisfaction and placed another bundle of papers in front of him as a reward, which only made him want to cry.

’This is a punishment. It has to be. Is this because I left without telling them for months?’

He glanced sideways at his father, who was reading a document with a furrowed brow and signing it with swift strokes, never once showing a sign of fatigue. Neo couldn’t help but feel a faint admiration, mixed with horror, that his father did this every single day.

’And here I thought that being a duke only meant swinging swords and scaring people. Father, I truly misjudged you.’

Just as he was about to rest his head on the desk for a moment, he heard the sound of the door opening softly. Neo lifted his head and froze as he saw a girl with violet hair stepping inside, holding a few documents in her arms, with the same calm, blank expression that she always wore.

It was Nora.

The guards outside bowed to her as she entered, and she gave them a small nod before closing the door behind her. She didn’t look at anyone as she walked across the room, and Neo noticed that she moved with such familiarity that it was obvious she had done this many times before.

Sylvia looked up and smiled warmly at her. "Nora, you are here already. Did you finish the documents from the Valentina territory?"

Nora nodded and placed the papers on the corner of Sylvia’s desk, and then she took out a small notebook from her sleeve and began to write something, pushing it forward so that Sylvia could read it.

[The trade contracts from the eastern merchants have been confirmed. I found two discrepancies in the tax records, and I have already sent a letter asking them to correct it. The rest are in order.]

"Good, as always. You really are a great help, Nora."

Neo stared at the two of them with wide eyes, completely forgetting about the papers in front of him. He had known that Nora was clever, but seeing her speak with his mother about contracts and tax records like a seasoned administrator made him realise how far she had gone while he was away.

’She’s been handling all this for years, and here I am, getting tired just from reading a few documents.’

Nora walked towards the empty seat beside Cassian, pulled out her own stack of papers, and began to work in silence, her pen moving across the pages with swift and precise strokes. Cassian glanced at her and nodded in approval, and a faint, proud smile appeared on his face, which made Neo feel strangely small.

Hours passed again, and the sunlight coming from the window slowly shifted across the floor. Neo continued his work with half-closed eyes, but every time his attention began to drift, his gaze would unconsciously move towards Nora, who was sitting a little far from him, working with a focused look.

She flipped through the pages with calm ease, and from time to time she would stop and take out another set of documents from a separate folder, which Neo guessed to be the records of her own family business. She would read them carefully, make a few notes, and then continue to help Cassian with the duke’s reports as if it were nothing. Everything she did was neat, organised, and efficient, to the point where even the most experienced clerk would have envied her.

’Nearly eight years ago she was just a girl who could barely trust anyone, and now she is managing the Valentina holdings and helping my parents at the same time... She really did grow up while I was gone.’

A strange feeling twisted in his chest, one which was part pride and part guilt. He wondered how many nights she had spent alone in this very office, working through the papers with nobody to talk to, while he was away thinking only about his own journey.

Just then, Nora lifted her eyes and caught him staring at her. Neo hurriedly lowered his gaze to his papers, pretending to concentrate, but he could still feel her eyes resting on him, steady and unreadable, for a few seconds longer than necessary.

Then he heard the faint sound of her pen tapping twice against the desk, and when he glanced up carefully, she was pointing at his stack of papers and then at her own eyes, with a stern expression that seemed to say, ’Focus on your work.’

Neo almost choked as he looked at her, and then he glanced at his parents, who were both pretending not to notice anything, though the corners of their lips were curving slightly upward.

"Ahem... Neo, if you are done with the northern routes, there are still the reports from the eastern border waiting for you," Cassian said, without lifting his eyes from his papers.

"Father, wasn’t I only supposed to help a little?"

"A little is relative," Sylvia said, smiling sweetly and placing another stack in front of him.

Neo collapsed over the desk with a defeated groan, as Nora lowered her gaze back to her papers, and for a brief moment, he thought he saw the corner of her lips lift slightly, so slightly that it might have been a trick of the light.

’This is a conspiracy. All of them are working together against me.’

With a heavy sigh, he straightened up, picked up his pen once again, and began to read the next page. Even so, as he listened to the soft sounds of his family working together in the quiet office, a small warmth settled in his heart, and he realised that, somehow, this peaceful boredom was something he had missed more than he would ever admit.