Chapter 13
"It's a beautiful mansion. Why would anyone leave it abandoned like this?"
Even Jessica, seeing it for the first time, thought the building looked far too good to waste.
Because my guardian sent the only surviving son to the Imperial Capital after the accident.
Jake answered silently as he climbed down from the wagon.
After sending Jake to the capital, Baron Valentino had dismissed every remaining servant.
He collected the tenant fees separately through an agent.
As a result...
No one remained in the house.
It had been abandoned ever since.
Seeing Jake's distant expression...
Jessica's imagination immediately created another dramatic story.
The last survivor of a noble family destroyed after being falsely accused.
A boy who discovered the location of a hidden dungeon inside the family library.
He secretly fled toward the Great Forest while avoiding other nobles.
And along the way...
He stopped at his ruined childhood home...
Jessica's dramatic deduction continued for a while.
Then she saw Jake holding an axe.
Her imaginary story abruptly ended.
Jake had picked up an old axe lying in front of the house and entered the mansion.
"Let's sleep inside tonight."
He glanced back.
"I'll prepare some firewood, so please take care of the wagon."
Come to think of it...
The sun was already going down.
There was a small village beneath the distant hill.
But there probably was no proper inn there.
Sleeping inside the mansion was not a bad choice.
"Tch. So you just picked it as a camping spot?"
Jessica shook her head.
"The last son of a destroyed noble family... What a childish thing to imagine."
Then she paused.
"But are there trees inside the house?"
At this point...
Jessica had mostly given up trying to guess Jake's background.
So the ridiculous story she had just imagined quickly vanished from her mind.
A short while later...
Jessica put the wagon inside the half-collapsed stable.
When she entered the mansion...
She heard the sound of wood being chopped somewhere deeper inside.
Following the noise...
She found Jake in what looked like a study.
He was smashing apart an elegant old desk.
"Whaaat?!"
Jessica stared.
"That's good furniture! Why are you breaking it?"
Even at a glance...
The desk looked ancient and refined.
To Jessica, it seemed like something that could sell for a considerable amount of money.
Jake shook his head.
"It can't be sold anyway."
He pointed toward the wood.
"The family crest is engraved into it. Other nobles wouldn't buy it."
"And if the crest was carved out, it would lose most of its value."
Jake lifted the axe again.
"Since it was abandoned together with this building, the only useful thing left is burning it."
Jessica unconsciously nodded at the unnecessarily detailed explanation.
Even after leaving the room...
She continued tilting her head.
"He really knows everything."
Then another thought appeared.
"But is it actually okay to smash noble furniture like that?"
Still...
If she asked, Jake would probably only say it was fine.
Jessica gave up and headed toward the main hall.
Since they were going to sleep in an abandoned house...
She needed to check the fireplace.
Back in the study...
Jake stopped chopping for a moment.
He stared bitterly at his father's desk.
This was already the second time he had destroyed it.
The first time had been far in the future.
He had briefly returned to this house with a group of fugitives.
At that time...
He had also destroyed the desk to make firewood.
They had needed plenty of fuel.
So they had smashed apart not only the desk but most of the furniture in the house.
Now...
He was destroying his father's desk for the second time.
But this time...
It was not actually because he needed firewood.
Jake lifted the axe again.
He began smashing the desk.
The desk had been made from solid hardwood.
Only after many heavy blows did it finally split in half.
Crack!
The desk fell apart toward both sides.
And then...
Clatter, clatter, clatter!
Silver coins poured from inside.
After Jake's parents died in the carriage accident...
Baron Valentino had rushed to the estate.
Jake himself was still unconscious.
The baron quickly became his guardian.
Claiming that Jake needed treatment...
He sent him to the Imperial Capital by carriage.
Then...
He dismissed every remaining servant.
After that, Baron Valentino thoroughly searched the mansion.
He was looking for hidden money.
The house and land deeds.
And the noble family seal.
If he wanted to steal away the remaining property before Jake became an adult...
He absolutely needed both the deeds to the leased farmland and the noble seal.
But the baron's search had failed.
He had searched so violently that the mansion looked haunted.
Yet he had found none of the things he wanted.
Because of that...
He had no choice but to remain Jake's guardian until Jake reached adulthood.
As guardian, he could at least continue stealing part of the tenant income.
Even the adult Jake in the future had never found his parents' inheritance.
Because of that...
He had never been able to exercise full ownership over the property.
Still, the tenant fees provided enough money for Jake to live relatively comfortably as a scribe in the capital.
Then...
Years later...
After the capital fell into enemy hands...
Jake returned to this house with members of the imperial family who had become fugitives.
He had deliberately avoided his hometown for years because the memories of his parents and his previous life were painful.
By then...
Even his hometown village had already burned during the war.
Memories mattered less than surviving the cold night.
So...
His father's desk became firewood.
But the desk in the study had contained a hidden drawer Jake did not know about.
Unless someone discovered the hidden locking mechanism...
It could never be opened.
Jake's father had placed the family seal, important documents, and emergency funds inside it.
Only Jake's parents knew the drawer existed.
They had never told their young son.
And because both died at the same time...
The drawer remained unopened for many years.
In the future...
Jake only discovered his parents' inheritance because he had smashed the desk apart.
Unfortunately...
Both then and now...
Jake had no idea how to locate the hidden unlocking mechanism.
So there was only one method.
Brute force with an axe.
Just as he had done in the future...
He destroyed his father's desk again.
Money and documents were scattered across the floor.
Jake swept the shillings into a pouch he had prepared.
He also placed the land deeds and the ring engraved with the family seal inside his clothes.
Unlike the money...
The deeds and seal were useless for the moment.
Jake was officially dead.
He could not simply reveal himself, sell the land, or demand tenant payments.
Still...
He had no intention of hiding his name forever.
To openly use it again...
