I Died and Became a Noble's Heir

Chapter 612 612: Earl Starfell

The drawing room of Starfell Manor stank of desperation masked by expensive candles.

The wax had burned down to stubs, the flames guttering in their holders as they consumed the final inches of material that cost more gold per pound than most commoners earned in a month.

The Earl couldn't afford replacements, but he also couldn't admit that fact by extinguishing them early and sitting in darkness like some peasant who couldn't maintain proper illumination.

The candles burned, their light casting shadows across furniture that had once represented generations of accumulated wealth and now served as reminders of how quickly fortune could abandon those who made catastrophically poor decisions.

Earl Starfell stood before the fireplace, his back to the room as he stared into flames that provided more honest heat than the expensive candles ever would.

His hands were clasped behind his back, fingers trembling with rage that had been building for weeks as the full scope of his family's financial destruction became impossible to ignore.

His voice, when he finally spoke, carried venom that had been fermenting in his chest like poison.

"Worthless."

The single word dropped into the room's silence like a stone into still water, creating ripples of tension that spread across every surface.

Victoria Starfell stood near the window, her posture rigid as she maintained the trained composure that noble daughters learned before they could walk properly.

Her hands were folded in front of her, her expression carefully neutral despite the fury bleeding through her father's tone with increasing intensity.

"Everything we built," the Earl continued, his voice rising as control slipped further away with each syllable.

"Three generations of careful cultivation, strategic partnerships, exclusive contracts with the royal alchemists' guild. Destroyed. Rendered completely worthless because you couldn't find some gods-damned serpents!"

He spun from the fireplace, his face flushed red with accumulated rage and humiliation that had nowhere else to go except toward his daughter. "Do you understand what you've cost this family? Do you comprehend the magnitude of your failure?"

Victoria's jaw tightened, but she maintained her silence. Years of training in noble etiquette had taught her that interrupting her father during one of his rants would only make things worse.

"We were selling standard mana potions for ten gold pieces!" the Earl shouted, his hands gesturing wildly as spittle flew from his lips. "Ten gold! A price the market accepted because our alchemists had perfected the formula over decades! And now? Now Jack Kaiser is selling potions ten times more effective for one gold piece! ONE GOLD!"

His fist slammed against the mantle hard enough to rattle the candleholders, sending wax dripping onto the stone that would stain.

"Our buyers won't even respond to offers anymore! They're too busy lining up outside Kaiser Holdings to purchase potions that make our products look like colored water! Two months, Victoria! Two months since that bastard flooded the market, and we've sold exactly forty-seven potions! Forty-seven! We used to move four thousand units per month!"

The Countess, Victoria's mother, sat in a high-backed chair near the room's edge. Her hands were folded in her lap, her expression carefully neutral as she watched her husband's breakdown with the detached observation of someone who'd witnessed this scene play out in various forms throughout their marriage.

She knew better than to speak during his tirades. Silence was safer.

"And the contracts!" the Earl continued, his voice climbing toward hysterical pitch as he cataloged each new humiliation. "The five hundred percent markup on materials and contractors! Every single component we purchase from Kaiser Holdings comes with charges that would make highway bandits blush! We're paying more for raw ingredients than we're earning from finished products!"

His attention was fixed on Victoria with intensity that made the accusation personal rather than economic.

"This is your fault. If you'd found those serpents like you promised, if you'd delivered what Jack Kaiser requested, we wouldn't be drowning in debt that compounds faster than we can calculate! But no, you failed. You came back empty-handed and told me the serpents were 'impossible to locate' as if that excuse would somehow protect us from the consequences!"

Victoria's carefully maintained composure cracked, her voice emerging with an edge that cut through her father's rant like a blade through silk.

"I told you this was an impossible task, but you insisted I try anyway because you were too proud to admit you'd made an enemy of someone who could destroy us!"

The Earl's face went darker red, veins standing out on his forehead as his daughter's defiance registered like a slap.

"Don't you dare speak to me about pride! This family's ruin came from your incompetence, not my strategic decisions!"

"Your strategic decisions?" Victoria's laugh was harsh and bitter, carrying none of the trained pleasantness expected from noble daughters. "You mean like pulling our troops during the Marcus Thorne war? Like abandoning Jack Kaiser when he needed support because your guards decided they valued their own lives more than their contracts?"

The Earl's mouth opened, then closed, his prepared rebuttal dying in his throat as Victoria pressed her advantage with words that had been waiting months to emerge.

"They were your men, Father! Your guards, wearing your colors, serving under your banner! And when the fighting got difficult, when Marcus Thorne's forces presented real danger, your soldiers ran! They abandoned their posts, violated their oaths, and left Jack Kaiser to fight with reduced numbers!"

She took one step forward, her hands unclenching as years of suppressed frustration found voice.

"You want to talk about consequences? Let's discuss how Jack Kaiser won that war anyway! He killed everyone single-handedly! How he crushed Marcus Thorne despite your guards' desertion! How he came back and remembered exactly who'd failed him when victory should have been shared!"

The Earl's fist clenched at his side, his breathing heavy as he struggled to regain control of a conversation that had slipped away from him. "Those guards made their own decisions! I didn't order them to flee!"

"But they were yours to command!" Victoria shot back, her voice rising to match his volume. "Their cowardice reflects on you! Their desertion became your failure the moment they wore Starfell colors into battle and then ran when war finally arrived!"

The Countess shifted slightly in her chair, her eyes tracking between husband and daughter as the argument escalated beyond the usual pattern of rant and submission into confrontation.

"And the taxes!" Victoria continued, pressing her advantage while her father was still reeling. "The ten thousand percent tax on our exports that Jack Kaiser imposed through the contract! You agreed to those terms! I showed you the contract, and you still signed it! You put your seal on documents that gave him complete authority to set whatever rates he wanted!"

"I had no choice!" the Earl roared, his composure shattering completely. "His inventions were too good to pass up. At least this way we maintain some operations, some presence in the market!"

"Some presence?" Victoria's laugh was sharp enough to draw blood. "We're bleeding gold faster than we can earn it! Every transaction with Kaiser Holdings costs us more than we make back! We're not maintaining presence, Father... We're slowly drowning while pretending the water isn't rising!"

The Earl's hand shot up, finger pointing at Victoria with trembling rage. "You will not speak to me this way! I am the head of this house, and you will show proper respect!"

"Respect is earned through competence!" Victoria countered, her trained noble composure completely abandoned now. "And you've demonstrated nothing except catastrophic failure since the moment you decided Jack Kaiser could be safely betrayed!"