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Chapter 277: What Money Can’t Buy (1)

Director of the Imperial Money Manufacturing Bureau and a member of the Bourgeois Landowners Guild. Wealth, honor, power, a huge luxurious mansion, fancy carriages, and a beautiful consort,

Wealth, honor, and power, he seems to have it all, so why has he lost all will to live?

"...It\'s a common thing."

Demian spoke in a low voice.

As Vikir had suspected, it was his daughter.

"You can have all the money in the world, but you can\'t control your children, and I realized that too late."

Demian said in a low voice.

As Vikir had known in his pre-regression life, Demian had an only child, a beautiful and only daughter.

\'Bourgeois J Juliet\'.

Long, bushy white hair, clear eyes. A girl with a bright smile on her face and the cuteness of a clueless puppy.

"Like all Bourgeois, my daughter was put to the test as soon as she was born."

Demian explained the Bourgeois family tradition.

Collaterals and illegitimate children normally grow and grow within the family, but \'real children\' are different.

Just as the young Baskervilles were abandoned to the wilds of the Red and Black Mountains, the bourgeois scions who would eventually lead the family were sealed off and thrown into society as commoners.

Survival in society is just as difficult as survival in the wilderness.

The young Bourgeois who will one day take over the reins of the family must rely solely on his own strength to succeed in the imperial capital, the center of the empire, without any help from parents or family.

This is a grueling process that takes them from the bottom of the social ladder to the top, so that they don\'t become full of privilege and a sense of entitlement.

Demian\'s daughter, Juliet, also went out into the world as a commoner to gain practical experience for her age group.

During the difficult verification period, which took over a decade, she never once used her father\'s or the family\'s backing.

This was due to the Bourgeois heir\'s belief in Esse, Non Videri: To exist, but not to reveal.

"Bourgeois families always have two or more leaders for checks and balances and competition. In my generation, it was my brother and me."

Bartolomeo and Demian competing for the title of patriarch.

The result was a victory for the eldest son, Bartolomeo.

... But Demian didn\'t give up.

Bartholomeo\'s only daughter and Demian\'s only daughter.

Coincidentally, both brothers had only one daughter.

Demian was convinced that his daughter was even more talented and skilled than his brother\'s daughter.

He thought that one day, when his daughter returned, he would regain all that he had lost and rise to the pinnacle of his family.

"But his hopes were shattered when his daughter gave up her exams halfway through and returned to the family."

Juliet. While living as a commoner, she revealed her surname and family name, which disqualified her as heir.

After revealing her identity, Juliet even returned to the family home to ask her father for help.

\'Father, I have someone I love.\'

Demian narrowed his eyes.

"...She went out on a volunteer mission and met a sick man from an lowly backgrounds and fell in love with him. I sent her to experience the low life, and I never thought she\'d settle for the low life."

The man\'s name was Romeo.

He\'s no more than a servant, doing menial tasks, not a leader of a family.

He was an ordinary man from an ordinary background, with ordinary looks, ordinary talents, and an ordinary future.

The only thing that set him apart from the rest of the world was his weak body, his terminally ill life, and perhaps a somewhat sage-like attitude due to that?

No money, no fame, no power, no achievement, no success, no recognition, no showmanship, no interest in any of the values that the world puts its neck on... just being kind, gentle, and serving his neighbors.

To this man, who also claimed to be a bard, and whose stigma was to live in the company of nature and art, Juliet fell in love.

Demian ran a hand through his hair.

"I was angry. Because to me, he was just a lazy, backbone-less idiot. An incompetent who disguises his inability to move upward with pettiness. A scumbag who was trying to fix himself up by getting lucky with a rich young lady. That\'s what I thought."

Demian was furious that his only daughter, whom he had raised so carefully and had such high hopes for, had made such an immature mistake.

But Juliet was undaunted.

\'He\'s a good man, Dad, he has something we don\'t have, and maybe he can bring some happiness back to my father, who\'s been so disappointed ever since he didn\'t make it to the head of the family! If he\'s the one, I\'m sure...!\'

Of course, Demian didn\'t listen to his daughter.

The daughter who dropped out of a crucial exam, revealed her identity, and asked for a hefty hospital bill to save a man whose life was on the line.

Juliet\'s desperate plea to save Romeo\'s life is not accepted by Deiman.

Instead, he sends a hitman to drag Romeo to the side of the road in the rain, beat him badly, and send word that he and Juliet must part ways.

And that night.

Through a storm of lightning and pouring rain, Juliet found Demian.

"...You\'re my dad, right?

Demian didn\'t answer.

Then Juliet spoke up, her voice low and quiet.

\'In the end, he never mentioned father\'s name, and when I pressed him, he laughed that all fathers must think of their sons-in-law as thieves, and that he would have done the same.\'

Juliet bowed her head deeply.

Then she turned and walked away.

For a moment, Demian hesitated in his anger and bitterness, but then he felt that if they parted, he would never see her again, so he finally followed her out the door.

Juliet got into the carriage and drove off in front of him.

Demian hastily organized a chase party and set out to find her.

After some time, he spots Juliet\'s carriage.

Juliet is carrying Romeo, who is barely able to move.

They seem to be traveling to a very faraway place. Far, far away from the eyes of the world, forever.

Demian, of course, couldn\'t let it go, so he unleashed his well-trained horses to follow them.

And then. There was an accident.

...Duarrr!

Rain. Slippery roads. A horse startled by thunder.

The usual clichés, the predictable ending to a tragedy.

The carriage Juliet was driving rolled over, and they died on the spot.

"What a pity."

Vikir said dryly.

He\'d heard it through the rumor, but hearing it from the source had a different weight to it.

Then.

Demian spoke up again.

"It\'s a little different from the rumor you heard."

"...?"

"My daughter is not dead."

"...!"

This was the first time Vikir had heard it.

Demian continued.

"When I first ran to the scene of the accident, my daughter was in his arms."

"...."

"The guy was completely injured, but my daughter didn\'t have any injuries. I don\'t know how that was possible."

The rest of Demian\'s story is a bit longer.

When Juliet woke up, she immediately asked about Romeo\'s condition.

Demian deliberately gave her the cold hard truth.

It may broke her heart, but Damien wanted his daughter to take this opportunity to give up on him and move on.

And he wanted her to find a worthy husband, someone from the imperial family or one of the other seven families, someone with a good heart.

And that\'s when the real tragedy began.

Juliet fainted immediately after hearing the story.

She fell into bed for a long time, woke up, and fell again.

And then she woke up and fainted, and then she woke up and fainted.

After dozens of such passages, she was finally unable to wake up.

Demian ran his hand through his hair.

"My daughter is not dead. She\'s just closed her eyes and will never wake up."

Clearly breathing, but unconscious. An unknown state that responds to no medicine, no poison, no divine power.

There was nothing Demian wouldn\'t do to bring his daughter back to life.

He\'d spent vast sums of money and called in countless elixirs, divine knowledge, and experts.

He even bowed to the other seven great families and asked for their cooperation.

But the result was failure. Failure. Failure.

Priests, shamans, pharmacists, and doctors shook their heads.

There is no cure for a wound so deep that the soul refuses to communicate.

Demian was still staring up at the night sky, his eyes blurry.

"The human heart, especially love, is such a great and wonderful thing. To think that I would try to tear it apart forcibly, for the sake of money, honor, and status. Oh, I can\'t believe it now. Why did I do that...."

Even the dazzling starlight doesn\'t shine in his eyes.

His voice was hollow and empty as he recited his longing for something that was now out of reach.

In this way, he had lost the will to live.

He couldn\'t even sympathize with the words of the drunkards who were laughing and talking in the party hall.

Because in the face of human love, money is really nothing, like dust.

"...I really don\'t know why I did it."

Demian burst into tears.

If he could only see his daughter\'s smiling face once more, what would money and status and all that stuff mean?

He could take it all and throw it away.

If he had the luxury of seeing her smile, he wanted to just see her awake and apologize to her from the bottom of his heart just once.

But all of that was impossible.

He had tried so many times already, and all of them had failed.

... But.

Vikir knew there was only one way.

There was only one way, and it was a very powerful one, one that could cross the boundaries between this world and the afterlife.

The Wraith Tree.

It is a being that has direct contact with the souls of the dead, the living, and those unable to die.

Vikir spoke in a dry voice.

"What if I gave you a chance to talk to your daughter?"

"...!"

Demian\'s eyes widened to tears at Vikir\'s words.

The starlight touches the flowing tears of blood and sparkles.

Vikir asked again, more firmly.

"So, what can you give me?"