Scrape, scrape—
"Hey, you guys."
Screech— Crash—!
"Please, just spare me this once."
Well-dressed. No, "well-dressed" would have been fitting earlier. The clothes themselves were luxury items from London, but now they were torn and dirtied, reduced to rags.
Anyway, the gentleman bowed his head deeply and pleaded.
The labourers, or rather the disguised servants, hesitated momentarily at his words, but that was all.
They resumed their actions.
Scrape, scrape—
Seeing them continue, the gentleman raised his head and shouted.
"Please, I beg you! John, Harold! Haven't I bought you drinks many times? At this rate, I'll die!"
"Vincent, why act like this when you know it all?"
"This is what he wants, lawyer."
At the cold words of John and Harold, the lawyer, Vincent, gritted his teeth and asked.
"Is it the first son?"
"…"
It was.
Vincent still remembered vividly. The first son, Gregory Villiers, had patted his shoulder and said,
—I may not trust my wife, but Vincent, I trust you. You're the only one I can entrust this money to.
—Please. You know? If you take it and hide in some corner of an Asian colony, you could live like a nobleman for the rest of your life. The fact that I entrust this to you without hesitation means I trust you that much.
—Don't worry, Scotland Yard will never find out. We'll end it with the missing funds. Not even the queen… I mean, the old hag's watchdogs could find you.
Of course, they wouldn't find him.
Once John and Harold were done with their work, if he got on that holed boat… he would sink forever to the bottom of the dark blue Caribbean Sea and become fish food.
That must not happen. Vincent gritted his teeth.
"Sixty thousand pounds (about 14 billion won)! Sixty thousand pounds. I don't need my share, you guys can have it all!"
"…"
"It's enough money for your grandchildren to live in luxury, to wallpaper every toilet in gold and still have more left over! Are you sure you don't need it?"
"Mr. Vincent."
John, who had been silently listening, sighed and spoke.
"Then why didn't you run?"
"…"
Vincent couldn't speak.
It wasn't wrong. He could have run away long ago if he really wanted to.
But he didn't. Why not?
"Do I need to say more?"
The answer was obvious. He feared the Villiers family.
They were not afraid of even the queen of the empire where the sun never sets. A great noble family of England with 200 years of power.
Such people wouldn't fail to find a mere lawyer from the East End, even if he tried to hide. Even the servants who hadn't studied as much as him, who did rougher work, could easily understand that.
"It's time."
"Put him in."
"W-wait! Please, please spare me!"
"Enough, lawyer."
John spoke coldly.
"You've paid more than enough for the drinks."
"You bastard!!"
"You don't have parents, wife, or kids, do you? Just go in peace."
How could that make sense?! Vincent wanted to say, but Harold was faster.
With a gag in his mouth and several broken ribs, he couldn't speak anymore.
John was right.
Perhaps, dying quietly like this, in a less painful way, might have been the least mercy they could offer.
So, at least find peace in your heart...
'Don't make me laugh.'
Vincent thought.
'Do you think I'll die like this? Don't make me laugh! If that were the case, I wouldn't have crawled up from the bottom of the East End!!'
'Villiers, damned Villiers! I will never go alone. No matter what! Even if I have to sell my soul to the devil!'
'I will avenge myself on you!'
His thoughts ended there.
The water rose.
His breath became labored.
And then.
And then.
"Gasp!!"
"Oh my god, Vinny!! Are you okay?!"
"Get a doctor, get a doctor! Damn it, these incompetent fools!!"
Vincent blinked in a daze.
The scent of the beautiful woman embracing him stung his nose. The shrill, cracked voice of the middle-aged man grated on his ears.
"Do you know who this child is?! He is the precious youngest of the Villiers family! If he has any lasting effects, I'll kill you all!!"
"Y-yes, of course, my lord!!"
And then.
Vincent saw the face of the person laughing at him among the beautiful woman and the middle-aged man, his parents.
There was no mistake. Vincent, who had served him for half his life, recognized him even if he looked a bit younger.
Gregory Villiers.
The eldest son of the Duke of Buckingham.
And his nemesis.
'Pathetic. Ridiculous. That someone like you is my youngest brother.'
Vincent wanted to laugh back at him as he saw Gregory saying this without a sound.
Ah, it was truly laughable.
To be reborn into the enemy's family.
Vincent did not know if it was God or the devil who caused this mysterious twist of fate.
But he was sure of one thing.
'The things you hold dear.'
Wealth. Glory. Power.
He would take them all. Vincent Villiers quietly vowed so.
***
Peter Perry was a children's book enjoying popular success in London.
However, that did not mean everyone liked Peter Perry.
There were many who disliked children's literature for being juvenile, and many fundamentally found Peter Perry itself unpleasant.
This was unavoidable.
There was no perfect work in the world, and there could be no "masterpiece ideal" that everyone loved, at least not in this world.
The reasons for disliking Peter Perry were varied.
Some criticized that Peter Perry was far from the rhythmic beauty or highly refined prose favoured in traditional English literature.
These were mostly aristocrats.
Others criticized Peter Perry as a story without significant themes, diverting people's attention from truly important social issues.
These were mostly socialists.
And there was George Bernard Shaw, who managed to satisfy both camps, who once mocked it like this.
"When a child suffering from abuse babbles about a dream they had, what they need is a doctor and comfort."
Of course, those who knew him didn't think this was true contempt.
George Bernard Shaw, who had even parodied Shakespeare in a mocking tone, was someone who might consider this high praise given his usual remarks.
In fact, he was an avid reader of Peter Perry, as well as Hanslow Jin's works, which had been serialized since a few months ago.
But that was just Bernard Shaw's way of showing respect to a fellow writer through harsh words; he certainly did dislike Peter Perry.
Therefore, his close friend and hometown junior, William Butler Yeats, felt very regretful about Shaw's views and immediately rushed to his house as soon as he saw the newly published issue in the morning.
Since they had been friends for a long time, the housekeeper didn't stop him, and Shaw was a bachelor.
In other words, he was alone.
"Bernard, Mr. Bernard!! Are you in?"
"Hmm... What is it, William? What time is it...?"
Bernard Shaw, realizing the sun had not yet risen, briefly considered hitting Yeats. But he didn't. He was too tired to bother.
Regardless, William Yeats tried to wake his 9-year-older fellow writer from their hometown.
"Time doesn't matter, just look at this!"
"I'm really sorry... but I'm really tired. I was up late debating with the Labour Party officials last night..."
"Discussion, my foot. You must have been drinking."
As an Irishman, there was no one who disliked alcohol, writers often wrote under the influence of alcohol, and politicians made a living by drinking.
Since Bernard Shaw belonged to all three categories, he couldn't dislike alcohol.
However, this meant he suffered from a hangover every day, and knowing this, he genuinely wanted to kill Yeats for trying to shake him awake.
'It better be something important.'
He really wanted to make Yeats cry.
Shaw thought this as he held his throbbing head and got up.
And when he realized that Yeats was making such a fuss over Hanslow Jin, he thought he should have just punched him and gone back to sleep.
"William, you bastard. I understand that you're passionate about fairy tales and your intention to revive Irish culture with them, but no matter how much I think about it, Peter Perry is not the Irish style…"
"Bernard, sir! That's not it. This isn't Peter Perry!"
"Huh?"
Bernard Shaw frowned.
And when he still couldn't see, he rubbed his eyes to remove the sleep and found his glasses on the desk.
Indeed, it wasn't Peter Perry, but Vincent Villiers.
Title: Vincent Villiers.
Author: Hanslow Jin.
'No way, he's already serializing one story.'
And it's a burdensome weekly serialization at that.
Yet he's writing a new one... could his wrists endure it?
Or did this author have four arms like some Indian deity?
Feeling incredulous, Bernard Shaw slowly turned the pages. And he was shocked in a good way.
Completely different from Peter Perry, the unique atmosphere of a dark and intense revenge story overwhelmed him.
Moreover…
"... Water."
"What?"
"Go ask the housekeeper for a glass of water. Quickly!"
"Yes, sir!"
George Bernard Shaw drank the water Yeats brought in one gulp and started reading, or rather devouring, the sentences without taking a breath.
It was strange. Was this really a novel written by the author of Peter Perry? Bernard Shaw couldn't be sure even as he asked himself.
Of course, the excessively short sentences and disregard for rhythm, as seen in Peter Perry, were still present.
But.
'The vocabulary, the vocabulary is precise.'
No one but George Bernard Shaw could have been so certain.
In British English, the language used by the lower class and the upper class differed.
This so-called "Pardon English" had significant vocabulary differences depending on social class. Using "toilet" instead of "lavatory" was a prime example.
Hanslow Jin had previously mixed these vocabularies indiscriminately in Peter Perry.
No wonder there were suspicions that he might be an American.
But in this novel, Vincent Villiers, the protagonist continued using Pardon English even after his success, as he couldn't hide his East End origins.
Moreover, after being reborn, he freely used the languages of both classes, including scenes where he recruited servants using this skill.
To think he could express language like this?
It was an astonishing piece of writing.
Free-thinking, captivating development, and a woven atmosphere quickly captivated Bernard Shaw.
So, he couldn't be sure.
Was this perhaps the reincarnation of Charles Dickens, the eternal idol of workers, or his successor, Wilkie Collins?
It was so shocking that he entertained such heretical thoughts, even as a proud socialist and atheist.
"What do you think, Bernard?"
"… It's amazing."
How could such writing have been hidden?
George Bernard Shaw sighed in admiration. Even though the monthly serialization was considerable, he wanted to read the next chapter immediately.
Of course, first, he needed to re-educate Yeats, who stood there proudly as if he had received the praise himself.