The house? Doubtlessly. Myself, left alone with a whole city without it's patriarch and no idea of when he'd return? No. You would have returned to an empty house with either my corpse in it, or found me in a shallow grave. Then what would you have done, all traces of her well and truly gone? The thing that you were going to do in the first place and would have hurt mother most of all.

[His voice should not be calm when saying that in theory, I'd just be dead and yet, here they are.]

I stepped into the role you have stewarded for centuries because it was myself or someone else who you'd destroy upon return. No one wanted the role for that reason. So I took that power, and I needed a cabinet, since this was a position I was never supposed to have nor taught how to manage. These two were were advisers and desperately needed at that. There were incidents that happened that never would have occurred because your lack of presence was known and people were daring. Save...that woman...all of them were dealt with. Did you know that one of your own used necromancy to resurrect the bishop who started this whole mess, and that was on that woman's orders? That's the kind of incident I am referring to here.

[Alucard breathes out, finally.]

So if you accuse them of the crime of usury, then I also must be accused, because I not only allowed for it to happen, but I am the architect.