CH 26

“As your daughter, I wanted to help you retain your pride. If you hear so much chiding from your daughter, any self-respect that you had would probably fly out the window. Moreover, especially because you were the daughter of a duke even before marrying father.”

“Shushu…..”

“But your expenditures make me so scared.”

I sighed and opened my mouth to speak when my mother continued to be silent.

“Mother, do you love me?”

“Of course! Shushu! I love you so much!”

“Mother, even more than these jewel-covered dresses, more than fancy items, it’s more important for me that we can spend a happy time together as a family in a single place. Even if we’re buying less expensive items, I want to hold your arms and walk around stores together.”

When I murmured, ‘Is it the same for you, mother?’, she nodded furiously in shock.

“The West family is currently in decline. We have less income, and our savings are declining as well. You know what happens to children of families with no money. I would probably be sold off to a rich family. Not just me, but all of my brothers too.”

“Sold off, that wouldn’t happen! Mother would never send you to some strange person. That would never happen.”

Mother hugged me and raised her voice. “You can’t say that, even if it’s just words!” she said sternly, giving me a serious look.

I held my mother’s hand as she continued to pat my back. Then, I put her hand to my face and tried my best to look emotional.

“I’m scared, mom….”

“….Shushu!”

“I’m scaaaared…. I’m nervous….. Imagining our home being auctioned off, seeing red stickers. Then I imagined we were thrown to the streets. Getting married to someone I didn’t love and barely scraping by…. I hate it so much. I’m scared. I don’t like it. If we don’t have money, we have to starve…. I don’t want to starve…..”

I squeezed out every existing and nonexisting tear in my eyes and tried to bring out the motherly emotions in my mother. For my mother, even lectures wouldn’t work, and anger wouldn’t work. The only thing that would work was her pride as a mother. I didn’t want to do it, but she left me no choice.

The mother in my current life cared for me as much as my past life. I loved my mother just as much and tried my best to respect most of her choices, but this wasn’t one of them. Our family was about to go bankrupt.

Mother looked surprised and unsure of what to do as she wiped my tears. It seemed that she was in shock.

“Shuraina, to see your tears like this. I haven’t seen you cry since you were a child and your father snatched up your food for himself!”

My mother cared deeply for her clothes, but still used her sleeve to wipe my tears. I peeked at my mother’s reaction as I was held by her and stood up.

“So return it.”

I wiped away the tears I had squeezed out of my eyes and looked at her, expression relaxed.

“Let’s do that.”

She looked at how I went back to normal and smiled as if she had expected it somewhat and easily gave permission to continue.

We did it. With this, we had taken care of about half of the total expenditures. The receipts were all here, and there were items that hadn’t been touched yet so it would be okay.

But because my mother was easily pulled in, she would probably end up buying more things as she returned her items.

So I decided to pick the people in my friend group that would be best at returning items. The ones that looked the meanest and cruel……. I frowned as I tried to figure out who would be best suited.

“I feel like Cory would be good at returns.”

If it was someone who looked mean, it was Cory. Cory, who got slapped by strangers because of how mean and bully-like he looked. I felt like if Cory was next to me, people would line up to process my returns.

I thought about Hylli, the prince. If the prince asked to return an item, I felt like people would pay the prince for his efforts.

At the end, I decided to talk to Hazel, who looked like she would be used to this kind of thing. As I expected, Hazel used her amazing talking skills and processed the returns and even received discount coupons for next time.

We were able to take care of everything for now, but I was anxious because I didn’t know when my mother’s shopping would start up again. Mother said that she would change, but she always said that so I didn’t really believe it at this point.

But I was still weak to my mother. It might have been because my parents had passed away in my last life, but my parents in this life were so precious to me.

But this wasn’t it. Promises needed to be kept.

To put a more positive view on things, it was good that I was able to make sure that we wouldn’t have more losses. I sighed, thinking that I would need to plan out a similar shock tactic for my father soon.

The meeting between myself and the Lunaasha merchant guild was taking place today afternoon.

I put on my magic robe, which allowed me to take form of an adult, and headed to the city in the capital. The city was always packed with people. I tried my best not to bump into anybody and walked towards the meeting place.

The meeting location was the Lunaasha merchant guild headquarters. I could see a building with the doors stamped with a crescent moon, the guild’s symbol.

If my map wasn’t wrong, this was definitely the headquarters. I looked up to look at the top of the building. The building was so tall that I had to tilt my head up quite a bit.

Apparently, the Lunaasha headquarters held the title of the tallest building in the kingdom. Because of that, people come from far away to look at the building.

Currently, the guild had created a special tour course for it and was receiving tourism fees as well. I wanted to applaud them for their ability to earn money in any and every way possible.

I passed by the crowds of people and went towards an employee.

“I’m Shunivalen. Where is the meeting location?”

“Oh, you’ve arrived. We were waiting for you. Please follow me.”

As soon as I told them my alias, the employee respectfully greeted me and took me to the back of the building.

‘But man, this place reeks of money.’

I scratched my head as I headed to the back of the building. The gardens that I saw passing by were very well kept. There was a fountain next to it, and there were outdoor game facilities next to it too. From what I had heard passing by, the employees of the Lunaasha guild were given considerably good treatment when they joined the guild.

The company created entertainment areas for their employees, gave them all the snacks as they wanted, and allowed them to come and go as they pleased. However, they based everything based on performance: if they didn’t have good performance rates in an allotted time they would be let go instantly.

Thanks to that, the Lunaasha guild was filled with geniuses and continued to become more and more successful. They used to be fairly successful before, but thanks to the new proxy, the company was basically monopolizing the country’s money. I didn’t know who it was, but they were pretty amazing.

Well, based on the rumors, the person that I was meeting right now was that amazing proxy leader….. I was kind of excited.

When I was researching the guild recently, I could find information about everything but the current proxy leader. The existing information on them was all falsified, and I could see that they had edited their information recently, as if they had anticipated that I would look for information on them beforehand. They seemed like a very thorough person.

When I followed the employee, they led me to a small room in the back part of the building. In the small room was a pretty wide desk and two chairs facing each other. There was tea and a small snack for me on the desk.

“Then, please have some tea and snacks while you wait for them to arrive.”

Then, the man left me alone in the room. The food looked like it was prepared for me to eat, but I didn’t eat it. I put my hands on my knees and looked at the loud clock, listening to each second passing.

This small room was really warm. Sweat continued to build on my hairline. It was hotter because I had my hood on. I could take off my hood as it wouldn’t alter my appearance, but I felt more comfortable hiding my identity. Even though this was a disguise, it was just a more mature version of myself so it was still kind of dangerous.

I wanted to change my appearance completely, but I wouldn’t have enough magic to retain the disguise for a long time.

I kept debating if I should take off my hood or keep it on, then put my hand in my pocket instead and took out a magical device out of my pocket. It was a magical device that told me about the magical devices around me. I carried it around when I had requests at unfamiliar locations.

The device sensed all of the devices that used magic around it and explained what they were on a small screen. The information popped up and organized itself as the screen shook slightly.

“……just as I thought.”

Three observation devices, one to my north, one near the vase and one near the entrance. They were discreet devices that normal people would not be able to see.

What were they planning, to set up so many devices? It was assured that this wasn’t going to be a normal request.

The room became warmer, and I frowned uncomfortably. The proxy leader or whoever didn’t seem like they were thinking of coming in. I tapped the desk with my finger and thought for a second, then put my hood down.

I decided to do as the leader wanted me to do. If they were observing me like this, it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to exit as I pleased anyway.

My orange hair was exposed to the world. It felt like I could breathe a bit deeper.

Not long after my hood had dropped, the door suddenly opened.

“You arrived earlier. I’m sorry for being late, respected Shunivalen.”

I put my chin on my hands and glared at the person who came in.

This person probably wasn’t going to come in until I had pulled my sleeve down. Thinking that my face had been exposed to this person made me annoyed.

One part of me regretted it. My life was so peaceful these past days that I must have relaxed. If I knew that this kind of situation was going to pop up, I would have borrowed money and taken shapeshifting magic medications or changed my appearance completely even if it would’ve left my magic reserves empty. Not something that just changed my child form to the form of an adult like this.

This was the product of my choices, but I swallowed my annoyance and regret and looked at the person who was currently leading the Lunaasha merchant guild.