Please Don’t Come To The Villainess’ Stationery Store!

That night, after the children who had surged in like a storm had all left, the stationery shop was quiet.

I sat on the bench in the stationery shop, trying to calmly organize my thoughts.

How to deal with Hesman and Babeloa, and such things.

The sky was getting darker little by little.

Yet, even now, if I stretched my neck on this street, I could clearly see the novelty shop building of the Duchess of Babeloa being hastily constructed in the distance.

But just then, I saw a group walking briskly towards us from a distance, waving a red flag.

‘Who are those people?’

I squinted my eyes and looked at the face of the person in the front.

It was Lesa, the owner of the pub where we had made beer candies together. As they approached, I stood up from the bench and greeted them warmly.

“Welcome, what brings you here?”

“Mel, we heard that a new novelty shop is opening near the stationery shop building.”

Lesa immediately began to speak upon seeing me.

“Ah, so that story has already spread.”

It seemed that the rumor had spread to the nearby merchants because of that huge building.

“The flyers for their grand promotion have already been distributed.”

“That must be tough.”

The people behind Lesa chimed in one after another. They looked at me with eyes filled with warm sympathy.

“So… although it’s not much, we from the local merchants’ association have been looking for ways to help.”

“Help, you say?”

In response to my question, she handed me a thick envelope.

As I took the envelope, I carefully asked, “What is this?”

“It’s a petition. It’s not enough money to buy a building as big as that one…”

A petition?

I opened my eyes wide and looked at the countless petitions inside the paper envelope.

“We wanted to help in this way.”

“It goes against morality to ignore those who reached out to us when we were struggling.”

The person who reached out when they were struggling? Is that referring to me? I looked at them with a puzzled face.

“If you submit this petition to the government office, we can delay the opening day by about two weeks. I heard that such content is mentioned in the ‘Commercial Law.'”

“I majored in law at the commoner’s academy.”

In other words, they were repaying me a favor.

They had mustered the courage for the person they believed had taken down the ‘Red Priest Pirate Gang’ for them.

I nodded at each person, who all looked filled with worries.

There was someone who, despite their young age, already had wrinkles on their forehead, and someone else whose hair was peppered with grey. They all bore the marks of suffering from a life overwhelmed by work.

So, instead of clearing up the misunderstanding that ‘I didn’t take down the Red Priest Pirate Gang for you guys,’ maybe it’s right to just express my gratitude.

“So, it seems my good deed is finally coming to light.”

A bit cheeky?

If Dominic were here next to me, he’d probably say, ‘You just wanted to beat up that pirate Gang because you felt like it. You were just extorting them.’

But the man is currently busy cleaning on the second floor.

Nobody can stop my lie now, this is it.

“It’s touching to see the merchant association putting in such effort.”

It was a somewhat soulless courtesy, but I was sincere.

Initially, I defeated the Red Priest’s pirate gang by fluke.

But now, I am convinced that I must protect these humble peasant merchants from the black grasp of Hildegard.

I was the only one who could protect the precious alley market in front of the academy from infringement on the alley market’s rights.

“If things wrap up well, let’s hold a concert on the bench later.”

“A concert?”

“Yes. Of course, with old instruments! Like recorders or harmonicas.”

“Oh! I play the harmonica well.”

“This person is quite skilled with the recorder.”

“Ah, I can’t play an instrument! But I’ll use my belly as a drum and beat it!”

A belly drum…?

I ended up imagining the merchant association’s chubby gentleman beating his belly.

‘No.’

I didn’t want to witness such a scene. Eye health is precious. Turning away from the merchant who said that, I replied,

“Let’s look forward to the concert without the belly drum. Let’s do it together soon.”

I deeply bowed towards them.

Opening the envelope, the was filled with writing.

They probably don’t know yet that I am the daughter of the Babeloa duke’s family. It’s clear that the rumor would only circulate amongst the nobility.

So, this petition was a precious one, written solely for me by dividing their entire time, by the people running small shops in the alleys who were willing to endure the hatred of the group of nobles.

Of course, this petition will almost be of no use in front of the massive noble families.

After all, the Ministry of Justice is likely to side with the nobles.

But I was very grateful for their sentiment. I seriously resolved to ensure that this petition wouldn’t be in vain.

While living as Meldenik, the family that shared blood relations treated me like trash.

But these people, the children with whom I sincerely interacted, were different. I liked them.

‘…There haven’t been many who have treated me sincerely so far.’

Interactions between people have made me realize many things.

If those people ever face misfortune, I will help them as much as I can.

Just like when I defeated the Red Priest Pirate Gang. Just as they wrote each and every word of this petition for me.

***

The next morning dawned.

Outside, the splendid variety store building created by Hildegard and Lennox was gradually taking shape.

“When will that damned building finally be done?”

Usually, it takes more than 6 months for a building to be completed.

However, Hildegard and Lennox had a lot of money. The numerous workers they hired for a hefty sum, along with wizards, were also busily moving around.

The strong will to complete the building as quickly as possible by investing all sorts of magic and money was palpable.

“I wish that annoying building would just collapse.”

I peeked out from the second-floor window of my stationery shop, looking at the trading building.

“It’s really grand. Once it’s finished, it’ll be about five times the size of my stationery shop.”

Once that building was completed, no one would probably even know my stationery shop existed.

“I feel a sense of crisis?”

There were a few customers who frequently visited my stationery shop.

Among them were the big spenders, Axion and Mirisa, and Carat, who seemed indifferent but continued to show concern.

But it was clearly insufficient to widely promote the name of my stationery shop.

“I’m totally defeated in terms of buzz.”

After taking a shower, I lightly went down the stairs from the second floor and said to Dominic,

“Dominic!”

“Huh?”

Dominic was today, as always, glaring at his sword. Probably thinking about the demons he had sealed inside it.

I opened my mouth towards Dominic.

“You know, we’ll definitely run into a deficit if we keep going on like this.”

“We haven’t exactly been ordinary until now, either-”

I cut Dominic off and said firmly, “We need to show something more glamorous and cool.”

All sorts of ideas were jumbled up in my head.

But I only tasted failure in realizing them.

“It’s like trying to smash a rock with an egg, but the problem is which egg to use.”

Dominic finally nodded at my serious declaration.

“What should we do, then? Just sweep it all away?”

“No. Let’s make good use of this crisis.”

Another word for crisis is opportunity.

An opportunity to completely redraw this unreasonable playing field.

Many people miss great opportunities because they can’t deal with crises properly.

But there are also many people who make use of crises to stage comebacks.

‘I wonder if there’s a way to turn this situation around.’

While I was pondering, there was a noise from outside the door. I looked towards the door.

The sound of jingling and kids came in one by one, sweet as candy.

“Mirisa, Axion, Carat!”

I looked at the children, got up briskly, and spread my arms wide.

Dealing with a crisis is important, but so is taking the time to heal with these cute kids after so long!

“Sister!”

“There’s a weird building up ahead, Mel!”

“Checking the commercial law, it turns out that building such a large structure in front of the academy is illegal. You know that, right, Mel?”

Mirisa, Carat, and Axion gathered around me, each of them making a remark.

While all the attention of the academy kids was turned towards the cooperation between Hesman and Babeloa, these kids were willing to stand by my side as allies.

But contrary to the naive faith of the children, the law was usually on the side of those who had resources.

Still, I just nodded as if I understood, without actually spelling out that fact.

“Thanks for worrying, guys.”

“I was so worried I came here as soon as I woke up this morning!”

“We’ve been thinking seriously.”

I stroked Carat’s silver hair and asked.

“About what?”

“The ‘Petit Débutante’ is happening soon at the academy, right?”

“Yeah.”

I had never been to the academy and was not familiar with its culture, but I knew what a Petit Débutante was.

It was the biggest annual event for academy children aged seven to thirteen.

As the name suggests, the Petit Débutante had a strong character of being a preliminary debutante.

However, it was much freer in spirit compared to the debutante, which was the social circle’s biggest annual party.

‘It was essentially more like a book party concept rather than a debutante.’

Like the concept of a cookie party held at the end of the semester, the Petit Débutante was similar.

On this day, all the children would bring ‘the most precious and valuable thing they owned’ from their homes to share.

There were children who brought food made by the chef of their family, kids who brought items they made themselves, and also those who brought expensive things to share.

Originally, the “Petit Debutante” was a sort of ceremony aimed at promoting harmony by sharing items each person had and bringing food from home.

“Sister, sister! It seems like the villainous Hesman family is planning to sponsor something for the Petit Debutante.”

This was uttered by Mirisa, the eldest daughter of that nefarious Hesman family, who also served as my faithful spy, as she chattered incessantly.

“Wow, that’s impressive.”

Most of the academy kids were nobility. Therefore, satisfying their eyes would almost certainly cost hundreds of millions of Beckrells.

Unlike the Hesman or the Babeloa families, I didn’t possess that kind of wealth.

“Me, Mel! So, you see, the three of us have been thinking.”

Mirisa extended her pale, fern-like hand towards me and whispered.

“We’ve chosen Mel!”

“…What?”

I couldn’t immediately understand what she meant and asked again.

The children faced me with bright smiles and responded.

“Mel might not be a magician, but you’re like one!”

“The most precious being we can bring is Mel!”

“Make us some wonderful things.”

“Then we’ll work hard to promote Mel’s stationery shop!”