This felt somewhat similar to what happened before on the ship. I started pretending to cry, sensing some déjà vu.
“I… I scratched because it was itchy, but this women told me not to…”
“Oh, no! The customer was acting strangely all of a sudden, so I tried to stop her, worried she might get hurt…”
“But why didn’t you think to call us? Her guardians are right outside.”
Sure, I had screamed the moment my arm was grabbed, but I had no intention of correcting Nereus’s misunderstanding.
Instead, I took the lead before this employee could say anything.
“Dad, look at my arm. See this? It really hurts. It stings… Let’s go to Ethan. Can we?”
My skin was red and swollen in various places.
Nereus’s face, which had stiffened upon seeing the state of my arm, gradually twisted into an ugly expression.
“What is this?”
Nobody answered Nereus’s question, and the mood grew tense. He asked again.
“What is this? I asked you a question. Are all the employees here idiots?”
“Well, the thing is, uh! The young lady already had a bit of a rash before she put on the dress.”
“Lies.”
Gilbert took me from the employee, inspecting my body while muttering under his breath.
“I know my child’s body best. I’m responsible for her meals, so if she had this kind of rash, I would’ve known. I wouldn’t have brought her out like this.”
Though he spoke bluntly, Gilbert carefully lifted my arm and blew on it gently.
“Polaris, does it hurt?”
“It itches… Can’t I scratch it?”
“No. Your skin is so delicate that if you scratch it a little more, you’ll start bleeding. Just hold on for a little while. I’ll take you straight to Ethan as soon as we get out.”
“Okay.”
I nodded obediently and turned to face Nereus. His face darkened even more upon hearing the employees’ lies.
“Making such pathetic excuses… Truly disgusting. After what they’ve done to someone’s precious child, they have the nerve to claim it was like this before?”
Nereus fiddled with his pants, seemingly realizing he hadn’t brought any weapons today. He clicked his tongue in frustration.
Then, noticing a letter opener on the nearby nightstand, he grabbed it and slammed it into the table.
‘Wow, perfect verticality.’
The letter opener stuck perfectly perpendicular into the table. The force of the impact was so strong that I could clearly see cracks forming around the area where it had been driven in.
“The so-called best boutique sells dresses that cause rashes, huh? Isn’t that funny? What do you think?”
While Nereus was threatening the employees, Gilbert helped me change into different clothes.
“At least the rash only appeared on your arm.”
“Hmm…”
“Did it brush against your arm a lot while you were putting it on?”
‘Sorry, that’s not actually it.’
The rash was delayed because of the cheap dye. By the time the rash appeared, it was hard to pinpoint the cause, making it difficult to complain to the store.
When this fact started circulating quietly within the industry, many clothing stores used this method to make significant profits. This even caused a major problem on the Western Continent before I went back in time.
Eventually, the truth was revealed: cheap dyes were causing rashes, shaking up the Western Continent again.
However, the redness and swelling on my arm right now weren’t due to the fabric of the clothes, but because I had just scratched it.
It wasn’t a common condition, but there were people whose skin, being naturally delicate, would become red and swollen if scratched hard with their nails.
As I got older, the symptoms lessened, but it was much worse when I was younger. It was only later that I learned I had this condition.
‘Might as well take advantage of it before it’s found out.’
I shifted Gilbert’s attention, who was carefully watching my arm, and whispered to him to make sure things ended properly.
“By the way, Gilbert’s Dad, I saw something weird while I was going to the fitting room just now.”
“Weird? What was it?”
“One of the staff, the women, was carrying something strange—a large cloth—and went to the back of the fitting room.”
“Hm…”
Gilbert seemed to sense something off from what I said, immediately standing up and heading towards the back of the fitting room.
“W-wait! Only staff are allowed back there! Kyaaah!”
“Oh, sure, sure. Selling items like this is totally allowed, isn’t it~?”
Gilbert, his voice clearly sarcastic, pushed the employee who tried to stop him and walked into the empty space behind the fitting room.
I quietly followed him. A whistling sound came from the back.
“This is hilarious.”
‘Looks like this is the right place!’
Lunatic only displayed sample dresses out front and stored the real ones behind the fitting room. When a potential buyer appeared, they would take out the real thing for them to try on.
‘This was the same even before I went back in time. Guess it’s been going on for a while.’
The space Gilbert found had not only the real dresses but also the samples, all piled up together in a messy, disorganized way. It was clear the store had hurriedly moved the items.
It wasn’t hard to figure out that they had rushed to swap out the items in the Ruby Room to deceive us properly.
“These bastards never planned to sell us a real dress in the first place, did they? Look, Ner. These guys sold our kid a rag. This is hilarious.”
Although Gilbert smirked as he said it, his eyes were cold and emotionless. It wasn’t hard to tell that he was angry.
“I don’t want to blow this up.”
Nereus growled, suppressing his anger. But just the mere mention of not wanting to blow things up gave the employee a glimmer of hope, his eyes lighting up.
‘That’s not it.’
Nereus threw open the door to the Ruby Room and headed towards the entrance of Lunatic. Everyone watched him with nervous and puzzled expressions.
Gilbert, having anticipated Nereus’s actions, simply sighed as if to say, ‘So this is how it’s going to be,’ and gently patted me while holding me.
Click—
The sound of the door locking echoed, and the curtain in front of Lunatic’s door swished shut.
“Everyone’s going to die…”
“Ner, the kid’s watching.”
Nereus, about to make a violent statement, closed his mouth at Gilbert’s reprimand, thought for a moment, and then spoke again.
“So how about we wrap up this business neatly? Calling this a business is a disgrace to merchants.”
“Is it only a disgrace to merchants? Selling something like this at such a high price is an insult to artisans too.”
Gilbert responded casually to Nereus’s deadly remark.
“Yeah, it doesn’t suit them at all, so let’s help them out, shall we? How about we finish them off for good? Don’t worry, we’ll clean everything up at once. You won’t be lonely.”
The faces of those who had briefly clung to hope turned to shock, and then they began to turn pale.
Nereus wouldn’t care about that, though. I rolled my eyes as I looked at the ashen faces of those who were trembling.
‘I don’t feel pity for them, but they are a little pitiful.’
If they knew today would be the day they’d die, they would’ve said their goodbyes to their loved ones and written their wills. But they didn’t prepare for anything because they never imagined this would happen.
I thought they were just a little pitiful. Who told them to scam people like this?
‘Ugh, my heart is too soft.’
Perhaps it was because of my time with the navy, but the thought of people dying in droves made me feel uneasy.
Scamming people was a serious crime, but not one worthy of death. I asked in an innocent, child-like voice, pretending to know nothing.
“Dad, am I going to be cleaned up too?”
“……”
“Me too?”
“Why would you get cleaned up, Lala? We’re just cleaning up this store.”
“But Dad, you said you were going to clean up everything, so wouldn’t that include me too?”
“Ugh, changing the wording doesn’t make it any better, does it?”
Nereus, impressed by Lala’s impressive vocabulary skills, rubbed his large hand over his forehead and muttered.
“They’re getting a little scolding for being bad. Don’t worry about it, Lala.”
‘The problem is that the ‘little’ scolding sends them straight to the afterlife.’
Also, weren’t there other customers in the other rooms? Fortunately, no one had come out yet, likely because of the soundproofing.
But other customers would be coming out soon, and it wouldn’t be good to cause a massacre here. Given Nereus’s current temper, he might kill the witnesses too, and then claim it was a perfect assassination because there were no witnesses left.
“But I’m the one who got hurt because of those women, right? So shouldn’t I decide what punishment they get?”
“Oh, that’s a good point.”
Gilbert, who was holding me, played along with my words. Those who had been trembling slightly saw a glimmer of hope and looked at me as if I were their salvation.
“Isn’t it okay?”
“Well, it’s not that it’s not okay, but…”
“Then?”
“……”
Nereus silently looked at me, then sighed deeply and gestured for me to go ahead. It was a sign that I could do as I pleased.
I tapped Gilbert to let him know I wanted to be put down.
“If I decide on the punishment, will everyone follow through?”
They all nodded immediately in response to my question. They had vividly felt the truth in Nereus’s unfinished threat of ‘you’ll die.’
“Then~”
I tried to bring out as much of my childlike innocence as possible and spoke brightly.
“Refund all the costs Nereus spent opening the Ruby Room, and give one of each type of clothing here.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Is Lunatic full of idiots? Why don’t they understand what I’m saying?”
Laughter came from behind me. It was Gilbert.
“I thought that was quite a reasonable punishment. Am I wrong?”
“H-ha, but if we do that, we’ll be in serious debt…”
How shameless. A moment ago, these people were on the verge of death, but as soon as they saw a chance to live, they started thinking about their profits again.
‘How brazen.’
If we let this slide, they would just chalk it up to bad luck and treat the next customer the same way. I walked up to them, who were still sitting on the floor, and whispered.
“Do we look like fools to you? We can clearly see you’ve already made a huge profit. You’re putting on airs when you don’t even have the limited edition items from the main store.”
The limited edition items from the main store were only sold at the main location. Some branches also carried limited edition items, but those could be found at any branch, so they weren’t as rare as the main store’s items. The Lunatic in the capital was on a different level—it was the kind of place only true aristocrats could frequent.
‘They probably never thought a six-year-old would know something like this.’
They also had no idea that my soul was actually twenty-six years old.
“My arm is starting to itch more and more… Ah, my arm, ouch.”
As I raised my hand to my arm, the atmosphere behind me grew tense. Both Nereus and Gilbert were clearly getting more serious, and the faces of the employees sitting on the floor turned pale.
“We, we will give it to you!”
“You said one of each type of clothing in the store and a refund, right? Yes, we’ll pack everything right away!”
As soon as I sat down, all the employees scrambled to move quickly.
From behind, I could hear Nereus and Gilbert murmuring.
“Hey, isn’t she amazing? That’s my daughter.”
“What do you mean your daughter? She’s my daughter. I wonder what kind of pirate Polaris will become when she grows up.”
“What kind? She’s going to be the best in all the seas, obviously. Look at her, isn’t she just perfect?”
These people seemed oddly proud.
Oh my…
