ICSF 07

CHAPTER 07

When I told my parents that I wanted to try doing everything myself from the very beginning, they looked at me with proud, affectionate expressions and simply found someone to assist me. She was a middle-aged woman named Visella.

She was an employee of the merchant company owned by our family, but the moment she heard that someone was being sought to assist me closely, she eagerly volunteered.

“I will do my utmost to serve you well, Miss.”

“I’m counting on you, Visella.”

Together with Ena, my personal maid, and Visella, my new aide, I immediately headed for the coastal regions.

I had no idea whether this was a type of grass that grew along every coastline or whether it only grew in certain areas.

I came up empty-handed several times, but fortunately, I managed to find it on my next attempt.

“Purple seaweed that looks like veins? Eh? You mean this stuff? We call it gasal.”

Just as the prophecy had said, it was purple. I picked one up and took a bite. The moment it touched my teeth, its surface popped, and a sticky texture spread through my mouth as the sap inside burst out.

“Miss!”

Everyone stared at me in horror, as if wondering why on earth I would eat that. Even the villager who had shown me the seaweed looked shocked.

“Oh my, even we only eat that when there’s truly nothing else to eat. It tastes awful.”

Apparently, people gathered it little by little and stored it away for times of extreme hardship, when they could barely scrape together enough food to survive. But things were different now. For the sake of survival, everyone in the Empire would have to eat this.

Wiping the sticky sap from my mouth with a handkerchief, I said to the villager,

“I’ll buy this.”

“Eh? This? You want to buy it? There’s loads of it just up ahead, though.”

“We can’t collect it ourselves. I want to buy whatever people gather and bring in.”

But would there be enough? If there wasn’t enough to feed the entire Empire, all this effort would be pointless.

I was worried, but the villager’s next words immediately put my concerns to rest.

“Oh, don’t worry. If you cut it down while leaving only the base, it grows back exactly the same three days later.”

It could practically be harvested indefinitely.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

When I offered to pay one silver coin for each basket of seaweed, everyone was delighted. It was a poor fishing village, and they could easily gather the stuff just by walking around the nearby sea. The fact that I was willing to pay them for it naturally made them happy.

An adult’s monthly living expenses were around ten silver coins. If they worked diligently, they could earn enough to live for a month in just a few days, and with even more effort, they could accumulate surplus wealth.

After successfully completing the contract, we headed back. However, Visella’s expression was gloomy.

Seeing me spend money on something that was practically worthless had apparently made her wonder whether she had really made the right choice by volunteering to work for me.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do much to ease her worries.

I had trouble explaining it myself.

After that, I hired pharmacists and had them study the effects of gasal and figure out how to process it into something easier to consume.

“If we dry it with hot air first, the sap seems to condense, which greatly reduces the sticky texture. The texture is unpleasant, but it has almost no taste, so I think we could grind it into powder, form it into pills, and have people swallow them.”

“Its effects are surprisingly impressive. It helps protect the liver, and its diuretic properties also make it easier for the body to eliminate toxins. Unless someone has been poisoned with an extremely lethal toxin, it could even be used as an emergency antidote without any problems.”

“Would there be any problem with consuming a lot of it?”

“If anything, the more they consume, the better. A healthy liver will reduce inflammation throughout the body, and when inflammation decreases, immunity improves.”

“Then how should we sell it?”

“For women, we could advertise it as a nutritional supplement that improves the skin. Eliminating toxins should make their skin healthier. For men, we could market it as a vitality supplement. Once the liver is strengthened and toxins are removed, fatigue will decrease, and their stamina will naturally improve.”

Following their suggestions, we produced the medicine and began selling it.

At first, the response was lukewarm. But once people learned that the owner of the pharmaceutical merchant company was the daughter of House Estarotte, some trusted the count’s family enough to purchase it.

And once they actually experienced the effects, word spread rapidly, and people began buying it in droves.

When we also released a version for commoners—with the same effects but simpler packaging—almost no one stopped taking the supplements unless they were truly struggling just to put food on the table.

“Miss, your foresight is truly extraordinary.”

Visella hadn’t understood why I had spent money buying what was practically garbage, but after seeing me make several times what I had spent, the look in her eyes changed.

She seemed to see some incredible vision in me.

But I could only laugh inwardly.

If everyone takes this diligently, the mysterious epidemic should be dealt with, right?

It would have been nice if I could sell it to other countries as well.

Unfortunately, there simply wasn’t enough time.

And eventually, the disaster struck.

The mysterious epidemic broke out in another country.

Strangely, this epidemic primarily affected nobles or people who worked closely with nobles.

Perhaps because of that, it acquired the bizarre nickname of the “Noble Disease.”

In truth, it wasn’t even an epidemic.

It was simply poisoning.

A peculiar metal had been discovered in a mine in another country. It dissolved in alcohol, and once the alcohol evaporated, it left behind a beautiful pink powder with a healthy, rosy hue, like a baby’s cheeks.

The color alone was beautiful, but the substance also had excellent dyeing properties. It could be used on fabric, paper, and even as a cosmetic.

People began wearing it, applying it to themselves, and putting it on their walls.

The trend spread throughout the entire continent, not just in the kingdom where the metal had been discovered.

As unexplained deaths continued to occur, people began investigating what the victims had in common.

Before long, they discovered that the metal was the culprit.

“But why are so few people dying in the Empire?”

The trend had spread to the Empire as well, yet the number of deaths was tiny compared to other countries.

And most of those who died were elderly.

What did the Empire have that the other countries didn’t?

Eventually, people found the answer.

It was the nutritional supplement I sold.

“How much stock of the supplements do you have left? I’d like to purchase as much as possible!”

“You! If you buy it all, what are the people behind you supposed to do?”

“Don’t worry. We have plenty in stock. We produce them every day, so there’s no need to worry about running out.”

Although I hadn’t been able to expand into other countries because I hadn’t received an export license, merchants somehow found their way to me and bought the supplements anyway.

As lawsuits and accusations began piling up, the owner of the mine was in a desperate situation.

He insisted that people weren’t dying because of his metal, and slandered me as a money-grubber who was profiting from other people’s unfortunate circumstances.

He even had the audacity to sue me.

“Really? So you’re saying that you have nothing to do with the disaster that occurred this time… Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I—”

“Then try eating this.”

When I met him in court, I set down the container I was carrying in front of him.

It contained the pink powder I had acquired to test whether my supplement would have any effect on poisoning from the substance.

“If there’s really nothing wrong with it, then eating it won’t kill you, will it?”

“That’s…”

“Come on. Do you want me to feed it to you?”

I went ahead and opened the container.

The people nearby held their breath as the powder stirred and scattered into the air.

The man standing before me did the same. He had been so confident moments ago, but now he trembled with his breath held tight, as if he had suddenly forgotten how to act brave.

It’s fine in small amounts anyway. And I’ve been taking the toxin-cleansing supplement regularly.

Seeing the man’s actions contradict his own words, I gave him a thoroughly mocking look.

In the end, I won the lawsuit.

And now all that remained for him was to fall into the hell of the countless lawsuits that would soon follow.

But that wasn’t the only good thing that happened.

“I hereby bestow a noble title, along with a medal of honor, upon Seiana Lovely Estarotte, who saved the continent from crisis.”

The title was only that of a baron, but it was a hereditary title rather than a lifetime one.

It was practically proof that even the Emperor considered the poisoning crisis to have been extremely serious.

I’m not going to marry anyway, and I won’t have children. Well, I suppose I can just pass the title on to one of my nephews.

I didn’t think much of it.

After the medal and title were bestowed, a banquet was held at the Imperial Palace.

I slipped away unnoticed and headed toward the same corridor where I had met that strange man on the day I had broken off my engagement.

I went there on the off chance that he might be there.

But no one was.

All I could do was watch the moonlight shining down the corridor before eventually returning.

My business continued to prosper.

Because the poisoning incident had caused people to start taking nutritional supplements as regularly as they ate their meals, my business became practically impossible to bankrupt even if I tried.

Word about the seaweed, my raw material, quickly spread, but no latecomers jumped into the business after me.

That was only natural.

They could imitate what I was doing, but it was difficult to make a profit.

I had only wanted to solve the continent’s crisis; I wasn’t particularly interested in making huge profits.

So I set the price of my supplements as low as possible.

The only way to beat me in a price war would have been to purchase the raw materials more cheaply.

But that was difficult as well.

If I was buying a basket of seaweed for one silver coin, who would sell it for less than one silver coin just because a competitor asked?

As a result, I unintentionally ended up with a monopoly.

Occasionally, the prophecy would suddenly pop up before my eyes like before, but nothing major happened like during the poisoning incident.

Most of the time, it was simply conversations about the male and female leads.

After watching their news for so long, I had developed an odd sense of familiarity with them.

Sometimes I even wanted to meet the two of them at least once.

But I resisted.

If I went to the Imperial Palace and started snooping around, and the gods sensed something strange and realized that I had discovered their conversations, things could become very troublesome.

If we’re destined to meet, I’m sure we’ll run into each other someday by chance.

That was what I decided to believe.

And so I spent several years doing nothing but running my business.

Then, one day—

[Golden Family’s Golden-Surname Siblings Obsessed Fan]

What is this?

As soon as that appeared, several panels suddenly popped up before my eyes.

Unlike usual, when they appeared one at a time, they seemed both urgent and confused.

[I’m Getting Off at This Station]

LOL Author…

Auth. or. NIM!!!!༼ง=ಠ益ಠ=༽ง

[The “Foolish Female Lead’s House” Is the Most Perfect House]