WTTAO CH 03

Roselia glared at Sven.

“What did I do to deserve that look?”

“I know you did it on purpose…”

Before her regression, Sven used to secretly bully Roselia like this whenever her father, Count Felis, and the other servants weren’t around.

It was one of the reasons she had refused to leave her room.

“What? Unlike you, who has absolutely no ability whatsoever, I am the master of a lower water spirit.”

Sven shrugged as though he found her accusation ridiculous.

Hovering above one of his shoulders was a small lower water spirit no bigger than a palm.

It was an incredibly mysterious and beautiful spirit, with a rose-shaped bud that looked as though each petal had been painstakingly carved from transparent crystal, a golden stem, and sparkling leaves that seemed to have been sprinkled with diamond dust.

‘To think the owner of such a beautiful lower water spirit is this awful Sven.’

It was truly a case of a pearl necklace on a pig.

“You were standing stupidly close to the fountain. Why are you blaming me for it?”

Just as he had before her regression, Sven shifted all the blame onto her.

‘Before my regression, I couldn’t even argue back when Sven said things like that. I would just cry and run back to my room. But I won’t do that anymore! I can’t!’

Roselia strode toward Sven and looked up at him.

“W-What are you doing?”

He had expected her to run away, so when she instead approached him and stared directly up at him, Sven flinched.

Roselia gave him a bright smile.

And then—

Thud!

“Argh!”

Sven let out a sharp cry and began hopping up and down while clutching one of his shins.

“Oh my! I was just taking a walk because I don’t have a single bit of ability~ Why were you standing there so stupidly, Sven Oppa?”

Roselia tilted her head innocently as she spoke to Sven, who was clutching his shin in pain.

“Ugh! You really—!”

“Oh! Look at the time! Well then, good luck with your training.”

Leaving Sven behind as he continued clutching his aching shin, Roselia quickly slipped away.

She couldn’t risk him using his spirit to dump another bucket of water on her.

“Roselia! I’m seriously not going to let this go!”

Sven’s shrill yelling could be heard from behind her, but she didn’t care.

After returning to her room, Roselia temporarily forgot that she needed to change out of her wet clothes and burst into laughter while clutching her stomach.

‘I should have done that a long time ago!’

After thoroughly enjoying her sense of satisfaction, Roselia changed clothes with Mary’s help and sat down on the sofa, lost in thought.

‘The landslide incident has been resolved. Next… I should find Cardian first, right?’

To find Cardian, she needed information about where he was.

‘And to obtain information, I need someone. Someone I can trust.’

Roselia looked at Mary, who was placing a warm cup of tea on the table.

Unlike usual, Mary’s expression looked rather gloomy.

“Is something wrong? You don’t look well.”

“Oh, no. Nothing is wrong.”

‘Nothing is wrong, my foot.’

“Come sit here.”

“Pardon? Why…?”

Mary sat down on the sofa opposite Roselia with a puzzled expression.

“I heard you asked to receive your salary in advance.”

“H-How did Lady Roselia know about that…?”

“Why do you suddenly need money?”

“Th-That…”

Mary lowered her head and couldn’t bring herself to continue.

In fact, Roselia already knew why Mary needed the money so desperately but couldn’t explain the reason.

Before Roselia’s regression, Mary had tried to get her salary in advance because her father had stolen the money meant for her mother’s medical treatment and squandered it on gambling.

However, the head maid had refused, saying that it went against the household regulations.

Later, Mary quit her job and took her severance pay home, but by then, her mother had already passed away because she had been unable to receive treatment.

Roselia had learned this after overhearing a conversation between the new maid assigned to her room and the head maid.

“If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”

Roselia stood up from the sofa and took something from her desk drawer.

She returned to the sofa and handed it to Mary.

It was a leather pouch about the size of a fist.

“W-What is this?”

“Open it.”

At Roselia’s words, Mary carefully loosened the opening of the leather pouch.

Her mouth fell open.

The pouch contained quite a number of gold coins.

“L-Lady Roselia!”

“Half of the eighty gold coins I’ve saved from my allowance. Forty gold coins. I hardly have anything to spend my allowance on anyway, so use it.”

A maid’s monthly salary was one gold coin, so forty gold coins was quite a substantial amount of money.

“B-But how can I use Lady Roselia’s allowance? I can’t accept this.”

Mary closed the opening of the leather pouch and placed it back on the table.

Roselia looked at her with a gentle smile.

“Then how about you do me a favor and accept this money as payment for your trouble?”

“Pardon? P-Payment?”

“Yes. It’s not a difficult favor at all.”

Mary thought about it for a moment before eventually nodding.

“All right. But I’ll only accept twenty gold coins. Even if you call it payment for my work, that much money is far too much for me.”

‘If it were me, I would have taken all the money without asking any questions. I really did choose the right person.’

Roselia was secretly pleased.

She took exactly half of the money from the leather pouch and gave it to Mary before quietly explaining what she wanted her to do.

“Thank you so much, Lady Roselia. I’ll find out what you asked me to as quickly as possible.”

Mary’s eyes reddened with emotion, but her voice was firm.

With this, Mary would no longer have to lose her mother, and Roselia had gained a loyal person she could trust.

“Is this the place?”

Roselia, wearing a brown robe pulled over her head, asked Mary as they stood in front of a shabby three-story wooden building.

She and Mary had left under the excuse of going to a bookstore within the Hailen territory to purchase some books.

“Yes. This is the place.”

A sign reading ‘The Fisherman Who Catches Whales’ hung above the entrance of the wooden building.

It was an establishment that provided alcohol and lodging.

Since lunchtime had already passed, the inside was relatively quiet.

Roselia approached a young man with brown hair tied tightly behind his head. He looked rather rough, and he was wiping beer glasses with a cloth.

“Lunch service is over. Please come back this evening.”

The man spoke bluntly without even looking at her.

Roselia ignored his words and spoke.

“I’d still like to have a meal here.”

The man’s hand stopped while he was wiping the glass.

Only then did he raise his head and look at her.

“This establishment is off-limits to minors. Please leave.”

“Even if I’m a golden whale trying to catch a fisherman?”

The man’s gray eyes narrowed for a moment before returning to normal.

After a brief silence, he answered.

“If that is the case… please follow me.”

His tone suddenly became polite.

He put down the beer glass he had been wiping and opened the door directly behind him before stepping inside.

As Roselia was about to follow, Mary lightly tugged at the hem of her robe.

Roselia turned her head and saw the worried look in Mary’s eyes.

She gave Mary a small nod to reassure her that everything was fine.

The man climbed the creaking stairs and entered the room at the very end of the third floor.

The room was old but simply furnished with a soft-looking sofa and a table.

“Please, sit here.”

At the man’s invitation, Roselia sat on the sofa and removed the robe covering her head.

The man flinched when he saw her face.

“You look very young.”

“I’m fifteen!”

Roselia immediately bristled at his comment about her looking young.

“Oh. My apologies. You’re the first young customer I’ve had come here.”

The man smiled apologetically.

“My name is Gray. I’m the guild master of this information guild. May I ask why you’ve come here? For reference, our information guild never accepts illegal requests.”

“I know. That’s why I came to make a legitimate request. I’d also like to trade some information I have with the guild master.”

The favor Roselia had asked Mary to carry out in exchange for her payment was to find an information guild.

Among the several information guilds Mary had investigated, Roselia had chosen this one.

Before her regression, Roselia had learned from conversations between the prison guards that there was an information guild—and merchant organization—called the Golden Whale that would never accept illegal requests, no matter how much money they were offered.

“What kind of request do you have?”

“I’d like you to find someone for me.”

“Someone? May I ask why you’re looking for this person? If it happens to be something illegal…”

Gray’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Roselia.

‘What should I say?’

She obviously couldn’t tell him to find the man who would eventually destroy the Hailen family by reporting them to the authorities.

But if she took too long to answer, she might arouse his suspicion.

Roselia squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before opening them again.

“I… am looking for my first love.”