Please Don’t Come To The Villainess’ Stationery Store! - Chapter 41

That night, after all the children stormed in, the stationery store was quiet.

I sat on the stationery store’s bench and tried to organize my thoughts calmly. Like how to deal with Hesman and Vaveloa.

The sky was slowly getting dark.

However, so far, the Hesman and Vaveloa general store’s building, which was standing tall all the way down the street, was still clearly visible.

But right then.

From far away, a group of people were walking vigorously, flying a red flag.

‘Who are those people?’

I squinted at the person in front of me. It was Lessa, the owner of the bar where we made beer candy together.

As soon as they got closer, I rose from the bench and greeted her brightly.

“Welcome, what’s the matter?”

“Miss Mel, I heard there’s a new general store near the stationery building.”

As soon as Lessa saw me, she poured put her words quickly.

“…ah, the story has already spread.”

It seemed that the huge building spread rumors among the nearby merchants.

“They’ve already scattered flyers everywhere to promote.”

“It must be hard.”

The people behind Lessa let out a word. They were looking at me with warm hearts of compassion.

“So… it may be lacking, but we found a way to help our alley merchants.”

“A way to help?”

They stuck out a thick paper envelope to me. As I received the envelope, I carefully asked,

“…what is this?”

“A petition. We don’t have enough money to buy a building as big as that one, but…”

A petition?

My eyes widened as I looked at the countless amounts of petitions in the envelope.

“We wanted to at least help like this.”

“It’s wrong to turn a blind eye to the person who held out their hand when we were in trouble.”

Who held out their hand?

Was that story about me?

I looked at them with a puzzled look.

“If we submit this petition to the government office, the opening can be delayed by about 15 days. They said it’s in the <Commercial Code>.”

I majored in law at an academy for commoners.

So to speak, they were paying me back because I took the courage to defeat the ‘Red Diocese Pirates’ for them.

I nodded as I looked at each one of their faces full of anxiety.

Some of their foreheads were already wrinkled at a young age, and some had gray hair.

It was a sign of suffering from work.

So, wouldn’t it be better to thank you instead of clearing the misunderstanding with ‘I didn’t defeat the Red Diocese Pirates for you’?

“Yes, I can see the light from my good deed.”

Was that shameless?

If Dominique were next to me, he would have hit me with ‘you just hit them because you wanted to.’

But the man was working hard to clean the second floor right now. No one can stop me from lying right now.

“It’s touching that the merchants are working so hard.”

It seemed soulless, but I meant it.

At first, I just managed to get rid of the Red Diocese Pirates. Now, however, there was confidence in protecting the commoner retailers from Hildegart’s black hands.

I was the only one who could protect the precious alley in front of the Academy.

“Let’s have a concert later if everything works out well.”

“A concert?”

“Yes. Of course, with old instruments! Like a recorder or a harmonica.”

“Ah! I’m good at the harmonica.”

“I’m good at the recorder.”

“I-I can’t play musical instruments, but! I’ll hit my belly as a drum!”

Belly drum…?

I imagined a merchant man hitting his stomach.

‘No.’

I don’t want to see such a sight.

I spoke after avoiding the merchant’s eyes.

“I’ll look forward to it, except for the belly drum. Let’s have a concert together soon.”

I bowed my head deeply towards them.

When I opened the envelope, there was <Petition for Protecting the Business District in the Alley> written at the top.

They didn’t know yet that I was Duke Vaveloa’s daughter. It was obvious that there were rumors circulating among the nobles.

Therefore, this petition, which used up precious time by the people who ran small businesses even though they risked being hated by the nobility, was valuable for me.

Of course, the petition would be almost useless against the powerful Duke. The Justice Department would be on the side of aristocracy anyway. However, I was so grateful for their thoughts.

I was serious about not letting this petition go to waste.

While living as Meldenique, my blood-related family treated me like trash.

But these people, who treated me sincerely, were different.

I liked these people.

‘…not many people have treated me sincerely so far.’

The exchanged between people made me realize many things. If they got unhappy, I would help as long as I can.

Just like when I got rid of the Red Diocese Pirates.

And just like how they wrote a petition for me.

***

The next morning.

Outside, the colorful general store building by Hildegart and Lenox was slowly being outlined.

I heard the unfortunate news that it would take about two weeks to be built because of magic and money, even though it’s a big building.

‘That annoying building. I hope it collapses.’

I poked my head out from the window on the second floor of the stationery store and looked at the upper building.

‘It really is magnificent. When it’s done, it’ll be 50 times the size of my stationery store.’

When the building was finished, it’s obvious that no one would know about my stationery store.

‘…I can feel a sense of crisis.’

There were some customers who visited my stationery store often.

Among them, Axion and Melissa, who had big hands, and Carat, who seemed indifferent but paid attention.
(T/N: I’m guessing big hands means they buy a lot.)

However, it wasn’t enough to spread the name of the stationery store.

‘In terms of conversation topics, it’s a complete defeat.’

After I took a shower, I went downstairs from the second floor and spoke to Dominique.

“Dominique!”

“Yeah?”

Dominique was staring at his sword again today. He’s probably thinking of the devils he sealed.

I spoke to Dominique,

“You know, we’re going to be in the red if we keep going on normally.”

“It wasn’t exactly normal until now-.”

“We need to show them something more extravagant and cool.”

I cut off Dominique and spoke firmly.

There was a mixture of all kinds of items in my head. However, we only experienced failure in implementing them.

“I have no choice but to hit a rock with an egg, but the question is which one to hit.”
(T/N: Proverb expressing recklessness, confronting an opponent with an insignificant force.)

Dominique, who was listening to solemn declaration, nodded only then.

“What do we do? Should I wipe them out?”

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

In fact, another word for crisis was opportunity.

The opportunity to create a completely new version of this absurdity.

Many people often missed a good opportunity because they couldn’t cope with the crisis properly.

But there were many people who made good use of the crisis to reverse the war.

‘Is there any way to reverse the situation.’

While thinking about it, it became loud outside the door. I looked toward the door. With the rattling sound, children waddled in like candy.

“Melissa, Xion, Red Radish!”

I sprang up and spread my arms, looking at the children.

It’s important to deal with the crisis, but it’s also important to heal with cute children after a long time.

“Unnie!”

“A strange building ahead appeared, Mel!”

“…I checked the commercial law, and it’s illegal to build such a large building in front of the Academy. Mel, you understand, right?”

Melissa, Carat, and Axion huddled in front of me, each letting out a word.

When all the Academy children were focused on the Hesman-Vaveloa collaboration, they were willing to hold my hand.

However, contrary to the naive children’s beliefs, the law was usually on the side of the rich. But, I still nodded my head as if I understood.

“Thanks for your concern, kids.”

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

“We thought seriously.”

I asked as I pat Carat’s silver hair.

“About what?”

“The Academy is about to hold the ‘Petite Debutant.’”

“Yeah.”

I had never been to the academy, so I didn’t know much about the culture, but I knew what the Petite Debutant was.

It was the largest annual event held by the Academy for children aged seven to thirteen. Like the name suggested, the Petite Debutant was a preliminary debutante. However, it was a much freer ceremony than the debutant, which was society’s largest annual party.

‘Actually, it’s more like an end-of-the-year party than a debutant.’

Like an end-of-the-year party or a snack part after a semester, the Petite Debutant was similar.

And on this day, all the children would bring the most precious things they had from their respective mansion and share them. Some children would bring food made by their family chef, others would bring in their family products, and others would bring in bought products.

Originally, the Petite Debutante was a kind of ritual to promote harmony by sharing products and food brought from home.

“Unnie, Unnie! It looks like the evil Hesman family will be sponsoring something on the day of the Petite Debutante.”

Melissa, a faithful spy from the wicked Hesman family, chattered.

“Wow, you’re great.”

Most of the Academy students were nobles. So, it would cost hundreds of millions of becquerels to satisfy the children’s eyes.

Unlike the Hesman and Vaveloa families, I didn’t have much money.

“Mel, Mel! So, the three of us thought of it.”

Melissa whispered to me.

“We chose Mel!”

“…huh?”

I asked back because I didn’t understand what they were saying.

The kids answered me with a big smile.

“Although Mel isn’t a wizard, you’re like a wizard!”

“The most precious thing we’re going to take is Mel!”

“Make a cool product for us.”

“Then we will work hard to advertise Mel’s stationery store!”