Chapter 135

Chapter 135: The Owner of the Golden Goose (4)

“You’re a lot more emotional than I expected, Kyla Angel.”

Somnia brought her fan up to her face. With an expression like she found me utterly pitiful.

“…Yeah. Maybe I am.”

I ended up dying by Ian’s hand as punishment for giving him my heart.

‘To think the price of truly loving someone is death.’

All of a sudden, it felt far too expensive a price for making an emotional judgment.

“Like you said, let’s stop with the useless sentimental talk.”

I set my glass down and looked at Somnia.

“You don’t like long introductions either.”

“Right, Miss Rachel Brown.”

Somnia pronounced my name clearly, one syllable at a time.

It seemed she thought a typical sheltered young lady’s name like that didn’t suit me.

With a face like she was holding back laughter, she opened her mouth. “Why did you come looking for me?”

The peacock-feather fan stopped in midair.

“If you’re talking about the price of my life, it sounds like it’s something pretty important.”

“That’s right. I need your help.”

Somnia let out a soft laugh and tilted her head. “My help? What help could a merchant born a slave possibly have? You should just say you came to extort money.”

“More precisely, I need the information you have.”

“Hmm, information.”

A shrewd gaze settled on me. Those violet eyes slowly swept me from head to toe again.

“How strange. From the way you look, it seems you’re living as an ordinary person now, but is there any reason you’d need my information?”

Somnia shrugged and continued, “The information we deal in isn’t something an ordinary woman can handle.”

“The moment I told you my name, you must’ve already finished looking into me.”

At my words, she scrunched the tip of her nose. It was a mischievous expression, like a child caught trying to play a prank.

“Well, yeah.”

Somnia giggled and swept her hair back.

“That name is surprising enough, but to think you’d be doing nanny work when it doesn’t suit you at all. I was shocked, even hearing it.”

At her gesture, someone appeared from behind the layers of hanging veils.

It was another girl who looked exactly like the one who guided me here.

Her features were the same, but her eye color, hairstyle, and the clothes she wore were different.

“Ah, is this your first time seeing this too? The kids working under me and I put a lot of effort into making them together. What do you think? They look like real living people, don’t they?”

“No. I didn’t think they were people.”

“What? Why? I thought it was flawless.”

“I could sense magic, but I couldn’t feel a pulse.”

At my answer, Somnia’s eyes widened as if she’d gained some revelation.

“A pulse. That’s a flaw I never even considered. I should tell those inventor bastards and make them come up with a fix.”

So she really is a mage, one way or another.

I clicked my tongue inwardly.

‘Why is it that every mage bastard is out of their mind in the same way?’

Somnia wasn’t an officially trained mage, but she could handle magic.

She kept several capable mages under her and had a hobby of making strange magical tools.

Some of them were popular enough to be sold on the market.

“They’re not just identical on the outside, either. They’re all connected. I guess you could call them a communication orb shaped like a person. You know, I even hid one in the Imperial Palace.”

To plant something like that in the Imperial Palace.

It’s bold, admitting so calmly to something that would get you torn limb from limb if you got caught.

Meanwhile, Somnia smiled brightly at me, as if it was nothing, as I remained unimpressed.

“So I’ve got a question. Why, of all things, did you choose to become the Third Prince’s nanny?”

If you wanted to fix your lot in life, you should’ve gotten hired as a nanny in some rich noble household and earned money comfortably.

Somnia said with a frown pinching the corners of her eyes, “You’re not still living with that ridiculous mindset that something matters more than money, are you? When people like us at the bottom live with thoughts like that, we usually starve to death.”

“Seems you forgot how much I hate unsolicited advice.”

When I lowered my voice, Somnia flinched.

She sniffed and changed the subject.

“Anyway, what a temper. So as the prince’s nanny, what information do you want from me?”

“Everything.”

“What?”

Somnia frowned.

“Everything?”

“Yeah.”

I said evenly, “I intend to make the Third Prince the Emperor of the Empire of Ventrume.”

At my words, Somnia’s face noticeably stiffened.

“To do that, I need your help, Somnia.”

Silence fell.

Somnia made an incredulous face, then burst into loud laughter.

“P-Pwahahahaha!”

She cackled until she doubled over, then wiped the tears clinging to the corners of her eyes.

“So you’re telling me to join the Empire’s succession struggle? And to stand with the candidate who has the lowest chance, at that?”

“Yeah.”

“Listen, Kyla Angel.”

Somnia’s expression turned serious.

She slammed one hand down on the table.

“I’m a merchant. I don’t do deals that lose me money.”

Her sharply upturned eyes gleamed coldly.

“Among my long-time customers, there are plenty of nobles who support the First Prince and the Second Prince. Is there any reason I should throw all of them away and stand on your side?”

“I’ll pay an appropriate price.”

“My life’s price? Then just kill me. That’d be a better bargain.”

With her arms crossed, Somnia drew her mouth into a long line.

“Of course, if you really try to kill me for something as petty as that, then I’ll fight back with everything I have.”

“You’re saying you’d kill me.”

“Not impossible.”

At my words, Somnia bared her teeth in a grin.

“Doesn’t look like your skills have rusted. But you don’t look as good as you used to. Is it because you’re trapped in that pathetic body?”

“….”

“Back then, you had the Breath of the Angel behind you, but now you don’t. And if one nanny dies, it’s not like the world’s going to make a fuss, right?”

They say merchants will do anything if the money’s right.

Sometimes, they were even scarier than people who made killing their trade.

In that sense, Somnia was the most merchant-like person I’d ever known.

“Appointment as an imperial household-affiliated trading company, and a count’s title. Nothing beyond that.”

Silence fell again.

But this time, it was the kind of silence that carried a strange tension.

“…What did you just say?”

Somnia’s face slowly, but unmistakably, twisted.

With shock and disbelief.

“You’ll appoint my guild as an imperial trading company?”

“And you’ll be granted a count’s title.”

In a class-based society, background mattered more than anything.

No matter how much money you had and how strong your connections were, if your status was low, there was a limit to how far you could rise.

And Somnia was a woman of slave origin.

A man might manage somehow, marrying a fallen noblewoman and entering her house as a live-in son-in-law to inherit a title, but a woman couldn’t.

No matter how far a noble house had fallen, there wouldn’t be a nobleman who’d take a slave-born woman as his wife.

‘Even if marriage were possible, it’s an option that doesn’t exist for that woman.’

To begin with, Somnia was the type who made men grind their teeth, and she also had a taste for enjoying secret trysts with beautiful women.

So aside from being granted a title herself, there was no path for her to become a noble.

“I know your status interferes with your business. That’s why you started an information guild in the first place. No one could’ve known it would succeed this much, though.”

Even with luck on her side and her business thriving, Somnia could only become a big shot in the underworld.

No one knew Somnia’s name, and no one knew her talent for business.

Since she couldn’t reveal the owner’s name, she couldn’t expand the trading company’s scale any further.

If she didn’t take on businesses others hesitated to touch, there wouldn’t be many places money could come in from, either.

“If you become an imperial trading company, you’ll receive considerable tax exemptions. It’ll bring in more than enough money even after covering the tribute you pay to greedy officials.”

I continued, looking at Somnia, “And no matter how much money you make, as someone of slave origin, the highest status you can obtain through your own power is baron.”

But a baron in some remote province was such a paltry status that people among the capital’s nobles didn’t even treat it as true nobility.

“At this level, it doesn’t seem like it’s a deal where you lose.”

Somnia kept frowning the entire time she listened.

But she didn’t deny what I said.

“Honestly.”

I swept my gaze around and said, “Don’t you think it’s ridiculous that the owner of a great merchant guild has to hide in a shabby place like this over something as small as status?”

“Ha.”

Somnia let out a sigh.

Then she pressed a hand to her forehead and burst into a hearty laugh.

“Good grief, I feel like I’ve laughed enough today to last me a lifetime.”

“I wasn’t trying to make you laugh.”

“So you’re telling me to believe that ridiculous empty promise?”

“Rather than that, I mean you should believe me.”

I added in an utterly even tone, “Believe me, the one who saved you when a slave who killed her master was being hunted down.”

“…Arrogant.”

Somnia bit down hard on her lip at my words.

After drinking in silence for a long time, she seemed to be thinking something over.

She was probably calculating whether she should stand on my side or not.

“Fine.”

How much time passed?

Somnia finally opened her mouth.

“Since you only live once, living boldly doesn’t sound so bad.”

Her long, slit eyes curved into a half-moon.

“All right, Kyla. I’ll accept your proposal.”

“Much obliged. As for the detailed terms, let’s pick a day and discuss it somewhere else. We’ve got someone on our side who knows a thing or two about deals as well.”

I adjusted my clothes and raised one eyebrow.

“And my name is Rachel Brown.”

“Ah, right. Miss Rachel Brown. My mistake.”

Somnia offered an apology with a face that didn’t look sorry at all.

Then she narrowed one eye and changed the topic.

“Then, to celebrate becoming partners, I’ll tell you one piece of information you want for free. What are you curious about?”

I wasn’t the type to refuse when someone offered.

I thought for a moment, then asked the question that had been on my mind.

“I want to know House Radcliffe’s weakness.”

“My, asking about a big fish like that already? I shouldn’t have offered a favor.”

Somnia gave a little snort of a laugh and slowly swirled her glass.

“Let’s see. House Radcliffe’s weakness. Well, that family has done just about everything. Don’t you already have some weaknesses you can grab onto?”