Chapter 53 – Bonding amid Crisis (Aria’s POV)

I haven’t been the best boss for the last week. I’ve secluded myself in my room with all the necessary equipment and apparatus to finish the Taser gun.

Could you blame me? This taser gun is so cool! Despite telling the others that I wouldn't make another one, I couldn't resist attempting to create one more. That way, both Letty and I could have gotten one. But even after following the same steps, and overloading the same section of the mana circuit, I’m unable to replicate the first one.

Hah, I guess I have no choice but to perfect the first one.

And so, I neglected–ahem–entrusted all the paperwork and company business on the capable shoulders of my dear friends and wholeheartedly devoted myself to the taser gun. Carolina and Sophia were spouting some nonsense about workers’ exploitation, but I’m sure they’ll come around eventually.

Knock knock

That must be Letty, as I’ve barred everyone else from entering my room.

“Come in”

Letty entered with a stack of papers. However, something tells me that she is not in the brightest of moods today. She said, “These are all the documents that need your signature. Even though I’ve gone through them before arriving here, I suggest you give them a read before signing them”.

“Hmm... Thanks, Letty. But I don’t have time to read all of these documents. Give me a minute, and I’ll quickly sign them. I trust your thoroughness”, I said before taking the papers from her hands and began signing them one by one.

“Uhm, there is one more thing”, I paused the paperwork and gave her my attention.

“A few weeks ago, Lady Beatrice’s fiance, Prince Jumair took the position of chief advisor at Rose Emporium”, she paused, her tone turning a little dejected.

“And I had asked some of my trusted informants to gather information about their deal with Duke Arboun. It turns out they indeed made a secret deal, and Prince Jumair is now on his way to visit the second-largest supplier of lithanode. Likely to secure a similar deal with them as well”, she stopped while fidgeting her fingers.

As Sophia and Letty do a great job of keeping things in check, I am quite inexperienced at such matters. But even I can tell that we can’t let this play out.

They are trying to take control over our lithanode supplies. And if they succeed, we would have no choice but to pay an exorbitant amount for the necessary supplies.

“I’m sorry, Aria. Not only did I fail to bargain with Duke Arboun, but now they’ve sided with Rose Emporium to disrupt our input supplies. It could have been easily prevented if I had paid more attention to such vulnerabilities. It’s all my fault for not properly overseeing such matters.”, she said, looking down at the floor.

I don’t know what to do, but the least I could do is comfort her.

"Oh, no, Letty. It's not your fault", I reassured her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It’s not anyone’s fault, this situation just caught us off guard. And as I said before, we can figure something out together. Now, what matters is how we handle it".

Letty looked up, her eyes filled with a glimmer of hope. "You're right, Aria. We can still salvage this situation if we act swiftly".

***

After collecting our thoughts, we called everyone for a quick meeting before taking any actions. Well, I only asked her to call Carolina and Sophia, but Mom overheard us and decided to join us.

After Letty explained the situation, Mom said to me, “Is that it? Just ask your father, he’ll solve your problem in no time”.

As tempting as it sounds, I can’t help but feel like she’s testing me. Let’s just answer her honestly.

“Mom, I already said that we’ll pull our own weights. I can’t disturb Dad for such small favors”, I replied.

“You talk as if he’s that busy. Lately, he has been bugging me about spending a vacation on this island. If anything, it seems that he has way too much free time”

He might not be busy with work, but he’s busy spending time with Mom. Even though I feel a little unsettling when I see them act all lovey-dovey around the mansion, I love the fact that he spends so much time with her.

I don’t want to rely on him to solve every problem. And as I said to Dad earlier, this is between Beatrice and me.

“Teacher, forgive me for the interruption, but we would like to try our best to handle the situation ourselves before troubling Sir Richard”, Letty expressed. Carolina and Sophia concurred, showing their agreement.

“Very well, then I will leave you kids to it. But remember, when all else fails, you can always rely on us. Richard can take care of such problems in no time”, Mom said before gracefully leaving the room.

After Mom left, we formulated a plan of action that involved reaching out to the other suppliers to strengthen our relations so that they wouldn’t take Rose Emporium’s side. We planned to go a little over the rates that they were promising with their exclusive deals to provide them with enough incentive to stick with us.

Letty took an active role in this part and had already prepared the list of suppliers that we needed to reach out to.

But we don’t expect everyone to accept our proposals. Hence, we also need to come up with ways to minimize the use of lithanode in the first place.

Letty and Sophia decided to visit the suppliers in person themselves, while Carolina and I would work towards creating guidelines for the manufacturing units to conserve as much lithanode as we could.

Sigh, I was really close to perfecting the taser gun. But this comes first. I can’t play around while we are in such a situation.

***

Martha’s (Mom) POV:

After making my way to my office, I took my seat and glanced at the handsome man loitering around my office.

“The children might be naive, but they are hard workers. They want to solve their problems on their own”, I paused and continued, “They failed to see this nasty little trap set up by the third prince. He clearly intends to provoke you by disrupting our dear daughter’s business. What do you think, Richard?”, I asked.

“Hmm, the Prince hopes that I’ll retaliate by halting the mithril supply. While that does seem like a just punishment for stressing my baby, it would be really troublesome to deal with the annoying nobles”, he replied.

“Then it’s fortunate that you didn’t see her face during their little meeting. I’m sure you would have knowingly played right into their trap if you had”, I said, causing Richard to chuckle.

“Haha, naturally. Anything for my baby”

Our house has always taken a neutral stance during every conflict since Richard came to power. It’s no secret that despite our humble rank, we possess more influence than a lot of dukes. But the brighter we shine, the more shadows of envy we cast. A lot of people, including Count Rose, are waiting to seize even the smallest of opportunities to instigate against us.

If we had reacted as they desired, it would have been perceived as weakness—an opening they have eagerly awaited.

Had Aria asked Richard’s help right now, he wouldn’t have stopped at just getting her out of this predicament. Hah, it appears that my intervention in their meeting was unnecessary. I tested them to see if they’d like to take the easy way out, but they didn’t. And for that, I’m truly proud of them.

Richard once again adorned his goofy smile and began, “Anyway, about the vacation…”

***

Back to Aria’s POV:

That night, before going to bed,

“You are leaving tomorrow morning. I’ll miss you”, I said while hugging Letty.

“I’ll miss you too. But don’t worry, it’s just a week, it’ll be over before you know it”, she replied.

“Don’t forget to do your daily workout, but don’t overdo it. Don’t skip breakfast. And don’t cause too much trouble for Lady Carolina. Without Lady Sophia here to console her, she might not take it well. I’ve arranged a schedule for the next few days, so try to follow it. And call me if you can’t find anything, okay?”, she asked, reminding me of my previous life’s mom. She would list down such things one by one whenever I was heading on a school trip alone.

This made me tear up a little bit, but I hid it well. I pouted, acting hurt, and said, “I’m more than capable of taking care of myself. How else do you think I spent all those years at the academy?”

“Yeah, but still… Just take care of yourself, alright? And don’t miss me too much”, she said.

I should be cheering her on too, I’m sure she’ll be lonely out there. My mom from my past life used to promise that she’d prepare a wonderful meal when I return home. That kept me excited through the boring part of returning home from a fun trip. Ah, I know! How about I put in a nice little reward so that she looks forward to returning home quickly?

“Yeah… You know what, Letty? I think I should be a good boss for once and reward you for your hard work. So ask me anything you want. I promise, I won’t refuse”, I said. Imagining myself as a cool boss who is giving out bonuses to their employees.

I saw her blink in surprise. “What? That came out of nowhere. Uhm… Let me think… for  a reward… uhm. How about you start waking up early and not being late for work from now on?”, she asked.

“Rejected. Don’t bring work into this”

“Then… How about this? I want you to start eating sweets to your heart’s content. Whenever we have sweets, somehow I always end up finishing your part as well. So I want you to eat without holding any reservations from now on”, she said.

Err… What kind of reward is that? And should I clear up this misunderstanding? I don’t really like sweets all that much, I only have them because she loves them. Meh, whatever. I shouldn’t have asked her in the first place.

“That’s a terrible reward as well. Let me think for a second… How about I give you a wish coupon? You can redeem it anytime in the future and use your wish when you get a good idea about what you want”, I suggested.

“Ahh, a wish coupon. It’s like the genie lamp from one of your bedtime stories”, she playfully mimicked a deep voice and said, “This is a genie lamp, rub it, and the genie shall grant you three wishes. Muahahaha”

I chuckled and joined in the fun, saying, “Oh, is this the legendary Aladdin’s lamp? Be careful, rubbing it might summon a mischievous genie!”

Letty pretended to rub the air and exclaimed in a cheery voice, "Genie, grant me the power to eat unlimited chocolate without any consequences!"

We both laughed, enjoying the silly banter and shared jokes.

"Ah, if only wishes could come true so easily," I replied, playing along.

It acted as a nice distraction from the fact that we are not going to see each other for a whole week.

“Hehe, enough joking around. I’ll keep the wish coupon for now. I really can’t think of anything that I want”, she said.

“No worries. You have all the time you need. Now let’s go to bed. I don’t want to oversleep and miss sending you off ”

With that, we fell asleep in each other's arms, drifting away to the sweet wonderlands of dreams.