A Korean Office Worker Who Became a Nuisance Villainess in a Zombie Story - Chapter 186

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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How to breathe new life into a city despite countless obstacles.
1. Bring in talented people.
I cannot do everything alone. I must acknowledge my limitations and invite experts.
In my case, that was Smoothie.
Do you remember him?
The property manager of Promé.
His face brightened at the prospect of sending his mathematically gifted younger sibling to university.
Smoothie returned to my office just as he came back from running an errand at the Imperial Bank.
“Fortunately, my conversation with the Bank Manager went well. And Your Highness, if I use a portion of the Imperial budget allocated to you as you suggested….”
“…Yes, I’d like to provide free public transportation from the newly constructed train station to Sodom at the city level. Large carriages running on the train schedule should suffice, but how many would we need?”
“We could start with about six for a trial run….”
“We could use the carriages that belonged to the former Local Lord….”
“Then what would be the cost per carriage ride….”
“And if I recall correctly, there are several elephants in Sodom….”
“Ah, the ones people enjoy riding….”
“City tour elephants….”
Experience the beautiful nightscape of Sodom! See Sodom’s transformed evening views! Take a ride on an elephant!
“We should be more careful with this one—we wouldn’t want it to become animal cruelty….”
I toss out ideas carelessly, and Smoothie listens to each one seriously, examines their feasibility, rechecks the costs, and then delegates tasks to his subordinates.
That’s right.
Smoothie, who once worked alone in an unheated office, now has staff under him!
“By the way, Smoothie.”
I asked him, no longer seeing a trace of his former naïveté.
“How is the hotel’s interior decoration coming along?”
How to breathe new life into a city with virtually nothing.
2. Repurpose the remaining infrastructure.
I am the Grand Duke, and Sodom is my territory, but I am also the Emperor’s fiancée. My primary base is the Capital.
Therefore, I don’t actually need the Sodom Lord’s Castle.
‘An office to visit periodically and handle business would suffice.’
So I boldly decided to convert the Sodom Lord’s Castle into a hotel.
You know how it is when you visit Europe—’This hotel is a luxury manor house converted from a 14th-century lord’s residence. Tada!’
The Sodom Lord’s Castle conveniently has many rooms.
“We’re in the final stages. As you instructed, we’ve converted the large hall in the basement into a concert venue, and the banquet hall into a wedding chapel….”
“Make sure to charge the maximum price for the wedding chapel, understood?”
Beyond that, there were gambling houses scattered here and there, the underground city where Aspara had been imprisoned, and an enormous concert hall large enough to accommodate all of Sodom’s citizens. I planned to put every bit of it to good use.
The underground city would become a zombie experience space.
The lord’s castle would serve as a hotel and wedding chapel, ballroom… the secret basement room as a private concert venue for the wealthy.
The original large concert hall would become Sodom’s premier theater, directly under my management.
The broken temple at a distance would become a historical site.
“I’ll create a tour package from where Cyprus coughed up blood and collapsed to the outer Temple of Marriage….”
They even erected a statue at the spot where Cyprus collapsed. When he heard about it, Cyprus laughed so hard.
Is my effort to earn money funny?
“Ah, and regarding the gambling houses…”
3. Strict Law Enforcement. Trustworthy Security.
“Sodom still hasn’t shaken its image as a city of indulgence. We need effort to erase that impression. We need to reform the mindset of the Territory’s residents too… In any case, gambling houses are absolutely out of the question.”
The image is already tarnished because of the zombies—if word spreads that it’s a gambling city, who would come? Only low-quality people would show up.
We might be able to rake in quick profits at first, but long-term, it’s not beneficial.
“Don’t skimp on security expenses. Increase the number of security personnel and conduct regular patrols. Crack down strictly on pickpocketing and robbery incidents. Do the same for people scamming tourists. Enforce the law rigorously.”
“Understood. Then for the locations of the closed gambling houses….”
“Ah. About that.”
4. Content Unique to Us.
“I’d like to convert them all into cafes or restaurants.”
I pulled out the list of restaurants from the Capital and Southern Region that I’d been collecting.
“The places marked with red pen are those who’ve confirmed their willingness to open a second location in Sodom. The ones marked with blue pen are still under negotiation.”
Where did I gather this from?
Tangerine, who loves good food, and Mascarpone, who has some influence in high society, went through the trouble for me.
“Especially the cafe at the very top of the list—it’s one that Cyprus frequents, and they’ve agreed to open a second location in Sodom. I visited it once before myself, and the bread is delicious. I think it would be perfect to set up the second location next to that old Temple where the Cyprus statue stands.”
A famous restaurant from the Capital—it must have been difficult having to travel all the way there, wasn’t it?
Now you can enjoy it here in Sodom.
The same goes for restaurants from the Southern Region.
“You can get people to visit once out of curiosity, but getting them to return a second or third time requires effort. The restaurants and cafes will serve that purpose.”
Sodom, the city of indulgence. Let it be reborn as Sodom, the city of fine dining.
“And we’ll leave a few spaces exclusively for pop-up stores.”
“Pop-up… stores?”
“Ah, what that is…”
I was in the middle of explaining.
“You’ve forgotten something.”
Praha, who had been frantically flipping through documents across from me, interjected.
When had he been listening to all of this while doing his own work?
By the way, this is an office that the two of us share.
The space that was originally the Emperor’s office alone has been converted into an office for both the Emperor and Empress.
Facing each other, Praha handles his work while I handle mine here. If either of us doesn’t know something, we ask the other.
When time is short, we both grab sandwiches for lunch at the table in the middle.
“Forgotten something? What?”
Was there something like that?
I tilted my head in confusion. Then Praha, blinking his eyes, replied.
“You’ve forgotten the Museum and the Department Store.”
“A Museum and a Department Store?”
Sodom doesn’t have those kinds of things.
Of course, I’m eager to build them, and I’ve already scouted locations with that in mind.
‘First, I don’t have the funds to construct such a massive building.’
A department store might be manageable, but a museum would require collections to fill it, which I don’t possess.
I gazed at Praha with bewilderment.
Then it struck me.
The corners of Praha’s mouth were subtly curved upward.
Since he was ordinarily so expressionless, even the slightest smile became noticeable—but today, with his lips so swollen, I’d failed to notice until now.
Unable to help myself, I mirrored his smile at the beautiful man before me.
In that moment, Praha spoke.
“I shall build them for you.”
“I’m sorry? Build wh—what?”
Surely he didn’t mean both the museum and the department store?
“Yes.”
“Gasp….”
“It is a gift I give to my fiancée.”
“Gasp!”
“I’ve already secured an architect. I’ll explain the details later this evening when we dine together, just the two of us.”
“But—but what about the collections? A department store is one thing, but there’s nothing to fill a museum with.”
“We can relocate the items from the Artificial Island Villa.”
Since no one uses that place anymore, after all.
Praha finished speaking while glancing at Smoothie, then lifted his chin.
“A tourist city ought to have at least a department store and a museum.”
“….”
“Does it please you?”
“Yes! Of course it does!”
I sprang to my feet.
I tried to rush over and embrace him, but Praha was faster.
He strode toward me and lifted me into his arms.
He spun me around in the air several times as one would a child, then set me down.
“This is so exciting!”
I laughed until my feet left the ground.
It wasn’t because he was building structures for me.
Well, of course that’s part of it!
I was laughing because I adored Praha!
A way to breathe new life into a city with nothing to its name.
And finally, a lover who builds museums and department stores.
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Epilogue.
Aide Smoothie’s thoughts on a lover who builds museums and department stores.
‘Thank you, Emperor… But you need not keep looking at me like that….’
Surely I don’t even register as a rival in the eyes of the Empire’s sun, Emperor himself, so why does he keep casting that glance my way each time?
Could it be that His Excellency still holds a grudge over the flowers I presented to him before?
‘But that affection withered before it could even take root….’
How could it possibly grow when His Majesty the Emperor keeps looking at me that way every time….
Smoothie simply wanted to leave work now.
As an Imperial employee for whom clocking out took precedence over love.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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