I Just Traded in the Forest of Monsters, but the World Changed - Chapter 24

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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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Chapter 24
Rowen’s gaze turned toward Cassian.
He bore the look of someone waiting for orders to fall.
Cassian, meanwhile, swept his eyes across the surroundings at Se Hui’s words.
An empty clearing, the distant presence of monsters fading, and wyverns circling overhead.
‘Customers?’
To anyone’s eye, these were beings no customer would resemble.
It was nothing like when there’d been only the one wolf.
“Monsters are dangerous.”
Cassian’s gaze flicked between the wolf’s teeth and the wyvern’s shadow.
“They’re my customers.”
But what came back was a single, resolute word.
Cassian’s eyebrow twitched minutely.
His expression conveyed utter bewilderment at what Se Hui had just said.
“Se Hui, I’m protecting you. Monsters bare their fangs without warning.”
His tone was measured and absolute.
As if there were no room for doubt.
At those words, Se Hui’s eyes grew cold.
“Starving to death is dangerous too, isn’t it?”
Se Hui’s hand gripped the chopsticks tighter, almost without thinking.
“Will you feed me instead, Duke?”
Se Hui did not smile.
“If necessary.”
Cassian answered at once, as though such a thing were obvious.
“I won’t let you starve.”
There was no hesitation in Cassian’s words.
It was the first time anyone had seen a duke promise to sustain an individual’s livelihood.
Se Hui shook her head slowly.
“I’m not here looking for charity.”
At that, Cassian’s gaze swept across the clearing.
There was only one way to survive here: to move on your own.
Se Hui did not avert her eyes.
“Is it protection to ruin my business?”
Se Hui did not yield an inch.
The wolf’s fur began to rise slowly.
Cassian’s gaze wavered for a moment, and he fell silent.
Wind gusted hard, scattering fallen leaves between them.
Se Hui tucked her windswept hair behind her ear, her steady gaze pinning Cassian’s own.
“I’m not someone to be protected—I’m a proprietor.”
She spoke coolly, her eyes following the phantom forms of fleeing customers beyond Cassian’s solid shoulders as he stood in her way.
“So protection is one thing, but—”
She stepped forward.
“Protect my sales revenue instead.”
One of the knights swallowed hard.
“All my customers just ran away, after all.”
Silence settled between them.
“I’m about to starve while being protected.”
Murmurs rippled through the knights.
“Sales revenue, to the Duke?”
One of the knights clenched his teeth.
“Just what is this woman—”
Erasmus, having finished cleaning and now standing beside them, stroked his beard and laughed as though amused.
“Ha ha. Now this is an interesting dynamic.”
Se Hui pretended not to hear and looked Cassian squarely in the eye.
“Take responsibility.”
In that moment, the wolf stepped forward again.
The wolf positioned itself alongside Se Hui’s leg, as if shielding her.
And quietly, it looked up at Cassian.
As though siding with Se Hui, reproaching Cassian for his wrongs.
“Take… responsibility?”
Perplexity flickered across Cassian’s features.
Within the Empire, only the Emperor himself could hold him accountable.
Yet here, in the middle of the forest, a woman in an apron stared directly into his eyes and demanded he take responsibility for her sales revenue.
“I know the Duke didn’t mean to do it.”
Se Hui crossed her arms and continued.
“But as a matter of fact, the moment the Duke appeared, all my customers fled en masse. That’s clear business interference.”
Then Rowen, who had been watching from behind, could hold back no longer and stepped forward.
His hand remained fixed on his sword hilt.
“How dare you! The Duke, as master of this forest, was driving out the dangerous monsters to protect you.”
Rowen’s voice rose sharply.
“You call those creatures customers and demand the Duke answer for it? Are you in your right mind?”
To Rowen, Se Hui appeared either bewitched by monsters or a deranged fool oblivious to the ways of the world.
For knights, monsters were subjects for elimination, not subjects for transaction.
“Rowen.”
Cassian’s low voice resonated across the Clearing.
A chill rippled through it, and Rowen’s shoulders flinched.
“Sheathe that blade. And show Se Hui respect.”
“But Duke, that woman is defending monsters right now—!”
“Are my words not reaching your ears?”
Cassian’s gaze hardened in an instant, becoming razor-sharp.
Rowen had no choice but to close his mouth, bow his head, and retreat.
Cassian turned back to Se Hui.
Her momentum had not diminished in the slightest; if anything, her expression now pressed him with the question: “So, how are you going to compensate me?”
But inside, everything was different.
Her heart was thundering violently in her chest.
‘Wow, I’m completely out of my mind right now.’
Demanding an Imperial Duke take responsibility.
When she felt the weight of every knight’s gaze fixed upon her, her fingertips trembled imperceptibly.
She gripped the Chopsticks tighter without meaning to.
If it showed, it would be all over.
‘Don’t lose your nerve. Sales revenue, sales revenue.’
This was better than starving to death.
Se Hui forced the corners of her mouth upward and did not look away.
Cassian surveyed the area around the Tent with complicated feelings.
Fragments of scorched batter scattered on the ground, and Wolf, standing beside Se Hui with eyes blazing.
He felt it acutely once more: his common sense had no place here.
Cassian had received countless apologies, but he rarely initiated one himself.
“I apologize.”
When Cassian’s words broke the silence, the Clearing froze.
“I did not respect your way of doing things. I had no intention of damaging your sales revenue.”
An audible gasp.
The eyes of the knights standing behind him widened all at once as if they might burst from their sockets.
The Duke known as the Iron-Blooded had just bowed his head and apologized to a common woman—and for driving away monsters, no less.
“Am I hearing things?”
“Did the Duke just… apologize?”
The knights looked at each other’s faces in astonishment.
Only Erasmus, sipping Mix Coffee in the corner, murmured to himself.
“The Lady Boss’s negotiating prowess is truly remarkable.”
Se Hui was taken aback by the swiftness of his apology, but did not let it show.
‘Does he really accept it that easily?’
Se Hui opened her mouth with deliberate calm.
“I’ll accept the apology.”
Se Hui gave a single nod.
“Now make up for the sales revenue the Duke cost me.”
“I will.”
“Conveniently, there are ten knights here? You understand prepayment, yes?”
At those words, the knights’ gaze turned toward Se Hui as one.
In their eyes, she had begun to look like a woman of ill intent exploiting the Duke’s generosity to make an unreasonable demand.
“Even so, demanding the Duke take responsibility for sales revenue—”
“Do you think we came here to idle? Maintaining the forest’s security is a knight’s duty.”
Muttered complaints, hushed and tinged with dissatisfaction, reached Se Hui’s ears.
Rowen still stood before the knights with an expression of clear displeasure.
At this rate, they’d ruin the atmosphere before they could even make a sale.
‘Great. These men look ready to throw a fit en masse.’
Se Hui clicked her tongue silently.
These weren’t mere customers.
They were the premium clients who could single-handedly fulfill the System’s requirement of ten transactions, opening the door to what came next.
She couldn’t afford to lose them.
Se Hui took a deep breath and drew out her ace card—the secret weapon she’d once wielded while handling difficult clients back in her distribution company’s sales support days.
[Capitalism’s Smile (A)]
: When displaying a sales smile, purchasing desire of customers increases by a certain probability
A blue window flickered into view, then dissolved like an afterimage.
Life flooded back into Se Hui’s face in an instant.
Her heart still hammered rapidly, but her expression came under perfect control.
Eyes that had been cold and distant curved into crescents, and the corners of her mouth lifted with gentle grace.
“Oh, my apologies, sirs! I’m afraid I was so startled that I spoke rather harshly.”
When Se Hui’s voice rolled out smooth as jade, the muttering knights stiffened and turned to look at her.
Thanks to Capitalism’s Smile, her smile seemed to shine with the brilliance of sunlight suddenly breaking through a forest canopy.
“The Duke takes such care of our humble shop, you see, and I let that fluster me….”
Several of the knights exchanged sidelong glances.
The sharp tension that had hung in the air moments before loosened, almost imperceptibly.
“I wasn’t paying attention. You must be exhausted from such a long journey.”
Her gaze swept lightly across the dust clinging to their armor.
The evidence of a full day spent traversing the forest was unmistakable.
“As an apology, please allow me to add special ‘VIP service’ to your order today.”

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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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