Isn’t Being A Wicked Woman Much Better? - Chapter 13

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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 13
“I want to purchase information about Louis Gazel.”
At my words, he tapped his fingers rhythmically on the table.
“Louis Gazel. He’s the eldest son of a regional lord with territory in the border region of the Western Border. If there’s anything notable, it’s that a large silver mine was discovered in the west last year, and his family has recently accumulated considerable wealth.”
The Western Border?
I felt my blood pressure rising. Velek, the more I uncover about this bastard, the worse it gets. There’s no holding back my fury. Duke Simour’s territory and the Capital were both in the Eastern Region.
He intended to isolate me in some distant, unfamiliar land. To ensure I could never set foot in Duke Simour’s domain again.
Frankly, it was closer to exile than marriage.
‘Does he think I’ll accept this meekly?’
I barely suppressed the rage welling up inside me and continued speaking.
“I don’t want simple information. I want to know his weaknesses.”
I would find fault with the fiancé Velek was forcing upon me and tear him down by any means necessary. I had to humiliate that bastard’s face for pushing this marriage.
“So you’re looking for flaws to attack your opponent with.”
“Exactly.”
Understanding my intent, he pressed his thumb and index finger together, forming the shape of a coin.
‘He’s asking for a down payment.’
I pulled a pouch from my leather bag and dumped out a cascade of jewels protected by preservation magic. His eyes widened slightly.
“You didn’t think that was all, did you?”
Wearing the imperious yet confident expression I’d practiced in the mirror, I pulled out another pouch and emptied it. At the loud clinking of precious metals colliding, the beast sprawled beside Master perked up its ears, its sullen expression shifting.
“If you demonstrate your information network, I’ll demonstrate my wealth.”
First impressions matter most in any relationship. I wanted to impress upon him that I was a more generous and bold client than the Crown Prince. Since I was spending money anyway, I didn’t want to appear as petty as he did.
‘I’m better than the Crown Prince, aren’t I? You’ll want to keep doing business with me, won’t you?’
I stared at the man with that unspoken meaning burning in my gaze.
Sapphire, ruby, opal, obsidian, topaz—covering the full spectrum of colors to create a more dazzling visual effect.
“Since the lady has shown such sincerity, I too must reciprocate in kind.”
Master, ever the wordsmith, picked up the jewels from the table and spoke again.
“Is there anyone in this world who doesn’t have dust to shake loose? Louis Gazel will produce quite a heap with just a little shaking.”
He smiled thinly. When he’d orchestrated the conspiracy to accuse Deborah of sacrilege and send her to the Convent, he’d probably worn that same serpentine expression.
‘He could even fabricate weaknesses that don’t exist.’
A man unreliable when working against you, but more dependable than anyone when on your side. Satisfied that I’d come to the right place, I presented my second request.
“Second request. Is it possible to buy and sell titles?”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Of course… titles can certainly be bought and sold. If integrity itself can be purchased with money, why not a title?”
He made a remark befitting a miser while toying with a red ruby.
“What’s the price?”
“It varies by title. The seller sets the price. Nobility is such an attractive status, after all.”
Damn. I’m not the only one who wants to buy a title.
With high demand, prices naturally rise, and I felt my anxiety spike.
“I’d like to know the average market price for a baron’s title.”
My heart tightened, but I forced myself to speak with deliberate calm.
“While the sample size is too small to calculate a true average, a sum of this magnitude would be more than sufficient to acquire a lower noble house title.”
Master dipped the quill’s tip into black ink.
‘What… what is this?’
Staring at the endless parade of zeros cascading across the paper, I nearly grabbed him by the collar. The price that had been climbing at a terrifying rate suddenly came to a complete halt.
‘How can it possibly be this expensive?!’
Converting gold coins to modern currency made the figure feel even more absurd.
‘One billion.’
I had anticipated at most one hundred million, but this was excessively steep. However…
‘In my past life, it would have been unrealistic, but for me now, it’s not entirely impossible.’
I had once carelessly quoted four thousand to the Duke based on my previous life’s standards and paid the price for it.
‘I’m born with an orichalcum spoon, after all.’
Deborah’s foundation was fundamentally different from Yoon Do-hee’s, so I could accumulate this. No, I absolutely had to. I couldn’t possibly marry Louis Gazel, who drooled like a pervert whenever he saw a pretty woman and made advances.
“That’s hardly a sum.”
Master shrugged at my bluff.
“Indeed, for a young lady who possesses a necklace worth the price of a Capital Town House, it must seem like a trifle.”
A Town House would fetch somewhere between one and two billion at minimum.
“Well spoken. That pink diamond—I want to convert it to gold coins. This is my third commission.”
I had been hesitant to sell it out of concern for the Duke’s reaction, but seeing the price of the title changed my mind. I would have to sell it regardless of the risk.
“Pardon?”
Master set down his quill with a tap, furrowing his brow at my words, and regarded me with an expression of utter bewilderment.
“Why would you suddenly resell that jewel? I understood you went on a hunger strike to obtain it and even faced confinement as a result?”
“You, as an information broker, keep forgetting your duty. If you’re going to keep asking me questions, then you should give me jewels of equal value.”
A fleeting look of astonishment crossed the man’s glass-like eyes. His lips, which had been slightly parted, slowly curved upward, and he let out a short, soft laugh.
‘It seems he wasn’t offended.’
I swallowed a sigh inwardly. The reason I could be so reckless was my absolute certainty that he couldn’t do anything to me as the Duke Simour’s daughter.
In simple terms, I was bluffing on the strength of my father’s name. If this clever man discovered I was a coward, he would strip me bare—body and soul.
“It appears I’ve forgotten my duty once again. I apologize once more.”
The man, with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, offered a playful apology. For a moment, he looked surprisingly young, which caught me off guard.
‘Now that I think about it, how old is Master? The more I look, the less I can tell.’
“Young lady.”
I was studying his features intently when his soft voice snapped me back to attention.
“You’re planning to dispose of the pink diamond without Duke Simour’s knowledge, aren’t you?”
Master immediately grasped the true intent behind my commission to sell the diamond.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“However, since that jewel has already gained considerable notoriety in High Society, it’s impossible to resell it discreetly. If it reappears at an Auction House or jewelry shop, rumors will inevitably spread.”
I had thought he would grant any request like a genie from a lamp, but he firmly declared it impossible.
“However, there is a way to convert the jewel to gold coins without upsetting Duke Simour.”
Master immediately presented a reasonable alternative.
“What is it?”
At my question, his eyes curved like a fox’s.
“Fifty-fifty.”
“Surely you’re not asking for half of what the pink diamond sold for?”
“I’m delighted that we understand each other so well, my lady.”
Damn it. Where do these shameless bastards keep coming from?
“Nonsense. Your cut is far too generous. I’m willing to pay a commission reasonable enough to make it worth your while.”
“My lady. More pink diamonds are scheduled to be released in the future.”
I softened my expression slightly at his words. Master, befitting a jeweler who distributed such gems, seemed to have a reasonable grasp of the supply of mined pink diamonds.
“Before the stones flood the market and their rarity diminishes, it’s strategically advantageous to liquidate them. In exchange for taking a larger share, I’ll sell the jewels you acquire for more than double what Duke Simour paid for them.”
He tossed the gold coins stacked on the table high into the air, caught them on the back of his hand, and spoke with absolute confidence while displaying the obverse of a coin bearing the profile of the founding emperor.
“Since my share is substantial, I’ll operate with maximum profit in mind.”
I fell into contemplation. Rarity was the crux of it—if the item’s scarcity would only decline, disposing of it quickly was profitable. Moreover, if he sold them for considerably more than the auction price, even a fifty-fifty split wouldn’t be a losing proposition.
I was also genuinely curious what strategy this man would devise.
“Still, fifty-fifty is too much. Seventy-thirty.”
“If you tell me why Cookie drools whenever he looks at you, my lady, I’ll accept seventy-thirty.”
I hesitated, meeting Cookie’s gaze—those watery, adoring eyes fixed upon me.
In truth, the reason Master’s beast was so fond of me was simple: I had five pouches of catnip hanging from my waist.
From Master’s remark about the cat seal with its raised tail describing a golden beast, I’d deduced his pet was feline, and my guess had proven correct.
Incidentally, this place hadn’t developed a pet culture, so catnip was used solely as a medicinal ingredient. Naturally, Master couldn’t fathom that I’d been supplying Cookie with feline narcotics.
“…I’ll stick with fifty-fifty. I’m not like you—I don’t peddle information.”
Though trivial to me, this information would be valuable to Master, an apparent cat enthusiast.
‘Stimulating Master’s curiosity, maintaining his interest—these are essential to sustaining our dealings.’
It would be wasteful to reveal it merely for raising the settlement ratio to seventy-thirty.
“You won’t budge, will you?”
As he grumbled with a displeased expression, I broached my final request.
“Final matter. How can I efficiently manage discretionary funds?”
I possessed countless jewels and accessories, yet I had almost no gold coins to spend like currency here.
When I purchased items with checks, the Duchy’s financial administrator would remit the coins on a deferred basis, so there was no need to carry them.
However, using checks meant every item I purchased and its price would be reported to the Duke like a credit card statement.
‘It’s as good as having my movements tracked.’
Even if I wanted to accumulate substantial coins from selling jewels, unmarried noblewomen before their debutante ball weren’t recognized as having private property, making it impossible to open a personal bank account.
Accustomed to the convenient electronic financial systems of the twenty-first century, I found myself at a loss over how to store and manage these heavy coins rather than paper currency.
“Discretionary funds, you say…”
Master continued languidly, chin resting on his hand.
“Usually, people either bury coins by digging on private land or secretly stash them in a hidden safe in the mansion’s underground chamber.”
‘The wealthy do the same things everywhere, it seems.’
“Both methods are too tedious for me. Is there nothing else?”
Suppressing my frustration and furrowing my brow, Master slowly rubbed his pale chin with his black-gloved hand.
“Then perhaps this problem requires creativity rather than information gathering?”
“…”
“If I demonstrate my creativity, what will you show me in return, my lady?”
Master, with the cunning of a seasoned operator, turned my own words back on me, testing whether I could demonstrate something beyond mere wealth.
‘Just as expected from a character with that shadowy mastermind aesthetic—he’s not someone to be trifled with. Lesser players would tremble and scramble at the mere hint of a frown.’
But I possessed something else beyond financial resources.

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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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