Surviving as a Terminally Ill Heiress - Chapter 37

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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 37

He scratched his cheek and continued.
“Well, and now that we’re speaking honestly… I don’t usually introduce myself in Ritz-style. Only back home.”
Of course not. There’s little point in revealing yourself as the child of a fallen nation.
I nodded, and Orka switched to Ateran with an awkward smile.
“Truth be told, I’m more comfortable speaking in the Ateran style now. But deep down, I suppose I wanted to reveal that I had some connection to you, miss. It was a rather embarrassing ploy. I apologize.”
I rose from my seat without hesitation.
And then I bowed my head deeply.
“M-Miss?”
“I’m the one who should apologize. I misjudged you. I condemned you without truly knowing you.”
So it was I who had harbored prejudice.
Looking only at Orka’s appearance, I’d assumed this well-raised young lord was resorting to shallow tricks like the other candidates.
“No, please—do raise your head.”
He was a kind person. The sort everyone would praise wherever he went.
Watching him, I felt a warmth bloom naturally in my chest.
“Thank you. Now let’s begin the real interview, shall we?”
Orka nodded gravely.
I spoke seriously.
“I want you to say my name.”
“Ah, Labuine…?”
“Hired.”
Orka looked bewildered—anything but pleased.
“You used familiarity as a weapon, and now that it’s worked, you’re not satisfied with the result, are you?”
His pale cheeks flushed crimson as if struck by the truth.
“U-well… I-I have no right to say this, but still, the fairness of it… and if this wasn’t something I accomplished through my own ability, I can’t accept the outcome, I…”
“Hired.”
I’m not changing my answer. Go home.
I gathered my things briskly without glancing at him.
“When you go back to your homeland and people ask how you possibly passed, do boast about it.”
“What do you mean…?”
“Tell them you did what the Duke Ambrose couldn’t do.”
Me?
I paid no attention to Orka’s stunned echo and walked away with light steps.
I needed to see the lawyer.
I had to draft the contract quickly and get it sealed.

* * *

“Sign here and here. And here as well.”
Ambrose’s lawyer was an unremarkable middle-aged man.
The sort permanently equipped with chronic exhaustion and irritation.
But he processed documents with such speed that he rushed through the paperwork and practically shoved me out the door.
His desk was piled high with even more files besides.
Poor soul. He’d have been better off if he were only mediocre at his job.
Then maybe I wouldn’t keep hearing that the Duke Ambrose refuses to accept his resignation.
Still, it’s good that Ambrose has plenty of talent if nothing else.
I left, waving the contract gleefully.
Ah, I should ask Orka for a lesson as a hiring celebration.
I wasn’t curious about the Academy itself, but I was curious about Academy-style instruction.

* * *

I could have done without knowing.
“Do you know what Ambrose began their legend with?”
Orka asked in the quintessential voice of a lecturer.
I stifled a yawn and answered.
“Beekeeping.”
“That is correct.”
Every snotty child in Atera would know that much.
After all, bees are the Ambrose sigil itself.
Orka nodded and began the familiar tale.
In the distant past, when sugar was called white gold.
Back then, beekeeping was the exclusive province of monasteries.
Originally it was to produce vast quantities of wax candles to offer in devotion, but the surplus honey became God’s trump card.
Common folk who had never even glimpsed sugar now had an alternative.
The Nivellis Temple saw its chance and provided small amounts of honey only to devoted believers.
A drop upon completing the transcription of scripture. Another drop for bringing a new devotee into the fold.
Under God’s mercy, sweetness fell like rain in the drought.
Fervor. Devotion. Conversion.
So effective was this method of conversion that the Nivellis Temple officially prohibited beekeeping anywhere outside its walls.
At that time, no one had the courage to commit such sacrilege.
Or so they thought.
“That’s ridiculous. Did they even ask the bees?”
She was either brave—or mad.
Both the Temple and the people saw her that way.
A heretic from a respectable line of founding nobles.
The family’s black sheep, cast off by her house—the youngest daughter who’d gone money-mad.
And she dared to challenge the Temple.
“I want to run a beekeeping business. And I will. If I do something, I do it.”
“This is outrageous! Beekeeping is a sacred rite of monasteries, performed in devotion to God!”
“Which is exactly why I’m asking—did you ask the bees? Your doctrine claims to respect the will and free choice of all living things. Isn’t that contradictory?”
“B-but how could you possibly ask bees…?”
“What? Ask how? That’s my point exactly.”
She had spoken bluntly to the High Priest, and now she added her final words.
“Fine then. Ask God yourself.”
It was pure nonsense.
God had long ago turned away from these lands.
The Grand Temple, which had mocked her so thoroughly, could never have foreseen it.
That a real Archangel would descend at those very words.
“See?”
In the dazzling light the Archangel brought, she snorted.
“You were wrong, you pigs.”
Thus began the Ambrose legend.
Money should be spent by those who have it.
That was the creed of the woman who became the mistress of the Ambrose Trading Company.
Through the Imperial Court, she created a fashion for the new sealing wax and seal rings, selling them to the nobility at exorbitant prices.
Then she declared, “I hate sweets,” and sold honey to commoners at dirt-cheap rates.
That alone was enough to shake loose the shallow devotees.
As a result, the Grand Temple underwent a reckoning.
Personnel and administration were reformed, focusing on those who had resisted the prior corruption.
It was reborn as the upright, unblemished Temple we know today.
And the reason she made money so desperately.
‘To give land to the persecuted mages.’
The land that would become the foundation of Pandium, the mages’ estate.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Ambrose created both the Nivellis Temple and Pandium as they exist today.
‘It’s like a fairy tale from Atera, but it never gets old.’
The lesson itself was tedious.
Orka is truly an excellent aide, but I shouldn’t request any more lessons from him.
I handed him today’s quota of letters to answer and sprawled across the sofa.
“…Hmm?”
A letter lay on the floor.
Did Orka leave it? No, it must have fallen when Tru was sorting them earlier.
The lovely envelope had gotten dirty rolling across the floor.
I picked it up and brushed it clean.
“I’m sorry, whoever you are.”
It happened sometimes because Tru gets excited at the mere sight of correspondence.
Let’s see—the sealing wax is green.
Usually used to express goodwill when there’s no particular intimacy.
As expected, the envelope bore an unfamiliar name.
[Matilda Hastings.]
Hastings as in the Hastings Marquessate?
Though their influence is weak in the Western Region these days, they’re one of the great noble houses, respected for their long history.
Now that I think of it, the Hastings Marquess’s daughter was said to be my age.
Recalling the noble family trees I’d half-absorbed, I opened the letter.
Flower petals were enclosed, releasing a pleasant fragrance.
[To my dear Labuine Ambrose.]
The handwriting is beautiful. She put care into the greeting too.
She seems like a well-educated, gentle child.
I read through the letter in good spirits.
The consistently gentle letter amounted to one thing: a desire to build friendship with me.
Hmm. A friend.
‘I dislike romance, but friendship might be nice.’
I’d spent my life doing nothing but work, with barely a friend to my name.
It wasn’t painful, but now that I thought about it, it was a little lonely.
Right. Since I’ve decided to enjoy this new life anyway.
I drafted a reply at once.
After several more casual letters had been exchanged this way,
and once our tone had grown familiar enough through correspondence, I received an invitation to Hastings Manor.

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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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