The Magical Holy Woman Seraphina - Chapter 30

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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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The Magical Saint Seraphina
Episode 30
Chapter 4. Grace of a Master🐶
Hello there!
My name is Ellie, and I work at the Oberon Dressing Room, which is run by Oblonski.
I love clothes, I love cosmetics, I love hats and gloves and pretty socks… basically, I love anything to do with fashion and beauty!
I’m working hard every day with the dream of opening my own dressing room before I turn thirty.
It’s not easy, because there are things I never could have imagined before actually working at a dressing room—difficult customers, difficult customers, and more difficult customers—but my coworkers make it bearable.
And the person I like most of all is Seraphina!
She started here about two years before me, and she’s been a huge help to me.
I was terribly nervous on my first day of work. So nervous my hands were actually shaking.
I was wiping my sweaty palms on my skirt while standing behind the counter, listening to Seraphina teach me how to fill out order forms, when—
suddenly some man thrust his face right up to the counter and started shouting.
“Miss! Where’s the measuring tape?”
“What?”
“The measuring tape! The measuring tape!”
“Excuse me, you can’t come back here!”
At our dressing room, we keep measuring tapes on hand so that servants who run errands or customers buying ready-made clothes can measure garment lengths themselves. There was even a bundle of them sitting right on the counter.
“Where! Here?!”
“Sir, please don’t put your hand in the cash drawer!”
There were measuring tapes right in front of his face, measuring tapes right next to his elbow—I couldn’t figure out why he was acting like this!
It’s just like someone going to a restaurant and sticking their hand into the kitchen demanding a fork!
That’s when Seraphina stepped in.
She took the file she’d been showing me and used it to gently lift the man’s hand away from the coin drawer.
“The measuring tape is right here, sir.”
She handed him her own measuring tape and sent him off.
The man took the tape and left without even saying thank you, and I felt a little awkward.
I was bracing myself for some lecture—”You shouldn’t raise your voice at customers like that,” or “You need to stop him from putting his hands in there no matter what,”
I was waiting nervously for whatever words of criticism would come.
But Seraphina just shrugged and said,
“Are we really that pretty?”
“Huh?”
“Think about it. The measuring tape is there, the measuring tape is over there. There’s a measuring tape sitting right between us and that man, clear as day. But he can’t see the measuring tape that’s much closer—he only sees our faces. Are we really that pretty?”
Pretty enough to hijack his attention like that?
“I don’t think we’re that pretty.”
Seraphina made a show of looking at her reflection in the mirror on the wall, then wrinkled her nose at me.
“Being pretty is exhausting, right?”
I burst out laughing.
It was such a silly thing, but it cracked me up.
Before I knew it, all my nervousness had melted away. The hot anxiety that had boiled up from that sudden chaos on my first day had cooled completely.
Seraphina’s always like that.
She loves joking around. She loves making jokes. Even when a difficult customer has made everyone angry and frustrated, she doesn’t lose her sense of humor.
“Ugh, Seraphina, you’re ridiculous!”
“This is absurd!”
Ha-ha-ha.
She’s the sister I love most—the one who can make me laugh even when I’m furious to the tips of my hair.
But today was different.
“You sold me this expensive thing! You recommended it to me! I never wanted to buy it! So you have to take responsibility and give me a refund!”
It doesn’t make any sense!
The woman bought a corsage made of fresh flowers! Fresh flowers! Seven hours ago!
It’s like buying milk from the refrigerated section at the grocer in the morning and asking for a refund that evening!
Who knows where she’s been keeping it in the meantime!
For all we know, she left it sitting in direct sunlight, let it wilt, and now she’s bringing it back asking for a refund! How are we supposed to know?
She definitely just took all her photographs with it and now that she doesn’t need it anymore, she’s come asking for her money back!
“This is absolutely shameless. You wouldn’t even let Seraphina go on her break earlier—you just kept demanding things from her, making her do this, do that.”
I’d be too embarrassed to act that way. Hazel whispered from beside me.
By now, the other customers in the dressing room were also watching Seraphina and the elderly woman locked in their argument.
“I’m going to report you all! My daughter is a teacher!”
To be honest, if I’d been the first one to encounter that old woman, I probably would have just done my work and pretended not to notice anything beyond that.
There’s no point in stepping in and helping more than necessary—you just end up getting blamed like this.
I wasn’t always this way, but I’ve changed after dealing with one thing and another. I try to be as defensive as possible. As passive as possible.
But Seraphina isn’t like that. Within her ability, she tries to help as much as she can.
‘Just human to human. Thinking of it as helping someone in trouble.’
It’s something Seraphina says often.
Not helping because I’m an employee, but just human to human. The way you’d help someone in distress on the street—offering kindness.
But this is what comes back?
To a subordinate employee, I apparently don’t even deserve the right to show kindness?
* * *
“Fresh flower corsages and worn shoes can’t be refunded. We explained that several times when you made your purchase….”
“I’ve already heard all that. What I want to know is.”
The woman cut off Seraphina and crossed her arms.
While she did, the little girl she’d brought along was tugging at the lace home décor beside her with both hands, leaving smudges on the pristine lace.
No one stepped in to stop her.
“Is it actually true that refunds aren’t allowed? Why?”
“It’s a product made with fresh flowers. The moment you leave the store….”
“No, stop saying the same thing. What-I’m-asking is, do you have legal grounds for refusing a refund? We took it out and came back in. It’s not like we showed up a week later or anything—we just held it for a moment and brought it back. Is that legally justified?”
The woman lifted her chin. I teach law at a regular school, she seemed to be saying.
“Under Commercial Law, customers can receive refunds due to simple changes of mind. Can you take legal responsibility for this situation right now?”
Even as the woman drew out her words and treated her counterpart like a dimwit who couldn’t understand, Seraphina’s expression didn’t waver.
Seraphina stepped behind the register and retrieved the consent form the woman’s mother had signed at purchase.
Because so many people asked for refunds on worn shoes or fresh flower corsages, they had customers fill out a consent form acknowledging that refunds would be difficult.
“If you look at the bottom of the form, the basis is right there, madam.”
“What basis? There’s a legal provision that says you have to give refunds.”
“It’s an exception clause to the provision you mentioned.”
“What?”
“Refunds due to a customer’s change of mind only apply when the product’s value hasn’t been compromised. Perishable items like food or flowers don’t qualify.”
……
“Regardless, since you’ve already signed the consent form, a refund isn’t possible.”
That’s right! Ellie pumped her fist in her mind.
Other customers who had drifted into watching now giggled. One customer who’d been debating the Magical Holy Maiden’s identity with a friend earlier whispered.
“Exactly. How could they issue a refund? The product’s value is already compromised.”
“Right? People like that would foam at the mouth if you tried to sell them something someone else returned.”
“How many difficult customers must there have been for them to require consent forms?”
“Ah, that feels good.”
‘Exactly!’
Ellie bounced internally in agreement.
But what neither the customers nor Ellie had considered was that this was a fight a clerk could never actually win.
“Hah.”
The woman let out a hollow laugh as if astounded, and now that she couldn’t win on logic, she reached for her final weapon.
“But you know what?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Is your tone always that unfriendly?”
……
What followed was an unrelenting barrage of one-sided attacks from the woman alone.
“I’m an educator, so I know the law better than you do. What does a mere dressing room clerk know to be spouting off about law….”
“Did you actually understand the provision you just cited before you said it?”
“Oh, I see how it is now. You act like this and then you’ll complain that difficult customers make your job hard.”
Another customer who couldn’t bear it any longer stepped in.
“Madam, isn’t that going too far? Your daughter could work in a dressing room someday too. Would you want her treated this way by someone?”
The woman scoffed as if she’d heard something ridiculous and shot back.
“My daughter will never have to work in a place like this.”
Meanwhile, the grandmother who was the source of this whole mess made no move to stop her daughter, instead sampling the refreshments set out for tasting and touching the dress alongside her granddaughter with greasy fingers.
“Why, does that upset you? If it upset you, you should have studied hard in school and gotten yourself a decent job.”
The woman, who’d driven her final dagger home to Seraphina, left with her daughter and mother.
Her steps were brisk, having fully vented her frustration at not receiving the refund.
The dressing room fell silent as a tomb after they left.
“Miss, are you alright?”
“Well, there are all kinds of people like that….”
The kind-hearted customers offered a few words of comfort.
And so did her colleagues and the other customers.
Everyone stood frozen, watching Seraphina. The tension was suffocating.
Ellie expected her sister to burst into tears at any moment, or hurl something in a fit of rage, or at the very least excuse herself to compose her nerves.
But Ellie’s favorite sister simply lowered her eyes.
She tucked a strand of fallen hair behind her ear.
Then lifted her gaze.
It was then that Ellie noticed him—the handsome junior officer who had just entered the dressing room, a blond Imperial Palace knight.
Their eyes met.
Seraphina smiled.
And spoke.
In that playful tone of hers.
“Arden.”
……
“I’m having a rough time. Would you run away with me?”

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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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