The Villainess Builds a Department Store - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Villainess Establishes a Department Store

Chapter 1

On a December day when bitter cold was raging fiercely.

People lined up in a long queue along the splendid building’s exterior wall, staring only at the clock hands.

8:59:10.

30 seconds.

55 seconds.

Clang!

Simultaneously with the bell sound, the uniformed doorman vigorously threw open the glass doors.

“Get out of the way!”

“I came in first!”

“Please stop pushing!”

People rushed into the building in a stampede as if someone were chasing them from behind.

Above their heads fluttered a banner with ornate decorative letters.

【Le Marché des Rêves Department Store Year-End Settlement Customer Appreciation Festival】

Unlike the first floor which became packed without even room to step in an instant, the second floor was relatively quiet.

It was a special section permitted only to a select few important customers of the department store.

“It’s been a while, Madame Levelly. Did you also come to see the new products?”

“Madame Lession! How delightful to meet you here. My daughter has been making such a fuss. She tries to copy everything that woman does.”

“Our daughter is the same way. Well, you can trust the quality of Rêves products. It’s not a patronage company for nothing, right?”

“I like that the prices are fixed here. It would be undignified for people like us to haggle… But buying blindly makes me anxious about being overcharged…”

Noblewomen dressed in thick fur and silk dresses exchanged greetings with bright smiles.

“Oh, did you hear the news? That fiancé was actually a prince!”

“Come now. A prince? Would the royal family accept someone who grew up among such lowly people?”

Just then, a clear voice interjected among the noblewomen.

“Shouldn’t we ask the person in question about their intentions first?”

The noblewomen’s faces turned pale when they recognized the owner of the voice.

“M-Mademoiselle Charmeuze! And… Monsieur Velour…”

Adelaide smiled elegantly and nodded slightly. Unlike her lips that curved in a smooth line, her blue-violet eyes were utterly cold.

They hastily covered their faces with fans. But Adelaide’s eyes had already memorized their faces.

Adelaide simply tilted her head slightly and asked her fiancé.

“Will you go back?”

When their eyes met, a small flame flickered in his red gaze that had been drowsy as if submerged in water.

“Why would I?”

With a sharp immediate answer, the man chuckled softly while giving a dazzling eye-smile.

His tone suggested he wouldn’t take the royal family even if they offered it to him.

The man lightly kissed Adelaide’s hand and added.

“What would I do there without you?”

At his low, languid voice full of affection, someone somewhere exclaimed “Oh my” with envious admiration.

“Seb. We’re in front of people.”

However, Adelaide, who was pushing the man away with her fan, also had an undeniable smile hanging at the corners of her mouth.

The man giggled like a mischievous boy and rested his chin on Adelaide’s fan.

“You can’t do this kind of thing with a prince.”

Your lips shining above my head are enough for me.

At his following statement, the eyes of the young ladies who had been watching them with bated breath grew even wider.

Adelaide sighed and shook her head as if she was used to him.

But her gaze toward her lover was full of undeniable affection.

“…Anyway, that’s the opinion of the person in question.”

“…”

Adelaide spoke as if for everyone to hear.

“Please look forward to the spring sale as well. You’ll be able to find items suitable to your taste on the first floor.”

It meant that those who had spoken ill of her lover would never again be invited to the special section.

That signified expulsion from the social circle.

But the noblewoman couldn’t even protest.

Her words were no different from the law of the social circle.

“Let’s go, Bastian. We need to look around the first floor too.”

“W-wait! Wait a moment! It’s not like that…”

Tap.

Bastian lightly swatted away the hand of the noblewoman who tried to cling to them belatedly.

“I’m sorry, madam. Being a lowly person, even the etiquette I learned is vulgar.”

Just as the noblewoman was about to flare up, forgetting her situation at the man’s attitude that showed not an ounce of remorse.

“Oh right, about that fixed-price system idea.”

Adelaide added as if she had just remembered.

“…?”

“That idea came from Bastian. This person is an even more outstanding genius than I am.”

Well then. Adelaide gracefully passed by the completely speechless noblewoman.

Truly.

Having experienced him twice, she could guarantee it.

* * *

“You shameless thing!”

Splash!

Cold water was poured over my head.

Along with the awakening cold, the stench of rotting plant stems that hadn’t had their water changed stung my nose.

“Not knowing the grace of being raised! How dare you!”

Finally, with a crash, sharp fragments of the vase flew in all directions.

When I rubbed my cheek at the stinging pain, a thin streak of blood came away.

Really, what won’t he do.

“Having been kicked out by your husband too, huh? Where do you think this is, crawling back in here?”

“He was the one who cheated first. The one you raised was me as a child, and this is my estate that I grew up in and inherited. Aren’t you ashamed, Uncle? How could you swallow up your niece and nephew’s inheritance like that…”

Smack!

I screamed involuntarily at the pain like a heated poker gouging into my cheek.

Of all things, he hit the side where the fragments had flown.

“Get out right now!”

I was immediately driven out by the servants’ rough hands, but I couldn’t easily take my steps away from in front of the estate.

Damn uncle.

When my parents died simultaneously in a train accident, my uncle who became the guardian of my younger sibling and me squandered all of my parents’ wealth in an instant. And now he was trying to sell off even the noble title my younger sibling possessed.

Does it make sense to learn about your own brother’s engagement news from the newspaper?

Moreover, he already had a lover he had promised to marry.

I immediately took the newspaper and headed to the estate, but all that came back was rotten water and slaps.

In the end, I couldn’t resolve anything, and my steps returning home were very heavy with helplessness and despair.

What greeted me when I returned with powerless steps was not an empty house, but Antoine with a face full of fatigue.

“Antoine? Why are you home at this hour? You weren’t… fired, were you?”

“Fired? Me? It’s not like that, older sister. I came to get some documents I left behind. More importantly, what’s wrong with your face? Don’t tell me Uncle again…?”

“Sorry… I tried to persuade him one last time, but it didn’t go well.”

“Why are you apologizing, older sister? Let’s apply medicine first. It would be terrible if it left a scar.”

“It’s fine. More importantly, what did the company president say?”

“Whether I become a son-in-law or a kept man, he’s still my employer, so he told me to go do my work?”

“…That’s a relief.”

What a personality he has. However, I felt reassured by that characteristic arrogance of his.

Sebastian Velour, commonly called Bastian.

He had saved us siblings once again.

He was a commoner who employed nobles, the owner of Patronage Company’s Belleau Department Store, and above all, a genius of the ages who first created the concept of a ‘department store.’

Generally, he looked down on nobles and royalty equally like insects, but he showed generous tolerance to only one type—those who proved their worth to him.

Antoine was exactly that example.

If it weren’t for him recognizing and acknowledging my younger sibling’s talent, we might be shivering in some back alley right now instead of this modest but clean company residence.

“He’s truly a gracious person. Don’t you think? Please tell him we’re really grateful.”

“Got it. Oh, right. The Company President said he’d like to have a meal together once the work is finished. You too, Older Sister.”

“Me too?”

At those unexpected words, tension crept back into my shoulders.

I had encountered Bastian exactly once before.

‘Antoine? Who’s behind you… Don’t tell me Uncle borrowed money in our name again? I don’t have a single coin to give you even if you threaten to kill me, so right now…!’

‘This is our Company President…’

‘…Come in and have a meal! Even if I don’t have coins to die with, I have soup that two could eat until one dies without notice.’

Of all things, this had to be my first and last memory of meeting him.

“Yeah. It seems he has something to say? I should get going now. I’ll be back, Older Sister.”

“Be careful.”

After seeing off Antoine, whose face looked like it would collapse at a touch, I returned and froze solid upon seeing the documents neatly placed on the table.

Isn’t that… the document he said he came to get?

“Antoine! You left your documents behind!”

It was the moment I rushed out recklessly to chase after him.

Bang!

With a thunderous sound, my body was lifted into the air.

The next moment came the sound of something shattering and being crushed.

Ah, I’m dying.

I had a premonition of death.

A panorama of my life began flashing before my eyes.

But… this panorama is quite long.

The panorama that had been traveling back through time soon passed my happy childhood and began showing me an even more distant past.

Wait a minute, what is this.

Unfamiliar scenery I’d never seen, strange people, foreign languages rippled like waves and flowed into my mind.

I remembered.

This was inside the book I had been reading.

‘Are you kidding me right now? That kind of thing… I should have realized it sooner…!’

That was my last memory.

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