Chapter 29
Anyway—
Azel had been rescued safely, and Muniel had reconnected with an old comrade.
“Then what about Nini’s investment?”
Still, Nivellia couldn’t be completely happy. Her originally chosen investment target no longer existed.
To cheer her up, Caleo and Celletina offered something even better:
A business partnership with Azel.
“Azel, you developed that liquid fertilizer that keeps flowers fresh for a long time, right? The flowers growing on the farm were probably your doing too.”
“Would you consider working with us? We’ve been planning to start a pharmaceutical company. We’d like you to be its director.”
Azel was stunned. Overnight, she’d been offered the chance to lead a company.
“Then I’ll invest!”
Nivellia beamed, her white teeth gleaming with excitement.
After hesitating for a moment, Azel nodded at her.
She’d grown close to Nivellia in just a few days. It felt like having a little sister.
She wanted to protect the happiness of this small, bright girl.
But she had one condition.
“Please hire only witches as employees. And protect us. That’s my condition for joining this partnership.”
Azel hoped that this company could become a shelter for witches who had long wandered without a home.
“In that case, we should be the ones thanking you.”
“If the best herbalists and plant experts are joining us, that’s more than we could ask for. Let’s get started right away.”
Deiamor and the witches—
It was a historic alliance.
But while the project was moving forward without a hitch…
“……”
Celletina couldn’t sleep. Even long into the night.
After tossing and turning in bed, she finally got up and went to her study.
Her desk was stacked with documents from Rubeo—evidence of the Plaudes’ scams, forged financial statements, and other falsified records.
Celletina had read them over and over, both at work and at home. The paper was starting to wrinkle from repeated handling.
And each time she read through them, one question echoed in her mind:
“How did I miss this?”
She had poured her heart into selecting a business for Nivellia’s first investment.
She had done far more research than she usually would, and even after choosing the Plaudes’ business, she kept it under constant observation—just in case.
The staff who helped investigate hadn’t noticed anything suspicious either.
But looking at it again now, the mistakes were obvious. The vendors listed in the ledgers were entirely fabricated.
“Sigh…”
Celletina leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes tightly.
“I had a feeling this would happen.”
When she opened her eyes again, Caleo was standing nearby, gazing at her with a familiar look—one full of things he wanted to say.
“I told you, working late after already working all day isn’t good for you.”
“Did I wake you?”
“You know I always notice when you’re not beside me.”
Celletina leaned her head against his side as he sat on the armrest of her chair.
“How did we not see this?”
she murmured, gently tapping the stack of papers with her fingers.
“It wasn’t just one red flag. There were so many.”
“I missed it too,”
Caleo admitted.
He had personally investigated Nivellia’s investment as well.
Even the secretary who had helped with the research had said, “Someone as smart as me… How could I make such a stupid mistake?”
So it hadn’t just been Celletina’s oversight.
Caleo missed it. The secretary missed it.
Even Rubeo’s sharpest employees hadn’t noticed anything strange.
It was as if something had deliberately clouded everyone’s judgment.
“…Nini saw it.”
Caleo said softly, remembering what Nivellia had told him earlier.
“She said she saw something.”
“What was it?”
“Pink poison mushrooms.”
He had asked her casually, while helping prepare lunch.
“Nini, how did you know Azel was trapped in the storage shed?”
“I saw poison mushrooms.”
“Poison mushrooms?”
“Pink ones. Pink poison mushrooms!”
Nivellia said she had seen the color through a small window near the ceiling of the shed—so dusty you could barely see through it.
But then she added something odd.
“But there’s no pink.”
“No pink?”
“Yeah. Azel doesn’t have anything pink. I saw pink, but Azel didn’t have any pink. Weird, right?”
Nivellia had assumed the pink color came from Azel’s hair or eyes.
But Azel’s hair was ochre, and her eyes were a clear orange.
Even her clothes weren’t pink.
“After she said that, I sent the secretary and a few staff to the flower farm immediately.”
With the witch gone, the farm had become a dead place.
The flowers had all wilted, leaving a rotting stench, and the buildings were quickly taken over by bugs and spiders.
“But there was no pink.”
Not in the shed, not in the buildings, not even in the Plaudes’ packed luggage when they fled.
There was no pink—anywhere.
Meanwhile, preparations for the partnership with Azel continued swiftly.
After Azel’s proposal for the partnership was accepted, she immediately sent word to others.
The method she used was remarkable.
She sprinkled a small pouch of enchanted soil onto the ground, breathing life into it. The powder shimmered with a warm glow as it swept swiftly across the surface of the earth.
And within a single day, the Deiamor estate’s mailbox was overflowing with letters.
All of them were from witches.
“Most of them were positive responses.”
Nivellia was delighted.
So delighted, in fact, that she skipped like a bunny, her mood buoyant and infectious. Her cheeks were sore from smiling, and her grin had long since melted into a cheerful, dazed expression.
“Young lady, please don’t run.”
Aref tried to stop her, worried she might trip and hurt herself.
Nivellia stopped hopping and ran right back to his side.
“Guess what! Nini’s going to invest now! With Azel!”
“That’s great news.”
Aref had already heard that same announcement at least twenty times. But even so, he responded with sincere joy, without a hint of annoyance.
The pharmaceutical company would be built on the land that used to belong to the Plaudes—the flower farm and the surrounding area, which had since been acquired by the Deiamor family.
“Now that Nini’s investing, I’ll make a lot of money, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What about you, Aref? Are you going to invest too?”
Nivellia asked brightly.
“I’m not sure.”
Aref wasn’t quite sure what to do with the fifty million Ubas he had recently received.
He had enjoyed saving money slowly—by pulling weeds, helping staff, and earning pay bit by bit in his salary account.
But receiving such a large sum so suddenly made all of that hard-earned effort feel like it had been wiped away.
It made him uneasy.
“Young lady.”
“Hmm?”
“Are you not going to work anymore?”
Aref asked softly.
“You know, your salary account…”
“Of course I’ll still work,”
Nivellia replied, tilting her head like the question confused her.
Aref’s eyes widened in surprise.
“R-really?”
“Money’s supposed to be earned with effort.
Mom said when she first started making money, she worked all over the place.”
“Then I want to keep earning through my salary account too.”
“Let’s pull weeds again then! Let’s work together!”
“Yeah…!”
Blushing just a little, Aref nodded with determination.
“Still, it’s good to save when you’ve got a lot of money.”
Nivellia shared the financial wisdom she knew.
“No gambling. No cards. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Or… umm…”
She tried to recall something she’d heard before, flailing her arms in the air as if shaking the memory loose.
Aref, curious, quietly joined her in raising his arms.
“A saving account!”
Nivellia finally shouted, flapping her arms like a little chick.
It was a slightly incorrect term, but neither of them realized it.
“If you put money in a saving account, you earn interest!”
“Interest?”
“Yeah! It’s when the bank thanks you for leaving your money with them and gives you more money in return.”
“Wow…!”
Aref’s eyes sparkled.
“You’re so smart, even though you’re still little. That’s amazing…”
Nivellia nodded modestly at the genuine compliment.
“Well, I am a bit clever.”
If she got too smart, she might have to conquer the world—
but Nivellia shook her head, clearly not ready for such responsibility.
As they chattered away, giggling over things that didn’t matter but made sense to them, someone appeared.
“There you two are.”
Deter had come to find them.
“Deter!”
Nivellia ran over and hugged his leg tightly.
“……”
Aref, meanwhile, noticed something strange about Deter. His skin seemed to gleam more than usual.
His face was glowing, his hair was tied up neatly and shinier than he remembered.
And he smelled faintly like flowers.
“Deter, you smell like a flower today.”
Nivellia noticed it too.
“Why is that?”
When she asked, Deter chuckled softly.
“Because I helped rescue Lady Azel. As a thank-you, the masters gave me a bath filled with rose petals.”
“Deter likes flower baths. He’s probably a fairy.”
Fairy Deter explained why he had come.
“Young masters from the House of Deigladys have come to visit.”
“……”
“Young Master Al and Young Master Rubens.”
“……”
Even after hearing the names, Nivellia simply blinked slowly with her blue eyes.
“Young lady… don’t tell me you forgot them again?”
“…N-no, I didn’t.”
Thankfully, Nivellia managed to remember who they were.
“They’re those kids who kept bugging me to play with them, right?”
“That’s not technically wrong, but you shouldn’t say it like that in front of them.”
When they arrived in the drawing room, Al and Rubens were already there.
Soles had gotten there earlier and was chatting with them.
“Hey, they’re here!”
Rubens waved both arms wildly when he saw Nivellia and Aref.
He jumped off the sofa and came running over.
“You two started the salary account thing first, right?”
He pulled a slightly crumpled salary book from his back pocket. When he opened it, it showed quite a few entries—evidence of real effort.
“We’ve been using it to earn our allowance too.”
“Oh, good job!”
Nivellia praised him with gusto.
“We started way earlier, though! Rubens, you’re a bit slow!”
“You’re so annoying! But you’re cute, so I’ll let it slide!”
Rubens laughed and turned to Aref to ask something.
