Became the Owner of a Poor Estate
Chapter 38
It was all because her body had become frail.
That was the conclusion Donghee reached after seeing the phantom of the man who looked like a hairtail.
The flurry of “LOL"s that had immediately appeared on the status window bothered her, but since it was an expression she used often herself, the lingering discomfort didn’t last long.
The status window acted like a mischievous younger brother who would pretend to help actively, only to suddenly interfere with her homework.
Perhaps that was why she kept bickering with the status window, even though it wasn’t even human.
“Phew, I don’t even know anymore.”
She wasn’t the type to brood over things for long.
It might have been a habit born from a life spent scrambling to solve whatever problem was right in front of her. For Donghee, urgent problems were currently overflowing.
Watching the sky outside the carriage window gradually stain with orange, Donghee began to doze off again.
By the time the carriage arrived at Grace Castle, the sun had almost completely set, and darkness was falling.
The coachman who had driven all day, the horses, and the Lord inside the carriage were all equally exhausted.
“Shall I have your bathwater prepared?”
Thelma, who had come out to meet her, asked as she walked quickly beside Chloe.
She had been so startled to hear from the coachman that they were late because they had stopped by Enol Village. Since it wasn’t on the schedule, both the horses and the coachman looked utterly spent.
If the others were in this state, she thought the Lord might collapse immediately.
However, the Lord’s reaction was completely different from what Thelma expected.
“No. Instead, could you bring me some Tie stone powder and Como tree sap?”
“Pardon? So suddenly? Without resting?”
Chloe’s skin, which had been glowing in the morning, was now parched with fatigue. Perhaps because she had dozed off against the carriage wall, her neatly styled hair was messy, with stray strands sticking out.
This was something that would have been absolutely impossible for the old Chloe Grace. The Lord, who used to be satisfied only when she was dressed as beautifully as a doll at every moment, now acted as if she couldn’t care less about her hair.
Thelma was glad she had matured, but the sudden change was also somewhat frightening.
“There’s something I need to check urgently. I’ll bathe after I’ve checked it.”
“How long will it take?”
Thelma asked, her eyes unable to leave the Lord’s disheveled hair.
“Well, I’ll have to see, but since it’s late today, it won’t take long.”
“Yes, I understand. Shall I bring the Como tree and Tie stone to your room?”
“No. To the kitchen.”
“Ah… Yes.”
It felt as if she could hear the head chef’s scream echoing from somewhere.
Donghee’s laboratory was the kitchen.
It was because fire, water, and bowls of various sizes were at her disposal, and the excellent marble countertop wouldn’t budge no matter how hot an object she placed on it.
“What do you intend to do with these?”
Thelma had brought them because it was the Lord’s order, but her expression was skeptical.
She had heard from Handsome that the Lord had mixed Tie stone powder and Como tree sap in the shaded garden to create something. But that wasn’t the end of it?
Thelma was deeply worried about why she kept trying to do something with things that could neither be eaten nor used to make anything useful.
“I’m not sure yet either.”
“Pardon?”
Thelma had willingly brought the materials because the Lord had been acting so sharp lately, but perhaps she had trusted her too much.
Thelma barely swallowed a rising sigh and stood beside Chloe. Pitiful as she might be, she was still her liege. Thelma decided it was enough if she could help when help was needed.
Donghee held a piece of light gray Tie stone in her hand, turned it this way and that, then dropped it into a mortar.
Thump, thump, thump.
The sound of the Tie stone being crushed in the small mortar echoed.
Since it was originally a soft rock, it turned into a fine powder after only a few strikes.
Next was the Como tree’s turn. Donghee cut a branch to extract the sap and held a small bowl beneath it.
As soon as she made the cut, the thick liquid quickly filled the bowl.
She had already done this part before, so she moved without hesitation.
Thelma watched in wonder as Donghee, with a serious expression like an alchemist, produced the powder and extracted the sap.
She had known the Lord since birth, but she had never seen her like this.
She desperately wanted to ask if the Lord actually knew what she was making, but she held it back.
Even if she didn’t know what was going on, seeing her concentrate with her lips puckered was somehow a pleasant sight.
The Lord mixed the Tie stone powder and Como tree sap in equal proportions and placed them into several bowls of the same size. Then, she stirred them vigorously with a wooden spatula as if making dough.
Thelma could already picture the head chef’s tearful face when he found the ruined wooden spatula the next morning.
It seemed that spatula would have to be tossed into the fireplace or the oven tonight.
Before long, ten bowls containing a thick gray liquid were lined up on the marble countertop.
Thelma, who had been watching the Lord as if possessed, suddenly remembered something and pulled a letter from her bosom, handing it to Donghee.
“What’s this?”
Donghee stared intently at the row of bowls, then glanced at the envelope Thelma held out.
“It is a letter from Viscount Patrasche.”
“Patrasche? Why, is it stuffed with red beans?”
Donghee cracked a lame joke and chuckled, only to meet the eyes of a blinking Thelma. Thelma’s expression said, What is the Lord on about now?
“What are ‘red beans’?”
“No, nothing. What does it say?”
Donghee’s lips protruded even more than usual as she asked. Her ambitiously delivered joke had completely failed to land with Thelma.
“Since it is a letter addressed to you, my Lord, I could not check it first, but I suspect it is a letter saying he will visit Grace Castle soon. This is usually the time when that letter arrives.”
“Really?”
Donghee shrugged and tore open the envelope. Because she touched it with hands stained by the splashing mixture, the envelope became a mess.
Donghee pulled out the stationery with her fingertips and wiped the residue off her hands with the torn envelope.
Seeing this, a startled Thelma offered a handkerchief, but Donghee declined, saying it would only get dirty.
“Wow, look at this handwriting! Someone might think it was printed.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Just saying the handwriting is nice. But the person who sent the letter isn’t ‘Pat-stuffed-beans’?”
“Ah! Then it must have been sent by Lady Aileen.”
“Aileen?”
It was a name she had never heard before. However, feeling like she shouldn’t act like she didn’t know, Donghee kept her mouth shut and just glared at the letter.
The letter stated that she would be visiting Grace soon with her father and that she would be coming along as well. She was also bringing a gift for Chloe.
“She says she’s bringing a gift?”
She hadn’t had particularly good feelings toward the Viscount, but the word “gift” strangely made her heart flutter.
It was because she had rarely experienced receiving a gift from anyone.
“My Lord, why are you so happy again? He will surely ask you to sell one of the remaining villages again this time.”
“I just won’t sell it.”
“Ah!”
Thelma belatedly beamed, remembering that Grace’s financial situation was no longer what it used to be.
“Then you must absolutely not do as Lady Aileen says this time! Do you understand?”
“Why?”
Donghee asked in a voice that sounded stupid even to her own ears. It was because she didn’t know what kind of feelings Chloe Grace had toward this person named Aileen.
When she gave such an ambiguous reaction, Thelma would automatically spill information so Donghee could make a judgment.
“That’s because, ugh! Am I even allowed to say this?”
Thelma started to open her mouth but then clamped it shut like a clam and sighed deeply. She repeated the motion of opening her mouth, shaking her head, and biting her lip several times.
Thinking her lips wouldn’t survive at this rate, Donghee grabbed Thelma’s arm with her still-stained hand.
“Just say it.”
Thelma raised her eyebrows at the gray stain on her clothes, then sighed long as if giving up and continued.
“Everything Lady Aileen gives you as a gift, as if she’s giving alms, is… well…”
“What? Is it tacky? Is it all cheap trash?”
Thelma clamped her mouth shut again and nodded.
“And Chloe was just happy about it, not even knowing that.”
“……Yes.”
Thelma answered slowly, looking curiously at the Lord who spoke of herself as if she were someone else.
“It’s because the past version of me was so pathetic. Let’s just say that person wasn’t me. Got it?”
Realizing her slip-up at Thelma’s reaction, Donghee brushed it off.
“Yes!”
However, whether this method worked or not, Thelma’s expression was brighter than ever.
“But my Lord, what are you making all those things for?”
Those thick, gray-colored things certainly didn’t look like food. Looking at them sitting in bowls, Thelma was anxious that she might toss them into her mouth, claiming they were something good like Dural.
“Ah! This, I’m trying to mix something into it.”
“Into that?”
“Yeah. I made something similar to Cement, but I don’t think that’s the end of it.”
“Cement?”
“There’s such a thing. A substance that’s hard and makes buildings or roads strong and long-lasting.”
“You even know about things like that?”
Thelma, who had never seen Chloe open a book in her entire life, found this side of the Lord utterly foreign.
“Why isn’t this hardening?”
Donghee peered at the solutions she had made with a serious expression.
The mixtures of only Como tree sap and Tie stone powder had hardened in the blink of an eye, but these weren’t hardening just because one more thing was added.
She was mixing in every type of powder she could find in the kitchen, like salt and flour, one by one. But when she mixed in powders other than Tie stone and Como sap, the viscosity dropped significantly. The one mixed with salt even caused the Tie stone powder and Como tree sap to separate like water and oil.
“Whoa, this is interesting. I can’t use this method when building a house by the sea.”
She was talking to herself, fascinated by the new facts she was learning, when Thelma, who had been watching her intently, threw out a comment.
“But my Lord.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to make roads and build houses with just that?”
“No, of course, you have to mix in soil, and wood……, Gasp!”
“What is it?!”
“Soil!”
“Pardon?”
Donghee belatedly realized she had left out the most important ingredient.
“Where is some soil?”
“It would be in the garden, wouldn’t it?”
At the same time as Thelma’s answer, Donghee thrust a large bucket toward her.
“Go dig up some soil.”
