I’m the Youngest Daughter of the Serpent Family
Chapter 47
“……Pardon?”
“One hundred.”
How’s that? Shocked, aren’t you? You never dreamed I’d demand such an enormous sum, did you?
That’s what you get for asking me!
I tilted my chin up brazenly. At that, Surpia looked all the more flustered, unable to hide his dismay.
“It seems the young lady desires one hundred gold coins.”
“……Still, that’s a bit……”
The atmosphere in the room was turning decidedly strange.
By the looks of it, no one seemed particularly pleased with the request for one hundred gold coins.
Don’t lose your nerve. They told me to state my opinion, so that’s all I did.
Hurriedly scanning the documents, Surpia asked again. This time, he even stammered.
“D-did you truly say one hundred?”
“Yeah. Rin doesn’t want it if it’s not one hundred.”
I refused to back down.
Nodding firmly, I emphasized the words one hundred.
Silence settled over the room once more.
Just then, Kaid let out a deep sigh and pressed a hand to his forehead.
The odd thing was that while he appeared troubled, the corners of his lips were curving upward.
“It seems she has only learned numbers up to one hundred so far, so let us move past this.”
“Huh?”
What? There were numbers bigger than one hundred? Right then, Baon called out to me with an amused expression.
“Lady Irene. Please take a look at this.”
“What is it?”
The sheet of paper Baon held out was covered in various numbers.
Using a pen, he gave a simple explanation.
“This is one hundred. Next is one thousand. After that comes ten thousand. And beyond that, it grows to one hundred thousand, one million, and ten million.”
“……So?”
“The amount allocated to Lady Irene is far greater than one hundred.”
“……How much?”
“One million times greater.”
One million times? Then just how much was all that?!
At Baon’s words, I froze completely in place.
* * *
In the end, my budget was set at one hundred million gold coins—an amount vastly exceeding the one hundred gold coins I had requested.
And that was just for the latter half of the year alone.
The sheer gravity of the situation hit me once again.
If I grew accustomed to the spending habits of the people here, before long, nothing would ever satisfy my standards.
Of course, the primary culprits behind this were Kaid and those around him.
“You still have much to learn.”
“They said Rin is smart and learns fast, though?”
“That is true. Lady Irene learns quite quickly. A beastman’s intellect develops alongside their growth rate, after all. They say her progress is remarkably outstanding.”
“……Hmph.”
See? That’s what he said. I puffed out my cheeks in a pout.
Now that the meeting had concluded, Kaid was carrying me off toward somewhere.
I thought he would send me back, so where on earth were we going?
I rested my cheek against his shoulder and leaned comfortably against him.
“Casana mentioned it. You can sense pheromones now.”
So the place Casana had been rushing off to earlier was the office. He said he was going to receive reports on Seth and Arvan’s daily routines, but apparently that included mine as well.
“Yeah. Next time, she said we should try transforming my body slowly.”
“I look forward to it.”
“I’m gonna fly in the sky, too.”
It would be wonderful to fly high up and travel all over the place. Though I didn’t know how Casana planned to teach me how to fly.
Baon, who was walking alongside us, was unusually quiet today. Normally, he would have jumped in with a remark by now. Did something happen?
Looking closely, his complexion didn’t look very good either.
“Baon.”
“Yes?”
“Are you sick?”
“No, I am not.”
“Then why do you look so grumpy?”
“Ah. It is because the Lord took away my vacation and made me work through the night…… I am simply busy.”
“What’s a vacation?”
“It is a day off to rest.”
So that’s what it was. ……He even had his vacation stripped away. For some reason, I felt a pang of pity for Baon.
Kaid merely snorted, ignoring Baon’s words entirely.
Where we arrived was the office. Pushing the door open, Kaid carried me inside and set me down.
“Play here.”
“Why? Mesis must be waiting.”
“Mesis is nearby.”
Ah. She must have already followed us here. But why tell me to play in the office? There wasn’t even anything to play with around here.
Still, staying with Kaid wasn’t bad. It seemed better than being bored out of my mind playing alone.
Plumping down onto the sofa, I looked around to see if there was anything to fiddle with, and the seal on Kaid’s desk caught my eye.
“Can I play with that?”
“You mean this?”
“Yeah. That.”
It was a heavy-looking, exceptionally luxurious seal crafted from solid gold.
Sitting nearby and reviewing documents with a look of utter misery, Baon wore a horrified expression.
“That seal is something only the Lord may stamp. If you need one, I will have a separate one made for you……”
“But I’m bored in here.”
Arranged with only the strictly necessary furniture and essentials, the office offered nothing interesting to look at.
When I sulked and poked my lower lip out, Kaid let out a dry chuckle.
“Very well. Take it and play.”
“Really?”
“What do you plan to do with it?”
From what I understood, stamping this seal granted permission for everything.
I also knew that everyone was desperate to obtain Kaid’s stamp.
After all, I had seen vassals walking out of here holding rejected documents that failed to receive his approval.
Is this seal really that amazing?
I examined the seal, which felt rather heavy to hold in one hand.
“Where’s the red stuff?”
“You mean the stamp pad. Here it is.”
Baon handed me a square box.
After dabbing a generous amount of red ink onto it, I pressed it down firmly onto a sheet of paper, leaving a crisp impression of the family crest.
“I’m gonna stamp things just like Daddy.”
“Then try stamping these.”
“Here? ……These are real documents, though?”
He really wanted me to stamp these? When I widened my eyes in surprise, Kaid nodded readily.
“They are not particularly critical documents, so just stamp them next to the names.”
Kaid shifted a whole stack of documents piled on one side and placed them before me.
Uh…… For some reason, it felt like he was just offloading his workload onto me, but surely that was just my imagination, right?
Glancing around slyly, Baon subtly slipped his own stack of documents on top as well.
“Then please take care of these as well, Lady Irene.”
“…….”
“All you have to do is stamp them, so it should be very simple, right?”
I got the distinct feeling I was unintentionally being put to work. Unable to shake my suspicion, I narrowed my eyes at Baon.
Well, fine. He hadn’t even been able to take a vacation because he’d been so busy, so the least I could do was stamp some papers for him.
“Okay.”
Stamping wasn’t difficult, anyway. Straightening my posture, I crossed my legs just like Kaid had done.
Watching my antics, he let out an amused breath. He must have realized I was imitating him.
He said to stamp next to the names, right?
Holding the seal straight so it wouldn’t be crooked, I pressed it down firmly. Then the next page. And the page after that.
As I kept repeating the motion, it became surprisingly fun. It almost made me feel as if I had become Kaid himself.
“Is it fun?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish you would come by often and stamp them in my place.”
Baon seemed entirely sincere. So just stamping in their place was genuinely helpful.
When I was about halfway through the pile, I decided to casually ask about something I was curious about.
“Hey, by the way.”
“Hmm?”
“Where did Durias go?”
Earlier, they had only said he went on an errand, never explaining what he actually went to do.
It had felt like they were brushing it off and glossing over it.
Seeing Baon—who normally spoke bluntly without hiding a thing—react that way had made me inwardly curious.
“Durias went to fetch someone.”
“Fetch who?”
Just how great and important was this person for Durias to go fetch them in person?
Was a guest coming to the family?
“Are you curious?”
“Yeah.”
“It is a secret.”
Baon winked playfully, teasing me. If he wasn’t going to tell me, he shouldn’t have made me curious in the first place.
I looked at Kaid. Baon wouldn’t tell me, but maybe he would.
Kaid was gazing out the window. Beyond the glass, the sun was setting.
“By now, he should be approaching the target location.”
“Most likely.”
“What? Don’t just keep it between the two of you—tell Rin too!”
It was only fair if everyone knew! I hopped up and planted my hands on my hips.
Staring steadily at me, Kaid narrowed his brow.
“It concerns you, so perhaps it is better that you know.”
“……It’s about me?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“How you came to be born into the Astrophel family…… Durias has stepped away for a moment to look into that.”
I caught my breath.
The time had truly come to learn the truth.
Then what comes after that? What will happen to me once I find out?
A flood of questions welled up inside me, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask them. I was terrified of hearing an answer I didn’t want to hear.
It was a truth I was curious about, yet desperately wished not to know.
“Irene.”
“Yeah.”
“I know what you are thinking, but do not harbor useless worries.”
“……Okay.”
“We are merely tying up a loose end that needs to be settled.”
Those words brought me a sense of relief.
He was right. It wasn’t my fault that I was born into this family. When I opened my eyes, I had simply found myself in the Astrophel family.
Though I was a little…… actually, very curious about how I was born among Black Mambas.
If even I was this curious, there was no way Kaid wouldn’t be.
Soon, the secret of my birth would come to light. I could no longer simply pretend not to know and run away from it.