Chapter 67: CH 67

Chapter 67 – Clarice’s Ambition

The night of the first relic sale.

The five of us were sitting around the table in the dining room of the orphanage Mitra.

Me, Loloi, Clarice, Burgess, and Mitra.

Clarice, by the way, is disguised as a man by lifting and hiding her hair with a cloth bandana.

To me, as could only see her as a girl, but Burgess didn’t seem to notice at all.

Dinner that night consisted of salt-baked kodris I had prepared and porridge made with cereals simmered in a pot with vegetables.

Kodris has a bland taste, but once you get used to it, it’s not so bad.

However, it was difficult to adjust the seasoning, as the original meat tasted light and I ended up putting too much salt on it.

After dinner, I handed Clarice 66 mana next to Loloi, who was still repeating the same story to Mitra and Burgess.

It was 1/3 of the 200 mana that I had paid for the relics sold today.

Burgess gave up his share, so it will be split three ways between me, Loloi, and Clarice.

The extra one mana, well, let’s think of it as a sales commission.

“Thank you.”

Clarice said and received the mana, which she put away in the manna bag at her waist.

“But relics are hard to sell, aren’t they?”

“What, did you think that hundreds of thousands of mana would just roll in out of the blue?”

There is a certain amount of preparation and order to these things.

“Don’t be offended. I simply thought so.”

Saying this, Clarice fell silent.

Come to think of it, Clarice said something like, ‘I want half an amount of mana’ just before we went underground to explore the ruins.

“Does Chris-san have anything want to buy?”

It’s not really something I should get involved in. I simply asked as a form of small talk.

“I want to buy the house.”

When Clarice said this, Mitra flinched and turned her head toward Clarice.

Mitra was apparently blinded in an accident when she was a child.

She was wearing a blindfold from her eyes to her forehead to hide the scars from the accident. Because of this, I could hardly read her facial expression.

Before I knew it, Loloi and Burgess had also stopped talking and were listening to us.

Clarice told us that this orphanage was not really an orphanage, but a detached house of a certain noble family.

“I think it’s okay if I tell you now… Our mother was the wife of a certain nobleman in Kilket, though I don’t think she was his official wife.”

The mother was a slave, apparently.

She was discovered by a nobleman at a place where she was bought and taken in by him, and there she gave birth to Mitra and Clarice.

In this country, slaves are considered outside the marriage system.

This is probably why Clarice and her family’s mother was not formally married to that nobleman.

So, originally.

Clarice and Mitra, born of slave mother, even if their real father was a noble, they would be slaves…

And through the power of their father, who was a great noble, the two were freed from their slave status and told that they were ‘orphans’.

And the mansion where the two orphans lived is said to have come to be called an “orphanage”.

Because it is not really an institution to gather orphans and take care of them. Even now, only two people, Clarice and Mitra, were said to live in this large building.

“This house is a detached villa that the aristocrat had set aside for my mother. I don’t remember much about it anymore, but I heard that there used to be servants and so on.”

But when their mother became ill and died, the nobleman suddenly stopped coming to the mansion.

Eventually, the servants also left for the main house, leaving only the blind Mitra and the young Clarice.

Even so, the family continued to receive a small amount of support each month through a messenger, and although they were poor, they managed to make a decent living.

“But that aid ran out six months ago.”

And Clarice, who was having trouble making ends meet, was struggling to earn a little mana by taking guild quests. She came across me arriving in Kilket with the escorts.

“I have no idea what happened over there,” she said. “Maybe they’ve forgotten about us and just leave us staying here. It doesn’t change the fact that this mansion still belongs to that aristocrat.”

Therefore, the day may come when they have to surrender it to that nobleman.

Clarice wanted to save up her mana by then and buy the house from the nobleman.

“I’ve made this far, thanks to Burgess. I have confidence that I can make it as an adventurer. But my sister can’t do the same. I want to continue to live in the house I’ve grown accustomed to with family, somehow.”

The “family” might include Burgess.

“I see. By the way, if you were to buy it out, what’s the going rate?”

“Six million mana.”

“I see…”

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I said, but I was scared inside.

That is certainly not a little amount of money.

It is not the kind of amount that an adventurer can accumulate by doing ordinary quests.

It would take several years of hard work and a lot of skill, as well as a lot of moderation, to accumulate that kind of amount of money.

The orphanage is located relatively close to the inner gate of Kilket. Moreover, the site is much larger than the surrounding houses.

So its value may be estimated quite high.

“Ah…that’s why I took up Loloi’s offer of a treasure hunt. I figured that even if I risked my life, if I could get one big hit out of it, I might be able to earn some mana in one fell swoop.”

“I see…”

As it turned out, the bet turned out to be a jackpot.

Incidentally, that 6 million mana is a lot of money.

If I live a simple life by myself, I can live without working for about 30 years.

“Albus. My share is one-third.”

“I know.”

“But I’m really not cut out to be a store keeper…”

“That’s true.”

It would be too much for her..

Clarice was not at all suited to a business where she sat back and waited for customers.

Even so, she was not very good at dealing with customers when they came to her.

“Maybe it would be better to leave the relic sales to me and Loloi, and let Clarice continue to do guild quests with Burgess as before..”

Food and water stored in my ‘warehouse’ are accommodated for quests needs and supplies during our stay at the orphanage.

For Burgess and Clarice, who have no warehousing skills, it would be a problem because they would just let it rot even if it was shared.

“I guess Burgess’ other business is settled once and for all. I’m sorry, but that’s what I’m going to do tomorrow.” (Clarice)

“Leave the relic sales to Loloi and Albus! Chris is better off with Burgess!” (Loloi)

Hearing this, Clarice was a little flustered and Burgess had a “?” mark on his face.

→→→→→

In order for Clarice to save the target amount of 6 million mana, the three of us would need to total 18 million mana in sales.

However, even if we could sell off all the relics taken from the underground city ruins, it would indeed be impossible for us to earn a total of 18 million mana.

Depending on the skills assigned to the relics, there is still a possibility that a total of 6 million mana could be earned, but…

So for Clarice to buy the mansion, me and Loloi would have to give up our mana rights.

As for the ownership of this mansion, it is a matter between Clarice and Mitra. It would be wrong for me and Loloi to give up our share.

I have my own objectives.

It’s Clarice goal, not mine.

Well, Loloi.

Unlike me, Loloi’s goal is not to earn mana but to sell the relics herself.

Perhaps she might even say that she can give all the mana she earns to Clarice.

At least I had no intention of giving up my share.

“When I have another project I need help with, I’ll give you a call.”

“Yeah, okay.”

→→→→→

“I’ll do whatever I can to help Mitra.”

Burgess said to Clarice as he took out his mana bag.

Come to think of it, Burgess is very attached to Mitra.

“I dont need it. I’m grateful to Burgess for everything you’ve done for me, but I’m afraid to go into debt with you!”

“Aah! What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it means!”

As we watched the exchange, Loloi and I looked at each other.

If we didn’t know Clarice was a woman, it would be “the picture of a brother trying to protect his sister from the clutches of a pervert.”

The truth is, Clarice probably doesn’t want to rely on Burgess.

Or maybe she is thinking, ‘I don’t want Burgess to think that I approached him for the mana’.

She must be torn between her need to earn mana for Mitra and her attraction to Burgess.

“Now, all you have to do is go to the quest together, because it helps me and my sister a lot.”

“Okay.”

It seemed that the conversation was over after such a conversation was exchanged.

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