CHAPTER 55………………………………………….
“The young lady’s chosen fiancé candidate—the one she picked just by looking at his face—apparently went to the racetrack this time.”
“Oh dear. Kaidan~!”
Lin shook her head with a helpless look, pressing a hand to her forehead. Julie, watching her with a cool gaze, fired off a merciless truth.
“No, Miss Lin, you yourself wanted to start going to auctions at the age of six already…. Come to think of it, your very first meeting was in front of an auction house, wasn’t it? In a way, maybe you’re a perfect match.”
Julie’s gaze—like she was looking at a child addicted to something unhealthy—pricked painfully at Lin’s chubby cheeks.
“Ugh. I’m worried too.”
Lin pressed her plump lips with a small finger and put on a serious expression.
Kaidan Tigris—her benefactor, now staying in Pegasus Castle as her prospective fiancé.
Although the moment his status changed, he was moved from a guest room relatively close to Lin’s to a detached annex practically at the opposite end of the castle…
Still, since they were living in the same lord’s castle, Lin ended up running into Kaidan more often.
He keeps going to weird places. This isn’t even familiar territory for him, yet he’s always heading out saying he’s looking for someone.
Thanks to someone’s patronage, Kaidan’s sphere of activity had widened, and he went around making use of everything he knew. As a result, he became a source of concern for everyone.
“I’m worried, really worried.”
Sigh.
Lin let out a big breath and shook her head as she stepped forward.
There was somewhere she needed to go today.
After arriving by carriage at a certain building, Lin checked the signboard engraved with an elegant cat motif as she got down.
He doesn’t even know the original story like I do, yet he keeps spending money in strange places. What is Kaidan thinking?
Murmuring “I’m worried” yet again, Lin lifted her head and steeled her resolve.
I really need to become insanely rich. Rich enough to help my benefactor even if he becomes a beggar!
To do that, she had to accomplish her purpose here.
The part of the original story Lin knew was still far in the future, but even now, just knowing what the “future” would look like let her do a few things.
For example—investing early in paintings that would later shatter the continent’s price records.
“This is the gallery run by the Turis young master’s family—the one you played at before, right, miss?”
“Yeah. The Turis family loves art.”
Since she couldn’t directly approach painters who already had patrons, Lin planned to buy works exhibited at galleries instead.
Later, the super-famous ones were the painting with flowers on it, and… what was the other one again?
Thinking about which paintings she needed to buy, Lin entered the gallery—only to widen her eyes at an unexpected sight.
“Lin?”
“Kaidan!”
Kaidan clearly hadn’t expected to see her here either. With a slightly surprised expression, he walked straight over.
“What are you doing here?”
“Me? I came to buy paintings!”
“You’re interested in this style?”
“Huh? Not really. Um… I’m just planning to buy a few.”
Buy this one, that one, and that one in advance, and the coins would multiply on their own.
Since she couldn’t say that out loud, Lin spoke vaguely.
“You’re buying without even looking properly? …Ah.”
Kaidan, who had been eyeing her suspiciously, suddenly reached some conclusion and frowned.
“You’re doing this to help him because of his looks, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“You went on and on about how handsome he was. You do know they might misunderstand this, right?”
“Me? Misunderstand?”
Lin blinked, completely lost.
“I’m talking about that guy, Turis Catta!”
“Huh?”
Why was her new friend suddenly coming up?
As Lin tilted her head in confusion, Kaidan ground his teeth, clearly irritated, and began explaining with a deeply displeased look.
“The Catta family is famous for being art patrons. This gallery exists to support up-and-coming painters—it doesn’t make a profit. It runs on the Catta family’s funding.”
Kaidan, who somehow knew more about the Turis family than Lin, continued talking without pause.
“People buy paintings here not for their collection value, but to send a friendly signal to the Catta family.”
“Ohhh.”
“That’s not an ‘ohhh.’ What do you think it looks like when you help the business of a family that has someone of the opposite sex your age?”
As Kaidan said, buying paintings by unknown artists at a Catta-sponsored gallery—essentially helping their business—was a classic sign of goodwill among nobles.
And sending such a signal to the family of a peer of the opposite sex could be interpreted as showing interest in marriage.
Hmm.
Sir Kay, who was accompanying them as a guard today, snorted lightly and spoke in his usual lazy tone.
“But isn’t that… something that applies at marriageable age…?”
“Exactly. No matter what, I don’t think the Catta family would read that much into our six-year-old young lady buying a few paintings.”
That was also perfectly reasonable.
They were both far too young to be talking about marriage.
“…But when you’re the heir of a lord’s family, people scrutinize every single move.”
At Kaidan’s claim that even a cough could be misunderstood, Lin looked at him skeptically.
“Aren’t you here to buy paintings too, Kaidan?”
“!”
As if their young lady had hit the nail on the head, Kay and Julie nodded enthusiastically, exclaiming, “Oh!”
“I’m… buying them purely for their value. That’s different.”
Kaidan insisted that he was buying without any connection to the Catta family, unlike Lin—but the rebuttal came instantly.
“It’s not different. I’m buying them for their value too.”
“How would you know the value of works by unknown painters in a tiny gallery like this? That cat guy must’ve whispered something to you.”
“Nope. I made a completely thorough analysis and decided to invest.”
With the future value revealed by the original story, it was a zero-risk, perfectly rational investment.
But Kaidan looked utterly unconvinced.
“Investment analysis, my foot. You probably just got sweet-talked by a pretty face.”
“And you’re here to invest too, Kaidan.”
“I—!”
Kaidan opened his mouth as if to say something, then let out a frustrated groan and bit down on his teeth.
Unable to voice what was swirling in his mind, the boy instead glared resentfully at the Catta family’s cat emblem hanging on the gallery wall.
Leaving Kaidan to start a sudden staring contest with the wall, Lin trotted over to her original target.
“I have to buy this one, at least!”
“You….”
Hurrying after her, Kaidan checked the painting Lin had chosen and sighed.
“Fine. You do have a good eye.”
In the end, after all their bickering, the two of them amicably bought several paintings by the same painter.
After that, they kept running into each other in strange places.
Lately, Lin had a lot to research, so she often visited streets lined with alchemists’ shops and herbalists to buy new compounds and medicinal herbs.
But whenever she happened to bump into Kaidan, he was always doing odd things—buying strange items from junk dealers, or placing bets with absurd odds like he’d just come back from the racetrack.
At the last race Kaidan attended, the favorite horse had suddenly gone berserk, knocking all the ranked horses out, and some random horse ended up winning. The payout odds had been 300 to 1.
What if my benefactor got drunk on beginner’s luck? That kind of luck is like getting struck by lightning!
Had winning big at the auction numbed his judgment, leading him to do such strange things?
Buying overpriced antiques, investing in adventurers who looked like scammers…
Even at auctions! Aside from the occasional overlap with me, he keeps winning bids on the weirdest stuff.
The adults, who didn’t believe in prophetic abilities, were worried—but in truth, Lin was making very solid investments based on what she’d seen in the original story.
