TGPM 01

Chapter 1. A Cheap and Spacious Property
“Wow, it’s clean and really nice!”

Bella let out a cheer, visibly delighted. However, the real estate agent’s face darkened noticeably as he watched her reaction.

His lips parted several times, as if hesitating over something, and finally, a cracked voice came out.

“Um… Miss. This place is too big for someone living alone, and also…”

“What are you saying? I saved up all this money solely through maid work! A mansion like this? I’ll tidy it up in no time!”

Bella declared triumphantly.

A grand mansion? That was nothing to her. She had worked for a noble family that boasted the largest estate among all count households.

But the real estate agent, seemingly having made up his mind, began to seriously dissuade her.

“Well, to be honest, Miss… I’m telling you this out of guilt…”

“Hmm? Is there a major flaw? Or are the sales documents tangled up in legal complications?”

Bella tilted her head innocently. Her purple eyes glinted with something a little — no, very — off.

The agent averted his eyes from the glint in Bella’s gaze. His hand constantly wiped the sweat pouring from his brow. He looked extremely troubled.

“That’s not it, but… the truth is, this mansion is h-haunted.”

“Huh? Milk comes out of it?”

“No! I said ghost, not milk!”

The agent shouted with all his might. Birds scattered from the trees, and for a moment, silence fell.

Bella blinked her wide eyes a few times, then burst into a bright laugh.

“Well, that’s a blessing in disguise!”

“W-What?”

“Oh, I see. So it’s haunted. That’s why it’s such a bargain.”

Of course! There had to be something like that for such a huge mansion to be this cheap.

Bella nodded in understanding. For someone obsessed with owning a home like Bella, a ghost was practically a bonus.

And it wasn’t just any mansion — this was the former estate of a duke who had mysteriously vanished, leading to the family line dying out. A ducal estate!

Bella’s eyes sparkled with a blue gleam.

How many square meters was this? It was big enough to start farming and even build a flower garden. She could save up some more and install a small greenhouse to start a floral business.

With the dry and cool northern climate, it was a dream scenario.

“I’ll take it.”

“Well, I can maybe find you something a little smaller but still nice, and match the price… Huh? You’re serious? You really want this place?”

“Yes, I’ll take this one!”

“Oh dear… Don’t come complaining to me later if you change your mind.”

“If I die, I’ll become a ghost haunting my own house!”

Bella exclaimed cheerfully — or rather, with a slightly unhinged glee — and burst into laughter.

The agent glanced at her worriedly, dabbing at the sweat soaking his handkerchief.

Another young lady about to die here, he thought grimly.

To understand why Bella was so obsessed with owning a house, one had to understand her nickname.

Money Demon Bella.

She had earned that title by sniffing out ways to make money like a ghost and clinging to it with tenacity.

She wasn’t always known as a money demon, a lunatic, or a wild dog maid.

Her first memory was of sitting in a nice garden, embroidering. She was probably six then.

What was I embroidering?

“Oh my! Young lady, are you embroidering?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“What’s that?”
“A dragon.”
“…A dragon? Ah, a brave prince slaying a dragon?”
“Dragons are super expensive.”
“…Excuse me?”
“They said dragons are expensive. If you slay one, you get a mansion bigger than a marquis’s!”

…Maybe she had been a little greedy for money from a young age.

Anyway, Bella was the only daughter of a humble baron’s family.

So how did she become a maid?

Well, that’s a rather long and dreary story. But stick with it.

“Hahaha! Bella! Look at this!”

The baron slammed a pouch of money in front of Bella. But her face was ice cold.

“…You went to the gambling den again, didn’t you?”
“I doubled my money!”
“So what? I believe there’s a difference between clean and dirty money. And that’s very dirty.”
“Why ruin a good day? Guards, lock Bella in the attic for two days!”

If you avoid loans, speculation, gambling, and alcohol, you usually won’t ruin your life. But it’s rare to find someone who only avoids one of those.

The baron, practically a commoner, always felt inferior and ended up drinking heavily during the day and gambling at night.

You can guess where that led. The family collapsed. It’s a boring but predictable cause and effect.

“Even dukes go broke, so why are people making a fuss about me?”

As his gambling losses increased, the expensive items in the house began disappearing one by one.

The once kind father started locking Bella in the attic for even the slightest rebuke.

“They didn’t go broke — they went missing.”
“Bella, you wretched girl! Shut your mouth!”

That happened on Bella’s fourteenth birthday. A birthday, indeed. What occurred was that the baron hit Bella for the first time.

As her head snapped back, she gently rubbed her stinging cheek. Her mouth was bleeding, warm and bitter. Swallowing the blood, Bella calmly pulled out a document and five coins from her pocket.

“Here you go, Father.”
“W-What is this?”

The baron’s eyes were glued to the money, not the paper. Bella spoke coldly.

“It’s a certificate stating I’ve exchanged identities with the daughter of the village tailor.”
“…What?”
“I’m no longer Bella Oshik, noble daughter. I’m just Bella, a commoner. Goodbye.”

She gave him a half-hearted nod.

“Bella! How could you do this to me? I raised you with such care — this is betrayal!”
“Betrayal?”

Bella laughed so coldly that the baron stopped yelling and simply stared at her.

Then came her icy voice.

“You betrayed us. You abandoned your family. What, did you think you could gamble without consequences?”
“You ungrateful child!”
“This ungrateful daughter is leaving. You can raise the tailor’s Bella as your noble girl. Farewell.”

And so, Bella Oshik gave up her noble title and took on the identity of a tailor’s daughter. She got some money in the process, too.

At first, Bella worked as a tutor in well-off households, using her noble education, manners, and embroidery skills.

But there was one big problem.

“Goodbye, Miss Bella!”
“Ah, haha… Yes. See you next time.”

She had no home.

A private tutor with no place to live had to rent a room, and the rent… oh, the rent!

“It’s too expensive… It’s like cooking soup for someone else’s dog.”

Bella clutched her head in despair, staring at her empty savings. She had already spent most of her initial funds fleeing her father, and her wages barely covered rent and food.

No way to save. One torn dress meant more debt.

“At this rate, I’ll be in debt just by breathing.”

So Bella made a decision. She would buy a house.

Until then, the most efficient path was to find a job with room and board included.

A maid. No job was better.

Luckily, a head maid from a viscount’s estate had noticed Bella’s refined demeanor and hired her, marking the beginning of her maid career.

That’s when she earned the nickname Money Demon Bella.

Money. Money!

Becoming rich? She didn’t even dream of that.

But owning a home?

Bella had known the sting of not having one. She made it her one and only goal.

She scrubbed floors and did laundry tirelessly, carefully observing her employers’ tastes.

While other maids packed for holidays to visit home, Bella stubbornly gave up her vacation and stayed alone in the mansion for extra pay.

“Bella, aren’t you going to visit your parents?”
“Nah. It’s really far. Three days off isn’t nearly enough.”
“Still… why not ask the head maid for a long vacation once a year?”
“Haha, thanks for thinking of me, but I’m really okay. I enjoy working.”

Once, when a flood hit the estate, Bella ran back inside alone and rescued the viscount’s daughter from drowning.

Gaining the family’s trust, she began doing paperwork despite being a maid. It meant more work, but Bella was delighted — the pay nearly doubled.

Later, she became the daughter’s personal maid and, while attending a tea party, caught the eye of a count’s daughter and got scouted to work for the count’s household.

And so, finally—

Money Demon Bella, who would do anything for money, succeeded in buying her own home.

“Thank you so much!”

Bella raised the property deed high in joy.

She bought it! She really did!

“Be careful. Everyone who bought this place because of curiosity and a low price ended up sick or dead.”
“Yes, yes.”
“You’re not even listening…”

A duke’s mansion, said to be haunted by the spirit of the duke who vanished a hundred years ago.

At that time, Bella had no idea.

That a small citizen like her was about to be swept up in something very big.