Chapter 15
Cleta felt that something was going on around her.
She rolled her eyes back and forth, looking at the two of them.
“R–Rinden? So… what exactly is this about?”
“Ah, I’m sorry. I should have gotten Dawn’s permission first.”
Because she needed Cleta’s approval most of all, Grace looked at her with eyebrows drooping apologetically.
“It’s soap. May I help you sell all of it?”
“…….”
It sounded exactly like something a con artist would say.
That was Cleta’s first impression of Grace, as she would later admit.
⋆★⋆
As Grace had guessed, the orphanage was in financial trouble.
There wasn’t even any money left to skim off.
Cleta knew this, and she thought there was no way Grace hadn’t figured it out as well. At first, she suspected Grace might be a loan shark, but her approach was quite different from theirs.
“Usually, those people try to take some kind of collateral first…”
So, thinking she had nothing to lose anyway, Cleta decided to accept her proposal.
If the soap sold, great. If it didn’t, so be it. The soap they were trying to sell this time was just ordinary soap that the runaway headmaster—who had taken all the orphanage’s money—had forcibly dumped on them, which they were now reprocessing.
“So I’ve melted the soap again like Miss Rinden told me to, and I’m waiting…”
After letting the children play in the orphanage yard, Cleta waited for Grace while melting the soap in the kitchen.
She wasn’t sure how long had passed when she heard a loud clatter of heavy, hurried footsteps.
“Ha… huff! S–Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Ma’am, please slow down. You might collapse.”
Grace appeared, panting heavily. The mask she was wearing had slipped crookedly.
Benjamin carefully adjusted it back into place.
Grace was carrying two large baskets. Benjamin’s gaze remained fixed on them the whole time, but he had lost the argument when Grace stubbornly insisted on carrying them herself.
Cleta also looked at the large baskets in Grace’s hands.
“What’s that?”
At Cleta’s question, Grace thumped the baskets onto the table.
“One has tools for making and packaging soap, and the other is candy for the children.”
“…What?”
“I have a lot of candy I don’t eat anymore.”
That wasn’t a lie. Candy had a relatively long shelf life, and several glass jars filled to the brim with it were displayed in the annex.
Of course, Grace had asked the servants before bringing it. They’d told her there was no need to ask—she should take as much as she wanted, or better yet, take it all—and had practically shoved it into her arms.
Naturally, Grace had settled for just one large jar.
“I like children.”
“Oh, I see.”
Still, that was quite a lot of candy for someone who just liked children. Sensing the nuance in Cleta’s voice, Grace awkwardly added,
“There is a lot, right? We could hand it out now…”
She muttered softly while looking at the candy. But they also needed to make soap, and as Grace hesitated internally, unsure what to do, Benjamin noticed and spoke up.
“Shall I hand it out to the children?”
“Would that be all right?”
“Yes. I’ve taken care of children before, so it’s fine. I’ll make sure they don’t come this way while you’re making the soap. I’ll keep them safe, so don’t worry.”
Benjamin tapped his chest confidently with a bright smile and picked up the basket of candy.
“Sorry. I’ll leave it to you.”
“Don’t apologize for something like this. I’m happy I can help.”
Insisting again that there was nothing to be sorry about, Benjamin left the kitchen without making a sound. Watching him disappear, Grace began taking materials out of the basket one by one.
There were glass jars filled with assorted herbal tea leaves, tin cases storing pressed flowers, alcohol spray, and more.
“There are many kinds of tea leaves. And lots of pressed flowers, too.”
These would look best in transparent soap, and fortunately, most of the soap the orphanage had prepared was nearly clear.
“I heard floating flowers in tea is popular these days.”
She’d never heard of flowers in soap being trendy, though. Maybe the trend had already passed, or maybe it was just common now.
Grace didn’t really care.
Because right now, it was festival season.
People tended to spend more freely during festivals than one might expect.
Grace dripped essential oils she’d discreetly taken from the bathroom into the melted soap, divided it into portions, and mixed in different herb leaves before pouring them into individual molds.
Then she neatly arranged pressed flowers on top and spritzed them with alcohol spray.
Cleta watched Grace’s clean, efficient movements with wide eyes.
“Do you usually do handicrafts?”
“Mm, as a hobby.”
The original Grace had enjoyed making bookmarks and pressed flowers as well.
Grace felt a slight pang of guilt about using the pressed flowers she’d carefully collected like this, but she decided it was probably fine.
“Somehow, I feel like the original Grace would’ve done the same.”
She was certain of it. And besides, if she didn’t use them, they’d eventually be thrown away anyway.
Grace and Cleta opened the windows wide for ventilation.
“While the soap hardens, let’s prepare the packaging.”
“Yes.”
Even as she said that, Grace sat down and immediately began making ribbon decorations.
Three-tiered ribbons, ribbons woven from two different colors, flower-shaped ribbons…
By the time Cleta had made two ribbons, Grace had already made six.
“…You said this was just a hobby, right?”
“Yes.”
Grace’s plump hands were remarkably skillful, though she herself didn’t seem aware of it.
Grace asked Cleta,
“How much are you planning to sell them for?”
“Well…”
As Cleta hesitated, trying to set a price, she asked Grace instead,
“Considering the cost… ah, were the materials expensive, by any chance?”
“I brought everything from home.”
Grace’s home was a ducal estate. Naturally, everything was top quality. She omitted that detail and simply said she’d brought them from home.
“If I’d brought the herbal tea in its case, she’d have known right away it was a luxury item.”
You couldn’t tell just from loose leaves, but the case itself practically screamed “I’m expensive.”
“So you don’t really need to count the cost of the materials I brought.”
At that, Cleta recalculated.
“Then… maybe around 450 zen?”
Grace nodded at Cleta’s suggestion.
“Then let’s sell them for 900 zen.”
Double the price.
“…What?”
It was an outrageously shameless markup.
“Isn’t that too much?”
Cleta thought there was no way they would sell at that price, but Grace was absolutely certain they would.
“They’re much better than before.”
A little later, Grace took the finished soap out of the mold and smelled it.
From the surface of the hardened soap came a pleasant fragrance, the herbs and oils blending beautifully.
“Must be because I used good ingredients.”
These weren’t just ordinary goods—they were truly top-tier products. In fact, if you calculated the actual cost, it was a loss, but that was something Cleta would never know.
Grace hummed thoughtfully, then nodded.
“What will you do if they all sell?”
“…What?”
“Will you do things my way next time, too?”
There was a large pile of pressed-flower soap that Cleta and Grace had made together. That was why Cleta was absolutely convinced the 900-zen soap wouldn’t sell.
She’d only named 450 zen in the first place because what Grace had brought looked expensive—otherwise, she would’ve said 200 zen.
Cleta looked into the teal eyes behind the white mask. She hadn’t noticed it the first time they met, but now, strangely, those eyes seemed to sparkle.
“…You’re not going to ask me to borrow money, or something?”
“Oh, no. I’m not asking you to sell this building, or hand over the children, or give me your body.”
Grace listed every terrible possibility Cleta could think of and denied them all.
As each horrifying scenario was rejected one by one, Cleta grew even more frightened, unable to understand what Grace was proposing instead.
But in the end, she had no choice but to nod.
Of course she didn’t.
She had no real options to choose from.
When Cleta nodded, Grace glanced around, spotted a kitchen knife stuck nearby, and pulled it out.
“Do you happen to have two large bowls of water?”
⋆★⋆
“Oh my, what’s that smell?”
At festivals, food always sells well.
With crowds constantly passing by, vendors have to use every trick to draw people in—and food appeals not only to sight, but to smell as well.
“It smells nice.”
It was just past lunchtime.
As Grace ate the food Benjamin had bought, she noticed that most of the festival fare was greasy, overly sweet, or strongly seasoned.
After eating that kind of food, people instinctively start looking for something refreshing to cleanse their palate.
It wasn’t food, but from a spot filled with fresh, fragrant scents, multicolored transparent bubbles drifted lazily through the air before popping—*pop!*—and children burst into giggles.
“Like this—blow gently.”
“Fwoo~”
Holding cheap glass rings sold at the festival, Grace was teaching the children how to do something.
When the children put their mouths to the glass rings and blew, a transparent film formed, turning into bubbles that floated gently up into the sky.
