[Chapter 2]
No money.
There’s no… money…
Baron and Lady Degof were people who valued noblesse oblige, and they sought to bestow upon the villagers even if it meant reducing what came to themselves. Of course, they tried to raise Dietrich without her lacking for anything, but that didn’t mean they stretched their finances beyond their means to the point that it caused difficulties in managing the territory.
Besides, lack of money wasn’t the only problem. There was no way to make money, either.
In this remote territory, where the majority of residents were elderly, there was no chance of the land becoming prosperous unless a diamond mine happened to be discovered. What little young blood remained in the village consisted of middle-aged children who stayed behind to inherit the family business, or else surplus children from insignificant noble families who had come for recuperation or to escape and just ended up staying.
In any case, since the consumer base consisted of retired elderly people, no matter what good business idea one came up with, it would be difficult to generate sensational sales here. Even if one were lucky enough to advance to the capital, another noble who took notice could steal the idea and preempt the business with capital, wasting both time and money.
‘Should I… gamble? Or should I buy LoX in this world?’
Even before my possession, I used to buy lottery tickets diligently. At my get-rich-quick mindset that didn’t seem to have changed much even after entering this world, I let out a short, hollow laugh.
‘I’m pathetic….’
Yes, pathetic. Whether it was surviving in this world, or escaping and returning to my original one. Nothing was easy, as if I had started a card game holding a hand full of shit cards.
But I had to keep thinking. To return this body to its original owner, Dietrich, and to return to my original world.
So I decided to go to the Academy—a place in the capital where I could be guaranteed the most opportunities, somewhere fitting for this age, and somewhere Dietrich absolutely had to go according to the original novel’s plot.
***
What I needed to go to the Academy was passing the entrance exam. And what I needed to pass the entrance exam was studying.
Fortunately, the lessons from the Ducal household that remained faintly in Dietrich’s memories helped me not to start from the very basics. However, the books in Baron Degof’s study seemed insufficient to pass the Academy entrance exam.
‘If I’m going to do this anyway, I want to get in on a scholarship….’
In its early days, the Imperial Academy had only been accessible to children of nobility.
Perhaps the question, ‘Wait, they built a school with status restrictions using tax money?’ wasn’t something only I, a modern person, had wondered about, because the restrictions were abolished due to fierce backlash.
Even so, the Imperial Academy still consisted of children from noble houses, because unless one was a noble, it was difficult to study without daily life getting in the way and to afford tuition and living expenses. Of course, there was a foothold for outstanding commoner students. Only the first and second-place examinees, along with a few students who received recommendations, were exempt from tuition and living expenses.
As it was, I needed to win a scholarship so as not to deal a blow to the precarious finances of the Degof household, and I needed books to prepare for the Academy entrance exam.
Of course, Baron and Lady Degof were not people who would act stingy if asked for money to buy books. Still, I wanted to resolve this with my own strength as much as possible, in case I failed to get into the Academy on a scholarship.
Fortunately, even in Baron Degof’s castle—which seemed like it wouldn’t yield a single gold coin no matter how hard I squeezed—there were corners where money could be found.
‘The dresses Dietrich had filled a bag with when she was driven out of the Ducal household.’
Thinking I should sell a few if their condition was fine, I approached the wardrobe door sitting in the corner.
And at that moment, at the overwhelming sight that seemed to take my breath away, I couldn’t help but doubt my own eyes.
“This is…!”
Inside the wardrobe hung dresses that one might expect to see in Secret JouX. No, designs that didn’t even need to go as far as JouX—they belonged in the X-suni dress line. In other words, a typical nouveau riche style, with every remotely plausible-looking decoration and jewel crammed on as if hammered into place.
‘The young lady of a Ducal household… wore these?’
Even the princess dress my niece had worn seemed more refined than this. Could it be that this world possessed a sense of beauty different from my common sense? Looking at designs that seemed to embody the spirit of kimchi-pizza-sweet-and-sour-pork in the dress world, I pondered deeply.
‘Just like kim-pi-tang looks strange but tastes delicious once you eat it, maybe these dresses are fine once you wear them.’
The toad-like gaudiness of the dresses might protect me from other nobles. Thanking Dietrich, who had grown too much to wear these dresses that looked unapproachable, in a different sense, I removed the tacky decorations and excessive jewels.
Once gathered, a considerable amount of fabric and jewels came out. Baroness Degof looked surprised at her foster daughter’s change of heart, watching me dismantle the dresses she had carefully preserved since Dietrich came from the Ducal household and hearing me say I wanted to sell them all now.
“They’re too small for me to wear now… and I want to stop clinging to the past.”
To keep the Baroness from feeling doubtful about this sudden change, I hastily added an excuse. I said that although my time in the Ducal household had certainly been good, I wanted to focus on the happy days I would make here, living with Mother and Father.
The more I spoke, the redder the Baroness’s eyes grew. During the long years when Dietrich had been shut in her room and wouldn’t come out, the Baroness’s heart must have burned with worry. Pretending not to notice the Baroness wiping her tears, I looked at another jewel and waited for her answer.
“So do you have clothes to wear now?”
“Actually, I came to ask if I could borrow some clothes from you, Mother. I don’t have anything suitable to wear besides pajamas.”
At my cautious words, the Baroness said she had something to show me, and brought something along with the outing clothes, with the butler’s help.
“This is….”
What the butler carefully brought while smiling brightly was a deep blue dress that paired well with Dietrich’s blue-gray eyes.
“I made it thinking of the day when you would attend balls and hold your debutante ball. Of course, I couldn’t measure your size exactly and made it by eye… so I don’t know if it will fit you well, but it can be altered.”
The Baroness trailed off as if lacking confidence, but the blue dress made by eye fit Dietrich’s body perfectly. Whenever the foster daughter, who rarely even came out of her room, came into view, the Baroness seemed to have memorized that figure thoroughly so as not to miss it.
Even though the dress’s fabric and jewels couldn’t compare to the toad dresses from the Ducal household, the clothes meticulously cut while thinking of the wearer inspired a strange confidence, as if to show that they were unaffected by mere jewels or fabric.
Even though the love packed into this dress wasn’t directed at me, my heart strangely churned at that warmth. In the end, my voice trembled slightly as I said thank you.
***
“Do your best, my lady!”
“Ah, thank— no, thanks.”
The news that the legs of Baron Degof’s young lady, who had been shut inside the castle, were broken, and that she had changed as if struck by lightning afterward, spread through Heilrem in an instant.
At best, the village’s news had been things like the bakery’s mare giving birth to a foal, or someone’s child who had left for the faraway capital having entered the capital guard. At this unexpected piece of joyous news from such a village, the town began to subtly buzz with excitement.
“So our territory will finally see a prodigy entering the Academy after twenty years.”
“Don’t state the obvious. Look at the Lord—didn’t he go to war with His Majesty the Emperor and the Duke and receive the barony! It’s only natural the daughter takes after the Lord and is clever, too.”
‘But… Dietrich… is an adopted daughter….’
As I gathered money selling fabrics and accessories, the question of where I would use that money naturally followed.
‘Damn it. I should have vaguely brushed it off there.’
I hadn’t understood at the time what waves my careless words about trying to enter the Academy would cause. In this aging territory where the youth were the only excitement, how interesting that news would be.
As rumors spread that the only child of the territory’s lord was entering the Academy, the atmosphere gradually reached a fever pitch. In the end, even though she hadn’t passed yet, it became a festive atmosphere as if she had already enrolled as the top student.
It was burdensome.
‘If I fail after all this, won’t I be utterly humiliated?’
Smelling the musty book dust that seemed to have sat for over ten years, I began turning pages. There were eight months left until the Academy entrance exam.
Only eight months. It wasn’t long, but it wasn’t to the point that I should give up prematurely.
“Here goes.”