Chapter 5 (Part 9)

It was hard to tell if what had just happened was a dream or reality.

His head felt dizzy, and his mood was fuzzy. His heart pounded painfully, indicating it was not a dream.

Most importantly, Meia had allowed him to call her by her nickname when they were alone.

Theodore pinched his cheek.

It hurt. It wasn’t a dream. His desperate mistake had turned out well.

As she left, it felt like all the strength drained from his body.

“Ha… haha.”

He knew Meia was being considerate of him, who might have felt embarrassed.

Despite the mix of embarrassment and excitement, he felt very good.

Even if it was a small consideration from her, it was still good.

“Hahaha.”

Theodore couldn’t stop the laughter that kept spilling out.

Most importantly, David was Meia’s father. His lips and cheeks felt like they were soaring to the sky and not coming down. He laughed so loudly that Venable outside the room heard it and became worried.

Meia, who had left Theodore’s room, sighed in relief. Her natural behavior had prevented the atmosphere from becoming awkward, and she had enjoyed watching Theodore’s embarrassed face.

She had allowed him to call her by her nickname when they were alone, to avoid misunderstandings as lovers in front of others. She thought she would be annoyed by someone other than her family calling her by her nickname, but it felt surprisingly good.

She thought she would be really angry if others called her by her nickname, but she wasn’t angry at all. No matter how she thought about it, she seemed to have accepted him as a close friend.

Meia understood Theodore’s desire to protect her from Demian because he wanted to get closer to her. Now, Theodore’s words about protecting her if they got engaged made sense to her.

Thinking about Theodore made her heart ache strangely. It seemed her arrhythmia was getting worse. Despite drinking holy water and using artifacts with divine power that were supposed to be excellent for arrhythmia, it wasn’t helping.

If it wasn’t arrhythmia, could it be another illness? But my body felt too fine for that…

Meia furrowed her brows slightly as she walked down the hallway and arrived in front of the study.

She also wanted to ask Aethon when her scroll workshop would be completed.

Knock, knock.

She knocked on the study door. Hearing no response, she knocked again.

Knock, knock.

Even after knocking, there was no answer from inside. It seemed no one was there.

She slightly opened the door and, as expected, no one was inside.

“My Lady!”

She heard a voice echoing in the hallway and looked in that direction to see Aethon running towards her.

“Hello, my lady! What brings you to the study?”

“Aethon, good timing. I was curious about when the scroll workshop would be completed.”

“It will be completed in about a week. The magical materials you wanted will arrive in 3 to 4 days.”

“You’ve worked hard.”

“It’s no trouble! Hahaha.”

Aethon opened the study door wide and bowed deeply to let Meia in.

“Please come in, Lady.”

Meia, who had fully opened the door and entered the study, directed her gaze to the documents on the desk.

They were things she hadn’t seen in a long time.

Numbers, invoices, expense claims, etc. Memories of helping with the Empress’s paperwork and receiving praise while she was the Crown Prince’s fiancée suddenly came to mind.

As Meia stared at the documents for a while, her expression began to subtly change.

The costs listed in the invoices seemed strange.

Pork was 10 dong per geun, but buying 10 geun for 10 silver didn’t add up.

Was the cost of living in Florence territory expensive?

Meia examined the documents more closely.

Since ‘100 dong = 1 silver,’ purchasing 10 geun should be marked as 1 silver, but it was listed as 10 silver.

“The calculation is wrong…”

Aethon, curious about Meia who was staring at the document without taking her eyes off it, asked.

“What is the matter?”

Meia pointed at the document she was looking at.

“The calculation is wrong.”

“I thought it was strange too, so I set those documents aside separately.”

“It should be 1 silver, but it’s listed as 10 silver. It seems like an extra zero was added.”

A number that, even if pointed out, could be excused as a simple mistake of adding an extra zero.

Aethon looked at Meia, who pointed out the exact part he was confused about, as if she was a savior.

“Um… Lady, if it’s not too much trouble… could you look at the other documents as well?”

“I will.”

Aethon handed over the documents he had taken out from the drawer to Meia.

She had already taken a seat and was looking through the documents he handed over.

“It’s definitely strange.”

In a Grand Ducal household with no mistress to host tea parties, why would they change furniture every three months?

The cost of replacing curtains was also listed as a monthly expense.

It was just ordinary blackout curtains, yet they were listed as costing 10,000 gold monthly, which didn’t make sense.

Curtains of that material shouldn’t cost that much… And they weren’t even of the latest fashionable color or design.

No matter how one looked at it, the curtains seemed to be worth about 5 silver.

Also, high-quality fabric was being purchased monthly. Meia pointed to the list of silk fabric on the document and asked Aethon.

“You purchase silk fabric in large quantities every month.”

“Yes, to make clothes for the servants working at the Grand Ducal residence.”

It was understandable to buy fabric monthly to make clothes for the servants as their clothes would wear out or get dirty while working.

However, the amount didn’t make sense.

“If 1 yard of fabric for the maids costs 50 silver, you’ve bought very high-quality silk fabric.”

“Yes, it’s to give a sense of unity to the servants working at the Grand Ducal residence.”

“The cost of replacing the blackout curtains for the windows is also listed as a monthly expense. And the curtain prices are very high. Is the price of fabric in the Florence territory this expensive?”

“I don’t know much about curtains… Lady Nordic purchased them…”

It was natural for Aethon to not know.

Chairs, tables, tablecloths, vases, curtains, and flower costs for decoration—these were areas that women managing the household would know.

“I don’t think I’ve met Lady Nordic yet…”

“Yes, she has been responsible for managing the household of the Florence Grand Duke for a long time… but she is currently recuperating at her estate due to poor health.”

It was obvious that there was embezzlement. These documents had passed through the accounting staff and were brought before Theodore.

Where did it start to go wrong?

The more Meia looked through the documents, the more she sighed. She needed to think through it step by step.

She hadn’t noticed that the clothes the servants usually wore were made from such high-quality silk fabric.

That couldn’t be high-quality fabric. To confirm, Meia called Head Maid Hannah, who was outside the study.

Hannah, hearing Meia’s call, opened the door and entered.

“Yes, Lady.”

“Hannah, could you come closer to me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I want to touch your skirt.”

Not knowing what it was about, Hannah straightened her back so Meia could touch her skirt as she instructed. Meia touched the full skirt here and there, brushed it with her thumb, and even crumpled it.

After examining the maid uniform Hannah was wearing, Meia’s lips curled up.

“This isn’t silk fabric used to make clothes.”

“What?”

Hannah and Aethon, surprised by Meia’s words, asked.

“What do you mean? It feels like silk… the sheen is definitely silk.”

“Of course, the feel and sheen are similar, being both durable and soft, but this isn’t real silk.”

By touching it, she could tell more clearly. The fabric used to make the servants’ clothes wasn’t real silk.

It was just cheap fabric that looked like silk.

<Meia, it’s important to be able to recognize which designer made a dress by looking at it, but the most important thing is to distinguish the quality of the fabric used to make the dress.>

<Yes, Mother.>

<Take a look at the mannequins in front of you.>

In front of them, pointed out by Violet, were two mannequins dressed in identical dresses.

<Both are wearing luxurious and beautiful dresses, right?>

<Yes.>

<Go and touch them. Try to guess the fabric.>

No matter how much she touched them, the texture felt the same.

<Do both feel like silk?>

<Yes.>

<Mei, one of them is not silk.>

<What? But they feel the same…>

<Sometimes designers get greedy and make fools of us nobles. Real silk fabric costs 50 silver per 100 cm, but fabric that looks like real silk costs about 5 silver per 100 cm. You need to develop an eye that can see through everything.>

At that time, she thought she just needed to distinguish the designer by looking at the dress, but now she realized there were many things in the world that could deceive you if you didn’t know.

“This fabric costing 50 silver…”

Meia, who had studied fabric textures and famous designers’ patterns more rigorously than the designers themselves, could tell what kind of fabric it was just by touching it. The fact that this fabric cost 50 silver per yard was not just an overcharge but outright robbery.

In the Carpen Empire, this fabric was traded for less than 5 silver per yard.

“From what I know, this fabric could never cost 50 silver. To someone who doesn’t know, it might feel like high-quality silk fabric worth 50 silver, but it’s not.”

“But the texture of the fabric is definitely…”

“High-quality silk used in dresses is light and durable, with excellent absorbency and warmth. It’s practical and has a sheen. The fabric Hannah is wearing is similar in texture, making it hard to distinguish with the n*ked eye.”

Hannah, flustered, asked.

“Then, are you saying that all the fabrics we’ve used to make our clothes are not silk, Lady?”

Meia nodded. Hannah’s face turned pale.

“It’s not easy to distinguish just by looking. The reason is that they have similar properties. Greedy designers sometimes sell fake silk to people who can’t tell the difference.”

“Then, Lady, if it’s hard to distinguish with the n*ked eye… how can we tell the difference?”

There are two ways to distinguish real silk from similar fabrics.

“High-quality silk used in dresses doesn’t shrink when it gets wet, but the silk fabric brought into the Grand Ducal residence will definitely shrink when wet.”

“But Lady, you just felt it a few times…”

“If there’s no water, you can compare it like this.”

Meia took out a silk handkerchief from her magic space and folded it.

Then she shook the handkerchief out.

“Real silk fabric doesn’t wrinkle no matter how much you fold and crumple it.”

Meia’s gaze turned to Hannah’s skirt, which she had touched.

“Look at the skirt I touched.”

Hannah’s skirt was wrinkled and crumpled.

“It’s wrinkled…”

“That’s how you can tell.”

“Oh!”

The servants wouldn’t have known because they couldn’t distinguish the fabric quality.

Aethon, with a trembling voice, said.

“Then, since when… have they been doing this? Could you look at the other ledgers as well?”

“Is it really okay for me to look at the other ledgers, Aethon?”

Am I interfering too much in someone else’s household affairs? 

She just came to the Grand Ducal residence as a mage, but seeing the incorrect invoices, she couldn’t help but interfere. She can’t stand letting the wrong things slide.

“Yes, it’s fine. Please look at them.”

Aethon showed Meia the ledgers from the past and asked for her advice.

Hannah inwardly prayed for Meia to become the Grand Duchess as she watched her.

Aethon calculated the parts Meia had pointed out and spoke in a serious tone.

“This is an enormous overcharge…”

Meia quickly scanned the fabric documents again and continued.

“We need to find out if the fabric store is also selling fake silk… If they dared to scam the Florence Grand Duke’s household, they might be selling it to others too. Or they might be selectively scamming people.”

The more Aethon listened to Meia, the more his face crumpled like a piece of paper.

And Meia smiled. She had a strong feeling that something interesting was about to happen.