Chapter 32.1: Gems at the fingertips

— After that incident in the chapel, the next evening…

Rishe was standing in the small kitchen of the remote palace, busy moving around.

It wasn’t the smell of cooked food that filled the kitchen, but a sweet scent that must have caught the attention of the maidservants. Several of them came to peek into the kitchen, and each time they did, they were surprised.

“Rishe-sama! What’s this mass of flowers?”

The maid was right. There were a lot of flowers crammed on the kitchen table.

Rishe, who was plucking the petals from the roses, chuckled at the question. These roses with withered petal ends had been left unsold in the castle’s florist’s shop. She had Elise buy them all up for her.

“Sorry for scaring you. I’ll take care of the flowers, don’t worry.”

“No, no, that’s not it…”

She stared at Rishe’s hand, puzzled.

The red roses weren’t the only things in the kitchen. There were orange gerberas and purple gentians. There were other colorful flowers as well, and pink petals were simmering in a pot in the stove.

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It was mainly due to this pot that the thick floral scent wafted into the kitchen.

“Oh! Are you going to do some dyeing by any chance?”

“Hmm, it’s a secret.”

Rishe looked at her with a glittering smile.

“But I hope you’ll try it when I’m done. Unless, of course, you don’t want to.”

“Sure!　I don’t understand anything, but I’d be glad to help you, Rishe-sama.”

“Thank you.”

The maid went back to work, wondering what the contents of the pot would be.

Rishe was determined to give her a definite answer, but she might be confused to find out what was in the bottle that she kept in the corner of the table. With that in mind, she cleared away the leaves and stems.

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I think this pot could use a little more simmering. I’m done with the petals…

Rishe sat down and picked up the papers she had laid under the bottle.

It was the information she had spent time writing holed up in the library, browsing documents about the country.

Population density in the Imperial Capital. Changes in economic conditions. The circumstances of the surrounding areas, and information on the merchants and travelers who came in and out.

As Rishe read, she thought, Although the business proposal to be presented to Chairman Tully has been decided, it’s only five days to the promised deadline.

The samples of the products she’d be producing would be ready by then.

She also has all the materials and formulas for calculating interest rates and so on that would determine if it would be profitable.

After spending the morning holed up in the library and the afternoon gathering materials, the odds were in her favor and there were no problems.

Still, Rishe wasn’t at ease. For some reason, she couldn’t get rid of the doubt if she really made the right decision.

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Rishe browsed through the string of words she transcribed again.

There’s so much that I don’t know.

She was keenly aware of this as she flipped through the numerous documents.

As she read through the papers, she found that Arnold, who had made numerous military achievements in the war three years earlier, had apparently acquired political authority as Crown Prince.

Then as the victorious nation, he first used the reparations paid by other countries to purchase local crops and specialties at high prices.

Even in a victorious nation, only a small percentage of the population could immediately benefit from the spoils of war.

At the end of the war, those who had been soldiers and blacksmiths who were needed to forge armors and swords in large quantities; workers, such as apothecaries, who were temporarily employed by the military to produce medicines for the war effort, lost their jobs.

Many stayed in big cities to find work, but those who couldn’t find work, ended up in the slums.

Provinces and rural areas were robbed of their manpower by the war, and even after it, many didn’t return to seek jobs there.

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Thus, production rates have fallen in rural areas where there were no workers, and food prices eventually rose drastically across the country.