Ascendance of a Bookworm Part 1 Volume 2

Corinna's Married Life (Corinna's Side Story)

"Welcome home, Lady Corinna."

After meeting with Baron Blon's daughter and discussing what outfit she would like to wear for the upcoming Starbind Ceremony, I returned to the store and found Mark waiting for me.

"I have indeed returned, Mark. Did anything happen while I was gone?"

"Myne and Lutz arrived to sell the hairpins we spoke of. Shall I give a full report once you've settled in?"

Although my older brother Benno was managing the Gilberta Company, I was the true future heir of the store and thus received regular reports on its business through Mark.

"Would you be a dear and bring the hairpins with you?" I left it at that and went to my home on the third floor before changing clothes. I then headed to the room I still had on the second floor, which was my brother's home. My old room had become my office now that I was married and lived on the third floor with Otto.

"Please excuse me, Corinna. Here are the hairpins we purchased. They account for all the orders we received from various young ladies who have their baptism ceremony this winter or spring."

I immediately took a close look at the hairpins Mark had brought up. They were made of small flowers diligently sewn from thin thread of various colors. Each hairpin looked like a splendid bouquet of flowers, and I knew that there were many girls born in winter or spring who would die to have one, as throughout the winter and at the beginning of spring it was hard to acquire flowers for decoration.

"They are made from different colors, such that a customer can pick their favorite and potentially choose one that matches their hair. Additionally, at Myne's fervent request to make them as cheap as possible, Benno settled on selling them for three large coppers each."

It seemed that Myne, as a lowborn child of a poor family, wanted the hairpins to be priced so that even her neighbors could afford one. I was quite impressed that my brother agreed to sell them for such a low price. To think that a girl as young as Myne would have such a firm will and influence.

"Hmm. Were the hairpins she sold to the guildmaster earlier quite like these?"

"No, it would be fair to say that they were completely different products. The thread was of the highest possible quality and the flowers were much larger."

Myne had sold the special hairpins she made for the guildmaster's granddaughter right after showing them to Benno, robbing me of the opportunity to see them. What a terrible shame.

"...Still, though. How in the world did Myne divine how to sew these?" I had seen the daughters of nobles wear real flowers frozen in time through magic, but never flowers sewn from thread like these. Those who lived in the southern part of the city were generally poor, and only on rare occasions dressed up at all. I found it extremely odd that Myne would know how to sew these despite being born and raised in such an environment.

Mark heard my murmur and shrugged with a small smile. "Neither I nor Benno know that. It seems, however, that he has chosen not to think about the origin of Myne's products and where her knowledge comes from. He would rather use his time and effort to maximize profit than to seek answers to fruitless questions."

In other words, as long as he profited, it didn't matter. I smiled at my brother's bold decision, then let out a sigh. "I don't believe I can do the same, I'm afraid." It was beyond me to trust, fund, support, and embrace as an apprentice a poor young girl solely to produce paper made from plants, a product entirely unrelated to the Gilberta Company clothing line. The Gilberta Company began when a woman made clothes in her workshop and her husband began selling them, which is why I was the heir of the store, but I knew for sure that the store would grow larger and faster with my brother at the helm.