Episode 38 – Mary Wellode was riding a handsome carriage towards a mansion she had never seen before. On the way, the carriage stopped in front of the Linden family mansion and then moved again.
The Linden family, where Mary always visited, was in disarray as the head of the family and his wife had gone missing. Soon after the disappearance of the members of the Linden family, distant relatives came to find out how they could inherit the estate and caused a commotion. Reporters and dozens of lawyers swarmed around the mansion like a pack of hyenas, creating chaos. It was clear that no matter who inherited the estate, the children in the orphanage attached to the mansion would all be kicked out.
Mary sighed. She did not volunteer to work at the orphanage attached to the mansion. She did get paid and also because she could further research about the children’s mental illnesses there.
The children in the orphanage were likely to be scattered. However, it was fortunate that one important child went to a good place. The owner of that mansion had enough wealth to afford the child’s mental treatment.
She got off the carriage in front of the mansion. It was quite a large house, probably because it was in the suburbs of Metropole. Mansions in the city were actually luxurious and expensive, but smaller than this house.
It was then that Mary met a young girl at the door. She appeared to be neither an adult nor a just turned adult. The girl nodded her head.
“Hello.”
“Oh, hello.”
As Mary unexpectedly replied to the greeting, the girl asked with a friendly smile, “What brings you to the mansion?”
“Oh, I came to meet the owner of the mansion, but may I ask who you are over there?”
“Oh, I forgot to mention my name. I’m Esther Plak. Please call me Esther.”
Seeing Esther faintly smiling, Mary felt relieved for some reason. After a light handshake, Esther spoke.
“The owner of this mansion is my mentor.”
“Oh, your mentor…?”
Although Esther’s mentor, the owner of the mansion, was quite young, Mary knew that he was a professor by profession.
He was a professor at the prestigious Mistweaver University. Despite being young, he was already a professor. Mary thought about what she was doing at that age.
Then, the butler Jayken approached and led the two women into the mansion.
“Welcome. You both came at the same time.” Jayken skillfully thought about the priority. He seated Esther in the waiting room in front of the reception room and then ushered Mary inside.
Charles was already waiting. He was a gentleman in a neat suit. Mary thought that if she didn’t have a murderous workload, she might have wanted to ask him out on a date.
Suddenly, she felt a chill somewhere and glanced around but couldn’t find anything odd.
“Hello. Nice to meet you for the first time.”
“Welcome.”
Strictly speaking, it was their third meeting. Charles smiled. The memory of meeting Mary in front of the mansion was erased by a hypnosis for Morie’s mental and therapy.
“Is Morie doing well?”
“Yes. He still doesn’t eat and spends most of his day playing the violin.”
Charles did not hypnotize Morie. Instead, he allowed the child to make a choice. When asked if Morie would stay at the mansion or go with Charles, Morie held the strings of the violin in his left hand and held Charles’ hand with his right hand.
Since then, Charles decided to bring the child to his mansion and take on the role of a guardian of sorts. He could be considered as a Guardian.
“Please take care of the child’s treatment. If I am not here next time, please take care of Morie’s treatment at the mansion.”
“Of course.”
Mary discussed details such as the frequency of visits and the salary with Charles. After nodding, Mary left, and Esther entered.
“Who is that woman?”
“She is a psychiatrist who will help with Morie’s treatment.”
“Oh, a psychiatrist. I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”
“You can do it too. You might even be better at it than the doctor.”
Looking at Esther, who was smiling faintly, Mary felt a sense of relief for no reason.
When Esther confidently answered with her fists clenched, “Yes!” she was the most excited about this class. Now that Esther had awakened spiritually since her baptism, she was considered a novice spiritualist.
She still had a long way to go to reach Fiona’s level, but Esther had great potential.
“Let’s learn about how to use spells today.”
“Finally!”
With the status bar, Charles could accurately determine the disciple’s latent direction and teach him for his specialization.
“To use spells, you must master Ancient Hermes Language. Since most spells are composed of Ancient Hermes Language.”
“Really?”
“Even if it’s not a spell composed in Ancient Hermes Language, you can translate and write it in Ancient Hermes Language.”
“Then, don’t you have to know it almost always?”
Charles smiled. It was an obvious thing. He had completely mastered Ancient Hermes Language like how Tolkienists directly learn Elvish from The Lord of the Rings. He was so proficient that he often used it even in reality.
He mastered Ancient Hermes Language as his second foreign language when he didn’t even know English perfectly. Thanks to that, he taught his students about game language, feeling like he was teaching a game language.
After teaching Esther, Charles continued. Teaching a disciple that was worth teaching had been done several times before. While he was thinking about enrolling Esther in his university, a new visitor arrived.
“Master, a new guest has arrived. He came to talk about the wine business I mentioned last time.”
“Oh really? Please send him to the reception room.”
“Alright.”
“Esther, today’s class is over here.”
“Okay.”
After parting ways with Esther, Charles headed to the reception room. A wine expert had come with the introduction of Jayken. As they sat down in the reception room, a person they had never seen before entered.
“Hello? My name is Bernardo Provenzano. I come from the Kingdom of Italy.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Charles Hexen.”
He was a neatly dressed man in a black suit with impressive purple pinstripes. He was so well-built with well-developed muscles that he could be mistaken for a professional wrestler somewhere. His dark brown skin and curly hair made it clear that he was a foreigner.
“Haha. Please call me Dino. You had a lot of interest in the wine business, didn’t you?”
“Yes, although I don’t have much, I have a vineyard. So far, I’ve just been selling grapes, but now I’m thinking of turning them into wine to sell.”
“You don’t have much. Haha. For someone who owns a considerable amount of vineyard land in the suburbs of Metropole, that’s quite a statement.”
This time, when planning a business, Charles had learned a few things from Jayken. He had mentioned that with the annual net profit from Charles’ vineyard alone, he could easily make about a million pounds a year. This would be enough to maintain the mansion and live quite extravagantly.
Yet, Charles was truly at the level where he couldn’t even afford to hand out business cards to real wealthy people. Considering that the Sunday street laborers received a weekly wage of 5-7 pounds, the wealth gap of this era was terribly wide.
…No wonder communism emerged.
“Are you pretending to be humble? Other farm owners would laugh. Haha-ha!”
His voice contained sharp sarcasm. When Charles discreetly raised his eyebrows, Dino quickly changed his expression and said, “I apologize if my tone was sharp.”
“Why are you backing down? What’s wrong? What are you afraid of?”
Charles felt a subtlety in the man’s tone and asked.
“I heard you were a businessman?”
“Yes. I mainly set up wineries and have an impact. I do business making new wines with grapes from various countries, including my homeland Italy. I was looking for investors. And it seems I am meeting you for the first time in Metropole.”
Charles surveyed him. He was trying to find out if he was a con artist.
“There is some error in saying that you met me for the first time in Metropole.”
Cutting off his words, Charles spoke, surprising Dino.
“Did you already know?”
“No. I could tell from your expression.”
Flustered, Dino touched his face, but there was nothing he could do about it. Charles could read his intentions from his eyes and all his movements. He even picked up clues from the subtle soil on his hands or clothes.
“Let me tell you honestly. I went to several vineyard owners in Metropole, but they all refused. The problem was that I was a foreigner. And some of the Metropole wineries really hated me coming here.”
“Why’s that?”
“I have upset some people in the wine industry.”
Charles understood that he could not lie. Because of his direct and sharp manner of speaking, Dino seemed to be disliked by many people in the wine industry.
“More specifically, it’s because of Richard Webbs, who holds a firm grip on the wine industry in Metropole.”
“Webbs?”
Webbs? Was he talking about Richard Webbs, who was more like Rica’s uncle? He knew that Webbs was the owner of the Webb Group, but he didn’t know that he also had a great influence in the wine industry.
After finishing the conversation with him, Charles asked Dino to come back in a few days. Later, he had a conversation with Jayken.
“How was that person?”
“He is a well-known entrepreneur in the wine industry. It is known that he has achieved remarkable results in winemaking in various parts of Italy.”
“A man like that comes to a foreign country? I see.”
The reason was obvious. He was rejected by his peers in the same industry, or he may have been hurt by someone he trusted.
“He said he was betrayed by someone he was doing business with. He lost everything he had and even lost ownership of the winery he had been nurturing so far. And it seems he had not been feeling good because of the strong emotions due to the way Dino speaks.”
“It seemed like he had betrayed himself. It’s something he’s afraid to fix himself and can’t do as he wants. He realized his fear and was comfortable to deal with it since he knew it. And besides, dealing with Webb might not be that difficult.”
It was because of the connection with Rica. Of course, he also needed at least one more persuasive method before suggesting it.
