Late at night, after finishing my duties, I sat at the desk tucked in the corner of my room. The candlelight flickered against the paper as I organized my thoughts.
"The target is the Frostroot at the auction."
Frostroot.
A one-ti buff elixir, temporarily amplifying the user’s physical and magical abilities. I’d used sothing similar once, back in the fight against the guardian deity. It had made the difference between victory and death.
The problem was... Frostroot wasn’t exactly popular.
Most people preferred elixirs that gave permanent improvents. Why spend a fortune on sothing that burns out after a single use? That’s why Frostroot usually ended up forgotten in so dusty corner of an apothecary’s shelf.
But this one was different.
The Frostroot set to appear in the black market wasn’t the diluted junk sold to desperate adventurers. Its properties were unique—perfectly suited to my style of combat. I couldn’t afford to let it slip past .
And yet...
"The problem is money."
I tapped my pen against the blank page and began jotting down possibilities.
Salary. Robbery. Auction house raid.
Salary? Impossible. The pittance I earned as Alice’s attendant couldn’t compete with the overflowing purses of the nobles who frequented the black market.
Robbery? Suicide. Security across the North was iron-tight, every noble house on guard after recent incidents. Even a petty theft would bring the hounds down on .
And raiding the auction? Laughable. I wasn’t strong enough. Not yet.
My gaze lingered on the word funds scrawled across the page, underlined twice.
"If only I could find a way to raise so..."
But the North was insular to the core. Outsiders like didn’t just stroll into moneylenders’ halls and walk out with coin. Even if I had collateral, even if I begged, they’d laugh out the door.
Which left with one option. Connections.
I leaned back in my chair, running through the short list in my head.
Alice. Hans. Velra. Alia.
Alice? No. She was noble to the bone—our Lady would never tolerate her attendant diving into the underworld for elixirs.
Hans? Loyal, but broke.
Velra? Maybe in the Drazroth Empire, but here in the North? She couldn’t scrape two silvers together.
That left Alia.
"Looks like I have no choice but to approach her."
As the daughter of a rchant family, Alia had both the money and the awareness of the black market’s existence. If anyone could quietly back , it was her.
But my concern wasn’t whether she could lend the coin.
It was whether she’d demand sothing in return.
Sothing I couldn’t easily give.
– Really? A demon like you coveting such a common elixir? That’s quite unexpected.
"Tch."
I could vividly imagine Alia, busy with her calculator, looking up at .
Our alliance was solely based on ’not hindering my staying by Alice side.’
Her voice echoed in my head, dripping with that mix of amusent and condescension she always wielded like a blade.
Alia never gave anything away for free. Every coin that left her hand ca back with strings attached, wrapped so tightly you didn’t notice them until you were choking.
"What price will she na this ti?" I muttered, setting the pen down.
A favor? Possible.
Information? Likely.
My silence? Almost guaranteed.
If I approached her about Frostroot, she’d know I was preparing for sothing bigger than just ’serving Alice.’ She’d sniff out my intentions, dissect them, and either weaponize them or bury with them.
Still, I couldn’t deny the truth. Without her, my chances at that auction dwindled to nothing.
"...She’ll make choose," I realized.
Between revealing more of myself than I wanted—or letting the Frostroot vanish into soone else’s hands.
The candle crackled, its wax collapsing in on itself. I pressed a hand against my temple, staring at the shadows quivering across the walls.
"I hate being cornered like this."
That was the irony. For all my planning, for all my calculated moves, there were tis when the board left with only one path forward.
And Alia, damn her, always seed to be waiting at the end of that path, ledger in hand, smiling like she already owned .
But not this ti.
This ti, I’d make sure the deal leaned in my favor.
Even if I had to twist her expectations.
Even if it ant giving her a piece of what she wanted—without ever letting her take the whole.
Because if I bowed my head too far, if I let her dig her claws too deep, then I’d no longer be Julies, attendant, scher, rival.
I’d just be another asset on Alia’s balance sheet.
And that, above all else, was unacceptable.
"Sigh. If only she had so business ethics."
I don’t hold out hope.
If she had been ethical all along, how could Frost have seized control of the North’s financial lifelines?
Back to square one.
I leaned back in the chair, eyes drifting toward the window where the northern night pressed against the glass. The candle’s fla trembled in the draft, thin and unsteady, like my options.
No matter how I spun it, Alia was the pivot. She always was. That woman could sll opportunity like a wolf on fresh blood. And ? I was the half-wounded stag deciding whether to let the predator circle closer or risk bolting straight into a hunter’s trap.
The absurdity of it gnawed at . A demon, cornered not by blade nor holy scripture, but by debt. By coin. By the simple arithtic of survival.
I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. "What a ridiculous world."
And yet... Frostroot lingered in my mind. That one vial could tilt the scales.
With it, my strength would spike just enough to claw through situations that would could crush . The right fight, the right mont—it could an the difference between obscurity and seizing control of my fate.
That’s why Alia terrified . Not because of her money. Not because of her family’s shadowy networks. But because she understood value.
She’d look at , at Frostroot, at the whole auction, and she’d see the weight I placed on it. The more desperate I was, the higher the price she could demand.
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