The next morning, 

 

As usual, I woke up before Aria. I’m feeling great now that I have nothing to hide. While admiring the sleeping beauty beside me, I checked all the system alerts that I had paused last night. There was a flurry of SP alerts, so I skipped those and just checked the total SP.

 

-------------------------------------

Satisfaction Points – 9,230 

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Wow… I gained so much SP. It also means that Aria must have enjoyed herself a lot yesterday. Before yesterday, I had around 5,500 SP. And now I have so much! I’m so close to my goal of buying Skill Share, which costs 10,000 SP. About 5,000 or so more, and we both will have the Menstruation Control skill as well.

I can’t wait to see Aria’s reaction. She’ll probably hug me on the spot after learning about that skill. I’m looking forward to it.

Anyway, now that I’ve made everything clear with her, it’s fine to do that again, right? I’m feeling a flutter of excitement from yesterday. Alright, let’s freshen up and tend to this lingering sensation. I hope she doesn’t wake up until I come back.

 

***

 

I entered Aria’s room to wake her up, but she was already up. She was reading the diary of King Jerome.

 

“Letty, here’s a fun fact. I’m pretty sure that King Jerome, or should I call him Jeremy, as that’s the name that he used in this diary… Anyway, I’m pretty sure that he was gay, or at least bi”, she said.

 

“Really? I don’t recall the founder king having a husband, though”

 

“Oh, check this out! He spent the first six pages describing his dad’s ‘hot body’ as he calls it. What a disgusting perv! And just like me, he was also reincarnated after getting run over by a truck”, she said, pointing at the gibberish on the pages.

 

“I’m sure it must be very interesting, but I can’t read this”, I said.

 

“Oh, right. My bad, hehe. Let me read it out for you”, she said.

 

“Sure, but only for a little while. They’ll tease you if you are not on time again”, I reminded her of Lady Sophia and Lady Carolina’s nagging for Aria’s tardiness.

 

“Hehe, I’m tougher than I look. I’ll be fine, let’s read this”

 

…

 

The diary started when he was nine years old, and we ended up reading it until he reached adulthood. He didn’t write very often in his childhood days, and he often used this diary to rant about his dislikes. Especially his neighbor, Evil Sally, who I’m pretty sure is King Jerome’s first wife, Queen Salina. It’s interesting how, even though they hated each other, they cared for each other at the same time. He confessed his feelings when he was thirteen and was rejected brutally. Just for Salina to confess in a few weeks. It checks out that King Jerome’s first wife was his longest companion.

 

He also had many male crushes but never actually acted on them. Anyway, his class, ‘Sword Emperor’ made him very powerful, as he excelled not only in combat but in politics as well. He also had an S-grade Talent, just like I do. Although I’m not sure if I should compare my class to his, my class is totally different from his, and I would have absolutely loathed it if it weren’t for Aria.

 

He started to climb the military ranks as soon as he was 15, gaining some people’s malice and some people’s admiration. Salina, who ended up awakening as a very powerful priestess, was just the kind of support he needed in his times of need.

 

“Wow, he had quite a severe ‘protagonist complex’, didn’t he?”. Aria asked.

 

“Can you blame him? His class made him so powerful from the start”, I said.

 

“Yeah. Even though the main story has just started and I want to continue very badly. We should stop and get up from my bed if I don’t want Mom to drag me out of it”, she said, putting the book away.

 

“Oh, no, it is so late. I was so engrossed in the story that I forgot about the time. Teacher is going to give me an earful for letting you skip breakfast”

 

“Hehe, just tell her about the diary. I’m sure she’ll understand”

 

***

 

A few days later, I finally collected the required SP and bought the Skill Share skill. But since I don’t have any skills other than Massage that I bought from the system, I can’t really see it in action. I haven’t told Aria that I bought this skill yet, I want to surprise her. I just asked her if I could spend some SP, and she said, ‘Sure! You don’t need to ask me’. Oh, you’re in for a treat. Hehe.

 

-------------------------------------

Skill Share – Lvl 1

 

It allows the user to share a toned down version of their purchased skills (limited to lifestyle skills) with their master.

 

Uses 10 MP/use for active skills and 20 MP/skill for passive skills.

 

The effect of passive skills will last until you want it to.

-------------------------------------

 

Also, we searched for some information about the luminous hummingbird. As Sir Richard said, it’s a symbol of beauty. In some parts of the eastern region, this bird is regarded as sacred due to its high intelligence and unique characteristics.

About that night, when it turned pink, it turned out that this was another trait of this bird. It takes on different colors based on the emotions or feelings of the people around it. It turns red for admiration or love, yellow for happiness and warm feelings, bluish white for neutral, and grayish for hostility. It’s weird why it turned pink that night, maybe the bird wasn’t feeling well.

After pondering for a while, Aria decided on a very straightforward name, ‘Lumen’. It seems to have adapted to its new name, as it responds cheerfully when called. There is something about the bird flying around the mansion that soothes the watcher. I caught a few maids slacking while fawning over little Lumen. Well, it’s fine unless they go overboard.

 

***

 

A few weeks later,

 

Anticipation filled the air as the day of the grand opening of ‘Alteria's Haven’, which we decided was the name of our shopping firm, arrived. The entire house buzzed with excitement, eager to finally taste the fruit of everyone’s hard work for the past few months. Aria came up with a bunch of new useful gadgets, such as ink that magically refilled its container by absorbing low grade mana stones and direct sunlight, a frame that can have a number of pictures and roll them after a certain amount of time, a set of non-magical toys that helped people learn to read and write, etc. And there was much more to come.

 

Following Aria’s suggestion, we decided to hold a simultaneous public exhibition across the entire Kingdom. Our products would be on display for all to see, enticing them with the wonders that Alteria's Haven had to offer. Lady Sophia, our marketing manager, carefully handpicked a team of charismatic speakers to ensure an engaging experience for everyone. While we had planned for Aria to spearhead the exhibition in Swindfort City herself, it turned out that she wasn’t comfortable speaking in front of so many people. One would think that given her fame, she would have become accustomed to public speaking by now, but no. And it’s not that she lacks confidence, it’s just that she doesn’t try to come out of her comfort zone. I faced a similar problem when I first started Teacher’s lessons, but now I’ve grown accustomed to it. Teacher would deliberately put me in situations where I had no choice but to take the initiative while attending business deals or meetings.

 

Well, I don’t think there is any need to rush her. She’ll come around at her own pace. Till then, I’ll try my best to accompany her and pull her out of uncomfortable situations.

 

As Aria refused to host the exhibition herself, the responsibility fell on Lady Sophia. Meanwhile, I’m in charge of financial planning, accounting, and the like. Honestly, I felt like everyone in the group was contributing way more than me, so I worked extra hard so that I could keep up with their efforts. So far, everyone has played their roles perfectly, and I hope our journey ahead will be equally smooth sailing.

 

***

 

The opening was a huge success. We managed to gather a decently large crowd. Although half the people were lured in by the promise of free snacks, our speakers did a splendid job of keeping them engaged and showing off our products. People who thought that this would be yet another money hungry shop were pleasantly surprised by the pricing of our products. Unlike the exorbitant prices charged by Rose Emporium, our shop offered much affordable prices without compromising the quality for similar products.

 

With warm lighting, comfortable seating, and inviting displays, our shop exuded a welcoming ambience. The sales on the first day broke our expectations, with a few gadgets running out of stock. Receiving positive reports from all the other branches throughout the kingdom filled us with confidence to move forward.

 

***

 

That night, while trying to fall asleep in Aria’s arms,

 

‘Hey System, is the quest complete?’

 

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Quests Completed–

Help your mistress’s research

 

Rewards:

20 EXP + 100 EXP (bonus)

-------------------------------------

 

‘Wow, so generous!’

-------------------------------------

No need to thank me, it’s easy to raise the reward when your mistress is satisfied with the quest's outcome.

-------------------------------------

 

Is that so? I’m glad that she feels that way. I received another alert after that,

 

-------------------------------------

Congratulations on reaching level 4.

You have 1 unspent Stat Point.

-------------------------------------

 

I put my stat point in INT, and bumped it up to 11.

***

 

The next day, we realized that not everything was as golden as it seemed. Although the opening was a success, there were some nasty rumors about Aria having stolen people’s ideas and using her family’s influence to manipulate public sentiment about her shop.

 

It pained me to hear such baseless rumors about her. Though if I asked Aria about this, she’d probably say that it’s fine and leave them be, but this is unacceptable. Last time, after the launch of Mana-comm, we chose to ignore such rumors and let Sir Richard handle the situation. But this time, I won’t stand down. We need to address such accusations head-on.

 

Recognizing Aria’s unease in such matters, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I asked Sir Richard for his guidance and called some journalists, and prepared for an interview. As I told everyone about this after breakfast,

 

“Is this really necessary?”. Aria raised her concern.

 

“This time she’s right. You need to speak up for yourself”, Teacher interjected, then shifted her gaze to me and said, “Good job grasping the situation and calling the journalists here. If you had waited any longer, things would have ended the same as last time. How dare these people talk bad about my daughter!?”

 

“Sigh, it’s no big deal, Mom. Once they see and use my gadgets, they’ll see for themselves that all those rumors were unfounded”

 

“But I can’t stand seeing some nameless people throwing random accusations at you. They have no right to treat you based on their petty prejudice”, I said.

 

“Then you should do it in my stead. That would be enough to shut down the rumors. You can’t just spring such things on me without consulting me first. I don’t want to give some pointless interview to some strangers”, she protested.

 

“Hah… How about I do the speaking, and you just stay with me and speak when you feel comfortable? Please, do this for me..”, I put on a cute expression that I haven’t used since Teacher forbade it years ago. She said that it was too effective, but it’s fine if it’s Aria, right?

 

+50 SP

 

“Argh, alright. But I’ll only speak if they ask me about my gadgets”, heh, I still got it!

 

“That would be more than enough”, I replied, trying to hide my smirk.