“The handover is now complete. I have also provided manuals on my previous responsibilities for reference.” A heavy thud resounded through the office of the Merchants’ guildmaster as Ivano laid a stack of parchment on the desk; only after compiling everything had he realized he’d once overseen so many tasks.
It had been a few months since Ivano filled out that resignation form in front of Gabriella, and on paper, he had long since left the Guild. However, his replacement’s stomach had churned—the unfamiliarity and number of duties, as well as the suddenness of it all, were too much. Despite the fact that they were in the same building, coming over to the Rossetti Trading Company’s office to ask Ivano questions was surely too difficult a task. After discussions with the vice-guildmaster, it had been decided three people would take Ivano’s place, and he would lend a guiding hand whenever he had the time.
And, as of a few days ago, everything had been settled. Ivano had assembled all the documents, and today, he had come to formally depart from the workplace—the final meeting between guild clerk and the guildmasters.
“I also have a recommendation regarding the organization of documents. Please take a look.” Ivano had come to say goodbye, but there was one more thing he could improve. His suggestion was to forgo the titles and numbers on documents in favor of inserting colorful little strips of sticky paper between each section so that it would be visually obvious where they began and ended even when the reference ledger was closed. This was also the way he and Dahlia did things in the company, and it made searching through files dramatically quicker.
“Seems rather convenient.” Leone, seated across the table, ran his eyes over the documents.
Beside him, Gabriella smiled. “It does indeed. Let’s implement this.”
This scene warmed Ivano’s heart. Come to think about it, this arrangement was how he’d first met those two as well.
Sixteen years ago, Ivano and Loretta, his girlfriend—now wife—had come to the royal capital. His father, the chairman of the family business, had been a guarantor to a friend’s company, which had failed, saddling him with a large debt. Ivano’s parents had committed suicide and taken his sickly younger sister along with them, leaving none in his family but himself. Their hometown had been a speck of dust on the map compared to the capital; Ivano could not bear the deafening whispers behind his back. He did not want to bring trouble to his relatives either. And so, he had separated with his girlfriend and decided to move to the capital alone.
However, his tragic resignation had borne no fruit—his girlfriend had been waiting at the stagecoach station for him. With a load of baggage packed (Moving somewhere?—he would’ve quipped had he not been overcome with surprise), she had declared, “I’ll be your family now!” as she thrust an engagement bracelet onto his wrist. Silver and set with blue moonstones, it was the most beautiful one Ivano had ever seen.
The capital the two of them had entered hand in hand was a spirited, glorious, yet dizzyingly hectic place, not to mention expensive given the high cost of living; even the rent for a small room had been a daunting sum. Love alone could not fill the stomach, and he’d had little money on hand. Ivano would take the first job that would hire him to ensure his wife did not live a life of want—so he had sworn.
When they unpacked their belongings in that small room at a cheap inn they now called home, they were stunned. Her father had had Loretta bring her favorite cooking pot—and it was indeed a pot—but packed inside were gold and silver pieces bundled up with cloth. “After registering your marriage, go rent a home. No need to rush finding a job, and take care of yourselves,” read the now unfolded, hastily written note, the ink feathered and smudged. Ivano and Loretta bowed to the little pot.
They soon registered their marriage at the city hall and rented a small apartment, and Ivano began the job hunt—just as the note had instructed. He had gone to the Merchants’ Guild to look at their job listings, and only because he was there already, he figured he’d test his pluck and applied to take the Guild’s employment examination. He’d vowed that he wouldn’t become a merchant here in the capital, and, other than involvement with trading companies, the pay and working conditions for a guild clerk were better. He was told that the examination would be tomorrow, and he rushed to a store to rent a navy suit.
Ivano felt so very out of place that day. Interviews were conducted individually, and there he sat in the conference room at a large table across from the silver-haired, black-eyed Viscount Leone Jedda—a nobleman and guildmaster, a man who led a godlike existence. Next to him was a stunning but somewhat formidable woman with ivory hair and navy blue eyes—Gabriella Jedda, the Guild’s vice-guildmaster and spouse of Viscount Jedda.
As the guildmaster sternly perused Ivano’s résumé, Gabriella asked the petrified prospect, “Could you please tell us what your strengths are and what you wish to do?” They didn’t seem to care about why he wanted the job.
Ivano swallowed his nervousness and answered that calculation was his forte, and that he wished for work in which he could make use of his experience and knowledge from working at a trading company—an inoffensive answer. Those deep navy eyes staring back made Ivano acutely aware that his efforts to put on a brave face were futile.
Leone had finished reading the résumé. “1,145; 3,707; 1,511; 2,212; 1,424.”
The sudden outburst of five four-digit numbers had Ivano flicking an invisible abacus on his knees.
“How much is that?”
“9,999 coins.”
Leone’s slight nod was accented with a smirk, while Gabriella put her fingers to her lips as she giggled. How devilish.
Then, two days later, Ivano became a guild clerk. The role offered favorable working conditions, so many of the applicants were children from noble families or college graduates, and supposedly many had been vying for Ivano’s position. That was when he learned that a great deal of importance was placed on an applicant’s guarantor. At the time, the one person he’d had was an uncle who lived far away, and the only thing to show for it was a slip of paper; his uncle wasn’t even a nobleman or a well-known businessman. Only after he had entered the Guild did Ivano learn how unlikely he was to succeed.
As he would be interacting with the nobility, Ivano needed to learn the requisite etiquette. Thankfully, on-the-job training was thorough, covering everything he needed and wanted to learn. He even got a referral to a short course and a teacher after asking for them, and the Guild went so far as to cover most of the fees. There were those who made snide remarks at his lack of knowledge, his lack of education, and his bumpkinly origins, and he freely admitted to them, as not one word said was incorrect. Ivano put his all into absorbing everything they taught and then immediately applied his newfound knowledge. The job was far from easy, but the more he learned, the more interesting and profound it was. As someone who had worked abaci from an early age and had been employed in his father’s trading company, Ivano knew exactly what the businessmen wanted. As such, he gradually received more requests for his services. The more years he lived, the more work he received directly from Gabriella. Before long, they called him Gabriella’s mentee, and the snide remarks were no more.
Incidentally, with the first paycheck he received after joining the Guild, Ivano bought a cooking pot one size larger than the one he’d received from his father-in-law. Completely filling it with gold pieces and sending it back required three years’ time.
“You know, you look better in those clothes than you do in the Guild’s uniform, Ivano.” It was supposed to be a compliment, but trace amounts of wistfulness laced Gabriella’s words.
He pretended not to notice a thing and smiled. “Thank you very much, Madam Gabriella. I’m still getting used to them.” His current outfit had been put together by the Tailors’ guildmaster Forto. The deep navy suit matched well his combed mustard hair, and the white silk shirt underneath his jacket featured a pair of gold cuff links, one of which was also a magical tool with an anti-eavesdropping capability. It was an outfit suitable for meeting with nobles and for visiting the castle—things he hadn’t even imagined he would be doing just a year ago.
“You’ll be just fine. No one would bat an eye if you told them you’d always been one of them.” She left Ivano at a loss for words.
It had been Gabriella who’d first realized that he could no longer remain a guild clerk. She had said that she would “raise him to be a man who can run his own business.” That much did not seem to be a joke.
Leone had known as well. “This will be beneficial to you in the future, so commit it to memory,” he had prefaced his lessons, and all those turned out to be useful to Ivano as both a guild clerk and a businessman. The way Ivano had appended the word “coins” to that arithmetic question during the interview had shown them that he was a businessman through and through. He had striven to become a good guild clerk. He had striven to become a clerk whom friends and clients alike trusted. In spite of that, every time he spoke with other merchants, he felt compelled to consider what he would do if he were in their shoes. It had been these two who’d prized open Ivano’s eyes when he’d pretended not to see.
Then there was the goddess robed in gold—the magical toolmaker Dahlia Rossetti. The magical tools she crafted caused gleaming gold coins to rain down from the heavens, yet she was oblivious to her miracles—a combination most dangerous. Before other merchants or guilds could gobble up her rights, she ought to have a trusted merchant placed by her side—just as those thoughts came to him, Ivano had yearned to be that person for her. So, he’d advertised his services to her, become an employee of the Rossetti Trading Company, and been promoted to vice-chairman, hence Ivano’s reason for having come here: to thank the guildmasters for their support all these years—and to leave them.
“The way you asked to ‘board this same boat’ the other day was quite brilliant.” Leone was referring to what Ivano had said at the Scalfarotto villa; it seemed like it had made quite the lasting mark.