“Um, you may be aware of this, but the reason why I volunteered my services was because we didn’t have the money to put food on the table for everyone. Of course, they don’t know that, but they do know that life has been tough.”
“...You are so kind, Maria.”
With a surplus of dried meat, then everyone could rest easy knowing that they didn’t have to starve. Upon figuring that out, Ristia smiled and said, “In that case, you can go ahead and dry it all out, then.” It was worth noting that, as described earlier, what they were turning into dried meat was high-quality cuts of already extinct animals. If there were any aristocrats around, they would find turning this high-quality meat into jerky unfathomable. They would probably be screaming, “I’ll pay you whatever you’d like, but for the love of all that’s sacred, sell it to me raw!” However, for better or worse, there were only the orphaned children and a True Blood princess here.
With that settled, Ristia went to join the children in their work. They managed to boil each piece of meat pickled in salt water one by one and leave them to dry in the sun.
—The next day rolled in, and after breakfast, Ristia asked that everyone remain in their seats. The children looked worried as their young eyes fell upon her. “The reason I had you all stay is because I want to ask your honest opinions.” Ristia’s ice-breaker was met with a line of confused stares from the children, followed by a chorus of chatter questioning what they were giving their opinion on. Ristia, however, expected this would happen, so she turned to Maria. For the past two days, Ristia had been casually explaining what she was going to talk about to Maria alone since she realized that everyone trusted her like their older sister.
“Alright, now. All of you, pipe down. Director Ristia wants to ask all of you about renovations to the orphanage. She wants to ask your opinions on how we should shape things up around here.” Maria said, looking at Ristia and thinking, That’s about the gist, right? Ristia promptly nodded in affirmation.
“As Maria just explained, I plan on renovating the orphanage. So I would appreciate it if you could all chip in and tell me how you’d like to spruce things up~” Ristia said with a soft smile, upon which the children’s face lit up like supernovas. And what followed was...
“I want a yard so I can play with everyone!”
“Oh, wow! Then gimme a room to myself~!”
“No fair. I want a room to myself too!”
“I want a small hot spring!”
“Ah, I’d like to take a hot bath~”
One after another, the children started firing off their requests.
Ristia listened to each one with a smile.
“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, good idea.”
However, Maria was starting to get flustered from the sidelines.
“Wait, wait, everyone, hold your horses. Don’t get the wrong idea here. By ‘renovations,’ she doesn’t mean renovating the building, she means renovating the finances of the orphanage.”
The moment Maria corrected the statement, she was met with a collective disappointed, “Aww...”
“...Guys. I don’t know how to break this, but, well, this orphanage is in bad financial shape. I’ve kept it a secret this whole time, but to be honest, it’s a wonder that this orphanage wasn’t shut down a long time ago.”
“...Huh? The orphanage is gonna shut down?” Little Mew asked with a teary-eyed expression.
“No, we’ll be fine. Director Ristia will be taking care of everything, so this orphanage isn’t going to get shut down by a long shot. But you still shouldn’t be making all these demands.” Maria’s warning helped them understand their current state of affairs.
“Oh, right...” some of the children said with solemn expressions. They then started to apologize. “Sorry for being selfish.”
It looked as if things were getting explained extremely well, but after hearing what Maria said, the question marks went flying over Ristia’s head as she asked, “Maria, what are you talking about?”
“‘What’...? The point of this was to get everyone to pitch in and economize because renovating finances here on your dime alone would be impossible... Uh, right...?” Maria asked, looking more and more uneasy with each word because she had predicted the worst case scenario, but... Ristia replied in a casual and indifferent tone.
“Nope, not at all. I’ve already got the money to renovate the orphanage, so the point of this was to ask everyone how they wanted the building to look.”
“...Uh, what? Wait, huh? No, I mean, um... You have the money to renovate the facility itself? You’re not talking about our immediate living expenses?”
“Yup, yup. It’s all good to go.”
“Wha...? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...?!” Maria screamed in disbelief while the children all cried in celebration nearby.
──6──
“Director Ristia, how many fingers am I holding up?” Maria came up to Ristia holding up three fingers, which made her pout her cheeks.
“Just so you know, I’m not going insane, okay?”
“Yeah, but you said that you already got the money needed to renovate the orphanage... Does that mean you’re some kind of aristocrat, Director Ristia?”
“I’m just a normal girl, though...”
“...Normal girls don’t take over an orphange and gain enough money to rebuild said orphange literally overnight.”
“I’m a normal girl who just has ways to get ahold of an orphanage and a lot of money?”
“That’s not being a normal girl, either.” Maria let out a huge sigh in response.
Shoot! All signs point to me being normal because I am normal, but I’m having such a hard time being considered a normal girl in everyone else’s eyes... Ristia thought to herself.
“Just to make sure one more time, did you really get the funds?”
“Yup. I don’t have it on me right now, but the costs needed for the renovations are going to be covered by a company. The carpenters should be here any moment, so you can ask them when they arrive.”
“...Right, I’ll go ahead and ask.”
And that takes care of convincing Maria, Ristia figured. She prepped a blank blueprint atop the table and started to draw plans with everyone’s ideas incorporated into it.