The room was a sumptuous affair. It was in the same Côte Sud as the orphan children’s hut, but they might as well have been in different universes. Most striking of all was an enormous painting on the wall of two goddesses who gazed down upon the room’s occupants.
“I want an explanation! What happened over there?!”
The head of the merchant house had returned to his Golden Sunrise Hotel and flown into a fit of rage. All the executives in his merchant house who had gathered in his office gave him the same answer—they’d barely slept in days to get things ready for the tax inspector, and therefore, they had no idea. The merchant gnashed his teeth in frustration, but he himself had ordered them to prioritize this task, and the damage was done.
“Fine, just tell me what you know! Say something!”
“V-Very well, if I may...”
One of the executives spoke up, then the rest followed suit. As they pieced together their fragmentary accounts, the full picture slowly came into focus.
It began with the revival of the dried up hot spring and the reopening of the public bathhouse. That much, the merchant knew already. The very next day, the commoner neighborhood had been cleaned up beyond all recognition.
“Hold on,” the merchant said. “Aren’t you skipping over something? What does the revival of a hot spring have to do with cleaning up the streets?”
“Well, this is all secondhand so I can’t speak to the truth of it...but people are talking about a maid unlike any they’ve ever seen before...”
“A maid? As in, the ones that wash the dishes and do the laundry in big estates?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But what is a maid doing in the commoner neighborhood?!”
No one knew the answer to that.
After the streets had been cleaned up, the residents had come out in droves and set up all sorts of street stalls. Most sold food you could eat while walking around, while others offered little souvenirs. Apparently, the food stalls were being manned by children.
The commoner neighborhood was right next to the coast. Now that they’d tidied up the entrance and hung up a banner, the tourists noticed that something was there and began wandering in to take a look.
“The food the stalls are selling is surprisingly tasty,” one of the executives said. “They’ve got these little fried fish you can eat whole. They’re seasoned with a bit of salt and go down a treat with a glass of beer.”
“I’m partial to the octopus crackers myself,” said another. “Just the thing for when you’re a little peckish—and your fingers don’t get sticky.”
“With the ladies, it’s all about the sugarcane juice. It’s cheaper than fruit-infused water and satisfyingly sweet, but doesn’t leave a cloying aftertaste. I hear forest berries are the secret ingredient.”
The executives launched into a spirited discussion of the various food stalls, until— BANG!
The head of the merchant house hit the desk with his fist.
“Are you all idiots?! There’s a business opportunity ripe for the taking and you’re all standing around gawking! Take their ideas and make them ours! Take them all!”
The executives all stared at him. No one said a word.
“What? Do you have a problem with that?”
“If I may, sir...” one said at last. “We can’t just take their ideas. It isn’t the sort of food that we can serve in our hotel.”
“I beg your pardon?!”
“We’ve hired chefs who can keep up with the very latest Thundergard fine dining trends. It’s a whole different world to street food. Our guests would be furious if we tried to serve them this sort of thing.”
The merchant groaned in frustration. His executives were right. The guests would be baffled if street food showed up as part of their full-course dinner.
“It’s entertainment for a different class of customer to the clientele of this hotel—employees like ourselves, for example.”
In other words, the commoners’ street stalls catered to a totally different demographic to this resort hotel. They were not for patrons of the big five luxury hotels, but for tourists staying at mid-tier hotels or smaller inns, who just wanted to try food a little different than usual and have some stories to take home with them. The very fact that the food came from street stalls and not a hotel restaurant only added to the appeal.
The merchant drooped in his chair, overcome by shock.
“A-Are you all right, sir? There’s no need to get upset over a few street stalls. They aren’t even our competition.”
“Is that all you think this is?”
“Pardon?”
The merchant could see it already. More than likely, this trend would spread to wealthy customers too. Street food might not match the best restaurants in taste, but as an experience, it couldn’t be beat. The Golden Sunrise Resort offered up an experience too, and it was a straightforward one—you got to stay in the hotel wrapped in gold leaves at a top-tier beach resort.
But wealthy people were starved for experiences, so they always sniffed out new ones. It would just take one person saying, “Oh, you haven’t heard about all the interesting snacks in the commoner neighborhood?” and they’d all be desperate to try them. It didn’t matter if the food tasted good or not. The important thing was that once you’d tried something, you got to tell other people. The wealthy tourists would tell their friends, word would spread, and soon the commoner neighborhood would be the number one destination for affluent travelers everywhere.
For the merchant, this was a total nightmare.
For the wealthy tourists who’d already experienced the commoner neighborhood, the fact that it might be wiped off the map by the redevelopment project would be music to their ears. They could boast that they’d gotten to experience something that was now gone forever. But that would make all the other wealthy folk who hadn’t had the experience yet absolutely desperate to go. His hotel would get an influx of customers—and he certainly wouldn’t complain about that—but it would come with demands that the redevelopment be delayed. At least, that is, until they got to have the experience for themselves. In other words, people who previously had no interest in the matter at all would suddenly have reason to join the opposition.
Once word got out, it would be too late. If he were going to act, it had to be now.
“I want them crushed,” he said in a low growl.
“Sorry?”
“Crush them, I said! And where the hell are those thugs we paid off?!”
“S-Sir, you told them to lay low and avoid causing any trouble while the tax inspector was in town...”
Once again, he was reaping what he’d sown.
“Well tell them to get back out there! Now!”
“R-Right away!”
The executives scurried away from the office like a swarm of baby spiders.
“I’ve come too far... It was all going perfectly!”
He’d made Count Oolonteil his ally. Drained the hot spring that supplied the public bathhouse. Hired thugs to make the people feel unsafe. Even campaigned to raise the tax rate. This had all required money—an enormous investment of capital, all for the sake of pushing through the redevelopment project so that he could buy up the commoner neighborhood and put another resort hotel on top of it.
“I’ll be damned if a tax inspector and a few street stalls are going to ruin all my ambitions!” he bellowed.
✦ ✦ ✦
As the day drew to a close, the orphans packed up their street stalls and headed back to the bathhouse. It was full of locals who now hailed them when they arrived.
“Hey, kid! Good sales today?”
“Look at that tear! Take it to my missus and she’ll stitch it up for you.”
“Don’t go splashin’ in the bath or that big scary dwarf’ll getcha!”
None of the hotel employees from the capital came near this place, so the children could relax and wash off the day’s dirt knowing that everyone around them lived nearby. After their baths, they next gathered at the Sable Fin Inn.
“Oy, we’re back!”
“That’s ‘we’re back, ma’am’ to you, kid,” grumbled the landlady. “If I’ve told you once...”
“We’re hungry!”
“My inn is rooms only! I don’t do meals, you know.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Emily said. “I saw that big smile on your face while you were cooking.”
“You pipe down!” the landlady snapped, flushing bright red.
Over the course of their long stay, Nina had seen that behind the prickly, unfriendly front she put up, the landlady actually liked people. Therefore, she made a request of her: to give the children a place to sleep—and only to sleep—at her inn. The landlady relented, though after grumbling about what they’d been eating and how wrong it was to make them work, she took it upon herself to feed them as well.
After all this time, the children, worn out from working all day, now had a place to return and dinner to look forward to, before ending it snuggling up two or three to a bed and falling fast asleep.