Chap 4: First clients

Eufemia hummed as she was getting her hair done by Clotilde. The latter had stars in her eyes; Eufemia's hair was so silky and beautiful. She'd love to have such hair!

"What day is it today, Clotilde?" Eufemia asked the young maiden. Clotilde was pulled out of her thoughts. She blinked before answering: "Ah, today is Wednesday 17th of September."

Eufemia nodded. "It's been three months, huh…" She muttered. Clotilde raised her head. "Yes?"

"No, nothing. Continue what you were doing." Eufemia waved her hand. Clotilde nodded and continued brushing Eufemia's hair. A few minutes later, she combed it in a large braid tied with a white ribbon. Eufemia stroke her bangs, that were just above her eyes, cleanly cut, before staring at the reflection in the mirror with a satisfied smile.

How beautiful, this child surely was a peerless beauty. Like herself in her previous life, she thought.

In her previous life, she was called Ayumi. Though she had only black hair and black eyes, her features were the same as this body's. Though the colors were quite unusual, it reminded her of the galaxy and the sun. Quite fancy, she thought. Very interesting.

Eufemia thought of the past and found herself lost in her thoughts. Good memories were good memories, but the past was the past; it would never come back. Now, she had to take care of her new life.

Honestly, she was quite disappointed at first when she discovered that she was a ruined noble. But challenge was a thing that she peculiarly liked. She was quite helped with the knowledge of her previous life, too; trading new things were easy.

After the weapons, the soap, the medicine, the food…Infinite possibilities of making money and gaining reputation. Fu fu.

However, she still had this other job of hers…That she would of course teach her beloved onii-chan, ha ha.

Eufemia put her gloves on and hopped off the chair. Behind the door, Bastien and Urian were already there. It had been three months since Urian had arrived, and he was currently being taught about business, politics, etiquette, magic and of course scholar education by Bastien. Eufemia was quite impressed. As expected, a butler's power is not to be underestimated, hm.

"Good morning, brother, Bastien. Is something requiring me?" Eufemia walked side by side with them, her gloved hands behind her back.

"My lady, the customers ordering your weapons have arrived. I've made them wait in the lounge. Clotilde is currently attending them." Bastien shot a quick glance ahead of him with his green eyes. He did not seem quite appealed by the idea of having guests here, or was it because these peculiar guests were troublesome and annoying.

Bastien was like her. He hated incompetent, stupid, troublesome people. No one liked such people, if not as good puppets. Eufemia walked ahead, this time with her hands on the sides. "Hm, who could these guests be?"

"His Highness Duke Carell and Viscount Cely and his family." Eufemia immediately understood who the unwelcomed guest in their estate was.

Who would be so stupid as to bring their family to a business meeting about weapons, with a duke beside at that? Could they be more stupid? She had revised the current Empire's regime, its noble houses and even the well-off commoners and nouveau riches from head to toe, not forgetting the concealed information about each of these families.

Viscount Cely was an utterly stupid, greedy and vain man. A typical nobleman stereotype. His family was no better; his wife gambled and attended parties at every corner, the son courted ladies at the age of fourteen years old and the young daughter had already the mind of a scheming wolf in sheep's clothing.

'It's true what they say, birds of a feather flock together', she huffed. She snickered. Honestly, she had heard about a bit of tension between their two families, especially ever since the downfall of the County under her father's management.

Irony was, the Viscount used to suck up to their family like a dog.

Her father was apparently flattered by all these and constantly invited the Viscount and his family to upper-class receptions, making them known in upper-society. When the Viscount did not need the useless count anymore, he threw him away.

Fu fu, how unsightly. This is quite hypocritical, sir Cely. I do not like hypocritical people.

"Understood. Bastien, stand outside the door." Eufemia stopped in front of the door of the lounge, before opening the door. She glanced quickly at the guests and smiled as always, before performing a perfect reverence, pinching the hem of her skirt. "Good morning. I am Eufemia Lowthe, it is my honor to meet you." She smiled as always and opened her golden eyes.

The Viscount's family had four people in total. The Viscount being the oldest, followed by the Viscountess, their son and their daughter. The Viscount's family retained quite noticeable traits, such as bright blue eyes on the Viscountess' side and pink curly hair on the Viscount's side. While their son Leofric had only inherited the plain walnut color of the Viscountess' hair and the brown eyes of the Viscount, their daughter Marjorie Cely inherited the best traits of each party, such as big bright blue doe eyes, an angelic face with round cheeks, fluffy pink hair and white skin. Her smile was bright as she repeatedly glanced over at the duke.

Duke Alfred Carell was a handsome man with an intimidating and cold aura. Once you placed your eyes on him, you could not help but lower your head as if you had made the great sin of eyeing a god.

His eyes were purple, and his hair was black, which was an uncommon thing. This was the mark of the Carell dukedom, the most powerful dukedom of Leocia Empire. The oldest families had their own distinguishable physical traits; even her mother's family held her peculiar eye color as special physical features. Eufemia took the fact that she resembled the Earl in no traits except maybe for the fact that she was outrageously good-looking as a chance to rebuild a new 'dynasty' for the Lowthe County.

This was one of her goals. And, to accomplish it, she had to pass through the first step, which was making money. Money was everything, no matter the era, the world, it would still be something that could determine one's life.

And, this man sitting overbearingly on her couch, sipping in a teacup and being coaxed by the dogs next to him smelled like money.

She chuckled before sitting down. As expected, the Viscount's family had completely ignored her, if not for the flash of interest when they saw that I had golden eyes.

Though the Lowthe were useless, her mother's family was a renowned family from another allied kingdom, and they held great power. Probably did the Viscount think about the benefit he could get by marrying his son to this girl from the Abell marquisate.

Eufemia could read through this fool like an open book in great letters. She would definitely snicker if she wasn't in front of customers. Though, there was no way she'd sell her weapons to this inane fool. Back in her world, these were already prohibited for their dangerousness, but within this fool's hand, who knew how long until they'd be banished.

Though, she would conceal it at the moment. It was not the time to send them off yet, she still had to break their annoying masks for a bit. "My lady, your tea is there." Bastien's voice sounded, he knocked on the door and walked to the table, putting the tea there.

"Thank you, Bastien. Do bring the weapons over." She lifted her cup after putting in two sugars and elegantly sipped in it. Her aura was refined and elegant, she truly looked like a noble dame from upper class society.

Finally, after she put down the cup, someone spoke to her. "Where is your father, brat?"

Though she did not quite like the appellation, her smile did not waver and she looked over at Petronilla Cely, the Viscountess. Eufemia sneered in her mind and immediately her eyes moistened. "I…Have you not heard, Viscountess? My father died a few months ago."

The Viscount's eyes flashed in anger at the Viscountess. He honestly did not care about that girl's feelings. However, the duke was there; Petronilla had asked a sensible question to a young child just now, it seemed like she had bullied her, making him also look bad.

"Excuse me, young lady, I have not read any newspaper since three months ago." Eufemia laughed loudly and ridiculed her in her mind.

If you did not read any newspaper, how did you know he died three months ago? Stupid woman. "I-It's nothing…It was just so unexpected, that my father died in this…carriage 'accident'." Eufemia hid her mouth with her hands. Though her eyes appeared sad and pitiful, her mouth was widened in a large sneer.

A flash of coldness passed through her eyes, but it was too quick for the simple-minded family to catch it and only the crossed-legged man noticed it as his lips curved upwards.

'Accident? These wheels were surely well sawed for an accident.' His interest towards the young girl grew a bit more.

Originally, the duke just wanted to inspect the motive of selling such novel weapons suddenly. The Carell dukedom was entirely loyal to the Imperial family, and such weapons could bring them harm. But now, he felt like he had found an interesting person. After observing the show for quite a bit more, he decided that it was time to get to business.

Coincidentally, Bastien had just come back with a large and heavy-looking suitcase. The table was cleared, and finally the guests' attention was diverted to the suitcase and Eufemia. The whole Cely family was stunned to see that her red eyes had become cold and absolutely unreadable.

Her lips were wide in a smile that his all of her emotions. Eufemia opened the suitcase with a key that she had around her neck. "Of course, these are our prototypes' final and operational versions."

The duke's eyes shone.

Eufemia smiled. "These, are what I called firearms."

In the suitcase were five different weapons that clearly belonged to the modern, Earth era. A machine gun, a shotgun, a standard gun, a one hand machine gun, a grenade. These were what were displayed in the suitcase, carefully put in the velvet. On the side were four different types of bullets.