Chapter 294: (Gossip) Pumilla’s Fiancé and His Store 3

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I’m Tommy, the son of the Ethan Store located in a certain town. Currently I’m the royal capital. My traveling expenses have been covered by my family’s store and my wife’s store. Both families are pinning their hopes on me.

…Though my wife doesn’t understand any of that.

In the first place, when I told her to stay home, she kicked up a fuss and clamored around like a little kid. Getting tired of her nonsense, I brought her with me, but all she did on the way was complaining. Moreover, even though I told her time and time again that we wouldn’t have any time to go shopping in the capital, she still tried to drag me into the shopping district, and when I refused because we don’t have any money for that, she started to bitch around.

Just why did I marry such a wench…?

The easy explanation would be that I was cheated. But, because of that, not only I, but also my store, my wife’s store, and moreover our towns got dragged into this whole mess.

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Back when I met my wife――before she was married to me――she was wonderful. Unlike Pumilla, she’s got a voluptuous body, and being well aware of her own charms, she wore clothes and accessories emphasizing her beauty――the symbol of any affluent woman.

I easily fell for her head over heels.

Once my parents heard that she was the daughter of a big store which even had a branch store in the capital, they agreed to me marrying her instead of Pumilla.

…But, back then I didn’t know who was paying the money for her extravagant dresses and attires. And that her pretty skin was the best proof of her being unable to do any hard work.

My wife demanded the same treatment she had received back home at a small store like ours. She didn’t help out at all, and as she wasn’t even able to do any housework, she was the very definition of a dead-weight.

Meanwhile, her family’s store gloated over being able to pawn off such a useless money sink. They even joked that they’d buy us up if we were to go bankrupt because of her.

At that time I had long stopped loving her. My wife had started to bicker all day long about her new life, and my parents basically hated her for dear life.

＊

But, my bad luck didn’t stop at that.

Benjamin loathed us for how we had treated Pumilla. Back when he had stormed into my store, I thought that he wanted consolation money for the broken engagement, but instead he had us sign a contract.

It said: 『Benjamin and everyone related to his business will never do any business with the Ethan Store and everyone related to it, nor will both businesses have any sort of connection in the future』

Back then, my Dad laughed. And back then, I felt relieved.

Dad scorned him for the audacity of thinking that he could win against our business, and readily signed the document. Personally I felt awkward about the matter with Pumilla, so I was relieved that I would never need to face those siblings again once they left our town.

Benjamin apparently showed up at my wife’s store as well, demanding them to sign the same contract. And the folks over there ridiculed him as well, saying that they’d hire him as a lowly manservant once he went bankrupt since it’d be so easy to crush him anyway.

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…We didn’t have to wait long for the outcome.

Within a few months, one customer and business partner after the other stopped interacting with us. On the other hand, the big store had to close its branch store in the capital since not a single customer visited them anymore.

And all of this wasn’t limited to our stores either.

『Belonging to this town』 and 『Working at this town』 were enough as attributes to stop any business from occurring. The number of people visiting our town from outside visibly decreased.

Before long we found out that all of this originated from Benjamin’s store. Nowadays his store was a huge topic in the capital after having made a sensational debut.

It was said that it’s a fantastic store that’s similar to an ancient ruin as it’s made out of all sorts of unknown magic tools. Even nobles were fighting over the right to become regular customers.

And at the same time we heard that Benjamin had loudly announced that his store would refuse any business and relation to people related to my or my wife’s family. In response to this, all the customers and merchants, who wanted to be on the good side of his store, started to stay clear from our families. And since they didn’t know who belonged to our families, they simply targeted our towns as a whole.

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――Then again, most of the people in our town didn’t really bless my marriage. One part stemmed from it having had a bad taste that I discarded Pumilla, who had been my fiancée for many years, to switch to another woman, but Pumilla had also been working at our store as if she was part of our family.

She could properly serve customers and she was very attentive as well as considerate.

Because I switched from Pumilla, who was popular among the townsfolk, to a woman, who didn’t even feel like watching the way she speaks, let alone serving customers properly, after getting lured by her being the daughter of a large store, the reactions to our marriage were fairly cold.

Nowadays, it’d be great if their treatment of us would just be cold. It’s commonplace for us to get insulted and not a single day passes without our store getting pranked or attacked in some way. At least once a day I’m told straight into my face to get out of the town.

My mother became bedridden out of worry. My father endured his desire to send my wife back to her family after forcing a divorce between us out of spite, scheming to take the big store down together with us, now that things had degraded to such an extent.

Only my wife didn’t understand any of it.

Because she always bitched back as soon as someone insulted her, I dragged her back home many times over, gave her a sermon, and locked her up at home. And yet, she couldn’t understand.

My wife probably wants to go back to her family after divorcing me. As someone whose only ability in life is to indulge in luxury, she can’t endure the frugal life over here where it’s normal to work hard. She likely wants to go back to her parents and live off their money again.

For this very reason, I won’t let her go back. …As if I’d ever let her run away until this whole mess reaches its conclusion!

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