Chapter 295: (Gossip) Pumilla’s Fiancé and His Store 4
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I sent many apology letters to Pumilla, even writing to her that I’d divorce my wife and start over with her. But I got no answer whatsoever.
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One day the owner of the big store, in short, my stepfather, visited us. He had become completely haggard.
“Why didn’t you tell me!?” He ranted, but it was nothing but an outburst of anger.
I mean, even we wouldn’t have had any interest in experiencing something like this, if we had known in advance.
＊
My parents, I, and he had a talk. He even promised that he’d become Benjamin’s manservant, if that would soothe Benjamin’s anger.
He apparently planned to have Benjamin forgive him by letting Benjamin scorn and ridicule him to his heart’s content. All for the sake of showing his will to apologize.
I talked about my plan of divorcing my wife and marrying Pumilla instead. Since that was the cause of everything, Benjamin’s anger should be appeased if I marry his sister. My parents and my stepfather agreed to that.
It led to them actively telling me to go apologize, even if I have to prostrate myself in front of the siblings, as they would provide the travel expenses.
I thought that things would work out one way or the other with that.
………Until my wife got wind of my plans to travel to the capital and insisted on coming along.
I ended up taking her along, although I shouldn’t have done so no matter what, because I got tired of her constantly bitching at me. This journey would spell our farewell anyway. No matter what she did at this point, I was going to separate from this person.
That was the general consensus of anyone involved.
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When we arrived at Benjamin’s store in the outskirts of the capital, my jaw dropped.
…Some part of me had believed that his store would be smaller than ours. ――Yep, I had looked down on him. After all this time, a little part of me had still looked down on my younger brotherly friend with the casual way of talking.
Never, even not in my wildest dreams, had I imagined that I would find myself standing in front of such a massive, magnificent store…
After staring at the store absentmindedly for a while, my wife started to frolic around. The idea that we’d come here to apologize was all but gone from her birdbrain, replaced by her desire to quickly enter that store.
…I got a headache.
“Pid, we’re going to meet people we have to apologize to. It’s not like we dropped by for a visit. …How many times do I need to tell you until you get it?”
“It’ll be over once you apologize, right? Let’s go shopping afterwards! I’m sure they’ve got loads of wonderful items!”
…Seriously, my head hurts.
Just why did I marry such a wench?
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The crowd in front of the store had already been huge when we arrived here, but it kept growing over time. Even though we wanted to get inside the store, we couldn’t.
“Excuse us. Please let us through. We want to enter the store, so…”
Once I addressed a man in front of us, he turned around with a puzzled look, and after scrutinizing us from head to toe, he broke out into laughter, obviously ridiculing us and said, “I suppose you people came here straight from the sticks? In that case, allow me to be a nice guy and bring you up to speed. This store isn’t a place that can be freely entered by some tourists from the countryside. Even nobles can’t visit it unless they get invited through connections. If you don’t have any such connections, you can apply to join the lottery, and if you win, you’ll be able to enter. All these people here have gathered today because it’s lottery day. If you get it, could you behave and watch things from the back? Don’t try to push your way to the front despite not even participating in the lottery, got it?”
My wife got annoyed and tried to argue back, but I quickly lowered my head, apologized, and withdrew while forcing my wife along.
The instant things calmed down around us as we had left the crowd, my wife shook her arm free and roared, “Why did you stop me!? You damn wimp!”
“…Give me a break! We’re merchants! Never do something as stupid as flaring up at a rich person who might become our regular customer in the future! If you’re going to get in the way all the time, I’ll send you back home by yourself! ――Let me be clear: Don’t embarrass me and don’t be a nuisance! Otherwise, I’ll truly leave you behind!”
Once I roared back at her as my patience with her antics had run out, my wife shut her mouth as she apparently understood what I told her, albeit hatefully glaring at me. Immediately following, she folded her arms and turned her face away
All I could do was to sigh at that.
＊
After some time, the number of people reached its peak. No sooner than cheers erupted from the people at the front of the crowd, employees came out of the store. A person familiar to me was walking at the front.
That’s…ah right, Benjamin’s work partner…a woman called Baroque.
She greeted the crowd while introducing herself as 『Deputy Shopkeeper』. And…next to her stood Pumilla.
So she’s helping out at the store, huh…? That’s great. It’ll make it easier for us to come to an agreement.
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