“I decided to accept three million Eckles as the commission fee for now.”
At Kendrick’s words, Hobbs tilted his head in confusion.
“I thought you were going to refuse any payment.”
“Our precious client insisted on paying.”
Precious client, huh.
Since when had he ever referred to a customer like that?
While Hobbs stared at Kendrick with an incredulous look—
“Oh?! Did you just come back from meeting the client from the case I solved?! The one who signed a contract with the vice-captain?!”
Gale came barreling over, practically shaking the floor as he jumped into the conversation.
“That’s right. She asked me to tell you she was grateful.”
“Ahahaha! It wasn’t even a difficult mission, though!”
As Gale beamed proudly, Hobbs turned his back to him and asked another question.
“We’ll handle the three million Eckles on our side, then. Did she say anything about the remaining money?”
“The remaining money…”
For a brief moment, Kendrick recalled Janette’s expression during their conversation.
She had hesitated awkwardly, delaying her answer.
Then suddenly, her eyes widened as though something had startled her.
After falling silent for a moment, as if retracing a thought in her mind, she finally spoke.
“She said she plans to invest it.”
“Invest?”
“Yeah. Apparently, she intends to invest all twenty-seven million Eckles into Belphia tea farms.”
“Belphia… tea farms?”
Hobbs repeated the words in utter disbelief.
And understandably so.
Belphia tea leaves were notoriously low-grade. Nobles would never touch them, and even wealthy commoners or the middle class rarely sought them out.
Tea for the poor.
That was the image attached to it. The profit margins were low as well, so almost nobody cultivated Belphia tea professionally.
Most people simply planted it temporarily on unused land and harvested it as a small side business.
Yet now someone intended to pour twenty-seven million Eckles into Belphia tea farms.
“That… she hasn’t been scammed by someone, has she?”
“Well, that’s what you’ll have to investigate from now on.”
Damn. I shouldn’t have asked.
As Hobbs muttered his regret under his breath, Kendrick added calmly,
“Either way, do as she requested and find suitable Belphia tea farms to invest in.”
Kendrick himself was worried too, but he did not want to ignore Janette’s wishes.
‘She must have a reason for it.’
In the end, Kendrick decided to trust her.
That night.
‘What exactly was that earlier…?’
Unable to fall asleep easily, Janette rubbed the inside of her left wrist.
—
“So then, how would you like us to help you with the remaining twenty-seven million Eckles, my lady?”
“Well, about the remaining money…”
—
Just as she had been about to answer Theo’s question—
A faint light shimmered along the inside of her left wrist.
“Salvation.”
The tiny glowing word appeared on her skin.
At the same time, information began flooding into her mind.
—
“They found a cure for the mysterious epidemic?”
“Yes! And that cure is none other than Belphia tea leaves!”
“To think those worthless tea leaves would become a remedy for a plague…”
“That’s precisely the problem. Since there are almost no farms cultivating Belphia tea on a large scale, the supply is far too limited.”
“That certainly is a serious issue.”
—
Janette instinctively understood.
This was one of the scenes from the original story.
Which meant it was also a glimpse of a future yet to come.
‘If that’s true…’
The moment the vision ended, Janette immediately decided to invest the twenty-seven million Eckles into Belphia tea leaves.
If events unfolded the same way they had in the original story, the value of Belphia tea would undoubtedly skyrocket several times over in the future.
And more importantly—
‘If preparations are made ahead of time, then people won’t suffer from not having enough tea leaves to receive treatment.’
No matter how she thought about it, she could not imagine a better choice than investing in Belphia tea.
Still…
‘Why did that scene appear at that exact moment?’
It felt as though someone had placed the exact information she needed directly into her hands.
And there was also the glowing word she had seen at the same time—
Salvation.
‘No matter how I think about it, it has to be connected to that word somehow…’
She had heard that each sacred blessing phrase possessed a unique power.
Could this be the power of the phrase she carried?
But that was as far as her guesses could go.
‘First, I should research blessings properly.’
Thinking that she should visit the library later, Janette slowly closed her eyes.
