The Grand Duchess Escape - Chapter 136.2
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Mariel narrowed her eyes and clapped her hands as if she remembered something. It was a somewhat theatrical gesture.
“Oh, right! I forgot to send the letter I wrote to madam Etman!”
Mariel took out the letter from her sleeve and carefully observed the raggedly dressed children sitting in the alley.
Among them, she spotted a clever-looking boy and waited until their eyes met before gesturing to him. The boy hesitated for a moment, but when Mariel gestured again, he ran over and stood next to the table.
“You called for me, miss?”
“Yeah. I’m Mariel. What’s your name?”
“Everyone calls me Tommy.”
“I see, Tommy.”
Mariel smiled kindly at Tommy.
“Do you like cookies, by any chance?”
However, Tommy didn’t readily accept it. His attitude was that of someone who knew that there were many dangers in accepting favors from strangers.
‘Perfect.’
Instead, if the boy had eagerly agreed to eat the cookies, Mariel would have looked for another child without any further questions. It was important to have a reasonable wariness in order to successfully complete the task without mistakes.
Mariel pushed the plate of cookies towards Tommy, still smiling.
“It’s alright. You can have as many as you want.”
Tommy turned his head in the opposite direction. Asella nodded with a smile.
“There’s plenty of cookies. Take some and share them with your friends.”
“Can I really?”
“Of course.”
Finally, Tommy hesitated and reached out for the plate of cookies. Mariel quickly asked.
“Tommy, can you do me a favor?”
Just before his finger touched the cookie, Tommy immediately withdrew his hand. With a determined expression on his still young face, he shook his head.
“I don’t do bad things, miss.”
There were many risks for the children on the streets. In order to appease their growling stomachs and find a place to escape the storm, many children resorted to crime. And most of them lost their lives at a young age.
“It’s not a bad thing. It’s just a simple errand,” Asella explained in a gentle tone so as not to frighten the boy.
“My younger sister wrote a letter to the tutor who used to teach her. All you need to do is take this letter and the note with the address to the guild.”
Tommy blinked hesitantly at the request, thinking for a moment, and then suddenly remembered something.
“But if you’re sending a letter, can’t you just mail it at the post office?”
“It takes too long if we send it through the post office!” Mariel replied promptly.
“If we commission the guild, it will arrive in a week at the latest, but it can take up to a month through the post office. That’s too long. Madame Etman must be waiting for my letter.”
A hint of tears mixed with her last words. Upon seeing this, Tommy became flustered, not knowing what to do.
“I… I didn’t think that far.”
“It’s understandable,” Asella said with a gentle smile and placed two silver coins on the table.
“One is for the money required to commission the guild, and the other is for your errand fee.”
Tommy’s eyes widened, and the following words surprised him even more.
“If the commission goes through, the guild will issue a confirmation. When you return successfully, I will give you two more silver coins.”
Tommy swallowed hard. He couldn’t take his eyes off the shimmering silver coins in the sunlight.
“If it’s too difficult, it’s okay to refuse. But you can keep the cookies and share them with your friends.”
“I… I’ll do it!”
The boy’s eyes sparkled. Three silver coins were a considerable sum of money. Even after eating their fill of bread for two weeks, there would still be money left over.
Tommy firmly tucked the two silver coins on the table into his pocket and picked up the letter and the note.
“All I have to do is take this to the guild, right?”
The boy started running at full speed along the main road.
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