Late at night, after finishing my duties, I sat at the desk tucked in the corner of my room. The candlelight flickered against the paper as I organized my thoughts.
"The target is the Frostroot at the auction."
A one-time buff elixir, temporarily amplifying the user’s physical and magical abilities. I’d used something similar once, back in the fight against the guardian deity. It had made the difference between victory and death.
The problem was... Frostroot wasn’t exactly popular.
Most people preferred elixirs that gave permanent improvements. Why spend a fortune on something that burns out after a single use? That’s why Frostroot usually ended up forgotten in some dusty corner of an apothecary’s shelf.
But this one was different.
The Frostroot set to appear in the black market wasn’t the diluted junk sold to desperate adventurers. Its properties were unique—perfectly suited to my style of combat. I couldn’t afford to let it slip past me.
"The problem is money."
I tapped my pen against the blank page and began jotting down possibilities.
Salary. Robbery. Auction house raid.
Salary? Impossible. The pittance I earned as Alice’s attendant couldn’t compete with the overflowing purses of the nobles who frequented the black market.
Robbery? Suicide. Security across the North was iron-tight, every noble house on guard after recent incidents. Even a petty theft would bring the hounds down on me.
And raiding the auction? Laughable. I wasn’t strong enough. Not yet.
My gaze lingered on the word funds scrawled across the page, underlined twice.
"If only I could find a way to raise some..."
But the North was insular to the core. Outsiders like me didn’t just stroll into moneylenders’ halls and walk out with coin. Even if I had collateral, even if I begged, they’d laugh me out the door.
Which left me with one option. Connections.
I leaned back in my chair, running through the short list in my head.
Alice. Hans. Velra. Amelia.
Alice? No. She was noble to the bone—our Lady would never tolerate her attendant diving into the underworld for elixirs.
Hans? Loyal, but broke.
Velra? Maybe in the Drazroth Empire, but here in the North? She couldn’t scrape two silvers together.
"Looks like I have no choice but to approach her."
As the daughter of a merchant family, Amelia had both the money and the awareness of the black market’s existence. If anyone could quietly back me, it was her.
But my concern wasn’t whether she could lend me the coin.
It was whether she’d demand something in return.
Something I couldn’t easily give.
– Really? A demon like you coveting such a common elixir? That’s quite unexpected.
I could vividly imagine Amelia, busy with her calculator, looking up at me.
Our alliance was solely based on ’not hindering my staying by Alice side.’
Her voice echoed in my head, dripping with that mix of amusement and condescension she always wielded like a blade.
Amelia never gave anything away for free. Every coin that left her hand came back with strings attached, wrapped so tightly you didn’t notice them until you were choking.
"What price will she name this time?" I muttered, setting the pen down.
My silence? Almost guaranteed.
If I approached her about Frostroot, she’d know I was preparing for something bigger than just ’serving Alice.’ She’d sniff out my intentions, dissect them, and either weaponize them or bury me with them.
Still, I couldn’t deny the truth. Without her, my chances at that auction dwindled to nothing.
"...She’ll make me choose," I realized.
Between revealing more of myself than I wanted—or letting the Frostroot vanish into someone else’s hands.
The candle crackled, its wax collapsing in on itself. I pressed a hand against my temple, staring at the shadows quivering across the walls.
"I hate being cornered ."
That was the irony. For all my planning, for all my calculated moves, there were times when the board left me with only one path forward.
And Amelia, damn her, always seemed to be waiting at the end of that path, ledger in hand, smiling like she already owned me.
This time, I’d make sure the deal leaned in my favor.
Even if I had to twist her expectations.
Even if it meant giving her a piece of what she wanted—without ever letting her take the whole.
Because if I bowed my head too far, if I let her dig her claws too deep, then I’d no longer be Julies, attendant, schemer, rival.
I’d just be another asset on Amelia’s balance sheet.
And that, above all else, was unacceptable.
"Sigh. If only she had some business ethics."
I don’t hold out hope.
If she had been ethical all along, how could Frost have seized control of the North’s financial lifelines?
I leaned back in the chair, eyes drifting toward the window where the northern night pressed against the glass. The candle’s flame trembled in the draft, thin and unsteady, like my options.
No matter how I spun it, Amelia was the pivot. She always was. That woman could smell opportunity like a wolf on fresh blood. And me? I was the half-wounded stag deciding whether to let the predator circle closer or risk bolting straight into a hunter’s trap.
The absurdity of it gnawed at me. A demon, cornered not by blade nor holy scripture, but by debt. By coin. By the simple arithmetic of survival.
I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. "What a ridiculous world."
And yet... Frostroot lingered in my mind. That one vial could tilt the scales.
With it, my strength would spike just enough to claw through situations that would could crush me. The right fight, the right moment—it could mean the difference between obscurity and seizing control of my fate.
That’s why Amelia terrified me. Not because of her money. Not because of her family’s shadowy networks. But because she understood value.
She’d look at me, at Frostroot, at the whole auction, and she’d see the weight I placed on it. The more desperate I was, the higher the price she could demand.