I’m Quitting Everything and Selling Cola

Chapter 169

Chapter 169. The Invitation (5)

Late at night. A heavy silence hung over Penelope's bedchamber.

"Haaa……"

Opportunity always comes hand in hand with risk. There was a time she thought that if she could seize even a single chance, she could do anything.

Filled with venom, she had drifted through a social world that wanted nothing to do with her. If an opportunity arose, she could have strapped oil to her back and walked into the flames alone.

But she was no longer alone. They had pushed through every hardship together, with everyone's strength. And they had achieved results she could be proud of anywhere.

And yet, perversely, there were moments she wanted to drop everything and run. The venom had thinned, and the fear had grown. She didn't know whether this was maturity, or simply weakness.

"Have I changed……"

Perhaps this was Penelope's true self all along. The venom and grit she had once shown — perhaps those had been nothing more than petty, immature defiance all along.

Perhaps…… It was because she had accumulated far too many things to cherish.

Y&P Trading Company. Serena, who had long since crossed the line from employer and employee into something undeniable — a true friend. Brigitte, like a sweet little sister, a culinary genius Britannia had given to the world. Baron Keystone, who had grown as familiar as a grandfather next door. And well…… just Aiden.

And above all else.

"Jurgen."

She had just seen him, and already she wanted to see him again. Should she just pop over for a quick look at his face?

His room was only two doors down, anyway. It would take no time at all.

"Ah…… he went out……"

Penelope had been mildly brightened by the thought, but deflated just as quickly. Jurgen had said he needed to step out somewhere briefly while they were in the capital.

"Where does he keep disappearing to in the dead of night, honestly……"

Penelope pressed her fingers to her brow and set down her pen.

Just then.

Creak.

The sound of the front door opening. Colour returned to Penelope's face.

"It's no fun without me, is it? Honestly, he never learns."

He had said he would be late, for certain. Penelope hurried to the mirror and hastily smoothed out her dishevelled hair.

It wasn't as cold as the North here, but her nightclothes were still far too thin. She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and pattered out to the entrance. Her footsteps were light as feathers.

"Jurgen? You're earlier than I—"

Penelope stepped toward the entrance with a smile full of warmth. But that smile didn't last even a second before it shattered into pieces.

The one standing there was not Jurgen.

A jet-black outdoor coat. A black dress that seemed to have absorbed the night sky, and a pale white face. A presence that radiated an aristocratic pressure without a single piece of extravagant jewellery.

"……"

Penelope swallowed back her breath.

"It has been a while, Penelope."

Clarisse walked slowly inside.

***

How many years had it been?

Since she had last come face to face with Clarisse. Going by her hazy memories alone, it had been at least three years.

Clarisse looked startlingly unchanged from before.

Pale silver hair. Features without a single flaw to pick at. Crimson eyes burning with cold fire.

In Penelope's memory.

'Penelope, you really are…… utterly useless, aren't you?'

She was exactly as she had been, murmuring those words with contempt. It was so unchanged that Penelope nearly fell into the illusion of having slipped back into the past.

Yet the two of them had changed.

Penelope was no longer someone who could be mocked with the epithet 'useless flower.'

She was a proper representative of Y&P Trading Company, and a 5th Rank Alchemist. The child who had known nothing and begged for the family's recognition and reconciliation with Clarisse no longer existed.

Clarisse, too, was no longer simply the family's promising eldest daughter. In place of a father bedridden with illness, she had seized the true power of the family, and had become the undisputed authority steering the great vessel that was Rosemore.

And matching their changed standings— The deepened rift between them.

Clarisse had moved to harm Jurgen. And Penelope had killed Bell, Clarisse's retainer and former Dark Mage. Technically it had been Jurgen's doing, but that would mean nothing to Clarisse.

The memory of each pointing at what the other held most dear. As long as that blood-soaked memory existed, the relationship between the two of them would be parallel lines that could never meet.

"Are you planning to leave a guest standing at the door all night?"

Clarisse was, as ever, perfectly composed. Had the positions been reversed, Penelope would have gone straight for Clarisse's throat.

Penelope appeared utterly indifferent to Clarisse's presence — thoroughly calm and elegant. That ease, in turn, came back as pressure.

"……Come in."

Clarisse walked toward the reception room as naturally as though it were her own bedchamber.

Stepping inside, Clarisse settled herself onto the velvet sofa at the head of the room — the place of highest honour. She crossed her legs with grace, rested her chin in her hand, and looked up at Penelope.

"Tea?"

Offering a guest tea was simple courtesy befitting a host. But this was the dead of night, when even the footmen had retired. In this situation, if she were to head to the kitchen and come back with tea she had brewed herself—

That in itself would feel like a concession. Social battles always began this way — claiming psychological advantage from the most trivial, petty, and childish of things.

Thud. Penelope returned to the reception room carrying a black bottle.

"You've come so late, I'm afraid I haven't anything proper to offer."

Penelope set a glass down before Clarisse and poured the black liquid in a generous stream. The sound of carbonation fizzing filled the silence.

"You've tried it before, haven't you, Sister? I sent some as a gift once."

Something flickered in Clarisse's crimson eyes. Clarisse watched the bubbles leaping up from the black liquid, then let out a faint smile and lifted the glass.

Gulp. Her elegant throat moved.

Penelope had quietly wished for the carbonation to make her choke—

"Not bad. Stimulating."

Clarisse neither winced nor marvelled. She simply licked her lips once, as if savouring the lingering sweetness on the tip of her tongue.

"It's Y&P Trading Company's pride and joy."

"Three years, is it?"

"About that, I'd say."

Clarisse leaned back deeply into the cushion.

"You've changed quite a bit. You used to be unable to even meet my eyes properly."

"You've changed too, Sister. You never would have come to see me like this before."

"When necessary, one wades into a puddle. With one's shoes off, of course."

Clarisse smiled faintly and rested her chin in her hand.

Penelope was caught slightly off guard. Clarisse's manner was noticeably more familiar than before.

The last time they had met, she had been pouring out contempt — saying things like Penelope was utterly useless.

Yet now, somehow, it felt as though it was before their relationship had gone wrong.

"I'll be honest. I didn't think you'd be capable of coming this far."

Why? Was she acknowledging it because Y&P Trading Company had flourished so well? Penelope was unsettled.

"You've truly done well, Penelope."

Thump — her heart beat. Those were words Penelope had yearned for desperately, at one time or another.

Her sister's recognition. Reconciliation with her sister. But for that very reason, it felt all the more wrong.

The two of them had already crossed a river from which there was no returning. There was no way Clarisse would come to her like this now, unless—

"I have a proposal."

"A proposal?"

"One that won't be bad for you either."

Clarisse's voice softened by a degree.

"Come home, Penelope."

Like an elder sister soothing a lost younger sibling. Like welcoming back a prodigal child.

"Go back to the North, and carry on what you've been doing. Just as you've done well until now. Whatever you get up to there, I won't interfere any longer. I'll let you maintain your little kingdom."

She laid her own hand over the back of Penelope's.

"As soon as the succession work is settled, I'll look into support from the family as well. I'll arrange for you to make smooth use of the North's logistics network. And if necessary, I'll grant the Branch Family independent rights."

"With words like that—"

"If you can't trust me, I can draw up a contract here and now."

It was a striking proposal. For the moment Clarisse was tied up with the succession issue and so things had been quiet, but if she set her mind to it, Y&P Trading Company could be made to totter at any time. The North's logistics network that Rosemore held was no different from a lifeline for Y&P. Yet here she was, withdrawing that threat and even offering support.

"But not here."

Clarisse shook her head.

"The story of the farmer and the devil. I told it to you when you were young, didn't I?"

"……Yes."

"The devil promised the farmer as much land as he could walk and return from. The farmer wanted more land and ran further and further out…… He made it back to the devil just before sunset, but collapsed from exhaustion in the end."

Clarisse's gaze deepened.

"Penelope, you've done well enough. The time has come to think about the road back."

There were no explicit words. But Penelope could tell.

Clarisse already knew about the meeting between the Royal Household and Penelope — and about the deal with the Queen. This was an invitation to surrender. A coaxing that said: if you stop here, your life in the North, at least, will be guaranteed.

"……"

For a moment, Penelope's face burned.

She had steeled her heart and resolved to be hard — and yet, she had nearly been swayed by this thin mask of Clarisse's. The fact that the need to 'be recognised by her sister' was still gnawing at her — it was too shameful to bear.

At the same time. A sting of resignation pulsed through her heart — so we really have crossed a river from which there is no return. Because this proposal was not the affection of a sister, but a calculated mercy, thoroughly designed to neutralise a political adversary.

"Thank you, Sister. For always worrying about your hopeless little sister."

Penelope bit down hard on her lip. She raised her head. The eyes that had been wavering had settled into something calm.

"In that case, the contract—"

"But I must decline."

"……"

"I'm not going back. I like it here. I've breathed in the murky air of the capital, and it suits me rather well, it turns out."

Penelope knew Clarisse well.

Clarisse was not a soft person. The very fact that she had extended this proposal meant she had acknowledged Penelope.

Paradoxically, it meant Penelope had become an 'enemy' whom Clarisse needed to be wary of.

Clarisse's eyebrow twitched. She tapped the half-finished glass of Cola with her fingernail — tap, tap.

"Looking back on it, you were always the child who had to trip and fall before you knew it hurt."

"I remember. Whenever I was crying, you always used to comfort me, Sister."

"……"

At Penelope's impish smile, something clouded in Clarisse's eyes.

A silence passed. A moment later, Clarisse slowly rose to her feet.

"Very well. If you insist, then there's nothing to be done."

Clarisse turned toward the entrance and offered her final words.

"Penelope, take care of yourself."

"Sister."

At Penelope's call, Clarisse paused in her tracks.

"Why did it have to come to this?"

A question that contained many things. A question she had always wanted to put to Clarisse — yet had resolved to bury, knowing it would be meaningless.

After a long silence, Clarisse answered with an unreadable smile.

"Indeed."

Bang.

The front door shut, and Clarisse was gone.

"……"

Penelope stood rooted to the entrance for a long, long while.