Chapter 14
“Why don’t you have any? You said you were always busy with cleaning and fixing the roof. Did you finally get kicked out of the house?”
What did he mean, ‘finally’? When she glared at him, little Philip shrugged his shoulders. He thrust his collection jar toward her.
“Look at this. I caught all of them.”
His voice was filled with pride. With his plump, chubby fingers, he pointed to each of his trophies one by one.
This one was easy to catch. That one was really hard to get. The boy, who clearly wanted to hear how amazing he was, readily shared stories she hadn’t even asked for.
“Aniella can’t do this, can she?”
She knew that just giving him one compliment would end it, but she couldn’t understand why it felt so hard to do.
Aniella glanced at the dragonfly his finger was pointing at and snorted.
“It’s not that I can’t, it’s that I don’t. Unlike you, I’m an adult who doesn’t waste time on meaningless games like this.”
Being treated like a child, little Philip pouted angrily. He glared at Aniella with all his might, then suddenly turned his back. She thought he would stalk off in a huff, but he didn’t move. Instead, he glanced back at her over his shoulder.
“What? Do you have something to say?”
“You probably couldn’t catch them even when you were little! That’s why you’re acting all high and mighty for no reason!”
Struck right on her weak point, Aniella was speechless. Seeing her unable to retort, little Philip grinned, drunk on victory. He turned back to face her and stroked his collection jar with his hand.
“And this isn’t a game. I’m making money.”
“How is catching dragonflies for fun making money?”
“You don’t believe me?”
He pointed to the insects again with his lumpy fingers.
“This one is 3 gold, and this one is rare, so I can get 20 gold for it.”
“Who would buy such things?”
The fact that he could get money meant there was someone paying for it. But where in the world was there someone who would pay 3 gold, even 20 gold, for dragonflies you could find all over the riverbank?
“Is there someone with money to burn? If so, they should give it to me.”
Aniella thought little Philip was lying.
“A mage.”
“Why would a mage buy dragonflies? What would they use them for?”
“I’m not sure either. It’s for some magic to make a ship float in the sky, I think. They said they need a huge amount of dragonfly wings for that research.”
Aniella, ignorant about magic, blinked slowly. The very idea of making a ship float in the sky sounded absurd to her.
“I’ve heard all mages are eccentric, but this must be the strangest one of all. Are they going to cover a ship with dragonfly wings to make it flap like a bird or something?”
“I think it’s funny too. But there aren’t just one, but two mages researching this.”
“You’re telling me there are two mages wasting their money like that?”
A harsh remark escaped Aniella’s lips before she could stop it. The world felt so unfair. Here she was, feeling terrible about wasting 1 gold on a useless newspaper, while someone was paying 3 gold each for dragonflies, using children to catch them. If they really needed them, why not catch them themselves?
“Wouldn’t it be nice if they saved that money and gave it as alms to poor old me?”
Aniella grumbled with a sour look on her face. Her father would surely throw a fit, shouting about whether they were beggars.
“It’s Duke Paiki and a mage named Marius.”
“What?”
“The mages who are buying the dragonflies.”
Aniella stared at little Philip, her mouth agape. He blinked his round eyes, then pointed a finger at her.
“Aniella, did you just insult Duke Paiki?”
“Ah, no?”
Flustered, Aniella denied it in a strained voice.
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