Give Me Back My Glass Shoe - Chapter 19

Hello everyone! there are changes in the chapter numbering, I had edited it to the correct arrangement as there was confusion in the chapter count. Apologies and enjoy the translation!

Strictly speaking, all work was somewhat similar in that you had to learn to do it. But magic had a strong academic impression, so perhaps even her father couldn’t complain.
‘Challenge the impossible.’
It was her father’s catchphrase. For a non-magician like herself to learn magic—wasn’t that truly challenging the impossible? Of course, it wasn’t out of interest but entirely for money, but if she kept her mouth shut, no one would know.
“Does an assistant absolutely have to be a magician?”
“Not necessarily.”
Marius answered with his back turned, busy putting the money bag into a safe.
“By any chance, would you consider hiring me as your assistant?”
It just so happens I’m looking for work. Aniella directed a pleading look at his back. Sensing her gaze perhaps, Marius glanced at her over his shoulder.
“You’re not a magician, so no.”
“But you just said it’s not absolutely necessary…”
“Not all assistants are magicians, but my assistant must be a magician.”

Disappointed by the wordplay, Aniella’s shoulders slumped. Just as she was about to give up and leave, Marius’s muttered soliloquy stopped her in her tracks.
“Everyone’s blinded by money and goes running off to Duke Paiki, so I’m left with no help. Nothing remains but half-baked riff-raff who aren’t worthy of the title ‘magician’.”
Marius clicked his tongue and turned around, bumping a glass bottle at his feet. The contents spilled onto the floor, soaking his foot and trousers, and he swore irritably.
“If I could just get an assistant, this filthy mess of a home might get somewhat organized!”
“Um, Sir Magician. I may not know about other things, but I’m very good at cleaning.”
Spotting an opening, Aniella quickly spoke up and picked up the rolling bottle. Even if she was an utter novice at magic, when it came to cleaning, she was confident—she had helped her mother since she was a child.
“So? Am I supposed to hire you as a cleaner without knowing what kind of person you are?”
Marius answered her dismissively and wiped his wet foot on a towel nearby. After wiping it, he grimaced upon realizing the towel stank. In truth, it was an item that could hardly be called a towel anymore, left damp and unwashed for so long.
“You could be a spy for another magician.”
“I’m just the pitiable youngest daughter of Viscount Mullier.”
Aniella had lost her mother one winter. Her father remarried before the season came around again. The stepmother he married was also not her first marriage and had two daughters of her own. They were sisters older than Aniella.
“So, you’ve lived a pitiable life since childhood? You were mistreated by your stepmother and stepsisters?”
“No. Mother and my sisters never mistreated me.”
She thought maybe playing pitiful here would win his sympathy, but she had no desire to slander them. Aniella agreed her life was unfortunate, but she didn’t believe the cause lay in her father’s remarriage.
“My mother—that is, my stepmother, Catherine, Viscountess Mullier—is a very good person.”
She loved and cherished her own daughters and Aniella equally. So much so that there was no discrimination. Aniella had been completely unaware of the fact until little Philip teased her, saying her parents had remarried. It was only a year ago.
“You must have been very surprised.”
Aniella nodded at Marius’s words.
To think that someone she had believed without a doubt had been with her since birth wasn’t actually connected by blood. She had been so shocked that at first, she couldn’t close her mouth.
“My sister beside me was surprised too. She remembered the time we didn’t live together, but she said she had always wondered why we lived apart.”
You’d think if a father and another younger sister suddenly appeared one day, you’d be suspicious, but Holly was a very naive person. Looking at her, Aniella found comfort in the fact that at least she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t known. Claudie, the second sister, was more cold-hearted and called Holly stupid for still not knowing why.
One of Marius’s eyebrows shot up as he listened to the story.