Avaritia

Mark Bellon was currently engaged in a conversation with a fellow intern recruit in the locker room.

“Your family is pretty rich, right?”

“Yeah. The Bellon Corporation is up there among the richer companies in Meryka.”

His friend excitedly began to ask more questions, clearly intrigued.

“So, you would’ve had a super cushy time growing up.”

Mark looked wistful for a moment.

“It isn’t necessarily as easy as you would think. Well, for my sister, at least.”

Mark’s friend looked confused for a moment.

“What do you mean?”

Mark gave a troubled smile.

“Our grandmother took her under her wing.”

“Your grandma? What’s the issue?”

“Well… Grandmother is a bit of a psychopath.”

===

“How are you doing, girls?”

Both Lillia and I swivelled at the sudden words of Ella, who had apparently soundlessly approached us. Lillia, taking the initiative, responded.

“Well, I’ve come to a decision on how I want to approach this.”

“Oh?”

Ella seemed genuinely curious, and Lillia obliged in turn.

“I think I can save our connection to the Buchanans.”

The expression on Ella’s face was neutral.

“Well, if you think you can, then do it.”

Ella paused for a moment, putting a finger to her cheek in apparent thought. Her gestures and expressions feel odd when you consider her real age.

“Ah, but I would like to talk to Elysia alone for a minute.”

Lillia nodded and we agreed to meet up in five minutes after I was finished talking to her grandmother. Now that we were alone, Ella spoke up.

“What do you think of this situation?”

Is she pitting us against each other…? No, that seems unlikely. She has another purpose here. I suppose there is no reason to lie on my thoughts, though.

“I think that you saw the signs of Buchanan Design’s involvement with the Fosters beforehand, and that you chose this as a test to see whether Lillia would cut them off or try to save the connection. I know that the Buchanans are your contractor for designing new establishments, so it is reasonable to say that not breaking the connection even with Foster connections is worth considering.”

Ella nodded and maintained a soft smile through my explanation.

“Well, what do you think the solution is?”

This is quite obvious if you just consider the expected return of the two options.

“Cut ties and leave. Even if you can maintain the connection, the Fosters present too much long-term risk for it not to simply be better to find a different design company, even with the short-term cost in that.”

Ella nodded once again, expression unwavering.

“I’m glad to see we’re on the same page. You can go back to Lillia now.”

That’s definitely not all she has to say. And, as expected….

“Oh, one more thing: if Lillia fails, then your contract is void.”

… What. I naturally knew it was possible within the terms, but this was a major blow notwithstanding. I needed that money, so I naturally could not let Lillia fail, which she was obviously on track to. I needed to clarify one more thing….

“What exactly is your definition of failure?”

“It’s subjective, isn’t it? I’m sure I can make a call.”

“And, how much am I allowed to interfere with Lillia’s decision making?”

“It’s her test, is it not?”

I stared at Ella for a moment.

“You wouldn’t have let her take a second person if you didn’t want her to utilise their advice.”

“Is it really advice if you’re the one making decisions?”

“….”

In other words, she was going to decide these things based solely on her whims, and I wasn’t allowed to excessively push Lillia one way or the other. What a troublesome situation…. But, as I was thinking through possible options, Lillia arrived.

“Alright, let’s get going, Ellie!”

Ella and I shared a look for a moment, but then I followed Lillia off on her romp to her next destination.

===

After waiting for almost an hour, we were finally able to speak with Darren Foster. Frankly, I had no idea what exactly Lillia was planning by contradicting her own earlier words about avoiding him. Nevertheless, she began to speak.

“Mister Foster, how are you enjoying your evening?”

“It has been quite enjoyable, Lillia.”

He suggestively glanced at our chaotic surroundings, his gaze containing some indefinable degree of joy at the sight of what his drugs had done. I did take note, however, that he seemed perfectly sober himself. I jumped in at that.

“You seem to have skipped out on the ‘refreshments’ yourself, Mister Foster.”

A sardonic smile appeared on his lips.

“I prefer to keep my business life and personal amusement separate.”

“So, this is business, then?”

Lillia silently watched on at my and Darren’s exchange, while Darren’s grin grew.

“Of course it’s business. Speaking of, I hear that the Bellon Corporation needs a new shipping company?”

You’re too greedy, Darren Foster. I suppressed a sigh at his blatant marketing, and let Lillia respond.

“My apologies, but I’m afraid your sources on that may be faulty.”

Darren shrugged broadly.

“C’est la vie.”

Lillia’s expression shifted to a mask of sincere curiosity.

“By the way, when did the Buchanans contract you? It’s strange. When I last checked, I hadn’t heard of any contact between you and them before.”

I didn’t miss a slight twitch in Darren’s eyebrow at the statement.

“Ah, well you know how it can be. Sometimes friends prefer to keep their friendship low-key.”

“Oh, then you only started with the blackmail recently, then?”

“You… I’m sorry?”

“Ah, don’t worry about it.”

Where did she get that from? Did she just blindly guess? Is she insane? Even so, ignoring both Darren and my surprise, Lillia left, dragging me off with her.

“Well, that was quite productive, wasn’t it, Ellie?”

“… I suppose. What do you want to do now, though?”

Lillia’s gaze momentarily seemed to be looking at something far, far away, before she gained a subtle smile.

“I can’t see it.”

“… What do you mean?”

“I can’t figure out how to pull this off, Ellie.”

In a slight panic, I could feel my heartrate increase.

“… Then what was that conversation with Foster?”

Her smile grew bitter.

“I needed to find out how he was getting them, but I can’t see what to do with that information.”

“Aren’t you going to try to find out the details of what happened specifically from James?”

“… I could, but I don’t think that’ll be enough.”

She was right. Even if we knew how the Buchanans were being blackmailed, it wouldn’t allow us to stop it from happening.

“Then, do you really want to keep trying to retain Buchanan Design?”

Lillia paused for a moment, scanning the crowd.

“I can’t back out now.”

I frowned slightly.

“Why?”

“Because I am Lillia Bellon.”

My frown deepened.

“You can’t always create perfect solutions to problems, Lily. Sometimes, you just need to compromise.”

While I knew that I was crossing Ella’s line of trying to influence her decisions, I felt like it had to be said. Nonetheless….

“I don’t care, Ellie. I will do this – with or without you. I just need some time to think some more….”

I’m not sure I can save this anymore. … Is it really worth it for me to keep fighting? I don’t really think I’ll ever be able to convert anyone. Maybe I can just ‘be kind’ instead….

===

Lillia Bellon was alone. Just ask her grandmother, she’d tell you. As with all scions of Ella, she was considered a prodigy from an extremely young age. However, Lillia was a unique case. While she certainly excelled wherever she put in effort, she, unlike her brother, didn’t maintain much interest in scholarly pursuits. Rather, an incredibly social child, she rapidly became exceedingly popular through the lower grades of school. That is when her grandmother, Ella, picked up on a rather unique characteristic of hers: she had an unmatchable talent for understand another person’s psychology. Purely intuitively, she could ‘comprehend’ the slightest expression changes and body language cues. Realising the potential which she might hold if that was refined, from then onwards, Lillia was pulled out of school and her schedule was turned into day-in-day-out functions and events (though, not real parties). From the age of ten, Lillia spent at least sixteen hours every day preparing to be the next head of the Bellon Corporation.

But, through all of this, Lillia was alone. Nobody she met truly cared about her as a person. Many, many people approached her as a means to get to Ella, and Adam was less interested in her and more in what she could do. On top of that, while she nominally forgave her brother for eagerly dumping the work of heir onto her, it still drilled into her that she could never rely on anyone else. And so, she didn’t. Even while seething in resentment to her grandmother, she learned lesson after lesson from her. Ella herself made her own position by fooling her adoptive family on her Mod status until she could take control of their assets – she was the embodiment of self-reliance. All the same, Lillia could only pray that one day she would crush Ella. One day, Lillia wanted to prove that she was better than her. Then, maybe she would finally be free to be her own person, rather than Ella Bellon’s granddaughter.

Still, Lillia was alone.