Inside the carriage en route to the north of Merveille's fief.
"That was quite the ingenious trick, Lina," Sydney savoured the strawberry cake in his mouth. "Using the lower aristocrats to demonstrate the feasibility of magical artefacts and providing a concrete signal that the magical artefact trade has been deregulated. Great, great!"
Today, he wore a luxurious pale pink business suit that made him look like a nouveau riche, and his hair, dyed black for cover, was combed into a textured fringed look. Unexpectedly, he looked eerily similar to Sylvester in this get-up, at least in terms of his sensual aura.
Libitina smiled, a hint of pride on her face, as she ate a chocolate cake. It was weird to have cakes inside a moving carriage, and personally, she felt that she could not fully enjoy the fluffiness of the cake when the carriage bumped up and down, but how could she refuse the request of her sweet-toothed brother?
"The Mervielle House has cultivated close ties with them the past few years," she said, "However, their support was only partial to our victory."
Libitina cut off another portion of chocolate and placed it in her mouth.
Sydney frowned. "It was?"
"Yes! The marketing was the game-changer, don't tell me you didn't realise? Subliminal and direct messaging," Libitina laughed. She was much more carefree when around people she was close to.
"What's that?"
"A brainwashing technique. Don't worry, I didn't use magic," Libitina began to explain.
"Across the span of two weeks, the blanket marketing campaign informed the public that Zephyr is going to be selling magical tools. But not just that, we made Zephyr become the topic of conversation in town. The Bill and the mystique of Zephyr became of paramount interest.
"When everyone talks about a singular topic, a false impression of popularity and trendiness is created. Curiosity is ignited. They will get the urge to find out, try or buy our products. Then, we add in some incentives and give credible examples that buying from us is the best decision they will ever make, and in the customers fall," Libitina chuckled.
"Once the use of magical artefacts is seen as the norm and its impact on bettering life becomes apparent, the commoners will no longer listen to the aristocracy's threats to not buy magical tools," Sydney continued for her, his finger on his lips as he pondered. As he spoke, the light in his eyes grew brighter. "Then the only real obstacle for us, which is the opposition from the aristocracy, will no longer be a threat when the number of our supporters grow beyond their control…Lina, that's genius! What a deep idea, and eloquently put across."
"I guess you get the idea, dear brother," Libitina said slowly, giving him a chocolatey grin. Sydney could not help but reach out and mess up her primp and proper hair.
"Sydney! This took hours. You! Dare!"
"Hahaha! Brat! Okay, okay."
Sydney took a paper napkin and rubbed off the chocolate from her mouth casually, looking down at her affectionately.
Libitina glared at him, "I'm not a small kid anymore."
He delivered another forkful of strawberry cake into his mouth. "Yes, yes, yes. You're not a small kid, you're a big kid now. I'll give this to you-it's impressive that the Marquis allowed you to survey a problematic fief without him around after just one year in formal training, and pray, I hope you don't mess it up. You do like to mess things up after all and I do wonder why you are so fixated on changing the status quo."
Libitina looked up from her plate to stare into Sydney's bright eyes. "Status quo? Am I really, Syder?"