Merri's drug run was quite quick.
Given her reputation, she was given preferential treatment in most lines and her familiarity with the prices and stock of the ingredients she was looking for meant she was practically throwing the exact change required for each herb, mineral, and liquid at the vendors. The only money she ended up with excess of was the bronze beads, something she only brought along to even out for tax rates.
The only trouble she had was with a few groups of cultivators ogling her. Something she both loathed and found VERY encouraging. Even if these groups of men cat-called the majority of women they saw, it meant she was pretty enough to be amongst that majority. She equated this to being at the very least qualified to be Zerrin's lover.
'I will have to make myself more presentable in the future. I can't believe I let him see that side of me today.' She thought to herself on her way back up the hill. 'I wonder what I should do to be considered worthy of him?'
She could try to dress up, but she had no idea how to do so elegantly. She felt she would only embarrass herself. Perhaps she could get some help.
The guards at the gate did not even bother to confirm it was her. They even felt lax enough to kick the gates open and offer her a hand with her errand.
-----
Most places in the world would immediately fire these guards on grounds of dereliction of duty, but everyone who worked here understood that with two of the highest level existences in the world residing here, along with all of the additional experts and skilled practitioners of martial arts, any potential intruder that posed a threat to them would be wholly capable of trouncing them in a confrontation.
They had long since come to understand they were no more than an alarm bell. A bell that rang upon their engagement in combat or their untimely demise.
That didn't mean they didn't have actual jobs though. Preventing low level criminals from entrance as well as greeting and verifying the identities of guests were really all they ever did officially.
The last 'official' thing any shift of guards ever did was capture and detain a kid trying to steal some fruits from one of the trees before Zerrin arrived, gave the kid a slap on the wrist, a spatial bag full of fruits and vegetables, and a recommendation to one of the local trader guilds for a job.
That was six months ago.
Needless to say, these men were extremely bored, so they found some pleasure and relief from the drudge in helping out with chores on the outside of the mansion. Hauling trash, as smelly as it may be, was at the very least something different.
So what reason would these men have for staying then? If it was boring, wasted their time and energy, and posed a serious risk to their lives should anything go wrong, why would they choose to do the job?
-----
"Money..." Breda mused to herself, "If only I had enough money I could buy him a quality present."
Breda felt naught but disappointment looking at her meager savings. While the combined wealth of her's and Nofafi's would be considered extremely high in comparison to the average person, the portion of that money that was earned through her efforts was actually extremely low.
This sum was, of course, secret from her husband, and only accessible to her.
This was not because Nofafi would attempt to wrest control of it from her, but the opposite. She feared he would push more money onto her in an attempt to show his affection for her.
That would defeat the whole purpose of this sum.
The purpose of this money was not to spend on herself, but to spend on others, in most cases either Nofafi and the children.
Every bronze bead was something she earned through her own work and ingenuity, and it brought her great satisfaction to know she could use those earnings to make her most beloved family happy - receiving money from her husband only to give it back to him in a different form would defeat the whole purpose.
However now she had run into a problem, and that was that this balance was not what she had hoped it would be at this specific time in her life. This past year was unbearably hectic. The death of her best friend, the birth of her fourth child, the care that needed to be administered to the weak and feeble Arc, and finally the time and stress of moving to their new home meant that she had little to no time to make money on the side.
True, she had been paid for her services as a maid, quite heftily in fact, but it was a simple matter of her not having much time to work and receive payment that left her pockets feeling quite empty.
Skimping out on a gift for their Anniversary would leave a bad taste in her moth for a long time, but she really did not know how to remedy her current situation.
She could take out a loan from a local bank, but she had no reputation or credit with any of them, nor did she have anything she would be comfortable using as collateral.
She might be able to ask for money from one of the others in the mansion with the promise to pay it back in excess, but that still wouldn't feel like she earned that money. Her stubbornness in this regard was really giving her issues.
However, despite Breda's distaste of having to borrow money, she recognized that she had no choice in this scenario. Swallowing her small bit of pride, she prepared to knock on Zerrin's door.