When Emilia first proposed her plan to expand White Deer’s operations to the country of Carmen, both Mr. and Mrs. White were understandably against it.
After all, not to mention the government policies that heavily favored the Gray Wolfe Corporation, but their status in the hearts of the people there was also not to be underestimated.
Even if they managed to provide a slightly better service or product at a slightly cheaper price, a regular citizen of Carmen would still likely prefer to favor the Gray Wolfe over them.
But Emilia wasn’t just being hot-headed because she wanted revenge for Noelle, though she couldn’t deny that it influenced her decision.
What made her confident in being able to sink her teeth into this tough prey was the poison she had administered to the Gray Wolfe in advance.
Ginny and Jasper may not be very loyal to her, but that was precisely why they had to help her grow in Carmen even more. After all, even if their father’s influence over the Gray Wolfe was in continuous decline, he hadn’t lost the battle quite yet.
If it were to be somehow revealed at this time that the two of them had been colluding with outsiders, perhaps all their efforts so far would be for naught.
Moreover, even if they were willing to take that chance… the resulting turmoil in both the Gray Wolfe and Carmen might still be enough for Emilia to fulfill her goals.
And both Ginny and Jasper knew that if such a thing were to be allowed, perhaps they would be even worse off than they had been when they first formed an alliance with Emilia.
By cooperating with her, however, they could not only monitor the White Deer’s expansion more closely, but also leave enough room for their own survival in the future if things really went south.
Of course, Emilia was never one to take chances, and had already started secretly arranging her own trip there.
With her ability to change forms, unless she deliberately let people know, they would never be able to figure out where she was.
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The arrival of a rather petite crimson-haired girl in one of White Deer’s many ships to the country of Carmen didn’t attract much attention from the authorities.
Well, aside from weird stares from the people at the port town. Though that was probably due to her now shoulder-length crimson hair arranged in an intricate regal ringlets hairstyle.
“Is she a child actor or something?”
“Yeah, she looks like she came right out of some TV show!”
“I can’t even imagine how long it takes to get all those curls perfect…”
Even if someone let them know that curling her hair into all those delicate rings only took the ‘little girl’ a single thought, they would probably never believe it.
With the media and entertainment industry in Carmen being quite well-developed, it was much more reasonable for them to think she must be yet another meticulously dressed newbie star, or perhaps even a ‘wannabe’.
Of course, Emilia didn’t blame them for thinking of her that way. If anything, she was pleased. That was the impression she wanted everyone to have anyway.
After all, the ‘role’ she was going to play her was that of a ‘mascot’ sent by the White Deer to win over the hearts of the people of Carmen.
With Crystal being assisted by Michelle and protected by Cindy-Mindy, the crimson-haired girl felt completely assured in handing her the empire’s temporary control.
Initially, Emilia also intended to let Penny stay in Blue Dawn, but Crystal insisted that she would be fine. The crimson-haired girl wasn’t very worried considering the stable position of Blue Dawn, but she still asked Penny to only move to help her in Carmen two weeks later, just as a precaution.
Naturally, neither Sam nor Noelle could come to receive her without attracting suspicion, as she was supposed to be just a ‘freshly scouted’ girl from Blue Dawn. But Emilia wasn’t too bothered as she happily hopped off—!
“T-There you are!” The lady responsible for ‘managing’ her gasped for breath as she finally caught up with her. “Emi, you can’t just wander off on your own!”
Emilia easily dodged her hand as she twirled around with a mischievous grin on her now somewhat chubby, adorably childish face. “Ehhh? Why not?”
The lady escorting her felt like she had been struck by thunder. ‘Who raised this little rebel?!’
Heavens only knew how happy she was when she learned that the right-hand girl of the empress herself had given her the task of managing their ‘future mascot’ in Carmen. But never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that she would be getting handed the leash of a devil incarnate like Emi.
Although adorable at first glance, the little tyke had made her fret throughout the journey as she probed and explored every nook and cranny of their ship, completely ignored her advice of staying away from ‘strangers’, and even tried to swim with the dolphins in the middle of the ocean!
When her feet touched the ground, the poor manager even wondered how she had managed to survive the whole journey without a single heart attack.
And that is when she discovered that in the brief moment she looked up at the sky in wonder, her charge had once again vanished. Luckily, she managed to catch her in time before the girl really ran off into the town by herself.
This wasn’t Blue Dawn! Even if this particular port town had a somewhat ‘respectable’ crime rate compared to the rest of the Carmen country, it was still one of the worst in the world!
From what she’d heard, not only were kidnapping and trafficking rampant, but even encountering organ traders wouldn’t be out of the norm.
Just imagining what could have happened to the troublesome little tyke had she really managed to ‘escape’, the poor manager almost popped a vein.
‘This girl will be the death of me!’ She gritted her teeth angrily. ‘How can I ever make her give off a similar impression to our princess? This is clearly a lost cause!’
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