Where Did All the Money Go

"Hehehe, you've got quite the pretty little fantasy there, don't you?"

Shirahoshi was so amused she trembled with laughter. Then her tone shifted, and she deliberately teased, "You heard me wrong. By switching places, I meant you'd give up your current job as a cleaner in the Holy Land and go to the countryside in the East Blue to take over her lousy tavern that only makes 4,000 Belly a month. Would you switch?"

"Huh? Go to the countryside and be a commoner making 4,000 a month? I wouldn't switch even if I died!!"

Ellie's fanatical expression from just moments ago instantly turned deathly pale. She shook her head like a rattle-drum, as if she had heard some vicious curse.

She hurriedly backed up two steps, picked up her rag again, lowered her head deeply, and desperately wiped at a table corner that clearly had no dust on it at all.

That terrified, reverent look made it seem as if she was afraid Shirahoshi might really order her dismissed and send her back to that free but impoverished world at the very bottom.

"What... what is this..."

Watching Ellie's reaction, as if she could not avoid it fast enough, Makino opened her mouth, and had to admit that a sharp pang of bitterness had indeed surged up inside her.

Though she now carried the title of God-Chosen Princess and had heard she could receive three million Belly each month...

That was something she had exchanged for all her dignity, her freedom, and even the risk of losing her life at any moment!

But in all fairness, she knew perfectly well that if she had not been forcibly abducted by the World Government...

With the utterly ordinary path her life had been on, she would have continued being the proprietress of