-----
Frank had showed up with the intention of adopting Miriam as his daughter! And he seemed to not have the intention of giving her up until he adopted her and her siblings from this horrendous place, if he had to use force, he would.
Frank and Gwendolyn sat down in some old chairs around a small table with some tea atop of it, which they didn't drink because the cups looked very nasty. They also inspected the entire place, and it was in ruins.
According to Miriam, the nuns get free allowance of a large sun of coins by the city's government for maintaining the children in the orphanage, but they seem to not spend it at all in increasing the quality of life of the children. Frank already began to assume the worst, these two women were just keeping all the money for themselves and using the children as their money-producing machines while they barely kept them alive.
The two nuns had already presented themselves as mother Felicia and Mother Cecilia to Frank and Gwendolyn, although Frank already knew these names from Miriam.
"A-Anyways, do you know that there is a big cost in adopting the children?" asked Mother Felicia.
"If you're really serious about this…" said mother Cecilia. "You must consider the cost."
"I am willing to pay." Said Frank, leisurely dropping a bag with coins over the table.
SMACK!
"A-Ahhh…!"
The two women's eyes shone brightly as they looked at the entire table filled with coins… Although they were being easily convinced by it, which was enough to live their entire lives carefreely, the two were greedy and accustomed to the monthly money from the government by now, and decided to take advantage of who they thought was a na?ve and rich stupid idiot man…
"You know, we know this is a lot but the lives of children are immeasurable…" said mother Felicia.
"A-Also, we wouldn't like for you to take them all away from us, we have grown attached to those children… yes." Said Cecilia.
Frank looked at the two women while squinting his eyes, he quickly realized they were trying to trick him into giving them more money and even give up some of the kids as well… they were honestly not that bad but Frank wasn't a na?ve noble.
"T-That's not true!" said Miriam. "Sir Frank, those two women only treat us badly, they barely feed us, and they always hit me in the head, they do the same to my little brothers! Please adopt us all!" Miriam cried as she tried to tell Frank the truth.
Frank looked at her in silence as the two nuns angrily glared at Miriam as if they wanted to kill her with their stares.
"Y-You damn…! Little angel! What are you even talking about?" asked Felicia. "We love you dearly." She said, as she tried to pet Miriam, but she walked away from her and stood at the side of Gwendolyn instead.
"M-Miriaaam… Don't be like that…" sighed Cecilia. "Sometimes we are a bit strict, but that's because… you're a very bad girls sometimes!"
"It is clear that the children prefers my wife's company." Said Frank.
"D-Don't let her manipulate you! She's actually very malicious, she always does bad things, it is very hard to take care of her!" sighed Felicia. "Sometimes we have to be strict to teach her a lesson or she will never grow up into a healthy woman in the future!"
"Y-Yeah, that's right!" said Cecilia. "We do it for her own good!"
Frank looked at the women expressionlessly, he waved his head in disappointment, did they really thought he was so easy to fool or something? he felt offended by how stupid they thought he could be to trust some complete strangers that apparently were involved into the thugs trying to snatch Miriam away from him, but well, the two didn't knew he knew they were involved.
"Hmm… I trust Miriam more than you two, I am afraid." Said Frank. "I cannot provide more money than this, and I won't. You two are taking care very badly of the children here. Miriam had told me everything. Only one meal a day, moldy bread as hard as rock, bone soup as the only meal, it is surprising the children are still alive, and its only thanks to me, as I've given Miriam food to share with the starving kids."
"W-What? You did that?!" asked Felicia.
"But where did she hid the food?!" asked Cecilia.
"In a special bag I gave to her." said Frank. "It has spatial magic and can store things inside easily. Why am I telling you this? Well, I just wanted to humor you."
"Sir Frank, you're going a bit too far there! We are only being polite women, why must you be so rude against us?" asked Felicia.
"Yeah! And we are very poor too!" said Cecilia. "Perhaps you're rich and can eat anything you want, but we are starving here! The children are eating way more than we do…" The fatter nun that looked like a frog said such ironic words that made Frank felt like she was really a stupid idiot.
"I don't know about that, you look like you're well feed, Mother Cecilia." Said Frank.
"Huh? W-Well, I was just born this way!" she said.
"But Sir Frank, you must trust us, we are very poor and therefore-" muttered mother Felicia before being interrupted by Frank once more.
"Therefore what? You're starving the kids?" Asked Frank. "I have investigated already and I know that you get a monthly fee of ten thousand coins from the government of this city to maintain the children. Such amount of money should be more than enough to feed them through the month and also to… make their quality of life better, yet you don't do any of that… What does this means, I wonder?"
The two women suddenly grew paler as they swallowed saliva and felt completely corned by Frank! He knew it! They couldn't lie to him anymore about the money, he knew they received that money from the government!
-----
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m