Arzix-Constantinople Estates
Constantinople, Core, Ryccian Empire

Unlike most nobles of her social ladder, Josefina had actually suffered poverty. She recalled going hungry sometimes due to a father that was addicted to gambling and drugs. He wasted their personal fortune, and when she and her mother pleaded their wealthy families for help, they were ashamed of being related to them, so they declined to even associate with them. She was intelligent, and thus did get a fully-funded scholarship to study at her university, but she had to work harder than most to both aid her family with their finances and to keep her grades sufficient enough for her scholarship. As a result, she alone regained her immediate family's socioeconomic status, something her mother was forever grateful for. Her father had already died due to drug overdose, but, on his last day in the hospital, he thanked her and begged her to forgive him. Despite it all, the crippling debt, the social humiliation, the days they went hungry, all that work she had to do to recover what he had lost...she did. He died in peace.

Josefina internally was close to breaking in fury when the King called her "Lady Valois", as she hated her maternal extended family the most. She understood that, with her long name, the King may have misunderstood and interpreted her first surname as "Valois", but it was "Algenia". The Valois were not even nobles. They were Tigonese commoners, but they had struck it rich a few hundred years ago. The noble Algenia family denied purely out of social shame, and thus she hated them too, but the Valois went even further, with many of their relatives lambasting her mother for being an idiot for marrying her father and practically laughing at her face about her misfortune. If murder was legal, she would take the opportunity to hire assassins to kill them all. She attempted to hide her passionate fury, but a slight expression of annoyance escaped her clutches at that moment.

She was happy to see that these Stoinians were more down-to-earth than her social circle. She was one of the few nobles of her status that did not have a servant, as she saw it as both as a frivolous monetary excess and a reminder of her family. A tear rolled down her right eye, as she remembered her father passing away whilst she was holding his hand, telling her that he was proud of her for working so hard and showing him humility, and that he was grateful that Josefina forgave him. She quickly wiped it off, desperately hoping none noticed, but she knew the King had.

No time for personal feelings. Work comes first. She knew enough to be aware of her duty.

"Your Majesty, I greet you once more. I do thank you for the remark on my clothing, for it is the style of the Core. I do wish to converse with you regarding your nation. Pray tell, what economic activities are your people renowned for?"