What do you mean by “doesn’t read from the same directory”? Is part of your application’s function to read in data from files in your project’s directory tree?
Without seeing the directory structure of your project, or some more actual code samples its hard to understand how to help 😅
Don’t know if this will help assuage your fears: https://www.techradar.com/news/mullvads-no-log-policy-proven-after-police-raid
I’ve used Mullvad for years, and from what I know, they store almost nothing – only your randomly generated account number. If you are paying using an anonymous method that’s even less to go on.