The Male Lead I Raised Is Obsessed With Me - Chapter 12

Marquis Reholas was also quite generous.

As soon as he agreed to pay 3 billion marks, he immediately paid the money.

Seeing the cart that was filled with sparkling gold coins and jewels, the people of the duchy shed tears of emotion.

“Did madam receive all of this?”

“Goodness. She received this much against the terrifying Marquis Reholas?!”

“As expected of the madam! She’s incredible!”

“Oh, she’s yet to be an adult, but she is very smart and wise. God hasn’t abandoned the Duke yet.”

I went out while holding hands with Luc and stared at the pile of gold coins.

“Luc! These are all ours!”

Luc shook his head at my words.

Oh, right.

The Valruga family belongs to you, so these are all yours.

Our Luc is smart.

“No, it’s all yours!” Luc insisted, contrary to what I thought.

“Sister earned it, so it’s all yours!”

Aww, I’m very touched.

Since your sister earned all the money, don’t pretend to not remember that later, okay?

The two of us held hands and twirled around together.

Seeing the money piled up like a mountain made me feel like dancing.

“How can those two get along so well?”

“They’re such a cute couple.”

The maids looked happily at the two of us.

After dancing excitedly, I became a little embarrassed and released Luc’s hand.

Luc decided to go to the library to study today, while I decided to go to the office for some work.

Thanks to the firewood, I could now breathe easily even while walking down the hallway.

Luc blew the wind with his mouth and laughed.

“I can breath now.”

“Isn’t it great?”

“Yes! It felt like my hands were freezing because of the cold, but now they don’t get cold.” Luc stretched out his bare hands without gloves and wiggled his fingers.

“It will continue to be like this.”

I will make sure that you can continue to live in a warm house.

With that promise, Luc came and held my hand.

“But holding sister’s hand is the warmest.”

“Yes?”

“When I hold sister’s hand, it doesn’t just warm my hand.”

Luc pressed his chest with his other hand.

“It gets warm here too.”

After saying that, Luc did not let go of his tight grip until we reached the library.

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When I sat down at my desk in the office, Naol reported the money sent by the Marquis.

“It is exactly three billion marks. It may differ depending on how much you sell the jewellery, but I don’t think it is any less than that.”

“It’s better than losing face if they don’t give us enough. But I’m not going to let it go just because they gave us plenty.” Just because we received the money, it didn’t mean that the resentment disappeared.

I’ll have to remember this clearly.

There might still be some tricks left by the Marquis that I haven’t noticed, so I have to be vigilant.

“Did Marquis Reholas take those people from the Fox Merchant Association?”

“Yes. They kept begging endlessly to save them.”

It was probably difficult to have their lives spared.

But if we hadn’t figured out the Fox Merchant Association’s plan, we would be the ones dead.

The chilly sensation made me rub my neck for some reason.

“I’m thinking of leaving only a few precious gems behind, including the ones you recovered from Frug and selling the rest. Would that be alright? If we sell them later, it might be difficult to get a good price, so I think it would be better to sell them quickly.”

“Yes. Do that.”

“Then we will sell everything except for these jewels.”

Naol placed a jewellery box on my desk.

The size of the jewellery box was slightly larger than both of my palms combined.

“How much would this be?” 

“Probably around 500 million marks.”

This little thing was worth 500 million marks.

It was the money I had earned, but seeing it before me again felt like I was dreaming.

“Then let’s use the money we get from selling the jewellery to pay off our urgent debts. I know it’s impossible to pay all of them back, but I don’t want to get another sudden visit from a debtor like last time.”

The mere thought of it already gave me goosebumps.

While I was talking about this, I was afraid that another debtor might actually appear.

As if he was thinking the same thing, Naol suddenly glanced at the door.

Then, someone knocked on the office door.

Naol and I looked at each other in blatant surprise.

“Co-Come in……!”

Bella entered, carrying a tray of teacups and looked at us with a puzzled expression.

“What are you two doing?”

“Is the debtor……?”

“Huh? What debtor?”

When Bella asked, with the puzzled expression remaining on her face, Naol and I let out a sigh of relief.

“Nothing.”

“It’s nothing.” Relaxed, I leaned back in my chair.

The aroma of the tea Bella brewed, which she said was good for recovering from fatigue, spread in the office.

I tapped my pen on the white paper, thinking about what I should do next.

‘The first thing I need to do is make money.’

The money we received from Marquis Reholas was a large sum, but it was undeniably not enough to support the family.

‘If we don’t have a stable source of income, we would just be going back to the beginning.’

The place where the Duchy of Valruga was built was on a winter land where snow would even fall during the middle of summer.

I couldn’t even dream of planting a fruit which needed plenty of sunlight in a land like this.

Instead, money was mainly made by selling the hides and meats of animals or monsters.

Of course, there was not much money that the people of the duchy could make from that, but the Valruga had a bigger source of income.

It was the money obtained from the frontline.

It all began a thousand years ago when the Duke of Valruga helped the first emperor of the empire defeat the demon king.

After defeating the demon king, the emperor greatly cherished the first Duke of Valruga and wished for him to stay by his side. However, the Duke of Valruga said,

“I am deeply honoured to receive your kindness. But, Your Majesty, I am your sword. I exist to cut down your enemies and protect you. Please allow me to do so until the very end.”

So the duke remained in the cold winter land.

Beyond the white walls, where only the corpses of the demon king and monsters lie.

When I first heard about this touching story, which had also been made as a children’s fairy tale a few decades ago, my reaction could be summed up in one sentence.

‘He’s crazy.’

No, if you’re a contributor to founding the country, you should think about eating to the fullest!

If it were me, I would definitely ask for the best land.

Such as the southern land where anything you plant grows well.

It would be difficult to ruin a place like that, even if you tried.

Just because one of the ancestors made the wrong choice, all kinds of trouble now fall to our Luc?

Even when all his comrades who defeated the demon king alongside him had left, the first Duke of Valruga remained alone and defeated the monsters that crawled over the fortress wall. Although the demon king has died, his body still emitted magic that created monsters. 

Bizarre-shaped monsters constantly tried to cross the white wall.

Slash, slash, slash and slash them down again.

Monsters tried crossing the wall, but Valruga blocked them.

And because of this, he became a part of the leading politicians and built up greater wealth and power.

‘But I can’t use the same method anymore. Not only does hunting and advancing to the frontline require a strong army, but it also takes a lot of money to build a strong army!’

It’s not about whether the chicken or the egg came first[1].

[1] Idiomatic expression : when it is not sure what or who caused something. 

I had to find a new way to make money in a land where it was difficult to grow an apple tree.

‘From what I saw in the original plot, boating was popular in the future, so it became a tourist attraction. Should we try that first?’

I pondered over it for about 10 seconds, but when I remembered the thin ice of the northern sea, it seemed that my debt would only increase.

As I recalled what I had read in the original story, there seemed to be only one item that I could try during this current situation.

“Naol. Is there a place that is in charge of farming in this castle?”

“Do you mean the Agriculture division? I will call for him now.”

“No, I will go there. I think it would be good to see how they work at this time.”

“If that’s the case……”

As Naol led me to the room, I heard a loud quarrel that could be heard from afar.

After exchanging eye contact with Naol, I simply opened the door and walked in.

A bear-like man and a skinny man stood up and raised their voice, unaware that we had entered.

“Ah, you’re so frustrating! How many times do I have to tell you that we need to plant a badam tree this time?! It will be warm this year, so the badam tree will grow well!”

“What if it’s cold? What are you going to do if it gets cold? Don’t you remember last year when you said that we should plant a Badam tree and the frost ruined the farm? It’s going to be cold this year, so I argue that we should plant Rellong flowers!”

“Ha! Where did you steal that argument from?!”

“What did you say? Steal?!”

Naol clapped his hands and intervened in the increasingly intense argument between the two of them.

“Now, now! Calm down, both of you!”

The two of them turned their eyes towards the sound Naol made, and finally noticed me.

“Just in time! The smartest lady in our castle has arrived, so why not ask her! Talking to someone like you would just be a waste of time!”

“What? I should be the one saying that! I can’t talk any longer because I’m pissed at you! Alright, let’s just leave it to our lucky madam!”

“Madam! What do you think, Madam? Should it be a rellong flower or a badam tree?”

I asked back to the two of them who were staring at me intensely.

“……So, what are you two talking about again?”

Thus, to sum up what the two of them were talking about.

There are only two managers in the Agriculture division in the estate, Ron and George, who have been arguing in front of me for a while.

The two of them usually clashed over differences in opinions regarding grain and crop farming, but as the winter ends and spring approaches, Naol says that the 653rd round of argument will then take place.

The topic of the debate is what crops to plant this year!

Once again, I was in tears.

If this was a warm southern land that would flourish well no matter what you planted, we wouldn’t have to worry about this.

Then again, if it were like the original Valruga duchy, it would have been fine to plant different things at the same time.

Even if one crop fails, it’s considered a success if the other crop survives. However, the Valruga family had a lot of debts, and the lands which were taken as collateral were transferred to other families.

In other words, only one crop could be planted!

The two people who were in charge of the castle’s farm argued about what to plant this year, and it felt as if I had dragged myself into their argument. 

“So, what do you think, Madam? Do you think the weather will be cold this year?”