‘No, I should quickly tell him what Ann let me know before he spends the money on something else.’

“Your Grace, there’s something you should know.”

“Is it urgent?”

Edgar sounded irritated. He had been trying to figure out how much money he could give Rubica as an expense for buying dresses.

Five thousand Gold? Ten thousand Gold? Fifty thousand Gold? Or all the money he had left in his private account?

To what extent she would be delighted and from which point she would find it too much, that was very hard to calculate. Edgar didn’t like that he was being interrupted while thinking about her usual habit of spending.

“It’s about Her Grace.”

“What is it?”

However, that changed when Carl said it was about Rubica. Although he had just seen her pleasantly taking a walk in the garden, he always felt nervous and agitated when thinking about her. He was worried that she might be sick or offended, and he strangely felt proud to see her well.

He didn’t want to interfere with her every action. He had grown up surrounded by people who wanted to control his actions just because they loved him. But to him, it was neither love nor protection. It was horrible violence and confinement.

He didn’t want to force her to do what he hated the most. He let her do as she wanted as much as possible and didn’t want to hear what people said about that. Ann and Carl were the keenest at noticing that. After the last incident, they tried not to talk about Rubica. Still, Carl was now trying to say something, so Edgar had a bad feeling about it.

‘She appeared to be healthy… is she sick?’

His heart got cloudy. Just imagining Rubica lying on the bed and sweating made his heart ache. Then, she would never let him hear her cute, twitting laughter again. Was he never going to see her arguing with him and doing what she believed to be right regardless of his thoughts? Health was something no one had control of, but if she got sick after marrying him, he was going to feel guilty for it.

‘It’s okay. If she’s sick, I’ll have her cured. I’m the richest man in this kingdom. I can pay for her treatment.’

Edgar managed to calm down and waited for Carl to speak. It was probably a very serious matter as Carl was taking a deep breath. Edgar promised himself to accept the news, no matter what it was.

“Her Grace said she will ban people from getting mana quartz this year.”

“What?”

But what Carl said was beyond Edgar’s imagination. He felt dazed as if he had just been struck by lightning. If his two legs had been fine, he would have jumped to his feet. Why was she always thinking and acting in a way he couldn’t even imagine?

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

Edgar knew Rubica. She exclaimed in awe at seeing the beauty of mana quartz statues. She was clearly fascinated by the stones’ beauty. It had been the first day he felt grateful for being born as the hair of the Claymore Family.

He was sure he would have managed to support himself and get wealthy with his genius brain no matter where and whom he had been born as.

However, mana quartz statues were something no one could get without power and wealth made by generations.

Each year, in the harvest festival, the family invited its relatives and other noble families it was close with to show the new mana quartz sculpture. Edgar had been planning to make the next event the most splendid ever to properly introduce Rubica to the nobles and royals. The size of the first event after the wedding was a measurement of his love for his wife.

The bigger the statue is, the more the aristocrats realize that Claymore is on a different level from them. The event had to be successful no matter what. Edgar was going to use that event to let Rubica befriend royals like the princess before she went to the capital’s society. It was to let her get acquainted with her life as Duchess Claymore without many difficulties. He was not going to let flies, who looked down on her because of her background, buzz around her.

So, he needed the biggest and the most splendid mana quartz sculpture ever. He had already hired one of the two best sculptors in the continent. He even planned to make the statue in the motif Rubica wanted.

“What was Ann doing while she made such a decision?”

“According to a maid who was there, Her Grace was so determined that she had to take a step back for now.”

Edgar sighed deeply. It looked like Rubica had made up her mind. He knew what kind of expression she put on when she made up her mind.

“You are the only one who can stop her… so Ann let me know about it although she knew Her Grace wouldn’t like it.”

I can stop her? Edgar sneered. If he had been capable of bending her to his will, he would have done it long ago. But when she said no, he could do nothing as if he was enchanted.

He even had come up with a good idea when Rubica wanted to have a girl she liked at her side. Thinking about the bright smile she showed him at that time made him feel both good and bad. Why did she want to keep such an ordinary girl near her when she had such a great husband?

“Why on earth has she decided so?”

But this time, letting her do as she wanted was going to cost a lot. Edgar didn’t want others to accuse her. Most decisions came after reasons, except those of the few very strange people. Edgar wanted to know the reason first to solve the matter.

“Her Grace looked into the budget plans for the first half of the year with Ann, and…”

Carl calmly explained what the maid had seen and heard, also adding what he knew. They certainly had spent a lot of money this year. The sudden wedding had cost as much as any other wedding with the beautifully decorated wedding hall and gifts for the peasants, although there had been very few guests.

Additionally, Rubica had decided to invest on Sesar’s experiment even though it wasn’t her area, just because it was related to decorating the garden. That much would have been fine, but then she went to the annex and gave orders to fix every inconvenience like an angel.

Of course, it had made the relatives living there look at her in a new perspective and spread good words about her. Even those who had mocked her behavior at the wedding with prejudice was complimenting her now, saying Edgar had found himself a good wife.

All of that was not bad, but the problem was Rubica had done everything at the same time, in less than two months since her arrival at Claymore. She was so radical.

In addition to that, she wasn’t from a wealthy family, so she hadn’t been able to bring dresses and jewels with her. She had to buy dresses in fashion for every occasion and event, and that was going to cost a lot. Moreover, she had hired a new lady-in-waiting and wanted to buy dresses for her, too. That was just too much.

Of course, Claymore was rich. However, the end of nobles, who relied on revenue from their domains and titles and spent to their heart’s content without calculating, was never good.

Plus, Claymore wasn’t a family that only had to manage its domain. Supporting many scholars, businesses, factory workers, and factories cost huge money. To export weapons, there was a need to show how great the new weapon was. They couldn’t spend their money easily just because they were rich.

Carl was getting worried about Rubica. What she had done till now had been out of goodwill, but there was no guarantee its outcome would also be full of goodwill.

“Lack of expenses? You think she made that decision because there wasn’t enough money?”

Edgar was shocked to hear Carl’s explanation and asked back. He felt so annoyed. The great Claymore Family lacked money that his wife couldn’t even buy the dress she wanted? He wasn’t just annoyed. He could already hear his high and mighty pride get cracked.

“To my judgment, yes.”

Carl didn’t bother to deliver what Rubica said about not wanting people to die in order to get mana quartz. He thought she had added that just as an excuse.

“Do we really need to give up on getting mana quartz?”

Edgar was going to add, ‘Are we really lacking money that much?’ However, he stopped. Saying that out loud was going to shatter his pride.

“Actually, not that much. There are still many things to save money on, like gifts for relatives, bonuses, and carnival.”

“Then she should have saved money on those things, why did she make such a decision?”

Edgar really couldn’t understand. He crossed his arms and touched his chin. Rubica, he knew, wasn’t a fool who wasn’t capable of basic math. She was rather good at calculating just like the proper daughter of a merchant and knew how to manage the books.

“That, I don’t know.”

“Okay. Carl, how much money do you think she needs?”

Carl immediately wrote the sum of money Rubica needed to buy dresses and jewels while also enjoying entertainments. It was less than ten thousand Gold.