Currently, no one in Irenberg was qualified to negotiate on behalf of the family, and even if there was one, I should have been aware of that.

‘Did His Majesty raise taxes on his own? I need to bring up this issue to His Majesty officially.’

This was the least the head of the family could do.

However, I couldn’t just watch and let this go.

If I couldn’t be the head of the family in the immediate future, I had to find another way.

‘What should I do? No matter how much tax they want to raise at their will, they couldn’t just lower only the Nobel tax rate.’

The pretext of ‘because monsters appear there’ has been used too much. Even if the actual situation were problematic enough, it would sound like a lame and old excuse.

‘How bad is the situation?’

I should go to the Nobel in person.

I had to check the situation of the territory with my eyes and find out if there was any way to solve this problem within the Nobel and why monsters were running wild.

But it would be too much for me to go right away.

When I left for Nobel, I couldn’t just go alone and empty-handed. Moreover, the Nobel lords would be more welcoming to a patriarchal head rather than the daughters.

As expected, I needed to seduce the cute prince quickly.

‘Come to think of it, should I visit Cassion?’

I organized the documents I read on the desk and shook off my hands from the cookie crumble. And as I tried to get up from my seat, the door opened with a bang.

“I brought him. The crazy guy.”

She dropped a massive package that Zoe brought near my feet. The big bundle flinched with a dull sound.

“Is this what you asked for?”

Do people usually bring someone like this? Dragging him, on top of that? I couldn’t believe what Zoe did and pointed my finger at the bundle.

“He rebelled.”

Zoe shrugged lightly.

“You have great strength.”

While hoping that Zoe had brought Rupert here safely, I couldn’t help but admire her strength.

I couldn’t believe she wrapped and dragged a person to a room located on the fourth floor. Was that even a human power?

“Because I got something nice here.”

Then Zoe, who smiled, raised her hand.

The leather gloves she was wearing were embedded with mana. It was an expensive magical tool. A magical tool is an object that casts magic out of a magic stone.

Depending on the type, the price of magical tools varied widely.

Of course, the more expensive the item, the higher-end magic could be spelled.

The magic tool that amplified the user’s power required considerable high-dimensional magic, and it was challenging to find a magic stone that could contain such magic.

Magic stones were made by deforming the bones of monsters buried in the ground for a long time.

It took a long time for it to be deformed, but not all monster’s bones could work.

Only the bones of a monster with mana could turn into magic stones. On top of that, it was difficult to dig and process.

Now that the number of wizards has decreased significantly, the demand for magic stones was high, but the supply has been far short.

Naturally, the price of magic stones soared high. In short, Zoe’s item was a rare one.

‘Isn’t that a rare item?’

I wondered where she got it.

‘It’s not something that my aunt would possess because she couldn’t pay her own subordinates.’

“I didn’t steal it. What do you think of your aunt as?”

I looked at her suspiciously without knowing, and Zoe wrinkled her eyebrows.

“Information hunter. But isn’t this a common thing to exchange information for money? As you always said, information is money.”

I said as I untied the knot of the bundle that Zoe had tied around Rupert.

“Did I say that to you?”

Of course, you didn’t. That famous thing was said after Journee was hired as a spy and ended a war.

‘That war doesn’t happen until a few years from now.’

It was something I should pretend not to know.

“I heard it from somewhere. Anyway, he is alive, right?”

My aunt wouldn’t be highly alert if it didn’t involve trade with her, so she let it go easily.

“Just open it.”

Instead of answering me, Zoe touched the bundle with her foot.

I became anxious because she didn’t give a definite answer.

I hurriedly opened the bag. Through the open wrapping, a person with a foul smell who had been crumpled in a bundle was revealed.

“Lady! I brought your meal– Argh!”

Janice came.

She turned her eyes between me, Zoe, and the blood-stained sky blue hair sticking out from the bundle I was holding, and surely fire radiated from her eyes.

“Lady, it’s dangerous!”

Janice put down the food tray and ran to me.

I didn’t know if she knew how scary she was when she ran toward me. Janice pulled me away from the bundle and took Rupert out of it.

It was that moment when Janice’s superhuman was revealed.

Janice laid Rupert flat on the floor, put her ears on his chest, and checked his breath.

“He is alive, Lady.”

“Even if you didn’t go that far, I know he is alive. But we shouldn’t leave him like this. Auntie, can you move him to the bed first?

“Make your servants do it. Do I look like someone who does small chores?”

“They can’t! We can’t let the servants find out that a blood-stained person is in a cute and lovely lady’s room!”

Janice added in opposition.

“Even if he got caught, at least clean him!”

“.. Does that even make a difference?”

Zoe asked Janice in a tone like she couldn’t understand her logic at all.

Janice replied in a thrilled voice.

“That way, if rumors came out, we could clear it! My Lady should at least maintain her preference of men in front of the public, too!

Excuse me; I was only 13 years old. What kind of rumor possibly rose about me? Even if it was a simple courtship rumor, I wasn’t at the age to deny such talks.

“Janice, stop talking and listen to me.”

Zoe didn’t seem to have any intention of helping me, so that would leave only me and Janice to move Rupert.

‘His ankle is really thin.’

I knew how smugglers treat children from slums.

‘But they still could feel pain and get hurt.’

Rupert developed an innovation in medicine because he had to treat his friends who were injured during his childhood.

It explained all of my doubts about him.