“Well? Well? I was amazing, right?! Come on, praise me!”

At last, Lin Ge escaped the overly friendly old ladies and gentlemen and made his way back to Alice.

Beneath her warm, youthful smile was the same infuriatingly smug grin Alice had seen at the gathering in the Imperial Capital.

So ridiculously annoying~~.

He felt like punching her right then and there.

“Hmph. You were just okay.”

Alice puffed out one cheek, her face full of disdain.

There was no way she’d admit she was jealous of him!

Absolutely not!

“Heh. I guess this little achievement still isn’t enough to impress you, Your Highness.”

Lin Ge didn’t bother arguing with her. There was no point.

Instead of wasting time arguing over something so trivial, it was more important to make sure of something else.

“Oh, right, speaking of which, that means I won the bet, doesn’t it? So now, about our relationship…”

He deliberately left the rest unsaid, drawing out his words as he waited for Alice’s reply with a friendly smile.

“It doesn’t count! It doesn’t count! This one doesn’t count!”

Alice froze, panicked, then froze again. Her body gave a shudder as she hurriedly waved her hands and shook her head.

The armor over her chest and the sword at her waist clattered sharply as her limbs flailed.

“How can it not count?” Lin Ge frowned. “I did everything we agreed on, and I even compiled the results of the public opinion survey for you. How can you say it doesn’t count?”

“Well, um… Anyway, it doesn’t count! I’m not going to acknowledge you!”

Alice snatched the neatly organized survey sheets Lin Ge handed her, then stormed off without looking back.

Watching Alice’s retreating figure, Lin Ge shrugged helplessly.

He’d expected that outcome, but this really was straight out of the textbook.

“Well, I already worked the methods for governing the territory into the public opinion survey. The rest is up to the lord herself. As for me… Ahh, I should go get a little more sleep. I’m really not cut out for getting up early.”

He stretched, put his hands behind his head, and decided to go take a little nap at the orphanage.

Going back to the territory now and running into Alice would be awkward. Besides, he might run into Rosetti at the orphanage.

Unlike Alice, he and Rosetti were a real married couple now. Even if they couldn’t do that sort of thing, they could still hug, pinch each other, and kiss, couldn’t they?!

……

……

Now let’s shift the setting and perspective to Alice’s office in the lord’s castle.

No matter how much she tried to wriggle out of it or how unwilling she was to admit it, a loss was still a loss.

She’d lost to an idiot who knew nothing and couldn’t be bothered to learn. Alice had never suffered such humiliation in her life.

She really wanted to cut Lin Ge in half right there in front of everyone.

Otherwise, she’d never get this anger out of her system!

But… a bet was a bet, and a person should keep their word. Alice understood that much.

After all, before becoming a lord, her actual profession had been that of a knight.

She could talk big all she wanted, but her knightly honor wouldn’t let her break her promise.

Since things had come to this, no matter how reluctant she was, she’d have to agree to the marriage. At worst, when it came time to do that, she could just close her eyes and look at nothing.

Now that she’d made up her mind, she had to get back to work in earnest.

Reluctantly, she opened the public opinion survey Lin Ge had put together. At first, Alice hadn’t expected much from it.

So what if he’d cheated his way to winning the bet? His ability was plain to see. She couldn’t believe this man would amount to much!

But… as she read line by line, her disdain slowly turned to surprise, then disbelief, and finally admiration…

“This guy… actually did a pretty good job.”

Alice pressed her lips together, feeling sour. She really wasn’t happy about it, but she had to admit that Lin Ge had genuinely surprised her this time.

The report was easy to understand, but that wasn’t the important part. What mattered was his ability to talk to people.

He’d gathered the views of the city’s middle-aged and elderly residents on everything going on in town. He’d even taken the time to learn what the children thought—children, who were so often overlooked.

It was no exaggeration to say that this report was genuinely useful.

With this report in hand, they still couldn’t solve every problem in the city at its root. But it could certainly help the territory make major progress in the short term.

There was no denying it: Lin Ge was a spoiled young master, but he did have a few good points and could be useful…

Take the section about farmers and their fields. The report showed that the city’s finances had been in the red for years mainly because money wasn’t circulating within the city.

Almost every ordinary household was self-sufficient. Apart from occasionally buying salt and other daily necessities from passing merchants, they had little need for money in their day-to-day lives.

If some residents took up fishing, planted fruit trees, or sold small everyday goods… then people could buy from one another and get more money circulating.

The results might not be obvious right away, but if this continued over time, the payoff could be substantial.

“In that case, we’ll need to change the way the fields are planted a little…”

After all, the crops they planted now were harvested only once a year, and the land here honestly wasn’t very good. If they could find better, higher-yield crops, they should switch to growing those instead.

There was also the issue of resident taxes, as well as the properties the former nobles had left behind… All of it needed to be dealt with soon.

It looked like she had a lot of work ahead of her.

If only they had more people to help. Alice really wanted to get things moving sooner, but for now, she could only take it one step at a time.

“Lady Alice, an envoy from the beastfolk is here to see you. They say they’ve come to deliver the compensation from before.”

“Understood. I’ll be right there.”

She really was busy.

She’d barely started working when another ‘guest’ showed up.

A helpless smile tugged at Alice’s lips.

Then she hung her sword at her side, stood, and went to receive the beastfolk envoy.

According to Rosetti, the compensation should be quite substantial. The beastfolk princess herself had vouched for it, so it was highly credible.

If the compensation was money, Alice could use it to buy supplies for development from other territories, as well as weapons and troops to strengthen her forces.

If it was porcelain, famous throughout the Seven Races, that would be fine too. She could simply sell it on.

The beastfolk’s porcelain was renowned all over the world!

Whatever the beastfolk chose to pay, it would be an extremely important resource for Bota City right now.

At least, that was how it should’ve been…

“Are you making a fool of me?! This is your compensation?”

This was the first time Alice had flown into such a rage since the gathering in the Imperial Capital.

She wasn’t someone who lost her temper easily. Unless she truly couldn’t take it anymore, she wouldn’t get angry.

And this was one of those times.

After all, this so-called compensation was nothing but a pile of black fruits she’d never seen before.

This was a provocation! A blatant provocation!

There was no way to settle things with the beastfolk now!

But just then, the beastfolk envoy said:

“But these are exactly what you asked for, Lady Alice.”

“What?! I asked for these?”