Obviously, It’s My Child

Elliot’s words were already mixed with a hint of weeping. Claire glared at Roger for inadvertently encouraging the child.

Roger raised his hands in surrender.

“I didn’t know. He said he wanted it…”

“I told you not to buy him anything recklessly.”

This wasn’t the first time.

“It’s not expensive…”

Roger groaned. Erich interrupted.

“How much is it? Isn’t it for the children?”

“It’s not for sale. It was made for the children who play here.”

He couldn’t buy everything just because he wanted it. It wasn’t a matter of money.

“Huff.”

Elliot hiccupped in a sound that was either crying or surprised. Claire asked, kneeling in front of Elliot and wiping his cheek with the palm of her hand.

“Auntie will keep my promise. But not this one. I put that here so friends can play here.”

“I hate Auntie. I don’t want anything else!”

“You can’t even take this home with you anyway. But even if you did, are you going to play with it alone?”

Elliot was crying and then turned around. He realized that he couldn’t play war or bandit by himself, but he didn’t want to admit it.

Claire sighed and looked at Roger. Roger scratched his head and apologized.

“I’m sorry.”

“Let’s come back to buy toys later.”

Claire picked Elliot up. And she said to Erich.

“Senior. You, too.”

“Me too? What?”

“Don’t give Elliott excessive gifts. Don’t go and make other people the bad ones.”

“Why am I making you a bad person?”

“You aren’t, yes, but will the people around you stay still? I don’t want to be treated as a con artist who aimed at Klausener even though I didn’t do anything.”

Claire said goodbye to Erich and left the toy shop with the teary-eyed Elliot in her arms.

Erich, who remained behind, stood still for a moment, lost in thought. Pavel carefully watched him.

“Duke, would you like to go back?”

“Pavel, call the store manager.”

“What?”

After Erich finished his thoughts, Pavel was startled. Erich looked at the model fortress and said.

“I’m going to buy all the toys from this store.”

“Hey, you can’t, Duke. After hearing what the Lady said just now…”

“She’s worried about education so I won’t blindly give it to Elliot. GIve each of the children who are in the store what they want, and call the manager of the Innenhof Hotel,” Erich said.

He was going to buy Elliot’s favor. At least more than that guy named Roger Carson.

He knew that the people around him wouldn’t stand still, as Claire had said.

Why did that matter? Once he’s made her into the duchess, they would all be dumb mutes. They would crawl on all fours to apologize to her.

Rumors had already spread. Rather, it was something to be thankful for. He was willing to kiss her in front of the most trashy tabloid newspaper in Rothenburg, inflating rumors to two hundredfold. Siege and elimination was the surest winning tactic.

Even against Claire, he couldn’t let his guard down.

“And find out about that Roger Carson guy.”

“Yes.”

Pavel answered, wiping the sweat from his brow.

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.

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05. Prelude to the proposal besiegement

Hans stood up, took off his hat, and leaned towards Claire.

“Please take a look.”

He came as a representative of Bamberg’s drapery store owners who deal with the Weaving Guild.

It had already been half a year ago that Bamberg’s drapery stores, which were dealing with the Weaving guild, were in trouble.

It was good until just before that. The patterned fabrics not only sold well, but also increased the demand for fabric itself.

Bamberg was a city with a very fast flow of goods and money amidst the wealthy Duchy Klausener. As the citizens got used to the culture of consumerism, they inevitably filled the pockets of store owners.

However, half a year ago, the Prach Guild, which manages the assets of the Marquisate Belf, targeted Bamberg.

Patterned fabrics were supplied indiscriminately at ridiculous prices. Plain fabrics cost more.

With that, customers headed to places where the patterned fabrics were cheaper. In any case, the price of ordinary fabrics was the same here and there.

The drapery store owners tried to unite in their own way to oppose the Prach Merchants. Although they lowered their profit margins and sold them at near cost, they couldn’t possibly reach the price the Prach Guild was selling at.

Some drapery store owners even went to surrender to the Prach Guild. They cut off their connections with the Weaving Guild and tried to get fabric from the Prach Guild.

But the Prach Guild rejected that too.

[ Stupid. How can that be? No matter how you look at it, this is a patterned fabric made at the Weaving Guild. You buy it elsewhere and release it here cheaply. ]

[ For what? ]

[ To kill us all! ]

After such a conversation, the drapery store owners, with Hans as their representative, came to complain to the real owner of the Weaving Guild

Claire interlaced her white hands in her lace gloves and laid them on her lap.

“I understand how you feel, but we can’t lower the supply price any lower than it is now. Even now, Roger is paying close to the cost.”

Mass production through machines had dramatically lowered prices, but that didn’t mean the materials were just dug out of the ground. Appropriate compensation must be given to the weavers and to the workers in the cotton plantation.

With that, the cost was not as cheap as they thought.

Above all, she couldn’t do a chicken game with the Belf Marquisate, who had their hands reaching deep into Klausener’s coffers. Klausener was a place that quite literally could get money out of the ground.

“And I can’t just supply you at a lower price than cost. If you sell them cheaply, another guild will buy them and release them cheaply to other regions.”

“That…”

“It is already happening.”

It was kind of funny.

The Prach Guild bought patterned fabrics from the Weaving Guild and were releasing them at cheap prices—and since they are cheap, merchants in other regions tended to buy patterned fabrics from the Prach Guild’s shop in Bamberg.

In fact, Claire was no exception. She was buying patterned fabrics from Prach Guild through another route.

‘In this way, money is just being copied.’