Weirdo

Later that day.

The main hall,

Greenfields Castle.

…

Levi sat with his eyes shut and his legs propped up at a table's edge.

In front of him sat Iris reading through a scroll.

Her face was slightly scrunched up in a frown as her eyes travelled over the lines of Levi's delicate writing.

"So what do you think?" He asked her when he felt she should have finished reading.

"I am not done yet." She growled.

"Huh? Not yet?" Levi asked peeking at her through one open eyelid. "Sheesh, so slow."

Under her visibly annoyed stare he stood up and lazily stretched out his tall frame before walking towards the window.

The princess turned back to the scroll and in an attempt to ignore him.

A minute later.

"Still not done yet?" Levi asked again, his bored gaze scanned the fields outside as he leaned against the windowsill.

"No."

With a sigh, he thought to himself.

'I am so bored! I could probably kill just to binge an hour of Netflix right now.'

"Heh? Iris?"

"..."

"Iris?"

"What?" She asked gloomily.

"Nothing."

"..."

She sighed exasperatedly.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"… Erm, Are you done yet?"

"NO! What is your problem today?" She asked appearing slightly angry.

"Well, I just find it surprising that you spent over thirty minutes reading that one scroll and you still haven't finished yet," Levi remarked casting a sideways glance at the princess. He appeared to be looking down on her.

A vein popped in Iris's forehead and her face turned dark.

"That's not the problem you wastrel!"

"Then what is?" Levi asked resting his cheek in an open palm.

"The problem is that I am struggling to understand how you came up with a projected budget of fifty thousand Gold Trites for just this quarter. That almost equal to the capital's quarterly revenue on a good year, how do you expect this little town to come up with such an absurd amount of gold in such little time when just last week we barely had enough to keep it running?"

Iris's outburst mildly surprised Levi.

Nonetheless, he shrugged noncommittally.

"But didn't we recover some valuables from the wreckage of the First Maiden? I remember Lancelot saying the fisherman discovered a chest of gold coins hidden in the captain's cabin of the ship."

"Is thank what you are banking on? That amounted to only about fourteen thousand gold coins if you included the non-perishables on board. Where do you expect we find the remaining thirty-six thousand?"

"Are you not worrying too much? I mean, we just finalized a deal with the church so things ought to be easier given the projected prospects of the new partnership." Levi retorted.

"Cut me some slack woman, things are not as bad as you are making it seem."

"I feel you are being too optimistic and this worries me." Iris retorted back tossing the scroll exasperatedly on the table.

Tapping her feet in annoyance, she sighed and picked up the scroll again.

"Is there really nothing we could remove or at least postpone until later to bring the costs down?"

Levi glanced at her and shrugged again.

"You know that just isn't possible." He replied walking towards her. "Hand me the scroll please."

Collecting the scroll he looked over the projects listed and the rough estimates Robert made for each.

Sighing he spoke.

"We can't avoid the construction of the new residential area or the military barracks, the people of Redwater can't continually live like refugees. Forcing that would reduce our productivity and produce resentment in the hearts of the townsfolk, especially if they see resources being diverted elsewhere other than towards their own well-being."

Flicking the edge of the scroll with his finger, Levi continued.

"From the personal supplies of every individual unit in the Corps to the amount paid to them monthly, even up to the resources required for the construction of the new barracks and training facilities, these are all important endeavours that cost a lot of money. Especially given the current expansion, the military alone contributes to a large proportion of our expenses but sadly this can't be avoided."

"Also expenses like the construction of the roads I had mapped out and the money required to fund the search party tasked with finding a suitable limestone node to supply our future construction projects are very important."

"While these may seem like miscellaneous things that can be ignored, if we refuse to attend to them now they would end up affecting our progress in the near future and end up costing us even more valuable time and money."

"So it really can't be helped?" Iris sighed.

"There is little we can do." Levi shook his head handing the scroll back to her.

"Given our current situation, we have very few options available."

"What about this-" Iris began but was quickly cut off by Levi.

"I had the trade routes with Quilton finalized with Aden last night so we need to speed up the repairs of both the Maria and the Tyline. The Ichor alone wouldn't be enough to meet our needs when things kick fully into gear, so those can't be factored out either."

Iris sighed again.

"This is quite problematic."

Levi watched slightly amused as she went over the scroll on more time with a pouting expression, her eyes hopping erratically over each line as she diligently searched for a way to bring down the costs.

For a split second, he felt she appeared a little laughable. Like a bunny trapped in a top hat, unable to get out.

"What about the money allocated towards this "Universal Education" project."

"Nope, I have already explained the importance of this the other day. There is no way we can omit that either."

"I don't mean you should omit it completely."

"Then what do you mean?" Levi asked crooking his brow up in a questioning expression.

"Well, you allocated a thousand seven hundred coins to the construction of the school building."

"Yes? What about it?"

"Well since you plan to have the townsfolk move out of those weird houses you built last year why not use that instead for now until we have more resources to construct the actual building."

"That's-" Levi words got caught in his throat as he considered her suggestion.

"That might just work." He said muttered slowly. "Although the building themselves were constructed quite shoddily, a little renovation might just make it work for the meantime."

"Yes, and that would be obvious much cheaper," Iris stated somewhat pleased with herself. She felt she could have very well been the first person in Udoris to manage cut down on The young master's extravagant expenditure, even if it was just by a little.

Levi glanced at her and smiled.

"Didn't know you had in you kid. I actually thought you were just a dumb little girl whose only goal in life was to whine my ears off."

"Hey! I am not dumb, you bloody wastrel! Neither am I a little girl." She retorted angrily, her mood quickly turning sour.

"I know."

Levi said softly as he left the hall.

"If you are done reviewing it, could you please take the proposal to Aden to get his approval?"

"S-sure."

"Thanks."

Watching him walk away she muttered to himself.

"What had gotten into him?"

"Weirdo."