Chapter 105

“First, I want you to review the purchase price of magic stones.”

Frost lifted his chin as though a blade had been pressed to his throat.

“Th-that is……”

“I’m not saying you have to force yourself to pay a high price. I just want you to buy them at the market rate. From what I heard, you’ve been buying them for several tenths cheaper?”

Magic stones were strategic resources, and the Empire treated them as a substitute for taxes.

Therefore, the official price did not differ all that much from land to land.

Gerario, who knew other lands, had said the price was clearly low, and Cole, who had come to purchase magic stones precisely as a member of that Bax Company, also told us that they were actually cheaper by twenty to thirty percent.

However, Cole had not said so, but I thought that even then, he had probably been adjusting things in his own way so the price would not become too low.

After all, Jirenu Territory had no choice but to sell to Roran, and the lord was a figurehead girl.

If the Bax Company had felt like it, they could have beaten the price down to almost nothing.

But they had not done that.

“Of course, I won’t say to pay us the difference retroactively either. This is purely about what comes next, and I am not asking you to answer for what happened until now.”

Perhaps Frost had thought he would be blamed for buying cheaply and subjected to torture. As though his neck had barely remained attached, he moved his sweat-slick throat and took a deep breath.

“……U-understood.”

When Frost accepted, the scribe beside him took notes as though recording a divine oracle.

“After that, only for a while is fine, but I also want priority purchasing rights for the supplies we need.”

“P-purchasing?”

“Yes. We need all sorts of things, after all. From things like timber, stone, and metals to smaller things like candles and cloth, as well as various foods and seed rice too. In short, every order from the companies on the island. Of course, we will pay appropriately.”

Frost’s face, which had seemed like that of a sacrifice offered up to an enemy camp, gradually became the face of a nobleman entering negotiations.

That was probably because, as someone from a merchant family, the topic had shifted into an area where profit and loss were easy to grasp.

“That is……not……a problem. My company will……no, I will procure them responsibly.”

Iiria nodded in satisfaction at Frost, whose words had become clear by the end.

“And one more thing. I heard this is something very difficult to ask for from the position of Jirenu Territory.”

“……Something dif-ficult?”

Just when he had relaxed, those words were said to him, and Frost’s face stiffened again.

“Yes. That is exactly why I want to ask you now.”

Iiria leaned forward over the table and lowered her voice to a whisper like she was sharing a secret.

Seeing that, I thought Iiria really was an actress.

As the defeated commander, Frost was in a position where he had to answer every one of Iiria’s demands, but that did not mean humiliating him would be constructive.

That was why I had insisted that the difficult demand we truly wanted should not be forced on him under the pretext of postwar settlement, but instead be framed purely as a personal request from Iiria to Frost.

That way, Frost would be able to protect his position as a gentleman, not as a beaten dog obeying orders, but as someone responding because he had been asked.

If we protected his honor, there might be a day when he would become our ally.

“We want ships.”

“Ships?”

“I want Roran’s shipyard to build large ships capable of withstanding ocean voyages, as well as fast ships.”

Frost opened his eyes wide, and the two scribes also held their breath.

It had been the same in ancient times in my previous world, but here, there was basically no distinction between warships and merchant ships.

Since there was only a distinction between whether a ship could cross the sea quickly or not, and whether its carrying capacity was large or small, Cole had said that procuring ships above a certain size from Roran would be difficult politically.

That was because it would not only allow Jirenu to secure a certain amount of freedom in maritime trade, but could also easily be diverted for war.

Among them, fast ships that advanced not by relying on sails but by being rowed with numerous oars would display considerable power in wartime.

That was why this was a request that would normally never pass in peacetime.

Frost, too, must have imagined all sorts of things about Iiria’s true intentions.

Even if this incident was to be more or less forgiven, one could imagine any number of bad possibilities, such as Jirenu Territory intending to be able to attack and capture Roran at any time.

Answering yes to this request here could end up meaning selling the rope that would hang his own neck.

Moreover, since Roran’s shipyard was apparently government-run, persuading Roran’s municipal council would be necessary for the construction of large ships.

Because a member of the Bax Company had meddled with Iiria, Roran had fallen into a crisis where its very survival was in doubt. On top of that, if he returned having been made to promise to build powerful ships for Jirenu that could also be used as warships, what would the Bax Company’s position be?

Frost kept his mouth tightly shut and continued staring into Iiria’s eyes.

Behind that anguished expression, an incredible calculation staking his life and the future of the Bax Company was probably being made desperately.

As for Iiria, she was impressive.

Because she smiled.

“Of course, we will pay the construction costs.”

Though I would like you to give us a bit of a discount, she added mischievously.

Of course, Frost could not even manage a polite smile.

But this Frost, too, was a noble of high status.

Like a next-generation ruler, he seemed to steel himself, knowing that this was the crucial moment.

“Understood. The construction of large ships……will require approval from the city council. But I will make sure they approve it.”

Rather than being denounced inside Roran later for handing dangerous ships to Jirenu, it would be better to earn Iiria’s favor here and now. That was probably his calculation.

The proof was that he had properly added the explanation that approval from the council would be necessary.

It was an appeal that said, This will be difficult, but I will do my best for you.

In other words, Frost had calculated that if he joined hands with Iiria here, he would be able to recover his position before long in Roran, where things had turned unfavorable.

“By the way, about how much does a ship cost?”

Even Cole had not known this.

Previously, when I asked a town company that owned ships, it had been something in the range of a hundred thousand gold coins.

However, that had been about a moderately sized ship for coastal voyages, and I did not know how much a large ship capable of withstanding ocean voyages or a fast ship often used more for war than trade would cost.

“As for the price……I can only say that it depends on carrying capacity……”

Frost also did not seem to know the details, and he glanced at the scribe beside him.

One of the scribes wiped away his sweat before opening his mouth.

“I-if it is the largest ship in our Roran shipyard, it can transport three hundred soldiers. As for the approximate cost, the calculation used is roughly how much per transportable soldier. This is an estimate for seating soldiers and loading the necessary equipment, drinking water, and bread. If the ship were actually……for example, filled with wheat, it could carry ten times the amount of soldiers. And at recent market rates, it would be roughly around one thousand five hundred imperial gold coins per soldier.”

Because weights and measures had hardly been standardized, a strange unit came up.

Apparently, ancient Britain had expressed the size of ships by the number of wine casks they could load, so one could say this was similar.

One human being, equipment, and water and food would probably come to about a hundred kilograms.

Since humans could not be laid sideways and stacked, it seemed they could load much more if it was something like wheat.

As the scribe said, ten times one hundred kilograms per soldier. If it could load up to one ton, then three hundred soldiers would mean three hundred tons.

If wheat consumption was five hundred grams per person per day, that would be one hundred eighty kilograms in a year. In a single voyage, it could transport the wheat that nearly two thousand people would eat in a year.

With horses, the most that could be transported was at best two hundred kilograms per horse. By simple calculation, that was one thousand five hundred horses. If one formed a train that large, one would also have to prepare horses to carry feed for the horses, and I remembered hearing something like one horse could carry at most a day’s worth of feed for ten horses. Or was that camels?

Either way, what would require an outrageous amount of effort could be covered by a single ship.

They say that by the Age of Discovery, pepper had already become a common seasoning, and when I calculated it like this, I could really feel what that meant.

Most likely, they had transported so much of it that the price had collapsed.

“When it comes to fast ships rowed by oars, they become more expensive. The market rate is around three thousand gold coins per soldier, but because the number of soldiers they can carry decreases accordingly, I believe the price as a ship would be about the same.”

“Then, estimating generously, both would be around five hundred thousand gold coins……is that about right?”

Iiria was pretending to be calm, but rather than calm, it felt more like she had no sense of reality.

It was an amount of money that an ordinary life would almost never have any connection to, and the standards of prices were completely different from my previous world, so it was hard to say, but in my previous world, this would be something on the scale of ten billion yen. Superyachts were also about this price, so it probably was not a rip-off.

However, in terms of the company’s sales, it was two full years’ worth. Moreover, we had many large expenses right now and were close to being in the red, so even though we possessed the magic stone mine, this much expenditure was a considerable gamble.

That said, if Jirenu Territory was to maintain its independence and survive, large ships were absolutely necessary, and if we missed this opportunity, procuring them from Roran would likely become difficult.

It was human nature to forget the heat once it had passed the throat.

For Roran, there was not a single thing to be happy about in Jirenu, which could not exactly be called friendly, becoming armed, and once this commotion settled down, it was easy to see them finding all sorts of excuses to drag their feet on construction.

That was why, even if it meant preparing ourselves for an enormous debt, we should sign a contract worth one million gold coins now.

When I nodded to Iiria, Iiria slowly breathed in.

“Then, please handle the matter of the ships too.”

“Understood.”

Iiria breathed out.

If it turned out we could not pay after all, Iiria’s reputation would be completely ruined, and I, who had proposed a conciliatory peace with Roran, would probably be blamed by Gerario, Kengo, and Kururu as well.

We needed to somehow secure one million gold coins from the coffers of a company that was nearly in the red.

“That concludes our demands. For the peace of both our territories, in the name of Iiria Araratom, I expect honorable conduct from Roran.”

The theory that when a delinquent occasionally does something good, they look like a good person.

Unlike her casual tone until then, Iiria returned to dignified speech, and the two scribes straightened their backs and bowed low.

Frost also lowered his eyes in a bow a moment later, and for the time being, the preparatory stage of the peace negotiations reached a pause.