Chapter 59

I later learned that soap made from dragon fat could apparently be exchanged for gold weighing five times as much.

It was an absurdly extravagant thing, but it certainly cleaned well.

And my skin felt strangely glossy, though that might have been the effect of the dragon meat. It reminded me that even in my old world, the day after eating soft-shelled turtle hot pot, my face would always look shiny.

There were many people suffering from hangovers after last night’s wild revelry, but the cleanup after the dragon uproar was not over yet, so we got to work right away. The dragon butchering, too, had only gone so far as bringing some of the meat that would spoil quickly back into town; the rest had to be turned into smoked meat or jerky on site and made into merchandise.

On top of that, scales that could be used as materials for arms and armor had to be stripped from the dragon’s hide, and the sections of skin apparently suitable for clothing accessories had to be tanned. The internal organs, too, were said to be valuable medicine, and after a flood of orders asking for them to be soaked in distilled liquor, the company’s stock of alcohol was completely emptied out. Distilled liquor was sometimes used for medicine, disinfection, and church rituals as well, so we needed to replenish the stock as quickly as possible.

As for the bones, horns, claws, and similar things, everyone from medicine merchants who wanted to boil them down into remedies to craftsmen who wanted to process them into decorative items came to buy them, and dealing with all of that kept us busy.

In order to bring gold coins onto the island, I had wanted to export as much of the dragon’s body as possible, but aside from that, practically everything had found buyers in an instant.

While Kengo, Gerario, and the others, along with the beastfolk such as Dodol, worked on the physical labor of butchering and preserving the dragons, I handled this sort of business at the company.

Only after gathering up the company’s gold coins and doing the calculations was I finally able to make one decision.

The three who went out were Iiria, Kururu, and me, and our destination was the territory’s harbor, the place that had fallen into the greatest chaos during the dragon panic.

“The sunken ships will be salvaged and repaired in Iiria-sama’s name.”

The shipowners gathered at the harbor opened their mouths wide at my declaration. Then some dropped to their knees and cried out in joy, while others jumped up on the spot and embraced their families.

Words of gratitude were directed one after another toward Iiria as well, but Iiria, unaccustomed to being thanked by people, simply kept an outward smile pasted onto her face while waving and shaking hands like a robot.

“Now then, as for the concrete details of the salvage…”

What I explained was the relief measure we had prepared for the owners of the ships that had sunk during the dragon commotion.

So many people had rushed all at once toward the limited number of ships in an attempt to escape the island that, naturally enough, the ships had sunk.

Fortunately, no one had died, and since the ships had gone down along the harbor quay, the locations of all the wrecks were known. Wood was expensive, so even if a ship sank, it should not simply be left there; it ought to be raised and repaired.

But fishermen were mostly living hand to mouth, and the owners of merchant ships who had lost all their cargo could not afford to raise their ships at their own expense, much less repair them.

So once we had a rough estimate of the money from selling the dragons, we decided that my company—or rather, in Iiria’s name—would shoulder those costs.

Once the explanation to the shipowners was over, next came dealing with the people who would actually do the salvage work.

Waiting at the harbor were bare-shouldered men with ropes slung over their shoulders.

They were Katze, whom I had spoken to before about cargo unloading, and the beastfolk employed by the company.

“Yo there, Boss Yorinobu.”

Katze called out to me at once.

“How are the preparations?”

“It’ll be a bit rough without pulleys, but the beach isn’t that far. You lot understand the procedure, right?”

In this world, even among things called ships, not a few were little more than rafts made by tying timbers together with rope. Sinkings were common, and apparently anyone who worked in a harbor had dealt with it once or twice before.

“We’re not great at free diving, but hauling them up won’t be a problem.”

If you had too much muscle, you would not float well, and you would burn through oxygen quickly too. Even the beastfolk, who seemed capable of anything, were apparently not especially good swimmers.

Now that I thought about it, all the beastfolk here were ones with short fur on their pelts.

The beastfolk team split into two groups: the obviously strongest ones would wait on the beach to receive the ships once they were hauled up, while the more slender ones would handle the work at sea together with Katze and the others.

“That’s the situation, Boss.”

Katze looked over at me.

“Then please, go ahead!”

The men and beastfolk males, each with ropes gathered from all over town slung over their shoulders, set to work.

Ships were the island’s lifeline.

I wanted the company to have its own trading ship as well, but while a raft small enough for a lone fisherman to handle was one thing, a merchant ship sturdy enough to withstand rough seas would apparently cost on the order of one hundred thousand gold coins per vessel.

At the company’s current profits, that would consume an entire year’s earnings all at once.

Nodon had probably been lining his own pockets together with Cole of the Bax Company, but perhaps his refusal to own a ship himself had also been a kind of unique risk management.

If he put his own cargo on his own ship and it sank, he would lose everything in an instant.

So he had probably reasoned that it was smarter to leave all the danger of shipping to the Bax Company and just pay the freight charges.

But when something happened in Jirenu Territory, I had realized just how terrifying it was to have absolutely no means at hand to leave the island for the outside world. Once the island’s ships had been repaired with the money from the dragon sale, securing a ship of our own would have to become a priority as well.

Thinking about how to raise the funds for that immediately gave me a headache, but we had decided that problem could be solved by having Iiria cooperate.

Because Iiria had a far stronger money-collecting device than the company did.

Taking on all the costs of salvaging and repairing the ships was not an expression of charitable spirit at all.

“Now then, I will explain the customs duties, harbor usage tax, and transaction tax within the harbor.”

While Katze and the beastfolk were salvaging ships at the harbor, the gathered fishermen and shipowners inside the largest Nodon Company warehouse in the harbor were told exactly that by Iiria.

Since she was taking on the salvage expenses and repair costs for their ships, there was no way they could refuse.

And when Nodon had still been around, they had already had money skimmed off them under one pretext or another, so excuses like not being able to survive if they had to pay taxes would not be permitted.

The real issue was the tax rates, and their collection.

Unless there was someone who understood the business of those working at the harbor and could handle numbers properly, there was no point in simply setting taxes.

And on top of that, someone had to be found to take on the work of tax collection, a job that often made one disliked.

But now, there was exactly the right person for it.

“As tax contractor, I appoint the master of the Hunt Company.”

As Iiria steadily continued the discussion, the master of the Hunt Company, who had been named directly, rose from his chair and bowed to those assembled.

His belly had the imposing look proper to the head of a merchant company, but his face was gaunt and worn down.

And naturally so, because both of the merchant ships sunk in the harbor belonged to Hunt. On top of that, one of them had apparently been loaded full of wheat, meaning nearly all of his assets were now at the bottom of the sea.

Even if the ships were raised and repaired at Iiria’s expense, the cargo of wheat was probably beyond saving.

And if a company had neither ships nor goods, then business would be all but suspended, and it would not be able to cover the expenses of supporting its workers.

In a world without things like damage insurance or unemployment insurance, that would normally mean bankruptcy and game over.

Which made this Hunt Company, with its surplus of people who could read and write, knew the town’s companies and their commercial dealings well, and were strong with money calculations, almost too perfect a fit to serve as tax contractor.

There was no reason not to make use of them here, and so Iiria and I had devised the tax collection plan.

“Iiria-sama, a question.”

At that point, one merchant raised a question.

“Is this a temporary tax?”

In older times, taxes had apparently not been permanent, but were basically collected only when needed, such as during wars. That was likely the context behind the question, but Iiria did not let even a fragment of her smile waver.

“No, this will continue from now on.”

If she made concessions to merchants who would seize any chance to reduce taxes, then Iiria, as lord, would never achieve financial independence.

And besides, now that the dragon had been defeated, there was no need to compromise.

What Iiria had just said was no longer the voice of “a beast-eared girl born from a noble’s amusement.”

Even if in reality she had been asleep in the mansion, from the outside she was “the lady lord who directed the dragon subjugation.”

The force behind her words was different from before.

This was the perfect chance to act boldly and decide difficult matters through sheer momentum.

When I had discussed that sort of thing with Iiria beforehand, she had hated it so much that even Kururu had been exasperated by the way she sulked and complained, but the fact that she carried it through properly once the moment came really showed that Iiria was, after all, a worse girl than Kururu.

“Then, as for the tax rates and collection periods, they will be as I explained earlier. Please work out the details with the master of the Hunt Company.”

Iiria straightened her back and spoke in an almost exaggeratedly businesslike tone.

At that, the gathered merchants abruptly straightened themselves as well and answered that they would do as she commanded.