A Man Caught In A Whirlpool Of Desire (11)

“Congratulations on your victory in the war. I never even imagined you would defeat an army of three hundred thousand in just a single day.”

The woman facing me was Princess Onellia of Briden. The reason I had come face-to-face with her was none other than an inquiry about purchasing large quantities of special minerals.

There was no shortage of special minerals within the domain. However, I had deliberately taken this step to spread a certain rumor, and because I planned to set the scale of this mineral transaction fairly large and allow word to spread outside, I had forced myself to come here in order to settle things directly with Onellia.

“You flatter me. I was merely lucky.”

“It would be impossible to defeat an army of three hundred thousand in a single day through luck. Ingrad has essentially proven that it possesses power strong enough that it would not be lacking even if it were called a ‘nation’ now.”

“Those are pleasant words to hear, but we still have a long way to go. So, regarding that matter, I would like to expand this transaction a little further.”

“Are we getting straight to the point?”

“Please understand my circumstances. There are still many matters I must clean up.”

“Hmm…”

Onellia paused for a moment. She was a woman whose thoughts I could not get a grasp on at all, and after a moment, she asked a question separate from the transaction.

“As I understand it, Ingrad has become independent. In that case, should I treat it as a ‘nation’? Or should I treat it as a mere rebel force?”

It was a subtle question. Certainly… it was a delicate situation. I had never thought of it as a “nation.” I had simply thought of it as an independent force, and that I was merely the representative of those who lived in the domain called Ingrad.

Perhaps Onellia had pointed out this delicate part?

Moreover, if the transactions we had conducted until now had been between a single domain of the Empire and the royal family of Briden, then it could be considered that she was asking whether that nature now had to change slightly.

“Now that I think about it, it seems I was impatient. Then… for now, let us conduct this transaction as a relationship between ‘nations.’”

Onellia gave a bright smile, and her expression looked as if she had expected that. When she held out her hand to the person who had followed her as her adjutant, that person took one document out from among several and handed it to me.

“This is the list of minerals Ingrad has mainly been purchasing and their current market prices. And the phrases written beside them could be called a kind of discounted price we can concede to you.”

“A discount… is it?”

“You may consider it a kind of gift, and also a ‘maneuver’ to solidify exchange between our two nations.”

It was such a bold thing to say that I was a little dumbfounded, but this was easier to deal with instead, I thought as I examined the list.

The prices were slightly higher than what we usually purchased them for. However, this could not be helped. News of war caused the price of war materials to soar. Even so, looking at Onellia, who had applied a discount to the point where we could purchase them at prices not greatly different from before the war began in earnest, I also had to ask another question.

“Would selling them like this not be a loss for you?”

“Recently, merchants have been coming even as far as the Northern Continent. However, there is a limit to the amount they can carry by ship. And in the case of iron ore, which is consumed the most in war, even if they bought it from the Northern Continent and moved it to the Central Continent, they would not even make back the freight cost, you know?”

Iron ore was heavy. It meant that even if it was carried by ship, not much could be transported. In that case, one could refine it into iron ingots and move something with a higher iron content, but that would incur processing costs, and since it would be transported by sea, processes such as rusting could not be ignored either.

In the end, it meant that even if they sold it at a price that left them this much profit to us, who could trade by land route, they would not be taking a loss.

Ultimately, it meant that if both sides yielded a little, it would be a transaction both could smile about.

“Very well. From the list here, we will purchase all special metals excluding iron at up to four times the usual amount.”

Onellia looked at me with a startled expression.

“Then that would be… about four million great gold coins?”

“We need that much volume. There has been a lot of consumption in many ways.”

That was a lie. However, for rumors to spread from Briden and reach the Empire, the scale of the transaction needed to be large. And Onellia also nodded at my words before asking another question.

“The rumor that the owner of the Black Gold Merchant Company is the same as the master of Ingrad… seems to be true?”

“I did not particularly intend to hide it, but somehow the rumor spread. That is correct. I have been busy opening sales routes across the world through the whale beastkin.”

“Black Gold… The manufacturing method is a secret after all, I suppose?”

I only smiled.

“If you come to Ingrad later, I will give you Black Gold as a gift.”

“I will definitely have to create an opportunity to visit.”

After shaking hands with Onellia, we were able to finish the schedule while discussing the details of the transaction, and because there were movements to annoy me again with invitations and such, I had no choice but to hurriedly set out on the return journey. Onellia—really, she was a woman who made people tired.

On the way back to Ingrad, Demina asked me.

“Is there really a need to go through this much trouble?”

“This is what will make things less troublesome. If the war begins in earnest and the Empire switches to a quantity offensive and thinks of pushing us down, how much more troublesome do you think things will become? At that point, even with firearms and mana cannons, things will become difficult. If that happens, we might really have to buy time by taking hostages.”

The worst-case scenario was a hostage situation, but I was spreading public opinion so that things would not go that far.

“What if the Empire still wages war on us?”

“We will have to face them. It is not as though we can let ourselves be killed, is it?”

Demina had asked an obvious question. Moreover, if it was only defense, I judged that for now, there would be no great strain.

A so-called defensive battle, where one only defended against them invading, was more advantageous the better prepared one was. That was because not many variables occurred, but the problem was that if we invaded in reverse, the feeling would be completely different.

I had no intention of invading in the first place, but the fact that we had to keep taking blows could be called our domain’s weakness.

That was why we had to refine our defenses even more solidly and spread rumors so that they could not move rashly.

Moreover, thinking of the goods the Dust of Sands Trading Company had been steadily sending, there was the point that a situation where we were isolated would not occur for now.

Furthermore, I had received a report that the Dust of Sands Trading Company had sucked up the Empire’s financial power once, so I expected that it would take some time or be difficult for the Empire to organize a second punitive army.

“But from now on, I suspect they will approach through diplomacy rather than war.”

It was clear that the Empress would not continue creating a situation where she ground down her people. I could only expect that there would be additional clashes once, or twice at most.

After that, I could expect them to start negotiations, or if not even that, the situation would enter a new phase.

“Right now, the situation is advantageous for us. We have set many things in motion in various ways, so it will be burdensome for them to move rashly. If they have someone smart, that is…”

The Empire I had faced once was not in a normal state, like stagnant water that had pooled and rotted.

Luminas de Terakan had recently been losing sleep at night. She had operated the Empire well without a single major mistake, and it would not be an exaggeration to say she had advanced triumphantly without her political standing or charisma itself being doubted, but recently, because of one man, her foundation was being shaken from its roots.

“So… the carriages sent from Ingrad crossed the barrier?”

The Empress asked in an exhausted tone, and Chancellor Hilman looked at that Empress with pity as he answered.

“That is so, Your Majesty. It is said that the number of carriages charging toward the battlefield with white flags raised exceeds several thousand…”

Because of the rumors spreading across the continent, claiming to be the truth of the Empire’s actual state, the Empress wanted to tear Duke Balsen apart and kill him. The fact that a human being called a commander had rushed forward while trusting only in numbers without doing even a single reconnaissance was already a problem, but after that, not a single thing he did upon returning alive was to her liking either.

‘And all he managed to do was spend his own money to hire mercenaries…’

Duke Balsen had made a judgment that would make all her retainers click their tongues. To put it bluntly, the Imperial Army was an elite army with a perfectly composed organization. Amid such an organization, and while their number of soldiers was also superior, he had pointlessly brought in mercenaries and thrown the formation into disorder.

Moreover, there had also been a reason the siege had been somewhat delayed. Since there was nothing urgent for the Imperial Army, a strategy had been established to proceed with the siege calmly and slowly attack so that they could win with minimal damage.

But that fool Balsen had hired mercenaries and spurred on the attack on Ishtain.

They said he openly claimed that he had spent his own money in order to resolve the delayed situation favorably… but the foolish Balsen was not achieving merit at all; he was merely increasing the damage as the attack proceeded.

“What are the losses of the army that headed to the Ishtain Region?”

“The mercenaries are not counted, but it is said that the soldiers’ losses are quite large. They are being tallied at roughly fifty-two thousand dead and forty-seven thousand wounded. It is believed that about half of those wounded will not be able to return to the battlefield.”

Luminas de Terakan felt a throbbing headache coming on.

“What is the situation in the Ingrad Region…?”

“Recently, strange rumors have been circulating from the Briden side.”

“What are they…?”

“They are rumors that large quantities of rare metals are being delivered to the Ingrad Region.”

“….The quantity?”

“It is said to appear to be roughly between two million and five million great gold coins.”

The Empress fell into gloom. While the strength of the man who had transformed that tiny domain sent chills down her spine, she trembled with gritted teeth as she recalled the Black Gold that had become the foundation of that incredible self-sufficiency.

“What do you think would happen if we designated the Black Gold circulating in the market… as illegal…?”

“The commoners would obey… but the nobles’ backlash would be extremely great. In addition, all of the continent’s giant merchant companies have begun handling Black Gold. We must be careful of their backlash.”

At the Chancellor’s words, the Empress pressed at her temples and asked.

“If we were to dispatch the army again, how many do you think we would need to send…?”

“Would that be including the Ishtain Region?”

“No, I am speaking only of the Ingrad Region.”

“Judging from the information that has been investigated… it is believed that we would need at minimum an army of three million, two thousand siege engines, and one thousand mages…”

“And the preparation period?”

The Empress looked toward Chancellor Hilman, who had no answer for a moment, and their gazes met. Chancellor Hilman, without avoiding the Empress’s gaze, carefully opened his mouth.

“It is believed… that it would take at least four months.”

The Empress felt as if she were suffering from a terrible nightmare, since that effectively meant she could not immediately bring about further expansion of the war.