Let’s Just Give It A Try First! (4)

In the end, the victor was Idlen. The imperial princess had always preferred either to skim off a small portion of whatever medicine had already been produced, or to take the ingredients with her and have her people prepare it fresh each time.

That method made transport simpler and allowed the medicines’ shelf life to be preserved, so it was the princess’s preferred way. Idlen, however, could not store medicine long in the southern climate and, instead of keeping it all in one place and releasing it little by little, distributed it to multiple locations as she moved, scattering it along her entire route. Because of that difference in how they operated, Princess Riana ultimately gave up.

Honestly, my stance was that I didn’t care what happened as long as I could sell it, but the clash of wills between those two was intense enough to put me in some very awkward spots.

“By the way, Viscount Ingrad, why are you making such a big deal with the Dust of Sands Trading Company while leaving us out?”

“I am extremely grateful that the Imperial Household thinks so highly of me. However, I would also like you to consider my position. As someone who has to run a domain, I need a great many supplies. There are natural limits to how much the Imperial Household can provide to our domain, so I needed to draw in large trading houses from outside.”

“There was no need for it to be the Dust of Sands in particular, was there? Now that the road has been opened, if you had asked me, I could have helped you with all sorts of things. I find it a little hurtful, you know.”

I wondered just how far she wanted to meddle. But I couldn’t afford to ruin our relationship over this, so I broached the subject in a gentle, roundabout way.

“To be perfectly frank, I’m not dealing only with the Dust of Sands Trading Company. I also trade with the Hameureun baronial house, with merchants from the Ischtein Domain, and with quite a number of noble members of the Free Merchants’ Alliance.”

The Free Merchants’ Alliance was the group formed by those who held noble titles yet ran only trading houses without any lands of their own. I recalled Linda telling me that most noble merchants who visited our domain belonged to this alliance, and that was why I brought it up.

At that point, Princess Riana let out a sigh, hid her hurt expression, and spoke to me.

“I’d been looking at you, Viscount Ingrad, as someone a little special… but it seems you haven’t been looking at me that way at all, my lord?”

“Even ‘special’ has its standards. All I can say is that I’m not yet relaxed enough to turn my attention to anything else, and I hope you can understand that.”

‘If I let her take an interest in me twice over, my whole foundation is going to collapse… You thoughtless girl…’

Whatever I was thinking inside, I couldn’t show any of it on my face.

What’s more, most of the things I wanted to do were the sort that became more profitable the longer their secrets stayed hidden. Yet she kept barging in on a regular basis and tattling to the Imperial Household, so the losses were no joke.

For now, Princess Riana was certainly bringing in a lot of money, but to be honest, once she sold off the goods she took from me, the profits the Imperial Household made had to be far greater than mine, not smaller.

So as far as possible, I thought it best to keep our relationship at about this level.

“Phe-ew… Then I’ll take my leave; I’m tired. Enjoy your little competition.”

Princess Riana shot to her feet and swept out, and Idlen, who had so far been silently wearing the smile of a victor, checked that the princess was gone, then turned a bright smile on me and asked.

“Among the goods we agreed to purchase this time, there’s something I’d like to increase the quantity of.”

“What is it?”

“I heard that ‘Ingrad carpets’ are made here in this domain, and the quality is supposed to be quite good.”

I wondered when she had picked that up. I didn’t know much about that side myself, so I said I would introduce her to Matilda, but Idlen firmly declined and asked me to guide her personally.

“Mm… I can do that since I don’t have anything urgent right now, but I really don’t know the details about that field… So if I brought Matilda along…”

“No, judging the quality is my job. I just need you, my lord, to guide the conversation so the beastkin will be willing to trade with me. For that much, the two of us should be enough, shouldn’t we?”

“…Hmm…”

I had no idea what she was thinking. But in truth, I now had almost nothing to do. Linda and Matilda had gradually started taking even my own work away from me.

Those two often joked that what they really wanted from me was to sit up high and breathe and do nothing else.

And they were doing such a good job that I seriously worried that might actually happen, so I briefly thought of the two of them and got to my feet.

“Let’s go. Someone once said work is something you create for yourself.”

“Who… said something that terrifying?”

“Is that a terrifying statement?”

She didn’t answer my question, but Idlen nodded vigorously. After that, I asked Demina for directions to where the Seorin Tribe, who made the carpets, had settled—and the problem was that it was very far away.

“They say it takes a day and a half of travel. What should we do?”

Right, that was the biggest problem. Since they had settled in the relatively southern grasslands where the pasture grew well, the distance was naturally long.

Idlen clearly hadn’t expected that either, but then I spotted Matilda in the distance, facing some merchants and explaining things to them. I headed straight to her and got information about the carpets, and when I heard that a relatively large amount was still in the domain warehouse, Idlen and I headed there instead.

Idlen looked at me with an expression that clearly said she was relieved. When we reached the warehouse, we saw a type of beastkin I’d never seen before neatly stacking carpets at the entrance. Confirming that they were part of the newly arrived beastkin tribes, I called out to them.

“Sorry to bother you while you’re organizing, but could we take a look inside for a bit?”

At my words, they turned their heads and then immediately threw themselves flat on the floor. “We greet the divine messenger!” they cried, leaving me in an awkward spot, but because Idlen watched them with fascination, I first had them stand back up and told them to take a break elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Idlen, who had swallowed a huge mouthful of curiosity, looked at me with a face that said she would die if she didn’t find out and asked me a question.

“Why do they call you ‘divine messenger,’ my lord?”

“Mm… I imagine it’s because the Sain Tribe follow me so faithfully. It’s a misunderstanding that
keeps piling up, and I’ve chosen not to go out of my way to correct it.”

“What misunderstanding?”

“The same one they just voiced—that I am literally a divine messenger.”

“Why did they misunderstand?”

Idlen looked like she was going to cling to every word and keep pulling, and I decided this would never end at this rate, so I stepped into the warehouse and spoke.

“There’s no way I can know what goes on in beastkin minds. Even when I asked them to explain, all I got back were strange answers, so I gave up trying to understand. That’s why I have no way to explain it. Instead! We came here to work, so let’s have a look. Carpets!”

Idlen knew I was trying to change the subject. She could have pressed me with more questions if she wanted, but instead she let it go with a light smile, stepped into the warehouse, and began examining the carpets.

“The size, patterns, quality, degree of dyeing, smell… these have all been very carefully tended. They’re all well-looked-after goods.”

“You can tell all that from just a quick glance?”

“That’s my job. Besides, with items like these, it wouldn’t be strange to rate them as top-grade. I see there are beastkin with very good hands among them as well…”

“Well, they can’t compare to dwarves, the most skilled craftsmen on the continent, but that’s still nice to hear. Top-grade, huh… Then how valuable would something like this be?”

Idlen unrolled a carpet and checked it again in detail. A few minutes later, she let out a deep breath and spoke.

“Some of these could be called ‘supreme grade.’ If they meet the right owner, I’d say 100 large gold coins wouldn’t be a problem.”

I wondered if they could really be that expensive.

But Idlen launched into an enthusiastic explanation that put a period on my doubts, and after that I had no choice but to step into the world of carpets—something I knew nothing about.

After about thirty minutes of instruction, I was looking at Idlen with a tired face when she seemed to realize herself and asked me.

“It was… a bit boring, wasn’t it?”

“Rather than boring, I’d say it was hard to take in so much knowledge all at once. It was a whole new world.”

Idlen gave me a bright little smile at my words. After that, when she told me she wanted to take as many carpets as possible, I said all right, that I would talk to Matilda and the others about it—and Idlen’s expression darkened slightly.

I couldn’t help but wonder what in the world had happened between her, Matilda, and Linda.

Several days passed. Princess Riana and the Dust of Sands Trading Company had both departed, and I was left “alone” to enjoy a leisurely morning—only for Linda to come looking for me at the crack of dawn and hound me until I was dragged outside without even getting to drink my coffee.

On one side, Kanapa fruits were piled up like a mountain, and I had already ordered some of the beastkin to peel them first and extract only the seeds.

We were also fermenting the extracted seeds together in a huge vat, and it was because of this that Linda had been pestering me since morning.

“Could you at least tell me what you’re trying to do?”

“Do you really need to know?”

“There’s a rumor all over the domain that anything our lord personally gets involved with turns into something shocking. And these fruits are used to make something sweet, aren’t they? That only makes me more curious. And I know you ordered these through the Dust of Sands Trading Company as if you were stripping the south bare.”

“Well, I didn’t go so far as stripping the entire south…”

In truth, with the amount of money I had given them, the Dust of Sands Trading Company had brought back so much Kanapa that it felt like they really had harvested every Kanapa in the south.

They had brought the equivalent of seventy four-horse freight wagons loaded with cargo, so it really was an enormous amount.

“What are you planning to make that you had to get this much?”

“Well, to summarize it simply…”

“Don’t summarize! Couldn’t you tell me in detail?”

“…Let’s go with the summary.”

Linda stared straight into my eyes without a word, as if trying to bore a hole through them. I realized she had quite a persistent personality, but I still only gave her the summarized version.

“I’m planning to make sweet snacks. First I’ll make the ‘powder’ that will form the base and store it. I really don’t have anything more to add than that.”

“Ugh… That’s not an answer. I could at least guess you’d make something edible.”

“Then wait. Blessings come to those who wait!”

With that, I left Linda there and returned to the lord’s castle to enjoy a peaceful tea time. I caught a glimpse of Linda’s frustrated expression as I went, but I forced down my laughter and made it back to my room. Once the beastkin finished their current work and a certain amount of fermentation was done, the Kanapa beans would be dried thoroughly and ground into powder.

The finished Kanapa powder would serve the role of ‘cocoa powder’ from Earth, and I was certain that the various snacks made from it would throw this barren world into a state of culture shock.

‘There’ll be plenty of people willing to pay a fortune just to gorge themselves on it. The problem is the Terakan Imperial Household…’

If they proclaimed it to the world the way they had with rum last time, it would be a disaster, so I needed another method. Recently, I had been wrestling with one idea: to take on as a vassal a merchant of sub-baron rank—a lower-tier member of the Free Merchants’ Alliance.

Rather than endlessly handing huge profits to others, I thought I might found a trading house under the name “Ingrad,” or at least recruit a merchant who could act as our hands and feet.

Since the existing goods already had their networks of clients firmly in place, it would be hard to free up any slack without cutting off some trading partner somewhere. So I was thinking of setting up a trading house that specialized in handling entirely new products.

I planned to sell things that could be made from “chocolate,” and broadly speaking, I had two businesses in mind.

One was, literally, the chocolate business. The second was the coffee business.

To that end, I had entered into a sort of secret partnership with the Dust of Sands Trading Company. I had no idea how long that would last, though…