Sugar Rush (1)

From Shati’s perspective, it was better for Azadine’s wishes to be fulfilled than to fall into the schemes of Dehashuram, the water-serpent Naga.

Yet, Azadine himself… Just moments ago, he seemed to be taking all kinds of measures to save Vthuma, but the moment the duties of the Messenger Clan approached, he swiftly changed course.

“What if we go to Vthuma and find it’s already under attack? I don’t know what kind of meaning a petition holds for the Messenger Clan, but I’m guessing it’s important. Still, isn’t it more important to go to Vthuma first?”

Shati suggested abandoning the petition and heading straight to Vthuma, but Azadine shook his head.

He began dismantling the hilt of the Azure Steel longsword ‘Parangi’ to remove the broken peg. The wooden components that absorbed the shock between the tang and the hilt were fractured.

As he repaired the sword, Azadine grumbled.

“Hm, that sounds like excessive heroism. Saying I’m going to save Vthuma makes me sound like some great person. I’m not that amazing.”

“You can’t say that now.”

“If Vthuma is going to fall in the time it takes to handle one petition, then getting there a little earlier wouldn’t have helped anyway. I do my best in every moment within my means, but I also have to distinguish between what I can and can’t do.”

Shati found something odd in Azadine’s words and actions.

“You said you’d go to Vthuma alone to prevent the massacre, but now you’re doubting your own actions?”

“Rather than doubt, I’d say it’s a rational skepticism. So, shall we head to Bel Hoda? You must be tired, so let me row.”

“Will you be alright? I did have a hard time rowing, even though it doesn’t suit me…”

Jiswa had seen Azadine knock down an incredible number of enemies.

Although he used Scott the necromancer’s wall of undead to avoid being surrounded and fought several one-on-one battles, the physical toll must have been extreme. A half-day’s rest wouldn’t be enough to recover.

Even so, Azadine took up the oar.

“It’s fine. Let me row. It feels poetic to row across this starlit night sea.”

The shock from the Kazas Grimoire made Azadine want to expend his energy by rowing.

Though his muscles ached from continuous battles and arduous travel, it was even more painful for him to remain still.

Moving, somehow, was less painful for Azadine.

Bel Hoda was famous for its sugar industry.

Sugarcane was originally a specialty of Vthuma, and among the regions there, the Bel Hoda delta was particularly suitable for growing it.

The Bel Hoda delta had no jungles and was covered with vast reed fields, and when these were turned into sugarcane plantations, the yield was so massive that sugar was exported all over the world.

Vthuma’s wealth—gold, ivory, and sugar—sustained the kingdom despite endemic diseases, the threat of the Naga Empire, and the dangers of monster-infested jungles.

But such a sugar industry required a massive labor force, and so Bel Hoda became known for something else besides sugarcane.

Human trafficking.

Bel Hoda’s human hunters.

Although slavery was legally banned in all Eight Kingdoms, Bel Hoda’s plantation owners hired mercenaries to raid villages and abduct people.

They would attack remote villages or coastal settlements far from Vthuma, abduct the people, and imprison them in hidden labor dorms within their plantations to work them to death. So even if their families were lucky enough to search, there was no way to find the captured.

Many criticized and tried to reform this human trafficking practice in Bel Hoda, but the enormous profits from the sugar business were spread as bribes to the nobles of Vthuma, and large donations were made to major religious organizations such as the King’s Church and the Rescue Knights Order, so the plantation owners never faced any meaningful resistance.

The sugar industry of Bel Hoda brought immense wealth to the Kingdom of Vthuma.

The plantation owners formed a guild to lobby the nobles and tame the clergy with money, while also arming themselves by hiring many mercenaries as private armies.

Among these plantations, a new head of the minor sugar plantation of the Banema family had risen.

That was Randa Banema—the petitioner for the gold coin.

Randa Banema, who had studied abroad under the Rescue Knights Order, rejected the arranged marriage proposed by the Sugar Plantation Guild and began managing her plantation independently, as one might expect from someone with overseas education.

First, she granted freedom to the laborers who had been trafficked and promised to pay wages to free workers for each sack of sugarcane they harvested.

The more they harvested, the more they earned—a revolutionary system.

Other plantation owners mocked Randa Banema’s actions. They claimed that trying to boost laborers’ morale that way was useless.

If you paid the workers more, production costs would naturally rise.

In competitive Bel Hoda, even if you increased sugar production by boosting worker morale while eating into your margins, merchants simply wouldn’t buy it.

Merchants only cared about cheaper sugar, not how it was made.

But when rumors spread that Randa Banema’s plantation treated workers well, problems began to arise at other plantations.

Workers either defected to Randa Banema or began staging slowdowns, demanding higher wages like those at Banema’s.

Until then, all plantations were the same—whip them, starve them, threaten them, and they obeyed. But now that an alternative like the Banema family existed, worker resistance became a serious issue.

As production at other plantations began to suffer, the Banema family’s deviation was no longer a matter that could be ignored.

“Hahahaha!”

Sugar plantation owners had gathered at the Bel Hoda Sugar Guild’s clubhouse.

They indulged in fine cigars, drugs, alcohol, and pleasures brought by the wealth of the sugar industry.

This clubhouse was a stage for such plantation owners to compete in decadence, sharing ideas on how to enjoy life even more lavishly.

But now a common enemy had emerged for them.

Randa Banema, a plantation owner educated abroad who rejected their indulgences and defied the traditions of the Sugar Guild by running her farm her own way, had come under serious threat.

“Did you see her face? Hehehe. She’s running around looking for a tinker to fix her kettle, hahaha.”

“Unless someone’s got nine lives, who’d dare try to fix a kettle in that plantation?”

“Still, I heard Randa Banema asked the Rescue Knights Order to send her a tinker.”

“She doesn’t even know they’re feeding us her information, huh?”

“Ha! Do they know how much we donate to the Rescue Knights Order every year? Just because she studied there, she thinks the Rescue Knights are on her side. Foolish girl.”

The plantation owners of the Sugar Guild burst into crude laughter, relishing the downfall of their rival.

But at that moment, the clubhouse door opened and a young man walked in.

“S-Sirs, we have a problem. Randa Banema has—”

“What problem now?”

“Hey, you know coming here exposes you as a spy, right?”

“That’s not the issue. Randa Banema… she summoned the Messenger Clan.”

“What?!”

“The Messenger Clan? You mean that?”

“Yes. The one summoned with the Emperor’s gold coin. The soul-less blasphemer! The slayer of the Heavenly King!”

“Hm…”

The plantation owners groaned.

“Back in the day, that would’ve been a great opportunity.”

“We’d have contacted the King’s Church and branded her a heretic.”

“Hey now, let’s not kill her. She’s about the same age as my daughter.”

“And wasn’t she born the same year as Lord Salco’s youngest wife?”

At that, the head of the guild clicked his tongue.

“But times have changed. You’ve heard the rumors that Korasar fell to the Messenger Clan, haven’t you? Korasar is just a stone’s throw away. If we make enemies of the Messenger Clan here, and if the King is ever replaced…”

“Indeed.”

The plantation owners were well aware that the Messenger Clan had taken over the Kingdom of Korasar.

There was no point in needlessly earning the enmity of such a group. Bel Hoda’s sugar industry existed only by clinging to the powerful and funneling them vast sums of money.

“For now, let’s just talk to this Messenger when he arrives. Surely, even if they’ve all undergone harsh training, they’re not so stupid that they can’t weigh the severity of things.”

There was a Vthuman proverb: “With enough money, even a Naga will serve you.”

And the sugar plantation owners, who had more money than they knew what to do with, never doubted that money could get them anything.

As they rowed the boat into the Bel Hoda delta, vast sugar plantations stretched out endlessly before them.

“Wow. Is all of this sugarcane?”

Azadine, rowing the boat, spotted a stalk of sugarcane drifting in the water and scooped it up with his oar.

He cut off a piece and brought it to his nose—the stalk gave off a mildly sweet scent.

“Let’s see.”

Azadine cautiously bit into the inside of the sugarcane, and sweet sap filled his mouth.

“Wow. That’s sweet. Try this.”

Azadine cut the sugarcane into pieces and handed them out to the group, who each took one and tasted it.

“Oh.”

Those who tasted the sugarcane were amazed by its sweetness.

Even though the stalks that floated downriver were unlikely to be high-quality, they were incredibly sweet.

“But the fiber’s tough. I’ll suck out the sweetness and spit the rest.”

As Azadine said that, Scott showed him his piece of sugarcane.

“Boss. Look at mine.”

The inside of Scott’s stalk was riddled with bug-eaten holes, and a strange insect was coiled inside.

“Sorry. I guess the stuff floating in the water really isn’t the best.”

“…”

“Scott, did you want to try some sugarcane too? Here, take mine.”

Azadine handed his own to Scott and then spoke to the voice of the Emperor.

“There’s a petitioner somewhere nearby, right?”

[Yes, Azadine.]

“Hmm. Ah…”

Azadine spotted a dock where sugar transport ships were moored.

Hanging from the crane at the dock was the body of a man, draped in a tablecloth scrawled with bloody letters: “One who tried to flee, filled with hot air.”

“This must be the place.”

Clicking his tongue at the sight of the body, Azadine steered the boat to the dock.

There, a tall woman with black hair stood with a scowl on her face.

“She’s probably the petitioner.”

[Correct. That woman is the petitioner, Randa Banema.]

“Randa Banema?”

[The head of the Banema family. For the full story, speak to her directly.]