Gold

The next thing I had to think about was how House Conrad would move.

To decide that, I needed someone to gather information about Agirea, the ducal territory ruled by House Conrad.

And the merchant I trusted most to do that was Ran-san—there was no one else.

Was it really wise to trust her that much?

Shekuri-san was skeptical, but I believed in Ran-san.

I called her right away and decided to explain everything from start to finish—.

Ran-san wasn’t much like a typical merchant. She was straightforward and honest.

If I was dealing with her, it was better to meet her head-on than to hide things.

“…So that’s why I want you to gather all kinds of information about Agirea as a whole.”

I chose to hide nothing from Ran-san and told her everything.

Seeing how serious I was… Ran-san let out a long sigh.

“That’s a huge responsibility… Are you sure you can leave something that important to me?”

“Yes—honestly… you’re about the only person I can rely on.”

Of course, we planned to take every measure we could ourselves, but that alone would never be enough.

I intended to exchange letters with friends from my student days and other trustworthy people, but they didn’t live in Agirea.

Any information I got would inevitably be secondhand.

And with me having come here in a half-exiled state, and Nadja still treated as missing, we couldn’t carelessly go to Agirea ourselves.

Many of the desert folk were wary of our kingdom, and the people living in Guinea were those who had been driven from their homes and had no choice but to come here.

With so few people we could use, we had no choice but to depend on Ran-san and her group.

Still, maybe I was asking too much.

As I looked at Ran-san with a little anxiety, she nodded with a confident air.

“Leave it to me. If I use both my adventurer network and my merchant network, I can gather information in no time.”

“Ah… thank you so much!”

I understood the merchant part, but… an adventurer network?

Oh—she probably meant she’d also lean on her guards, the White Silver Wings.

Either way, it was a relief. We could get information gathered.

I needed to understand where House Conrad stood right now—

how much power they had, and what their relationships with neighboring lords looked like.

With that, I could entrust the information-gathering to Ran-san.

The next thing I had to think about was—

After parting with Ran-san, the three of us—Nadja, Aira, and I—sat down to talk again.

“In the worst case, it’s not only House Conrad. We have to consider the possibility that my House Tristan may also enter the fray. If that happens, it won’t just be your father, the Great Magus—my foolish father, the active Sword Saint, will come out personally. If it comes to that, winning will be difficult.”

“So what we need is to keep the damage to an absolute minimum, no matter what.”

Nadja nodded once.

We only had enough force to defend ourselves.

If we fought, there would definitely be casualties, and we had to resolve this without conflict if at all possible.

And even if it did come to conflict, the best outcome would be to end the fighting quickly.

Of course, if we could avoid fighting entirely, that would be ideal.

But in a chaotic age of warring lords, there were only so many ways to do that.

I raised my index and middle fingers sharply and turned to face Aira and Nadja.

“There are only two ways for us to escape House Conrad’s control. One is to have this territory made a direct domain under the king. And the other way is… for me to leave House Conrad and establish a new noble house.”

Both paths had advantages and disadvantages.

First, the advantage of making it the king’s direct domain was, naturally, that we could use the king’s name.

The kingdom House Conrad belonged to was called the Kingdom of Aries, and its current king was Barry III.

Even if his influence in the kingdom had been waning, a king was still the ruler of the realm.

Among the nobility, there was still a custom—an expectation—that they had to acknowledge that authority to a certain degree.

To be blunt, a noble could ignore that and attack anyway, but doing so would hand surrounding nobles a perfect justification to strike.

So if we could make this a royal domain directly administered by the crown, House Conrad would be unable to act rashly.

The disadvantage, however, was the same as the advantage: the king himself.

If I became acting lord of Wenti, I would become someone the king could use.

There were several possibilities, but I couldn’t predict what would happen.

It was embarrassing to say it, but my aptitude was highly versatile.

Just as we suspected Father and the others would do, it was entirely possible I would be shuffled from territory to territory and put to work as a food-production tool.

Therefore, what I aimed for was the latter option—having His Majesty the King approve the founding of a new noble house for me.

That route was harder. I would need the king’s permission, and even after establishing a house, there was the risk that House Conrad and other noble houses could attack.

But if I was going to keep ruling here and protect the desert folk, I had to do it.

And for that, I intended to play every card I had—aggressively.

“Actually, I plan to have Ran-san and her group do a few things besides gathering information.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it… What exactly do you intend to do?”

“That’s obvious.”

I held out my hand toward Aira, who looked puzzled.

Then, on my palm, I produced a certain fruit from the Harvest Bag.

The moment they saw that golden fruit, I felt Aira and Nadja catch their breath.

“—I’m thinking of selling World Tree Fruit.”