Clue

“I think it’s good that we’ll be able to draw in all kinds of merchants with this… but Woody, are you planning to leave things as they are without doing anything?”

“Hmm, I think that’s the part I’m struggling with. I do think we need to intervene somehow.”

If it became possible to travel safely between the kingdom and Wenti, merchants would probably come from all over. If we placed Wood Golems as markers, they probably would not get lost either.

Fruit bearing the Wenti name had appeal, and recently, the number of inquiries had increased quite a lot.

Without a doubt, the amount of traffic would increase from here on.

And then another troublesome problem would arise.

Shops were, in a sense, something of a power game.

Stores that could buy large quantities of goods and hold them as stock could lower their purchase prices by that much… things like that.

So if we simply sat back and did nothing here, before we knew it, the commercial sphere inside my territory would probably be taken over by large trading companies like the Gluttony Trading Company and the Greed Trading Company, and we would end up giving them huge amounts of money.

That was exactly why I had not made an exclusive contract with any large shop until now.

No matter how much the large shops said they could take off my hands, I only sold them the same amount as everyone else.

Incidentally, in response to my attitude, they threw out parting words along the lines of, “You know what this means, don’t you…”

We had already prepared an environment where we could live without relying on imported goods, so what exactly was I supposed to “know”?

Because of that, my personal impression of them was not good.

At present, I did not feel very eager to actively borrow the hands of large shops.

And besides, if I did that… then Ran-san and the others, who had worked so hard for the people of the desert until now, as well as the desert merchants who had been running small shops, would be far too unrewarded.

To do something about that, I had made a certain request of Ran-san.

“I’d be happy if Ran-san would finally nod her head too…”

“She’s stubborn in her own way too, after all.”

That request was—by investing the funds I had made from selling fruit, I wanted her to become the manager of a newly created general store that would operate throughout Wenti.

For the record, I was a kingdom noble who had received a title from His Majesty the King.

But in truth, I did not have that strong a sense of belonging to the kingdom. I thought of Wenti, not the kingdom, as my home, and I had chosen to belong to the kingdom because I thought that would result in the least bloodshed.

If I tried to declare an independent nation or something, it would undoubtedly turn into a war against the Conrad ducal army led by Father.

So naturally, I wanted the profits made from Wenti’s fruits and products to be returned to the people of Wenti.

Not to merchants whose names I did not even remember who had mocked me, nor to the plump merchants I had met several times when I went to the royal capital, but to someone rooted in Wenti.

Someone who could bring together the merchants currently here and work hard enough not to lose to the kingdom merchants who would come in the future.

I knew only one person like that.

Ran-san, who had carried out trade for the sake of the desert people, even spending her own money despite running a deficit.

I honestly believed that the person most suited to become a merchant rooted in Wenti was her.

So recently, I had been trying to meet Ran-san, who had returned to Wenti, as much as possible.

She had no problem accepting meals together with me… but once I tried to get to the main topic, Ran-san would stop listening to me entirely after that.

It was true that I thought she would become busy, and compared to now, her freedom would decrease too… but even so, I wanted Ran-san to do it.

So I had been trying to persuade her with enthusiasm.

“Val-san, it’s been a while.”

“Woody-sama, the same to you. I’ve heard many rumors about you.”

The C-rank adventurer party led by Val-san, White Silver Wings, were the guards Ran-san always brought with her.

Naturally, they interacted with Ran-san often and knew various things about her circumstances.

I had tried several straightforward methods, and all of them had ended in complete failure.

So it was not exactly a roundabout tactic… but I decided to invite Val-san, who was her guard, to a meal.

I wondered if there was a clue somewhere…