Gleam Of Gold Coins

A little while after resolving the spirit commotion.

After finishing the adjustments we had been making for some time, I ended up lending money to Ran-san once again.

The place I designated for our meeting was my office.

Behind Ran-san stood Val-san, Garda-san, and Teto-san of the former White Silver Wings, probably as her guards for the time being.

“So this is one hundred thousand gold coins…”

“When you line them up like this, it really is quite a sight…”

Right now, the gold I had taken out for this occasion was shining in front of Ran-san and me.

Ten thousand gold coins were packed into one wooden box, and there were ten of those in total.

When there were a total of one hundred thousand coins, how should I put it… I felt like I could understand, just a little, the feelings of people who became possessed by the magic of money.

“Well then, I’m counting on you. Make sure to count all one hundred thousand properly.”

“U-understood!”

“Why do even we have to…”

“I ain’t exactly good at countin’ numbers, though…”

While Ran-san and I watched, the three members of White Silver Wings took out the gold coins one by one and checked them.

Val-san, who had apparently been found out for leaking stories about Ran-san’s adventurer days to me, seemed to have no choice but to silently obey Ran-san’s words.

This was a transaction involving a considerable amount of money.

There was such a thing as courtesy even between close friends, and when it came to a contract involving one hundred thousand gold coins, there was no way we could just handle it vaguely.

Naturally, we also needed to inspect whether the contents were properly there.

Of course, I had also checked on my side, but just in case there were any oversights, Ran-san’s side needed to confirm it too.

Though I had really not expected her to make the members of White Silver Wings do it instead of shop clerks…

“Come to think of it, Woody-sama, actually, as of the other day, I had these three in White Silver Wings disband.”

“Huh… Eh!?”

I had been giving half-hearted replies while swallowed up by the gleam of gold, but Ran-san’s words suddenly woke my consciousness.

White Silver Wings disbanded!?

“If we’re going to expand the scale of our business, we were starting to discuss how we would need to hire exclusive guards soon. In that case, rather than having Val and the others remain adventurers and letting the guild take a margin, I thought it would be better to make them members of the trading company as they are. Just as Woody-sama said, we need to circulate the economy within Wenti as much as possible.”

“If they become employees of the trading company instead of adventurers, even if they suffer a serious injury, they won’t immediately lose their livelihood. The two of them looked a little conflicted, but I convinced them.”

Beside Val-san and Garda-san, who were struggling with counting the gold coins, Teto-san puffed out her chest as she counted with a somewhat practiced air.

Apparently, her family had run a shop, though a small one, so calculating money was second nature to her.

“Personally, I think of it as a temporary suspension, not disbanding! I plan to take requests regularly so my skills don’t get rusty!”

Val-san, sweating oily sweat in front of the mountain-like pile of gold coins, continued saying that without looking this way.

“Well, workin’ as an adventurer’s the kind of unstable job where ya never know how long ya can keep doin’ it. Since we’ve got the chance, I figured settlin’ down here ain’t bad either.”

It seemed Garda-san had accepted it too, and he was carefully counting the small gold coins in bundles of ten with his large fingers.

But I see, White Silver Wings was temporarily suspending its activities… In other words, Ran-san was taking this seriously too.

“As long as you prioritize wholesale goods from Wenti to us, I can manage one way or another. I’m not that good at calculating money, but bargaining is my specialty…”

“I dunno about that as a merchant, though.”

Ignoring Garda-san’s retort, Ran-san immediately began explaining the transactions she would conduct in the royal capital.

As expected, fresh goods spoiled quickly, and that made transportation more costly too.

It seemed her first strategy would be to prioritize targeting nobles who often held evening parties and tea parties, then increase recognition among the nobility.

Incidentally, I had intended to sign an exclusive contract with Ran-san’s Wing Trading Company, but she gently refused that.

“When the flow of things is completely dammed up, stagnation occurs. Even if the numbers are small, you should wholesale to shops other than ours as well.”

As a result of our discussion, we decided that the highest-quality goods on the level used by royalty and nobles would go through Wing Trading Company, while ordinary fruits that added color to daily life, though still incomparable to any fruits from before, would be placed into distribution to a certain extent.

Apparently, this was also necessary so Wing Trading Company would not be targeted and crushed by other trading companies. The world of merchants seemed quite harsh too.

“At the same time, we will also need to select cultivation sites for high-class fruits again. Once they become famous, there is no guarantee that insolent people who try to steal them will not appear.”

She said not making the contract exclusive was also meant to deter that sort of criminal behavior.

I thought that was exaggerating… but it was true that we might need to place stricter surveillance around the place where the World Tree Fruits were.

There had not been even a single report yet, but large sums of money drove people mad.

After all, I was witnessing that right before my eyes like this.

…Ah, right!

I had been dazzled by money, literally, and forgotten!

I took out something I had made for today from my pocket.

I had gone to the dwarves and had them quickly make it for me.

“Ran-san, please use this if you would like.”

“This is…?”

On that plate was engraved the crest showing it belonged to House Adastria, of which I was the head, a great tree with a bird resting upon it.

“It is a plate showing that Ran-san is an important person to House Adastria. If something happens, I think it should be effective if the other party is a knight or a kingdom noble.”

“…”

Perhaps because she disliked being seen as someone tied to my house, Ran-san made a delicate expression.

That reaction was within my expectations.

It would be better if a situation where she actually had to use it never happened, and this was like a kind of protective charm.

When I explained it to her like that, Ran-san reluctantly accepted it.

“We’ve finished counting! There are exactly ten thousand coins!”

“Naturally, there were no counterfeit coins either!”

Perhaps because we had talked longer than I had thought, before I knew it, Val-san and the others had finished counting the gold coins.

“For now, I’ll use this… and make Wing Trading Company grow. The more money you have, the more things you can do.”

There were many things one could not touch without financial leeway, such as high-risk but high-return investments and highly speculative goods.

With this much, she would likely be able to take on those challenges even more aggressively than before.

Thanks to the dwarves, the steel industry was going smoothly, and we already knew that another economic wave would come with the Magros Volcano dungeon from here on.

If she used as many as one hundred thousand gold coins, she should be able to put down firm roots across all of Wenti, conduct business rooted in the region, and solidly secure her footing.

“For a while now, I’ve wanted to try seeing just how far I can go as a merchant. Maybe because I’m a former adventurer after all, I seem to like competition.”

Ran-san had Garda-san and the others carry the wooden boxes, then spun around to face me.

“Please leave it to me. I’ll pay back a mere hundred thousand coins in no time. With the interest properly added too.”

After saying only that, she left.

Her gallant back was so cool that I could not help admiring it.

Today too, she was surely heading toward her battlefield…