117: Better for me to eat it all. (1)
“Am I going too? Why would I?”
“Should I just go sell by myself? We need to figure out how to sell together.”
“No way, I have so much to do! I’m busy, where would I even go?”
“Don’t kid yourself. You’d just collapse and take a break without me.”
Ghislaine knew very well what kind of guy Claude was.
“Ah, no way! I’ll work hard, I promise!”
“Talk is cheap.”
Ghislaine clicked her tongue and continued.
“Well, even if that lie were true, if we want to keep selling forever, you need to come at least once and see for yourself. We’re going to sell all over the kingdom starting from the capital, and the steward needs to know what’s going on.”
“What about the work here right now?”
“The big picture is set, so finding someone to supervise a bit should be doable. Get someone to handle the work for a while.”
“Ugh….”
Claude held his head in despair, having nothing to say.
Even if he found someone, it wouldn’t reduce his tasks. He’d still need to check on the work situation in his absence, which would only increase his chores.
But he couldn’t just refuse to go.
As Ghislaine said, to oversee the cosmetics sale moving forward, he needed to go to the capital to find selling spots and prepare for distribution.
After all, Claude was currently the merchant leader of the Penris Merchant Group.
Of course, it was just a ghost merchant group buying things without actually selling anything.
As he twisted and turned in discomfort, a brilliant idea suddenly struck Claude’s mind.
“Wait a second. Do we really need to sell it ourselves?”
“If we don’t sell it ourselves, then what?”
“Why don’t we just sell it to a reputable, big merchant group? They’ll handle the verification and sell it to the nobles.”
The cosmetics were that effective of a product.
A giant merchant group would likely have no trouble verifying it by finding people.
But Ghislaine looked at Claude with disdain and clicked her tongue.
“Why should I?”
“Come on, it’d be easier if we just handed it over to a big merchant group!”
“We have our own group, why should we let that go to waste?”
“Our group is just a name, we’re not even well-known, and it was only created for convenience when buying stuff.”
“So now we have to start big with cosmetics. If we sell it directly, we get to keep all the profits, why bring in other groups? I’ve never handed my stuff over to anyone else.”
Claude let out a hollow laugh.
“Wow, what greed….”
“And if we give it to another merchant, it’ll take too long. We need to establish channels and secure funds as quickly as possible. We need to grow the group, so stop rambling and just come along.”
“You need to hurry. We have to grow the merchant group too, so stop complaining and just follow me.”
“Why are you so urgent when you have plenty of money? We still have a lot of runestones left,” Claude grumbled.
Ghislaine replied in a calm tone, “It’s not enough. Time and money are always lacking.”
‘We need to finish preparations before the Duke faction decides to make a move.’
The Penris Territory won’t be attacked immediately.
Desmond will focus more on seizing Raybold than on us to recover from his loss in the last war.
I need to use that gap to strengthen our territory as quickly as possible.
Thinking about what needs to be done, the current funds seem insufficient.
‘The limit on runestones is starting to show.’
We haven’t run out of runestones yet, but there are still plans that require using them in bulk.
Considering what we need to deliver to the Mage Tower, it’s tight.
‘I don’t have the leisure to explore the Forest of Monsters again.’
We still lack the strength to develop the Forest of Monsters.
Until we grow stronger, we need to utilize other bases instead of the Forest of Monsters.
‘I must also create an allied faction. I need someone to hold them back.’
It wasn’t just to sell cosmetics that I was going to the capital.
To confront the immense power of Duke Delphine, I need the strength of the opposing faction.
‘I don’t have to fight the Duke faction alone. The royal family must be sharpening their teeth to deal with Duke Delphine as well.’
Now is a good time to take advantage of the escalating conflict between the Crown Prince faction and the Duke faction.
I need to meet them and join hands.
‘I will start the war on my own terms, at my own time, and at my chosen place. If a war is to be declared, it will be by me first. I will never fight on your territory. I will crush your base into pieces.’
Ghislaine clenched his fist.
Growing the territory is vital, but ultimately, it’s just a means to fight the Duke faction.
Yet, others who didn’t know his true feelings couldn’t understand Ghislaine’s urgency.
Claude was no different.
He had solved the food problem, had runestones, and even developed a specialty product.
If things stayed as they were, the Penris Territory would keep developing.
But Ghislaine seemed always pressed, like someone being chased by something.
‘What’s going on? Did he make some enemies? Ugh, this is driving me crazy.’
Ghislaine wasn’t entirely wrong.
After all, after developing a hit product, passing it off to another merchant group would only benefit them.
But Claude would rather die than personally sell cosmetics.
He was already tired; taking on the workload of the merchant group could very well be the end of him.
Once the cosmetics start selling, he’ll be way busier than now.
“Ah! Seriously! After coming back from the capital, I have to check how things turned out! When will I do it all by myself? And now you want me to handle the merchant group too? No way! I can’t do it! Just kill me!”
Claude began to throw himself on the floor dramatically.
“Just hire more people. You can delegate some tasks to other stewards,” Ghislaine suggested.
At Ghislaine’s words, Claude pounded his chest in frustration, his face a picture of despair.
“Right now, those people can barely handle their own responsibilities. They don’t know anything outside their assigned tasks, so they can’t help each other. You need to know what to do to be able to work!”
“Hmm…”
Ghislaine thought about it and realized they had too few people to handle the workload.
There were just too few people who could handle that task.
Ghislaine took on the important work himself and recruited Claude for the chief stewardship, but there were still too many things happening at once.
No matter how excellent the two were, there were limits as humans.
Ghislaine was aware of this, but time was tight, and there was so much to do that he had no choice but to keep squeezing Claude for all he was worth.
“I can’t help it. You’ll just have to… hmm? Wait a second.”
Suddenly, Ghislaine thought of someone.
Not the most reliable guy… but he could handle most of the tasks needed to run a territory.
That guy would be suitable as Claude’s assistant.
With a sudden gentle smile, Ghislaine said, “Hey, things are tough, right? Want me to introduce you to someone? I know a kid who can help you out.”
“Is it a girl? Is she pretty?”
“It’s a guy.”
“…I don’t want that.”
“Then keep doing it all by yourself.”
Claude bit down on his lip. Ghislaine always asked as if there were options, but the answer was already set in stone.
He finally sighed and asked, “Who is it? If I’m going to hand over territory work, they need at least a minimum level of knowledge.”
Even one cat paw was a precious thing at this point.
But to manage a territory, they needed to be able to read and do basic math.
“Let’s just meet him and see for ourselves. Let’s move right away.”
“…Now?”
“Time is money, you know.”
“I mean, why so rushed… We should at least give him a heads up. What if he refuses when we ask him to work? What are you going to do if he says no?”
Ghislaine smirked as he replied, “If he refuses, he’s dead.”
*
Ghislaine and Claude headed to the old Count Digald’s castle.
On the way, while they were taking a casual look around the territory, they frowned as they assessed the situation.
“Wow, the state of this place isn’t easy either. It looks just like our territory. No, we’re actually doing much better now.”
The Digald territory had not properly recovered since losing the war.
Perdium, too, was short on both money and people, making it nearly impossible to touch the Digald territory.
At least they were barely managing to hold on thanks to the supplies sent to the territory residents with the runestone Ghislaine provided.
They had expanded their land, but instead of collecting taxes, they were just pouring more money into a headache of a situation.
“I should probably send some food later. Or should I just eat everything I can while I’m here?”
“That’s really blatant, isn’t it?”
“It’s a waste! If I leave it to Perdium, it’ll take way too long.”
Ghislaine decided that once Penris was on a solid path, he would consider bringing in the Digald territory and turned back.
Feeling regret about leaving the land idle, there was simply no way to handle it at present.
Right now, he could hardly afford to do anything but focus all his energy on developing Penris.
The moment they arrived at the Digald castle, Ghislaine went straight down to the underground prison.
“Let’s see, where might that guy be? I told them not to let anyone else out, but that one is supposed to stay locked up.”
The lower-level officials who hadn’t directly participated in the war had already been taken away by Perdium.
But one person remained locked up at Ghislaine’s request.
“Wow, looks like a lot of unfamiliar friends have shown up. It’s a total mess in here.”
The prison was completely packed with no empty cells.
Most of the prisoners were new criminals caught after causing mayhem in the wrecked territory.
Ghislaine clicked his tongue as he checked each prisoner until he finally spotted the one he had been looking for.
While checking the prisoners one by one, I finally found the person I had been looking for.
The man was sitting alone in a relatively clean room, as if he were still being treated specially, lost in thought.
It was Lowell, who had survived by making Ghislaine laugh with nonsense calculations.
“Um, was your name Lowell? Well, you’re still alive.”
Lowell, as skinny as a skeleton, perked up at the sound of Ghislaine’s voice.
“Wh-who are you…?”
“It’s me, remember?”
“Uhhuhuh!”
Lowell hurriedly shuffled back, sticking himself to the wall behind him.
It was dark, so he couldn’t recognize right away, but how could he forget that face?
The one who had come storming through Perdium, killing all the Counts and Retainers who surrendered.
To Lowell, Ghislaine was a terrifying figure, like an envoy of death.
“Uh, um, why, why are you here? You’re not here to kill me, are you?”
Immediately after being locked up, he had felt relief to be alive, but as time passed, his gut feeling was not good.
Everyone else who had been imprisoned with him was released, but he had been left behind.
From then on, he spent every night with a sense of unease.
A fear that he might be left in prison just to face execution later.
And now the demon holding his life was standing right in front of him again.
“Please spare me! I’m truly innocent! I only did what I was told! I just worked hard!”
Ghislaine didn’t answer that but threw the previously asked question back at him.
“So, what is 750 times 1920?”
“1,440,000!”
The answer came out at lightning speed.
Lowell had regretted and chewed on the day’s answer every day in the prison.
He thought, “I should have said this!” and so on.
But Claude, who didn’t know that, was taken aback by the rapid response.
“What? Why is he so fast?”
There was no hesitation at all.
‘If he’s this smart, he’ll adapt quickly with just a little teaching.’
Claude quickly said to Ghislaine.
“Give him to me. I’ll put him to good use.”
“What do you think? Do you like him?”
“Yes… but he kind of looks like a skeleton soldier. The meals here must not be great.”
“He probably hasn’t eaten well in prison. Just feed him well. That’s not what’s important, right? Are you really going to take him?”
It was a strangely suspicious conversation.
He likes him? Wants to take him? Says he’ll feed him well and put him to use?
Lowell tried to step back unintentionally but was blocked by the wall and couldn’t escape.
At that moment, Ghislaine quietly said as he held the bars.
“Hey, let’s work together.”
“W-what kind of work?”
“Before I tell you that… how about signing a 20-year slave contract? Just meaning we’ll work hard together for 20 years.”
“20 years…?”
If it meant survival, whether it was 20 years or 30 years, he was in no position to refuse a life of slavery.
But he hesitated to respond because the flow of conversation just before that felt too eerie.
Ghislaine thought for a moment, clicked his tongue, and sighed.
“Alright, if you don’t want a slave contract, I can’t force you. Then pick something else. Option one, starve to death in prison. Option two, execution. Isn’t it nice of me to give you more choices?”
It wasn’t forced, but it was a proposal with no other alternatives.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.
