“Wait, wait a minute!”
Ayla cut me off, raising both hands in bewilderment.
Instinctive wariness and tension hovered over her face.
“Land, a large workforce, bulk purchases of raw materials? That’s a massive scale—beyond my personal funds. I’d have to pour in the entire annual budget of the Third Merchant Company. Why should I obediently do as you say to that extent?”
“Because if we’re going to seize control of the market, this level of investment is essential.”
“I admit you’ve gotten smarter. I also admit this machine is going to change the world.”
She glared at me with sharp emerald eyes and issued a threat.
“But Elpanso. If not for the investment money I gave you when you were on the verge of starving to death, this wonderful machine of yours would never have seen the light of day. Isn’t that right? If not for me, you’d still be gnawing on rats in the back alleys of Felua. Don’t forget that I’m the money!”
Her voice was edged to the limit.
It was the defense mechanism of a merchant determined not to lose control of the business.
‘So she’s saying she won’t be an easy mark.’
A fantasy was becoming reality.
But it could not be said to belong to Ayla.
A fantasy one could not possess was nothing more than delusion, or a rice cake pleasing only to the eye.
I silently stared at Ayla.
She was right.
It had begun with her money.
But now, the situation was different.
‘Is she worried about betrayal?’
Now that the value of this prototype had been proven, if I went to another merchant company or bank right away and showed them this machine, I could receive a blank check worth dozens of times more than the amount Ayla could provide.
In other words, I was now in a position where it did not have to be Ayla Winchester.
I knew that fact very well too.
But at that moment.
A certain person’s voice brushed through my mind.
—My son. A true merchant must always know how to willingly take a loss.
Theodore Carnoble, the great merchant, who had looked at me in despair and regret in the final moments of his life.
It was a teaching my father had emphasized to me countless times when I was young.
—A man who clutches ten gold coins before his eyes and struggles over them is second-rate. Only the one who hands those ten coins to another and gains trust and people worth a thousand can command the continent.
The reason the Carnoble family had been able to stand at the peak of Felua.
It was not shallow calculation, but overwhelming trust and rewards for one’s own people.
Even if Ayla had grumbled while tossing me food, in this vast world, when no one believed in me, she alone had handed me gold coins.
If I forgot that grace and left in search of a bigger investor, then I would be no better than the trashy Elpanso of the past, unable to take even a single step forward.
“Ayla.”
I opened my mouth in a calm voice.
“You’re right. Without your investment, this machine would have ended as the scribbles of a madman.”
I took a document I had prepared in advance from my breast and handed it to her.
“So I’m going to give my investor the proper treatment she deserves. Before the factory, the workforce, and the business in earnest, the most important thing is ultimately the ‘contract,’ isn’t it?”
In this world, contracts were sacred.
Not merely in words, but truly sacred, for the god of contracts presided over them.
Ayla accepted the document with suspicious eyes.
Her gaze, which had been worrying over what trick I might have pulled—whether I might have demanded an enormous share under the pretext of technology fees—quickly scanned down the letters on the parchment.
And soon, her pupils began to tremble as though struck by an earthquake.
“You… are you in your right mind?”
“Why? You don’t like it?”
“This isn’t a matter of not liking it! You keep ownership of the factory, but all exclusive distribution and sales rights for every fabric produced there are entrusted not to the Golden Fleece Third Merchant Company, but to me?”
“That’s right. Not the company, you. You know what that means, don’t you?”
The merchant company did not belong entirely to her.
Beyond achievements, she could gain strong authority.
For example, if someone other than Ayla came from the Golden Fleece Merchant Company overnight and said they would handle the business from now on—
‘Her achievements would be stolen just like that.’
It meant I would prevent that from happening.
Furthermore.
‘There’s one more, isn’t there?’
When she read it, her voice cracked with bewilderment.
“And on top of that, until the initial investment of five hundred coins and the additional factory construction costs are fully recovered, the net profit distribution will be seven to three? I get seven, and you get three?!”
It was groundbreaking technology that would overturn the continent’s clothing market.
By ordinary common sense, an investor’s investment costs were not deducted from profit.
One recovered lost investment funds using the profits distributed according to the agreed ratio.
Such a premium contract was something signed only when one was in a very disadvantageous situation.
And yet, I was volunteering to step into that deathtrap myself?
Handing over seventy percent of the profits.
And exclusive sales rights on top of that?
By common sense, this made no sense. It was an utterly unfair contract, disadvantageous to me through and through.
“I won’t even take the remaining thirty percent of the profits for the time being. My share will be fully reinvested into developing the next machine and expanding the factory.”
At my calm answer, Ayla looked back and forth between the document and my face, panting for breath.
“Wh-why on earth? If you took this somewhere else and put it up for auction, you could get enough gold coins to live in luxury for the rest of your life. So why are you volunteering to be such a ridiculous sucker for me?!”
Well, if it had been the old me, even those gold coins would not have been enough—I would have blown through them all.
At the same time.
I trusted Ayla.
“Ridiculous? Not at all. From the moment you sign these terms, you’ll have to run all over the continent until your feet blister, selling the cloth made by my machine. The market’s restraints and the back-alley power struggles—you’ll have to block them all with your head and the strength of your merchant company.”
As someone who had watched her since childhood, I believed she would never abandon her responsibilities and obligations.
‘Though for a merchant, responsibility is the sort of thing that collapses in an instant before money.’
That meant if you handed her money, she would display a corresponding degree of responsibility.
When you thought about how common it was to find people who took the money, devoured it, and still had no sense of responsibility—
“I’m going to focus entirely on technology development and production. The most reliable shield and partner to whom I can fully entrust my back. That is the condition I demand of you in exchange for these enormous profits.”
Ayla was a trustworthy merchant.
‘I believe in you.’
That was the core of the contract.
Ayla’s lips twitched. She seemed to have a lot she wanted to say.
I would hear it later.
“So? Are you still going to whine and refuse to increase the investment?”
At my joking provocation, Ayla, who had been standing there blankly, finally let out a dry laugh.
“Ha… you madman. To think you’d bind a person hand and foot like this.”
She clenched the parchment tightly, her emerald eyes flashing.
There was no way a merchant to the bone like her would refuse such a perfect proposal.
“Fine. Let’s do it. Not with the wastrel of Carnoble, but with my business partner.”
She offered her hand first, and I clasped it firmly.
*
Before the heat from the hand I had clasped with Ayla could even subside—
She immediately approached the massive magic safe in one corner of her office.
After undoing a complex pattern of mana, what she brought out was a special parchment that held a faint golden glow.
“A partnership made only in words is something back-alley thugs do. If we’re going to set up a massive game board, we need shackles worthy of it. You know that too, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
A contract that merchants valued more heavily than their lives.
And the god of contracts and scales who would aid it—Veritas.
It was a sacred oath paper imbued with divine authority.
‘It’s extremely expensive, so it isn’t used for trivial contracts. She’s taking this seriously too.’
It seemed she had no intention of ending this with mere lip service like a verbal agreement.
Ayla lightly cut her thumb with a silver dagger, drawing a drop of blood, then wet the tip of a special quill filled with mana.
I followed her actions as well, drawing blood and letting it soak into the nib.
As the blood of the two of us mixed, a sacred blue light began to swirl around the quill.
“Now, Elpanso. From this moment on, before the scales of god, we will clearly set down the terms we discussed in writing.”
As Ayla slid the quill over the oath paper, golden letters began to engrave themselves upon it as though burning into the page.
With my arms crossed, I reviewed the contents one by one.
In this world, the clauses written on Veritas’s oath paper were absolute rules engraved into the soul.
[Article 1. Distribution of Roles and Rights.]
“Elpanso Carnoble shall, in this business, be solely in charge of technology development and overall management of the production process. Ayla Winchester, head merchant of the Golden Fleece Third Merchant Company, shall possess exclusive sales and distribution rights to all fabrics produced, and at the same time shall bear the obligation to perfectly protect the factory and technicians from external physical and political threats.”
It was a thoroughly practical clause stating that each of us would focus only on what we were best at.
If I, having become a genius of mechanical engineering, produced goods inside the factory with overwhelming efficiency?
Ayla, a major figure in the merchant company, would seize the continent’s distribution network and turn those goods into gold coins.
A perfect combination to maximize profits.
[Article 2. Distribution of Profits and Reinvestment.]
“Until the initial investment of five hundred coins and all auxiliary costs required for the construction of the new factory are fully recovered, the net profit generated shall be divided at a ratio of seven to Ayla and three to Elpanso. Thereafter, profits shall be determined through negotiation based on an appropriate sale price. Furthermore, Elpanso Carnoble must reinvest the entirety of his thirty-percent share into machine improvements and factory expansion, continuously expanding the scale of production.”
Ayla watched the letters being engraved on the parchment and once again clicked her tongue in disbelief.
“Even looking at it again, these terms are insane. You won’t have a single gold coin in your hand for quite a while, you know?”
“It doesn’t matter. This body of mine runs fine as long as it’s fed anyway. If we want to increase the speed at which capital replicates itself, reinvesting all early profits is common sense.”
At my answer, Ayla laughed as though dumbfounded, yet the relief within her was obvious.
To a capitalist, there was no being more lovable than an engineer who did not waste money and was obsessed only with development.
However, the true core of the contract lay in the next clause, which bound us to each other.
[Article 3. Prohibitions and the Price of Betrayal.]
“Party A, Ayla, shall not steal the blueprints of the machine developed by Party B, Elpanso, nor shall she hire outside technicians to create illegal duplicates not specified in the oath paper.”
“Party B shall not, without Party A’s consent, distribute even a single bolt of cloth or a single item to another merchant company or third party, nor disclose the technology.”
Blood-red letters seeped across the sacred parchment, and heavy mana pressed down on the room.
“If either side violates these prohibitions…”
Ayla’s emerald eyes flashed toward me.
“The curse of Veritas, the god of contracts, shall activate immediately. Pain like hellfire shall be engraved upon the betrayer’s heart, and all property and status he possesses shall be confiscated and transferred to the victim. Not even his soul shall find rest.”
A brutal and certain guarantee unique to this other world.
It was an immediate and ruinous clause of divine punishment, incomparable to any lawsuit in an Earth courtroom.
Without the slightest hesitation, I nodded.
“Perfect. My technology is protected, and you can protect your monopoly as well.”
“Yes. I can’t steal your technology and profit alone, and you can’t build a factory with my money and then stab me in the back by handing it to the likes of the Muller Merchant Company. It’s the most reliable shield and the sharpest dagger.”
At the bottom of the oath paper, both our names were finally engraved in neat script.
Fwaaaah—!
At that moment, golden particles erupted from the parchment and rose into the air, then seeped into my left chest and the back of Ayla’s hand.
A small scale-shaped mark glowed faintly before vanishing cleanly beneath the skin.
“Whew…”
As if the taut tension had finally loosened, Ayla let out a long breath and collapsed into her chair.
Now she and I had literally boarded the same boat, becoming a community of fate that shared our lives.
“The contract is done. I’ll hand over the investment money right now.”
She opened a desk drawer and pushed a heavy pouch of gold coins in front of me.
The weight of the clinking gold coins.
Neither in Kang Woojin’s memories nor in Elpanso’s life had I ever experienced such a heart-pounding sensation of money.
‘Before, this was money I’d spend in a single night.’
Did I feel wretched about my circumstances?
Not at all!
“Thanks, Ayla. I’ll increase it tenfold in no time—no, a hundredfold.”
“A man with nothing but his balls sure knows how to bluff.”
“Then recover your investment immediately.”
“Shut up.”
The one thing that remained unchanged was the fact that I wanted to spend this money right away.