A few days ago, at the massive red-brick factory on the outskirts of Pellua.
Amidst the deafening clamor of machinery, Aila flushed red as she watched the dazzling mountains of cotton textiles pouring out without cease.
Within her emerald eyes, a fierce merchant's greed and ecstasy swirled.
"Elpanso! This is it! Perfect!"
Aila cried out, rubbing her cheek against the soft, newly woven cloth.
"This overwhelming volume! We're opening a massive retail store in Pellua's central market tomorrow under our guild's name. Exactly half the price of existing handwoven cotton! No, if we release goods at just sixty percent of the price, all of Pellua's customers will flock to our guild. We can bankrupt every textile guild in Pellua, including Mueller's!"
Her plan was intuitive and violent.
A so-called 'B2C' retail blitz, bypassing middlemen to sell directly to consumers.
It was an ambitious declaration to overwhelm and kill off the competitors in one blow based on overwhelming cost superiority.
But I snorted, inspecting the streaming rolls of fabric.
"Don't be stupid. You want us to become public enemies?"
"What? Public enemies!"
"With shallow merchant tricks, we might pocket a few extra gold coins right now. But Aila, think. If you release goods directly into the Pellua market at that price, what happens to the hundreds of weavers who have been spinning looms to earn their bread, and the small-time merchants who have been buying and selling that cloth?"
At my question, Aila's cheering faltered.
"Hundreds of poor people whose livelihoods are cut off overnight. Where do you think their rage will be directed? In the end, they'll become a mob with torches and pitchforks to burn down our factory. Can you handle the wrath of all Pellua by yourself?"
The essence of the Luddite movement that had occurred in Earth's history.
Revolutionary technology inevitably drives old-era workers to the brink.
Standing there taking that backlash head-on is a foolish act.
"Th-then we can deploy our guild guards to stop them……"
"Guards? Are you trying to found an army? Besides, there's a more serious problem."
I rested my chin on my hand, dredging up the painful memory of how I had ruined the Carnoble merchant guild in the past.
"Let's say we swallow the Pellua market whole as you say. Then what? Can a single small city called Pellua consume our factory's entire output? Eventually we'd have to ship goods to other countries and territories. But Aila, it seems you've forgotten what a shitty place this continent is."
"……!"
"Forests swarming with monsters, bandit groups popping up out of nowhere, fickle foreign lords who levy tolls as they please. You want us to personally drive wagons and hawk retail across this perilous continent? That's insane."
I smiled bitterly.
"Do you know why the old me went bankrupt? Because I sent a merchant fleet directly down the southern sea route, got plundered clean by pirates, and was backstabbed by the guard captain. Controlling distribution and logistics directly means shouldering all of that enormous risk ourselves."
Aila's complexion turned pale.
As a merchant herself, she knew full well how much of a life-or-death gamble logistics on this continent was.
"Th-then what are we supposed to do? You plan to churn out all these goods and lock them in a warehouse?"
"No. There's a very simple solution. We'll thoroughly shift the risk and just print money."
"Shift the risk……?"
I grinned and declared.
"We only deal with wholesalers. We don't sell directly to consumers. Our role ends when we load the goods onto wagons in front of this factory gate."
"Wait, only wholesale? Then who are we selling to?"
"Who else? The foreign peddlers bustling about Pellua and the big-shot distribution merchants. Since our production cost is overwhelmingly low, we hand over goods to them far, far cheaper than the cost they incur sourcing cloth from their existing guilds."
In that moment, Aila's emerald eyes flashed. The cunning mind of a merchant whirred furiously, grasping the true meaning of my words.
"My word…… If we offer them a suitable—no, a staggering—margin……"
"Exactly. They'll hire mercenaries themselves, risk their lives slaying monsters, and break through the dangers across the continent to sell our goods. Why? Because massive gold coins will be falling into their pockets!"
"S-so we just sit still in Pellua spinning our machines, and they become our feet, spreading cotton textiles across the entire continent! You're saying we make them our subcontractors?!"
Aila covered her mouth with both hands.
It was a demonic stroke of genius that reduced risk to near zero while scaling profits to a continental scale, beyond even what the proverb about achieving something without lifting a finger could describe.
A shudder ran through her entire body.
"Yeah. And they'll all find out at the auction house that bastard Mueller opened."
That a revolution has occurred in this other world!
*
And now.
Pellua's Central Plaza was engulfed in suffocating silence.
At my command, the canvas sheets covering the freight wagons were pulled back at once, revealing mountains of dazzlingly white cotton textiles piled atop dozens of wagons that had poured into the square. A perfect weave without a single flaw, impossible to imitate with human hands.
Faced with that overwhelming volume and quality, the merchants who had just been currying favor with Mueller and praising handcrafted textiles stood gaping as if their jaws would fall off.
My voice echoed across the plaza.
"I heard Chief Mueller just demanded a three-year exclusive contract. But what to do? The amount loaded on these wagons is what our factory produced in a single day. It means there's no need to tie yourselves to such a pathetic, paltry volume of handmade goods."
"I-in a single day?! That's insane!"
As the merchants buzzed in shock, I pulled a document from my breast and flashed it.
"Our Carnoble-Golden Fleece Alliance doesn't stoop to petty retail. We don't deal in a few bolts of cloth in back alleys. We fight solely with 'wholesale,' through and through."
"C-conditions! What's the unit price!"
One of the big-shot merchants gulped and shouted urgently.
After exchanging a glance with Aila atop the wagon, I declared with a devilish smile.
"The price is exactly 'one-tenth' of the unit price Chief Mueller just called."
Silence.
Suffocating silence swept through the plaza.
It was unbelievable.
The 35 coins Chief Mueller had announced.
It wasn't a price utterly impossible to understand.
The average wholesale price of cotton textiles was about 30 coins.
If it was Pellua's cotton textile, slightly more valuable and prestigious, it was understandable to charge a bit more.
But.
Merely.
One-tenth?
'Then how much is that?'
For merchants whose heads swam with calculations as easily as eating, it was an unbelievable price that made their minds freeze for an instant.
'3 coins…… No, does he mean 3.5?'
The merchants' minds stopped for a moment.
Giving up on calculating, they asked me.
"Exactly how much are you saying?"
"Exactly 3 coins. I'll take just three silver coins."
And the moment the true value of that price was finally calculated in their heads, an explosive roar burst out.
"3 coins?! Have you lost your mind! Is that even a possible price?!"
"Good heavens, that quality at that price? It's no different from giving it away for free!"
In truth, I could have been called a pushover.
Even if I'd sold it at 10 coins, they would have gleefully competed to pay and take it.
There seemed to be no reason to deliberately sell it off at the absurdly low price of 3 coins.
But I had a clear and desperate reason.
To the merchants riled up with excitement, I firmly drove the nail in.
"Instead, there's one rule. We hand over the goods in front of the factory gate, and that's the end. Whether you cross monster-infested borders or break through bandit hordes carrying this enormous volume, the risk of transport and securing the distribution network is entirely your responsibility."
The core of modern B2B transactions.
It was thorough risk transfer and division of roles.
Why go this far?
'Pellua's cotton textile market is too small.'
It was a suitably sized market for a handful of artisans spinning looms to earn their living, but from my perspective, a woefully inadequate well for a factory spewing out goods using steam engines and power.
If all of Pellua needed one unit, I was already producing ten, no, a hundred every day.
'Textiles take up far more volume than you'd think.'
To store the cloth pouring out ten, a hundred times over what couldn't be consumed within Pellua, I'd have to endlessly rent or build massive warehouses.
Moreover, cloth is highly vulnerable to humidity, mold, fire, and the teeth of little rats.
Merely stockpiling goods becomes a ticking time bomb that devours enormous fixed costs.
Thanks to the machines, labor costs had been revolutionarily reduced, but fixed costs had not disappeared.
The bulk purchase cost of raw cotton, the maintenance fees to keep the belts running, and the various expenses of operating the factory.
If goods merely pile up in warehouses without immediately converting to cash, the books might show mountains of cloth and overflowing assets, but without the money to pay tomorrow's workers' wages or buy cotton, we'd go bankrupt.
The so-called 'black bankruptcy' crisis would occur!
No matter how masterfully you produce goods, if turnover drops, the factory dies.
'That is the terrifying truth of industry.'
The limit of demand.
There is only one way to break through it.
"We won't interfere with what price you sell our goods for in your territories. I promise you clearly: you will make fortunes beyond what you could touch in your lifetime."
Create demand.
Let's say these people happily buy up the cotton textiles at this cheap price.
Where on earth would they sell this enormous volume? Inside Pellua?
Competing with me, who handed them over at a wholesale price of 3 coins?
They would inevitably turn their steps toward other countries and territories still gasping at around 30 coins.
Because they could reap enormous windfall profits selling there for even 20 coins!
Do you know why Great Britain, which achieved the Industrial Revolution in Earth's past, knocked on the doors of Africa, Asia, and other nations with such burning fervor to open markets?
Because if they didn't sell, they would be buried alive by the volume their machines spit out.
The fundamental cause of the imperialism that drove them to occupy Geomun Island and start the Opium Wars lay in this very 'overproduction.'
That is why I declare boldly.
'Take it. Leave. And sell it across the entire continent!'
Because your greed will become the blood vessels that keep this factory running without rest.
"Will you board the wheel of this money-making revolution!"
The moment my cry ended.
SCREECH! RIIIP!
The exclusive contracts of the Mueller merchant guild that the merchants had been holding began to be torn to shreds and scatter in the air.
Between the scraps of paper raining down like snow, the merchants' frenzied roars erupted.
"Who would sign this trash! Chief Aila! I will bring my wagon over right away!"
"Me first! I will buy three times the amount this man called out for, right now, in cash! The gold is right here!"