It’s fun.
It’s incredibly hard, but
the fullness and pain that built up day by day had turned into pleasure.
&
“Is it already this late?”
When I came to my senses, three months had already passed.
I truly hadn’t even noticed the time going by.
And now, in my hand, I held a letter.
A message asking me to visit the kingdom regarding Serena’s armor.
“You have to go to the kingdom again?”
Miles asked, glancing at the letter.
“Let’s move right away.”
“Right away? Tomorrow?”
I had just finished training and checked the letter.
After hearing my answer, Miles said he would prepare at once and moved.
I hurriedly washed up as well,
then informed Redek first.
Redek was startled by the news, then immediately stopped what he was doing and got moving.
And so we climbed into the carriage and headed straight for the kingdom.
- Capital of the Elstragad Kingdom
As soon as we arrived in the kingdom, we headed straight for the Patent Office.
From the moment Redek entered the Patent Office, he couldn’t hide his excitement.
“Do you think it really went through, Young Master?”
“It should have.”
I answered calmly.
“Serena’s armor is that efficient, after all.”
It had to.
There was a reason I had gone out of my way to move in time for this period.
A patent that, originally, would only appear after several years.
And around this time, it would soon begin.
This was to prepare for that.
As expected, the Patent Office confirmed that it had been approved.
“Ah... Young Master, thank you.”
And so Redek officially became a blacksmith who held a patent.
Because of this, he had already agreed to become one of our territory’s people, and with his abilities, there was no way we could do anything but welcome him.
In other words, from now on, that revenue would become a great strength for our side.
Since we had come to the kingdom, I had no intention of returning immediately.
Redek had to stay a few more days for matters related to the Patent Office,
and I also had information I needed to confirm here.
So the place I headed to was the Information Guild.
The Information Guild was a cleaner red building than I had expected.
From the outside, it looked fairly proper, but the atmosphere changed completely once I stepped inside.
Rough-looking men were sitting here and there on sofas,
exchanging words with one another in low voices.
A few gazes briefly fixed on us, then were quickly withdrawn.
I passed them and walked inward.
Where a counter would normally be, five small rooms were lined up side by side.
The doors of the empty rooms were open, so I entered one of them and sat down.
A moment later, the door on the opposite side opened, and a woman entered.
“Hello.”
She sat down naturally as she spoke.
“Have you come to buy information, or to sell it?”
“To buy.”
“Yes, please tell me.”
I got straight to the point.
“Has a gold mine been discovered somewhere in the northern region?”
For an instant, the informant’s expression subtly stiffened.
Her surprise lasted only a moment, but that brief wavering was enough.
As expected.
“What would you like to know?”
“I don’t need detailed information. I only need to confirm whether it was discovered or not.”
The informant looked at me for a moment, then calmly opened her mouth.
“At present, even that information alone is classified as Grade Two. You will have to pay one gold.”
One gold.
It was expensive.
But I couldn’t back out here because the money felt too precious.
With the Information Guild, once you lost trust, it was over.
If I pried for information without paying and then left, it could become impossible to use this place in the future.
No, if it ended at that, I’d be lucky.
Even trivial secrets related to our family might start spreading with strange ease.
That was how frightening this place was.
Without a word, I took out one gold and set it down.
The informant checked it, then smiled lightly.
“I believe you already understand the significance from this alone.”
She paused briefly, then spoke again.
“The Aureon Gold Mine has been discovered. This alone is not what costs one gold.”
With a small smile, she continued.
“Before long, there is a high possibility that a territorial war will break out for the first time in one hundred and fifty years.”
That was why it cost one gold.
A territorial war.
Yes.
That was exactly why I had hurried to file the patent for Serena’s armor in time for this period.
Two hundred years since the Elstragad Kingdom was founded.
The current kingdom was too peaceful.
The last territorial war had taken place one hundred and fifty years ago.
Since then, nothing of the kind had ever happened again.
But the emergence of the Aureon Gold Mine was enough to shatter that long peace.
A single gold mine changed the mood of the world.
At first, it looked like a simple conflict of interests.
But once the crack began, it quickly spread to other nobles.
The nobles who had grown in size did not miss that opportunity.
They vented the discontent they had been suppressing, or created new pretexts for greater profit.
The Elstragad Kingdom would take an interest in the Aureon Gold Mine.
And in the end, it would secure a certain share.
The problem was what came next.
The moment the kingdom reached out,
the discontent already piled up among the nobles would catch fire.
And that discontent would spread in unexpected directions.
Anger that could not be aimed directly at the kingdom would begin to spark toward weaker territories nearby, old grudges, and vague borderlines.
Thus, territorial wars would begin again,
and once the fire caught, it would not go out as quickly as expected.
Later, people would call the Aureon Gold Mine this:
the blood-soaked vein of gold.
Of course, the information I intended to hand over to the prince was not about this Aureon Gold Mine.
I was trying to turn the kingdom’s attention elsewhere.
Not to Aureon, but to another gold mine.
Whether that would truly mean anything, even I did not know.
Nothing might change.
In the end, the destined current might continue flowing as it was.
Even so, I couldn’t just sit still.
Of course, if a territorial war broke out, Serena’s armor would sell even more like hotcakes.
Once war began, equipment needed to survive was always in demand.
But that money was not what I wanted.
There was only one reason I wanted to spread Serena’s armor.
So that, when territorial wars broke out, even a few fewer people would die.
In fact, after Serena’s armor became widely supplied, the death rate among commoners dropped by as much as ten percent.
What I hoped for was simple.
If possible, for a territorial war not to happen.
If it had to happen, then for fewer people to die within it.
I am not a hero.
I am not someone who can save the world, nor someone who can stop this massive current alone.
This was simply the best I could do.
In any case.
From now on, I had to keep in mind the possibility that territorial wars would break out again.
The money we earned from now on, too,
would ultimately be used to protect our territory.
As soon as I left the Information Guild, I called Miles.
“Miles.”
“Yes?”
“You still don’t have any intention of properly training the soldiers, do you?”
At my words, Miles raised an eyebrow slightly.
“What do you mean?”
Well, it was understandable that he would find it strange, since I had suddenly said something like this right after entering and leaving the Information Guild.
“I think a territorial war is going to break out.”
“In our territory?”
“No. Overall. In various places.”
I took a short breath.
“So we need to prepare too. We never know when we might get swept up in it.”
“Oh-ho. Hmm...”
His reaction was calmer than I had expected.
That was surprising.
I thought he would dismiss it as nonsense and say it was absurd.
“Well, understood. I’ll raise the intensity a little more.”
“Please.”
Miles nodded lightly.
I did not ask any further.
There was more to prepare before going back.
Our territory had a small population to begin with.
We lacked not only territory residents but also immigrants,
and the troops were even more lacking.
“Miles. If we want to recruit soldiers, what should we do first?”
“Hmm. Fundamentally, money. And a place for them to sleep.”
“That makes sense.”
“But before that, there’s a bigger problem.”
Miles shrugged as he spoke.
“Will people really want to come to our territory?”
He was right.
“Territory residents are fine as long as it’s safe and there are jobs. But immigrants, soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants are different.”
Miles had a rarely seen serious expression.
“Those people don’t look only at whether they can make a living. They look at what they can do there in the future, and whether it’s worth staying.”
I thought for a moment, then slowly nodded.
“So merchants have to come, and guilds have to be able to establish themselves.”
“Exactly.”
“You were smart too, huh?”
“If I were stupid, I couldn’t be a knight.”
Miles answered calmly.
“And I couldn’t seduce women either.”
I ended up chuckling.
After that, we began going around to various guilds.
The Merchant Guild, the Construction Guild.
Among them, we focused on contacting those whose influence had not yet fully taken root.
Even if ours was a frontier territory,
there were people who would move if they sensed potential.
But the reactions were not as good as I had hoped.
Naturally so.
Our name value was weak, and our foundation was weak.
Simply having good land was still not enough to draw people in.
If I revealed that we were cultivating rice, things would change, but I could not reveal that yet.
I wanted to at least learn the average conditions, but even that was not easy.
Should I go to the Information Guild again?
I did have the three thousand gold I had received as a down payment, but it was not money I could spend recklessly.
For this money to truly have value, it had to be when we could harvest the rice.
So for now, I had no choice but to stay in the kingdom a few more days, gather information by wearing out my feet, and then return.
It had taken no small amount of money and time just to come here.
I couldn’t simply return empty-handed.
So I went around the guilds and asked about this and that.
A day passed like that, then two days passed.
“Hooah... Nothing is easy.”
It had only been two days, and fatigue was already washing over me.
Aileen had managed all of this alone.
When that fact suddenly came to mind, I found it newly absurd.
That she could take care of each and every one of those things and still be so composed.
She really is incredible.
Should I ask her next time I see her?
The moment that thought occurred to me, I flinched at myself.
The fact that I was assuming I could talk to Aileen again as if nothing had happened felt strangely odd.
Was that a good thing?
Or a bad thing?
If it was an ill-fated relationship, then distancing myself should be right.
And yet, strangely enough, now,
I felt as if we had grown closer than when we had been husband and wife.
No, no.
If I carelessly asked for help, it might come back several times over.
That woman was absolutely give and take.
And the side paying was always far heavier for the other party.
Asking Aileen for help
was dangerous in many ways.
But even after four days passed, there were no particular results.
The guilds revealed their conditions far less easily than expected.
The Merchant Guild, in particular, was much more sensitive.
“Hahaha. Young Master, you really don’t know much about how the world works.”
The Merchant Guildmaster said with an affable laugh.
“If you are curious about the conditions, it is difficult for you to ask us that. Those are things you must decide for yourself and bring to us. Otherwise, no guild will deal with you seriously.”
The guilds operating in the kingdom had strong pride.
Enough to ignore a nameless noble or two.
Still.
It feels filthy.
No matter how mild my personality might be, a noble was still a noble.
There was no way I would feel good when a mere commoner so openly stepped out of line.
“Oh my. Then might you perhaps be able to discuss things with us?”
It was at that moment.
At the familiar voice, I turned my head and widened my eyes.
“Lady Aileen?”
“Gasp! O-of course!”
The guildmaster’s reaction was even faster than mine.
Aileen was already sitting in the seat beside me.
So naturally that I hadn’t even noticed when she arrived.
“Even if he is a noble from the frontier.”
Aileen smiled gently as she spoke.
“If your guild is confident enough to ignore a noble, then I think you and we could have quite an interesting discussion.”
There was no way he failed to recognize Aileen’s face.
“W-we would be honored! We are the Platinum Merchant Guild, active mainly along the western trade route, and...”
“Ah~ the Platinum Guild.”
Aileen’s voice was still gentle.
But I knew.
That pattern of behavior.
“It seems a mere commoner rolled around in the kingdom for a while and started thinking nobles looked beneath him.”
It was in that instant.
Aileen’s gaze turned cold.
It was hard to believe she had been smiling just a moment before.
The pressure pouring from her was as chilling as facing a knight.
The guildmaster merely moved his lips,
unable to speak properly.
Belmardian.
There was no way a merchant like him did not know the weight that name carried.
“I apologize!”
In the end, the guildmaster dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
“To me?”
Aileen asked slowly.
“Ah, aah...!”
Only then did the guildmaster hurriedly turn his body toward me.
“I-I apologize, Young Master! Please forgive me! I will personally go to your territory! I will establish a branch as well! As for the conditions, I truly won’t argue about them!”
I scratched my head.
I hadn’t expected things to go this far.
“It’s all right.”
I spoke calmly.
“If you simply disappear from my sight right now, I’ll pretend it never happened.”
The guildmaster could not answer immediately and glanced at Aileen.
“What are you doing?”
Aileen smiled coldly.
“Lord Rayon is giving you an opportunity.”
“T-thank you!”
The guildmaster bowed deeply at the waist and hurriedly left.
I watched him recede for a moment,
then turned to look at Aileen sitting beside me.
Aileen was still looking at me with a smile.
“You’re pretty.”
“Pardon?”
“Ah, damn.”
My mind snapped back in an instant.
“Huh? What did I just say?”