Nostalgic Busan Harbor - Three Dollars (1)
With the barbarian horde running wild, Egypt grew poorer by the day.
Even the women who'd received the beautiful-girl patch looked like idols, but their behavior was still locked to the original settings.
Barbarians are happiest when they're stealing someone else's stuff.
"Egyptian pussies are camels! Let's strip 'em clean!"
Today, once again, an Egyptian trader got cleaned out by barbarians.
Those jewels had been hauled all the way from distant Rome… but uneducated savages weren't about to respect that kind of effort.
"Hand over everything you've got!"
"Eek! Okay, okay—just stop stripping me!"
The Egyptian trader begged as they shook her down for every last thing. She was a reasonably cultured woman, so she'd misunderstood what she'd just heard—but when a barbarian says "hand over everything you've got," they mean donate it all without holding back.
"Hic! Wh-why are you taking my panties too?!"
"I told you! Hand over everything you've got!"
Hannam, who had bought the barbarian tribe's loyalty as a great merchant, had promised them, "Bring me good stuff and I'll pay you more gold." Naturally, he'd meant luxury goods like jewels and spices—but the barbarian chieftain was convinced she could even sell him women's underwear.
Somehow… he just seemed like that kind of man.
"Ah! Should we just drag this bitch off as a sex slave?"
"What are you even saying…? Nooo!! Absolutely not!!"
"Great idea, Chief! We just spread her pussy open and she's still got her hymen!"
Then they'd get double the gold.
The barbarian chieftain gave a signal, and her subordinates scooped up the Egyptian trader and hauled her off.
"You crazy bitches, just take the goods!"
But Hannam was smarter than they'd expected. He was a ruler who carefully weighed profit and loss, and he made sure no rumor spread that Hannamguk had joined hands with the barbarians.
"S-sorry. I won't interpret Your Lordship's tastes on my own again!"
From that day on, the barbarian chieftain stopped taking Hannam lightly. Judging by the way she was getting chewed out… if she crossed him the wrong way, it might not be Egypt that ended up as sex slaves—it might be her own tribe.
When he pays me to do a job, I'd better do it right!
The chastened barbarian tribe went back to looting Egypt more diligently—and more discreetly. Thanks to the chieftain keeping the secret, everyone cursed the barbarians alone and never blamed Hannamguk, the one pulling the strings from behind.
"What? How could barbarians and Hannamguk—"
"—Anyone can see it's suspicious!"
But Cleopatra was different.
Mere barbarians had fielded cavalry units and were smashing even Egypt's chariot archers… and those uneducated bitches had developed that level of science and technology on their own? Absolutely not.
Of course, barbarians could research classical or medieval tech by themselves. With the game difficulty set to Hell, that was even more likely—but the most reasonable explanation was still—
That bastard Hannam helped the barbarian tribe research Cavalry!
No matter how much Cleopatra said it, though, her ministers wouldn't listen. Why would a civilization on Hannamguk's level share precious scientific knowledge with a barbarian camp? Honestly, the more you looked at them, the more they just seemed like ordinary barbarians who enjoyed showing off their strength.
"Sob… the barbarians drew weird pictures on my body—"
One day, an Egyptian trader who'd been robbed by barbarian cavalry came home completely naked. Embarrassingly enough, a strange drawing had been painted above her womb.
It was a heart-shaped vulva—the symbol of "that" barbarian tribe. They usually painted it on their banners; today they'd painted it on a merchant girl's lower abdomen.
"Pharaoh… there's writing on my back, too."
Across her bare back was a message explaining why they'd drawn the vulva.
If you're going to hand over everything you own anyway, just join our side already!
So we don't have to go to the trouble of stealing your stuff.
Just because they'd learned to ride horses, a mere barbarian tribe was treating a great civilization like a vassal state…. Prideful Egyptian women could not endure an insult like that.
"Pharaoh, we must raise an army at once and wipe out the barbarians!"
A priest of the Temple of Isis raised his voice. Cleopatra's ministers quickly chimed in.
"If we keep getting pushed around by barbarians, the world will laugh at Egypt, Your Majesty!"
"If we don't deal with these bitches immediately, no one will send traders to Cairo!"
Females, by nature, are animals more faithful to emotion than reason. Cleopatra had wanted to watch the situation a little longer, but when priests and ministers raised their voices like this, even a queen had to take a step back. When the economy was this bad, rebellions tended to break out easily.
This is a mistake….
Even thinking that inwardly, Cleopatra had no choice but to raise troops. She couldn't let word spread that the "all-powerful" Pharaoh was afraid of a mere barbarian tribe. If the renown of "Cleopatra of Egypt" vanished, she would have to surrender all the power she'd enjoyed on the diplomatic stage until now.
Thanks again today, Cleopatra!
But the Pharaoh's ominous premonition proved exactly right.
She squeezed out money she didn't have to train combat units, but the barbarian tribe Hannamguk had bought only fought hit-and-run guerrilla battles and never once gave the Egyptian army a straight fight. The cost of maintaining a swollen army just kept draining away—and she still hadn't dealt the barbarian horde any serious blow.
"Still, this time we destroyed a barbarian camp, Your Majesty!"
"…Are you joking with me right now?"
These bitches were a barbarian tribe whose daily life was roaming from place to place on horseback. Even if you smashed a camp, they just relocated their base somewhere else in no time—
—and looted Egypt's pack-camel traders as usual. Then they bolted, leaving the freshly deployed Egyptian army looking like dogs put through pointless drills….
In the end, only Cleopatra's worries deepened.
As word spread that large and small battles were breaking out around Cairo day after day, even the foreign traders who had still been coming abandoned Egypt. Anything you could find in Cairo was in Jordan too. If you were going to trade anyway, it was smarter to send merchants to Jordan, where you didn't have to worry about getting robbed by barbarians.
Several weeks passed like that.
Cairo, where the camels no longer came, had become a precarious city.
"Pay the women's army their wages, Pharaoh! Pay them!"
She'd massively expanded her forces, but the barbarian problem remained unchanged—and with trade shrinking instead, even the soldiers' pay fell into arrears. The protests that broke out in Cairo eventually swelled into something resembling a rebellion.
Fortunately it was small enough to crush quickly, but now even Egypt's citizens had realized that Cleopatra's power was not as grand as they'd imagined.
"Pharaoh! Do you truly mean to abandon the goddess Isis?"
She had barely suppressed a mini-coup when the clergy started raising hell. Cleopatra had even spent her own money paying the soldiers in gold—and as a result, she couldn't scrape together the funds to maintain and repair the Temple of Isis.
"Your Majesty, I regret to report that the Sphinx's nose has fallen off as well."
"Tomb raiders have looted the pyramids! We must increase the guards, Pharaoh!"
"Urgh. Everyone get out so I can think!!"
When night fell, Cleopatra buried her face in her pillow and wept. She'd tried to trick that seemingly dimwitted Hannam and squeeze some profit out of him—
And I'm the only one who ended up looking like a fool….
Handing over the trade hub of Jordan for free and buying Busan—a white elephant if there ever was one—for thousands of gold. She never imagined that stupid decision would come back as a crisis this large. Wanting nothing more than to turn back time, Cleopatra bawled again today.
"Hic! If only I still had the money I blew buying Luxor…."
She could have paid the soldiers and stuck the Sphinx's nose back on. And what about a Pharaoh's prestige that had hit rock bottom? The people weren't going to obey the orders of such a pathetic queen-bitch.
The other civilizations will laugh at Egypt too….
Of course, Egypt—still advanced in religion and culture—wasn't going to collapse overnight. It was possible that Cleopatra, depressed as she'd been lately, was simply being too pessimistic.
Haa…. Stay calm and start over from the beginning.
But just as Egypt's queen had finally steeled her heart, a few days later Cleopatra's ominous premonition became reality.
"Thank you for coming to see me, Lord Hannam."
Cleopatra, whom I was meeting again after a long while, had become a far more deferential pussy than before. The deliberately low-cut outfit showing off her cleavage was a nice touch. It meant she was that desperate for this negotiation.
"Park your ass in that chair, Cleopatra. Let's start the talks."
Even getting sexually harassed in front of her own ministers, she only smiled prettily. Of course she wanted to kill me on the spot, but she didn't have that kind of luxury right now.
"Thanks for taking the meeting. Must've worn you out putting down that coup."
"…It wasn't a coup. It was a protest, my lord."
I deliberately prodded her bruised pride to crush her spirit. Cleopatra trembled all over like a female whose G-spot had just been jabbed. As expected, a haughty bitch looks prettiest when tears well up at the corners of her eyes.
You're the one who started this pissing contest, you vixen.
Once her emotions settled a little, I brought up Busan. I was saying that Hannamguk would make a "donation" for the sake of economically reeling Egypt—and Cleopatra, the one receiving help, suddenly blew up at me.
"Do you really think I'd sell off Luxor for such an absurd price?!"
"Not Luxor. Busan."
I proposed buying back Busan—which I'd purchased for seven thousand gold—for three thousand, less than half price. It might have seemed harsh, but it wasn't unreasonable.
"Factor in the cost of repairing the port and lighthouse Egypt failed to maintain properly, plus Busan's population shrinking compared to before, and three thousand isn't a bad price, is it?"
When I snapped that at her, a flustered Cleopatra made a slip of the tongue.
"B-but if that's all we get in times this hard, Egypt will—"
"—I'm only giving you this much because Egypt looks this bad right now. When someone offers three thousand, you snatch it up fast if you want to salvage anything at all."
Realizing her blunder, Cleopatra's face twisted for a moment. Just like that, the initiative passed completely to my side.
Still, since I'd taken a few hits from this bitch myself, I decided to torment her a little more.
"By the way, I'd like Cleopatra to formally apologize to me first."
"…Have I committed some discourtesy toward Your Lordship?"
"You asking because you don't know, you bitch in heat? You think I don't know you tried to isolate Hannamguk with that pussy-diplomacy of yours?"
Beads of sweat formed along Cleopatra's cleavage. She knew exactly what she'd done wrong and was still playing dumb.
A moment later, I held out a contract I'd prepared in advance.
"You're joking with me, right? You really want me to read this?! In front of the people of Luxor?"
"Think about it. If a city's owner suddenly changes, how confused will the citizens be? Cleopatra needs to step up herself and explain the situation so the chaos dies down."
In truth, the contract only needed a signature—there was no need to recite its contents in a crowded public square. That approach was simply better for grinding Cleopatra's pride into the dirt.
I had to confirm that she had become a bitch who obediently followed her master's orders—and that Egypt had become a vassal state dependent on Hannamguk from here on.
On the back of the papyrus listing the contract terms was the text she would recite in public. I'd even named the declaration myself.
A moment later, with no other options left, Cleopatra reluctantly nodded.