The Value-Added Product (1)
Perhaps because of the heavy snowfall the previous day, the temperature this dawn was unusually mild. The workers at the Lord's Castle stretched their limbs wide, savoring the warmth in the air for the first time in a while.
Though it was still long before sunrise, the people of the North could tell it would be a pleasant day just by the scent in the air.
"My, the weather is nice!"
"Indeed. Haha."
The workers chatted with colleagues who had arrived early, clicking their flints to light their pipes.
Just then—
"Huff, huff, huff!"
"Ah, you startled me!"
A massive shadow sprinted past them, emitting ragged, heavy breaths. They clutched their chests, momentarily fearing it was a bear, but upon closer inspection, it was a familiar face.
"...Isn't that Adjutant Jamie?"
"So it is. Is he doing some kind of physical training?"
"I heard he couldn't even participate in the hunting competition this year because he was too busy with winter preparations. Why the sudden training?"
Before they could even offer a greeting, Jamie was already far off in the distance. The workers tilted their heads in confusion, watching the adjutant, who was fully geared in heavy equipment and sweating like a downpour.
"Tsk, tsk."
A sound of pity came from the floor above. When the workers looked up, they saw Kalisa leaning on the balcony of her second-floor bedroom, smoking a pipe.
"Good morning, Adjutant!"
"Already at work? You're working hard."
As the workers greeted her, Kalisa waved her hand dismissively. Her eyes lingered on the workers for a moment before shifting to Jamie, who was already on his umpteenth lap around the castle grounds in full gear.
"But Lady Kalisa! Why is Jamie doing that at the crack of dawn? Are we having some kind of military training?"
"Ah. That has nothing to do with you, so don't worry about it. He's being punished for running his mouth."
"Ah, I see! I was worried for a second. Hehe."
The workers accepted the explanation immediately, even without knowing the details.
'If it's Jamie, that makes sense.'
'For a man of his size, he really does have a loose tongue.'
To the residents of the Lord's Castle, Jamie’s image was... well. Rather than a brilliant, physically gifted human weapon, he was seen as a man who had it all but was somehow a bit lacking.
Jamie only managed to stop after completing exactly ten laps around the castle. Still, the kitchen staff, feeling sorry for him upon hearing he was being punished, cut him a large slab of meat to grill for breakfast. Being the simple man he was, Jamie was satisfied with the feast and headed to the office with a chuckle.
"Good morning!"
"Did you actually finish all ten laps without slacking off?"
It seemed Aiden had been the first to arrive at the office again. Having already processed a pile of reports, he asked about the completion of the penalty as a morning greeting.
"I’m not the type to just gloss over something like that, am I? Hehe."
"Tsk. If only you didn't talk so much. Anyway, Jamie."
"Yes?"
"How was it, walking around the castle this morning?"
"Pardon? Well... I managed to endure it, but I was thinking that the regular soldiers wouldn't be able to handle it."
'I mean, these muscles didn't just appear out of nowhere. Regular people can't do it. Only I could. Hehe.'
As Jamie laughed and rambled, Aiden furrowed his brow and spoke again.
"That’s not what I meant. I’m asking what the atmosphere in the castle was like at dawn."
"Uh... yes?"
Jamie still failed to grasp his superior's intent.
'The atmosphere of the castle at dawn?'
Was there anything particularly different about it?
'It was a bit warmer today, and there were more people arriving early than I thought. Also...'
No matter how he thought about it, it was just the usual castle.
"I don't think there was anything particularly different, but are you looking for something specific?"
"Didn't you see a lot of people? Really?"
"Ah, I saw quite a few employees working in the castle. I exchanged greetings with many of them, too."
Serving a superior who worked from dawn until late at night, the day at the Lord's Castle started quite early. Of course, even though Aiden had long since traded away his own work-life balance, he didn't force the other staff to live like him, so the workers operated on a three-shift system. Compared to the two-shift system of maids in typical noble households, the environment was quite decent. However, the work-life balance of the three adjutants was not taken into consideration.
Jamie had once rebelled, saying they wanted a life with evenings, but—
"Then return your administrative position."
After that one firm remark from Aiden, he never uttered such words again.
"Are you unhappy with the staff's attendance? They all seem to keep their start and end times well. Even earlier, they were all at their posts before sunrise."
"Did they really stay at their posts?"
"Uh... I didn't check everyone precisely, but there were many people gathered in groups in the front and back yards of the castle—"
"Why were they gathered?"
"Well..."
As the conversation reached this point, Jamie finally realized what Aiden was concerned about.
"Are you perhaps unhappy that smoking is becoming a trend?"
Scenes from the dawn flashed through Jamie's mind. The gardeners he met in the front yard. The maids just passing through the main gate. The workers checking inventory and the guards finishing their shifts. One thing they all had in common.
"Now that you mention it, it seems like one in three of them had a cigarette in their mouth."
"Right?"
Only then did Aiden nod. Recently, every time Aiden took a walk around the castle, he smelled a recurring scent. A pungent smell, like burning grass. But a strange fragrance that didn't quite smell like burning straw. It didn't take long for him to realize it was leaf tobacco, but he couldn't gauge how widespread it was in the castle. After all, the workers would immediately put out their cigarettes and maintain a respectful posture the moment they saw him from afar.
At first, he thought about conducting a survey, but—
'If I’m not careful, it might become a trend.'
Aiden judged that if a large-scale survey resulted in news spreading to the public that smoking was trending in the castle, those who had no interest in tobacco might try it out of curiosity. He didn't know why, but for some reason, the Northerners were always interested in what was trending at the Lord's Castle.
That was why he decided to use Jamie, who was usually on friendly terms with the staff.
'Many workers find Kalisa or Roland intimidating, so they would likely just put out their cigarettes in front of them.'
Besides, since Jamie had already run his mouth, he figured that if he made him patrol the castle under the guise of a penalty, at some point, they wouldn't care whether the adjutant was passing by or not.
"I knew smoking was a trend, but it’s definitely a bit excessive. Ah! Come to think of it, Kalisa smokes too."
"Is that so?"
At Jamie's words, he looked at Kalisa. She, who had been busy reviewing documents, pushed the report aside and pulled a small container from her drawer.
"Would you like some?"
She opened the lid, revealing leaf tobacco. Dried and finely chopped tobacco leaves.
"I have a new pipe."
"Ah, never mind. I quit smoking quite a while ago."
"?"
At Aiden's words, Kalisa wondered, 'When did he smoke, and when did he quit?' but she accepted it. In the South or the center of the Empire, where tobacco is cheap, it’s common for children under ten to puff on pipes in the streets, so she thought perhaps her superior had smoked in his teens and quit upon coming to the North.
"Since when? It didn't seem like you were a smoker."
"I quit after coming to the North. Since there were no places that handled it..."
"Ah—."
Tobacco grows in warm places. Did it die if it caught frost?
In his previous life, he had some related knowledge because there was a farm growing tobacco in the region where he had worked for a while. He wasn't in the support department for that, but in civil service, you couldn't just do your own work. If a superior suddenly said, "Oh, but I heard there's a farm like that in our region?" then even if you didn't know, from that moment on, your work became their work, and their work became yours—that was the life of a civil servant.
In Aiden's case, he had spent nearly half a year working with tobacco farmers because of a single remark from the vice-mayor, who had suddenly become obsessed with combining tobacco farming with rural homestay businesses to create a travel product that young people would like. Ah, of course, he did his original work as well; this was just an addition.
His colleague who worked with him saw his alcohol tolerance and complaints increase daily with the added workload, but looking back, Aiden found it quite fun.
'Tobacco turned out to be quite a profitable crop.'
It wasn't a crop anyone could just grow in South Korea, but since there was a place that bought the entire yield, the farmers' worries were certainly less compared to the average farm.
"Are you perhaps unhappy that people are smoking? If that's the case..."
Kalisa thought Aiden was asking about the smoking trend because he disapproved of it. While the world wasn't highly advanced in medicine, she knew from experience that many heavy smokers suffered from lung disease. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, tobacco was a crop that grew in warm places. In the North, tobacco leaves were quite an expensive commodity. It meant that it wasn't just any trend for the castle staff.
'Since he isn't a person who likes luxury...'
In the North, shops dealing in high-end luxury goods, like the carriage workshop of Aimhand, were slowly emerging. Recently, with the trend of spicy flavors, the number of shops dealing in spices had also increased. Aiden enjoyed both of those things. However, excluding carriages and spicy flavors, Aiden was certainly a man far removed from luxury. He rarely held parties that other lords would throw every three days, and he didn't even think about getting new clothes when the seasons changed. Jewelry? Hobby-related magic tools? There was no way he would have such things. He was a character with a certain stubbornness, fending off the insistent demands of the frustrated butler and head maid by saying he only went between his office and bedroom anyway, and getting by with a single closet.
"Well, I’ll discourage children from smoking, but I have no intention of banning it."
However, words different from her expectations spilled from Aiden's mouth. She thought he had asked him to find out the current situation to ban smoking, but that wasn't it?
"Then why all of a sudden...?"
"I was thinking of creating a brand."
"Pardon?"
"I smelled the tobacco, and well. It’s a bit crude."
Even if they couldn't grow tobacco leaves directly in the North, wasn't it entirely possible to process and sell them?
'The real money is in the secondary industry, not the primary, definitely.'
Have you ever heard of processing trade?