The Barbarians Are Always Like That (2)
Clop, clop-.
Thud-.
The Lontes carriage finally arrived before the castle gate. As a soldier quickly placed the steps, the door opened, and the Lontes treasurer and his adjutant stepped out in turn.
The treasurer, determined to show his seniority to the younger (though higher-ranking) adjutant, spread his arms wide toward Aiden, who was waiting to greet them, hoping to project a sense of friendly camaraderie.
"Haha! Now that our newly appointed administrative officer is so young and sharp-looking, I look forward to the development of the North!"
But alas, the world rarely goes as one plans.
In an instant, Aiden’s posture turned sloppy. He stood with his weight on one leg, tilted his head to the side, and furrowed his brow.
"What is this? Are you mocking me right now? What was that about development?"
"Pardon?"
"Ah, I was just talking to myself. Why are you listening?"
"······."
The treasurer thought to himself, *'Is this guy just a lunatic?'*
Jamie, standing quietly behind them and witnessing the scene, also thought, *'Our administrative officer is really good at acting!'*
Aiden’s performance was, of course, a matter they had agreed upon beforehand. For the next few days, Aiden would be a person with an entirely different personality. They called it 'playing an alt-character,' though Jamie didn't quite understand what an 'alt-character' was yet.
"Anyway, you must have had a hard time traveling such a long distance."
"Ah, no, not at all. It is an honor to be greeted personally by the administrative officer-."
"But is this it?"
"···Pardon?"
Aiden, who had naturally cut off the man's sentence and scrutinized the party from the Lontes territory with a crooked gaze, wore an expression that even a child could interpret. It meant, *'I don't like it.'*
"You said you'd help with the monster extermination, so I thought you'd send about ten knights, but it looks like there's only one. At this rate, how are you going to catch a single monster?"
"Ha... haha. The soldiers of Lontes are elite troops. If you support them with the Northern soldiers, we can use strategy to-."
"We don't have any."
"···Pardon?"
The treasurer seemed to have a moment of existential crisis as he kept having to ask for clarification, but since this rude, young, and ill-mannered man kept giving answers that defied common sense, there was nothing he could do.
"I said there are no soldiers to support you."
"What are you talking about? As far as I know, the soldiers of the North are-."
"The prisoners in the dungeon were making too much noise, so I rounded them all up and sent them off for labor elsewhere. After dispatching soldiers to guard them, the ones left are barely enough to defend the Lord's castle. Surely you aren't asking me to hand over my personal guards, are you?"
The treasurer’s face turned ashen. Monster extermination was merely the pretext they had used to bring troops into another territory. However, Lontes had no intention of letting their own soldiers die in vain on someone else's land.
Naturally, the Lontes treasurer, who had intended to push the Northern soldiers to the front lines, felt as if his vision were flickering.
"I’ve already decided on the monster extermination site. They say monsters have been appearing quite often near the Frostbane Mountains. It seems their habitat has changed, but I have no interest in such details."
"······."
"I think a fifty-fifty split on the monster byproducts should suffice."
"That is preposterous!"
The one who spoke up instead of the stunned treasurer was a man around Aiden’s age.
"Who are you?"
"I am Roland, serving as the adjutant to Viscount Lontes. I greet the new leader of the North."
"Ah."
The other party had bowed politely, yet Aiden didn't even offer a nod, dismissing him with a curt "Ah." Jamie briefly wondered, *'Did something possess our administrative officer? Is this really acting?'* Fortunately, that confusion, awkwardness, and embarrassment were interpreted by the Lontes side as an "adjutant suffering under an arbitrary superior," which was a stroke of luck.
"Fifty-fifty is too much. Didn't you say you couldn't even provide soldier support? Eighty-twenty would be appropriate."
"Ah, I get eighty?"
"Naturally, we, Lontes, get eighty!"
"You're stingy."
"···Pardon?"
Roland, who had been trying to keep his composure and continue the conversation, was just as dumbfounded as the treasurer. *No, is that something a deputy lord should say?*
"Then, I'll support twenty soldiers and send this adjutant along, so let's make it fifty-fifty."
Whether they liked it or not, Aiden, fully immersed in his alt-character, continued to make unreasonable demands. Acting wasn't difficult. He had plenty of experience dealing with stubborn city council members; this was a piece of cake. He had a wealth of references.
*'Past me, cheers!'*
Since he was putting all those past hardships to good use now, experience really does become useful given enough time.
"Fifty-fifty is difficult. However, if you provide guides, laborers, food, and horses in addition to the support you mentioned, there is room for negotiation up to sixty-forty-."
"Add 30 gold to the Northern Development Fund, and we'll call it a deal."
"What fund?"
"The Northern Development Fund. It's something I've been operating for a while. It's all used for good causes for the development of the North, so you can pay it with a happy heart."
Roland had now given up on understanding the handsome man in front of him. He couldn't believe someone would ask for a bribe in such a manner.
"Then I'll prepare everything immediately, so you should prepare to depart as well. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours."
He didn't even seem to have any intention of letting them inside the castle. The treasurer, who had traveled for days on unpaved dirt roads in a carriage, felt like punching his past self for volunteering to come to the North as the soft bed he had envisioned vanished before his eyes.
"Um, Administrative Officer. Surely the guests should be allowed to rest from their journey-"
"We have to leave again anyway, so resting half-heartedly will only make it harder. And besides, are you going to pay for the cost of feeding and housing them?"
"Ah, no. I apologize."
Kalisa had quietly suggested that they should be considerate of the Lontes party, but this stubborn administrative officer wouldn't budge.
"Well... if you really must stay and eat, it's possible if you pay a bit more into the Northern Development Fund. Do you need to?"
"Ah, no. We will depart as soon as you have everything ready."
"That's what I thought. Then, I'll be going. I'm busy."
Creeeeeak-.
Thud.
The heavy door closed, and the Lontes party, having been literally turned away at the door, could only kick at the rocks in their frustration.
***
"What on earth happened to the merchants' claims that the North had become prosperous?"
"We shouldn't have trusted the words of people who only care about money in the first place. It suits that administrative officer perfectly, the scoundrel."
"Could it be that they colluded with the merchants to receive favors?"
"What else could it be?"
The Lontes party, forced into monster extermination without proper rest, was camping out again tonight. The sound of the campfire crackling was quite atmospheric, but the treasurer and Roland had no room in their hearts to enjoy such romance.
"Let's just catch a few monsters and go back. We need to show something for our efforts, after all. We can catch some beasts on the way and get some fur, too."
"Then, what about the information on the North...?"
"Is there anything left to see? The administrative officer is in that state."
"Still, the villages near the Lord's castle seemed quite well-maintained. The crops in the fields were growing quite well, too."
"Even so, it’s hard to call it a bumper harvest."
"That may be so, but..."
"The North doesn't even have a proper summer, so even if it were a great harvest by their standards, they couldn't possibly have enough grain. Surely, when winter comes, they will come begging to us again. Then we can just take the logging rights."
"But what if they don't come begging? We really need those logging rights."
"A person who would sell off logging rights in an instant for a mere hundred gold for that cursed 'development fund' of theirs would surely do anything."
"Still, the residents didn't seem to dislike the administrative officer. In fact, didn't their faces brighten whenever his name was mentioned?"
Roland still felt something was bothering him. The treasurer seemed to have already lost interest, thinking it wasn't worth worrying about, but to Roland’s eyes, the North didn't look like the 'land of barbarians' he had heard about countless times in Lontes.
To Roland, who had graduated from the academy in the capital and settled in Lontes for employment, *'The North and the Lontes territory didn't look particularly different...'*
Of course, Lontes would win by a landslide in terms of residential areas for the upper class or commercial districts, but he felt the appearance of the villages where the farmers lived was actually better in the North.
*'I should try to dig up more information starting tomorrow.'*
Roland decided he would gather information independently, ignoring the treasurer.
And a while later, at an hour when everyone was exhausted and asleep:
"Cuckoo!"
"Meow-."
"We're here!"
"You're late, meow!"
"Some of the soldiers were gambling, so they didn't fall asleep until late, which made us a bit late. Hehe."
"Here, check the goods, meow."
A little away from the campsite, Jamie and the Cat-folk finished their rendezvous. The Cat-folk pointed at the delivery carriage and complained, "We delivered to a place without an address, so you have to pay extra, meow!" but Jamie replied,
"You know this is official business."
"Tch."
The Cat-folk's postal service was part of the Administrative Welfare Office's postal bureau. Deliveries for official duties didn't receive extra pay.
"Still, buy yourself a snack on the way back."
"Nyaang! Human, you really know how things work!"
Since they had worked overtime late at night, Jamie slipped them a few silver coins. The Cat-folk courier purred with joy, reflecting the silver coins in the moonlight. They were already perfectly adapted to capitalism.
"Alright, hurry and prepare!"
"Yes, Adjutant!"
The soldiers who followed Jamie grinned and unloaded the goods from the delivery carriage. There were piles of swords, spears, shields, and arrowheads that looked somewhat worn.
"How is it?"
"It's good. This really isn't steel, right?"
"Yeah. They said it would break after a few proper strikes."
"It looks convincing enough on the outside... It's amazing."
"Can we swap them with this?"
"More than enough. The size, shape, weight, everything is similar."
"Hehe. Good, good."
What the Cat-folk had delivered were weapons and armor that Old Man Faber had hurriedly crafted. He heard that a massive number of prisoners had been mobilized to meet the deadline.
"But is it really true that they don't have their own weapons?"
"Yes. Ever since the Viscount Lontes' younger brother rebelled over a decade ago and barely survived, they don't trust the barracks. So, unless it's an emergency, they collect all the weapons and store them in one place. Why do you think only the knights were armed today?"
"Soldiers without their own weapons. It's ridiculous. Isn't it a hassle during training?"
"They leave the defense to us Northerners and just slack off, so there's no way they're training properly. Thanks to that, our soldiers will get high-quality, new-looking steel weapons, so it's a good thing. Hahaha!"
"Hehe. Let's move them quickly."
"Yes, Adjutant!"
Day 1 harvest:
Monster byproduct profit ratio: 6:4.
Swapped steel weapons: 50 sets.
Northern Development Fund: 30 gold.
And Aiden’s external alt-character.