I'll Put That to Good Use
Should I call it persuasion, or perhaps a proposal?
It was a process for which it was difficult to find the exact right word, no matter what I tried to label it, but it wasn't difficult to execute.
“So, you’re saying those rats weren’t even trying to attack us in the first place?”
“They couldn’t even tell if a monster was emitting killing intent or not, yet they threw us in as bait?”
“Those bastards! I could chew them up and still not feel satisfied!”
The soldiers’ hatred was substantial.
Why wouldn’t it be? If they had the kind of temperament to understand a human who had tried to kill them twice, they shouldn't have become soldiers in the first place; they should have become priests.
Once the initial wave of rage subsided, the next thing to follow was realistic worry.
“But, are we even going to be able to go back…?”
“……”
The mouths of the soldiers, who had been spewing curses at the knight and the treasurer like a machine gun, all snapped shut at once.
Not a single one of them was injured.
The only one hurt was the youngest, who had been struck by the knight’s sword, not the rats. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—the knight’s swordplay hadn't been sharp enough to sever an arm or damage any tendons.
That in itself was absurd.
But the wound would remain. And a wound caused by a longsword—a weapon carried by knights, not monsters—would serve as proof of what that damn knight had done.
“…I don’t think we can go back, can we?”
When one of the sharper soldiers among them muttered that without thinking, every soldier from Lontes flinched.
A moment of silence. And then, the self-pity and acceptance that followed.
“Damn it! What else would happen if we went back other than dying at the hands of that knight and the treasurer?”
“True. Do you really think those sons of bitches who wore human skin and shoved us in as bait would have told the truth? They probably just spewed some nonsense like, ‘I tried to save them until the end, but it was unavoidable, it’s a tragic affair.’”
“Exactly. If we show up in one piece in that situation, they’ll try to find a way to frame us as criminals and kill us just to keep their lies from being exposed.”
Some might question if they were changing their stance too quickly, but in a world where those with nothing struggle to survive, that was the only way.
It wasn't a choice they could make in the first place. If they wanted to keep their lives, they had no choice but to forget their hometown and carve out a new life here. Otherwise, they’d just be wandering around some other place without even a family register.
“Ah, if you decide to settle on our side, it’s fine to create a new village. We have so many newly incorporated villages that we can easily forge the paperwork for one of them.”
Aiden replied with a faint smile.
He was a bit different from the ruffian-like first impression he’d given off. Looking at him now, he seemed like a perfectly decent person.
“Um, could we perhaps have a word?”
But there was one person. One man who suspected the entire situation: Roland, the adjutant of Lontes.
“From what point did you plan this?”
Once they were far enough away from the still-anxious soldiers that their voices couldn't be heard, Roland didn't bother beating around the bush and went straight to the core.
“Well, obviously from the very beginning.”
Aiden wasn't the type to be flustered by such a question. Roland was the one left speechless by the shrug and the response that implied, *Why are you asking something so obvious?*
“This cannot be! If the Viscount of Lontes finds out, it will lead to war!”
“How would the Viscount of Lontes find out?”
“…Pardon?”
“Do you think the treasurer and the knight who ran away would send an investigation team just to recover the soldiers’ corpses?”
“That is, of course…”
Roland couldn't bring himself to say, *“Yes, they would.”* Even he, having only recently arrived in the Lontes territory, had seen enough to know those guys didn't have the character to do such a thing.
‘They’d be afraid that if any soldiers survived, their own misconduct would be exposed. They aren't the type to send an investigation team; they’re the type to mobilize the rangers at the border to hunt down any returning soldiers.’
Roland wanted to go back to the beginning of the year. If he could only turn back time, he would never have come to this godforsaken territory as an adjutant!
‘I should have just gone to a stable territory with a lower position, just like my seniors said when I graduated!’
His stubbornness to develop a backwater territory, combined with his greed for the position of an adjutant to a regional lord—his life was ruined. He finally understood why his seniors had even bought him drinks to try and stop him, saying, *“Do you have any idea how important your first job is?”*
“That aside, what is your area of expertise?”
“…Pardon?”
But even in a rat hole, the sun shines, and after the clouds, the sky clears.
“Let’s just consider it a transfer.”
Civil servants are supposed to rotate positions anyway.
“These are the harvest results for each village.”
“It’s not quite a bumper crop, but this is much better than average.”
“Yes. Thanks to the diversification of crops and the distribution of farming tools, the yields are better than in normal years.”
“What about the pilot plot for special crops?”
“It’s hard to say they are top-tier quality, but we judge them to be marketable enough. Thanks to the discussions we had with various merchant guilds through the exchange early on, we’ve already secured sales channels for eighty percent of them.”
“And the remaining twenty percent is to be purchased by the Lord’s Castle for now, while we look into it slowly?”
“Yes.”
Autumn in the North arrives a bit earlier than in other regions. Unlike other areas where crops can still be fattened up, the climate here—where frost hits in a month and snow falls in just a month and a half—inevitably forces an early harvest.
Nevertheless, the officials’ expressions were bright this year. The yield itself had only increased slightly compared to usual, but because a system was in place where logistics moved smoothly and transparent trade occurred, the money in the farmers’ pockets had nearly doubled.
With this, they wouldn't have to fear the winter.
Forget a prosperous winter—this was a life where they didn't have to repeat the cycle of calculating the emptying of their storehouses day by day, clutching a handful of grain for tomorrow’s meal only to put it back down!
“Let’s hold the inter-village hunting competition again around the time the harvest ends. It’s the season when the game is fattening up, so every village should at least be able to fill the air with the scent of smoked meat.”
“Hehe. Won’t the Lord’s Castle win again this time?”
“Who knows.”
As Aiden chuckled, Kalisa added,
“I heard the top villages that narrowly missed the prize or didn't take first place in the first competition have been training voluntarily every chance they get. Isn't it possible the winner will change this time?”
“Kalisa. Talent is cruel. There is a level you just can’t reach, no matter how hard you try.”
Jamie was as shameless as ever today.
“If it’s a hunting competition, our village won’t be easy to beat either! After all, everyone in our village was a soldier.”
Roland chimed in quietly, but—
“You said you’d never properly caught a single roe deer in your life, so what do you mean ‘not easy to beat’? Just learn how to set traps and catch a rabbit or something this winter.”
“……”
Jamie didn't even treat him as a competitor. It wasn't that he was intentionally mocking him; it was just that they were in different weight classes from the start, so Roland couldn't say anything more and just sniffled.
There was one change in the office. There were now four desks in total. Naturally, the additional desk was Roland’s.
‘Talent is meant to be used.’
Even if his only practical experience was a year in that neighborhood next door, he was still a genius and an elite who had studied at the capital’s academy. He was certainly a rare talent in this frontier, so there was no reason not to seat him as an adjutant.
The former Lontes soldiers who had moved their family registers along with him had settled in a place a little ways from the Lord’s Castle. However, because the field clearing and the houses they were to live in weren't finished yet, they were living somewhere between camping and sleeping rough. Still, from what he heard, they would be able to live like human beings before winter arrived.
“Now, then. Next item.”
“This is the last item for today’s meeting, though.”
“No, it isn't. There’s still one left.”
“?”
At Aiden’s question, the three adjutants looked around to see if they had missed something. Watching them, Aiden clicked his tongue and, having no choice, spoke first.
“We need to sell weapons to Lontes.”
“Pardon?”
“You know, the ones we picked up.”
“Ah, the fake weapons?”
“Watch your mouth. What do you mean, fake weapons? They are the final keepsakes of the Lontes soldiers. Memorize that, kid.”
“Yes, sir.”
Aiden told a lie without even wetting his lips. Aiden had swallowed up fifty grown men whole. But he had no intention of stopping here.
‘You have to squeeze out everything you can, absolutely.’
He didn't feel any particular guilt. From what he’d heard, *they* were even worse. If they had squeezed the life out of people who had nothing, they should experience that same feeling themselves at least once.
“Now, how much should we call for this?”
Let’s pour some oil on a burning house.
The office of the Lontes Viscount’s castle. The sudden meeting of the vassal group was like walking on thin ice.
SLAM!
As he slammed the table, the Viscount of Lontes’s chubby cheeks trembled. The Viscount was furious because of a letter that had arrived from the North this morning.
— We have discovered traces of the Lontes soldiers.
— We have recovered their arms.
— If you want them back, we should settle the bill, shouldn't we?
— Also, we took care of the monster extermination ourselves.
— But this was originally your job, right? So, will you pay 40% of the costs incurred?
— Monster extermination 6:4 agreement attached.
The content of the letter was simple. But it was more than enough to turn the Viscount’s insides upside down.
“They want money if I want the arms back!”
Fifty steel weapons issued to the soldiers. It wasn't something to be laughed at as a mere fifty items. As they were issued to the territorial army defending a territory, even if they were old, the cost of making new ones would be a significant hemorrhage.
He was already getting a headache thinking about raising new soldiers since fifty had been wiped out, and now these Northern barbarians were demanding nearly 80% of the cost of new arms.
“Up to 50% is negotiable…”
The treasurer spoke up cautiously, but—
“You, you…!”
The treasurer shrank back like a turtle, cowed by the Viscount, who was raging and asking if he knew whose fault all of this was.
“More important than that is the calculation of the costs for the monster extermination, my Lord!”
When the new vassal, who had become the adjutant in place of the young official who had become monster food, spoke while pressing his temples, the attention shifted to him in an instant.
“That’s just the Northern bastards’ stubbornness! Why should we pay the costs for *their* monster extermination!”
“Our troops crossed the border armed under this pretext, so we must take responsibility.”
“What?!”
Like most lords, the Viscount of Lontes didn't know Imperial law very well. He had assumed that such things were for his underlings to deal with, and that a lord only needed to rule.
“If we overturn the justification we established ourselves and do not comply, under Imperial law, the Northern acting lord can define our military movement as an invasion.”
“Do I have to care whether those bastards define it or not?”
“Invading another territory without the Emperor’s permission is treason, my Lord!”
The one who had become the new adjutant following Roland wanted to show off how smart he was and how much he knew about the law.
“It seems the former adjutant, Roland, lacked experience and failed to keep such a worst-case scenario in mind. It is a tragic affair.”
In doing so, he subtly disparaged his predecessor, puffing himself up by saying that *he* would never have agreed to such a negotiation. Of course, the Viscount of Lontes didn't say, *“Oh, my, yes. You are truly a great talent!”* Instead, he just got even more heated and shouted.
“Still, my Lord. If you look at the attached agreement, we’ve decided to split the profits from the monster byproducts 6 to 4, so it won't be a big loss.”
“…Are you sure?”
“Isn't it common knowledge that the monsters in the North are fierce? Besides, even though we lost soldiers, we didn't have any additional costs on our side, so it’s actually a situation where we can sit back and gain 40% of the byproduct profits. So, cleanly give what you must give and take what you can take.”
“Hmm-.”
Now that he heard it, that sounded right too. Since there was no way the lost soldiers would come back to life, he would reduce costs by getting the arms back, and while he would pay 40% of the monster extermination costs, splitting the profits from it would be the wisest way.
“Good. Then send a letter. We will take back the arms. However, 80% is excessive. Demand 40% of the cost of new arms, but I will accept up to 60%.”
“Yes, my Lord!”
“Also, we will pay the 40% for the monster extermination. The costs written here aren't that great, so they will be sufficiently offset by the profits from the byproducts. However, just as we didn't argue about the costs they set, we will take all the byproducts, and we will handle the transactions with the merchants ourselves.”
“You are wise.”
The Viscount of Lontes considered himself very rational, reasonable, and wise. Until the North sent the arms along with the monster byproducts.
“…These barbarian bastards…! Ugh!”
“My Lord! My Lord!”
The monster carcasses that came from the North were nothing but five giant rats. And even those were all the pet rats of the cat-folk that had died of old age.
That is why you must read contracts carefully.