Lord of Andvari (3)
For imperial official Demar Flamingo, today was the opportunity of a lifetime. No matter what, I must catch the new lord’s eye!
He had entered imperial service with soaring ambitions decades ago. Though once hailed as a genius and prodigy in his youth, the empire had far too many talented people. No matter how desperately he clawed his way forward, he was outmatched in both skill and connections, until the only position he could secure was a quiet sinecure in the remote borderlands. He had struggled frantically to return to the capital, but nothing worked. Just as he began to think he would rot away in this backwater forever, a lifeline dropped from the heavens.
A former commoner? A boy who had not even reached twenty? None of that mattered. The youth was a close aide to the imperial family itself.
In his decades of bureaucratic life, the skill Demar had polished most quickly was reading the room and delivering flawless flattery. Compared to the slippery old snakes at the top, handling one hot-blooded young man should have been child’s play. As long as the new lord was not a genuine madman, he was confident he could manage.
That was what he had believed only a few hours earlier.
“Y-You wish to dig up the land? Right now?”
“I’m only marking the spots for now, as a preliminary check. That way the crews who arrive later can begin work immediately.”
But this was far beyond ordinary. Demar could accept that the new lord had demanded a tour of the fief the moment he arrived, skipping any proper greeting. What he could not accept was the casual way the boy spoke of locating hidden mines as though suggesting a leisurely stroll down the street.
Wait. Stay calm. There was no need to view everything so negatively. Hadn’t Demar himself spent his early days here turning over every inch of the territory? He had found nothing of value, true, but the new lord’s interest in developing the fief could not be a bad thing.
Demar had no idea what the boy expected to find or what criteria he was using, yet the young lord’s confident expression suggested he knew something the rest of them did not.
“M-Magnificent, my lord. Seeing you work with such passion is truly inspiring. If it is not too forward, might I ask what exactly you are searching for? Information on a silver vein, perhaps? Or a gold mine…?”
Demar rubbed his palms together obsequiously. The new lord answered without hesitation.
“Well… we’ll find out once we dig, won’t we?”
“……”
No matter how Demar looked at it, the boy appeared to be insane. While the official found himself sinking into the blasphemous thought of doubting Her Highness the Princess’s taste in men, the new lord continued to roam the fief, turning everything upside down as if it were perfectly normal.
“Ah, right here. Mark a large X on the ground. A flag or pole would be even better. And what is that place over there?”
One of the attendants, pointed at while Demar stood dazed, answered in a fluster.
“P-Please speak comfortably, my lord.”
“It’s just a habit. Don’t worry about it. So, what is that place?”
“It is simply where the village children play.”
“My, the children have excellent taste. They would adapt perfectly even if told to bathe in gold coins.”
“Pardon?”
“It is unfortunate for the children, but block the area off for now so no one else can approach. And be sure to collect any bone fragments scattered across the ground.”
The order made no sense, but when the lord commanded, one obeyed. Several soldiers responsible for fief security suddenly found themselves reassigned as guardians of the children’s playground. They also broke into a cold sweat trying to protect the young lord as he casually attempted to plunge straight into the forest.
“Please wait, my lord. The area ahead is dangerous. Magical beasts frequently appear there.”
“You’re saying this entire vast forest belongs to the beasts? There seem to be traces of people moving through it.”
“Residents do enter to gather wood or fruit, but even they avoid going too deep.”
“Then the area around here should be fine. I’ll take a quick look. Let’s go.”
The soldiers, who had already surrendered their holiday to stand fully armed for the inspection, now found themselves saddled with unexpected extra duty. Grumbling that an even worse superior than Demar had arrived, they began to move with clear reluctance—
“Everyone’s working so hard. It’s truly reassuring to see you all moving with such perfect coordination!”
“I am Fiore Midas, the lord’s younger sister. Please take good care of me from now on.”
“Oh dear, you have a scratch. Could you give me your hand for a moment? There. All better now.”
Men throughout history had always been weak to beautiful women, and when the word “military” was added before “men,” that weakness multiplied several times over. The soldiers suddenly moved with such crisp, disciplined precision that their usual training commander felt a sting of betrayal. Of course, the soldiers had no reason to feel guilty. Their commander was the one hovering closest to Fiore, setting the most enthusiastic example of all.
“Hm, this should do for today. The territory is too large to cover everything in a single day. All right, let’s head back.”
The group turned back with a collective sigh of relief at the order to return, only to freeze in shock at the sight that greeted them.
“Come on, move quickly! Dig straight down!”
“There’s a rock layer blocking us here!”
“Bring an Attribute Stone! We’ll blast through with an explosion!”
“What the hell is this? Why is there a mountain of magical beast bones piled up…?!”
“The kids were using these as toys?”
An enormous crowd had gathered. Claiming there were more people than the entire population of the fief might have been an exaggeration, yet the sheer number of workers swarming Andvari Fief made the statement feel plausible.
“Welcome back, my lord. You’ve worked hard.”
The oily-faced man directing the laborers bowed deeply. The lord accepted the greeting as his due and asked, “How is the progress?”
“We will need more time to determine the exact reserves, but we have already located one gold vein and one silver vein.”
“It’s impressive they stayed hidden all this time.”
“The deposits were located unusually deep. Even the specialists only found traces after digging for several hours. However, the site is only a few dozen meters from the residential area. We may need to relocate the villagers before full-scale development can begin.”
“Then leave that one alone for now. We found far more inside the forest. If we search the areas I couldn’t reach today, there’s no telling what else might appear.”
“……Is this land some kind of ancient resource warehouse?”
“Seems that way. For me, it’s nothing but a windfall.”
Demar Flamingo, utterly exhausted from chasing after the lord all day, suddenly doubted his own ears. Gold mines? Silver mines? Leave them untouched because there were even more? He had spent years turning the fief inside out and found nothing.
“This is the local administrator, Mr. Demar Flamingo. And this is Dorf Brams of the Midas Merchant Group. Please introduce yourselves.”
“I am Dorf Brams. I look forward to working with you.”
“Ah… yes, of course. I am Demar Flamingo. A pleasure.”
As they shook hands, both men instinctively recognized the scent of their own kind. It was a silent contest between middle-aged professionals that no one else would ever care about.
Developing a region is never easy. Even in management simulation games where you simply click buttons in front of a computer, doing it properly requires countless trials, errors, and careful thought. In reality there is no omniscient viewpoint that lets you monitor every event in your domain in real time, no save-and-reload function when things go wrong, and no iron authority to demolish any building that gets in your way regardless of the residents’ complaints. The difficulty is on an entirely different level.
Yet as I have said many times before, while money cannot solve every problem in the world, it can solve most of them.
“W-Wait! Who are you people!”
“Mr. Dalton, owner of the general store. We heard you have many concerns regarding our Midas Merchant Group’s entry into the fief. We have come with a proposal for you.”
“What? If you think you can threaten me—”
“This is the payment for purchasing your shop. This is the employment contract for our branch office. To put it simply, we will supply goods and personnel, and we would like you, Mr. Dalton, to handle local management. Your salary would be this amount.”
“—I am not so narrow-minded that I would reject outsiders without reason. Mutual cooperation is a wonderful thing!”
A perfectly ordinary negotiation taking place inside Andvari Fief. Naturally, it was not some scam. There was little to be gained by swindling people here. Anyone who had watched Bern Midas fall from grace right before their eyes and still chose shortsighted exploitation would simply be incapable of learning. Especially when the merchant group was already going to great lengths to improve its image.
When residential areas needed to be relocated, we built the villagers brand-new, gleaming houses instead of driving them out. When soldiers had to be worked hard, we provided generous additional allowances. In the mere two days since my arrival, more than a thousand specialists and laborers had poured into Andvari Fief. Theo Midas, who had initially worried I was pushing too hard, changed his tune completely after hearing about the various resources I had discovered here. He was now personally directing every possible form of additional support.
And such a reaction was only natural. This land was, quite frankly, insane.
The reserves of the gold and silver mines were already enough to rank among the empire’s top five even before their full extent had been determined. The bones and byproducts of magical beasts—premium materials for weapons and magic tools—lay scattered everywhere, casually used by children as toys.
And even that was not the end of it. The deepest parts of the forest, where magical beasts appeared most frequently, had not yet been touched.
It was such an overwhelming jackpot that, were it not a reward personally bestowed by the Emperor, the imperial family might have tried to seize it through some new decree or legal maneuver. The fact that it carried the Emperor’s own name was the only thing keeping them at bay.
Of course, the way of the world is that hoarding too much for oneself always creates problems. Whether through simple indigestion or a knife in the back, trouble inevitably follows.
“I greet you, Baron Midas. I am Matthew Rowan, diplomat of the Mars Duchy.”
“I am Is Menio, representative of the Mars Workshop. Thank you truly for your efforts on behalf of the duchy during the previous incident.”
“Come, come, you have traveled a long way. Let us sit and talk at leisure.”
So what should be done? Share the bounty in a way that causes no indigestion. And if I can gain some benefits while sharing, so much the better.