No Time to Hesitate

The gatekeeper at the entrance. Or, the refund officer.

Whenever a game of any real difficulty hits the market, there is always one figure who gets mentioned or makes an appearance at least once.

The Judge of Refunds, the Butterfly of Refunds, the Herald of Refunds… search around and you'll find endless variations of the nickname.

It's a term laced with equal parts respect and resentment, aimed at the characters (and occasionally specific events or regions) planted in the early game to hone a player's mind and skill before the real game begins. And then there was…

'No event has ever made me want to refund a game more than this one.'

I can say with certainty that saving countless players and streamers from rock-bottom despair would not be an exaggeration of what LTM's event truly achieved.

While running a manor in LTM, you receive plenty of 'proposals' — from villagers, from retainers, about facilities, about institutional reform… the only thing you need to know is that there are a lot of them. And among them, nothing gets people worked up quite like a merchant's proposal. Money pinches you at every turn throughout LTM, and merchant proposals are, for the most part, profitable ones.

So why is this particular event so uniquely vicious, why does it linger so long in people's memories?

'Because it shows up right when you've scraped together a little spare cash and started wondering what to do with the surplus. It vaguely prods at that "well, surely this is fine" part of your brain, and that's how it hooks you.'

If you're broke, you refuse outright. If you're rich, the blow barely stings. But this event strikes at that awkward, frustrating sweet spot — when you have just enough leftover money to wonder where to spend it. And by that point, the refund window has usually already closed.

The outline goes roughly like this:

At this point, the vast majority pick A. On top of that, helping B costs not only money but real manpower and actual, real-world time — an absolute chore.

If that were all, the thing would've been remembered as a mildly annoying event. But this beast's true nature was only beginning.

A's next business venture is, on paper, an absolute surefire jackpot with staggering returns — so everyone dives in, even willing to eat a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠loss up front.

And then… some random event wipes A's business out completely, and everything you invested goes up in smoke. This was the point where most players rage-quit — or quit the game entirely.

In my playthrough, the ending read: [A was ambushed by bandits on the road, stripped of all his goods and money, and was found hanging upside down from a tree as a corpse.]

And then, as if to rub salt in the wound, this little gem of an explanation popped up: [It was no exaggeration to say that stepping outside your manor in the medieval era meant immediate exposure to the danger of bandits.] Double the fury, guaranteed.

And it didn't stop there — [struck by a natural disaster], [A himself was swindled by an item a con artist had tampered with], [the merchant guild failed to fulfill the order in time and the season was lost]… through countless acts of blatant unfairness, A's downfall was inevitable.

B, meanwhile, was guaranteed to fumble his business early on, requiring more money and time afterward — so most players just ignored him and forgot he existed.

But if, out of pure spite, you decided to see it through and kept investing… B eventually succeeds in producing a certain product — one that could change not just your manor, but the entire era.

That post sent shockwaves through the LTM community. Attached were screenshot proofs that, thanks to B's creation, the player had rocketed up the religious tech tree in no time.

There was a catch, though: helping B succeed ran on a real-time clock, not in-game time — meaning you had to support the man consistently across your entire playthrough.

Which is why no one who has ever touched LTM will breathe a word about this event to a newbie.

'Do whatever feels right to you.''You'll see it when you see it.' They dance around it like that, and when the newbie picks A, everyone gathers to congratulate them. Welcome to the club.

Later, when that hardened newbie is asked about the event by a fresh face, they give the same evasive answer — because they've learned that's simply professional courtesy. I certainly did the same.

Admittedly, long after launch, everyone and their dog knew the trick and just picked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠B, so the whole thing lost its punch — but an event notorious enough to earn its own dedicated wiki page? That's the kind of legend it was.

And now that legend had materialized in reality and come knocking at my door. The outline, the flow — it was that cursed event, down to the letter.

Fortunately, I'd understood enough of Nerga's proposal to know exactly which one I was choosing.

"I'll go with your proposal, Nerga. Sorry for the trouble, Louis."

"I'm sorry — what?"

"…My lord?"

The other eight had already gone home, and only Louis and Nerga remained. At my answer, both their faces froze at once — Louis in shock, Nerga in sheer disbelief.

"N-no, no, no… wh-why… why would it be me, my lord?"

"Might I ask the reason for your decision?"

The chosen Nerga was the one flustered enough to ask me to repeat myself, while the rejected Louis coolly pressed me with a question, his emotions wrung down to the last drop.

'How am I supposed to answer that?'

If I said, Well, I happen to know exactly how your little event plays out, so this is the only sensible choice, I'd be branded a lunatic on the spot.

"Nerga's proposal simply appealed to me a bit more, that's all."

An absolutely catastrophic answer. Of all the spells at my disposal, why on earth was there not a single one for eloquence?

Hearing my preposterous reply, Louis retrieved his proposal with a face drained of all courtesy.

"So you chose that washed-up nobody. You have a poorer eye than I expected. A pity. I came because I heard a boy of ten had become a lord — I assumed we were cut from similar cloth. It seems my judgment, too, still leaves much to be desired."

As he gathered his papers, those low words slid out of Louis's mouth — a completely different animal from his earlier demeanor, a barb laced with thin, contemptuous mockery aimed straight at me.

Laura must have caught it too; her complexion soured. But seeing that I said nothing, she held her tongue as well.

"'Opportunity is like a banner — it flutters above your head always, but unless you are prepared to seize it, it slips away.' That is the maxim of my guild, you see. Though I suppose you will live and die without ever learning what banner flutters over your own head — or in which direction."

"Hey! I understand you're sore about having your proposal rejected, my lord, but don't you think that's enough?"

"How careless of me. This is my first time experiencing such a thing, so I'm afraid my emotions got the better of me. Please forgive this humble merchant's rudeness… oh, of course, that apology was meant for you, my lord."

Laura finally lost her patience and stepped in with a bark, but Louis batted it away without a hint of intimidation. Watching that, any guilt I might have felt about him evaporated entirely.

"Well then, shall I give you a letter of recommendation on your way out?"

"A letter of recommendation?"

"One vouching that you're a merchant worth trusting. It felt wrong to send you off empty-handed."

"Hmph. I suppose it's better than nothing."

The cheeky brat — offered a gift, and he doesn't even refuse. All that prickly posturing from a moment ago, forgotten. The moment I scribbled out a rough recommendation, he snatched it up and scanned its contents.

I couldn't even grant a barony — the lowest rung of landed rank — but a written guarantee bearing the name of a manor's lord is never a light thing.

Why write a recommendation for a sniveling brat like that? Because he isn't just some peddler — he's a guild-affiliated merchant.

Guilds. Medieval organizations formed by men of money or craft, banded together to protect their interests and rights.

If word spread through the merchant guilds that I had turned down a proposal from a guild merchant and sent him packing empty-handed, there was no telling what trouble might follow. That letter was my safety net — my ready-made excuse of 'I hardly sent the man away with nothing,' should things ever turn sour.

"My gratitude for your kindness, my lord. May you remain safe and well until I next come calling… no, forgive me — if there is a next time."

"Do you have somewhere to go?"

"Yes. I intend to try a nearby manor called 'Wood Pigeon's Perch.' I'm told the baron who rules there is a most 'wise and sagacious' gentleman."

Not forgetting to sneer until the very last breath, Louis offered a careless bow and departed. If he hadn't been guild-affiliated, he'd have gotten more than a slap on the wrist for that mouth.

Hooah— unexpectedly, it was Laura who sighed before I did. She studied my face for a moment, then spoke up carefully.

"I'm sorry, my lord. I only skimmed the proposals and never checked what sort of men they were beforehand — and so you had to endure something unpleasant."

"Don't worry about it. It would've been a far worse problem if we'd hired someone like that without knowing."

"That's true, but…"

"Alright, enough! What's done is done — let's not waste another thought on it and get to the real business."

I clapped my hands to settle the mood, and there stood Nerga, the only one left, shuffling awkwardly before me. Delighted and yet unable to believe he was the one still standing there, he wore the expression of a man who had started a smile and forgotten how to finish it.

"U-um… my lord? I can't help but feel… that you may have chosen the wrong man…"

"'A venture concerning the development of something that could become a great force in advancing agriculture.' Am I right?"

As the confidence-drained man turned to shuffle out of the room, I recited the contents of his proposal, word for word.

"You… you read it?"

"Of course. I can read, after all. I'd like to hear more about this 'great force.'"

"B-but…"

"You have your own convictions, don't you? Otherwise you wouldn't have carried that paper around until it was in such a state. Let me say it again — I chose you. So trust me in return, and tell me everything."

At the word convictions, the trembling in Nerga's eyes went still. As my words worked on him, he straightened his hunched shoulders and set his back in a line.

"Then… allow me to begin the detailed explanation."

Transformed into a man of such commanding bearing that I wondered if he was the same person from a minute ago, Nerga slapped both his own cheeks with a sharp crack! and launched in.

"You know better than I that the vast majority of manors run on farming. So you'll also know that everyone schemes to squeeze out even a fraction more yield. I hear the rainy Southern regions make active use of flooded paddies, and that some territories are experimenting with splitting their farmland into three plots and rotating crops between them."

"I know it. Crop rotation. Our own manor divides its land into cultivated and fallow fields."

"Impressively well-informed. My question was simply — why must it be so? So I asked around, here and there, and I learned this: the land itself has strength. As crops grow, they drink the land's vitality dry. That is why the land must be left to rest, so it can recover its strength and yield another harvest the following year."

His words carried real force now, delivered so crisply that I could hardly believe this was the same timid, cringing soul from moments before.

"And then it struck me — what if we could restore the land's strength artificially? Just as an exhausted man can recover not only by resting or sleeping, but by eating a meal or drinking ale, I wondered: if we gave the land something similar, couldn't we raise farming's efficiency even further?"

"Go on."

"So I asked farmers with decades of experience, and… they told me there had been cases where yields rose after spreading rotted masses of pig dung mixed with food scraps onto the fields."

I'd been listening quietly, wondering what he'd show me — but this fellow had brought the real thing.

"However, to spread that much dung across your fields, you'd need to raise that many animals — and only someone who has secured a measure of wealth could manage it. So I changed my approach. A method of rotting down food scraps and other materials to create something like… nourishment for the land? There are rare recorded cases of such practices in certain regions. My goal is to firmly establish that method of production and make it possible to mass-produce."

Most people know that LTM is a game set in the medieval era. That's why questions like these get tossed around constantly:

Exactly which period of the Middle Ages does it cover?

This didn't actually happen at that time, did it?

Why does each region feel like a different century?

To all of these, the developers gave the same answer: 'We did not pin down any single era or region — the game covers the Middle Ages broadly. Please regard any small inaccuracies you discover as acceptable concessions to gameplay.'

Perhaps because of that, one of the game's great ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pleasures — so I've read in reviews — is that if you know even a little history, you can go 'Wait, isn't this that thing?' and recall the countermeasure in advance.

What Nerga was describing was the development of natural fertilizer — compost. In LTM, it only appears once you've progressed well into the mid-game. And here it was, already.

There's a saying that even people who've never farmed a day in their lives know how enormous a transformation fertilizer brought to agricultural history.

Farming had been so brutally unforgiving that the saying went, plant one grain of wheat, harvest three — and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠after fertilizer was developed, yields climbed to eight or even ten grains. In-game, once fertilizer arrived, people said you could finally stop agonizing over the agriculture tab altogether.

"That said, all of this is merely my imagining of what might work — in practice, nothing is certain. Only after many, many attempts would something… perhaps… come of it. Th-that concludes my explanation."

The moment he finished, Nerga hunched his shoulders again as if none of it had ever happened, slid back into groveling mode, and bowed his head with an embarrassed shuffle.

At the same time, I rose from my seat. I'd always intended to invest in him and push him along — but having heard all that, my mind was thoroughly made up.

"My lord? Is there somewhere you need to be?"

"What do you mean, why, you man. You said it yourself, didn't you? Many, many attempts?"

I shed my cumbersome overcoat and headed for the office door in the most comfortable clothes I could manage.

"The sooner we start, the sooner something comes of it, no? I'll be helping too, so come on — hurry up."

"Ah, I see, so that's… wait — h-helping? Me? Why?"

"Because it's my money going into this! Come on, move!"

"My lord! What do you mean—? Please, just a moment! A brief discussion first—!"

"Laura, you don't need to come! Handle the paperwork!"

"That makes NO sense!!"

With me charging out of the room in the lead, Nerga and Laura scrambled hurriedly after me.