The Silver Ice Merchant Guild
Finding a place to live turned out to be far easier than expected. Joseph had no idea how Givra had managed to work the broker over, but thanks to him they were able to lease a property well above Joseph's original budget.
It wasn't particularly large — a two-story stone building with a courtyard attached. The broker had shown them bigger houses, of course. But no matter how Joseph turned it over in his mind, he had no need for anything that size. This was about image more than anything; he had little intention of truly settling down in this city. And besides, his entire household amounted to three private soldiers, plus Givra and Toban. A sprawling four-story mansion for fewer than ten people would have been nothing but waste.
So he had chosen this one: decent-looking from the outside, and practical enough.
Anyway. This is where it really begins.
While Givra and the soldiers went out to find some decent furniture, Joseph sat alone in a dust-choked empty room and thought. Quite some time had passed since he'd entered Caladon, but at last the system he'd wanted was fully in place.
The Kerbe Merchant Guild would source the quartz. Toban would work it into finished vessels. Joseph would lay the enchantments. Then the Kerbe Guild would take the finished pieces out and sell them.
Maximum profit for minimum labor — and a safe environment, unentangled with either political power or the dangers of demonic beasts.
So... is this it? Almost done?
Wait for the profits to accumulate, then find a peaceful place outside the city to settle down when the time was right. At a glance, it felt like nothing much — just one last step remaining.
"......"
The Joseph of ordinary days would have shaken his head right about now. Something always came leaping out to block his path the moment he let his guard down. He would have been wary of that.
But this time, somehow, he couldn't quite manage it. After all that struggle, the thought that what he'd wanted might actually come to pass left him with a strange, complicated feeling.
He walked to the window and threw it open. The briny smell peculiar to a port city flooded the room in a single breath. From far off came the noise of the marketplace — and it was not an unwelcome sound.
Peaceful...
The thought arrived unbidden. How long had it been since he'd felt this way, by himself? If he collapsed onto a bed right now, he had the distinct sense he could sleep for a week straight.
He stared blankly at the view for a moment, then shook his head and cycled the mana through his body in a rapid circuit. It wasn't a meaningful action, exactly, but it seemed to clear his head.
It isn't over until it's over.
There was still work to do; it was too soon to get sentimental. Strictly speaking, all he'd done was lay the foundation stones. Building the tower he actually wanted started now.
"Hey! Hold it properly!"
"No — I'm carrying the heavier end, so you lift your arms higher!"
The soldiers' voices drifted in from outside. Joseph poked his head out to find Givra and the men groaning as they hauled a bed.
Why are they moving it themselves?
If they were buying furniture, they could have hired laborers... What on earth had happened out there?
Joseph let out a small, incredulous laugh and headed downstairs.
Joseph had decided to grade the artifacts. Three ranks in total: Low, Mid, and High.
The tetrahedron — originally the prototype — became a Low-grade piece, capable of generating ice up to three times. Carving the vessel into an octahedron, which locked the mana more securely, produced a Mid-grade piece that could generate ice up to five times. And last, the dodecahedron, which took the longest to produce, was High-grade: nearly ten generations of ice.
They decided to release the Low-grade pieces onto the market first. From Mid-grade onward, production time doubled with each rank, so it would take a while. Better to gauge the market's reaction before committing.
Once about four Low-grade artifacts were finished, Braham went straight to the nobles.
Caladon was a free city recognized by the crown, but it still sat firmly within the Favidia Region. Which meant that outside the city walls, Viscount Favidea still held dominion. Braham presented the artifacts through one of the viscount's servants.
"With just this, you see! You can get ice easily even in the height of summer!"
His excitement had given him the awkward cadence of a street peddler, but nobody cared. Click a piece of quartz and ice sprang into existence before your eyes — who gave a damn about his diction? Peddler or master merchant, if he was selling that, they would treat him however he liked.
"I'll take them all — every last one!"
The viscount's elderly butler requested a bulk purchase the instant he saw the artifacts. Not only that — he wanted exclusive first-purchase rights on every artifact produced going forward.
Under ordinary circumstances, even a butler couldn't arbitrarily enter into a trade contract with a particular merchant guild. But the old butler who had served the Favidea family for so long was certain.
If I let this slip away, I'm a dead man!
The Favidia Region sat along the coast, so it ran a little cooler than the inland territories — but the humidity was correspondingly high. For nobles who dressed in thick layers year-round to display their dignity, summer was a season of hell. Their only defenses amounted to a servant waving a fan, or soaking their feet in lukewarm water. Trying to obtain ice in midsummer required so many people and so much time that, fiscally speaking, it was hardly an easy choice.
To nobles like that, an artifact that produced ice was nothing short of revolutionary. No transport required. No extra hands to hire. A single click, and ice appeared. Any man who failed to recognize this had no business being a butler.
In truth, he was old enough that being dismissed wouldn't have been a great personal hardship. But in this world, a noble's butler was a specialized profession — one that a given family passed down through generations. If he were dismissed through his own failure, he might never be able to hand the post down to his blood relatives or the family's line.
"Please inform me first the next time goods come in."
"Haha! Even I can't guarantee that!"
Braham gave the old butler no firm answer, even to that request. It had nothing to do with his arrangement with Joseph, or the artisan's production speed, or any such consideration. He simply... wanted to.
For the first time since becoming a merchant — no, for the first time in his life — he felt he held the upper hand against a noble.
Nobles who, by the accident of their blood, always held their chins to the sky and looked down on everyone beneath them. The servants who basked in that reflected glory and treated people with open contempt. Every last one of them had gone wild at the sight of the artifacts — the capable and the useless alike. Not a single one could let it pass.
A man of power he'd always known, now pleading with him?
That thrill. Once you'd felt it, walking away was not an option.
Mage Joseph... I absolutely cannot let him go.
Even as a foolish grin kept spreading across his face from the pleasure bursting in his skull, he pictured a goose that laid golden eggs, dropped suddenly from the heavens.
The ice mage from Valois Castle. Braham had invested gold coins of his own, and still there was precious little information to be had about the man. One day he'd appeared from the western reaches of Valois Territory, stayed at the count's castle, suppressed the territory's bandits and demonic beasts, and come here. That was the entire story. Of his life before that, nothing could be learned no matter what anyone tried. It was as if he'd dropped out of the sky.
He's no ordinary person... no, no ordinary mage. That much is certain.
Braham had dealt with mages any number of times for the sake of trade. He could tell immediately that Joseph was different from them. Character, magical ability, and the diligence with which he kept his word — all of it.
Could he actually be some kind of messenger sent down by the gods?
In any case, Braham had no further intention of digging into Joseph's past. Confirming that the man was no ordinary figure was enough. Poke around carelessly and he might lose even what he had now.
The only thing occupying his mind was how to obtain more artifacts. Nothing else.
The artifacts sold out in an instant, like fire racing through dry straw. But this was Caladon, a city of commerce. Whenever someone started a new venture, there was always someone standing in the way.
"Ice artifacts?"
"That's correct."
Dofnik, head of the Silver Ice Merchant Guild, was the prime example. He had just learned of the ice artifacts' existence through a servant's report in his office.
Most of Caladon's ice was distributed by the Silver Ice Merchant Guild. To buy ice in this city was, for all practical purposes, to do business with them. Naturally, they were bound to notice the ice artifacts' existence.
"Some newcomers who drifted in this time?"
Every summer, types like this showed up looking to start a new trade. They knew they couldn't do anything without the backing of existing power brokers. But Caladon had no nobles, so they naturally had to borrow strength from outside. It was common enough — showing up with some rare item sourced from who-knows-where and trying to worm their way in.
"These newcomers are trying to get in with the nobles, aren't they? Artifacts won't come in any real quantity anyway. The nobles will play with them for a bit and that'll be that."
Dofnik waved a dismissive arm. But his secretary shook his head slightly at those words.
"I hear the Kerbe Merchant Guild intends to sell the artifacts on an ongoing basis."
"The Kerbe Guild?"
Dofnik rolled his eyes this way and that, searching his memory.
"Those clowns peddling their shoddy artifacts? Run by the one with the fat cheeks?"
"That's correct."
At that, Dofnik roughly grasped the situation. The fat one from the Kerbe Guild had gone and found himself another mage from somewhere.
"What will you do, sir?"
"What do you mean, what will I do? Same as always."
Someone selling artifacts had started encroaching on his territory. A man who'd planted his feet in someone else's business uninvited — by a merchant's code, you crushed him so he never dared look this way again.
"......But."
The secretary glanced at Dofnik's face. Dofnik snorted softly at the sight.
"Worried about the mage?"
"......My apologies."
Dofnik looked at his servant with something like pity.
"Ugh. You've got far too many fantasies about mages."
Dofnik did not consider mages particularly impressive. He had seen them with his own eyes in the past.
Distributing ice meant occasional invitations from nobles and other men of influence. Dofnik had met mages at those gatherings. People who handled mysteries no ordinary person could ever touch. But that was all they were, in the end. The magic they displayed was for the benefit of the powerful men who employed them. In Dofnik's eyes, they were no different from court jesters.
"Mages are people in the end. Once they understand their place, they have no choice but to bow."
In his eyes, a mage was simply someone who'd happened to acquire an unusual talent. Like being strong, or fast, or good with a bow. One talent. Nothing more, nothing less.
"Unless they're the lunatics who fight on actual battlefields, they're all the same."
With that, he rose from his seat.
"That's enough. You get back to your work."
"Are you going out, sir?"
"Yeah. You look scared, so I'll handle it myself."
He said it with a snort of laughter.