I Became the Heir of a Merchant Guild
Money! What a beautiful word! Family, friends, lovers, love—everything in this world changes. But money? Money never changes! This was the absolute truth I realized after living thirty years in my past life and eighteen years in this one.
You say you hate money? Anyone who claims that is either a liar or a psychopath. Either way, I've never met a single person who genuinely hates money. Everyone, scream it with me! Money is the best! Long live money!
...Whew. I got a bit too excited there. Anyway, back to the point. There is a very good reason why I love money this much.
In my past life, I was dirt poor. A dirt-spoon, as they say. And not just any dirt-spoon, but one born into a family drowning in debt! To make matters worse, I didn't know anything about renouncing inheritance, so I ended up saddled with every single penny of my parents' debt. A super-dirt-spoon! That was me in my past life.
Honestly, even now, nearly twenty years later, just thinking about those days gives me goosebumps. Poverty accumulates interest. But when you add hundreds of millions of won in debt on top of that? It multiplies at the speed of light!
Because of that, I did nothing but work from the age of eighteen. Part-time jobs, deliveries, manual labor, and even crabbing in the Bering Sea—I literally risked my life to earn money. And after working myself to the bone like that... I died of overwork at the age of thirty.
Seriously, what a fucking joke. Just thinking about it now makes me pissed. As the world faded to black and I felt death creeping in, I had only one wish: In my next life, please let me be born into a reasonably wealthy family so I can live comfortably without ever worrying about money...
Was it because my life had been so utterly pathetic? God actually granted my wish. And indeed, I was born into the exact kind of wealthy family I had hoped for.
"Wah! Wah!"
"Darling! You did so well."
"Congratulations, My Lord."
"The heir to the Lorend family has been born."
The eldest son of the Lorend family, owners of the Lorend Merchant Guild in the Alpeit Empire—Kyle Lorend. That was my new identity.
The Lorend family I was born into was equivalent to a semi-conglomerate in modern terms. To put it in perspective, if corporations were ranked, they'd be somewhere between 187th and 200th—not quite big enough to make the evening news, but more than wealthy enough to be considered a solid silver spoon.
A beautiful mansion straight out of a movie, gorgeous maids working throughout the estate, and personal bodyguards protecting me. Seeing things daily that I had only ever dreamed of, it finally sank in. I had actually reincarnated with a silver spoon in my mouth.
"Ah, now this is the life!"
Sipping the finest grape juice and eating gourmet stew—which was actually just high-end baby food made specifically for me—I thoroughly enjoyed my wealthy existence.
I can just live a life of luxury and leisure like this forever!
But after about seven years of indulging in this lifestyle, a new dream began to take root.
In my past life, someone once said that human greed is endless, and we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. That was exactly my case. By my seventh year of living the high life, I wanted to become even richer.
If being the 187th richest was this blissful, how much happier would the 10th be? Or the 1st? Since I was already born with a silver spoon, why not strive to become the ultimate golden spoon? That ambitious dream began to blossom in my heart.
And I had a way to make it happen. This world I was born into was actually the setting of a romance fantasy novel I had read in my past life. I remembered the title clearly. Was it Stop Loving Me!?
It was a story about a female protagonist who, overwhelmed by the obsessive affection of multiple male leads, flees from them, inadvertently plunging the empire and neighboring kingdoms into utter chaos. The reason I knew this so well... was because it was written by my one and only ex-girlfriend from my past life.
My only girlfriend in my past life was a web novel author. She never asked me if her makeup or outfit looked different. Instead, she would ask...
"Babe, did you read my chapter from last week?"
And thus began the dreaded pop quiz. If I got even a single detail wrong? She would immediately hit me with:
"Right... I guess your work is just more important than me..."
It was a devastating guilt trip.
Anyway, to pass her tests, I had practically memorized the entire novel. Thanks to that, I knew all the major events that would unfold in this world, as well as its hidden lore. In stock market terms, I knew exactly when to go long and when to short.
With a weapon like this in my hands, I had to go for it! I was going to become the richest man in the world! A man's dream never dies! Zehahahaha!
Having made up my mind, I approached my father, Gilbert, when I turned ten.
"Father."
"Hmm? What is it, Kyle?"
"I want to learn how to do business."
"What? Business, you say?"
My father, Gilbert Lorend, was a dignified, middle-aged noble with short black hair and a well-groomed beard. He exuded an aura perfectly fitting for the master of a merchant guild and the head of a noble house. Surprised by my sudden request, he calmly set down the documents he was reading.
"You are the heir to our Lorend family. Once you attend the Academy and complete your studies, you will naturally learn how to run the guild."
My father's words meant I should walk the proper, quiet path of a noble child. However, though I didn't know the exact year, based on the settings I remembered, the main story of the novel was bound to begin around the time I turned eighteen. In other words, to become the richest man in the world, I needed to be fully prepared before then. I couldn't afford to waste precious time playing house and flirting at some academy like other romance fantasy protagonists.
"That is merely 'management,' Father. I want to learn 'real business.'"
Did my determination to experience real, hands-on business—rather than just managing a guild from a desk like other noble heirs—reach him? After a moment of deep thought, my father spoke.
"I understand your resolve. But business is not as easy as you think. Are you truly prepared for this?"
The hardest thing I had ever done in my life was crabbing in the Bering Sea. The bone-chilling wind that felt like it was tearing my skin apart, waves that threatened to capsize the ship at any moment, the suffocating stench of foreign crewmates' body odor mixed with fish guts, and a cramped cabin that shook like a cocktail shaker. Honestly, even now, it felt like hell. I had never experienced anything as brutal as that in my entire life up until my death.
"Yes, I can do it."
At my firm reply, Gilbert chuckled, as if seeing something promising in me. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "Very well. If that is your wish, so be it. Starting tomorrow, you will come to the guild with me."
"Yes! Thank you, Father!"
And so, while other children went to the Academy to receive their noble education, I began commuting to the guild to learn the trade. Just as my father had warned, business was far from easy.
"What is this? The shipment of redberries seems smaller than what was agreed upon in the contract."
"It seems those middleman distributors have skimmed off the top again, Young Master."
In ancient Mesopotamia, there was a famous clay tablet complaining about a merchant who delivered sub-par copper. I now fully sympathized with the man who wrote it. Those absolute bastards of middleman distributors would steal goods or send defective products the very second you turned your back.
That wasn't all. Noble clients would casually return goods on a whim, claiming they didn't like them, while local lords would constantly manipulate transit taxes to demand extra fees or solicit bribes disguised as "gifts." On top of that, fake news was rampant.
Once, a rumor circulated that a severe drought in the south would cause grain prices to skyrocket. According to my knowledge of the original novel, I had never heard of any such drought occurring during this period. Sure enough, it was a complete fabrication, and grain prices actually plummeted. The world of commerce was so ruthless it made me lose faith in humanity.
Perhaps because of that, I discovered I had a natural talent for business. The country I was born in, which served as the stage for the novel, was the Alpeit Empire. It was a world where magic and magical tools had civilized daily life to a reasonable degree, typical of a medieval romance fantasy setting.
Because it was a romance fantasy world, there were many things that existed when they shouldn't have, and things that didn't exist when they should have. For instance, while communication technology was limited, long-distance calls were possible through communication artifacts.
Yet, strangely enough, there were no cars. When I looked into it, I found out that although they possessed the magical engine technology to power them, the horses in this world were so incredibly strong and cheap to maintain that people naturally stuck to horseback riding.
While navigating this bizarre world, the lucrative market I stumbled upon was none other than milk. People here drank milk, too. However, it wasn't the pasteurized milk we know, but raw milk straight from the cow. To put it in perspective, people just bought completely untreated milk directly from dairy farms and drank it at their own risk.
At best, nobles and the imperial family had high-quality milk delivered separately, but even then, they relied on their personal chefs to inspect and manage it rather than trusting the dairy farmers. Recognizing this massive gap in the market, I was certain that milk would become my cash cow, and I immediately went to work.
First, I secured exclusive contracts with the dairy farms near the imperial capital to monopolize the distribution network. While Al Capone used violence to control the dairy industry, I simply utilized my family's immense influence. I absolutely did not use violence.
Next, I lobbied the Imperial Ministry of Internal Affairs to introduce expiration dates. I heavily emphasized that spoiled milk becomes highly toxic and could kill people, successfully pushing through a mandate for expiration dates on all milk products. Since many other food items already had expiration dates, it was easy to slip milk into the existing regulations.
After that, I commissioned the Mage Guild to develop magical pasteurization and cooling processes, establishing a safe supply chain to distribute dairy products to the capital. The imperial family and high nobles, who had been desperate for safe milk that wouldn't upset their stomachs, were the first to buy my milk. Before long, even commoners were drinking Lorend Milk. I quickly expanded this system to other regions, including the East and the West.
Over the course of eight years, the Lorend Milk system became firmly established throughout the entire empire. Powered by the success of this dairy empire, the Lorend Merchant Guild proudly entered the ranks of the top 100 merchant guilds in the empire, and I earned a rather unique nickname.
The reliable heir who elevated the Lorend Merchant Guild into the top 100.
The Milk King, Kyle Lorend.
...Son of a bitch! Everything was going so well, so why this?! What kind of nickname is the Milk King?! Why not the "White King"? Or something cool like "Cowboy"?! What the hell is the Milk King?!
Fuming over a nickname that sounded like it belonged in some adult video, I let out the loudest stream of curses since my reincarnation. Honestly, I wanted nothing more than to track down the bard who came up with that name and grind him into dust, but I didn't have the time.
The start of the main story was drawing closer by the day.