The Luckiest Man in the Empire
The Brabant family, the Frontier Dukes who ruled the East. Their enormous mansion, built from ‘green’ bricks that symbolized the eastern plains, had been constructed with prayers for the house’s continued prosperity and abundance. And for the past century, only warm, harmonious laughter had echoed through the Brabant estate.
Albert di Brabant, the head of the Brabant family and the Frontier Duke of the East, had believed that harmony would last forever.
But on that day, for the first time in a century, a furious roar shook the Brabant mansion.
Slap—!
“D-dear!”
The Frontier Duke of the East, Albert di Brabant, was a true ‘warrior.’ With his neatly trimmed hair and impeccable beard, he was known as the strongest shield of the East—an iron wall who had emerged from countless battles without a single major scar.
The man who always maintained perfect composure had now lost control of his rage for the first time in his life and struck his own son across the face.
“Adler… do you even understand what you’ve done?”
“Yes… I understand, Father.”
“You understand, and you still did this?!”
Slap—!
Albert’s hand flew again. Adler quietly accepted the blow.
His wife—and Adler’s mother—Rohina wanted to stop him. But she couldn’t. She was terrified of her husband, who was blazing with unprecedented fury, and she simply could not defend what their son had done.
Adler had been receiving a massive allowance as the Brabant family’s heir to maintain his dignity. Normally frugal, he had saved every coin, and his parents had known it. Yet Adler had spent it all. If that had been the end of it, Albert might not have been this angry.
But Adler had mobilized every resource available to him as the family’s successor. He had taken out loans from banks using the family’s farmland as collateral and had even borrowed from loan sharks. And with that staggering amount of money, he had done one thing:
He had bought tulips.
“You expect me to believe you spent an absolutely obscene amount of money on tulips just to win the heart of one young lady?”
“…It’s the truth, Father.”
Who in their right mind would believe that the heir of a ducal house had spent enough money to break the family’s back just to buy tulips for a girl? It would be far more believable to claim he had simply jumped into the overheated tulip speculation market.
“Even if you think that, Her Highness the Imperial Princess will not. She will see you as one of the criminals who nearly destroyed the empire’s economy through reckless speculation…”
“Father, I would never—”
“Do not test this father’s patience with any more of your nonsense.”
Unable to listen to his son’s drivel any longer, Albert cut him off. He glared at Adler with murderous eyes.
“I will take responsibility for this matter and settle it with Her Highness. You will remain confined to the mansion. Steward!”
“Yes, My Lord…”
“Without my express permission, do not let Adler take a single step outside this house! Understood?”
“Yes, I will obey Your Lordship’s command.”
With those final words, Albert stormed out of the study. Adler watched his father’s retreating back and thought it looked exactly like a warrior marching off to war. The realization that he had driven his own father into battle made Adler feel both sorrowful and utterly disgusted with himself for still thinking of Mariel in that moment.
The day after the prince and Emilia were escorted back to the capital, Shuren von Alpeit, who had become the temporary governor of the East, immediately began the work of restoring the region to order.
After reviewing the reports on the eastern territories compiled by the Spear of Judgment and her loyal attendant Rina, Shuren felt a headache coming on.
“This crazy bastard really just let things spiral this far…”
The situation in the East after the tulip crisis had burst was catastrophic. The tulip bubble, which had inflated prices by as much as thirty times, had collapsed. Countless nobles, banks, and merchant guilds who had speculated on tulips were now on the verge of bankruptcy.
Even so, they still had some assets left. The real problem was the commoners who had gone all-in on tulips. Far more of them than expected had bet their meager savings on one roll of the dice. Now bankrupt, they were starving and beginning to steal from other households. One wrong move and a massive bandit group would form overnight.
And there was an even bigger problem.
The food crisis.
Countless farmers and nobles, blinded by tulip fever, had torn up their fields and paddies to plant flowers instead. As a result, food production in the East was projected to drop by about thirty percent compared to last year. If things continued like this, a huge number of imperial commoners and slaves could literally starve to death.
The situation was so hopelessly messed up that Shuren wanted to throw everything away and just quit.
“Haa… Alright!!!”
Slap—!
But even if her brother had gone mad, she couldn’t afford to sit idle. Shuren slapped both her cheeks hard to fire herself up.
Rina, now accustomed to the sight, watched calmly and asked,
“What shall I prepare, Lady Shuren?”
“Rina! Right now, find out exactly how much food every noble house and merchant guild in the East has stockpiled.”
“Understood. I already have the figures compiled. I will report them immediately.”
A short while later, Rina returned with a neatly organized document detailing the East’s entire food reserve situation. As Shuren read through it, one familiar name made her eyes widen in surprise.
“The Lorend Guild is holding forty-one percent?”
“Yes, that is correct, Lady Shuren.”
Among all the famous merchant guilds and noble houses in the East, the single largest food stockpile belonged to the Lorend Guild. The sudden appearance of a familiar name left Shuren momentarily stunned.
“Why would the Lorend Guild be stockpiling food in the East?”
“According to our investigation, the Lorend Guild initially participated in the tulip trade as well. However, after Count Furkus essentially seized their operations, they were forced to take over the farms. After that, they began stockpiling food at an almost frightening rate.”
“Hmm… So they predicted the current situation?”
“That appears to be the case.”
Any merchant with even a little insight could have predicted this outcome. Once the excessive tulip production caused the bubble to burst, the only thing that would matter afterward was food. After all, people could live without flowers, but not without food.
The reason most people failed to prepare for it was simple: greed. Humans who had tasted the intoxicating flavor of skyrocketing prices lost their reason and charged straight toward the final inferno. On the other hand, there were those who had foreseen that future and prepared accordingly.
Shuren had planned to gather exactly those kinds of people to solve the East’s problems. When the name Lorend Guild came up—a guild that actually kept its word—a small smile formed on her lips.
“Rina, summon Kyle. It’s been a while since I’ve had a cup of milk tea.”
“Understood, Lady Shuren.”
Shuren called for Kyle while thinking of the sweet milk tea she hadn’t enjoyed in quite some time. Just imagining it seemed to recharge her brain with sugar, and her mood improved slightly.
The day after I heard that the imperial princess had taken command of the East, an invitation from Her Highness arrived for me.
Having waited for exactly this news, I dressed up properly for the first time in a while and headed toward the eastern administrative office where the princess was staying.
After being guided inside, I entered the office to find her waiting for me, radiant as the goddess of the sun.
“Welcome, Kyle. It’s been a while.”
“It has indeed, Lady Shuren.”
Matching her dislike for excessive formality, I gave a light greeting and took a seat. A servant placed two cups of milk tea before us and quietly withdrew.
“Since the bluestone incident, this is the first time we’ve met. So… about six months?”
“Yes, it seems that much time has passed.”
“Weren’t you busy running businesses in the capital and the North?”
“That’s what the people below me are for. My job is to find the next big opportunity.”
Both the dairy industry and the bluestone mining operations already had trustworthy people in place. My role was to keep moving and search for the next source of profit.
Shuren studied me carefully before speaking.
“Hmm… and that next opportunity was tulips?”
“It was… would be more accurate. As you probably already know, Count Furkus took everything from me. Looking back now, it was all for the best.”
If I had still owned those tulip farms, I would be getting interrogated by the Spear of Judgment right now instead of sitting here with the princess. Just like Count Furkus, who was currently locked up.
Shuren let out a small chuckle at my words.
“You really were lucky. Or maybe you’re just an absolute genius.”
“I was simply lucky, Lady Shuren.”
That’s right. I was lucky. I had beaten odds of one in several billion to reincarnate into this world with all my previous knowledge intact! The luckiest man in the entire Alpeit Empire—that was me!
Not Milk King… but Kyle Lorend!
“Then let’s get to the main topic. The food stockpiled in the Lorend Guild’s warehouses… I’m afraid I’ll need to use it.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“All of it?”
“All of it?”
Just as I expected. I put on a suitably surprised expression.
“Yes… the empire’s food situation is extremely dire right now. If we don’t take immediate action, we might see nobles starving to death in the capital next year.”
“So you need enough reserves to endure until emergency food production can be ramped up with imports from abroad and assistance from the Green Magic Tower.”
“Exactly.”
To stabilize food prices for the bankrupt commoners and the rest of the empire, the government needed to control a massive amount of grain. In other words, the princess was saying she would requisition it due to the emergency.
But even for the empire, requisitioning supplies wasn’t something that could be done arbitrarily. Excessive state-led requisition would breed distrust in the imperial economic system, leading to crimes such as smuggling gold, silver, magic stones, and other assets out of the country.
The clever princess knew this well, so she naturally moved on to the matter of compensation.
“You hate it when I beat around the bush, right? A smart guy like you would have predicted this situation… and you probably planned to get something in return.”
“Yes! That’s correct.”
“You really don’t hide anything…”
“No! I don’t.”
“Alright… so what do you want in exchange for the food?”
It had been a long road to get here. I finally stated my ultimate goal to the princess.
“I want the Agricultural Administration Control Right over the eastern region.”
The authority to manage the production output of all farms in the East as the representative of the imperial administration—the Agricultural Administration Control Right. That was what I wanted most of all.