Just a Notification
The corridor of the Valeriano Merchant Coalition rang with the sharp click of heels dripping with arrogance. The merchants, led by their coalition representative Victor, had deliberately arrived later than the appointed time. A business presided over by a little girl who fancied herself its president? They needed to crush her spirit from the outset to make the coming negotiations smoother. After all, hadn’t His Imperial Majesty himself declared that women preferred rough men? As loyal subjects, they were simply upholding the Emperor’s sacred words.
Let’s see how desperately she’s been waiting.
Victor straightened his tie outside the conference room door, a thin smirk curling his lips. The moment the door opened, a deathly pale cat-girl would be there to greet them, fidgeting with anxiety.
With a low creak, the attendant carefully opened the door. The moment Victor stepped inside, the smug smile on his face froze solid.
The person waiting for them at the head of the table was not Laura Valeriano.
Slouched so deeply in the chair he was practically lying down. Eyes heavy with the lazy conviction that every second of this meeting was an unbearable chore. Clothing made of clearly expensive material, yet loosened and rumpled because it felt uncomfortable. The Grand Duke of the Far East Maritime Province, the Seventh Prince Mikhail.
“You’re late,” Mikhail drawled, voice thick with the effort of stifling a yawn. “Why is it that every bastard who shows up for negotiations always wants to start with a dick-measuring contest? Am I wrong?”
His gaze slid sideways to Laura, who stood beside him like a silent shadow. She merely lifted the corner of her mouth in the ghost of a smile and offered no reply.
The merchants, only now registering Mikhail’s presence, dropped to their knees as if their legs had been cut out from under them.
“Long live the Eternal Empire! Long live His Majesty the Benevolent Father Emperor! This humble subject pays his respects to the noble Imperial Prince!”
The sound of foreheads slamming against cold marble echoed loudly. Yet Victor and a handful of the others remained rigidly standing.
“You lot not banging your heads?” Mikhail asked. There was no menace in his tone—only genuine curiosity.
Victor barely managed to force words through his throat. His face had gone bone-white.
“We… we possess the right not to kneel before members of the imperial family, Your Highness.”
“Ah, so you’re some kind of noble.” Mikhail nodded. “Though from what I hear, you’re either a bastard the main house threw out, a distant collateral, or one of those pathetic second or third sons who latched onto a merchant guild because you had no prospects. That’s why you’re stuck playing merchant now, right?”
Victor’s face flushed crimson, then paled again as the barb struck home. Mikhail continued, clearly enjoying the show.
“Still, since you claim noble status, I suppose I must respect it. Bloodlines are sacred law, after all.”
“……”
“Anyway.” Mikhail rose from his seat. The indolent atmosphere from moments before had vanished completely. “The reason I came here is simple.”
His eyes gleamed with chilling light.
“Because you bastards are fucking around with my business.”
“Y-Your Highness! A person of your exalted station should maintain proper decorum!” Victor cried out, face turning a sickly blue as he forced the words through clenched teeth. Fucking around? No matter how notorious a scoundrel the prince was, to use such vulgar language before a noble—
“Decorum?” Mikhail leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. He wore the expression of a theatergoer watching the most tedious play in existence. “I was under the impression my proxy, President Laura, had signed the contract at a perfectly reasonable price.”
His voice remained quiet, yet it dropped the temperature of the entire conference room to freezing.
“So why did you suddenly change your minds and break the contract?”
“T-That is…”
“This is a matter for merchants, Your Highness!” Victor cut off another merchant before the fool could speak and shouted desperately. “Commerce is full of variables! No matter how much favor Your Highness bestows, even if this is Your Highness’s project, it is inappropriate for you to intervene directly in a mere private contract!”
His voice grew louder with every word—an attempt to mask terror with bluster. “Negotiations should be conducted personally by the head of the Valeriano Merchant Coalition, President Laura! We followed proper procedure and even paid a substantial penalty!”
It was a sound argument. This was not a political issue but a simple commercial dispute. Not the sort of thing royalty should involve themselves in. In fact, they must not. Unless they wished to spark conflicts with the noble houses lurking in the background, they should have sent a proxy. That was the rule of the Empire. Common sense itself.
“You’re right. This isn’t some republican federation—merchants’ business should be handled by merchants.”
Mikhail nodded easily. The casual agreement only deepened the confusion on Victor’s face.
“But here’s the thing. You people aren’t exactly spotless either, are you?”
It was a formally approved project, however hastily arranged, and it involved an imperial prince no matter how worthless he might be. If they were willing to pull this kind of shit… the culprit was obvious.
The Second Princess, Anastasia. No one else.
Mikhail jerked his chin. “Hey. Who am I?”
“……Pardon?”
“You know me, right?”
“…You are Mikhail, Your Highness. Seventh Prince of the Empire, Grand Duke of the Far East Maritime Province…”
A genuinely delighted smile spread across Mikhail’s face.
“No, not that. My nickname.”
“……”
“Drunkard. Total degenerate. The worthless prince.”
The madman who had beaten a noblewoman bloody and then pissed on her. Mikhail recited his own infamous titles with a giggle.
“Don’t remember? What kind of bastard I was in the capital? Does ‘Mikhail’ look like the kind of guy who gives a shit about common sense?”
Cold sweat trickled down Victor’s spine. The prince was wielding his own destroyed reputation like a weapon.
“Who the hell is backing you worms that you’re acting so cocky? That crazy bitch Anastasia?”
He even knew their patron. That made it all the more terrifying.
“From the beginning, I…” Mikhail rose from his chair. “Didn’t come here to negotiate with you.”
His voice resonated quietly throughout the conference room.
“I came to deliver a notice.”
He nudged one of the kneeling merchants lightly with his toe.
“None of you will be doing business in the Far East Maritime Province anymore.”
“Y-Yes?!”
“Th-That cannot be, Your Highness!”
The merchants sprawled on the floor looked up in horror. Victor protested, face drained of all color.
“We have maintained a trading relationship with the Valeriano Merchant Coalition for decades, since the time of the previous president! Moreover, Her Highness Anastasia also—!”
At his desperate cry, Laura’s shoulders twitched almost imperceptibly. For a fleeting instant, anxiety flashed across her face.
But Mikhail simply laughed at all of it.
“So?”
“……”
“I’m the lord of this land. What are you going to do about it? Anastasia’s territory is Lu Miel, right? Go do business there.”
Mikhail looked down at them the way one might regard the flattened corpse of a stray cat on the road.
“There are plenty of other merchant groups in the Empire I can work with besides you.”
BANG!
The heavy door slammed shut, shattering the silence inside the conference room. The bitter aftertaste of humiliation and rage left behind by the ejected merchants still seemed to linger in the air.
“Your Highness.”
The one who broke the silence was Laura. She stared at the head seat Mikhail had occupied with eyes gone icy cold.
“Are you truly all right with this?”
“With what?”
“You have turned them all into enemies. Nearly every stone merchant who does business in the Far East Maritime Province. On top of that, even Second Princess Anastasia.”
Laura’s voice carried unmistakable anxiety. “Finding new suppliers will take time. There is no guarantee they won’t resort to the same tricks again. The construction schedule will suffer catastrophic delays.”
To her perfectly logical concerns, Mikhail merely shrugged.
“Have you perhaps already built a political alliance, or received direct investment proposals from other merchant groups? You’ve been receiving quite a lot of letters lately…”
A faint spark of hope flickered in Laura’s eyes. Had he prepared another move she didn’t know about?
“Nope. None of that.”
Mikhail snorted. “They were all garbage. ‘We’ll give you bribes, so hand over the Mikhail Blue Label,’ ‘Please attend our banquet,’ ‘Let’s go hunting together.’ I turned down every last one of those trash offers.”
He waved his hand in disgust. “A few insolent pricks even invited me to banquets in the capital despite knowing I’ve been banished from it. Isn’t that lèse-majesté?”
“……”
“Oh, there were a few from merchant coalitions too. They demanded I transfer the Valeriano Merchant Coalition’s exclusive rights to them. I told Boris to rip them all up.”
The last trace of hope vanished from Laura’s face. Without realizing it, she clenched her fists tightly.
“Then… what exactly do you intend to do?”
“Don’t worry. That bitch Anastasia is probably busy peddling drugs and sleeping around. As for this project… I know a pretty slick method.”
Mikhail leaned back in his chair, wearing a thoroughly satisfied smile.
“An auction.”
“……Pardon?”
“We’re putting it up for auction.”
“Your Highness. An auction sells goods to whoever offers the highest price. We are currently in the position of needing to buy goods.”
“Wow, you really are incredibly, extraordinarily, remarkably smart.” Mikhail chuckled. “So we do the opposite. We buy from the guy who offers the lowest price.”
“!”
“Closed bidding. If we announce it across the entire Empire, don’t you think quite a few decent operators will bite?”
In that instant, lightning flashed through Laura’s mind. The bidding system. Of course it existed. But it was an archaic relic found only in history books. Modern commerce operated on far more “efficient” principles—connections, monopolies, and tacit collusion.
“Your Highness, that method…”
“What, got a problem with it?”
“No. It’s just…”
Complex calculations swirled inside Laura’s head. Before she knew it, she was speaking rapidly, almost breathless.
“Then how will you set the bid deposit? How will you assess the bidders’ creditworthiness? How will you guarantee the quality and volume of supplies? What penalties will apply for breach of contract? Transportation routes?”
At the onslaught of questions, Mikhail’s brow furrowed in clear annoyance.
“How the hell should I know?”
He yawned widely and slumped even deeper into his chair.
“All that annoying stuff—handle it yourself. Everything.”
“……”
“You’re my plenipotentiary proxy, Laura Valeriano.”
At those words, something inside Laura’s mind snapped with an audible pop.
This scoundrel…!
She was furious. Yet strangely, that insulting trust didn’t feel entirely unpleasant. Instead, something hot welled up from deep inside her chest.
I can do it.
She could live up to the faith this man had casually tossed her way.
Whether or not Mikhail sensed the storm raging inside Laura, he suddenly spoke as if the thought had just occurred to him.
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Are there any operators interested in new construction techniques?”