Muller Merchant House (3)
The big-shot merchants, their eyes rolled back in frenzy, brutally shoved Muller off the platform and charged toward Aila's carriage like madmen.
"Come on, line up, line up! No pushing! We've got just as much stock pouring out tomorrow, so no fighting!"
Aila, her cheeks flushed red, flashed the most beautiful smile in the world as she frantically swept up the surging pouches of gold coins and order forms. Before her, a mountain of gold piled up in an instant.
The platform emptied in a flash. From Muller's trembling hand, left alone atop it, the crystal wine glass slipped powerlessly and fell.
Clink! Even the sharp sound of shattering glass vanished without a trace, drowned out by the merchants' ecstatic roars.
"Ah... aaah...."
Muller's face, slumped on the platform, had gone as pale as a drop of bloodless paper. In just one day—no, in a mere ten minutes—he'd lost every last customer.
The raw materials he'd bought at exorbitant prices, the massive wages owed to the weavers who catered to his tastes, and the horrific dead stock in his warehouse, now worth shit and only good for kindling. At this rate, bankruptcy was as good as inevitable. No— he'd end up buried in debt and chased out of the territory.
Thud.
His legs gave out completely, and Muller knelt pathetically on the cold stone floor. His vacant eyes drifted blankly toward Aila and me, standing in the middle of the square bathed in a golden rain, shining radiantly.
I slowly stepped down from the carriage and approached the sprawled Muller. Beneath my shoe sole, the shreds of the three-year exclusive contract he'd drafted lay tragically crushed.
"Mu... Muller Merchant House's... my precious goods...."
Looking down at Muller, who muttered with half-lost focus in his unfocused eyes, I bent my knee and leaned close to his greasy ear. Then, in the most merciless, coldest voice in the world, I whispered:
"Remember what you said when you sabotaged my land deal? That you hoped my name wouldn't even register on Peluah's turf."
Muller's fat shoulders twitched like an aspen leaf. I lightly flicked his quivering collar and continued.
"That you gotta stomp out crawling worms like me the moment you see 'em sprouting, right?"
"E-Elpanso... you... you demonic... monster bastard...!"
I smirked at him, hurling back every ounce of the arrogance he'd once thrown at me—with interest compounded.
"Too bad, Muller."
My cold eyes gleamed, fully capturing his despair.
"You look exactly like a bug about to burst under my heel right now."
Peluah's cotton textile market had completely collapsed. Or more precisely, it had been perfectly swallowed by the hands of Elpanso Carnoble and Aila Winchester.
Just a month ago, Peluah's textile district had been a battleground of merchant house prestige driving up prices. Now, people didn't ask for merchant names when buying cloth. It didn't matter who owned the shop or which workshop it came from.
They checked only one thing: the sharp, dark blue emblem stamped boldly at the end of the pristine white plain cotton fabric.
The Carnoble Mark.
"Hey, boss! You messing with me? I said bring the stuff with the Carnoble Mark!"
"Aigoo, sir! This here's woven by the finest northern craftsman! Feel that weave!"
"Don't need to! The width's all uneven, and there's tangled threads in the middle. Same price, why would I buy this crap? Carnoble cloth's everywhere just down the alley!"
Such shouts erupted all over the market. Once people tried cotton with the Carnoble Mark, they never went back to handmade cloth. Uniform width, no length cheats, weave consistency that was astonishingly even. It shrank less after washing, felt softer to the touch. And above all, the price was overwhelmingly cheap.
With total trust in the product's quality, merchants and buyers no longer needed to haggle or inspect every inch. Credit itself had become the strongest commodity.
And that mighty credit bore the name of the great chief clerk who once ruled Peluah.
The resurrected 'Carnoble.'
"Th-this month's bills... we barely covered them, chief."
In Peluah's First Commercial District, Muller Merchant House's lavish office. The head clerk flipped through the ledger slashed with red lines, reporting with trembling hands.
"How'd you manage that?"
"Sold off warehouses 3 and 4 in the south to the merchant alliance, pledged one carriage route north to the bank. Laid off over half the weavers... That bought us some breathing room, but...."
"That's your fix?"
Muller slammed the desk.
"You carved out my flesh and bone and fed it to the creditors? That's half-bankrupt already!"
His greasy face flushed beet red. It was true. He'd barely scraped by—by amputating parts of the business just to stay alive. Sold warehouses, pledged carriages, fired workers, dumped stock at fire-sale prices. He survived.
But Muller Merchant House's spine was already snapped.
And the nightmare didn't end. Outside the window, in the market street, whenever a Golden Fleece cart loaded with white cotton rolled by under their banner, Peluah's merchants and customers swarmed like starving dogs.
Even from his office, Muller could clearly see that damned dark blue emblem on the cloth ends.
Carnoble Mark.
Carnoble.
Carnoble.
Carnoble!
Muller's temples throbbed.
"That fucking mark—is it some kinda mind-enchanting magic?"
"N-not magic, sir. But the quality's consistent, no length scams, and wholesalers are already pricing based on that mark...."
"Shut it! I didn't call you for that bullshit!"
Muller hurled the ledger. Thud! Ink bottles shattered, parchment scattering like snow across the floor.
"Tonight."
His voice sank low.
"Torch the factory."
The office air froze. The head clerk and back-alley fixers exchanged glances. No one spoke.
"You deaf?"
Muller ground his teeth.
"That red-brick factory by the Rene River. Burn every last machine scrap and that shitty cotton inside to ash!"
The burliest fixer swallowed hard.
"Th-that... won't work, chief."
"What? Won't work? After all the gold I've poured into you lot?!"
"Legal punishment's one thing... but scarier are the Golden Fleece private guards wrapping that factory."
Terror laced the fixer captain's voice.
"Aila's shoveled in serious coin—not third-rate mercs. Real deal veteran squads from the northern front, patrolling day and night like an iron wall. Shifts are tight, watchtowers everywhere. Can't even approach."
Another chimed in quick.
"Even if we torch it, who'd they suspect? Only house hating that factory like poison right now. Fingers point straight here."
"...."
Muller's face twisted. Spot on. In Peluah now, the one hating Elpanso most openly? Him.
And Golden Fleece guards weren't cheap sword-swingers. Handpicked by Aila herself—tight-lipped and quick-handed. Sneak in to arson? More likely dumped in the river.
"Ha, haha...."
Muller let out a warped laugh. It twisted into venomous malice.
"Fine. Sword won't cut? I'll choke 'em with seals."
Snake-like cunning slithered in his muddy eyes.
"I'll crush 'em perfectly, by the book."
"They're here."
Golden Fleece Merchant House, Aila's office. Stacks of sealed official documents towered before me. Aila frowned, unfolding them one by one.
Thud. Aila tossed the last parchment at me and ground her teeth.
"That pot-bellied pig bastard's dead serious. Bribed the market head, every damn official, even the senile guild masters—Peluah's entire bureaucracy's swarming to bite us all at once!"
I flipped through the parchments, smirking.
"Finally acting like a merchant. About time."
"You laughing now? That fucker's siccing state power and regulations on our throats?!"
"Of course it's funny."
I leaned back in my chair, relaxed.
"When industry balloons and monopolizes markets, dying incumbents don't grab swords—they hit you with rules and statutes first. History's full of it."
Aila narrowed her eyes.
"...You saw this coming too?"
"Think I didn't?"
I pointed to the neatly stacked ledgers and sample cloths on the desk.
"That's why I didn't touch a single coin from the first month's profits and overhauled the factory system. Look here. Every bolt of cotton gets stamped with production date, line number, length, width—even cotton blend records. The Carnoble Mark on the market ain't just flair. It's a fully traceable quality certificate."
ISO quality management systems any modern engineer knows inside out. Beyond mass-producing goods, I'd transplanted a regime proving quality on paper into this world's factory.
Aila's expression turned strange.
"Hold up. So all that shit where you skimped on sleep piling up those nightmare paperwork stacks, forcing weavers to log every damn step... that was all...."
"Prevention."
Paperwork before machines. The real terror running a factory isn't metal—it's the bureaucracy's seal. I knew that all too well.
Even as Carnoble's idiot heir.
"Fine."
Aila crossed her arms, snorting.
"Let's see it. If that genius brain of yours can slap down Peluah's officials and guild fossils."
"You're better at slapping."
"Talk's cheap."
Aila grinned fiercely.
"This time, we'll bury 'em in paperwork."