Chapter 116
Chapter 116
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 116
Chapter Title: Merchants in Dire Straits
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Looks like we’re in deep shit, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. Deep shit. If we head back like this, all that’s left is getting fucked over.”
The heads of the Yajan trading houses had gathered in a secluded annex of the Three-Headed Eagle Castle, their faces grim as they conversed.
“Portna’s still a total mess?”
“It’s probably gotten even worse by now. Point is, it’s not just about buying up gear and going home.”
Urgent dispatches arrived from Yajan by express ship once a day. Naturally, none of it was good—only bad news.
“Don’t we have mercenaries? If we scrape together every last one, we could get two or three thousand. What if we throw them all in?”
“You already forget what Sir Sailun said? Even if we push them back to their original habitats, they’ll recover in a few months. Then what? Hire more mercenaries? Thousands of them? You expect the Delpi House to foot the bill?”
“Monsters drop byproducts when you kill them, right? Sell those, and it’d cover the costs…”
“How?”
“Huh?”
“I’m talking about the monster byproducts. How exactly do you plan to butcher that many monsters and harvest the materials?”
“Uh… well.”
The merchant who’d brought it up shut his mouth.
Dissecting monster corpses, harvesting byproducts, and doing the initial processing was no small feat to begin with.
Even pigs and cattle required specialized butchers, and mishandling a monster corpse full of various toxins could straight-up kill you.
Not just anyone could harvest and process byproducts.
“You seem to have a plan, so let’s do that. Delpi House hires all the mercenaries, handles the subjugation, collects the byproducts. Sell them raw or processed, whatever—you figure it out. Meanwhile, we team up with the Spio House and just sell monster byproduct goods from the Sion Dukedom.”
“My bad.”
The Delpi House head switched tactics immediately.
Yajan, being a major city, naturally had artisans and craftsmen aplenty, with skills above average.
Unfortunately, the “high-end” gear they poured their hearts into producing was on par with the mid-grade stuff the Iron Mountain Dwarves churned out in bulk.
Same quality, but no competition on price or supply volume.
Who’d buy it? Not even the Delpi head himself.
Above all, continuously hiring large-scale mercenaries for subjugations, dissecting corpses for byproducts, initial processing, and sales.
Doing all that solo was impossible from the start. Even if it weren’t, there wasn’t a shred of profit margin in sight.
“For decades, even the Sion Dukedom—which regularly hunted monsters and produced gear and goods—left sales to us. Caterpillars eat mulberry leaves. Let’s stick to what we’re good at, yeah?”
“Really sorry.”
The Delpi head apologized again and slunk back to his corner.
Having just crushed Yajan’s fifth-ranked merchant—and committing what wasn’t quite an upset—Bellin, representing the sixth-ranked Spio House, scanned the other heads.
“Gentlemen, we might be able to muster every mercenary in the city and push the monsters back to their habitats with our own power. If the Sion Dukedom supplies our mercenaries with their gear at low prices, our odds skyrocket.”
“Makes sense.”
“Definitely.”
The armed escorts the heads had brought universally raved about the gear made from monster byproducts processed by Iron Mountain Dwarves.
The dwarf mine foreman had (fiendishly) bought samples at an auction and handed them out, earning tears of gratitude.
“The issue is handling the corpses afterward and disposing of the byproducts. There’s only one answer. Bring in experts from the Sion Dukedom to train us on corpse disposal, then ship every last byproduct there.”
“Oh? So the Iron Mountain Dwarves process them again or turn them into gear and goods, then send them back our way?”
“Yes. We handle consignment sales. And here’s the key point.”
Even now, Bellin swept a chilly gaze over the heads, their faces screaming, ‘Oh? That could make some real money.’
“If you think you’ll make a killing in this process, you’re fucked.”
“Got it.”
They get it, they got it.
Bellin glared at the merchant openly showing regret, then continued.
“Not to put it harshly, but the Sion Dukedom doesn’t need our byproducts. They probably haven’t even considered the talks we’re having now.
Plus, do you think the people of the Sion Dukedom—especially Sir Sailun—won’t see through our schemes? Huh? We bring byproducts, they do the work, and we split profits fifty-fifty—how do you think Sir Sailun would react?”
“My bad.”
Even the fourth-ranked merchant slunk to his corner.
“Just think of it as covering labor and transport costs. Even that’s a win for us, right? The whole world’s gone to hell—doesn’t this mean Yajan’s safe from recession and unemployment worries?”
The heads here weren’t mere traders in Yajan; they held special positions steering the city.
Even the council couldn’t ignore their influence, nor could the mayor escape their sway. Being a trade-driven port city and all.
But did that mean they could just suck up all the sweet juice? Hell no.
Yajan thrives, they thrive; they thrive, Yajan thrives.
And the bare minimum for that?
Preserving jobs and keeping the port economy buzzing.
If they followed Bellin’s plan, Yajan’s citizens wouldn’t starve from lack of work.
Citizens earning from work meant ongoing consumption, sustaining the city economy.
“Breaking even, then.”
“Exactly. While everyone else is stripped down to their underwear, we hold the line.”
“Approved! Make it happen!”
At the words of the second- and third-ranked heads, the top-ranked one shouted confidently.
Bellin suppressed her pity and said,
“How?”
“Huh?”
“I just told you. Even if we scrape up mercenaries for the initial subjugation, what then? You’re not saying the folks here will chip in to keep hiring them indefinitely?”
“…….”
As if. Not hundreds, but thousands of mercenaries for an endless crisis? Pouring water into a bottomless jar.
“We need to hire proper troops.”
“Huh? What’re you talking about?”
“Not Yajan mercenaries. We need professional forces proven in monster hunting.”
“No way we can find troops like that right now… can we?”
“We can. We can.”
The same unit name popped into every head.
“The Falcon Unit!”
Right. The Sion Dukedom’s Monster Hunting Corps, the Falcon Unit.
They’d racked up multiple successes already and were even now recruiting and training new blood—top experts specialized in monster hunting.
“Yes. Hire the Falcon Unit. Not the whole thing, of course—that’d be absurd. Say, thirty men? One company to train the unit we form and our mercenaries.
It’ll cost a pretty penny, though. Any better ideas out there?”
The heads looked at each other.
None had a better plan on the spot.
“Uh, but hang on.”
Then, the fifth-ranked Delpi head—who’d been sulking—cautiously raised his hand.
“So we buy gear from the Sion Dukedom, import troops from there too. Won’t that bite us later? If the council or mayor kicks up a fuss, it’ll be a headache.”
The other heads—even the fourth-ranked who’d been sulking with him—clicked their tongues at him.
“Hexagonal Aptitude! Oh, right—Hexagonal Aptitude!”
“…My mistake.”
He’d forgotten Yajan’s literal “free pass,” the Hexagonal Aptitude, and had to sulk again.
“Then let’s go straight to Yonas Handler. We need to handle this now.”
“Okay!”
Bellin and the Yajan heads hurried out to meet Yonas.
But the moment they opened the door to Handler’s office—made of ebony—they faced despair.
“What the hell are you doing here…!?”
“What do you mean? We’re here to ask Handler to hire the Falcon Unit as mercenaries and instructors.”
Yajan’s inner sea rivals, Sauden’s old guard, scowled back at them.
* * *
Like on Earth, this world had no eternal enemies or allies.
Birth fixed your status for life in nine cases out of ten, so “those in power” treated “those below” far more cruelly and ruthlessly than on Earth.
Our knights and soldiers got massacred?
But there were damn good reasons for it?
To the powerful, it’s water under the bridge. Most don’t dwell on it.
Oh, knights are nobles, right?
Sure are.
But this world’s knights were over ninety percent discarded cards from noble houses or problematic second sons and below.
They got some respect because they’d risk their lives in battle (in place of the powerful).
Sure, high-value (“big fish”) captures got ransomed, but most in power didn’t give a damn if knights lived or died.
Captured knights handled their own ransom with armor and weapons, escaping in their underwear.
If knights had it that bad, foot soldiers and mercenaries had it worse.
Anyway.
So Sauden’s old guard held no real grudge against the Sion Dukedom for wiping out their knights and troops.
Even after getting brutally beaten and accepting all the dukedom’s demands.
If anything, they were in a position to lick Yonas’s and Sion’s toes.
Count Garen’s towns—three, no, five per yesterday’s report—had fallen to monsters, over a thousand subjects dead or captured. Refugees ten times that.
Count Garen calling up his full levy was only natural in such a dire crisis.
For Sauden’s old guard—stuck in the Sion Dukedom amid their territory’s peril—the decision was simple.
“Help us!”
“We’ll pay whatever it takes—please send the Falcon Unit!”
The Sauden old guard swarmed Handler’s office, ready to grab Yonas by the ankles.
Yonas—who’d been prepped by his sky-high ancestor—replied,
“How much are you offering?”
“Pardon?”
“Make an opening bid.”
“…….”
Normally, they’d haggle, but with noses deep in shit, they decided faster than dunking breadcrumbs in soup.
“Three times the Falcon Unit’s standard pay! All rights to monsters killed go to the Falcon Unit and Sion Dukedom!
As payment for training our troops after stabilizing things, we’ll waive tariffs on all goods produced and sold by the Sion Dukedom for one year!”
“One year’s too short. Three years.”
“Pardon?”
“Three.”
“Very… well.”
Thus, the dukedom’s Handler agreed to dispatch one Falcon Unit company to Sauden.
“What the hell are you doing here…!?”
“What do you mean? We’re here to ask Handler to hire the Falcon Unit as mercenaries and instructors.”
Only for the Yajan heads to show up.
“We want a dispatch too! Us too!”
“No way! We were first!”
As the power brokers—both with their homelands on the brink—started bickering.
An immortal ancient opened the office door.
“Handler, approval came from the capital. We’re dispatching one Falcon Unit company to Burgos for now… Hm? Something wrong?”
(To be continued in the next installment)