Chapter 185
Chapter 185
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 185
Chapter Title: Sugar Rush 1
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From Shati's perspective, it was better for Azadin's wishes to come true than for Dehashram the water serpent naga's schemes to succeed.
But Azadin himself... He had seemed to be pulling out all the stops to save Btuma just moments ago, yet when the duty of the Herald clan came calling, he swiftly pivoted in that direction.
“What if we head to Btuma and it's already under attack? I don't know what a petition to the Herald clan signifies, but it must be important. Still, wouldn't going to Btuma first take priority?”
Shati urged him to abandon the petition and head straight for Btuma, but Azadin shook his head.
He set to work disassembling the hilt of his azure steel longsword 'Blue' to remove the broken pins. The wooden shock-absorbing components meshed into the hilt had snapped.
As Azadin repaired his sword, he grumbled.
“Hmm, that sounds like excessive heroism. It comes off like I'm the one going to save Btuma. I'm not that impressive a guy.”
“You can't say things like that at this point.”
“If Btuma crumbles while I'm off handling one petition, then going earlier wouldn't have helped anyway. I give my all within the scope of what I can do each moment, but I have to clearly distinguish between what I can accomplish and what I can't.”
Shati sensed something odd in Azadin's words and behavior.
“You talked about heading to Btuma alone to stop the massacre that's coming, but now you're doubting your own actions?”
“It's not doubt—more like rational skepticism. Shall we head to Bell Hoda? You've been worn out rowing all this time, so let me take the oars.”
“Are you sure? I struggled with the rowing in a most unbecoming fashion, but you, master...”
She and Jis had witnessed Azadin laying low an enormous number of enemy troops.
Even using Scott the necromancer's walls of undead to avoid being surrounded and engaging in multiple one-on-one fights, it must have drained his stamina to the extreme. That wasn't the kind of fatigue one recovered from with half a day's sleep.
And yet Azadin grabbed the oars.
“It's fine. Let me row. Cruising this starlit night sea sounds rather poetic.”
The shock from Kazas Hasse had left Azadin wanting to vent his energy through rowing.
His muscles ached from the nonstop battles and grueling travels, but doing nothing with his body felt even more agonizing.
Any kind of movement was less painful for Azadin.
*********
Bell Hoda was famous for its sugar industry.
Sugarcane had originally been a specialty of Btuma, and the Bell Hoda delta was particularly ideal for growing it.
What had once been a vast expanse of reed fields with no jungle in sight was converted into sugarcane plantations, yielding such staggering output that sugar was exported across the world.
Btuma's gold, ivory, and sugar formed the pillars of wealth sustaining the kingdom amid rampant endemic diseases, threats from the naga empire, and the dangers of its monster-infested jungles.
But this sugar industry demanded immense manpower, which was why Bell Hoda was infamous for something else as well.
Human trafficking.
Bell Hoda's manhunters.
Slavery was outlawed across the Eight Kingdoms, yet the farm owners hired mercenaries to raid villages directly and abduct people.
They struck distant hamlets and fishing villages outside Btuma, hauling captives back to hidden worker barracks deep within their plantations and working them to death. Even if family somehow tracked them down by luck, there was no way to locate the victims.
Many decried Bell Hoda's trafficking practices and pushed for reform, but the colossal profits from sugar were funneled as bribes to Btuma's nobles, with massive donations flowing to major religious groups like the king's church and the Order of Salvation Knights. As a result, the farm owners' human hunts rarely faced meaningful opposition.
Bell Hoda's sugar industry brought immense wealth to the Btuma Kingdom.
The sugarcane plantation owners had formed guilds to lobby nobles and buy off priests with cash, while arming themselves with private forces of hired mercenaries.
Among these, a minor sugar farm known as the Vanema estate had recently gained a new head: Landa Vanema.
And it was this Landa Vanema who had made the petition with emperor's gold.
*********
Landa Vanema, who had studied abroad with the Order of Salvation Knights, predictably rejected the political marriage arranged by the sugar guild and began managing her farm independently.
Her first move was to free the trafficked laborers and institute pay for free workers based on output—one sack of harvested sugarcane earned them corresponding wages.
It was a groundbreaking system: the more they harvested, the more they earned.
The other sugar plantation owners laughed at Landa Vanema's actions. Motivating laborers like that brought no profit.
Paying workers more naturally drove up production costs.
In a cutthroat place like Bell Hoda, packed with competitors, even ramping up output through motivated cheap labor meant nothing if merchants wouldn't buy—because merchants chased the cheapest sugar available and cared nothing for how it was produced.
But once word spread that Vanema treated its workers well, trouble started brewing on rival farms.
Laborers fled to Vanema or began slacking off, demanding the same pay hikes.
Uniform conditions before had made whips, starvation, and threats effective, but now with Vanema as an alternative, worker resistance grew fierce.
As production faltered on other farms, the Vanemas' deviance became a problem that could no longer be ignored.
*********
“Hahaha!”
At the Bell Hoda sugar guild's clubhouse, sugarcane plantation owners had gathered.
Awash in the vast wealth from their sugar trade, they indulged in fine cigars, narcotics, liquor, and debauchery.
This clubhouse served as an arena where the owners vied to outdo one another in hedonistic excess, swapping ideas for ever greater pleasures.
But lately, a common foe had emerged.
Landa Vanema, the guild-rejecting reformist from the Order of Salvation Knights, had defied sugar guild traditions in running her farm her way—and now teetered on the brink of disaster.
“Did you see the state of her? Heh heh heh. Her pot's got a hole, and she's scrambling for a tinker. Heh heh.”
“No one's got lives to spare for patching her farm.”
“Even so, word is Landa Vanema requested a tinker from the Salvation Knights.”
“She doesn't even realize they're feeding us the info?”
“With the donations we give them every year? Thinks alumni ties make them her allies? What an idiot.”
The guild's farm owners erupted in crude laughter, reveling in their rival's downfall.
Then the clubhouse door swung open, and a young man strode in.
“B-big trouble. Landa Vanema, she...”
“What's the big trouble now?”
“Hey, showing up here outs you as a spy.”
“It's not that. Landa Vanema... she called in the Herald clan.”
“What?!”
“The Herald clan? You mean those guys?”
“Yes. The ones summoned with the emperor's gold coin. The soulless blasphemers! New king slayers!”
“Uh...”
The guild owners groaned.
“In the old days, it'd have been a golden opportunity.”
“We could've tipped off the king's church for a heresy charge.”
“Nah, let's not kill her. She's about my daughter's age.”
“And peers with Salco-nim's youngest wife.”
At that, the guild master clicked his tongue.
“But we can't these days. Heard Korasar got swallowed by the Herald clan? Korasar's right next door. If we pick a fight with the Heralds here and the kingdom gets divvied up later...”
“Exactly.”
The farm owners were well aware the Herald clan had seized Korasar.
Best not to unnecessarily anger such Heralds. Their sugar business survived only by currying favor with those in power and bankrolling them lavishly.
“For now, let's talk when that Herald shows up. They all undergo brutal training—no way they're idiots who can't weigh priorities.”
There was a Btuma proverb: Money makes even the unwilling obey.
And these sugar barons, overflowing with cash, believed without doubt that their money could buy anything.
*********
Rowing into the Bell Hoda delta revealed endless expanses of farmland.
“Whoa. All this sugarcane?”
While rowing, Azadin spotted sugarcane floating by and scooped it up with an oar.
He sliced off a piece and sniffed the stalk: a sweet, sugary scent.
“Here goes.”
Azadin cautiously bit into the sugarcane's core, and sweet juice flooded his mouth.
“Whoa, it's sweet. Try some.”
Azadin cut it up and passed pieces to the group, who all took them and tasted.
“Oh.”
Everyone who tried the sugarcane marveled at its sweetness.
Even this waterborne reject was incredibly sweet.
“But the fibers are tough. Gotta suck out the juice and spit the rest.”
As Azadin spoke, Scott unfurled his sugarcane stalk.
“Boss. Mine's like...”
Inside Scott's sugarcane were wormholes riddled with bizarre larvae.
“Sorry. Floating stuff's hit or miss.”
“......”
“Did you want sugarcane, Scott? Here, take this.”
Azadin handed Scott the half-eaten piece from his own stalk and then addressed the emperor's voice.
“The petitioner's around here, right?”
[Indeed, Azadin.]
“Hmm. Ah...”
Azadin spotted the docks where sugar transport ships berthed.
Dangling from a crane on the pier facilities was a male corpse draped in a blood-scrawled tablecloth reading, “Fool who tried to escape on a whim.”
“Must be the place.”
Azadin clicked his tongue at the sight of the body and moored the boat at the dock.
There, a tall woman with black hair stood scowling.
“Bet that's the petitioner.”
[Correct. That is Landa Vanema, the petitioner.]
“Landa Vanema?”
[She is head of the Vanema house. Hear the details from her.]