Chapter 33 : Chapter 33
Chapter 33
Demded stared with blank eyes at the wheat sacks, which seemed to be enough to fill dozens of carriages.
‘When on earth did they get this much food… no, where on earth did they…….’
The wheat sacks, which had already been repackaged according to Ian's orders, were stamped with the large emblem of the Golden Goblin, so Demded could not even imagine that all of that food had been plundered from the three merchant guilds.
‘With that much food, they could feed the entire domain for several months and still have some left.
Why on earth would they have that much…….’
As he stared ahead, his face pale at the enormous amount of food that a fledgling merchant guild should never have been able to acquire, he heard the clicking of heels and a soft woman's voice.
“We meet again.”
“Guild Master Rylae.”
“We didn't have time for proper introductions this morning.
I am Rylae, the one who runs the Golden Goblin Merchant Guild.”
“…I am Demded, the manager of the Gold Crow merchant guild.”
Rylae, clicking her way over, extended a hand for a handshake and sized up Demded.
A stiff face that clearly showed his tension and a hand damp with sweat from how nervous he was.
A merchant who realized he was at a disadvantage was as good as captured prey.
“Ah!
Boss!”
Rick, who had only just noticed Rylae, came running over with a flustered face and began to ramble.
“No matter if he's a beggar, we can't kick him out now!
He was sweating so much from the pain!
I'll take it out of my salary, so just give me a moment……”
Rylae pushed Rick's pleading face away and said.
“Rick, find me some Biphtasan tea in the warehouse.”
“What?
In the warehouse?
The warehouse right now is……”
He turned his head and looked around the warehouse filled with hundreds of wheat sacks.
“You want me to find tea in there……?
We only brought in one box of that as a prototype……”
Rylae smiled brightly at the tearful Rick and said.
“I really!
want to drink that tea tonight.
Please.”
With those words, Rylae turned and walked toward the office.
Step, step.
Demded, who had been walking with his head down for a while, finally broke the silence and opened his mouth.
“…Who is behind the Golden Goblin Merchant Guild?”
It was not the Regent or the young lord.
If either of them had access to that much food, they would not have been swayed by the Merchants’ Association until now.
Ultimately, it meant that a third party had its eyes on the Moner domain.
“Could it be that the sudden disappearance of the three domains' merchant guilds is also related to the Golden Goblin?”
A sense of urgency was evident in Demded's voice.
A suddenly appearing power, the Lord's Castle which had been moving urgently for several weeks, and the young lord who was acting out as if having a seizure.
At that moment of frustration when something that encompassed all of that was just out of his grasp, a thought he had not considered, a third power, struck him like a blow to the back of his head.
“The Empire?
Could it be… could the Empire be trying to interfere with the Moner family?”
The greatest power on the continent, currently waging a war of unification.
For them, supplying that amount of food would be no great feat.
“That's right.
So suddenly… since there's too little to gain from direct rule, they're trying to support the Moner family instead.”
As he organized the questions that arose in his mind, Demded's steps in following Rylae gradually slowed.
“Yes.
Even if they occupy the Reime Kingdom, they'll have to accept the damages if the Moner family makes a move, and even if they defeat the Moner family, all they'll get is the Forest of Demonic Beasts, so if they use the Moner family to occupy the Reime Kingdom instead……”
As he continuously spat out the thoughts in his head, his imagination added to his imagination, and an increasingly plausible hypothesis was formed.
His suspicion had long since turned into conviction.
Creak.
“This way, please.”
By the time they finally arrived at the guild master's office, in Demded's eyes, Rylae was no different from a secret agent dispatched by the Empire.
* * *
“Ha……”
Demded, seated on the sofa, let out a grunt as he looked at Rylae.
He had thought it was just a resourceful new merchant guild, but to think they had the Empire behind them.
“Yes, it was all planned from the beginning.
Did you buy the food at double the price to monopolize the market?”
“……”
Rylae, who had already heard him muttering on the way, simply smiled and said nothing.
She figured that Demded would add flesh to his hypothesis on his own.
“Truly, truly amazing.
If you start trading exclusively with the Lord's Castle by buying up all the food from the three merchant guilds for the sake of monopoly, you can raise your market dominance like crazy.
Money is no object, so that wouldn't be a problem… and before long, you would have become a bigger guild than the three guilds.”
As expected, Demded, who took Rylae's silence as a tacit affirmation, spread his wings of imagination alone.
“In the end, the goal must have been to increase your influence in the Lord's Castle.
There would be no need to reveal that the Empire is behind you, as long as you control the food supply.”
A merchant guild that could gather this much food in just a few days would have eventually achieved a near-monopolistic market share, even if the three guilds had refused to sell their food.
When his thoughts reached that point, Demded furrowed his brow and asked.
“But why on earth did you attack the three merchant guilds?
If you had just stayed put, you could have gotten everything you wanted without anyone knowing……”
Only then did Rylae, who had been listening quietly, look Demded straight in the eye and open her mouth.
“That was not us.”
At the intentional use of the word ‘us,’ Demded, who once again associated it with the Empire, nodded his head.
“That's right.
Having prepared so meticulously, there's no way you would resort to force now.
Then what happened to the three merchant guilds?”
Of course, Rylae and Ian had only been aiming for the compensation amount according to the contract from the beginning, but Demded, who was lost in his imagination, had no way of knowing that.
“At first.”
Rylae opened her mouth in a languid voice.
Like the sirens of legend who were said to bewitch sailors, her soft and gentle voice made even the faint traces of vigilance remaining in Demded melt away like snow.
“When we first made the contract, we only set the compensation amount to prevent the Merchants’ Association from going back on its word; there was no other intention.
What I didn't know was that someone in the association might intentionally aim for that compensation money.”
“What is that supposed to……”
Rylae took out a black letter she had prepared in advance from her bosom and continued.
“Someone left this letter in front of my office at dawn.
It said to go to the young lord and present the compensation money.”
Realizing the true meaning of those words, Demded's body trembled.
“Could it be, someone from the association deliberately……”
“I thought that was a strong possibility.
An amount ten times the contract deposit would be a huge burden on any merchant guild.”
After giving Demded a moment to think, Rylae delivered the final blow.
“I thought the goods from one of the three merchant guilds would arrive today, but none of the three guilds' goods arrived.”
“Th-then… more than two of the three guilds……”
“Then that means there is only one merchant guild that did not participate in this matter.”
After finishing her words, Ryl-ae pushed her body deep into the sofa, feigning composure.
“Why, why are you telling me this?”
“If all three merchant guilds were to be shaken at the same time, our guild alone would have to supply food to this vast domain.”