"I fled from the north, where there’s a winter famine. A merchant took me in as an apprentice. While they’re resting, they have me sell some of their goods along the trade route. See, after all this travel, all we have left is this ointment. We were planning to go to the Holy City to restock."
Colin mimicked the refugees’ accent.
He could hear refugees talking all the time back in Thousand Masts City, and with his [Contact Spy] Specialty, even he was surprised by how authentic he sounded.
Colin glanced at the man, who didn’t seem to doubt his story at all.
After all, with a wide trade route and a Monastery nearby, the area was probably quite safe, which meant the local villagers weren’t very wary.
The man said, "We don’t really need ointment around here. The Monastery next door has plenty of it. Even if you’re seriously injured, the villagers can scrape together ten Gold Coins and ask a Priest to heal you with a Divine Art."
"Well, that’s unfortunate."
Colin continued, "My master also asked me to come and see if there are many refugees around here. He’s thinking about getting into the grain business."
"Refugees? Not too many around here. The Monastery found them a good place to go. They should be helping out at the Monastery now."
The man added, "We certainly don’t have to worry about food. Besides, we’re not looking to sell too much of it. Several of the farmers who own their own land are already planning to slaughter pigs and cure some ham."
Hearing this, Colin’s heart sank.
"Thanks, my friend," he said calmly. "By the way, do you have any goods for sale here? Things like wool or honey."
"All that stuff’s already spoken for. Don’t even think about it," the man continued.
"We’re willing to pay a high price," Colin added.
"No price you offer can beat the Monastery’s. The Cultivators there have their connections," the man said, waving his hand dismissively.
"The Monastery is collecting these things too?"
"A guy like you shouldn’t be a merchant. You’d just lose money anyway."
The man shot Colin a look. "Isn’t there a winter famine up north? Honey can be made into ointment, and wool can be made into cloth. Now’s the perfect time to make money! Anyway, we’ve already given our goods and money to the Priests."
"The Monastery collects the goods, sells them all up north, and gives us a return every month. This way, we get to do a good deed and earn money at the same time."
"You can give money directly to the Priests, too?" Colin asked.
"Yep, money works too. The Priest calls it an ’investment.’"
The man said matter-of-factly, "If you’re not in a hurry for the interest, you can also just deposit the money at the Monastery. It can be used to offset next year’s taxes. But an outsider like you shouldn’t even think about it. This is a deal the Priests offer to locals."
"Alright, I get it." Colin smiled and pounded his calves. "I’ll go check out some other villages."
The man waved his hand. "It’s useless to keep looking... Ah, whatever. Go ahead if you enjoy wasting your time."
With that, Colin turned and walked out of the village.
As he left, he took a careful look at the houses in the village.
It was true that, unlike near Father John’s area, there were no new houses built for refugees, nor any refugees who had settled down. The man’s story seemed quite credible.
Colin made a rough survey of the surrounding villages.
The information he gathered was more or less the same as what he’d just heard.
The vast majority of refugees from the north had been sent to the Monastery. In turn, most of the villagers’ goods and money had been "invested" with the Monastery, with the promise of monthly interest payments.
At first, many of the farmers had been quite cautious.
But after a few farming families who sent their goods to the Monastery received a return of both principal and interest, the rest of the farmers started getting involved.
Thanks to the White Dove Monastery’s reputation in the area, once people learned there was real interest to be made, most were happy to hand over their goods and money to the Priests to handle.
The more cautious farmers who owned their own land were still holding back, keeping enough food and seeds for the coming year, but they had sent most of their other goods over.
The poorer tenant farmers and serfs, however, were going hungry to give their grain and money to the Monastery. They stopped just short of handing over their seed grain, treating this as the opportunity of a lifetime.
After four hours, just as the effect of his fourth Disguise Technique wore off, Colin hurried back to the team’s hiding spot.
"Did you find anything out, Mr. Colin?"
Orelia, who had been sitting on the ground, immediately stood up and asked as soon as she saw him. Her long, slender tail swished back and forth behind her.
"How should I put this... I’m not sure." Colin took a swig from the waterskin in his pack as he spoke, then quickly recounted the situation with the White Dove Monastery collecting goods and paying returns.
After explaining, he asked, "Has anything like this ever happened before?"
"No," Orelia immediately replied. "But what’s wrong with it? I think this should be a good thing, right?"
Kase said, "We didn’t see any refugees at the Shaman’s Hut, did we?"
"Maybe the abbot hired the refugees to transport the goods. That way they can support themselves with their own two hands," Orelia said.
"It’s a good thing, but there’s a problem," Colin continued. "The poor around here have already started handing over their surplus grain, just waiting for the monthly returns to survive. Also, not even a rural Church established by the Goddess of Wealth would pay interest for safekeeping people’s things."
"But we have a major trade route right here, and there really is a winter famine up north. Maybe they can actually make money selling things," Orelia said, her voice growing weaker.
"But the Monastery isn’t placing any limits on the goods they collect. Many tenant farmers have handed over their own food supplies."
Colin said grimly, "And they’ve set a fixed rule that the returns are only paid out after a month. If someone were to sell all the goods at a low price and run off with the money during that month, the local farmers would be ruined!"
’On the surface, it really didn’t seem like there was a problem. In fact, it looked like a great deed that accomplished several things at once.’
’But thinking about it carefully, if the White Dove Monastery really could make money this way, the only method would be to collect all the farmers’ local products and then force the passing merchant caravans to pay exorbitant prices—something a Good God Church would never do.’
’If they were sacrificing their own interests to buy the farmers’ goods, how could they possibly maintain their local welfare programs?’
’They’re hiring people and paying returns... The whole point of a Church collecting tithes is to sustain local welfare activities. Wouldn’t doing this be putting the cart before the horse?’
’The more Colin thought about it along these lines, the stranger it all seemed.’
’And then there were the recent Demon sightings around the Holy City...’
Ale frowned and said, "Money and people—those are two things Demons crave. Both of the unusual situations we’ve found are related to them. We can’t afford to be complacent."
"But..." Orelia murmured.
The young girl’s expression was dazed.
She had been the first one to sense that something was amiss, but now that there seemed to be a real problem, she was starting to deny the troubling information. Or rather than refuting it, it was more like she was praying... praying that nothing had happened to the homeland that had raised her.
"The only plausible explanation is that the Church of Morninglord has begun a full-scale mobilization of resources to support the north, which is how the White Dove Monastery has enough funds," Colin said. "In any case, let’s go check things out in Rommon first. We can definitely get information there."