Chapter 142. Gold Coins Instead of Swords (4)
“...Therefore, I would like to move my base here to Norington, my lord.”
Watching the man bowing so low as to be excessive, Blanc raised an eyebrow.
“Hmm...”
Amidst his bewilderment and surprise, Blanc quietly turned his eyes to look at Bonas, who was standing beside him.
“...”
Bonas was looking at the merchant bowing before him with a subtle anger.
He noticed Blanc’s gaze on him and quietly approached to speak.
“How about accepting it?”
“Will you be alright?”
Seeing Blanc trying to be considerate of him, Bonas replied with a proud heart.
“The interests of Cadmus and Norington are more important than my personal grudge.”
Bonas quietly raised his head and said.
“Am I not the treasurer of Norington now?”
Bonas spoke with his head held high, as if for the person in front to hear.
The bowing merchant shrunk even more at Bonas' voice and trembled.
“Besides, he didn’t come empty-handed, and he’s showing excellent sincerity, isn’t he?”
Behind the prostrating man stood a huge sack of gold coins.
Bonas had always been obsessed with money.
The pressure and stress of being the treasurer of a domain were enough to quell his old grudge.
“Alright.”
Blanc decided to accept Bonas' advice.
“Merchant Gregson, raise your head.”
“Yes! My lord!”
Gregson quickly raised his head in accordance with Blanc’s command.
Gregson, a major player in the grain market who had forcibly collected debts from Bonas' family on a cold winter day in Bigrove.
He had come to Blanc to move his base of operations to Norington.
A bad relationship could also be called a relationship.
It was a decision made with the judgment that he could exchange a word or two more than merchants with whom he had no connection at all.
Of course, behind that judgment was the pressure that he could no longer hold out in Bigrove.
If this proposal failed, he was planning to wrap everything up and go back to his hometown.
“I shall accept your proposal.”
“Thank you! My lord!”
Gregson disposed of all his assets in Bigrove and offered a whopping half of them in gold coins.
Through such a bold decision, Gregson opened his own path despite his bad connection with Blanc and Bonas.
“I will do my best!”
“I’ll be looking forward to it. You may go.”
The man who became Norington’s first government-sponsored merchant was indeed qualified to be a big player in Bigrove.
As if he still couldn't believe it, Gregson kept bowing to Blanc until the moment he left the lobby.
“He is a man who hides a cool judgment behind a naive appearance.”
Bonas, who had already been burned by Gregson once, gave a subtle piece of advice to Blanc as he watched the man’s departing back.
“That will be the job for our treasurer to handle from now on.”
Bonas, understanding the implication that he should handle Gregson, gave a chilly smile.
“If a merchant like him knows about the Gorge Where Even Tears Dried Up, then Count Lacie must know too, right?”
Blanc leaned back in his chair and looked at Nicholas.
“Of course, he would. No matter how much we try to maintain security, we can’t cover all of that vast land.”
The Gorge Where Even Tears Dried Up was recovering its soil fertility at an unbelievable speed.
It was already in a state where it had been judged sufficient for wheat farming.
‘Of course, you can plant anything.’
Having received the certification of the elves, the descendants of trees and forests, Blanc could not help but smile fondly whenever he thought of the vast plains.
Even a minimal prediction of the amount of wheat to be harvested from that wide and fertile land was comparable to the wheat production from Bigrove.
“Still, wasn't a merchant named Gregson a pretty big player in Bigrove?”
However, Blanc could not fully understand why Gregson, who had a firm position in Bigrove, would throw everything away and come to Norington.
“He probably couldn’t withstand Count Lacie’s repeated pressure.”
For Blanc’s sake, Bonas quietly told him his speculation.
“Count Lacie has repeatedly blocked the flow of logistics. He has been controlling the market at will through political judgments.”
Count Lacie had controlled the flow of logistics to pressure the surrounding lords.
The resulting damage had to be shouldered by the merchants based in Bigrove.
“I, too, went bankrupt for that reason.”
The merchants of Bigrove, who faltered every time Count Lacie blocked logistics, naturally had no choice but to pass on the damage.
Downward, downward.
To secure gold coins and maintain liquidity from the sudden disaster, they had sought survival by strangling those weaker than themselves.
“He chose to leave in search of new land rather than cling to such a deformed market.”
It was not without reason that the southern lords had risen against Count Lacie.
It was possible because a great alternative in the form of Blanc and Norington had emerged in a state full of complaints against Count Lacie.
And that situation was the same not only for the lords but also for the merchants.
“The sword Count Lacie wielded was a double-edged one, I see.”
The corruption and rotten blood that had accumulated in Bigrove were bursting out.
And the lords and merchants of the south were flocking to Norington in search of new lands and opportunities to escape them.
“More might come in the future, don’t you think?”
Bonas smiled as he heard Blanc’s words.
“I might finally be able to breathe a little.”
Their words became reality.
From the next day on, a line of merchants seeking Norington began to form.
Encouraged by Gregson’s success, they were knocking on Norington’s door as if they had been waiting.
The instincts of merchants, tempered in the rough and harsh grain market of Bigrove, were telling them.
That this was the land of opportunity.
***
A war fought with gold coins instead of a sword.
Norington and Bigrove had aimed at each other, holding up their pouches of gold coins, but a small hole had formed in the pouch held by Count Lacie.
By a small arrow shot by Blanc.
And through the small hole created by the arrow, Bigrove’s shining things were constantly falling out.
Endlessly, toward the bottomless pit of ruin.
“What did you just say?”
“We will have to move the branch.”
Without even glancing at the tea offered by Count Lacie, a long-bearded dwarf handed over a letter.
“The time we spent with Bigrove was also a beneficial time for us...”
The branch manager could not finish the farewell speech he had prepared.
“Hoo... Khek... Kehehehek...”
Because Count Lacie suddenly burst out laughing like a madman.
After laughing for a while as if he could not hold it in, Count Lacie finally regained his composure after some time.
“Everyone wants to be together in good times, but they are all busy getting out when things are not so good.”
Casting aside etiquette and decorum, Count Lacie leaned deep into his chair and looked at the branch manager.
“Let’s hear the reason why you chose Count Blanc over me.”
Seeing the strangely relaxed Count Lacie, the branch manager was rather flustered.
He had come here with much resolve, knowing well the man’s snake-like nature.
“...It is because Count Blanc and Norington have something that Bigrove does not.”
The Bigrove branch manager calmly explained the Iron Bank’s position.
“A temple of the Goddess Order, the honorable torch of the Torch Knights...”
As the branch manager’s words continued, a look of emptiness spread across Count Lacie’s face.
“The Brotswav Craftsman Guild, the support of the southern lords. Even a close relationship with the central power of the Felix Kingdom. Count Blanc and Norington have both future growth potential and stability.”
Instead, what appeared on his face was a cruel smile based on anger.
“Indeed, things that I do not have and will never be able to have.”
Count Lacie nodded his head obediently as if he understood.
However, that nod was not a gesture of admitting defeat.
“I understand completely. I won’t see you out.”
It was a movement to steel his fighting spirit for the next time.
Seeing Count Lacie even waving goodbye, the Bigrove branch manager felt rather confused.
“...Thank you for your consideration thus far, Count Lacie.”
Count Lacie quietly watched the branch manager leave after bidding farewell.
When he was finally left alone in the drawing room, Count Lacie opened his mouth.
“Did you hear that? They said they chose him because Count Blanc has something I don’t.”
The drawing room was empty except for Count Lacie.
Therefore, his words should have ended as a simple monologue, but.
“In that case, Count Lacie, you just need to have something that Count Blanc does not.”
Someone emerged from the shadows cast in a distant corner, as if rising up.
“That is exactly what I wanted to say.”
Count Lacie took out a wine bottle, poured it into a glass, and spoke to the man who had risen from the shadows.
“I will sign.”
Count Lacie, chugging the wine, dipped his quill pen in ink.
“Thank you for your decision, my lord, to grasp the doorknob of the new world that is about to open.”
A middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair neatly combed back took a document from his pocket and quietly placed it down.
Count Lacie, while chugging his glass, quietly looked down at his desk.
He saw a document on the left waiting for his signature and letters on the right.
Those letters were from the southern lords and the Baywood committee.
“If the world abandons me.”
Putting down his wine glass, Count Lacie began to write his name on the document on the left.
“I must also abandon the world.”
In the quiet drawing room, only the scratching sound of the quill pen echoed emptily.
Finally finishing his signature, Count Lacie extended his hand to the salt-and-pepper-haired middle-aged man for a handshake.
“I look forward to working with you, Ensadu.”
“His Highness will be pleased as well.”
Beneath the two men shaking hands, the ink of Count Lacie’s name was smudging.
In the signature line signed by Count Lacie, the name Aleid Claudio, King of Gartaria, was written.
***
Blanc raised his red wine toward the moonlight.
As if trying to capture the moonlight, Nicholas quietly reported to him.
“They say the Bigrove branch will be moving to Norington.”
Hearing Nicholas' words, Blanc smiled deeply and swallowed the wine.
“The arrow I shot hit its mark perfectly.”
Blanc looked at the empty wine glass with a satisfied expression.
The arrow named Nilsen that he had shot moved quietly and quickly, not only conveying his intentions to the southern lords but also safely reaching the Iron Bank’s Bigrove branch.
For Blanc, who was quietly celebrating, Nicholas quietly approached and refilled his empty glass.
“Count Lacie liked this quite a bit, didn’t he? Didn’t he pour me wine at his birthday party?”
Blanc looked at the swirling red light and thought of that time.
“My birthday is coming up, so I should repay the favor from back then.”
Blanc stroked the wine glass with his finger and gave a deep smile.
“That would be the etiquette of a noble.”
Under the pale moonlight, there was a man holding red wine.
But though the wine he held was a hot red color, the blood flowing in his body was as cold as could be.
“Send the invitations.”
Under the gaze of the moonlight, wine glasses were raised simultaneously in Norington and Bigrove.
Those glasses, holding a blood-red color, were shining under the pale moonlight, wishing for someone’s downfall.