Page 264 (1/2)

Chapter 264: Progress

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav

Unlike the snow-covered Northlands, spring arrived early in the central plains of the south The temperature would rise quickly within teeks of the first spring rain, and spring’s arrival would be accompanied by nus, the Winter Goddess Donya decided to give her power over to the Spring Goddess Arsheer A flowers, the plants that had hibernated during the winter sprouted new buds Starving aniht with it a new cycle; all living creatures were reinvigorated, and new lives were born in this golden era

Alright then, I’ll stop speaking poetically and start talking aboutht with it plenty of business opportunities

In this era of cold weapons, traveling typically relied on horses and horse-drawn carriages In winter, the roads were caked in ice, and traveling was inconvenient; the transportation of goods and daily life products would be quite slow Throughout the winter faoods, and when it ended, there would be a need for restocking

This hy each spring was a golden opportunity for any merchant to make money It was also considered acceptable to raise their prices slightly The high demand at this time of year would allow merchants who specialized in this line of work to o ship thirty percent of their entire profits for a whole year

The Lagraz Kingdoreen obsidian crystals, redwood, and rosreen obsidian crystals and rosredients, and redas an excellent wood for crafting ht after by both the Mage Country and the Bardi Empire

Since the market had deroups would head out immediately after the final snow of the new year and sell off local products in other countries for profits Then, in another country like the Bardi Empire, they would use their profits to buy various local products and sell thedom for enormous profits

However, just like ained frooods would be accoreat risks If overnmental officials, it would be considered lucky if they could retain even half of their wares If they were even unluckier, they ht even run into military situations, political affairs, or even warfare and other unpredictable factors, which would cause theerous of all was to attract the attention of soreat a merchant’s connections were, they would still be limited in a country that wasn’t their honas there was some passable excuse they could come up with

As ordinary people wouldn’t dare to take up the import-export trade, there would obviously be no ordinary people in this business Those that dared to become import-export merchants were typically very difficult to take down Many would have extre connected to the royalty of their origin country; they would be unafraid of the extortions of a north to protect theroups or so similar After all, the fact that they were able to protect then lands th available in their hands

The leader of the Veji Merchant Association had no connections to royalty or nobles and was obviously of the latter type Although this merchant association was only a new one that had existed for a little less than twenty years, the hard work and careful ement of the Veji Family’s leaders helped them successfully monopolize the trade routes between Bardi Edom’s Anton City The scale of their mercenaries matched that of a s different about the situation this year

"…It seems that the best I can hope for is that I won’t lose everything&8221;

Sindy Veji, aged 46, was one of the higher-ups of the Veji Merchant Association He had been conducting i this route for almost thirty years now Yet unlike past years, news about the Bardi Empire’s situation had been murky recently, all sorts of rumors abound

Skilled er In their eyes, a major upheaval within a country was synonymous to problems in its econoical reatly decreased the a between the Bardi E thunderstorm as he mused to himself; he was quite worried about the situation Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it Many orders had been placed with their merchant association in the previous year, and several of them were from old customers that had been with theer them No matter what, he had to make this trip to the Bardi Empire

Unusual circumstances would require additional measures The leader of the Veji Merchant Association illing to spare no expense and paid heavy fees to invite two of the top ten doh-level elite co were indeed willing to be hired by thele of Sulo Mercenary Group, "Meteor Sword&8221; Juste, and the leader of North Horn Mercenary Group, "White Dragon&8221; Carlogier personally arrived to guard them These two individuals were both very fareed, they brought their elite subordinates to guard the Veji Merchant Association The problem was that the expected profits froh to pay the price to hire these two roups

"Heavens, please don’t let us meet with any trouble, especially not those undead that don’t care about their lives…&8221;

If the hired mercenaries didn’t meet with any combat situations, the typical way that they worked was that they would only have to be paid eighty or ninety percent of the originally agreed upon price There also wouldn’t be any need to compensate their losses, so that would be the best case scenario; the Veji Merchant Association would at least h money to cover all their costs

"Sir Sindy, why do you always look so depressed? The weather’s really nice today You should be happy that we can ress due to the weather&8221;

In Sindy’s eyes, this blonde-haired boy, as all smiles, appeared to be only fifteen or sixteen years old However, after talking a bit more with him, Sindy felt more and more like he didn’t understand this boy named Rolo

Rolo seemed childish and ridiculous, but was especially talented in the merchant business Some random sentences that he would say would require Sindy to ponder for quite a while before he understood theical

These strange members of the Silver Coin Squad came to Sindy of their own volition and offered to be hired as mercenaries for an incredibly low price, which astonished hiht that there was some plot, but he understood when he looked at the wares that they were carrying He s, and they probably only intended to seek protection fro for cheap was only a cover for wanting to borrow his roup to help the in mid-as somewhat taboo and typically wouldn’t be accepted However, when Sindy directly told the him for protection,&8221; they admitted it quite honestly and even offered to pay him a sizable surape wine Right now, the world isn’t peaceful, so how could we dare to travel by our weak little selves? We’ll pay you, and if there really is trouble on the way, it’s always safer with more people&8221;

Of course, how useful the bribe paid to Sindy was in allowing theht, Captain Rolo, could you tellthe relationship between banks’ loans and s that I didn’t quite understand For example, if I can talk to the banks and…&8221;

For Sindy, who had been a ained h this Rolo felloas quite young, his knowledge was vast, which was to be expected of ato his vocabulary, he called it all ‘finance’ His personal opinions were co this subject Although it seeht about what Rolo said, they sounded quite reasonable

Meanwhile, as I listened to Sindy, as endlessly prattling on about thewhy I hadn’t stopped s about finance

"Originally, I had just intended to pretend to be a merchant as a convenient way to join theinal world to tell him I never expected that he took them so seriously to the extent that he noants to know everything about economics I was a law in with Hoould I possibly know about the foundational workings of econo things up&8221;

The best way to make a lie seem like the truth was to put the lie within another lie that would easily be seen through This would ent&8221; people reveal the "lie&8221; by the for

Meeting Sindy’s roup was an unexpected lucky occurrence for uard was difficult If we volunteered and recommended ourselves just like that, ould most likely be rejected, and if we showed off our true abilities, it would instead make them think that we had sorape wine as cargo andit I intended to pretend to be a s to save ave uise had been too successful, as after I told Sindy some words that I only happened to hear before in s as valuable treasures If he kept asking et exposed as a fraudulent merchant&8221;

"Shh, this is a forbidden topic&8221;

Alright, since I didn’t kno to respond, I decided to treat it as a secret I didn’t want to tell hih it was totally uncute of me to answer in such a fashion, he actually vieweddirectly to talking in a roundabout fashion, and tried striking up a conversation withup some more of my opinions about commerce

Today was the third day since we joined theuy actually ca forto make some stuff up, our attention was attracted to the sudden sounds of arguing and weapons clashing