Chapter 385 Southern Trade ①
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
”…Finally tracked you down, Viscount Harvest? You certainly seem to be keeping yourself busy,” Fati said, her voice dripping with forced casualness.
”Whew… so you actually were home today. We can finally talk, Master Kento,” Rafuoro added, looking like he’d just finished a marathon.
Hearing the shop bell’s chime, I’d stepped into the front room to find the pair of merchants waiting. They looked utterly spent. I decided to lean into the silence and play the fool.
”…Remind me, who are you two again?”
””Hey! You’ve got to be kidding me!”” they shouted in unison.
”Kukuku, my bad, my bad. Just a joke. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Fati-san¹… and Rafuoro-kun²?”
”I was starting to think you’d wiped us from your memory entirely!” Fati snapped.
She had a good spark to her. These two had approached me a while back with a business pitch from Sylvaol³. The woman was Fati from Merchant Guild Uminari, and the man was Rafuoro from Merchant Guild Yuunari.
Both guilds are supposedly mid-tier back in Sylvaol, but their reach rivals Merchant Guild Tasogare—the absolute peak of commerce in our kingdom. I didn’t have the full ledger on their operations, but the fact that they could station agents this far from their home soil was proof enough of their muscle.
More importantly, they were trying to leverage my inventory to hijack the “North-South Trade Route” that Merchant Guild Tasogare was currently pioneering. Whether I’d actually let them do it was another story, but if they had the resources to pull it off, they were every bit as formidable as the Tasogare group.
”Sorry, sorry. I haven’t seen you around, so I figured you’d headed back home,” I said.
”‘Haven’t seen us’? More like you’ve been dodging us every time we turned a corner,” Fati countered, her eyes narrowing.
Well, she wasn’t wrong. For a while there, their persistent sales pitches had been an absolute headache.
But lately, I really had been that busy. Between “Project Harvest” and the “Restoration of the East-West Trade Route,” I was practically living on the road, popping up at different sites every day.
I gave them a sanitized version of the truth, skipping the sensitive details. They still looked drained, wearing the expressions of people who knew they were being handled but didn’t have the leverage to complain.
”Besides, you two probably knew that already, didn’t you? Exactly how thin I’ve been stretched lately,” I noted.
”…What’s that supposed to mean?” Fati asked warily.
”Exactly. We know you’re a man of many responsibilities, Master Kento, but…” Rafuoro started.
”It’s not a riddle. If I were in your shoes, I’d want to know if ‘busy’ was just a convenient excuse. I’d have had people tailing me, logging my stops, and poking around my associates to see if the schedule matched the reality,” I said calmly.
The silence that followed was heavy. They looked like they’d been caught with their hands in the till, exchanging quick, guilty glances. I wasn’t actually trying to dress them down, though. Like I told them, I’d have done the same. If you don’t know your mark, you can’t find their price.
To be honest, they’d been pretty amateur about it when they first arrived. They probably figured they could just bury me in gold to make me listen, or maybe they just looked down on me as some backwater magic circuit tinkerer. In a different life, that might have worked.
But the reality was that I had no room left on the books for them. I’d already decided to let Merchant Guild Tasogare handle all the Sylvaol trade during the restructuring. Plus, I had plans to scale up through the Eastern route once the connection to Ferguson was live. I wanted a bridge to Sylvaol’s economic power, sure, but I wasn’t about to hand them the keys to the kingdom’s main artery.
”Look, don’t sweat it. It’s not like you’d find anything incriminating anyway. But—and sorry to be blunt after all your legwork—my answer isn’t going to change, no matter how you phrase the request,” I said.
”…I figured as much,” Fati sighed. “In the end, we just realized—painfully so—exactly how many pies you have your hands in. So, look, I know we’ve been pushy, but… let’s have a real conversation about business.”
It was a bold pivot, but it was likely the most sincere she could manage. Fati didn’t try to hide that she’d underestimated me. She laid it out plain.
Rafuoro stayed quiet; they’d clearly reached a consensus that their old tactics were dead in the water. I wasn’t a kid. If they’d finally come to the table with a real deck, I’d at least look at the cards.
”First off, how much do you actually know about Sylvaol?” Fati asked.
”…Just the basics. You’re a ‘maritime nation’ that’s legendary for sea trade and you’ve made a fortune off the Southern routes,” I replied.
”So, basically, you know next to nothing.”
Fati didn’t pull her punches. Rafuoro winced at her tone, but it was too late to worry about manners. I was the one who’d told them to drop the formal act anyway. I signaled for her to keep going. It was true that my picture of the South was a bit blurry, and she’d successfully hooked my interest.
”It’s true that our country was built on Southern gold. But I hate to state the obvious: to make a fortune in trade, your partner has to have money to spend,” she explained.
”…Meaning what? Sylvaol is wealthy, but the Southern nations are on another level?”
”That’s the gist of it. Though I doubt you can even fathom the kind of capital we’re talking about.”
That was the pride of a Sylvaol citizen talking—the arrogance of a culture that had dominated the seas for generations. It was condescending, but I kept quiet.
”So, here’s the real question. What do you think Sylvaol sells to those rich Southern bastards to keep the gold flowing?”
The pieces finally started clicking together. The dots were connecting into a very clear line. They looked at me as if waiting for a reaction, but the logic was simple once you had the frame.
It explained why they’d rushed to the Canaria Kingdom the moment the ‘Stampede’ was over. And it explained why Princess Ierse from the northern Coalmine Kingdom had married into that specific family.
”I don’t know the specific manifest… but basically, Sylvaol is running out of things to sell, isn’t it?”
Their faces were all the confirmation I needed. I’d assumed they were just hungry for a new contract. But the truth was that the merchants of Sylvaol were in a desperate scramble for new inventory to keep their Southern partners interested.
I’d thought Princess Ierse’s marriage was a political wedge to keep Ferguson and Canaria in check. But it wasn’t about politics; it was about the mining rights in Coalmine. They needed those resources to flip to the South.
”…Seriously, why are you wasting your time running a magic circuit shop?” Fati asked, leaning back. “You’re way too sharp for your own good.”
”I have my reasons. So, are you going to tell me what you were selling?”
”…Fruit oils, rare liquors, high-end textiles. We have a deep catalog, but the anchor… the anchor was always silver,” Fati admitted.
”…Wait, was that supposed to be a trick question?”
”Damn it! I was counting on you being shocked that we were essentially exporting the bullion itself!” Fati groaned.
She looked genuinely frustrated. It felt good. Looks like I’d officially taken the lead in this negotiation.
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Summary:
Kento is visited by Fati and Rafuoro, merchants from the maritime nation of Sylvaol who have been persistently trailing him. Kento reveals he knows they have been spying on him, forcing them to drop their sales act and speak honestly. The chapter ends with Kento deducing that Sylvaol’s economy is in crisis because they have run out of resources (specifically silver) to trade with the wealthy Southern nations.
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Trivia:
- The merchants are from ‘mid-tier’ guilds that actually rival top-tier national guilds.
- The ‘North-South Trade Route’ is a strategic project Kento is currently protecting.
- Sylvaol is a ‘maritime nation’ dependent on sea trade.
- Princess Ierse’s marriage to the Coalmine royalty was actually an economic grab for mineral resources.
- Silver was the primary export that sustained Sylvaol’s wealth
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Character Insight:
Kento shows his growth as a power player, moving from a simple shopkeeper to someone who can read international geopolitics and economic shifts. Fati and Rafuoro show vulnerability, shifting from aggressive sales to desperate honesty.
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Behind the Scenes:
The author uses this chapter to ground the ‘Isekai’ fantasy elements in realistic economic trade-offs, showing that marriage and alliances in this world are often driven by resource scarcity.
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TL Notes:
Notes:
• Fati – Woman Merchant from Sylvaol, member of Merchant Guild Uminari. Dark, bruised crimson hair, bandana, sun-kissed bronze skin.
• Rafuoro – Merchant from Sylvaol, member of Merchant Guild Yuunagi. Thin vermillion hair, pale skin, lanky/skeletal build.
• Kento – The owner of the magic tool shop ‘Harvest,’ which discretely sells adult goods. He’s a former overworked, ordinary salaryman from modern Japan who was suddenly transported (isekai’d) to this fantasy world. He has dark hair and an unremarkable appearance, typically wearing a plain, slightly suspicious-looking shop owner’s clothes looks like Kazuma Satou from certain series. He has a minimal amount of magic power, enough to craft his specialty items.
• Ierse – The Crown Princess and wife of Gilliam, originally from a foreign land. She is described as lively and healthy with a unique charm. She wants to cheer up her husband. Has long haired hair.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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