Chapter 117
Chapter 117: It’s Better If I Eat Everything (1)
“Me, too? Why should I go?”
“Should I go alone to the market? We need to figure out how to sell together.”
“No, I have a lot to do! I’m too busy to go anywhere!”
“Don’t kid around. Without me, you’d just collapse and take a break.”
Ghislaine knew very well what kind of guy Claude was.
“Oh, no! I’ll work really hard, you know?”
“Looks good on you.”
Ghislaine clicked her tongue and continued.
“Well, even if that’s a lie. If you want to sell continuously, you’ll need to come and see how it’s done at least once. We’re selling from the capital all across the kingdom; someone needs to manage it.”
“What about the work here right now?”
“Now that we’ve established a framework, anyone can oversee it temporarily. Just find someone to handle things for a while.”
“Ugh….”
Claude clutched his head, rendered speechless.
Even if he found someone, it wouldn’t decrease his workload.
He had to check on the work situation during his absence, so his workload would probably just increase.
But he couldn’t refuse to go.
As Ghislaine said, to oversee the cosmetics sales, he had to go to the capital to find sales outlets and prepare for distribution.
Of course, he was also the leader of the Penris merchant faction.
Even if it was a ghost faction that only bought things without selling anything.
Amidst his reluctance to leave, a thought suddenly sparked in Claude’s mind.
“Wait a minute. Do we really have to sell ourselves?”
“If we don’t sell directly, then what will we do?”
“We just sell to a big faction with good credit, right? They’ll somehow verify it and sell it to the nobles.”
The cosmetics had proven efficacy to that extent.
A large faction could easily find people to verify it.
However, Ghislaine looked at Claude with disdain and clicked her tongue.
“Why should I?”
“Well, it would be easier to just hand it off to a large faction, wouldn’t it?”
“We have our own faction too. Why would we give it away so easily?”
“Our faction is only a name without any recognition; it was just created to make it easier to buy things.”
“So we have to grow it starting from cosmetics. If we sell directly, we can take all the profits; why involve another faction? I’ve never given my stuff to someone else.”
Claude chuckled.
“Wow, what a greedy guy….”
“And if we hand it over to another faction, it’ll take way too long. We need to create a sales channel and gather funds as quickly as possible. Besides, we need to grow our faction, so stop talking nonsense and just come along.”
“Why are you in such a hurry if you have plenty of money? We still have a lot of runestones left.”
Ghislaine calmly replied to Claude’s grumbling.
“Not enough. Time and money are always short.”
‘We don’t know when Duke Delphine will move. We need to finish our preparations before then.’
Penris Territory wouldn’t be attacked immediately.
Desmond would focus on capturing Raybold as a means to compensate for the loss in the last war.
Therefore, they needed to quickly strengthen their territory in the interim.
Thinking ahead, even the money they had now felt insufficient.
‘The runestones are beginning to show their limits, too.’
While the runestones hadn’t collapsed yet, there were plans that required a large quantity of them.
Considering the amount they would have to send to the mage tower, it was getting precarious.
‘I don’t have the luxury to go back to the Forest of Monsters.’
They still lacked the power to explore the Forest of Monsters again.
Until they built up their strength, they had to utilize other bases besides the Forest of Monsters.
‘I also need to create alliances. I need someone to at least hold us back.’
Going just to sell cosmetics was not the real reason for going to the capital.
To take on the formidable power of the Delphine Duke, they needed the strength of oppositional factions.
‘I don’t need to fight the duke alone. The royal family is probably sharpening their teeth against Duke Delphine too.’
Right now, the conflict between the Crown Prince faction and the duke’s faction was likely intensifying, making it a good time to take advantage.
They needed to meet with them and shake hands.
“I will start the war on my own terms and at my own time. If I declare war, it will be my first move. There will never be a battle on my land; I’ll crush your foundations.”
Ghislaine clenched her fist.
Growing their territory was important, but ultimately, it was just a means to contend with the duke’s faction.
However, others, unaware of her true intentions, failed to understand why Ghislaine appeared so anxious.
Claude felt the same way.
They had solved the food problem, had runestones, and even developed specialty products.
If things continued like this, the Penris Territory would progressively develop.
Yet, Ghislaine seemed perpetually urgent, as if she was always being chased by something.
‘This is it. Someone has a serious grudge against her. Oh, this is maddening.’
Ghislaine wasn’t wrong.
After developing a hit product, handing it over to another faction would only benefit others.
But Claude was adamant about not wanting to go sell cosmetics himself.
He was already exhausted, and he felt that if he took on more tasks related to the faction, death might be the better option.
Once the cosmetics started selling, he would be much busier than now.
“Ah! Seriously! When I come back from the capital, I’ll have to check how everything went! How can I do it all by myself! Plus, you want me to handle faction work too? No way! No way! I can’t do it! Just kill me!”
Finally, Claude began to throw a fit, almost collapsing on the floor.
“Just hire more people. You can delegate some work to others.”
In response to Ghislaine’s suggestion, Claude pounded his chest in frustration, almost on the verge of tears.
“Right now, those people are barely managing their tasks. They don’t know anything outside of their assigned areas, so they can’t help each other out. They need to know what they’re doing.”
“Hmm….”
Even Ghislaine thought that there were too few people compared to the workload.
She had taken on many important tasks herself, bringing Claude on board to manage, but there were still too many things happening concurrently.
No matter how capable the two of them were, there were still human limits.
Ghislaine understood this, but time was pressing and there was much to do, so she had no choice but to keep squeezing Claude.
“There’s no helping it. You just have to work harder… Wait a moment.”
Suddenly, Ghislaine thought of someone.
He wasn’t someone to be overly trusted…. but he could handle most of the tasks needed to run a territory.
That guy would surely be suitable as Claude’s assistant.
Ghislaine suddenly smiled kindly as she said, “Are you having a tough time? I can introduce you to someone. I know a kid who can help you out.”
“A girl? Is she pretty?”
“It’s a guy.”
“…No thanks.”
“Then you can just keep doing it all by yourself.”
Claude bit his lips. This lady always acted like there were options, but the truth was always set in stone.
Finally, with a heavy sigh, he asked, “Who is it? If you’re giving them territory work, they need at least the bare minimum of knowledge.”
Even one extra pair of hands was a welcome addition.
However, to manage territory operations, they needed someone who could read and do basic calculations.
“You’ll find out when you meet him. Let’s move.”
“…Now?”
“Time is money.”
“No, why the rush… Shouldn’t we at least contact him beforehand? What if I meet him and he tells me off? What if he refuses?”
Ghislaine chuckled and replied, “If he refuses, he dies.”
*
Ghislaine and Claude arrived at the old Count Digald’s castle.
As they made their way, they took a moment to look around the territory, frowning at the state of it.
“Wow, this place is in bad shape too. It’s just like our territory. No, we’re definitely doing much better now.”
The Digald Territory hadn’t properly recovered after losing the war.
Perdium was also short on funds and manpower, so they could hardly help the Digald side.
At least with the runestones Ghislaine provided, they were barely managing to send aid to the territory residents.
They had expanded the land, but instead of income, only more expenses were piling up.
“I suppose I’ll have to send some food later. Or should I just eat everything here myself?”
“Such blatant selfishness.”
“It’s a waste! If we leave it to Perdium, it’ll take way too long.”
Ghislaine decided to return to the Digald Territory once Penris was on the right track.
Even though it felt wasteful to leave the land idle, there was no way to deal with it for now.
Right now, they needed all their strength devoted to advancing Penris.
The moment they arrived at Digald Castle, Ghislaine headed straight for the underground prison.
“Hmm, I wonder where he is. I told them not to let that one guy out.”
The lower-ranking officials who hadn’t participated in the war had all been taken by Perdium.
Yet one person remained locked in prison at Ghislaine’s request.
“Wow, there are a lot of unfamiliar faces here. What a mess.”
The prison was packed to the brim with no vacant cells.
Most of the prisoners were newcomers caught causing havoc in the territory after it went downhill.
Ghislaine clicked her tongue as she checked each prisoner until she finally found the one she was looking for.
The man, after all, seemed to be getting special treatment, as he sat alone in a relatively clean room, looking dazed.
It was Lowell, who survived by amusing Ghislaine with atrocious calculations.
“Um, was your name Lowell? Looks like you’re still alive.”
The skeletal-looking Lowell snapped his head up at the sound of Ghislaine’s voice.
“Wh-who….”
“It’s me, remember? Don’t you recognize me?”
“Uh-oh!”
Lowell bolted backward, pressing against the wall behind him.
Though it was too dark to recognize him at once, how could he forget a face like that?
The one who invaded from Perdium all the way to Digald and killed the Count and all his retainers.
To Lowell, Ghislaine was a terrifying figure, like a reaper.
“Wh-why did you come? Are you here to kill me?!”
After initially feeling relief over being spared, with the passage of time, unease settled in.
Everyone who had shared a cell with him had been released, leaving him behind.
From that moment, he anxiously spent each night, worried that he would be the only one left to face execution.
And now, that demon holding his life had appeared before him again.
“Please spare me! I’m innocent! I only did what I was told! I just worked hard!”
Ghislaine didn’t respond to his words but instead asked the same question from before.
“Then what is 750 times 1920?”
“1,440,000!”
The answer came out in a flash.
Lowell had replayed that day’s answer in his mind every day in the prison.
He should have said this!
But Claude, who didn’t know any of that, was surprised at how quickly the answer came out.
“What? What made that so fast?”
There wasn’t the slightest hesitation.
‘If he’s this smart, then with just a little guidance, he’ll adapt quickly!’
Claude quickly said to Ghislaine, “Give him to me. I’ll put him to good use.”
“How about it? Do you like him?”
“Uh… Well, he just looks like a skeleton soldier. I guess the food here isn’t great.”
“It’s probably because he’s been starving in jail. We can feed him well. But that’s not the point. Are you really going to take him?”
Their conversation felt subtly suspicious.
Likes him? Wants to take him? Says he’ll feed him well?
Lowell instinctively tried to back away, but he was trapped against the wall.
At that moment, Ghislaine quietly spoke, gripping the bars.
“How about you work with me?”
“W-what kind of work?”
“Before I tell you that… How about writing a 20-year slave contract? A commitment to work hard for twenty years.”
“20 years…?”
If it meant survival, he wouldn’t mind being a slave for 20 or 30 years.
But the lead-up to that statement seemed so unsettling that he couldn’t respond right away.
Ghislaine sighed after a brief hesitation and clicked her tongue.
“Alright, if you don’t want to sign a slave contract, I won’t force you. Then choose something else. Option one: starve to death in prison. Option two: execution. Look at me being so kind, giving you more options.”
It wasn’t exactly coercion, but it was a proposal with no real alternative.
