Volume 5 Chapter 5 Part 1
[previous_page]
[next_page]
Translator: Kell | Editor: Ryunakama
“Now, then. Let’s get our weapons ready first.”
War, of course, requires preparing weapons. But Cardinal Georgis’ army included people who were not even adventurers to begin with—in other words, people who didn’t even have weapons.
While there were many weapons available, they were not exactly of good quality.
The advanced classes—called inferior classes in this world—wielded different weapons from those with ordinary job classes. Just like how I had a staff specially-made for Sages, other advanced classes had their own dedicated weapons.
However, since there were not many people with advanced classes who actually fought, it would be difficult to get these special weapons. So the plan was to procure ordinary weapons that were at least a little more suited to the advanced classes.
And so I put out an ad to a firm in the vicinity, but the results were horrendous. I knew why, of course. People were afraid to make an enemy of Cardinal Georgis. The general public thought that we couldn’t win against the Cardinal. If Georgis won, it wasn’t hard to imagine what would happen to those who helped us.
But I didn’t give up and sent letters to many trade associations, not just in the immediate vicinity. I told them I didn’t care about the price; just provide us with weapons. To be honest, I’d like to see the real thing first before buying, but being picky was just not an option right now. If one out of ten was useful for our purpose, that would be good enough.
Only one firm gave me a favorable response—the Maxia Trading Company, a big firm in the royal capital, headed by Myna. She promised to do everything she could to provide me with the weapons we needed.
Maxia probably had some way to deliver the weapons without the cardinal finding out. From the schedule I was told, they should be arriving soon. While I was waiting at Meigis Trading, a staff member rushed into the room, looking flustered.
“We have an emergency!”
“What’s going on?”
From the look on his face, it didn’t look like bad news. Then what was the big deal?
“The Maxia Trading Company’s caravan is on its way!”
“Caravan?”
The letter from Maxia did not mention how they would deliver the weapons to us. All it said was: ‘We’ll deliver them to you around this time today, so just wait.” But given the circumstances, I thought they would be more secretive about it.
I climbed to the roof of the building to verify the report, and sure enough, a huge caravan unit consisting of more than thirty carriages was coming towards our direction, with the Maxia banner flying high.
“Man, Maxia Trading sure is incredible.”
How much manpower and budget would be needed to move those thirty carriages? Probably not a small amount of money, even for those of us who had seized the production of healing medicines.
Organizing and then deploying such a huge caravan in such a short period of time just showed how much power the Maxia Trading Company had.
If those carriages were fully loaded with weapons, we were sure to find weapons suited for the advanced classes. But would the firm be all right after doing all this? If Cardinal Georgis won, even Maxia would find itself in a tough position. Maybe firing whoever was in charge would be enough to receive a pardon?
I turned my eyes at the girl standing at the head of the caravan. She looked familiar. I think I’ve seen her before. No, I have. It was Myna. The president herself was leading the caravan. She had no excuses anymore.
“Is it true that Maxia’s president herself is coming?!” Count Meigis said as he burst into the room.
Apparently, word of the president’s arrival had spread all throughout the Count’s domain. I guess I wasn’t seeing things.
“As far as I could tell, it’s the real deal,” I said.
“Why would a big shot like that come here? True, healing medicine production is a huge business, but to side with us at this time would be too big a risk. Is the president of Maxia Trading stupid?”
“I’ve met and talked to Myna before. She seemed competent.”
Count Meigis looked surprised. Was there something surprising in what I just said?
“I thought you were an adventurer,” he said.
“I am an adventurer. Where’s this coming from?”
“Even a nobleman like me will find it difficult to talk to the president of Maxia. Yet you address her without a proper title?”
Is Maxia really that huge? Maybe huge firms did have more power than noblemen with lower status. I was quite lucky that I got her in my debt back at the royal capital.
“I lent her a little hand a while back,” I said. “I actually got paid for it, though.”
“Is it similar to what you’re doing for me right now?”
“Nah, much smaller than that. Though technically, both involved medicine.”
Now that I thought about it, I had done nothing but create medicine since I left the village. I became a Sage to fight, but apparently I had some connection to medicine. Of course, if my knowledge and skills came in handy, then all’s good.
“So in order to repay that debt, Maxia came to help,” the Count said. “I’m grateful for your abilities.”
“I don’t think she’s the kind of person who takes action based on that alone, though.”
Myna didn’t seem like the type who would put her whole company at risk just to repay a favor. She did compensate me generously last time, but that felt more like a future investment. In fact, her investment was giving her high returns. That’s precisely why she was president in the first place.
“That is a good point. I’ve heard that the current president is quite brilliant.”
“Is that so?”
I had never heard anything regarding Myna’s reputation before.
“Yes. Actually Maxia was on the decline until quite recently. It is said that the one who revived the company was the current president.”
“It wasn’t that long ago, right?”
I didn’t ask how old Myna was, but she must be quite young. It was unlikely that she’d been in office for ten or twenty years.
[previous_page]
[next_page]
Comment (0)