A few days after dispatching Arisa to town, the mayor AND the deputy mayor came calling.
With the Adventurer King Marcus in tow, naturally.
“Truly… you people are an unending source of astonishment.”
The deputy mayor sighed it over his tea, half in admiration.
“But wholesaling SPICES at that price…”
The mayor could only sit there, eyes spinning.
“Are you certain, though — entrusting this to OUR company?”
That was Marcus.
“Yeah — routing sales through your company is simply the least painful option.”
“But listen, Tatsuya. This is going to become something enormous. No — it already HAS…”
“I’m more surprised the mayor himself came out here. What’s going on?”
“Given the monthly volumes Arisa’s been quoting… at this rate the LORD of these lands shows up in force. People could die.”
“That escalated fast. Explain?”
“The spice trade route has another name… the Golden Dead-or-Alive Road.”
“That name is a syllable disaster. Are you okay?”
“It’s fine. There’s no problem.”
Never expected Marcus, of all people, to serve me a meme THAT ancient.
…He can’t possibly know it. Coincidence. Has to be.
“So what’s the situation?”
“It’s the road that carries spices up from the south — a long, LONG road. Crawling with monsters and bandits…”
“I see. Hence ‘dead or alive.’”
“Exactly. But survive the full run, and the profits are titanic.”
“Hence ‘golden.’ But why does the LORD care?”
“Spice is a mega-concession — world-spanning trading houses and half the world’s nations are stakeholders. The wealth-extraction machine was built generations ago and runs deep.”
“And dumping mystery spices into that machine in bulk… yeah, the entrenched interests would treat that as an act of war.”
“Wrong. It’s the production method.”
”…The production method?”
“It can’t be papered over any longer. I’ve deliberately kept quiet, but… the sugar, the spices… you’re GROWING them here, aren’t you? Things that cannot grow in this climate are growing here. That is a colossal problem.”
“Well — it is basically a money tree, yeah.”
“Our town leans autonomous, but above the mayor there’s still a kingdom. Word of you reaching the lord — the KING — was always a matter of time. In fact… he already knows.”
“Which means?”
“Best case: this farm becomes crown property and they skim a massive margin. Worst case: they confiscate the farm outright. THAT is the scale of profit we’re discussing.”
Oi oi, seriously — and then I smacked my fist into my palm.
“Wait. Isn’t this region Demon Lord territory?”
“That’s… ambiguous, legally. Demon Lord Cornelia has never cared about borders… and you’re humans doing commerce in a human town, so ‘therefore you fall under the king’ technically holds together as an argument.”
“Except I… have formal authorization from Cornelia as an autonomous lord of this land?”
The entire room went silent.
“Y-y-y-you… you’re telling me Demon Lord Cornelia RECOGNIZED you as an autonomous LORD?”
Judging by three simultaneously bloodless faces… the office of “village chief” around here is apparently a much bigger deal than advertised.
“But in that case… this becomes a territorial WAR,” Marcus groaned.
“How so?”
“Here’s the truth… the king is already preparing to extort this farm. His intelligence says your fighting strength is ‘palm-top rabbits and their queen, roughly’ — and he’s assembling a force rated to exterminate exactly that.”
“Oi oi, quick on the trigger, this king…”
“I’ll be fully honest. We originally came today to broker between you and the king — to negotiate the profit share he’d take as ‘taxes.’ But this is Demon-Lord-sanctioned autonomous territory… which makes the king’s play completely indefensible.”
“Meaning if he sends soldiers to threaten us, he’s functionally picking a fight with Cornelia.”
Marcus nodded.
“It must be stopped NOW. I ride for the royal capital within the hour, but… in all likelihood, I won’t make it in time.”
“‘Won’t make it’ meaning?”
“The king is an impatient bastard who prides himself on speed. The force is probably already assembled — the ‘negotiation’ that’s actually intimidation will arrive almost immediately. At which point, between the Demon Lord and the king, things get catastrophically bad. If I’m late… I am BEGGING you, keep it peaceful.”
“Out of curiosity — their force composition?”
“It’s rated for palm-top rabbit extermination, remember. Five Sword Saints, ten Sages, fifty Holy Knights… at MINIMUM. You could fairly call it the kingdom’s entire strategic defense reserve.”
Then Marcus smacked his fist into his palm.
“—Oh, and I believe that deserter hero was among them. Miyamoto, or whatever his name was.”