“Well, that’s how it is.” (Wendelin)
“I don’t have any objections either. I request Baron Baumeister’s group to contribute to the development of this territory.” (Artur)
It’s one week after finishing the purification in the Demon Forest.
Be that as it may, father basically doesn’t do something like opposing us.
Besides, since father is still the territory’s lord, it’s nothing more than a good plan to gain the fief’s population’s support on top of leading to the advancement of the territory.
As a result various and several subjects were resolved.
Although he likely wants to vent out some complaints, he has been stopped by father as any more reckless remarks from him would directly influence the reputation of the Baumeister household.
According to the prior negotiation, the Baumeister household’s side has been given 30% of the share.
Once I was given the detailed account of the written item details, he took it from me as if stealing it and searched the numerical figures.
However, he can’t even properly tell whether they have been cheated either.
Given that the total sum isn’t more than 200’000 cents, he is somewhat unhappy as he has been thinking until now that it will be a large amount of money.
“Klaus, are there any mistakes in this calculation?” (Kurt)
“There aren’t.” (Klaus)
It would be impossible in the first place for Margrave Breithilde, being in charge of the kingdom’s south, to do something like swindling the money handed over to the poor Knight household next to him.
It’s also unlikely for him to make a mistake.
There was also the debt for the congratulatory gifts for Erich-nii-san’s, Paul-nii-san’s and Helmut-nii-san’s marriages, which they didn’t provide.
Of course this was something that had to be resolved.
“Looking at the written details, the paid back amount is reasonable.. ?” (Klaus)
As expected, even for Klaus it was nothing more than an ambitious undertaking.
Margrave Breithilde really has absolutely no trust in them, since he has done it in such way.
And, also did the same for the story about the debts of the Baumeister household.
“Will Baron Baumeister’s group be active as adventurers hereafter?” (Artur)
Building our base in this territory, we will go hunting in the Demon Forest by using my teleportation magic from here.
And how much tax we will pay to the Baumeister household after getting rewarded for those jobs.
In reality it was required to pay 20% of the liquidated sum of money as tax for the government at the Breitburg branch.
As expected, it is detestable to exploit adventurers this much.
As result, the governmental tax on the side of the Breitburg branch vanished.
Besides, in this case political intentions are involved as well.
I heard about this from Burkhart-san afterwards.
“Anyway, you will pay 20% of your obtained profits. I want you to submit a written report of the details once a month.” (Artur)
“Understood.” (Wendelin)
It will be Klaus’ job to check that written report, however he isn’t the kind of man to cut corners on parts of his job. He also shouldn’t blame me for stealing profit on behalf of father and Kurt.
He is bearing a grudge within his heart against father after all.
“Wendelin-sama will begin his activity as adventurer in this territory. That’s really wonderful.” (Klaus)
Klaus, who was ordered by father to check the written reports, doubtlessly said that on purpose.
Officially our activity as adventurers is just a front. The true aim is to purge Kurt, who will likely become a seed of trouble in future.
For him my decision is an event of great congratulations.
Given that he does nothing but always calculating only these things, he shows a delighted expression at being able to serve in his role as accountant after a long while.
Although Kurt, who realized that, glared at Klaus while his face became even redder, father’s expression didn’t change in particular.
The only one having been left out of the loop was Kurt. He stood stock still on his sport while having a bright red face.
“Master, those are quite nice item sets?” (Roderich)
“You have experience as shop manager, Roderich?” (Wendelin)
“I was a stand-in. I was asked by a friend of a certain ordinary general store business.” (Roderich)
“I see.” (Wendelin)
For the time being we decided to move our base of operations to the Baumeister territory until Kurt could be purged once he went on a rampage.
First was the house. Since that rented house was too narrow once the number of people increased, I decided to move to another house.
Therefore I decided to dismantle the house in Breitburg, I inherited from master, and rebuild it over here.
◆◇◆◇◆
Actually, this old man uses a unique magic belonging to the earth attribute.
Since he can even use teleportation in addition, he first transfers the target object into a magic bag once he has received a job from a client.
Of course, since a building has parts like the foundation, which have to be buried in the ground, it absolutely necessary for it to function in the same way after the relocation as it was before the relocation.
His customers are rich people such as large nobles.
In addition he also does things like relocating historic structures on order of the kingdom’s government.
Originally he shouldn’t be able to accept my request right away, but it seems Finance Minister Rückner put in a good word.
Right after making a quick trip around the mansion’s vicinity, my mansion, that was there just now, disappeared.
『Then, I leave it to you to guide me to the designated location.』
Even though Rembrandt-uji was able to transfer to almost all places in the kingdom as expected, it seems he hadn’t gone to the Baumeister territory yet.
And, Rembrandt-uji and me were greeted by Paul-nii-san’s group, whose role was to guard us.
『This is the planned site.』 (Wendelin)
As discussed with father before, it is located at the border of the sphere of influence of the Baumeister household and the Savage Lands. I borrowed a level and sturdy ground.
Instead, we have to definitely pay 20% of the gained profits.
Making use of this knowledge as well, he took out the mansion, that originally belonged to master, from the magic bag and reconstructed it into the same state as it was before.
I had them brought by Rembrandt-uji for the people, who will be living in the Baumeister territory for a while thanks to me.
For the houses on both sides, it will be for the skilled guards chosen by Roderich and the houses of the newly employed servants.
The reason for that is the letter stating that while Paul-nii-san and the four others are carrying out their mission to guard me, it has been decided to retire them from their guard units.
『Why?』 (Paul)
『How about trying to read the continuation?』 (Ottmer)
Once Paul-nii-san read the continuation of the letter urged on by Ottmer-san, this was written there,
『Continue the protection of Baron Baumeister without change. As for the contingency fee, I promise you that you will be promoted to the peerage of Associate Baron and will be given an appropriate plot of land. As for the remaining four people, they will receive a separate reward and as Paul-dono’s retainers…』 (Paul)
In addition, although they are in a temporary suspension, their families in the capital will be paid the extra allowance of the provincial inspection trip and a salary for them working in a remote region to compensate for the part of the salary of the guard unit.
And, together with the plans to have Hermann-nii-san succeed the territory, I will assist in the development.
They would likely be glad if they could become nobles, but they weren’t dreamers who deluded themselves this far.
◆◇◆◇◆
“In the end you will open a shop after all.” (Roderich)
“Doing something like a bazaar is troublesome.” (Wendelin)
Since I obtained the permission from father that it was alright to freely use the Savage Lands part, I spent around one week to bring in various things.
Among them there were also some naturally aged houses that were dirt cheap, but the carpenters, who Roderich employed and brought along, are currently in the middle of repairing those.
Therefore I was employing new servants and not immigrants.
“Will there be sold various items in this shop?” (Roderich)
“I leave it to you, Roderich-tenchou.” (Wendelin) (T/N: tenchou = shop manager)
“Haa…” (Roderich)
Some of the vacant houses had also mid-sized shops, which once went bankrupt and grew old in the suburbs of the capital.
He found other old, cheap houses.
Even for the other trade partner, since the buildings, planned to be demolished, were disposed of without having to pay dismantling expenses, it was a good deal for both sides.
Given that there is a tendency of rebuilding houses quickly in the capital, they were decently usable properties once they had been repaired a little bit.
The mansion’s maids, who act as shop assistants and they young male clerks, hired in the capital, had a hard struggle with displaying the large amount of merchandise.
Once arriving at that conclusion and obtaining permission from father, we have created 『Jack of all Trades』 with me as owner and Roderich as shop manager.
Stuff like seasoning, general goods for living, agricultural equipment, manufactured metal products, sweets and meat.
As a matter of fact there is a general purpose magic bag among the items inherited from master. I left that with Roderich.
It’s also my job to buy items from the fief’s population that might sell in Breitburg.
And then we were able to complete the shop.
Although he rather left it to me than dispatching a merchant group while also accommodating me in various ways, I realized that it wasn’t anything that would yield me an overwhelming amount of money.
『Please purchase the wheat as well.』 (Breithilde)
Furthermore, we decided that I would make absolutely no profit on the sale of this wheat.
Because that was how the purchase by the merchant group actually worked, we judged it would become a problem if we suddenly changed that.
Furthermore, if they don’t depend on me, they will end up losing the ability to procure things like salt etc.
He has given me an unconditional approval without letting Kurt join the negotiation table.
『Margrave Breithilde-dono had been controlling the unreliable merchant group with the questionable reason called feelings of guilt. How much could this change with Baron Baumeister’s shop?』 (Artur)
Furthermore, the variety of my goods is bigger than that of the merchant group and my prices are lower as well.
But in the end he caved in after the exchange with father.
“Do you want to call together the farmers in addition, too?” (Roderich)
“I want to eat rice!” (Wendelin)
“Is that so… ?” (Roderich)
The Baumeister territory and the Savage Lands in its south have mild climate and rain comes down properly as well.
They would coach the ambitious young people I recruited as farmers in the capital.
Furthermore, I took a little bit of earth from a place that has been an excellent paddy field for several hundred years within the territory of Margrave Breithilde. Using that as reference, I changed the soil of only the paddy fields, that had been reclaimed, with magic.
While cultivating the actual rice afterwards, this soil, I spent my time on, is the most suitable soil for this region and climate.
They do construction work to reinforce the ridges between the rice fields and the irrigation channels.
If you calculate the tax yields of managing the development of an area of cultivated land, a small-scale agricultural community and a shop.
Elise has gone to help out Meister-dono at the church.
Since there shouldn’t even be any other priest in this rural territory, it has become the turn of Elise, who is an assistant priest, but since Kurt would scheme something stupid if I let her do it alone, Wilma, who can’t get used to wear a priestess’ garb, served as her bodyguard.
“God, my stomach shrunk…” (Wilma)
“Wilma-san. God won’t listen to such direct petitions.” (Elise)
Since Wilma has probably the same weak belief as I have, she would say such thing though.
“So, Erw’s group and Burkhart-sama are in the Demon Forest?” (Roderich)
Because our stay here was as adventurers, not going to hunt was like putting the cart before the horse.
The distribution of monsters in the center didn’t look to be very different to other domains.
In the morning I took them to the investigation point with teleportation. I will pick them up there in the evening.
One point was that there are many dangerous wild animals in the Savage Lands.
While carrying out the development, you have to guarantee the security of that personnel.
Therefore, Roderich was now worried as he also felt that the number of people was too little to protect the area of cultivated lands once the general reclamation finished.
“Too much personnel isn’t necessary.” (Wendelin)
The reason is that there is a gap of 3 meters between the Savage Lands and the reclaimed area of cultivated lands. I dug a moat with a depth of around 5 meters. I used the dirt, I dug up at that time, to create earthen walls and thus protected the area against the invasion of wild animals with two layers.
“If that’s the case, it’ll be alright.” (Roderich)
Roderich seemed to be relieved.
◆◇◆◇◆
Also, it seems they have been somehow able to manage the newcomers by themselves.
『Instead, I ask you for rice.』 (Wendelin)
『However, there isn’t enough fertilizer…』
『Fertilizer, huh?』 (Wendelin)
Of course fertilizer is necessary to make delicious rice.
Also, in addition I fermented with magic a combination of raw garbage, human waste etc.
Usually, they would have overworked their bodies. The things they should have done, have been mostly done with magic.
◆◇◆◇◆
Although it is within the Baumeister territory, the influence of father and Kurt doesn’t reach to me, who is the master of that place.
For the present the preparation of the shop, agricultural land and housing finished in the evenings of the days.
Thus I was finally developing one part of the Savage Lands, by using the power of money, I hold.