Chapter 11

Chapter 11. Merchant Sabina (1)

‘The carriage has already left. It’s too late to wave now.’

Aslaf muttered inwardly as he looked at the spice shop owner.

‘You should’ve done better from the start.’

After finishing his tea, the spice shop owner greeted Jacques and rose from his seat.

“Thank you for the tea.”

“Sure. Come visit again.”

“Next time, you come to my shop. I’ll brew some cinnamon tea.”

“All right. I will. Haha.”

The day grew dark, and they closed the shop.

‘Let’s take care of myself first.’

The task before Aslaf was to earn money and pay his way. He did not want to live off Jacques and burden him when his sales were already meager. They needed an innovative way to raise sales.

However, selling practice swords and cheap weapons at low prices to knights as they were now did not seem like it would make money.

“Why don’t you sell high-end weapons used by nobles?”

Aslaf asked why Jacques did not sell weapons that could leave a large profit. Was it simply because he lacked funds, because nobles did not come to his shop, or was there some other reason?

“High-end weapons aren’t produced here, so they have to be imported. But the merchants in this city won’t give me weapons because they’re mindful of Marquis Sigrid.”

As expected, the reason was that Jacques had fallen out of Marquis Sigrid’s favor.

“Is it because you supplied weapons to Alexei I? Even though that was fifteen years ago?”

Jacques shrugged as if he had given up.

“The marquis probably doesn’t even remember me anymore. Even so, once you fall out of the marquis’s favor, that’s the end of it. Everyone gets scared in advance and keeps themselves safe.”

He needed a merchant who would procure imported weapons for him, but any merchant who wanted to do business in this city could not avoid being mindful of Marquis Sigrid. Even though the marquis might no longer pay any attention to a merchant like Jacques, people were frightened and refused to get involved with him.

‘How coldhearted.’

The people of Pordis had been generous and warm when Alexei I had ruled this place, so how had things become like this? Perhaps it was as the saying went: generosity came from a full storehouse. Back then they had possessed room to spare, while now their circumstances were harsh.

‘First, we need to secure good weapons.’

To make Jacques’s arms shop thrive the way it had in the past, they had to stock high-quality goods.

Starting the next day, Aslaf went out to the harbor and visited the square where merchants who arrived by ship brought and laid out their goods. Whenever a large merchant company arrived and unloaded its goods, he went to look around and searched for merchants importing high-end weapons.

Iwan, who had followed him, studied Aslaf’s expression and asked,

“The merchants won’t sell weapons to Master Jacques anyway, right?”

He had tagged along, excited to see what Aslaf would do this time. Aslaf nodded firmly.

“I’ll make them sell, even if I have to twist their necks.”

Aslaf took the lead, walked among the merchants, and examined the unloaded weapons.

Alexei I had conducted countless arms trades throughout his life. Before a war, preparing war supplies thoroughly and abundantly determined more than half of victory or defeat. Because of that, he was also accustomed to recognizing good weapons and negotiating with arms dealers.

‘That one’s fake. It isn’t a Batu tribe product.’

‘The iron over there isn’t very good.’

‘The quality is decent, but the price is expensive.’

As he looked around and peeked at the weapons, the merchants chased him away with gestures as if he were an annoying fly.

“Why is a gypsy loitering around here? Don’t think about stealing. Get lost.”

Since Aslaf had purple eyes, of course they knew he was of the Gypsy tribe, and because they thought gypsies stole things, he must have been getting on their nerves.

“I work at Master Jacques’s arms shop. I came to look at goods.”

Even at Aslaf’s words, the merchant shook his head.

“Jacques’s arms shop? We don’t deal with that place. I don’t want to supply weapons for no reason and end up in trouble.”

Then he told a worker to drive Aslaf and Iwan far away.

“We don’t need you, so go away.”

The worker carrying luggage grabbed them by the napes of their necks with arms as thick as logs and tossed them away as if they were pieces of baggage.

“Ow!”

Iwan collapsed onto the ground and rolled. Groaning as he got up, he looked back at Aslaf.

“Are you all right?”

Unlike Iwan, who had fallen flat on the ground, Aslaf was rising with one knee on the ground and one hand planted against it.

“This much is nothing.”

Aslaf had reflexively curled his body, used a breakfall as he landed, rolled, and stood up, so it did not hurt much. The martial arts training from his past life had instinctively come out without his realizing it.

“That’s too much. What did we even do?”

Iwan rubbed his aching rear, aggrieved that they had been treated like thieves.

Whether when he had wandered as a gypsy or when he had lived in Baron Lenke’s castle, Aslaf had always been treated like a thief, so this was nothing new.

However, now that he had made up his mind to do business and earn money, trust was the most important element. At this rate, every time he tried to open a new transaction, his gypsy blood would block his path.

‘I need to raise my status quickly somehow.’

Aslaf strengthened his resolve once more. For someone of the Gypsy tribe like him to accomplish great things in the Empire, he needed a family and a background.

‘In any case, what should I do if they avoid me the moment I mention Jacques’s name?’

The more he walked around and talked, the more visible it became that merchants did not want to deal with Jacques.

At that moment, a cart loaded with swords, spears, and armor passed in front of him. They were covered with cloth, so only parts were visible, but the surfaces of the goods gleamed so smoothly that one’s face could be reflected in them, and they were clearly no ordinary items.

‘Oh, those are genuine goods made by the Batu tribe.’

Aslaf followed the cart as if pulled by a magnet.

‘They’re all top-quality. Swords, spears, armor.’

‘That looks like a sword made personally by Batangkara, doesn’t it?’

The more he looked, the more he coveted the highest-quality weapons and armor.

The cart stopped.

Then the carriage following behind the cart stopped as well, and a girl wearing trousers and a sword at her waist got out from inside. The girl, who looked about Aslaf’s age, had sparkling eyes, rosy lips, glossy hair, broad shoulders, and a slender waist, and even at first glance, she overflowed with healthy beauty. Just watching her leap lightly down from the carriage on her long, slender legs was pleasant.

“Unload the goods here.”

At her energetic instruction, the workers unloaded the weapons from the cart.

“Oh, Sabina. You came alone this time. Where’s your father?”

Arms dealers gathered around her and greeted her. They all seemed to know her well, and she seemed famous among them.

“My father is ill, so I came alone this time. The goods we promised can’t arrive late.”

Sabina smiled brightly and greeted each of them.

“You had a hard time coming all this way when it’s dangerous.”

“It’s impressive that you made it through seas crawling with pirates.”

Everyone could not hide their surprise that a young girl had commanded a merchant company and sailed a long distance by ship.

“It’s a route I always traveled with my father, that’s all. The pirates must have avoided me because they didn’t want to taste my blade.”

Sabina tapped her sword with her hand and spoke in a confident voice.

“Well, even in stormy summers, you’ve never been more than three days late.”

“Sabina’s merchant company is absolutely reliable.”

The arms dealers bought the weapons she had brought and loaded them onto their own carts.

“Thank you. I’ll count on you next time too.”

“I should be the one saying that. Please continue to look after us.”

Aslaf waited until Sabina had handed over the goods to the merchants who had been waiting and finished the transactions, then approached her and spoke.

“We would like to buy weapons as well. Could you supply weapons to our arms shop too?”

Sabina tilted her head and looked him up and down.

“I don’t believe we’ve met. Who are you?”

“My name is Aslaf, and I work at Master Jacques’s arms shop.”

Sabina responded kindly, seeming not to mind that Aslaf was of the Gypsy tribe.

“You work at Jacques’s arms shop? What kind of weapons do you need?”

As Sabina continued the conversation kindly, the servant standing beside her whispered into her ear. At that, she thought for a moment, then shook her head.

“Ah, we only deal with our existing customers, so we have no extra goods.”

The servant probably knew that her father had not dealt with Jacques’s arms shop for a long time. It seemed he had whispered to her that this was an arms shop her father did not trade with.

“Aren’t those leftovers?”

Aslaf pointed to the weapons remaining on the cart.

There were still quite a lot of goods loaded there.

“Those already have an owner. He’ll come to pick them up soon.”

Contrary to her words, the owner of the weapons did not appear for quite some time.

“Why hasn’t he come yet?”

Finding it strange, she sent someone to contact the owner of the goods. Only after a long while did the owner come running in a hurry.

“Oh dear, I’m sorry for being late. There seems to have been some sort of mistake. I ordered too large a quantity, so I only prepared enough money for half. I think I’ll have to buy only half.”

Sabina was flustered by the sudden cancellation of the order, but she did not show displeasure and handed over the goods to him.

“Mistakes can happen. Please check carefully before ordering next time.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Once the customer left with only half the goods, Sabina slightly furrowed her brows and looked at the remaining weapons. If she could not sell the weapons and had to take them back, not only would she not receive payment, but they would also take up space on the ship and prevent her from loading other goods, so the loss would be even greater.

‘I need to dispose of them somehow before I leave.’

If she sold them a few at a time at retail, it would be difficult to dispose of them by the date she had to return.

Aslaf did not miss the opportunity and approached her with a proposal.

“Couldn’t you sell the remaining goods to us?”

“That’s a little......”

Sabina trailed off and looked at the remaining weapons as if troubled.

“Please wait a moment. Let me think about it.”

She took the servant who had stopped her to a corner and spoke with him.

“Why does Father not trade with Jacques’s arms shop?”

The servant explained the whole story to her. He told her that Marquis Sigrid had pressured merchants not to sell weapons to Jacques, who had supplied weapons to Alexei I.

“What? Was it because of something from fifteen years ago?”

She asked the servant back with an incredulous expression and looked in Aslaf’s direction. It must have felt unreasonable to her that they were still blocking transactions because of something that had happened before she was even born.

“Please follow the master’s words, my lady. If you fall out of Marquis Sigrid’s favor for no reason, it may become difficult to trade here.”

The servant tried to stop Sabina, but Sabina pressed her lips together and fell into thought.

“There are people who want to buy, and people who want to sell. Does it make sense that we can’t trade because we’re afraid of something that happened fifteen years ago? Where is there such an unreasonable thing?”

Having learned the detailed circumstances, Sabina grew heated, her cheeks flushed.

After learning why the merchants did not trade with Jacques, Sabina did seem willing to sell the weapons, but she also seemed hesitant in case it caused harm to her father.

After hesitating while breathing softly and unevenly, she lowered her head and returned to Aslaf.

“I’m sorry about the circumstances, but I cannot do it without my father’s permission.”

Sabina returned to Aslaf and politely refused. Though it was her father’s order, she did not seem entirely willing to follow such an unreasonable custom, and her lips were pushed out in a slight pout.

In a harsh world filled with war and schemes, there was no such thing as absolutely impossible. There was always a way. Even Alexei I had sometimes used various expedients to obtain weapons from arms dealers in enemy countries.

“There is a way.”

Aslaf did not back down. Instead, he approached her and lowered his voice to whisper.

“What way?”

Sabina raised her head and looked at him with curious eyes.

“Do not sell the weapons. Just give them to us.”

“Pardon? You want me to just give them to you?”

At Aslaf’s bold words, Sabina stepped back in surprise, her eyes going round. She doubted whether she had heard him correctly.

“Yes. If you give them for free, it is not a transaction.”

Aslaf smiled and nodded as if telling her to trust him.