I devised a thorough plan to recruit Laura. First, I forged my identity to infiltrate the city. Lapis had procured the identification badge for me.
Then, disguised as a traveling merchant, I hired a wagoner and three mercenaries.
"Take care of us out there, merchant fellow."
"The pleasure's all mine. My safety rests in your hands — if we cross without incident, I'll pay double."
It was all to approach the slave trader as naturally as possible.
The slave trader was moving with a massive caravan in tow. Merchants banded together in groups out of fear of bandit raids. The caravan that included the slave trader was quite the sight — five wagons of varying sizes accompanied by forty mercenaries. From a distance, you'd mistake it for a military unit on the move. No run-of-the-mill bandit gang would dare touch it.
I made it look like we were headed to the same destination and slipped seamlessly into the merchant procession. When I mentioned I had three mercenaries, the smaller trading companies welcomed me without so much as a peep of complaint. More soldiers meant more welcome, they said.
"Head Lorita, what kind of goods do you deal in?"
"Mostly medicinal herbs."
"Herbs? Doesn't sound very profitable..."
The man who ran one of the smaller trading companies furrowed his brow ever so slightly. Here I was, hawking nothing but grass, and he was looking down on me. Was he trying to measure himself against me out of pride? I answered with a grin.
"Haha. Sure, if you're only buying and selling herbs within the same city, there's no money in it. But! Herbs that are a dime a dozen in one city become legendary elixirs the moment they cross over to another town."
"Oh? How so?"
"Every city has its two or three resident herbalists, and they only ever handle the herbs they're familiar with. Even for the same cold, the herbs prescribed in this city differ from those in that one. So when people see a herb that looks different — even if it does the same thing — they always act like they've just discovered some miraculous cure."
"Aha," the other man nodded along. By this point, I could feel the other merchants nearby pricking up their ears. Merchants were the type to take an interest in anything that might turn a profit. They'd probably never heard of a herb trader before, so their curiosity was piqued. I thought to myself.
'<Acting> skill activated.'
I heard the now well-familiar sound effect ring out.
"The Acting skill has been activated."
"Bonus effects have been appended to the skill based on your Intelligence and Charisma stats."
"The dice of fortune slips from your hand! The probability of your opponent doubting your claim decreases by a 'slight' amount."
I proclaimed it in a tone suggesting this was truly rare information.
"It used to be a decent way to earn a living, just enough to put food on the table. But, well, the situation has changed. It's become excellent now."
"The situation? There hasn't been a worse economic downturn in ages."
"The recent downturn is mainly because of the 'Black Death,' isn't it?"
The other party affirmed it. A merchant is a profession that deals with people whether buying or selling. With both suppliers and customers dying outright from the epidemic, a merchant was powerless.
"While all merchants suffer in this recession, only I am the exception. People are dying in droves from an unknown plague, so interest in medicinal herbs naturally skyrockets. On top of that, if there's a herb proven effective in another city, everyone from beggars to nobles will scramble for it, you see."
"...!"
Shock was etched on the merchant's face.
"You don't mean, Captain Lorita! A herb that can overcome the Black Death!?"
"I'm probably the only merchant on the entire continent registered in both the Herb Guild and the Merchant Guild. And you know what that means? No one else has encountered as many herbs from all over the continent as I have."
I grinned slyly.
"In that grassland country, the Black Death isn't even such a rare disease. Haha!"
"Oh, dear God! Is that really true?"
"I can swear on my guild's name."
The surrounding merchants grew noisy. Learning there was a countermeasure for the disease they'd been utterly helpless against could only surprise and delight them. Some realized I was about to make a huge profit and looked over with envy-filled eyes. I secretly confirmed that the face of my target, the slave trader, was among them. I deliberately made eye contact with him and gave a bright smile.
That night, we slept rough on the street. It was midsummer, so staying up all night wasn't too difficult. The coachman released the horses from the carriage and let them graze freely, while the mercenaries rubbed their sore legs and took sips of the beer heavily diluted with water.
I gave the three mercenaries I'd hired especially strong beer as a reward. They were very grateful. Under the pretext of socializing, I also distributed beer barrels to the other merchant companies. Errand boys came from each company to convey their thanks. As I was building rapport with these strangers, someone came to our tent. It was the slave trader.
"I hope my late-night visit isn't inconvenient. I apologize."
A young man. He was so polite and pleasant-mannered you'd never believe he was a human who bought and sold slaves.
'Good. I hooked him.'
I welcomed the young man with a wave of my hand, saying it was no trouble at all and that I had just finished setting up a modest spread of drinks. The young man seemed relieved by the warm reception and soon melted naturally into the drinking festivities. Young as he was, he was still a merchant — his interpersonal skills and conversational ability were solid.
"It's such a pleasure to meet you, Shopkeeper Lolita! This is actually the first time I've met a shopkeeper close to my age."
The young man spoke with a slightly tipsy voice. His name was Jack.
"I always thought every shopkeeper was just a wily old fox. It's really impressive that you're so young."
"Jack, aren't you younger than me? Heh, that sounds like you're praising yourself."
"Hahaha… I'm just a greenhorn. My father, the great merchant, set up a small trading company for his second son, and all I did was inherit it. That's all there is to it."
Jack gulped down his beer in one swig.
"So what if you inherited it? The beginning doesn't matter. What matters to us merchants in the end is the result, isn't it?"
"…I thought so too. I had ambition, at least! I was determined to succeed, even if I had to use my family's connections. But."
Jack took a deep breath.
"My father won't even let me run the business the way I want! He orders me to take charge of a portion of the empire he built, the business he envisioned. In the end, I'm nothing more than a slightly reliable employee."
Jack looked gloomy. Good grief, he was probably only about twenty at most. In that turbulent coming-of-age period, his worries were hardly surprising. The common trap at that age was the delusion that your own problems were somehow extraordinarily unique. You had to realize that your troubles were ordinary before you could develop truly unique ones. And some people just gave up worrying altogether.
I hadn't come here to be a counselor. I picked pleasant things to say, comforting words. Things like how his father must be thinking of his son, and so on — in short, utterly useless small talk.
But useless small talk was as valuable as anything else. Even now, a holographic display was showing Jack's Affinity rising in real time. Once the booze kicked in, the rate at which his Affinity climbed shot up steeply.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Jack Orland
Species: Human Affiliation: Medolanum Trading Company (under Lombard Trading Company)
Alignment: Good (+45)
Level: 5 Fame: 57
Job: Merchant (E)
Leadership: 10 Power: 5 Intelligence: 23
Politics: 20 Charm: 9 Skill: 6
Affinity: 46
Current Mindset: 'Shopkeeper Lorita is practically my idol!'
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Affinity had surpassed a whopping 40. Numerically speaking, that was on par with Lapis. Come to think of it, I was starting to worry—could boosting Affinity end up becoming my greatest specialty?
When the alcohol had reached its peak, Jack began to open up about his own story in earnest.
"Honestly... I always wanted to run my business just like you, Shopkeeper Lorita."
The gist of it was an advertisement for how extraordinary his life had been, but if you asked for my impression, it sounded more like a confession of how unspeakably boring his life had actually been. Apparently, the reason he'd sought me out tonight was that the employees at the same trading firm had been giving him a subtly dismissive attitude. Good grief! Maybe having an overly impressive father really did breed nothing but complexes.
Still, his underlying sentiment was pure and beautiful.
"They say business is driven entirely by selfishness. And yet, I want to do commerce that benefits the world, that brings good to society... That's how I see it. A merchant who trades only for himself is a petty merchant. A merchant who trades for his family and his firm is a mid-tier merchant. And a merchant who trades for his nation is a great merchant. But what about a merchant who trades for the whole world? Isn't that the ideal that every merchant ought to aspire to?"
Young, a bundle of complexes, and pure. In other words—
"Well, of course. Jack is absolutely right."
"I knew you'd see it the same way, Shopkeeper Lorita!"
There had never been an easier mark to swindle than this.
"A herb that could save all the people of the continent! To think you'd deal in such merchandise! That's incredible. Truly incredible."
"It was just a lucky coincidence, is all. I've pursued my own selfish profit more times than I can count."
"But not anymore, right? Right? A merchant speaks through results—wasn't that what you said? And in the end, Shopkeeper Lorita, you pursued the benefit of the entire world."
"You're gilding my face far too generously."
I smiled awkwardly. Tsk — even someone like me, who got swindled by Lapis every single time, could see it. This guy was a mark. And not just any mark — a big one. His Intellect and Politics both exceeded 20, which made it perfectly clear why his Merchant rank was stuck at E. Half the reason his father had only entrusted him with safe ventures was that he simply couldn't be trusted.
The benefit of the entire world? Oxymoron, just from the phrasing alone. Profit belongs to someone. A merchant is the one who carves their own name into that "someone." A person who sincerely screams about oxymorons is either a revolutionary or a complete imbecile — and Jack was definitely the latter, at least for now.
"What goods does Jack deal in? Come to think of it, I haven't actually heard."
"…They're not the sort of goods one can disclose with pride. No — whether they're even 'goods' at all is questionable."
Jack laughed, hollow and hollow.
"Ah, but what would I hide from you, Miss Lorita? That would be hypocrisy too, wouldn't it? Yes, they're slaves. I'm a slave merchant — I transport slaves and supply them to cities."
I put on a show of mild surprise.
"A slave merchant. I never would have guessed."
"Do you… does Miss Lorita perhaps also consider slaves to be commodities?"
"If slaves were commodities, then everything in the world would have to be a commodity. Jack, I'm not blaming you. I was simply surprised that someone like you would buy and sell slaves. Now I understand why you resent your father so much."
Yes, yes, Jack murmured. After that, we continued to speak with unusual candor — or at least that's how Jack experienced it.
When the moment seemed right, I told him I'd like to see for myself how he managed his slaves. At first Jack was reluctant, but when I hinted that perhaps a veteran merchant like me might have some advice to offer, he agreed readily enough. We passed a handful of drowsy mercenaries and headed for Jack's camp.
"This is where I'm staying. Welcome to the Medolanum Trading Company!"
Jack's camp was far more impressive than mine. Four bonfires blazed, and over a dozen mercenaries were on hand. The slaves numbered around twenty. They sat in a huddle around one of the bonfires, their ankles linked by chains. Roughly five or six shared a single chain.
As we approached, a couple of the mercenaries glanced our way with narrowed eyes. Once they recognized Jack, they went back to their card game. Their attitude toward their employer bordered on rude, but neither they nor Jack seemed to particularly care.
"It's standard practice to chain the ankles during transport, but I only put them on at night. If you march all day in shackles, it wrecks the feet in no time. No matter how you look at it, that's excessively cruel even for slaves."
Jack chattered on in a low voice. He seemed to want praise. I obliged by commending his remarkably compassionate and humane approach. That expression about kissing someone's ass must have been invented precisely for moments like these.
My inner thoughts, despite my outward expression, were far less satisfied. There was nothing here that I wanted. And then, as if he could read my mind, Jack scratched exactly where I itched.
"There's one particular slave I'd like to show you, Miss Lorita. Very, very special merchandise! Even someone like you will be stunned."
My heart skipped a beat.