SWNOVELXO Chapter 33
Since the official announcement that Sakakibara and Ray’s families—the royal family and the Castiano Marquis—would support the Akatsuki Brigade, merchants from all over the capital had been visiting our team house daily.
Considering that our leader, Seioji, used to go out herself to meet potential sponsors, the impact of this contract was immense. According to Seioji, even merchant guilds that had previously turned down sponsorship were now actively seeking appointments with us.
“They’re all very curious about our connection with Princess Chris, aren’t they?”
“Well, she’s third in line for the throne.”
Sakakibara not only had exceptional talent from the start, but her abilities as an Awakened also gave her an additional boost. In terms of physical and magical prowess, she easily surpassed even Seioji, who was quite powerful herself.
Her strength alone made it clear why, despite being a secondary royal, she still had a high claim to the throne. It seems that in this world—or rather, in the Kainriese Kingdom—bloodlines were important, but even more so were the individual’s abilities and magical power.
Sadly, though, despite her overwhelming talent and high position in the line of succession, she was known throughout the capital as an eccentric, and her faction within the royal family was surprisingly small.
Nevertheless, her extraordinary skills and potential to surpass previous kings drew a lot of interest, even from those who weren’t part of her faction.
“It’s rumored that the second princess is quite difficult to get along with, yet you seem to have caught her favor?”
“Well, I can get sweets and all sorts of other things from Japan.”
“That’s true.”
Satisfied with my explanation, Seioji pulled a sheet from the pile of papers that had grown several times larger than the last time, skimming over it.
The workload had undoubtedly increased, but her expression seemed lighter somehow.
“So, how did things go with that merchant guild we talked about earlier?”
The merchant guild I was referring to was the Bern Trading Company, the one that angered both our leader and vice leader the other day.
“There’s been no contact since then, nor do I have any intention of dealing with them.”
Seioji flatly declared in response to my question.
Well, after being told to essentially sell her comrades—including herself—it’s no wonder Seioji was furious.
In fact, our brigade had enough strength to operate independently as an adventurer team. I knew this because I handled part of the brigade’s accounting, so I had a decent grasp of our financial situation.
“Our brigade doesn’t need money. What we need is a reliable blacksmith, a stable supply chain, and social trust. Without trust, we can’t even negotiate.”
“Aina mentioned that negotiations have become much smoother since this whole situation unfolded.”
Aina, who managed our brigade’s supply chain, said that the difference in how negotiations went before and after this incident was night and day. We were even being offered special privileges, such as reserved supply slots for essential herbs and foodstuffs that needed to be restocked regularly.
“Honestly, I’d rather not even involve wholesale traders, but if we did that, your workload and Aina’s would be unbearable. For now, we’ll stick with the current setup. Hopefully, by next week, we can get back to adventuring.”
Wholesale traders are the middlemen between producers and retailers. They sign contracts with farmers from villages around the capital, bringing in large quantities of goods daily to sell to retailers.
The adventurers’ guild also acts as a kind of wholesale trader, handling monster materials and herbs.
In this context, adventurers are like the producers, delivering materials to the guild.
The advantage of working with the guild is that adventurers can sell materials without hassle as long as they are registered with the guild.
However, the guild’s fees are notoriously high.
That’s why some adventurer teams, unhappy with the guild’s high fees, hire dedicated merchants to deal directly with suppliers.
The more traders involved in the buying and selling process, the more the profits shrink. That’s why adventurer teams seek ways to bypass these middlemen.
My role, essentially, was to act as the brigade’s exclusive merchant, handling the sale of materials and the procurement of necessary supplies without going through the guild.
“Still, if we expand any further, we’re going to need more people.”
The Akatsuki Brigade, aside from me, was composed almost entirely of pure adventurers.
Some adventurers specialize in mining rare ores from places ordinary people can’t reach or harvesting herbs that only grow in dungeons or areas filled with magical essence. But our brigade focused solely on monster hunting.
Monster materials, depending on the type, can be sold for very high prices. In the case of materials from a dragon, a staple in any fantasy world, we could make a fortune in one haul.
But naturally, that also means the guild fees are exorbitant…
“Until we get more hands on deck, we’ll have to keep using the guild. I don’t want to push Aina, who originally wanted to be an adventurer, into more behind-the-scenes work just because we’re short on staff.”
Seioji’s ideal was to sell the materials we gathered from adventuring directly to retailers in the capital, bypassing the guild and its high fees. Additionally, she wanted to source the supplies our brigade consumed without relying too heavily on wholesalers.
Of course, the guild wouldn’t like that, but according to Seioji, large teams often did this.
However, to operate at that scale, both my experience as a dedicated merchant and the number of staff we had were still insufficient.
Thus, for now, we’d focus on recruiting more hands and me gaining experience as a merchant. With that, I left the office, having come to a conclusion.