The Extra Prince Sets Out To Conquer The World

He thinks that of me when he’s the one who tried to blackmail and defraud me first? That’s too much.

If he comes at me like this with such shamelessness, of course it’ll put me in a bad mood.

“Lower your eyes before I gouge them out.”

At my kind advice, the branch manager lowered his head to avoid my gaze.

“So what will you do for me if I spare you?”

“…”

When there was no answer, I drove my dagger between the branch manager’s fingers.

Bang!

“Eeek!”

“From now on, if you don’t answer my questions, you lose a finger joint each time. Let’s start light with the pinky. Got it?”

As I yanked out the dagger embedded in the table, the branch manager shouted hastily.

“Y-yes, I understand!”

Good, now he’s finally snapped out of it.

This is why I love these thug bastards.

You have no idea how refreshing it is to not bother with unnecessary manners.

“If I spare you, what can you do for me?”

“Um, well, that depends on what you want…”

As I made to chop off his finger with the dagger, the branch manager cried out urgently.

“Aah! The catalog! We have a catalog!”

“Where?”

“In the first drawer over there.”

At my nod, Jade opened the drawer and took out a thick booklet with a black cover.

“Is this it?”

The branch manager and I answered Jade’s question at the same time.

“Yes! Th-that’s the one!”

“That’s not it. If you look carefully, there should be a white cover. Bring that one.”

At my words, the branch manager looked up at me in dismay.

“You little shit, if you mess with me one more time, it won’t just be a finger, but your tongue flying off. Who do you take me for, a pushover?”

The catalogs of Twilight Trading differ in color based on grade.

Black for general, red for high-class, blue for rare, and white for VIP exclusive.

Rummaging through the drawer, Jade found a thin booklet with a white cover and handed it to me.

Flipping through the catalog, I clicked my tongue.

“Tsk, only three pages? I suppose since it’s a rural branch, there are few items and only overpriced things.”

Still, I picked out a few types of jewels that would be good to sell off later if I’m short on cash.

“Jade, bring me the blue cover too.”

“Here it is.”

“Thanks.”

The blue cover was also thin, but still had three times as many pages as the white one.

Even so, it was only nine pages.

Let’s see, let’s see… Oh, there are at least a few useful things in the rare catalog.

I suppose because Twilight Trading’s catalogs are classified by price rather than utility, the blue was more practical than the white in this rural branch.

Since I’m looking anyway, should I check the high-class one too?

Like that, I placed the items I would take on the table after checking them.

“Untie him now.”

At my instruction, Precia and Gilbert released the branch manager.

Freed, the branch manager checked the catalog and was aghast.

“Gah! Th-this is too much!”

“Shut it, you little shit. Don’t whine about a measly 1 million worth when you tried to swindle 8 million. Be grateful I’m not stripping you dry.”

The branch manager protested to me, choked up.

“If you take it all, I’ll become an enemy of the Shadow Guild, that’s why you’re doing this, right!”

“Yeah, you got it. A branch manager can easily cover about 1 million ducats, no? What, you don’t like it? Should I just take everything? Wanna be hung upside down in front of the guild master for mismanagement?”

At my kind explanation, he had no choice but to nod, holding back tears.

If you loot a branch, not only the thief dies. The one that gt robbed dies too.

That’s Twilight Trading.

“C-couldn’t you let it slide a little? Just about 100,000 ducats…”

“What was that? Wanna live without an arm?”

“Ugh, my savings…!”

For the branch manager to cover that money, he naturally had to cough up his own assets.

“Quit whining. A branch manager making a fuss over a mere 1 million. I bet you embezzled at least tens of millions on the back end.”

“That’s for well-performing branches! Sob! My money.”

Still, rather than making an enemy of someone at the branch manager level, I planned to let it slide to an appropriate degree.

If not, I would have cleanly wiped out this city’s branch and bailed long ago.

Grinning playfully at the sniffling branch manager, I made a proposal.

“I’ll overlook you trying to blackmail and defraud my companions to this extent. Now that I’m at a Shadow Guild branch, should I make some purchases? You sell information too, right?”

At my words, the branch manager looked at me in dismay.

“Open your eyes properly before I gouge them out. Or should I count the information as part of the fraud settlement?”

“Goodness! No sir! Ask me anything!”

The branch manager stood up, rubbing his hands together.

If he played his cards right, he judged he could make up for some of today’s losses.

“Spill everything, starting with the locations of other Twilight Trading branches and how to contact them.”

I only knew of the branches in a few major cities.

Considering the scale of Twilight Trading, there should be one in nearly every city.

At my demand, the branch manager took out a map book from his spatial magic tool.

He even has a spatial magic tool as a branch manager.

“You mean the customer point of contact? An excellent choice. In fact, this is only provided to VIPs, but I’ll make an exception for you. The price is 100,000 ducats.”

“Don’t try to scam me. That’s not even worth 10,000.”

“Scam? It really is 100,000…”

“Keep messing around and you really will lose a hand, got it?”

As I drew my dagger, the branch manager flinched and cowered.

“Ahem, I’ll provide it to you at the VIP price of 10,000 ducats.”

“And hand over the date, location, contact method, and item catalog for this year’s continental auction too. That’s 100,000 ducats, right?”

The continental auction was a large-scale black market auction hosted by Twilight Trading, a festival where they sold rare items procured from all over the continent.

“That’s also for VIPs… No, I’ll provide it. The catalog is periodically updated, so it’s best to purchase a new one on the day of.”

“Ah, and an invitation and VIP card to attend too. For 500,000.”

“Th-that! I can’t issue that on my own… I can! I can! Damn it, I could get 2 million off some sucker for those.”

The branch manager drooped his head in resignation under my gaze.

Receiving the invitation and card he handed over while holding back tears, something was strange about the card.

“You bastard! This is a temporary card.”

A temporary card too? The expiration date on the back of the card was for this year.

This was clearly a bait product handed out to people who might become premium customers.

The benefits listed under the expiration date were a mere half of a real VIP card.

“Temporary is all I can make with my authority. And with a branch manager authority, I can only make five per year at that. A proper VIP card requires 5 years of sales performance. Or it’s only possible with permission from at least three executive officers or the guild master. But that will let you participate in this year’s continental auction.”

“Ah, is that so? Then it can’t be helped.”

I’ll try getting a real one later when I meet the Twilight Queen.

The guild master, the Twilight Queen, should attend the continental auction too.

The Twilight Queen was one of the ‘Nine Kingdomless Kings’, nine individuals with power rivaling kings.

It was fitting for her to be called that, as Twilight Trading was a force stronger than any decent small nation.

“Lastly, give me all the information about the mermaid legends in this area and everything related to the Whirlpool Archipelago for the past 100 years. I bought a lot, so you can include this much as a bonus service, right?”

“…12,000 ducats, dear customer.”

I snorted at the branch manager smiling through gritted teeth.

“Stingy bastard. Make it 10,000 ducats.”

The branch manager refused to budge in the end, saying the amount was too much.

The Twilight Trading branch manager in the port city of Akra sighed in relief, checking that his wrist was properly attached.

“Damn, that was some seriously awful luck today.”

He had tried to blackmail some juicy-looking travelers and suck them dry to the bone, but ended up getting fleeced instead.

He started it, so he had nowhere to complain, and it wouldn’t do any good anyway.

Twilight Trading was like a savanna full of starving hyenas.

The moment you showed weakness, you would be devoured by the other branch managers.

“Salt! Bring salt!”

One of his underlings with a broken arm brought a salt shaker from the front tavern.

The branch manager flung salt everywhere with all his might.

“Evil spirit, begone! Evil spirit, begone!”

The evil spirit etched in the branch manager’s mind had a kind and gentle impression.

An impression truly perfect for deceiving and exploiting people.

Cleaning up the scattered salt was naturally the job of his underlings.

*******

Late at night, having returned to the inn, I examined the things I extor- no, received as gifts from the Twilight Trading branch manager.

A few jewels with appraisal certificates, quite high-quality medicinal herbs, a few low-ranking grimoires, and a couple magic tools.

It wasn’t a lot since it was in lieu of information fees.

“Here, take these.”

I handed magic tools to Jade and Silua.

They were rather useless magic tools for the two of them, but analyzing the magic on them or remodeling them was apparently a common hobby among mages.

I suppose since I don’t develop such hobbies, I can’t really call myself a mage.

Jade, happy to receive a magic tool, asked with concern:

“But from what Yuan said, Twilight Trading seems to be quite a large-scale guild. Is it really okay to just threaten and extort them like that and walk away?”

I looked at him with interest at his question.

To think Jade, kindhearted like a sucker, would say such a thing.

“What if it’s not okay? What should I have done? Should I go back now and do something about it? I did feel a bit unsatisfied just leaving like that.”

The branch manager would be overjoyed to the point of fainting then.

When I asked excitedly, Jade made an uncomfortable face.

“No, that’s not what I meant… But I thought you should have at least warned them in case they try to make trouble later.”

“Ahahaha, it’s fine. They’re the ones who tried to blackmail first and had it turned on them. Plus, I let them off easy. They might seek revenge individually, but they won’t be able to mobilize Twilight Trading.”

If Twilight Trading had that much honor, I wouldn’t call them thug bastards.

The guild’s branch managers are in competition with each other.

If he wanted to borrow another branch’s power to somehow kill me, he would have to pay a corresponding price.

But that would be a far greater loss compared to what I fleeced from him.

“That was letting them off easy?”

I nodded at Gilbert’s question.

“Of course. If I really didn’t go easy, he would have charged at me prepared to die.”

Since he can resolve it with just breaking into his savings, he should be well aware that I went easy on him.

No, if he doesn’t want to die, he should be aware of it.

“Now then, it’s late so let’s all sleep. You two should go to your rooms too.”

Precia and Silua headed to their rooms after saying goodnight.

I lay on the bed, relying on the light spirit Eunha’s glow, and read information about mermaids and the Whirlpool Archipelago late into the night.

“Yaaawn~! So sleepy.”

I had stayed up late reading about the Whirlpool Archipelago and the continental auction catalog, so I didn’t wake up until around noon.

While I was asleep, Jade and Silua were taking turns reading the grimoires we got yesterday.

And Precia and Gilbert were doing the crazy thing of strength training while cultivating.

Seeing Gilbert gradually becoming more like Precia was heartening.

I should give him another Silver Bloom later.

Even after Gilbert, Precia and I had each taken one, there were still plenty of the Blantzbarg family’s mystical medicine Silver Bloom left.

“Ah, you’re awake?”

Gilbert put down the dumbbells enchanted with a gravity spell and wiped his sweat with a towel.

Perhaps due to yesterday’s experience, the dwarf-made bracelet was hidden under a wrist band.

“Yeah, hurry and wash up. We’ve gathered enough information, so let’s go find that mermaid now.”

“Is there really a mermaid?”

“Yes, mermaids exist.”

I mean, I’ve seen the future.