Chapter 17
Even a wasteland could become a big city if it had something special.
Like Detroit, a mining town that was nothing during the American West pioneering era, or LA, which was essentially a desert but had gold, and so on.
My territory, Bio village, also needed a special business like those cities had.
That's why I chose seaweed.
"The village is too small for salt production, and it doesn't have any special competitiveness compared to rock salt."
The exclamation "Sea salt is amazing!" in isekai fantasy novels only worked in Korea, China, and Japan where rock salt isn't produced.
Because in Northeast Asia, to obtain salt, you had to boil seawater with tremendous effort.
In our Albania continent, there were huge salt mines everywhere, so it's hard to assert that sea salt has particularly good productivity.
On the other hand, seaweed could maintain a monopoly state for quite a long time.
It wouldn't be easy to steal the cultivation technology either.
Moreover, once you start harvesting, you can obtain a huge amount at a cheap price every year, so you can sit on a money cushion with high volume, low margin sales.
"Like those lowland bastards who are like the teachers of that disgusting country. Selling seaweed indefinitely..."
While I was lost in thought, someone tapped my shoulder.
When I turned around, the Duke was standing there.
"Your Grace."
"What are you thinking so deeply about? You're not thinking about the new maid you brought in, are you?"
The Duke wasn't someone so idle as to dig into my maid situation.
However, when I visited this mansion, I naturally brought Chloe with me, and one of the butlers must have relayed information about her.
Just from this, I could tell that my priority within him was quite high.
"Now you're acting like a boy your age."
There were probably three main reasons why the Duke made such a joke.
First, he just felt quite close to me and wanted to tease me.
Second, he was expressing that, and lastly, it was to let the servants in the mansion know how much he valued this person called Fabio.
The last reason was especially important.
'This story will spread throughout the Duke's faction by tonight.'
Therefore, I must never take such jokes seriously.
By 21st century standards, it would be sexual harassment, but here it's the Duke's gracious consideration.
"I've never even held hands with a woman, but being constantly with such a beauty..."
"Why does a man have so many worries? In my day..."
The Duke gave advice for about 3 minutes that it's better to manly take her to bed and lay her down.
I'm not some saint, and honestly, I'm not without the temptation to do so.
Chloe is mine, and I have the power and money to do so.
However, I have no intention of doing that.
Using power to arbitrarily embrace a weak person is something I feel averse to as a 21st century Korean, as a matter of principle.
'This is the line I must absolutely keep.'
"I'm sorry, when I see young friends like you, Fabio, it reminds me of when I was young."
"Thank you for your concern. And the reason I came to see Your Grace separately was to present a special medicinal herb from the East that we found in our village."
I handed over dried seaweed packed in a box that was far too luxurious for such a thing.
The Duke's eyes widened as soon as he received it.
It seems that rich old people in any world light up their eyes at things good for health.
"What's inside doesn't seem particularly impressive. It's just dried hay pieces at best, isn't it?"
"I thought so too. But this seaweed was very similar to the mysterious medicinal herb from the East written about in our family's archives. So I even experimented with its medicinal effects."
At the same time, I pulled out a book scribbled on paper that looked appropriately old.
However, I didn't open it to show its contents.
Someone of the Duke's caliber would surely notice with his keen eye.
What I need to show now is this.
That it's a meticulous lie that can deceive even the Duke who knows me well.
Actually, I'd like to hide it from the Duke too, but right now it's better to prioritize the Duke's trust over profit.
Later, I plan to become a big shot that even the Duke, no, even the Emperor would find difficult to touch carelessly.
Right now, my life is as fragile as a fly's without the Duke's protection.
Just those who belonged to the blacksmith guild would be crazy to kill me, you know.
"These are the results of an efficacy experiment on 30 postpartum mothers in Bio village."
The Duke's eyes widened as he received the report summarizing the results.
And his hand trembled slightly.
"Not a single one died? Is this really true?"
"Yes, that's right."
In fact, seaweed doesn't have the effect of lowering maternal mortality during childbirth.
It just helps mothers recover faster when they eat it during postpartum care.
However, those who don't know this will think like this when they see these experiment results and the unfamiliar medicinal ingredient called seaweed from the East:
'If you eat seaweed, mothers don't die.'
Whether noble, rich, or serf, all living beings fear death during childbirth, and if you say you can prevent it, they'll go crazy for it.
"It's only natural for men and women to make love and have children. However, we should prevent tragedies from occurring during childbirth as much as possible."
The nobles and rich merchants who will be my main customers are very likely not married out of love at all.
The marriages of high-ranking people's legal wives are nothing more than long-term alliances between families.
However, this long-term alliance is like a lifeline among nobles who survive through connections.
But imagine if the wife, who is the symbol of that alliance, dies while giving birth.
The tragic result would be the destruction of a marriage alliance that involved enormous sums of money and political investment.
The Duke's expression turned somewhat bitter at my words.
"My daughter Ella, who married Viscount Pecorinne, also received Deus's call while giving birth. Every noble has experienced the unfortunate event of their wife or someone around them dying while giving birth. While giving birth is a blessing from Deus, it's equally dangerous."
"I offer my condolences, Your Grace."
"Ella's death was when you were just learning to toddle. Don't worry about it too much."
The Duke is a man over 60, so his daughter would be in her 40s if she were alive now.
But if she died 20 years ago... she passed away in her prime.
Duke Visconti was momentarily immersed in sadness but soon smiled.
"If the efficacy of this famous medicine from the East is true, it will sell like hot cakes. The fear of a wife dying while giving birth is in some ways more terrifying than an epidemic. If it can prevent that, what does money matter?"
If there's a guarantee that it can be prevented, nobles would spend a fortune to hospitalize their wives.
Because if their wife dies, they could lose the strongest marriage alliance protecting their family.
"No, who would call a man who can't even invest that much in his wife a real man?"
The nobles of our continent were a bit peculiar.
They're in a relationship with their legal wife through a political marriage with no love or anything.
But when they appear in social circles with their legal wife, they all pretend to cherish her immensely.
Because it looks more stylish that way.
The postpartum care center I'm planning to create will probably run in a similar vein.
"I'll buy this medicinal herb from the East too. How much is it?"
"One gold coin for five servings."
Five servings of dried seaweed is only about 10 grams in weight.
"Such an excellent medicine for just one gold coin for five bowls? It's only 10 pounds."
"I'm not selling it particularly cheaply because I'm selling it to Your Grace."
Our villagers were reluctant to eat seaweed even during famine, calling it seaweed.
So the actual cost is, with a bit of exaggeration, 0.
However, if you add all sorts of marketing strategies and slightly distorted statistics to this...?
'To the Duke, even 5 gold coins would seem cheap.'
Unlike the Duke who was as rich as the chairman of a major corporation, relatively poor nobles might think differently.
But at the very least, there won't be any nobles or merchants who skimp on the cost of seaweed eaten during childbirth.
Now that I've seen the reaction clearly, I should tell the truth.
"Your Grace, in fact, this seaweed isn't a particularly special medicinal herb. At best, it's just a common seaweed that grows on rocks by the seaside."
Considerable anger clouded the Duke's face.
"However, all of its medicinal effects are true. Moreover, in the East, they really feed this to postpartum mothers as medicine."
"Are you saying you didn't lie?"
"Didn't I tell you that living long and prosperous is my life motto? I know my place well, and I have no intention of lying to Your Grace the Duke. That's why I'm revealing my business secret now."
I'm going to earn a lot of money and live for a very long time.
That way I can touch Chloe's breasts and enjoy the upper-class life I couldn't enjoy in Korea.
Moreover, I need to live long to see how far I can rise with my abilities.
"Seaweed is a special remedy for postpartum mothers during their recovery. And to prevent maternal deaths, the doctor in charge of the delivery, the mother, and the surrounding space must be cleaned very thoroughly."
In the Middle Ages, most of the causes of death during childbirth were due to infections like puerperal fever from giving birth in dirty environments.
"Isn't that why the Bible includes laws commanding to wash the body every time? Because washing is good."
Most diseases can be avoided just by washing well.
This was a truth proven by modern medicine.
"I experimented to see if this knowledge actually matched in my territory, and the results were already a great success. So please lend me a little strength, Your Grace."
The Duke smiled at my words.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Please just tell the nobles to come to the hospital I'm going to build. If anything goes wrong, I'll take responsibility with my life."
Currently, the probability of a mother dying during childbirth is about 10%.
If we can lower this to about 8%, our hospital will be rumored to be excellent.
Why? Because from the perspective of those giving birth, that 2% will feel huge.
But what if it drops to about 1%? Not coming to our hospital would be considered foolish.
"For the first person Your Grace introduces, I will help with free medical treatment and the entire childbirth process. And I will also reduce the price of seaweed and other items by 40%."
The probability of the mother surviving increases dramatically because the Duke introduced her, and all sorts of expensive benefits are provided for free?
The noble who receives that letter of introduction would owe the Duke a considerable political debt.
This must be an attractive proposal for the Duke who is obsessed with overthrowing Sforza.
"Let me ask one thing."
The Duke stared intently into my eyes.
"Are you serious about staking your life?"
"Yes."
"Good, but let's do it this way."
The Duke wrote a contract on the spot.
"If things go wrong, you don't need to die. However, you'll have to give me your life and soul. You'll devote yourself to the eternal glory of our Visconti ducal family."
"It's the natural duty of a vassal to devote myself to Your Grace."
And I signed it right there on the spot.
Then the Duke sent his cousin's daughter to the hospital I built.
Of course, she gave birth safely.
The nobles, who were very interested in childbirth, began to get excited about this news.