Chapter 23
#23. House Prices Skyrocket
They say rumors travel a thousand miles without feet.
The incident of the imperial princess's escort knight kneeling before a small family home raced throughout the Empire.
That rumor spawned more rumors, and an unbelievable truth known only to the residents of the North spread across the entire continent.
[The ultimate buildings that don't suffer so much as a scratch from a full-powered slash by an Imperial knight! Winterwald's new city has them everywhere you look!]
[Winterwald's nights are brighter than its days! The Grand Duchess's sun magic lights up the night sky!]
[The head of the Northern Magic Workshop, Lumiella. A revolutionary magical lighting device! Made possible by an inexhaustible supply of magic stones!]
Winterwald was no longer the cold, impoverished territory of the North.
To the merchant tycoons chasing the scent of money across the continent, Winterwald had become a land of opportunity they absolutely had to secure first.
"Ahh! Refreshing! As expected, Northern ale is the best thing to drink after a hard day's work!"
A tavern near Winterwald's new city.
As always, adventurers who had finished another grueling day's work gathered there to unwind noisily.
Rick, a silver-rank adventurer from the South.
He wiped the foam from his lips and gave a foolish grin.
Across from him, Gale grinned as he sliced into a hefty piece of meat.
"By the way, haven't you noticed that there are tons of unfamiliar faces in the streets these days?"
"There's nowhere with more active magic-stone trade than the North. After that Imperial knight's visit, word of the new city must have reached every merchant tycoon on the continent."
"Big Brother...! It feels like Winterwald is gradually becoming the center of the continent. The city we built with our own two hands!"
"Even seeing it with my own eyes, I'm still dazed."
Compared with the days when they had played games of glances with their comrades over a single piece of stale bread, this was a luxury that would have made even the Emperor envious.
Creak!
They were right in the middle of enjoying their meal when it happened.
The tavern door flew open, and a fat man covered in gold rings burst inside, gasping for breath.
"Huff, huff...! Excuse me, does anyone here have an occupancy permit for Winterwald's new city!?"
The fat man went around poking his way among the adventurers' tables.
When everyone waved him away as though he were a nuisance, the fat merchant eventually reached Gale's party's table.
"Goodness, adventurers! From the look of you, you're veterans who've been around Winterwald for a long time! Do you happen to have an occupancy permit for the new city?"
The fat man latched onto Rick, who looked relatively easy to talk to, and asked him.
Rick answered with a bewildered expression.
"An occupancy permit for the new city...? I do have one for a two-room house."
"Ohh!! Then sell it to me for 60 gold!?"
"……S-sixty gold!?"
Rick was so startled that he nearly fell backward.
"B-Big Brother, what should I do!?"
The original price of the building tied to Rick's permit was 24 gold.
Moreover, since he had earned contribution certificates through day-and-night hard labor, he had effectively acquired the permit for less than 3 gold.
And now the man was offering to buy it for 60 gold.
That was a return of more than twenty times his investment!
"Big Brother, what should I do!? With 60 gold... I could return to the warm South, buy a little house, marry a pretty woman, and even raise a child...!"
Rick's eyes wavered anxiously.
What if he let this opportunity slip away forever by refusing to sell now?
As Rick slipped his trembling hand inside his clothes, Gale's rough hand clamped tightly around his wrist, and he shook his head.
“I'm not selling, so get lost.”
“Who the hell do you think you are…”
When Rick shook his head as if telling the merchant to stop bothering him and leave, the merchant clicked his tongue and walked away.
"Hmph, what a damn bastard..."
After the merchant left, Rick, his resolve inexplicably weakening, spoke.
"Big Brother... Did I do the right thing?"
Rick looked as though he had just missed the opportunity of a lifetime.
"Hey, you idiot! Don't even think about selling it."
"B-but, Big Brother...! It's 60 gold! Sixty gold! With more competitors these days, our magic-stone earnings aren't exactly great either."
"You just said it yourself. Winterwald is becoming the center of the continent. Think about it! How high could the price go?"
"Urgh... But it's 60 gold...!"
Gale whispered to Rick while glaring fiercely at the fat man nosing around here and there.
"Think carefully. The merchant tycoons from the Central Continent are coming up here carrying sacks of gold. Once they take over the new city's storefronts and start doing business, where do you think all the workers and escort mercenaries employed by those guilds will live?"
"Well... In the new city, I suppose?"
"Exactly! We already hold the occupancy permits for the houses in that new city. The real rise in our house prices starts now."
Rick's mouth fell open at Gale's tailor-made explanation, simple enough for even a baby to understand.
"Wow, Big Brother, you really are smart! Who would believe you're a silver-rank adventurer who's been stuck at that rank forever..."
Whack!
"Honestly, you little brat."
“Agh, not the head! My father already had thin hair to begin with!”
As Rick clutched the crown of his head and groaned, someone shouted from behind them.
"...To hell with it! Here! I'll sell my occupancy permit for 60 gold right now!"
In the meantime, an adventurer from the Central Continent, unable to resist the temptation, sold the hard-won occupancy permit he had struggled to obtain.
The adventurer accepted a heavy pouch of gold coins and cheered with an expression suggesting he had gained the whole world.
"Puhahaha! I'm rich now! Good riddance to this wretched cold! Take care, everyone! I'm off to the warm South!"
He left the tavern. They would probably never see him again.
Watching him go, Gale clicked his tongue.
"What a fool. Blinded by the pittance right in front of him, he cut open the belly of the goose that laid golden eggs. This is why impatient youngsters are hopeless."
"What are you men talking about that's got you so entertained?"
Just then, with a lively voice, a woman joined Gale's party at their table as naturally as if she had always been there.
A platinum-rank adventurer active throughout the North.
It was Sena.
At the familiar voice, Rick raised his head and blinked repeatedly.
"Uh... Sis. Has your face changed again since the last time I saw you? You seem a little taller, too."
Sena's shoulders flinched.
"This is what I normally look like... I mean, ahem. I just ate too well at the training camp!"
Sena broke into a sweat as she offered a ridiculous excuse.
But the innocent Southern adventurers simply nodded, taking her at her word.
"Aha! Come to think of it, even those scrawny Southern fellows have been eating meat soup for a few months and turning into bear-like bandits. You look much prettier than when I first met you, Sis."
"Oh. Rick, what is this? Are you hitting on me?"
Sena snickered and teased him, making Rick wave his hands in alarm.
"Hahaha! Don't say such frightening things, even as a joke. How could I dare hit on the woman our Big Brother has a crush on—mmph!!!!"
Gale shoved one of the potatoes served as a side dish into Rick's mouth, then cleared his throat with his ears red.
Sena blushed as well, but quietly took the seat beside Gale.
The warm, convivial night of the Southern adventurers, now thoroughly Northerners, continued to deepen.
***
At that moment.
The lord's office in Winterwald's Grand Duke's Castle.
"Your Highness! Your Highness the Grand Duke!"
Count Lian, the trade commissioner, burst through the office door sounding as though he were about to lose his breath.
"What is it? Has something serious happened?"
Kylan, pleased that the finances had recently gone into the black, leisurely set down his teacup and asked.
"The Central Continent's 'Golden Hammer Merchant Guild' and the South's 'Sea Serpent Merchant Guild' are raising hell, each insisting that they will take the storefronts along the main avenue in the center of the new city!"
"Oh-ho. Those two..."
Until recently, Kylan had sold off the storefronts one after another whenever merchants showed up with money.
But now that demand had begun exploding beyond his expectations, he had put all sales on hold under the pretext that the buildings were undergoing repairs.
"They say they'll buy them at any price and are begging us to sell to them! Your Highness! I think we should raise the price to at least double what we originally had in mind!"
Kylan smirked and propped his chin on his hand.
"Twice? How naive. Do you know what merchants fear most in this world, Count?"
"I'm not sure... Bankruptcy?"
"No. Losing a prime location to a rival merchant guild and surrendering control of the market."
Kylan's eyes gleamed as he tapped the documents.
"Immediate payment isn't what matters to them right now. Their pride and future dominance are at stake in the storefronts of Winterwald's new city. So we have no need to name a price first."
Just as Kylan was racking his brain over how to provoke a bidding war,
"Your Highness is absolutely right."
Eleanor, the genius finance officer who had been quietly checking the settlement ledgers in one corner of the office, rose from her seat and approached with elegant steps.
Her blue eyes curved into beautiful crescents.
Eleanor grew more alluring with each passing day.
"It seems my lovely wife has thought of another brilliant plan."
"Count Lian. Gather the two guildmasters and everyone else who wishes to occupy a large storefront in the grand conference room. Then tell them to write the price they are willing to pay for the storefront on parchment, seal it in an envelope, and submit it."
"Yes...? You want them to seal it?"
"That's right. We will award the occupancy permit to the single merchant guild that submits the highest price."
The idea Eleanor had proposed was a sealed-bid auction system, one that even existed in the modern era.
Kylan's mouth fell open.
'She's my wife, but she's a real demon... No, what a genius idea!'
In an auction where bidders called out and raised their prices, they could see the amount their opponent named and stop at a reasonable point.
But a sealed-bid auction was different.
From the merchants' perspective, there was no way to know how much their competitors would write down.
'What if that bastard writes 1,000 gold? Should I write 1,050 gold? No, what if he expects me to write 1,050 gold and writes 1,100? Damn it! I have to win no matter what!'
An endless game of second-guessing.
Swept up in anxiety, the merchants had no choice but to write down insane prices three or four times higher than the market value themselves.
"Ohhh... As expected of Her Highness! It's genius. Absolutely genius!"
Count Lian shuddered.
Kylan was delighted as well, wrapping an arm around his proud wife's waist.
"Count Lian. Prepare to receive the guildmasters in the grand conference room immediately!"
***
The grand conference room in the Grand Duke's castle.
The atmosphere in the room was so heavy that it seemed capable of choking someone at any moment.
Thick beads of sweat dripped from the foreheads of the continent's most renowned merchant tycoons as they sat in their chairs.
Scratch, scratch.
The only sound was that of quills writing down prices on parchment with trembling hands.
The guildmasters of the Golden Hammer and the Sea Serpent glared at each other as though they wanted to kill one another, pressing their quills down hard enough to pierce the parchment.
'Damn... 1,800 gold should be enough, right? Surely that madman won't bid more than that? No, judging from his eyes, he's ready to stake even the deed to his house... No, if I lose the central storefronts, it's over!'
The merchants' eyes reddened with bloodlust.
After a while, the collected sealed envelopes were piled on Count Lian's platform.
Hundreds of merchants swallowed nervously and stared only at Count Lian's mouth.
Count Lian opened the envelopes and checked their contents.
The hand clutching one of the envelopes trembled.
After a moment, he cleared his throat and announced in the most solemn voice he could muster.
"The four-story standalone commercial building in the Sun Plaza district. The winning guild is...!"
"...!"
"The Southern Sea Serpent Merchant Guild, with a bid of 1,901 gold!!"
“Waaaaaaaaah!!!!”
When the result was announced, the Sea Serpent guildmaster sprang from his seat and threw both hands into the air.
"We did it!! We made it!! Winterwald's central commercial district belongs to me!!"
Meanwhile, the Golden Hammer guildmaster, who had bid 1,900 gold, shot to his feet as if he were about to cough up blood.
"Y-you son of a bitch!! What kind of trick did you pull? How could you win by exactly one gold coin?!"
"What trick? My merchant's instincts are damn good! Hah! Loser, get out of here!"
The Golden Hammer guildmaster lost his temper, lunged forward, and grabbed the Sea Serpent guildmaster by the collar.
The grand conference room instantly became a chaotic brawl, with merchants trading curses and punches.
However, regardless of whether the merchants fought until blood poured, a satisfied smile remained on Kylan's lips as he watched the mayhem.
'Heh heh... Hahahaha!'
It was incredibly difficult to hold back the laughter escaping him.
The center of Winterwald's new city.
More specifically, right in the middle of the boulevard's most coveted stretch.
Even the sturdy four-story storefront built from steelwood could certainly be said to be worth 1,900 gold.
But Kylan had sourced most of the materials himself when constructing the building.
Even after generously including labor costs and meals, the building had effectively cost less than 30 gold to make!
And that building had just been sold for a staggering 1,901 gold, paid entirely in cash!
That was an insane profit margin of over 6,000%.
"Count Lian! Get those delightful fellows out and start the next bid immediately!"
At Kylan's command, soldiers dragged the brawling merchants outside.
'The state coffers are filling up at an incredible rate. I don't think I'd be bored even if I spent all day watching auctions!'
Behind him, Eleanor approached carrying a large stack of new bidding documents, smiling like an angel.