#9. A Landlord's Dream

#9. A Landlord's Dream

The sword wreathed in a blue aura cleaved horizontally through the air.

"Kshiiiiiit!"

"Yelp!"

No monsters remained standing where the blue flash had swept past.

The Ice Goblins' heads were lopped off in rapid succession like sheaves of barley at harvest time, while a pack of Dire Wolves rolled across the snowy plain, crying out in their death throes.

Any monster even grazed by the sword aura froze solid and could not even walk properly.

Even a monster wave known as a calamity was no more than a light stroll for Sword Master Kylan Winterwald.

It was a textbook case of overwhelming force.

"Phew."

Kylan lightly exhaled and turned around.

A procession of butchers carrying saws, cleavers, and other tools was following behind the adventurers.

They weren't even afraid with monsters running rampant.

Some people even hunted monsters themselves and handled the butchering alone.

'As expected, my people have guts.'

Among those who had endured Sir Walter's hellish training, some had given up fighting with swords and made a living as the guild's dedicated butchering squad.

Even those with sufficient skill had to value their lives if they had families.

Kylan, too, swung his sword diligently to build up his retirement fund.

"You were magnificent again today, Your Grace!"

Knight Commander Cedric approached Kylan with a moved expression.

"Please leave this old man a little something to do as well! I understand Your Grace's boundless love for the people of the territory, but you must give the knights a chance to warm up."

Cedric laughed heartily as he stroked his beard.

"Ho ho. You shouldn't overdo it yourself."

Kylan smiled gently while outwardly playing the benevolent lord, but... inwardly he was busy keeping his competitors at bay!

'What do you mean, leave something for them? I have to get the kills to collect the incentives!'

That's right. Kylan had recently introduced a performance-bonus system to the knights.

The system reflected the magic stones recovered by the knights in their year-end evaluations and rewarded them with generous bonuses.

It was ostensibly meant to motivate the salaried knights and wipe out the monsters, but in reality, it was Kylan's scheme for saving up his retirement fund.

Until recently, the Grand Duke's castle, which had posted monthly deficits, had not had a single thing that could be called retirement savings!

"Move! That one's mine!"

"My daughter's wedding fund, here I come!"

"Wooooooo!"

Once Kylan took the lead in sweeping up the money, the adventurers and regular knights also charged at the monsters with their eyes blazing.

'What a bunch of vicious bastards! Do they like money that much?! I do too!'

Not long ago, monster waves had been disasters in the North that required risking one's life, but now they had become a gold-coin scramble between the Grand Duke of the North and the adventurers!

The monsters that had been starving to break through the walls began backing away in terror.

"Humans...! Dangerous! Humans! Humans have become strange lately!"

Nearly seven hundred monsters either fled or were hunted down in less than an hour.

Once the battle had completely ended.

Creak.

The tightly shut iron gate opened, and a line of wagons and carts appeared.

A woman climbed down from a carriage, her platinum-blond hair flying in the wind.

Even in the North's frigid wind, Princess Eleanor never lost her smile.

"Brave heroes of Winterwald! I deeply thank you for your hard work protecting Winterwald's peace once again today."

As Princess Eleanor stepped down from the carriage, the knights and adventurers all knelt and paid their respects.

Behind Princess Eleanor, servants as large as the adventurers themselves were grunting as they unloaded enormous cauldrons from the carts.

"Nothing soothes an exhausted body like warm meat soup. I've boiled plenty for the heroes who protected Winterwald, so please eat your fill!"

When the servants lifted the lids, steam rose through the snowy plain, and the scent of rich broth spread through the air.

"Long live the Imperial Princess!!"

"This is the joy I live for... Sob...!"

The beastly men who had just been fighting over magic stones transformed into docile lambs at the smell of food and lined up quietly.

Kylan also maintained his lordly dignity and stood in line quietly with the knights.

It was an incongruous sight to see the Sword Master and Grand Duke himself standing with a wooden bowl just like the soldiers, but in Winterwald it was becoming common.

"Thank you for all your hard work, Eleanor."

Kylan held out his bowl and whispered fondly.

"You look charming when you're looking over documents, but you are truly beautiful when you are serving people out here like this as well."

"Oh my..."

Eleanor's white cheeks flushed bright red.

Heat poured from the large ladle in her hand, and the soup in the cauldron began boiling again.

"I-I'm embarrassed, Your Grace. H-here, I put in lots of meat."

She picked out thick chunks and piled them mountain-high in Kylan's bowl.

The adventurers nearby looked enviously, but no madman dared complain that the Grand Duke had gotten more than they had.

Kylan held his bowl of food and glanced around.

The adventurers who had gotten nothing from the battle smiled broadly for whatever reason, enjoying their meat soup and barley bread.

Kylan also joined the knights and gulped down his soup heartily.

"It's fantastic… As expected of my wife."

As the hot broth slid down his throat, his frozen body melted, and the fatigue of battle vanished like snow.

It was a miracle only food imbued with sun mana could produce.

The adventurers from the Southern Continent who had come north after hearing rumors of the Northern guild also sat in groups and savored the meat soup reverently.

"Aaaah… This is to die for."

"It's good to be alive."

At that moment, Hans, a gold-rank adventurer who was making a name for himself in the guild, mixed among the southern adventurers and spoke with an exaggerated expression.

"Hey. You guys. Why do you look so glum?"

Caught off guard by his sudden confrontational tone, the southern adventurers waved their hands in confusion.

"N-no, it's not that we're glum... We just ate the same thing every day during training..."

In other words, they were sick of it.

Hans clutched his forehead with a mournful expression.

"Sniff! You ungrateful bastards who don't know how blessed you are! You don't know what this meat soup means to us Northerners who used to survive on frozen-solid potatoes and rotten rye bread!"

Hans raised his bowl and shouted.

"Once you toil away on this land, you'll realize it too. The Imperial Princess's benevolence contained in this meat soup...!"

"We get it, so calm down..."

"Long live the Imperial Princess! Long live His Grace the Grand Duke! I will devote this body to the North for the rest of my life!!"

Beginning with Hans's cry, more than a hundred adventurers raised their bowls in unison and began pledging their loyalty.

Their resounding cheers shook the snowy plain. Overwhelmed by the fanatical atmosphere, the southern adventurers also cried "Long live the Imperial Princess!" along with them.

Kylan, watching, let out a satisfied laugh.

'Our northern men are such nice fellows. They get along well without any territorial cliques.'

It was all thanks to Eleanor, who had even boiled the meat soup herself and gone around handing it out.

As expected, my wife was the best.

When Kylan blurted out such shamelessly doting words, the knights around him looked weary but nodded in agreement.

Before they knew it, Winterwald's spring was coming to an end.

***

While early-summer muggy breezes were blowing across the Central Continent, Winterwald at the Empire's northernmost tip remained cold as ever.

However, the Grand Duke's castle conference room was warm enough that they had to remove their coats.

"I'm always grateful, Eleanor. Thanks to your magic, even my retainers can focus on the meeting without shivering in the cold."

"Hehe... I don't know what to do with myself after such praise, Your Grace."

Even with the retainers watching them with piercing eyes, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess kept exchanging adoring gazes.

The retainers must have developed immunity to the couple's nauseating displays of affection by now, for they merely smiled fondly.

Once everyone had taken their seats, Walter rose and began his report.

"Your Grace. The guild's surplus has been steadily increasing every month. The number of adventurers who have come from all over the continent has now surpassed 100."

It was proof that rumors of the unprecedented welfare benefits and the knights' ability to reliably hold back monster waves were gradually spreading across the entire continent.

"Ooh."

Exclamations broke out from various parts of the conference room.

One hundred trained adventurers was a force comparable in size to the standing army of a small territory.

As Kylan nodded in satisfaction, Count Lian rose, his face flushed with excitement.

He had been diligently traveling between the Southern and Central Continents and conducting trade conscientiously.

"Your Grace. As adventurers flock to the North, itinerant merchants from various merchant guilds who want to do business with them are also driving their loaded wagons to Winterwald!"

A good development.

They could collect generous taxes from the merchants, and to make a living, those merchants would ultimately have to spend within Winterwald.

It meant the domestic market was becoming more active.

Kylan smiled leisurely.

The North was entering a period of prosperity unprecedented in its history.

"However, Your Grace! The population continues to flow in from every corner of the continent! Your command to establish guild branches in advance at each defensive stronghold was truly a stroke of extraordinary foresight!"

Count Lian waxed passionate.

"But if hundreds and thousands of outsiders keep pouring in like this, before long we will run out of inns and restaurants capable of accommodating them. Eventually, we will exceed the territory's capacity, public security will begin to break down, and homeless people will appear in the streets."

"……Homeless people?"

Kylan swallowed hard.

Although summer was coming to the continent, this was the North. Sleeping on the roadside at night wouldn't end with merely having your mouth go numb.

It meant there would be a mass outbreak of deaths from freezing, or severe frostbite.

'No! If the adventurers get hurt, enormous treatment costs will be drained from the guild's mutual-aid fund! What kind of money is that!'

He had thought he was finally realizing his dream of turning a profit, but this would reduce everything to nothing.

When Kylan looked stricken, Eleanor rose from her seat as if she had been waiting.

'Ooh. As expected, you're the only one who ever comes to my rescue!'

"Don't worry, Your Grace. I anticipated this and have prepared something in advance as well."

Eleanor rose confidently, holding a thick bundle of parchment in her arms.

Thunk!

Eleanor spread the blueprint wide.

"What... is this?"

"The Winterwald urban development plan."

The blueprint was densely covered with a vast commercial district centered around the Grand Duke's castle, lodging facilities, and a neatly organized road network.

Eleanor explained excitedly.

"If we build a shopping district and lease it to Southern merchants, enormous tax revenues will flow into the lord's castle every month. The territory's revenue will double even if we simply sit back and do nothing."

Kylan's blue eyes shook violently.

Was she saying they should construct buildings and collect rent?

A landlord. The pinnacle of passive income that he, a former South Korean office worker, had yearned for even in his dreams.

The retainers listened carefully to all of Eleanor's plan and nodded in agreement.

"As expected of Her Highness the Imperial Princess!"

"If this comes to pass, Winterwald will be reborn as a vast commercial city in the northern part of the continent!"

Kylan, too, felt his chest swell with pride.

But his joy was short-lived.

'Wait. To build all that... how are we going to raise the construction funds? Who will manage the site? What about reviewing the designs? Approving the materials?'

The countless buildings filling the blueprint would not simply pop up overnight as if by magic.

It meant someone would once again have to cough blood while wrestling with a mountain of approval paperwork.

"Your Grace! Starting today, we must begin drafting the construction budget and selecting sites at once!"

Eleanor clenched her fist adorably, radiating enthusiasm.

Behind her, Cedric and Walter wiped away tears and nodded.

"To devote yourself to the North's future without a moment's rest! This old man will bury his bones here!"

Kylan gazed at the gray sky outside with a hollow expression.

'Another night in overtime hell is a certainty.'

Winterwald's finances had turned a profit, but it seemed the Grand Duke of the North would not be leaving work on time for the foreseeable future.