As Cain stared blankly at Fon’s face for a moment, Fon’s eyes quickly returned to normal.
“S-sorry! That, that was… I didn’t realize and just… Please forget what I just said!”
Fon’s face instantly heated up and turned bright red.
It was as if he was circulating fire mana through his blood vessels instead of his mana circuits.
Fon lowered his head and glanced up at Cain with just his eyes.
Then he opened his mouth with a voice that seemed to crawl into hiding.
“…Ridiculous, right? Su-suddenly I just…”
“Explain it in detail.”
“Huh…?”
“What you just said. Explain it in more detail.”
Cain’s expression was very serious, as always.
“In detail…?”
Fon gulped. Cain was still looking at Fon with serious eyes.
After a moment, Fon carefully opened his mouth.
“A-as I just said, for distribution routes, the section from the eastern part of the Haiberen region to Grenden is the most efficient in terms of both distance and risk level. Th-that’s why the Bederman family has occupied it.
But actually, there was another route that was used more frequently before that section.”
“A route that was used more frequently?”
As Cain listened attentively, Fon’s expression brightened a little.
“Yeah. There’s a route where you can go all the way down to the swamplands south of Haiberen, then go to Ashborn in the east, and cut straight across without stopping at Grenden. But when monsters started appearing in the swamplands, that route became unusable, and apparently bandits even showed up near Ashborn.”
Simply put, there was a route that could provide movement advantages on the main path, but it became unusable due to monsters and bandits, so they were reluctantly using the Bederman family’s distribution network.
“It would be better if we could cut straight through to the southeast, but since south of Haiberen is swampland and there’s a particularly large swamp in the southeast, we can’t go that way. But if we could just solve the problems with the monsters in the swamplands and the bandits, we could take a sufficiently fast route without paying fees to the Bederman family.”
Fon added with a slightly uncertain voice.
“Of-of course, I don’t know how to solve those problems either. If it had been financially beneficial for us to hire more escorts ourselves or subjugate the monsters, the Finance Minister would have told us to do that…”
“That’s right.”
Once monsters settle in an area and start multiplying, it’s not easy to completely root them out, except in a few special cases.
‘It would be nearly impossible without removing the fundamental cause that allowed the monsters to take root.’
The problem is that the reason varies greatly depending on the monsters and the situation.
‘If you pour resources into something uncertain and fail, the damage would be doubled, so it wouldn’t have been easy for the Finance Minister to attempt.’
If they failed while trying to subjugate the southern monsters and clear the path because they didn’t want to pay expensive fees to the Bederman family, they would waste resources and then have to pay fees to the Bederman family while suffering losses.
‘If news of that failure reached Bederman’s ears, knowing that alternatives had disappeared, they might even raise the fees higher.’
If they had financial leeway, they might have tried it once or twice, but considering the Sears family’s financial situation, it would have been difficult to take such a gamble.
‘There are also limits to consistently sending strong escorts every time.’
Escorts are just a minimum safety measure.
Once you enter a dangerous area, variables can occur at any time.
If the family dispatched disciples as additional escorts and combat with monsters occurred, resulting in casualties.
In the worst case, they could lose all their goods to bandits who appeared later and even lose their lives.
It wasn’t for nothing that people paid tolls for relatively safe roads and fees for security systems that guaranteed safety at surrounding checkpoints.
‘Anyway, I roughly understand the situation.’
Cain looked quietly at Fon, who was fidgeting restlessly after finishing his explanation.
‘I didn’t know Fon was knowledgeable about commerce. This is an unexpected gain. Especially those eyes…’
Cain recalled the sparkling eyes Fon had when he was deeply engrossed in his explanation.
‘I’ve had several disciples with those kinds of eyes before.’
—Master! Listen! You know that herb I mentioned before? The demand for it is exploding right now. The price will drop again after some time passes, but if we sell most of what we’ve stored now, keeping only the minimum…
Especially disciples who were skilled had exactly those kinds of eyes.
“So do you know about distribution routes for other goods besides white marble?”
“Yeah! Probably ice stones, snow spirit grass, and ice bee honey should be due for distribution around now…”
Fon explained what he knew with his voice raised another tone, and Cain nodded and listened attentively.
Thinking that he might have really found talent, Cain opened his mouth.
“I didn’t know you were knowledgeable about commerce, Fon. Usually direct disciples focus only on magic training.”
“Ah. S-sorry. I’ll pay more attention to training from now on.”
Thinking he was being scolded for paying attention to other things, Fon lowered his head.
“No, you don’t need to apologize. I’m praising you.”
“Pr-praising?”
When Cain corrected him, Fon’s eyes widened.
“Yes. I don’t know how much time you usually spend on that, but you’re not neglecting magic training to focus on other things, are you?”
“Th-that’s not it! I study little by little in my spare time after finishing all my training.”
“Then that’s fine. Were you originally interested in this? Or did someone recommend it and you learned from the Finance Minister?”
“I didn’t learn it from anyone separately…”
“You didn’t?”
When Cain nodded to indicate he should continue talking, Fon carefully brought up his story.
“Actually…”
Since he was young, whenever Fon heard talk about money, buying and selling things, or calculations, he would unconsciously listen in, and naturally became interested in commerce.
Rather than being interested in money itself, it was more like his curiosity about how money moves and how the world’s economy works naturally grew.
So even before learning magic, Fon started reading commerce-related books in his father’s study for fun.
But when he told other disciples around him what he had learned, they were quick to run away.
—So when buying things, you shouldn’t just look at the current price…
—Haha, Fon is smart. But I just remembered something I have to do, so I’ll be going!
They would laugh and praise him like that on the surface.
—That Fon always stutters unpleasantly, and sometimes gets excited by himself and acts like he knows everything.
—Just because he’s a direct disciple, we smiled and listened to him a bit, and now he really thinks he’s smart.
—If he’s a direct disciple, he should think about learning magic, but he keeps acting like he knows something about money…
After accidentally overhearing such talk behind his back, Fon stopped talking about it in front of others.
—It’s okay, Fon. I’m curious! Tell me the rest of what you were saying.
Edward was the one who would listen to Fon’s stories.
—Ooh, really? That’s amazing! That’s our Fon!
—Oho! I see! That’s our Fon!
His reactions were consistent, so Fon wasn’t sure if he really understood, but anyway, Fon would occasionally share stories he wanted to tell only with Ed.
While being careful not to tell others.
But recently, perhaps because he thought he had become close to Cain, who had been earnestly helping with his training and often eating meals together.
When Cain was worrying about something and the content of that worry happened to match exactly what he had been studying alone with interest since before, he got momentarily excited.
So he quickly asked Cain to forget about it, worried that Cain might also be disgusted.
“B-but I never thought he would ask me to tell him more…”
“So that’s how it was. Anyway, thank you. It was very helpful.”
“R-really?”
“Yes.”
Cain nodded.
‘Looking at how he knows not just theory but also the current situation, it means he’s also read trade and commerce records in the archives. He reached this level on his own without learning from anyone else. He definitely seems to have talent.’
He thought that if he cultivated this aptitude well, Fon could play a solid role in the Finance Ministry.
‘His magical talent is also decent, making him optimal to accompany on field trips.’
Honestly speaking, if you looked purely at magical talent alone, Fon was slightly behind Ed and even Bolio.
There’s no big difference now, but unless he gains special insights, the gap will gradually widen over time.
But when working as a member of the Finance Ministry rather than a regular disciple, going to the field to handle and directly manage commerce-related work, if he can protect himself with magic and even receive respect for his skills.
Then Fon’s magical ability would take on a completely different meaning.
‘Most disciples working in the Finance Ministry are entry-level disciples and usually lack magical talent.’
Being a direct disciple would also become an undeniable advantage later.
Cain thought he should appeal Fon’s aptitude to the Finance Minister when the opportunity arose.
Ah, of course, before that.
“Fon, would you be interested in working in the Finance Ministry later?”
He should ask about the most important thing – his own intentions.
“Huh? Su-suddenly? It would be amazing if I could…! B-but as I just said, I haven’t learned properly, and I’m not sure how the Finance Minister would view it…”
“Then that’s settled. Since you like it, keep studying steadily. You have talent.”
“Ta-talent…!”
Fon opened his mouth and blinked his eyes.
Then he muttered “talent, talent” to himself a few times before looking at Cain and clenching his fists.
“Th-thank you, Cain! I’ll work hard! Of-of course, magic too!”
“Good.”
Cain nodded with a pleased heart at Fon’s enthusiastic appearance.
‘Good. Then I should look for an opportunity to visit the Finance Ministry.’
There’s a world of difference between barging in without knowing what the problem is and going to propose a solution after recognizing and understanding the problem.
Cain was thinking of telling the Finance Minister to use the route through the swamplands south of Haiberen for this white marble distribution while offering to personally provide escort.
‘If it’s monsters swarming in the swamplands, I have several solution methods in mind.’
While providing escort, he would examine the site and solve it fundamentally if it was a solvable problem.
If successful, they would no longer have to pay money to the Bederman family.
Since they would benefit every time they traveled, it would be a great help to the family’s finances.
‘And if I can take these guys directly this time, it would also help them achieve 3rd Circle before the test.’
Especially in Fon’s case, he could gain field experience in the commercial world over the shoulder while directly escorting merchant carriages.
“I-I like it! But would the Finance Minister allow it…? He-he might just say it’s dangerous and not let us go.”
“I’ll think of a way to persuade him.”
Fon agreed for now.
Just as Cain was about to call the other two to ask about their intentions to accompany them, Ed and Bolio were approaching from over there with ghoul-like gaits.
“Hey! Cain, Fon!”
“What have you two been whispering about?”
Cain asked directly.
“Perfect timing. You two, are you interested in going on merchant carriage escort duty? There’s a high possibility of encountering monsters or bandits on the way.”
“What’s this all about suddenly? Well, if we’re going, we’re going.”
“If it’s something where I can go out to gain experience, I like it!”
“Confirmed. I’ll call you again when it’s decided.”
When Cain nodded, Bolio said.
“Wait, is that it? You should at least tell us what’s going on.”
“If you’re curious about detailed explanations, listen to Fon. Fon, you can explain, right?”
“In-in detail? Is that okay?”
At Cain’s words, Fon’s expression brightened.
“Uh, I’ve decided to go anyway, so I’ll continue training. Call me later!”
Seeing Fon’s eyes, Ed slipped away.
“What is it? Explain quickly.”
When Bolio frowned and spoke to Fon, Fon began his full explanation.
And a little later.
Bolio regretted asking Fon for an explanation.
“…So not only this distribution but also in the future…”
“Ah, I got it! I got it!”
“I’ve only explained about half of it…”
“Please get lost!”
As Bolio shouted and tried to run away, Cain, who was thinking of ways to persuade the Finance Minister, opened his mouth.
“Wait, both of you be quiet.”
“Cain! Thank you!”
Bolio looked at Cain with delight.
Cain stared toward the north building and quietly brought his index finger to his lips.
“…?”
And then.
Soon the urgent shout of a servant running toward the north building was heard.
“Finance Minister! Big trouble! The Bederman family…!”
Hearing the very familiar line, Cain soon stood up from his seat.
