Since it did not seem like a conversation to have in the empty lot where construction was in full swing, the two of them—no, the three of them—moved to the office in the lord’s castle.
Jamie could not even breathe loudly in the sharp air. He sat quietly at his desk, pretending to work.
“Did you investigate my background?”
Kalisa growled, her voice still cracked.
“Apparently, I looked like I had the leisure to do that.”
“......”
But no matter how much she growled, when he had already seized several of her weaknesses, there was no reason to be afraid.
‘It’s true, too.’
He had so few people to work with that at this rate, he might have to raid a neighboring fief. Where would he find the time to go around investigating one merchant’s background?
“...Then how did you arrive at such a conclusion?”
“Caravan Master, you are already telling me that my delusion was correct. Do I need stronger evidence than that?”
“......!”
“In any case, I have no particular desire to dig up your secrets. But I think there may be a way for us to both win.”
You achieve your personal goal, and I solve the north’s chronic problems right away.
“How does that sound?”
“I need a little more explanation.”
He had felt it before, but she was a woman who made decisions quickly.
In that respect, she was certainly bolder than most men.
If she rolled around for a few more years, he was certain that even in psychological warfare, she would not reveal all the cards in her hand as easily as she had this time.
“If your goal is money, negotiations will be difficult. But if your goal is something else, is there any reason to insist on maintaining the merchant company?”
“Mm....”
Kalisa swallowed a low groan.
Depending on her answer, their relationship going forward would change.
If her goal was to build wealth,
‘Being tied to the north won’t help much, so I won’t be able to hold her here.’
But if it was something else—for example, power or a foundation—then there was still room to make a deal.
“What do you want?”
He urged her once more.
Kalisa’s lips twitched.
Whether to speak or remain silent, different thoughts were surely fighting inside her head.
In that case, he had to make her decision easier.
‘If I’m stuck with one petitioner for too long, work comes to a halt.’
So Aiden decided to show her goodwill.
In order to make her decision easier.
“Are you wondering whether you can trust me or not?”
“Of course. I still do not know what kind of person you are, Administrator.”
“Would this make it a little easier?”
Rattle.
What Aiden took out of the drawer with a gentle smile was,
“......!”
A map.
In other words, the very map marked with the unregistered villages that he had taken from Kalisa.
“Ah, just in case you think this means something else.”
Aiden added as he looked at Kalisa’s stunned face.
“This is a threat.”
Who told you to trade with unregistered people?
***
The next day.
A personnel appointment notice was posted on the bulletin board in front of the lord’s castle’s main gate.
《Northern Administrative Personnel Appointment Order》
Document No.: A/05-033-Northern Personnel
Effective Date: Immediately
Appointment Details
Affiliated Institution: Administrative Welfare Office under the lord’s castle of the north
Position Appointed: Aide of the Commerce Development Department, Administrative Welfare Office
Appointee: Kalisa Roheim
Personnel appointment is hereby ordered as above.
Chief Administrator of the North
Aiden Blackwood.
“Kalisa Roheim, you say....”
“Isn’t that the merchant? The red-haired one!”
“The merchant who brought in a mountain of monster byproducts this time, right?”
The rumor spread in an instant, not only among the lower-ranking officials of the lord’s castle, but also among the workers and villagers.
“What is happening all of a sudden?”
“It’s something the administrator did, so what bad could come of it?”
“It is just sudden.”
“But from what I saw, that appointment was, what was it?”
“The Commerce Development Department!”
“Right, the Commerce Development Department! Just hearing the name, does a merchant not fit it perfectly?”
“That is true, but still.”
The lower-ranking officials each blossomed into conversation about how the sudden personnel change would affect the organizational restructuring going forward.
It had happened without the slightest sign beforehand, but most of them were positive about it anyway.
After all, the north, which had seen no change for hundreds of years, was finally beginning to experience some internal change.
Step, step.
“Eek!”
“Ah, r-right! I forgot I had work to finish by today!”
“I-I’ll go too! Let’s go together!”
However, the pleasant commotion lasted only a moment.
When heavy footsteps rang out from behind them, the lower-ranking officials all began fleeing as though they had agreed to it in advance.
“Phooouuu.”
Where the lower-ranking officials had fled, Jamie was arriving for work.
He sighed as though the ground itself were sinking beneath him.
‘Then does that mean the leadership meeting is now a three-person system?’
Kalisa’s position was aide of the Commerce Development Department.
Strictly speaking, Jamie’s own status as aide to Aiden, the Chief Administrator, was higher. But the fact that the leadership meetings, which had been cozily held by the two of them until now, would become three-person meetings was itself pressure to Jamie.
‘A rival...!’
Moreover, Kalisa was someone with far more experience than he had.
‘And the workers from her original merchant company all entered the Commerce Development Department too....’
Now, nominally and practically, the Commerce Development Department would become Kalisa’s solo stage.
‘I can’t lose like this!’
Flames rose in Jamie’s eyes.
Northerners did not fear competition.
Nor did they resort to petty tricks like schemes.
‘I just have to prove that I’m the more reliable aide.’
This was the spirit of a northerner.
“Uoooooh!”
“What do you mean, ‘Uoooooh’? If you came to work, hurry up and come upstairs! There’s a mountain of work to do!”
At Aiden’s nagging from the second-floor window, where he was looking down, Jamie was startled and quickly ran up to the office.
“Good morning!”
“Come to work early.”
Jamie, who had arrived earlier than working hours, felt wronged.
However, his superior, who was possessed by the ghost of someone who had died unable to work (correct), looked as though he had not gone home from work yesterday either, so Jamie could not answer back.
“What is this?”
Instead of making excuses, Jamie showed interest in the documents Aiden was wrestling with.
“Is it... a calendar?”
“Yes. But no matter how many books I search through, I’m not making much progress.”
It looked different from the calendar that had been hung in front of the flea market and then sent to every village.
“It is unusual.”
“The flow matters more than the exact dates.”
The horizontal axis was labeled with months, and the vertical axis was filled with the names of crops familiar even to Jamie.
“It is a crop cultivation calendar. Planting season is coming soon.”
“A crop cultivation calendar?”
Unlike the south, where planting began as early as the end of winter, farming in the north began much later.
However, that did not mean there was much time to spare, so Aiden’s heart could not help growing urgent.
“Did you not notice that every village grows slightly different crops?”
“Well, that is....”
“If that is because the harvest amounts or consumption amounts of those crops differ, then it is fine. But if it is because each village does not properly know how to cultivate other crops, then that is a problem.”
“Ah. But even so, it is not as though we can teach farming methods one by one, can we?”
“That is why I want to make and distribute at least this as quickly as possible.”
It was a calendar inspired by the cultivation calendars made by South Korea’s Rural Development Administration.
‘I kept it because so many people who wanted to run weekend farms or vegetable gardens kept asking about it, and now I’m using it like this.’
At the city hall where he had worked in the past, there had been a project in spring that distributed seedlings to citizens who wanted them. Since the quantities were small, there were no professional farmers involved, and most of the recipients were people raising crops on weekend farms or as a hobby.
Naturally, they were amateurs who did not know when to plant, when to fertilize, or when to harvest.
And since the civil servants distributing the seedlings did not particularly know much more, they had hurriedly printed and handed out the cultivation calendar distributed by the National Institute of Horticultural and Herbal Science.
‘Even that had been tremendously helpful.’
Even in the twenty-first century, where all kinds of information could be obtained with a single internet search, people had liked that calendar because it was convenient. In the north, where neither technology nor information had been exchanged at all, this was practically a revolution.
‘An agricultural revolution doesn’t have to be anything special.’
But there was one problem.
“...Have you ever farmed?”
“I studied only to become an official ever since I was young.”
His aide had a talent for saying words no one would believe with complete sincerity.
At any rate, he was no help. No help at all.
“No choice, then. Let’s go.”
“Where? I just got to work.”
“Consider it a business trip.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no way the two of us can put our heads together and complete this. Then we have to go find an expert.”
“Where in the north would there be a botanist? As far as I know, there is none....”
“To hell with botanists. Follow me.”
Aiden grabbed his coat and headed out.
Still looking puzzled, Jamie quickly gathered an armful of papers and documents for taking notes, then followed behind him.
***
THUNK, THUNK, THUNK.
WHACK, WHACK.
The place Aiden and Jamie went to was farmland outside the lord’s castle.
The temperature had not yet risen enough for seeds to be sown immediately, but the farmers were already soaked with sweat, breaking up the frozen ground with pickaxes and using shovels to dig out weeds and tree roots.
“Let’s see, let’s see.”
There, Aiden carefully examined the faces of the farmers.
“Ah, there he is. Elder! Elder!”
Then, without hesitation, he chose his target and hurried his steps.
“...Who are you?”
“You must hurry and greet the administrator of the north properly...!”
“Be quiet, you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Goodness, Administrator!”
The old man, who had come out to the field with his grown son and had been moving stones here and there, recognized Aiden’s identity and quickly bowed his bent back as deeply as he could.
“Let’s just skip the troublesome greetings. Haha.”
“Oh dear, what should I do? My hands are covered in dirt!”
The old man was repeatedly overwhelmed with gratitude as he clasped Aiden’s hand when Aiden cheerfully offered a handshake.
“The truth is, I need some help.”
“A noble person like you needs help from a foolish farmer like me?”
“If you help me, there will be far fewer children in the north going hungry. Will you help?”
“What could a fellow like me possibly do...?”
The old man blinked his wrinkled eyes, looking as though he had no idea what Aiden meant.
The nearby farmers, who had gathered around at some point, were the same.
“Shouldn’t farming be left to the experts?”
Even King Sejong the Great, hm?
When he made the Nongsa Jikseol, he did not gather techniques from the scholars of the Hall of Worthies, but from elderly farmers.
If the Great King did it that way, then that was the answer.