“Even so, this is far too little! This year, the number of high-ranking people looking for black sable has increased tremendously!”
Jenkin clicked his tongue busily, his stiff expression unsoftened as he faced the man who had brought the furs.
“The black sable I sold last year is showing signs of becoming fashionable. What do you expect me to do if you start talking about a shortage of supply?”
“But, sir, you know the situation. Because of this trade permit or whatever it is, it has become difficult to trade properly in the north. I barely managed to obtain even this!”
As the middleman continued whining, Jenkin clicked his tongue loudly and took out a pouch from his coat, throwing it to the ground.
Clink!
“Goodness, something this precious! Hehe.”
The middleman with the missing front teeth quickly picked up the pouch, glanced inside, smiled foolishly, and slipped it into his sleeve.
“Still, since we have a history of doing business together, it is not as though there is no method at all, sir.”
“There is more supply?”
“To be precise, it is supply that already has an owner.”
“Supply that has an owner?”
“You know how all the honey pots were raided this time?”
“You mean the unregistered villages.”
“Yes, yes.”
The middleman rubbed his palms together and lowered his voice.
“Would those other merchant companies even be able to swallow all the supply from the villages that were under your influence in one go, Master Jenkin?”
“That is true. Those bastards would not have imagined they would dare touch my territory.”
At the middleman’s words, which subtly elevated his abilities, Jenkin’s expression relaxed a little.
Until the new administrator had taken office, Jenkin’s merchant company had swept up nearly half of the north’s fur trade.
Whenever another merchant company tried to covet Jenkin’s share, Jenkin dealt with them without the slightest mercy.
In any case, the north was a stage outside the central government’s attention, and it was far easier to encounter wild beasts than people. Even if an accident occurred, who would suspect anything?
Because of that, at some point, other merchants no longer dared even think of visiting villages that traded with Jenkin. Jenkin would beat the prices in those villages down to the limit and make enormous profits.
“This time, other merchant companies did step into your territory with permits, but is that amount of goods ordinary?”
“Get to the point. The point.”
“Those merchant companies have not paid the price yet.”
“What?”
“It seems there was more volume than expected. Even after emptying their emergency funds, they could not pay the full price of the goods, so they signed contracts saying they would return soon to pay the rest.”
“Excellent!”
Without realizing it, Jenkin stamped his foot.
‘Of course. It was a sudden increase in supply, so those petty fellows could not possibly have absorbed it all...!’
From what he had heard, the merchants who had bowed their pride to the green young administrator in order to receive trade permits had been forced to pay far higher purchase prices as well.
Because of that, their profits were said to be much lower than usual.
If a merchant company had brought only as much money as in ordinary years to pay for the fur trade, then of course they would struggle to pay for both the increased volume and the higher prices.
“The unregistered villages must be full of dissatisfaction.”
“Yes. Since the deposit was paid in money instead of food because there was a shortage of grain, their dissatisfaction reached its peak.”
“Kekeke. Of course it would. They are on the verge of starving to death without even a handful of rye right away, so what are they supposed to do with silver coins?”
“If they had been left alone just a little longer, they would have ignored the contract and everything else and come looking for you, Master Jenkin. But the lord’s castle opened a market at just the right time, so it seems those worm-like bastards did not starve to death in droves. It would have been a fitting end for those who betrayed your grace, Master Jenkin. Hehe.”
“No, no. If those people are gone, where would I obtain sable pelts?”
“Ah! As expected, you are wise.”
The two wicked merchants drummed and danced to their own sophistry.
“If you brought up an alternative, then that means there is a method, yes?”
“Of course, Master Jenkin. However....”
The middleman smiled gloomily and kept rubbing his hands together.
‘Damn it.’
Jenkin could not fail to understand what he meant.
His hand did not move readily because it felt wasteful, but it was not something he could save either.
The northerners were barbaric and utterly ignorant, so trading with them was difficult without such a middleman.
In particular, the unregistered villages that had been Jenkin’s territory were even more closed off, so the middleman’s help was not optional, but essential.
Clatter!
Once again, a money pouch fell to the ground.
‘This bastard could just hand it over, but he always has to throw it on the ground like a prick.’
The middleman cursed inwardly, but thinking that there was still no business partner as good as this one, he endured it and bowed obsequiously again.
‘With this much, even after giving that vigilante captain a little....’
It seemed he could eat up the rest himself.
“Please come this way. I will escort you.”
Even in the north, there were people who lived by cheating their neighbors.
***
“You trust the lord’s castle? Do you know how vicious those bastards are? And you could just live as you always have. Why register in the family register now? They will slap taxes on you under all sorts of pretexts!”
“But after we registered, we started trading with merchants officially. They paid far better prices than you, Master Jenkin!”
“Far better prices, my ass! In the end, all they did was give you a few coins as a deposit and leave.”
“Still....”
“Enough chatter. Just create the mood in the village as ordered. Once trade with Master Jenkin is opened, he said he would look into some decent land, so you can move there.”
“But brother. If that happens, our village will suffer losses!”
When the vigilante bastard who should have been acting as an agitator kept trembling his tail like a frightened mutt, anger rose all the way to the middleman’s head.
“Are you saying you’re backing out now? Do you think your neighbors will just sit still if they find out that you and your family have been clinging to Master Jenkin, eating wheat bread and meat stew all this time?”
“B-Brother!”
The vigilante captain bit his lip.
Because life had been harsh, he had joined hands with this man, whose face he had come to know while hunting.
He had known that the hides and furs his neighbors had gathered while risking frostbite were being sold at cheap prices. Even so, he had lived while comforting himself with the thought that, thanks to him arranging for Jenkin’s merchant company to come, at least no one in their village had starved to death.
‘What... what have I done...!’
But this spring, by the order of the newly arrived administrator, the village atmosphere had begun to change.
They registered in the family register and began paying taxes, but once they traded with an official merchant company that possessed something called a trade permit, the deal was so favorable that a few coins of tax felt like nothing.
‘The grain we bought at the market with only the few coins they left as a deposit was far more than what we got from trading with Jenkin until now.’
They had already become this well off from only the deposit. In a dozen days or so, the merchant company that signed the contract would come to pay the balance.
‘And I have to stop that with my own hands?’
Glint.
The brass ring on his thick finger sparkled in the sunlight.
It was his greatest treasure, made personally by his late father, who had said he was proud of his son for protecting the village.
“Brother.”
“Yes, have you made up your mind?”
“...Yes.”
The vigilante captain nodded heavily.
“Yes, yes. You thought well. This is the village where you have lived your whole life. You cannot let your neighbors point fingers at you. Bwahahaha!”
The middleman laughed heartily and handed him a pouch.
It was one-fifth of what Jenkin had given him.
‘This much is enough.’
Even if he gave more, where would a bastard like him spend it? That was what the middleman thought.
The vigilante captain stared at the pouch in his hand for a long while.
“Now then, let’s go. You can finish the work by tomorrow, right? What good will dragging it out do, is that not....”
WHACK!
A thick knife-hand strike flew into the neck of the middleman, who had been wagging his snake-like tongue.
“Urk!”
In an instant, the middleman’s body collapsed.
“Brother, I’m sorry.”
“......”
The vigilante captain slung the silent “brother” over his shoulder and headed toward the village with heavy steps.
Now, it was time to confess his sins.
***
A few days later.
“Administrator, Administrator!”
“Why are you rushing around so early in the morning?”
“Well, outside right now...!”
Jamie ran into the office and kept pointing outside.
“What is it? What happened?”
“Well, outside right now, the vigilante guard from Bramwood has come, saying they caught a merchant who violated trade permit rights!”
“Bramwood? Ah. One of the newly registered villages?”
“Yes. But the merchant they caught....”
“The merchant?”
“Jenkin, that damned bastard!”
Aiden quickly remembered the name.
‘Jenkin, if I recall....’
The man who had offered a measly twenty silver coins as a bribe and left.
“That cheapskate!”
“Yes! That layabout was apparently caught trying to secretly siphon off trade goods from a village where a merchant company with official rights had already finished signing a contract!”
“Who caught him?”
“They say the village vigilante captain who had been bribed caught both his lackey and Jenkin himself. And he is asking to be punished as well. Apparently, until now, he accepted bribes and acted behind the scenes as an agitator so that Jenkin’s merchant company and the village would trade exclusively.”
In other words, he had made a confession of conscience.
‘That couldn’t have been easy.’
Perhaps it was easier to never fall into temptation from the beginning.
However, once someone had fallen into temptation and boarded the same boat, it was not easy to feel the pricking of conscience and get off that boat alone.
But he had not merely gotten off alone. He had grabbed the captain, burned the boat, and then stepped down?
‘I think even in the twenty-first century, this would have been given some extenuating consideration.’
Aiden tilted his head.
He was an administrative official, not a judge, so he did not know much about criminal matters.
At most, he had only skimmed the surface of administrative law.
“We’ll have to put them on trial first.”
“Yes. Shall I set a trial date right away?”
“Hm?”
“Pardon?”
“...I have to do that too?”
“What obvious thing are you asking?”
...Ah, right.
He had forgotten.
‘Of course this neighborhood wouldn’t have anything like separation of powers.’
It seemed Aiden would have to play the role of a judge, something not even in his fate.
‘No, wait.’
Was that not actually a good thing?
“Hrrr.”
I will show you what an administratively convenient trial looks like.
***
Two days later, a public trial was held in the empty lot before the lord’s castle.
Sitting at the makeshift judge’s bench, Aiden opened his mouth in a dry voice toward Jenkin, who was bound with rope.
“Jenkin.”
“It has been revealed that you exploited the circumstances of unregistered villages to obtain unjust profit. Furthermore, the crime of ignoring the trade permit system newly established from this year onward and attempting illegal trade cannot be forgiven. In addition, you used bribery and threats to intercept goods already under formal contract. There will be no more chances.”
The northerners who had come to watch immediately shouted.
“Hang him!”
“Hang him upside down!”
At any rate, they truly were people who loved hanging things.
“Confiscation of all assets. Ten years of forced labor in the dungeon.”
“This cannot...! Urk!”
“How dare a criminal open his mouth in a sacred court?”
He seemed ready to struggle and say something, but after Jamie’s back-of-the-head striking skill, it seemed he had fainted.
‘This is not exactly a neighborhood where I can expect a defendant’s right to self-defense. Mm.’
Aiden shrugged.
“And Yuheim.”
The vigilante captain, who was likewise bound with rope and calmly awaiting judgment, nodded slightly.
“What you have done is by no means light. For years, you handed over the harvests soaked in your villagers’ blood and sweat to a wicked merchant. That is the crime of deceiving your neighbors.”
“...I will gladly accept my punishment.”
His voice was not one of desperation.
It was simply the posture of a man repenting his sins.
Northerners were not fools either.
“It is hateful, but if they were an unregistered village, calling in a merchant even at cheap prices must have been profitable.”
“From what I heard, that damned Jenkin beat down the purchase prices so badly that he even tried to bring in other merchant companies, didn’t he?”
“Well, they said that ended in failure.”
“That wicked merchant bastard harassed the other merchant companies that much. What choice would he have had?”
In truth, because every northerner knew well of the tyranny of merchants, sympathy had formed.
It was the feeling of, how bad must things have been for him to do that?
“Yuheim. Three years of forced labor.”
“Goodness.”
“No helping it.”
“Eh....”
Because of that, when Aiden’s verdict was given, the onlookers unconsciously let out deep sighs.
They were thinking of what would happen to his family now if the head of the household was dragged away to forced labor.
But then,
Aiden’s mouth opened again.
“However, considering that he confessed his crimes and sought forgiveness, that his neighbors petitioned several times to save the vigilante captain, and finally, that he made a great contribution to capturing the wicked merchant Jenkin, a reward shall be paid.”
A murmur instantly erupted.
“A reward?”
“No, what does that mean?”
“So if we catch a criminal and bring him in, we get money?”
“Really?”
The northerners’ eyes began to gleam.
It was the signal flare that the Farm Household Income Improvement Project would begin flowing in a strange direction.