Four days later, we visited the Merchants’ Guild. Other merchants were murmuring as they looked at the board displaying the current purchase prices.
“Would you look at that? It’s finally ten times the price.”
“A clarion bubble, huh? How long will it last?”
“Should I jump in even now? It might rise to twenty times the price at this rate.”
It seemed many merchants were wondering whether to join in after seeing this enormous surge. This was probably true of any commodity, but by the time everyone began debating whether to buy, the finest merchants had already sold. Probably.
The man we’d spoken with the other day spotted us and approached.
“Will I finally be getting a favorable answer today?”
Unlike the stony mask he’d worn before, he now had a cynical smile on his face. Which one was the real him, I wondered.
“That depends on you.”
“I see. This way, please.”
The man guided us to a private room once again. The merchants who saw us go began whispering among themselves.
“Isn’t that the Mushroom Doctor from the other day?”
“He bought up clarion-bird feathers too? What extraordinary insight…!”
“I suppose the title of a doctor from the royal capital is no empty boast.”
Was this how a lie spread?
We faced the man again in the private room. His expression seemed somewhat softer than last time.
“Our current purchase price is 10.2 times the original. So, what will you do?”
At that, we looked at each other and nodded.
““Please buy all of them.””
“Certainly. You’ve saved me. If you’d refused to sell any longer, I’d have been on the verge of losing my job.”
The man laughed.
“If your job was at stake, the nobles must have been putting you under considerable pressure.”
“An excellent deduction. You probably already know, but hats and clothing decorated with clarion-bird feathers have become fashionable among the nobility. Production couldn’t remotely keep up. It was never a particularly abundant material to begin with. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t negotiate personally over a sum of this size, but circumstances were exceptional, so I approached you.”
Perhaps relieved to finally obtain them, he told us what had been happening behind the scenes. Since we’d bought feathers even from the neighboring town, a large portion of the supply must indeed have been in our hands.
“I’m sorry for the trouble.”
We hadn’t done anything wrong, but I apologized just in case.
“You have an excellent information network despite your youth. As a guild, we’re delighted to see such a promising trading company emerge. Your timing in selling is also superb. I expect the price to begin falling tomorrow. Right around now is the ideal time to sell.”
Hearing that, it was our turn to be impressed. His prediction matched Metis’s assessment.
“Hehehe. We’re going to become the greatest trading company in the kingdom, so you’d better remember us!” Neon declared grandly.
“I look forward to it. Rounding up the remainder, your total comes to 23,000,000 G. We can pay you in platinum coins, if you prefer. How would you like it?”
I’d known what to expect, yet the enormous amount still stunned me. 23,000,000 G. Until recently, we’d had only 100,000 G, and now we already possessed hundreds of times that.
“Gold coins will be fine.”
Neon answered in my place while I stood there dumbfounded. When I glanced at her, she was grinning. It seemed a perfect poker face was still beyond both of us.
“Certainly. We’ve already prepared them.”
At the man’s words, a woman entered through the door carrying a large leather sack. When I held it myself, I could feel its hefty weight even through the leather. So this was what two hundred and thirty gold coins weighed.
My cheeks naturally loosened into a smile. We may have used my skill, but this was money the two of us had earned. Still, we were merchants. We refrained from celebrating wildly inside the room, thanked him, and left the guild.
But Neon had apparently reached her limit. The moment we emerged from the guild, she flung herself into my arms.
“We did it! We finally have 23,000,000 G! With this much, we might really be able to build a small shop! Thank you, Sibyl. It’s all because of you!”
There were faint tears in Neon’s eyes, and she was smiling happily. Passersby watched us with warm smiles of their own.
“It’s because you worked hard and bought the feathers from so many places, Neon. We’ve finally come this far!”
“Yes! And we’re going to keep earning more and more! All right, let’s stay at a slightly better inn. The beds at that other place are a bit hard.”
“Are you sure we should spend money this soon?”
“It’s fine, it’s fine! Leave it to me!”
Neon hummed happily as we headed for a new inn. Its appearance alone made it clear that it was better than the place we’d stayed until now.
“Excuse me. Could we have a room for the night?” Neon asked the landlady at the reception desk once we entered.
The woman glanced at us.
“Sure. One room will do?”
“Sepa—”
“One room, please.”
Neon cut me off halfway through.
“All right. One room is 9,000 G a night.”
“Okay!”
The conversation raced ahead without me. Neon accepted the key and started walking, so I called after her.
“What’s this about?”
“Two rooms would be expensive, wouldn’t they? Weren’t you just saying we needed to save money?”
“But a man and a woman sharing one room is…”
“What are you talking about? I trust you.”
She said it with an innocent look. After that, it was difficult to object.
“All right. This is a better inn, at least.”
It appeared my actions until now had won Neon’s trust. That made me happy. That night, we raised a celebratory toast at a tavern. The steak we ate was so delicious it nearly made my cheeks fall off, and there was no doubt that the evening became one of my precious, unforgettable memories.
◇◇◇
That same day, an old man who had been fishing at a nearby lake went missing. Because he had no family, no one noticed until more than two weeks after the incident. Nothing remained near the lake except a pool of blood, and the cause was unknown.