Rattle. Rattle.
The mule climbed the mountain path. Sunlight slanted through the tree branches.
“…….”
Ten days from now, the price of wine would double.
That was the future I already knew.
I could see a way to put the money together somehow. The problem was cargo space. We had goods to sell, but no way to haul them.
That was the first problem I had to solve.
……How could I increase our cargo space?
Should I get more mules?
Or buy a wagon?
Then we would need another horse.
Just as my head was getting complicated, my eldest sister looked at me from atop the mule.
There were three older siblings above me, all sisters.
“Mikael, you remember everything we have to do today, right?”
“Yeah. Buy ten crates and sell them at the Southern Market.”
“Oh, good. I knew our youngest was sharp. Watch what I do today and learn properly, all right?”
Going all the way to the Southern Market just to sell ten crates of wine… no matter how I thought about it, it felt like a waste.
There had to be a way to make a bigger profit.
While I was briefly running the numbers—
“……!”
My mind flashed.
It was risky, but worth trying.
“Mikael?”
“Uh, yeah. But…… Sis.”
“What?”
“The problem is that the mule's cargo space is not enough, right? What if we buy more first and either get more mules—or find a way to load more?”
“What? Where are you going to get more mules?”
My sister pulled on the mule's reins and turned around.
She had been warm until a moment ago, but this time her tone was a little sharp. Her eyebrows had risen slightly too.
“And you are saying we should buy more without even discussing it with Father? Is that something you should be saying?”
“I just have something in mind.”
“……Mikael, You’re not sick, are you?”
“Why?”
“You are not talking like you usually do. Somehow, you seem strangely grown-up today.”
I flinched.
Do I not look like a sixteen-year-old right now?
But even when I was young, I often heard that I seemed like a little old man. It should be fine.
“Ha ha, no way.”
My sister still looked me over with suspicious eyes.
“And can we even sell twenty crates at the Southern Market? I do not know about that. If it is just buying a little more, I will say I bought it.”
“……That is true, but.”
As things stood now, she was right.
Of course, the story would change if the western farms were reduced to ruins.
“Let us go first. I will try talking to him.”
My sister still looked unconvinced.
“You really are not sick, are you……? Did you hit your head or something…?”
“Sis!”
……She was not actually worried.
Right. Of course she was not.
***
Knock, knock, knock.
“Uncle, are you there? It is me, Mariel.”
My sister's voice, clear as a nightingale's, spread through the vineyard.
Clack.
Uncle Grape, his beard thick and bushy, opened the door.
“Welcome. How many crates are you buying?”
His face does not look good.
That must mean business has not been going well lately.
My sister glanced at me, then smiled playfully.
‘Fine, if you are that confident, go ahead and try.’
That was what her eyes were saying. Did she want to tease me because she thought I was the sixteen-year-old Mikael?
In that case…….
Thirty-one-year-old Mikael will deal with you.
“Hello, sir. I am Mikael.”
“Right. Welcome.”
“How many crates of wine can we buy right now? I will buy all of them.”
“……!”
“……!”
Uncle Grape and my sister both stared at me in shock at the same time.
“Mikael, wait!”
“Yeah?”
“Are you out of your mind? Do you know how many gold coins that is? I thought you were just saying it, but you are really buying the entire stock?”
“I have a reason, Sis.”
“Did you get Father's permission?”
“……No.”
“Then cancel it right now!”
Just as I was wondering how to coax her.
Uncle Grape set the stage for me first.
“Wait, Mariel.”
“Yes?”
“Ahem… I will be honest. This year's harvest was so good that I have over a hundred crates piled up. At this rate, I think half of them will rot.”
He smiled bitterly.
“Western wine is all the rage these days, so southern wine does not sell. Even the other merchant companies are already turning away from it.”
Was western wine that good? When I drank it in my previous life, it was just… far too sweet.
“So, if you really do buy all of it, I would be grateful. But can you make money from it?”
“There is money to be made, yes…?”
“Good. Then let us do this. I will take 12 silver coins per crate. It is usually 15 silver coins.”
Was this man always this generous…?
Well, it did not matter.
My sister's eyes grew round.
“Uncle… is that not too much of a discount?”
“It is fine. If I cannot sell it, it will rot anyway. If your brother takes all of it, I am the one who should be grateful.”
He patted my head.
“Right. You are young, but you have plenty of nerve. Fine, I will trust you.”
It felt a little bad to bargain in this kind of mood… but I had been taught that a merchant had to be good at negotiating.
“Ah… my father told us not to make a deal if the price was too high. Could you… perhaps lower it just a little more?”
I tried to look as pitiful as possible.
At sixteen, maybe it could work.
“No.”
Hm. Operation failed.
“And…… I would like to make an advance contract for all the wine from the next quarter. Would that be possible?”
“What?! Mikael. Just because I let the last thing slide, do you think this is some kind of joke?”
My sister answered first.
Before I could say anything, Uncle Grape opened his mouth.
“Ahem, how much are you talking about?”
“Around 300 crates come out per quarter, so all of it!”
“……Did you get your father's permission?”
A hint of concern appeared on Uncle Grape's face.
Even if he was dealing with children, it seemed this pricked his conscience a little.
“Of course! Instead, please lower the deposit a little. Please.”
“Hmm…….”
There was no way he did not know. The terms I was offering right now were by no means a loss.
The western vineyards were already causing a sensation through word of mouth.
In other words, that also meant southern wine had less room to sell.
“Ha ha, fine. I will not take a separate deposit. If I took a deposit from you here, your sister would be the first to smack me across the back.”
“Thank you. Then we can write the contract, right?”
“Fine. I understand, you rascal. But if you change your mind by tomorrow, you must tell me you will not buy it. Understood?”
Uncle Grape said it with a hearty laugh.
“It has been a long time since I wrote a document like this. Sign it, little merchant company head.”
∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿
「Wine Sale and Advance Contract」
▪ Sale Quantity : 100 crates of wine
▪ Unit Price : 12 silver coins per crate (total 12 gold coins)
▪ Payment : Full cash payment
▪ Advance Contract : 300 crates from the autumn harvest, no deposit
Seller Ramon (Signature)
Buyer Mikael (Signature)
Witness Mariel (Signature)
∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿
“Goodbye, Uncle! I will come pick up the wine crates within a few days!”
“Sure.”
We headed home. Uncle Grape even saw us off, which was unusual.
My sister let out a long sigh.
“Hoo…… Do you even know how many gold coins you spent today?”
“I do.”
“Then what are you going to do? Even if we take our family's two mules around, the limit is moving twelve crates at once at most. You didn’t just go for it because you believed Father would solve it tomorrow, did you?”
“I will explain it to him when we get home.”
I had no intention of going to the Southern Market and selling them there.
Going all the way there for ten days only to sell them cheaply would be far too much of a waste.
I would sell them somewhere much more expensive and much closer.
Could that really be done?
For ordinary people, it was impossible.
For a Swordmaster, it was as easy as eating cold porridge.
“Heh heh heh….”
When I thought about what would happen from now on, a small laugh slipped out of my mouth.
***
“Mikael!”
“I am sorry…….”
The yard of our house.
I was kneeling.
Father stood before me, and Mother sat beside him.
It was the first time I learned that Father was someone capable of hitting his son.
I had thought he was always gentle.
Of course, Mother stopped him, so I was not actually hit.
“Honey, I am sure our youngest has something in mind.”
“You stay out of this for now. Just how lightly do you think of merchants for you to do something like this? Or what, did you want to gamble?”
Father's face grew redder and redder.
“No, Father…….”
“Haa…… Then tell me what exactly you were thinking when you made that contract. You had better speak properly.”
“I will get a cart.”
It was half true and half a lie.
I was going to get one, but I would make it myself.
“A cart?”
“If we do that, the amount one mule can transport will increase at least fivefold.”
Father's eyebrows twitched.
“……The road to the Southern Market is a mud field. You are saying a cart will travel there?”
“I will make it so it can roll even through mud.”
“Make it?”
“Yes.”
“You?”
“Yes…….”
A brief silence.
No, should the first question not be about how it would roll through mud? What exactly does my family think I am……?
“……A boy who cannot even fix farming tools?”
“That was already broken, so it was impossible from the start.”
Unable to bear the solemn atmosphere, my third sister's shoulders shook, and she burst out laughing.
“Pfft!”
The corners of Father's eyes trembled.
“Hoo… For now, we will help too, so hurry and make it.”
Father let out a deep breath.
“It would be difficult to ask for the money back after we already paid it.”
“I am sorry, Father….”
I had rolled around in the military for ten years.
There was nothing I had not done.
This much was not even difficult enough to count as eating cold porridge.
In the end, because of me, all six members of our family could not even rest in the evening.
My sisters twisted wire between the spokes of the cartwheels, and Mother melted lard and spread it on the wheel axles.
I carved logs to widen the wheels.
I left the central axle as it was and added thin planks around the edges.
When I drove iron pins into every gap and fixed them in place, the wheels became as solid as I had expected.
The calculation was that they would absorb shock on gravel roads and sink less in mud.
The weight increased a little, but in exchange, they should endure any road.
“Will that thing even roll?”
Before my sister had even finished speaking, I pushed the cart.
Clatter, clatter.
It was slow, but it clearly moved forward.
Mud splashed, but the wheels did not stop.
“See? It rolls.”
Mother said nothing for a moment.
That silence probably meant acknowledgment.
In the end, our whole family collapsed from unexpected overwork.
***
Awooo, awooo, awoooo! Awoooo!
Wolf howls came from far away.
Among them were sounds mixed with human cries.
There were probably lycanthropes mixed in too.
What time is it now? Not having a dwarven-made pocket watch really is frustrating.
It has only been one day since I returned to the past, but I have already done too much.
Judging by the moon's position, it is probably just past midnight.
Looking at the moon made my thoughts grow complicated.
“…….”
I think I finally understand why I returned to sixteen instead of eighteen.
The reason the hourglass sent me back to this point was probably because this was before I entered the military—
It meant I should make a different choice.
From the moment I awakened aura, I was already a cog in the Empire's machine. Within that system, no talent and no will could ever be free.
In the end, perhaps Swordmaster was never my path.
I carefully formed that hypothesis.
“Stop thinking useless thoughts and get to work.”
Before going to sleep, I organized the ledger.
Scratch. Scratch.
∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿
✓ Today's Expenses : 12 gold coins, 55 silver coins
(cart production costs, iron pins, lard, etc. all included)
✓ Cash : 18 gold coins / 8 silver coins / a few copper coins
⤷ Not my money, so it means nothing……
✓ Cargo : 100 crates of wine
⤷ The only goods for sale
✓ Transport : 2 mules (load capacity: 2 stones)
✓ Inventory : None. Only straw piles in the yard.
✓ Destination : Southern Market (ten days away)
∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿
I really did spend more money than I thought.
And yet, considering I got away with only this much, my family must be angels. And I am an undutiful son….
I had gone for it because I was certain this was the only way, but honestly, even I was afraid.
I quietly closed the ledger and went out to the yard.
It was to confirm the most essential part of making this plan succeed.
I looked around.
“…….”
Fortunately, no one was there.
I picked up an iron rod left over from making the cart.
“Hoo…….”
I tightened my grip and closed my eyes.
THUMP!
Focus. Only that one word echoed in my head.
The air trembled faintly.
THUMP!
The back of my brain tingled and pulled, and my heartbeat rang out slowly, but loudly.
Long ago, this was a flow that had begun moving as soon as I steadied my breath.
Now… I cannot grasp it.
My amount of mana is still far too lacking.
Still, I did not stop.
Each time I breathed in, it felt as though something inside my chest was slowly awakening.
Whoooosh.
The end of the iron rod trembled faintly.
Heat leaked from my fingertips.
I slowly opened my eyes.
I could see a wavering blue flame.
The moonlight dragged the shadows on the ground long.
“Well, it would not have rusted in a single day.”
Before anyone could see, I hurriedly withdrew my mana and returned to my room. Then I opened the ledger again.
Scratch, scratch.
I drew a thick line through the destination.
Scritch. Scritch.
Then I wrote in another destination instead.
∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿
✓ Destination : Oxhorn Pass (two days away)
∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿∿
“If it is the dwarves… they will not be able to refuse this deal.”
A smile hung on my lips as I closed the ledger.
But what am I going to tell Father before I go?