Blacksmithing Is Child’s Play for a Dark Mage - Chapter 68

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 68
The conference room.
Tay, Lant, Partan, and Kael took their seats.
It was a meeting Kael had requested.
A month had passed since becoming administrator.
Only after grasping the territory’s finances, population, productive capacity, and military strength had he called for this assembly—so he surely had something to say.
“Well then. What did you wish to discuss that warranted summoning this council?”
Tay asked.
Kael opened his mouth.
“What if we were to spend money, my lord?”
“……What?”
Tay blinked. Lant and Partan looked equally bewildered.
Spend money. Just like that.
“I’ve calculated the territory’s growth prospects.”
Kael pressed on, unmoved by the confusion around the table.
Since this era had no such thing as graphs, the papers before them were filled with figures.
“At this rate, it will take ten years for the population to merely triple.”
The Maker Barony’s current population stood at just over ten thousand.
Combining natural increase with sporadic immigration, the projection showed roughly thirty thousand after a decade.
In truth, this was already quite rapid.
By the standards of this world, a territory that tripled its population in ten years was remarkably successful.
Most territories considered themselves fortunate if they managed a fifty percent increase in the same span.
Yet Kael shook his head.
“Hmm…… slow going, isn’t it.”
Tay remarked.
“Yes. At this pace, it falls short of what we need.”
Tay folded his arms.
“So you’re saying we should spend the money?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Kael pointed to a section of the documents.
A graph showing the treasury’s monthly balance trajectory was sketched out.
The upward curve climbed steeply.
“Ring sales, Bone Weapon sales, Dungeon entrance fees, agricultural exports—our revenue streams are diverse and growing each month. Yet our expenditures remain modest by comparison. The result is that gold merely accumulates in the vault.”
“Is it not a good thing when money piles up?”
Partan asked, his expression puzzled. True to his knight’s training, his instinct was that more money meant strength.
“It is not bad. Our reserves grow. However.”
Kael spoke with conviction.
“Growing reserves and strengthening territorial power are not the same thing. Even if ten thousand gold coins sit in the vault, unless that money circulates within the territory, the territory does not grow stronger. Money gains its power through use, not through hoarding.”
Lant nodded in agreement.
Lant, having been raised as the son of a noble house and educated in such matters, naturally understood the principle.
“Better to spend the money vigorously and secure more population than to let it rot idle. In fact, much of what you have done before, my lord, follows a similar logic.”
Tay nodded.
It was sound reasoning.
Going to Harundel and bringing back the destitute, accepting families when Partan recruited soldiers—all of it had been spending money to increase population.
“Therefore, the policy I propose is.”
Kael handed over the documents as he spoke.
“An Active Immigration Policy.”
“An Active Immigration Policy?”
“Yes. Until now, you have brought people in sporadically, whenever the need arose. I propose we do this continuously, on a large scale, and systematically.”
Kael unfolded a fresh set of documents.
This time, a map lay between Harundel and the Maker Barony.
“First, we construct a proper road between here and Harundel. The current unpaved route takes considerable time even by cart, but improving it would cut that travel time in half.”
“Build a road?”
“Yes. Once the road is complete, we transport the destitute on a regular schedule. Not once a month—once a week. Or even every three days. We give the new arrivals settlement allowances, provide housing, and assign them work. Since Bone Soldiers already help with farming in the territory, we have more than enough capacity to feed the additional population.”
Tay studied the documents.
Kael’s calculations were meticulous.
Settlement stipends. Housing construction costs. Food supply costs. Road construction costs. Cart operation costs. Everything was rendered in precise figures.
“Harundel’s population numbers in the hundreds of thousands.”
Kael continued.
“Among them, tens of thousands are destitute—people with no means of livelihood, scraping by day to day. Offer them food, shelter, and work, and they will come gladly.”
Kael’s eyes lit up.
“If we could bring just one hundred thousand of them here, my lord’s territory would expand tenfold.”
One hundred thousand.
Adding one hundred thousand to the current population of ten thousand would make it one hundred ten thousand.
What would normally take ten years to reach thirty thousand could be achieved in a short span—one hundred ten thousand people.
If this plan succeeded.
A population of one hundred ten thousand could be attained within three years.
But there was a problem. Would Harundel even permit the removal of one hundred thousand people, even if they were paupers? That was the question.
Paupers were those who struggled so much just to survive that they paid no taxes.
And yet, they were still subjects of the Marquis of Harundel, weren’t they?
Before, when he’d taken people, the numbers had been small enough that it went unnoticed.
Tay paused to consider.
What Kael proposed was simply an expansion of what Tay had already been doing.
Taking what had been sporadic and making it systematic, large-scale.
And the money was there—it had been piling up unused.
‘Hmm….’
Tay regarded Kael.
It was worth having taken on this one.
“Good. Let’s begin at once.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Kael bowed deeply.
And as if an implementation plan had already been prepared, he withdrew a sheaf of documents.
A competent man truly was different.
And Tay realized this was something that would require meeting the Marquis of Harundel and obtaining his permission.
‘I’ll need to request an audience.’
Tay was an independent lord, not his vassal. He could not simply take the poor away for free.
So then.
How could he persuade the Marquis of Harundel to allow it?
* * *
Kael was indeed learned.
Even requesting an audience with the Marquis was not simple, yet Kael knew everything—the forms and formats of the request, the protocols, the proper presentation of gifts.
The political science he had studied at the Imperial Academy shone in moments like these.
Tay composed the audience request according to what Kael had taught him and sent it to the House of the Marquis of Harundel.
And a month passed.
A month.
In that time, Tay remained in Harundel and waited.
This was ordinary.
One did not meet a Marquis simply because a baron requested an audience.
It was natural to wait when a country baron such as himself made such a request.
A marquis’s time was far more valuable than a baron’s.
Though sleep was a luxury he no longer needed, the waiting itself was not a burden, but being made to wait a full month suggested it served some purpose—a matter of dignity.
After the month had passed.
The order to enter came.
Tay went to the Marquis of Harundel’s castle, bringing Lant and Kael with him.
But then.
When they arrived at the castle, the Marquis of Harundel himself, Grimoire, did not appear.
Instead, the one who came was the Marquis’s right hand—the steward.
Billent of House Gardian.
The head of House Gardian.
A family that had served the House of the Marquis of Harundel for generations, and Tay knew at least the name.
In this region, it was common knowledge that this was the house that managed all the Marquis’s affairs.
But upon meeting him in person.
‘This man… is strong.’
Tay’s instincts told him so.
To all appearances, he was a dignified gentleman in his mid-fifties.
His silver hair was swept back, white gloves adorned his hands, and he wore a uniform bearing the crest of the Marquis’s house.
He looked every bit the steward in bearing.
But beneath that surface lay an aura of magical power that was far from ordinary.
At least high Mage Rank.
While it might be natural for a House head, the fact that a man of his station as steward wielded such power suggested the true strength of the Marquis’s house ran deeper still.
Billent opened his mouth.
“The Duke is a busy man. For most matters, I have discretionary authority, so I’ve taken this meeting in his stead.”
There was no way the Duke himself would appear.
It would be beneath his dignity for a Duke to make time for a minor rural Baron.
Worse still, Tay of the Maker Barony wasn’t even a vassal of the Duke of Harundel—he was an independent lord.
There was no reason to meet with him at all.
Billent settled into his seat and spoke.
“So then. What brings you here?”
“I wish to accept Harundel’s poor into my domain as subjects. I came to ask if such a thing were possible.”
Billent’s eyes flickered slightly.
He meant to take away subjects.
It was a sensitive statement.
For one lord to claim subjects from another’s domain was tantamount to provocation.
But if they were the poor—that was another matter entirely.
The poor. By this age’s standards, the poor barely counted as people at all.
They paid no taxes, produced nothing, threatened order, and spread disease.
From a lord’s perspective, they were a nuisance better gone.
Disposable goods—bothersome to have, but not terribly missed if absent.
That was how they were treated.
So when Tay had taken some ten thousand away before, no report had reached higher—no one had even cared. Ten thousand paupers vanishing wouldn’t shake Harundel.
But now.
“The poor, you say…… How many are we talking about?”
“Roughly one hundred thousand.”
Billent’s eyebrows rose.
“Ah.”
A hundred thousand changed things.
Ten thousand could be overlooked; a hundred thousand was a number that couldn’t be ignored.
Even if Harundel’s population was a million, that represented ten percent.
For that many to vanish at once, even if they were poor?
It couldn’t be dismissed.
Billent’s expression shifted to one of interest.
“Maker Baron. I understand your domain holds roughly ten thousand people.”
“That is correct.”
“And you claim you can accept one hundred thousand at once?”
“It will be difficult, but it is possible.”
Tay answered calmly.
It truly was possible.
With Bone Soldiers tilling the fields, food production overflowing, and gold accumulating in his vaults.
“Hmm. This matter will need to be reported to the Duke…….”
Billent trailed off mid-sentence.
Then he closed his eyes.
A few seconds of silence.
Tay grasped intuitively what the silence meant. Magical communication.
The Duke had been watching this entire meeting through his Summoning Magic and was now issuing instructions in real time!
‘The Duke…… was interested in me, then.’
Tay drew that conclusion privately. Was this fortune or misfortune?
The Black Mage Takes Blacksmithing Too Easily
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AutomatonG
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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