I Inherited a Beautiful Wife and a Territory - Chapter 76

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Inheriting a Beautiful Wife and Estate Episode 076

76. Eastward

Keren was excellent as a knight in terms of skill.

Since problems with goblins and such could arise at any time, Count Platice had entrusted him with the estate.

However, he lacked the finesse as an administrator.

‘That’s settled.’

He had discussed profits with him and the Ospal merchants.

And Cliff was able to secure promises of many benefits.

There was a reason why Cliff had worked so hard for this.

‘Our Elimis Trading Guild can already be called Ospal merchants.’

The Elimis Trading Guild had already invested in the completely collapsed Ospal.

That wasn’t all. While subtly pretending to help the Platice Family, the operation of the ‘auction house’ also came to be taken over by the Elimis Trading Guild.

‘Actually, they had no choice but us anyway.’

It was indeed goodwill.

For an auction house to operate, luxury goods suitable for it were needed. And there was no place that produced these as well as the Elimis Domain.

Still, with this he had even obtained the auction house.

And all sales profits in Ospal were tax-free.

‘This is much better than Serpal.’

This was something Serpal couldn’t do.

Cliff smiled.

Using this as leverage, he should make merchants sell grain at cheaper prices.

‘Then the estates belonging to the northern Yusta Peninsula would be more likely to come here rather than Serpal.’

But what they could sell was still people, namely slaves.

That was fine.

Both he and the Platice Family were short on people.

‘We buy people from them and they use that money to buy food.’

The merchants who sold food would use that money to attend the auction house, and he would again use the money earned here to buy people.

‘This continuous cycle…’

There was plenty of work to assign to the people he bought.

He could have them do farming or logging, or put them into construction.

‘Or send them to workshops.’

The Elimis Domain was seeing workshops increase day by day.

Even under the same skill application, there were bound to be those with particularly good dexterity.

Centered around such people, they were working on making pottery.

But among them, the most outstanding craftsman.

The one whose talent as well as experience and technique had reached their peak was the dark elf Marun.

“Hehe. How is it?”

Before Cliff, Marun asked with a boastful expression.

Deep confidence could be felt from his face. And Cliff could understand the reason for this.

‘This is…’

It was a masterpiece.

Something that couldn’t simply be expressed as a masterpiece, a legendary divine artifact had been born.

“Hahaha. I think we’ve made full use of the Serpent’s corpse with this much.”

Armor with a dark blue tint.

This was clearly made from the Serpent’s hide. And what stood out most was the pure white blade.

‘Wow.’

A pure white longsword made from fragments of the Serpent’s heart and its ribs.

To be precise, a staff.

Only after examining the blade closely did Cliff confirm that there were fine grooves on its surface.

‘Patterns?’

Various geometric shapes.

They were deliberately made marks, yet the surface was smooth without any rough spots anywhere.

Though it looked like a sword, it wasn’t sharpened with an edge.

“Even a sword made of mithril wouldn’t be able to scratch the lord’s staff.”

It was Marun’s confident boast.

Hearing Marun’s boast, Cliff looked at his staff with even more interested eyes.

“That’s not everything, is it?”

Cliff asked what could be considered a greedy question.

But this was natural.

‘I’m not a swordsman to begin with.’

A collision between a mithril sword and his staff.

Even if the staff survived, he would die at that point.

That level of close combat was too much for a mage who wasn’t a swordsman. No matter how much he could move faster than ordinary people using mana, a mage was still a mage.

This item was ultimately a staff as well.

“Hehe. It would be best for you to try using it directly. Try casting magic while holding that staff.”

Marun, who seemed to know this as well, naturally prompted Cliff.

As he said, Cliff began to cast magic.

‘Huh?’

And simultaneously with the activation of magic, he experienced a different change from before.

‘This is… like when I cast magic outside and then entered the estate.’

Assistant Mage, the effect received when inside the estate.

The benefit he could enjoy thanks to that skill.

He could clearly feel that this staff was assisting his magic just like that. That wasn’t all. The consumption of mana had also noticeably decreased.

“Hehe. That’s not everything.”

“If that’s not everything?”

“Magic staffs usually have enchanted magic that the caster cannot handle, or magic that requires time and concentration to activate.”

Cliff’s eyes lit up.

“Does this staff also have magic cast on it?”

“Haha. Of course. First is the shield magic most important for a mage’s staff.”

A protective barrier.

Certainly a shield to protect oneself in moments of crisis was important.

Cliff nodded satisfactorily.

“Saying ‘first’ means that’s not everything, right?”

“That’s right. While a shield can block momentary attacks, it ultimately doesn’t resolve the threat. If there were a knight nearby to protect the lord, there would be no problem, but otherwise, even with magic, you could say you’re continuously exposed to danger.”

So next was offensive magic.

“Originally, Serpents are said to create whirlpools or tsunamis to sink ships that rebel against them. It’s not quite to that extent, but if there’s water nearby, it’s possible to create water dragons.”

There was a perfect place to test this magic.

The lake.

The lake in the estate was originally a place with so much water that the Serpent had made it its hiding place.

‘Here…’

Cliff injected mana into the staff.

The staff that received his mana spread the mana into the lake water. The water that received mana soon swirled up and rose.

“Oh?”

Though he called it a water dragon, its form wasn’t that complete.

It felt more like a tornado made of water. What rose up like a waterspout shot in that direction the moment he pointed his staff.

‘It would be useful at sea.’

Seeing this, Cliff nodded.

Since it had no ability to create water, it was magic that couldn’t be used on land. Even if this magic were used with just water vapor in the air, it wouldn’t have proper power.

‘But if this were used at sea…’

Cliff’s eyes sparkled.

It wasn’t only Cliff who received a weapon like this.

“This is….”

Teobaldt gazed at his reflection in the sword he held with admiring eyes.

His expression was filled with various emotions.

True to his usual preference for heavy greatswords, his weapon looked like something the protagonist from those monster-slaying anime he’d seen in the past would wield.

“I made it using the largest and sharpest fang the Serpent possessed. That too is a masterpiece of my lifetime.”

This time Marun was holding onto Teobaldt, explaining his work.

His sword also appeared to be well-crafted.

Marun’s expression overflowed with pride.

‘Our combat strength has greatly increased from this.’

He had gained a staff, and Teobaldt had gained a sword.

Teobaldt swung his sword through the air with whooshing sounds, then nodded his head. A satisfied expression could be seen on his face.

“Indeed… it’s a famous blade.”

What was important to merchants was information.

Among that, information that could make money.

So all major trading guilds in the kingdom had their own information networks to collect rumors and verify their authenticity.

The Drake Merchant Guild was no different.

And the case this intelligence department had been investigating recently.

“So… Lord Barton presented precious porcelain to the Duke, and then introduced high-quality paper to the Duke?”

“That’s correct. The Duke must have liked the paper after seeing it, as the cabinet decided to use that paper from now on. The supply contract for that… was given to Tom’s Shop.”

“Hah.”

Drake already knew about the latter report.

He had started the investigation because of that supply contract in the first place.

Until now, the Drake Merchant Guild had been supplying that paper.

‘To have the contract stolen so easily… I was too complacent. Too complacent.’

Merchant Official Drake blamed himself for his negligence.

Paper production was itself a top-secret technology. That meant there were few places operating paper workshops.

So without any special incident, the Drake Merchant Guild would never have lost this distribution contract.

‘But that problematic special incident happened. Sigh. I was really complacent. If a new paper workshop had been established, we should have been the first to notice….’

The Drake Merchant Official asked his subordinate who was reporting.

“So… did you find out how that Tom managed to find a paper workshop and make a contract?”

“Tom recently visited the Yusta Peninsula. This incident happened right after that.”

The Drake Merchant Official’s eyes sparkled.

“The Yusta Peninsula? Come to think of it… porcelain from there has been trending recently, hasn’t it?”

Porcelain that initially spread among some nobles of the Yusta Peninsula.

It became gifts between nobles, spreading to the homeland as well, and nobles began seeking it out.

‘Quite a few people made requests to us.’

Naturally, not all nobles went to obtain it themselves.

They simply instructed merchants connected to them. To obtain porcelain from the Yusta Peninsula. Several nobles had tasked the Drake Merchant Guild with this as well.

However, no noble was satisfied with the porcelain the Drake Merchant Guild had obtained.

‘There were no decent items among the porcelain distributed in Serpal.’

Probably an excellent craftsman had emerged somewhere.

The items that craftsman made were excellent, while the rest were just roughly made things.

The problem was that merchants couldn’t find that craftsman’s porcelain and were wandering around.

‘But Tom seems to have found that porcelain craftsman….’

He had discovered not only porcelain but also a paper workshop.

The Drake Merchant Official’s expression twisted.

“What exactly are our merchants sent to Serpal doing, that they can’t find anything at all?”

“The thing is… no matter how much we search in Serpal, porcelain or paper of that quality doesn’t come out.”

“Did you check the auction house? Items like that should be in the auction house, shouldn’t they?”

“That too is also….”

The subordinate trailed off.

“It seems Serpal’s auction house doesn’t have any particular goods besides slaves.”

“Sigh. What slaves. Yusta’s slaves are bought at cheap prices, they don’t suit expensive auctions, do they?”

“Still, it seems really good slaves do appear occasionally.”

The Drake Merchant Official clicked his tongue upon hearing that.

“Even so, if you’re thinking of buying high-grade slaves, you can obtain them anywhere other than Serpal. What’s important now is exactly where that porcelain and paper came from.”

Serpal was the largest market in the northern Yusta Peninsula.

If there were workshops, they should rightfully be operating centered around Serpal. But the fact that this wasn’t the case was strange.

“Is there no other information?”

“Come to think of it… the place Tom went this time wasn’t Serpal.”

“What?”

“East of Serpal… there’s a village called Ospal.”

Ospal.

‘Where is that place?’

Normally he might have just ignored it.

“It belongs to the Platys Barony….”

“The Platys Barony! Yes, that’s exactly it!”

The Drake Merchant Official shouted.

Count Platys.

He was the very noble who first brought Yusta’s porcelain to the homeland.

‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

The Drake Merchant Official blamed his own foolishness.

And he shouted.

“Go to Ospal immediately. All the secrets are there!”

“Then what about the people in Serpal…?”

“There’s nothing more to see in such an unnecessary place. If there’s nothing special, tell them to head to the Platys Family immediately too!”

This was a similar judgment made by other trading guilds besides the Drake Merchant Guild.

Various merchants who had been heading to Serpal began turning their steps eastward.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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