zChapter 44 - Arc 2, Crescent Moon (1/2)

On the third day, the discontent making the men simmer with gloom now erupted.

It was difficult to tell what had caused it; after carefully tracing through his memories, Ernst found that it was the accumulation of several small ripples which lead to the outbreak of rage. The women who had been chatting like friends for three days also joined in, shouting and swearing with the men.

“Wasn’t it Caralime’s fault for lowering the price of wool in the first place!”

“That’s right! You guys drove down the price for your own gain, so isn’t that why the price of ours dropped to rock bottom?!”

“The hell do you mean, ‘for our own gain’…! If you didn’t want to sell so low, then you should’ve used it to make some profit.”

“If you guys sold one of your bags for 10 aquia, there was no way we could sell ours for 50 aquia.”

“Yeah, who the hell’s gonna buy it, right? In the first place, Saiquani was in the wrong for buying it at that price.”

“The hell are you saying! If we can buy it cheap then of course we’ll do it!”

“What I’m saying is that even if you bought it cheap from Caralime, you didn’t have to sell it for cheap to other people.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Even if you bought it for a low price from Caralime, you could’ve just sold it normally. That would have made you guys money, wouldn’t it?”

“And if you did, then you could’ve just kept buying our wool as usual, and it’d all have been fine.”

“Hmph. I’m telling you, you guys know nothing about the world. Over in Lux Kingdom’s Caprix fief, they sell a bag of wool for 30 aquia, alright? We don’t have any choice but to sell for low, too.”

“If it’s one for 30 aquia, the quality of the wool has to be bad. Are you saying you can’t do anything against that?”

“Hah! For you guys to be saying that… you Arruca villagers. Weren’t you guys putting your low-quality wool on the market?”

“That’s right, Arruca’s wool was so short it couldn’t be woven so it had a bad reputation.”

“Our sheep have always been like that! It isn’t like it was short because we slacked off in caring for them… That’s why we went to beg Caralime to give us some of their sheep.”

“Exactly. I don’t know how many times we went over to Caralime to bow and scrape to them.”

“Hmph. Who the hell would give over such precious sheep to you lot?”

“…So because that low-quality wool went on the market, none of Meissen’s wool would sell anymore. You think you can still laugh? When you eventually weren’t even able to feed yourselves, you ate that oh-so-precious Caralime sheep of yours, didn’t you?”

“Yakiya Village… I bet you’re glad that you didn’t have to rely on sheep since you have such fertile lands in your hands.”

“Yeah, exactly. And since you guys have a merchant’s rank, you can even earn money by yourselves… But when you think about it, how were peasantfolk like you able to change your standing in the first place?”

“Because the quality of our brains is different from yours.”

“The hell did you say!!”

When the situation blew up too much and was on the verge of sparking a fistfight, Ernst called for Targes and Ganche.

Their piercing gazes and Ganche’s towering physique intimidated the room, quelling the explosive situation and making everyone stay seated in their chairs, only daring to exchange insults throughout.

On the fourth day, Targes and Ganche were present in the room.

Targes was left to attend as he was; for Ganche, Ernst had to instruct him repeatedly. No matter what words anyone said, he must absolutely never raise his hand to anyone. Furthermore, Ernst explained to him, he must not interrupt anyone.

All Ernst worried over was whether Ganche would be able to hold himself back when people condemned and criticized Ernst.