Unlike the Northlands, which were still covered in ice and snow, spring came especially early in the central plains of the south. Within two weeks of the first spring rain, the temperature would rapidly rise. Continuous spring rain was also a symbol of the new year.
To use the church's usual explanation, the Winter Goddess, Tonia, had directly handed over the authority to the Spring Goddess, Ardiel. In this season of spring, plants that had hibernated for an entire winter would begin to sprout, and hungry animals would begin to hunt for food. A new cycle of the year would begin, and all living things would begin to recover. New life would be born in this golden time of spring.
Alright, let's stop here. To be honest, yep, let's start with making money. Since spring had arrived, business opportunities had also arrived.
In this era of cold weapons, people still relied on horses and carriages to travel. In winter, the roads would be covered in ice, making it inconvenient to travel. Goods and daily necessities would be transported very slowly. After an entire winter, every household would use up a lot of resources and would need to replenish all sorts of necessities.
That was why every spring was the golden time for merchant caravans to make money. It was acceptable to raise the price slightly. Plus, there was a tremendous demand for goods. For merchants who specialized in this line of work, the astonishing profits from the first batch of goods could even account for 30% of their annual profits.
The Lagraz Kingdom was rich in silk, Green Luminescent Crystals, Redwood Staffs, and Three-leafed Rosemary. Green Luminescent Crystals and Three-leafed Rosemary Rosemary were magic casting materials, while Redwood Staffs were excellent magic staffs. Both the Mage Country and the Bardi Empire imported large quantities of Redwood Staffs.
Where there was demand, there would be sellers. Every year at the beginning of the year, merchant caravans would set out on time as soon as the last snow fell. They would go to a foreign country and exchange their specialties for gold coins. On the way back, the gold coins would be exchanged for various specialties from the Bardi Empire. This would be a tremendous return trip.
But just like in a certain other world, although the profits from border trade were extraordinarily high, the risks were also high. If one met with bandits or illegal officials, it would be good enough if they could keep half of their goods. If one's luck was too bad, they might even run into military rebellions, wars, or other unexpected factors, which would result in nothing.
But in this generation, the most dangerous thing would be to attract the attention of a certain "domain lord". After all, no matter how great a merchant's connections were, they would still be able to reach neighboring countries. As long as there was a reasonable reason, it would be easy for some major nobles to take over a foreign merchant's wealth.
Businesses that ordinary people wouldn't dare to do would naturally not be ordinary people. Businesses that dared to do border trade were usually not to be trifled with. They either had powerful backgrounds or were even connected to the royalty of various countries, making them completely unafraid of ordinary domain lords' extortion. Or, they had the power to protect themselves, such as keeping mercenary groups. After all, the only people that could protect themselves when they were outside were the trustworthy combat strength that they had.
The leader of the Veji merchant guild wasn't a noble who had inherited the Bardi Empire's bloodline. It was obvious that the merchant guild belonged to the latter. Although their merchant guild was a new merchant guild that had only risen to prominence less than twenty years ago, due to the painstaking efforts of the previous generation's leaders, they had basically monopolized the merchant guild's trade route from the Bardi Empire's Analisa City to the Lagraz Kingdom's Anton City. Their private mercenaries wouldn't be any weaker than a minor domain lord's army. But this year, the situation was slightly different.
"… It would seem that I can only hope that I won't make a loss this time."
Cindy Veji was one of the merchant guild's higher-ups. He was currently forty-six years old, and he had been doing this trade route for almost thirty years. But unlike in the past, the Bardi Empire's internal situation had been rather chaotic recently, with all sorts of rumors constantly spreading.
Merchants were naturally sensitive to danger. In their eyes, when a country experienced major internal unrest, the economy would naturally be in trouble. Recently, there had been many rumors of strange magical beasts and undead appearing within the Bardi Empire, which greatly decreased the number of merchant caravans traveling between the two countries.
Cindy Veji could see the tense situation and felt anxious inside, but there was nothing he could do. He had already placed many orders last year, and he couldn't afford to offend some of his long-time customers. Thus, he had no choice but to leave.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. The leader of the Veji merchant guild was actually willing to spend a large sum of money to hire two of the top ten mercenary groups in the Lagraz Kingdom. He even requested that they send elite combat strength at the level of a team leader.
In the end, the strong ones did come. The Eagle Suolo mercenary group's "Fallen Star Sword" Jost and the North Horn mercenary group's "White Dragon" Carlogier were both incredibly famous and powerful individuals. As promised, they also brought their own elite subordinates. However, it was likely that the profits from this trip wouldn't even be enough to pay the mercenary fees.
"Please don't meet with any real trouble, especially not those undead that don't care about their lives …"
If the mercenaries they hired didn't fight, according to the usual practice, they would only need to pay eighty to ninety percent of the mercenaries' fees. They wouldn't need to pay a high amount of compensation for any losses, so they would at least be able to recoup some of their costs.
"Sir Cindy, why do you always have such a sad expression? The weather today is really nice. You should at least be happy to be able to walk more."
In Cindy's eyes, this smiling golden-haired youth only appeared to be fifteen or sixteen years old. However, after some deep conversation, Cindy discovered that he was unable to see through this youth named Rolo.
Although Rolo seemed childish and mischievous, he was actually quite talented in business. Sometimes, Cindy would casually say something, and Cindy would think about it for a long time. In the end, he would even feel that what Rolo said made a lot of sense.
When the Silver Coin mercenary group, which had all sorts of strange members, came to Cindy's door of their own volition and offered to hire him at an incredibly low price, Cindy had been quite astonished. He had even thought that they were plotting something, but when he saw the goods they were carrying, he realized that he had been overthinking things. They had only intended to hitch a ride with him. Their so-called service was only a cover. Their true goal was to use Cindy's large caravan to make a small fortune.
Normally, hitching a ride on a caravan would be a taboo. Normally, Cindy wouldn't accept such a thing. However, when Cindy exposed the true meaning of "hitching a ride", Cindy quite frankly admitted that he wasn't, and even offered to pay a considerable amount of "travel fees" to the merchant association.
"… We absolutely must deliver this batch of Wenluo wine. The world isn't peaceful right now, and we're so weak that we wouldn't dare to travel by ourselves. We'll pay you. And if we really do meet with trouble, having more people will be more helpful. "
Of course, since they were finally able to travel together, I really didn't know if the money I gave Cindy in private would be of any use.
"Right, Captain Rolo, could you tell me more about the relationship between bank loans and market prices that you mentioned yesterday? There were still some things that I didn't understand yesterday. For example, if I could work with the bank … "
For Cindy, who had been in the business world for half his life, he had learned quite a lot over the past few days. Although Cindy was young, he was as expected of a mage famed for his wisdom. Cindy's personal view of the loan industry and the banking industry … yep, according to Cindy, they should all be collectively referred to as finance. Cindy's personal view of finance was completely different from that of most people. Although his views were quite unorthodox, if one thought about it carefully, one would find that his views were quite reasonable.
Now that I saw Cindy, who was endlessly talking about business, I regretted that I had been so talkative as to say all those random financial sayings.
"Originally, I wanted to pretend to be a merchant to join Cindy's group, so I casually mentioned some economic theories from my previous world. I didn't expect that he would actually take it seriously, and even ask me about it with great interest. I'm a law major, so I've never been interested in economics to begin with. I know so much about the economic theories, so if he kept asking, I could only make up nonsense."
As for how to make a lie seem like the truth, all we needed to do was place a lie within another easily seen through lie, and have the "smart" person expose the "lie" and find the "truth" that they wanted.
Being able to meet Cindy's merchant group was a pleasant surprise. However, it would be quite difficult to sneak into their heavily guarded merchant group. If we voluntarily introduced ourselves to them, they would likely reject us, and if we showed off our strength, they would instead suspect that we were up to no good. That was why I decided to buy a batch of wine and make a fake order, pretending to be a merchant who wanted to save money and become a mercenary.
But now, my headache was that I had been too successful in my disguise. I had casually said a few random words, but this merchant in front of me treated them like a treasure. If I continued asking, I would really expose myself.
"Shh, that's forbidden."
Alright then, since I didn't know how to respond, I might as well treat it as a secret that I didn't want to tell. Although my answer and lines weren't cute at all, the result was that Cindy took me even more seriously. He switched from direct attacks to indirect attacks, and asked me every day to try to get information out of me.
Today was already the third day since we left, and Cindy was still asking me questions the moment we met in the morning. Just as I was about to continue bluffing him, a sudden commotion behind us and the sound of weapons clashing attracted our attention.
"Again?"
We felt rather helpless now. There was no such thing as the first place in literature or the second place in martial arts. People of the same trade would always be enemies. Another side effect of us joining the merchant group as an adventuring group was that the other two mercenary groups in the merchant group viewed us with hostility and displeasure.
"We've already accepted the escort mission, and we're already displeased that the two large mercenary groups split the reward equally. What's the meaning of you guys jumping out at us?"
Even though I had already said that I wouldn't fight with them for the reward, sometimes in this line of work, one had to fight for pride. Over the past two days, the other mercenary groups had provoked us quite a few times. According to usual practice, if we were in the wrong, it would be over after we suffered a loss. But even though I had asked them to pretend to be weak, none of them were easy to deal with. They promised us to the face, and then went against us behind our backs. In the end, the mercenary groups suffered quite a bit, and the result was that the two large mercenary groups kept trying to regain their pride, only to end up losing more and more.
And right now, it was doubtlessly another "accident" that caused a dispute.
Suddenly, a purple magical shadow of starlight appeared in the sky above the camp, and the source of it was the noisy area.
"… That should be Captain Jost's famous Epic-ranked weapon, the Fallen Star Sword, right? As expected of a Gold-ranked weaponsmith. What a terrifying aura. It seems that Captain Jost is getting serious. Eh? At this point, Captain Rolo doesn't seem to be worried about his own people getting injured at all? "
I smiled wryly and shook my head.
"I'm worried, of course I'm worried. I'm just worried about that Fallen Star Sword. Let's go and take a look. I hope that nothing bad happens … Damn it, that idiot actually challenged Little Red! Sindy, do you have coffins with you? I'll buy one. Oh, no, I don't think I'll need a coffin anymore. Did you bring a tombstone? "
…
While Roland and his group were still on the road, the Bardi Empire's surprise attack plan met with a small unexpected problem.
With the full power of numerous obsidian soul towers, the Dimensional Descent of the Undead was indeed a success. Large numbers of low-level undead were created. However, in this world filled with negative energy, where even the horizon had turned gray, there was a patch of green that was abnormally eye-catching in this monotonous world.
"You still haven't figured out what that is? Damn it, why is there a forest there? And it's even attacking a forest of undead. "
The lich Alu had originally thought that this would be a simple task. All he had to do was control a large number of low-level undead to slaughter the defenseless humans. However, the sudden appearance of a strange forest caused his plan to lag far behind his expectations. When he thought about how the Undead Emperors treated those who failed, even though he had already lost his senses, he still felt a chill run down his spine.
"Milord, there are more and more strange plants in that forest. The forest is also starting to spread, and the most inconceivable thing is …"
The black-robed Blood Tribe member Kaka's voice became softer and softer. It seemed that he had a guess, but he wasn't sure.
"What is it? Just tell me! "
"It feels like that popular board game Zombies vs. Plants. All the plants can be seen in the chess pieces! I'm a veteran player, so I can tell at a glance. "
"And those plants are all specially made to fight against the undead. Those peashooters can even shoot Holy Light Bullets, those magical vines can even absorb the power of death, and those plant bombs even contain holy water. It feels like this forest is the natural enemy of the undead."
Alu paused in surprise for a moment, but then became furious. He used his magic to create a large hand of ice and grabbed that unlucky Blood Tribe member.
"What? Our undead army has become someone else's game? We're playing a monkey show in someone else's eyes? "
The furious lich thought about the consequences of not completing his mission, and he let loose his magic, causing all the high-level undead around him to hurriedly retreat. Only that unlucky Blood Tribe member who was frozen pale was desperately trying to think of a way to save himself.
"Milord, since the enemy's army types are common in the game, we can think of a way to deal with them in the game."
The lich Alu nodded as he rubbed his chin, which only had bones left.
"Such as?"
The unlucky Blood Tribe member furiously racked his brains and managed to come up with a few ideas.
"For example, Burrowing Zombies, Flying Zombies, Metal Bucket Zombies. The plants can only defend one side, so we can have our air force attack them. We can even take a detour. There are so many ways."
"Yep, yep, not bad! You lead the team. "
Alright, dying in battle was better than being executed by his superior. The Blood Tribe member Kaka, who wanted to cry but had no tears, immediately led a new batch of his undead army out.
However, the result was the same as before.
"Flying? Dandelion bombs that can shatter the air are waiting for you. "
Burrowing? The magical vines and magical plants' roots had long since created a fatal soul-stealing network.
Giving the undead a layer of protection? A gigantic man-eating flower that suddenly reached out from the ground and devoured everything.
Taking a detour? This wasn't a game. The entire mountain was filled with forests, so where would they find a way back?
The lucky (unlucky) Kaka miraculously survived. His entire body was in tatters, and he was on the verge of death. However, when he saw the green soulfire burning in Alu's eyes, he suddenly felt that it would have been better if he hadn't returned.
"Heh heh, what else do you have to say?"
"Milord, you can't blame us for being useless. That guy cheated. Those army types are all rare. You might not even get a single one even if you drew several tens of thousands of gold coins, but he actually got all of them. This is basically a gold coin player bullying us normal players. This is too much!"
* Crack! *
With a crisp sound, this veteran gamer Blood Tribe member was frozen into a block of ice. The furious Alu glanced at his subordinates, only to see all of them avoiding his gaze. In the end, he could only helplessly give an order.
"Everyone, attack! Have the Soul Towers continue to summon new undead. We'll fight it out with him and see who can last longer. The will of the Emperors must be carried out. Otherwise … you all understand. "
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