Fun Territory Defense by the Optimistic Lord (Novel) - Chapter 103 - A Lord's Work, Arte's Battle

Chapter 103 – A Lord’s Work, Arte’s Battle

===================

Translated by Sylph

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

===================

We made good money by subjugating the magical beasts that come around quite often and selling the materials.
However, the Bell-Rango Company is on the verge of breaking down.

Our arrow stock is getting low, so please make more.

The sewer beneath some private homes has clogged.
Running water through it didn’t help.
It smells, so please deal with it as quickly as possible.

Andre-san’s third child was born.
He very much wants Van-sama to name the baby.

We don’t have enough wagons.
The company says that commercially sold wagons are far more expensive than Seat Village wagons despite being far lower in performance. If possible, they’d like Van-sama to make them.

New residents have arrived. There are fifty of them, and ten among them wish to join the knight order. Please conduct interviews.

And so on and so forth. A mountain of jobs like the ones Espada had warned me about was piled up in the office.

“…Ask whether there are any among the new residents who can work for the Bell-Rango Company. If there are, we’ll interview them together with the applicants for the knight order. Since I’ll be making consumables anyway, I may as well make the wagons too. Do we have enough horses? Clogged toilets are disgusting, so let’s clear those first. As for Andre-san’s child… how about Vandam? Sounds strong, right?”

I quickly decided the course of action and then headed straight to the sites.

Something was wrong.

“Ahh, Van-sama! Thank goodness you returned safely!”

“Ami-san, long time no see. I somehow managed, thanks. Thanks for worrying. Ah, your toilet got clogged? Did you flush anything weird down there?”

“No, just the bark we use to wipe ourselves…”

“…That’d be it, then. Detective Van solved it in one shot. From now on, could you buy toilet paper from the Bell-Rango Company? We’ve made everyday necessities very cheap, so it won’t cost much.”

“Ooh, thank you very much…! We’ll use this ‘toilet paper’ thing from now on!”

“…All right, the clog is fixed. I widened the sewer pipe too, so it should probably be fine from here on out. Well then, I’ve got to get to the next place.”

“Ah, thank you very much! As expected of Van-sama! Just like the rumors say, Van-sama is speedy, courteous, and affordable!”

“That sounds like some kind of sales slogan!?”

By the time I was running around maintaining toilets and sewer pipes like that, I had started genuinely questioning what exactly a lord’s job was supposed to be.

Was solving everyone’s plumbing problems really a lord’s work?

Well, everyone was happy, so I guess it was fine.

“Right, a thousand arrows, then. Since the materials are getting low, ask the Adventurers’ Guild to procure more. Ah, I made the wagon an armored wagon just in case, but is that okay? If you unload the mobile ballista, it can carry lots of cargo.”

“Thank you very much! By the way, traveling merchants have been saying they want these wagons…”

“One platinum coin per wagon. Ask again next time they come.”

“Y-yes!”

Crafting things is a lord’s work too… no, I should stop thinking about it. I should simply work as a machine for making things and nothing more.

And then, after handling a variety of such jobs, I met with Bell at the lord’s residence.

“I’ve been reaching out to traveling merchants I know and asking them to transport magical beast materials, but we’re at our limit.”

“I see.”

At Bell’s haggard look right from the opening line, I nodded with a properly serious face.

Bell sagged with a sigh and began speaking.

“Given that this land lies closest to the Wolfsburg Mountain Range, it can’t be helped that there are many magical beasts. But Seat Village isn’t just driving away the large magical beasts that normally could only be repelled. It’s subjugating them all and collecting the materials. And on top of that, the condition of those materials is excellent.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

When I answered that, Bell looked at me resentfully.

“Making money is a good thing. Thinking of when we get more employees later, we give special bonuses whenever sales exceed a certain threshold so that gaps don’t appear. And as for what you said about returning benefits to the villagers, we’ve been able to sell daily necessities and food cheaply. But we’ve become far too conspicuous.”

“Conspicuous?”

When I tilted my head and asked that back, Bell nodded hard.

“We have been dispersing the materials for sale even to large cities outside the capital, but even so it is an abnormal situation for such rare magical beast materials to keep appearing in such continuous quantities. As a result, I’ve learned that a Commercial Guild inspection is likely to be carried out very soon.”

“Didn’t investigators come before?”

“That was only merchants from the Mary Company and investigators from the kingdom and Adventurers’ Guild. The merchant companies of this kingdom are also members of the Commercial Guild, but to receive an inspection from the Commercial Guild is almost unheard of. For a tiny business in a tiny frontier territory to be inspected like this is extraordinary beyond extraordinary!”

I had the sense I’d just been casually insulted, but this wasn’t the atmosphere for jokes. Bell wasn’t giving me any room for one.

“Ah, the Commercial Guild… that’s the world’s largest guild, the one headquartered on the neighboring continent, right?”

“Yes, that one! On this continent it still hasn’t made many flashy moves, but on the neighboring continent it is, in both name and reality, the largest guild there is.”

“And that Commercial Guild is coming all the way out here because…?”

When I asked that with a sigh, Bell gave me a resentful look.

“Because they’re considering the possibility that we are in secret collusion with the Mary Company or with the kingdom. The Commercial Guild doesn’t take anything besides the entry fee from extremely small companies because it wants to increase membership. But for larger companies, it takes a portion of the sales.”

“I see. Yeah, then they’d definitely come investigate. And while they’re at it, I wonder if someone from the Mary Company will come too?”

At that question, Bell nodded.

“Of course. The Mary Company is what’s being suspected most strongly. That this tiny company in a tiny territory happened to generate an enormous fortune, and that the Mary Company is taking all the profits behind the scenes by using it as a front. That’s surely what they suspect.”

“If that suspicion were true, it’d be a problem, but since we’re not doing anything wrong, shouldn’t it be fine?”

When I answered that, Bell made a pained face and groaned.

“No, it isn’t that simple. I’ve heard that Commercial Guild investigations go into very fine details. They may even suspect the lord himself of being involved. In other words…”

“Me too…?”

When I tilted my head at that, Bell nodded deeply.

Meanwhile, Arte.

As we proceeded along the highway, a nostalgic landscape spread before us.

Wheat fields, and dragon-wagons pulled by bipedal lesser drakes. In Count Ferdinand’s territory, where the towns and villages are relatively close together, dragon-wagons are used often. They’re slower than horse-drawn wagons, but they’re tough.

But now the scene was different from usual.

Ordinarily there would be many more traveling merchants and adventurers, and the highway should have been more lively.

“…So it really is just like Freitliner said. They invaded while the count was away, huh.”

When Orto-san said that, Plurier-san knit her brows.

“Don’t say something like that in front of Lady Arte.”

Kusara-san folded his arms and nodded at the irritated scolding from Plurier-san.

“That’s right, Boss Orto. Fine consideration is the secret to getting the girls, y’know?”

“Guh… just because you got yourself a ridiculously beautiful wife, don’t get cocky…”

Hearing that exchange, even I ended up smiling.

The invasion by the Kingdom of Yerinetta worried me, yes, but panicking wouldn’t help. Van-sama would never panic. He’d make jokes and ease the hearts of the people around him.

At first I thought it was simply because Van-sama possessed a heart of iron that never wavered, but that wasn’t it.

The reason Van-sama doesn’t panic, doesn’t tremble, doesn’t cry, is because he has the heart and pride of a noble.

Because Van-sama, who leads everyone, shows no wavering and carries himself with calm confidence, his retainers too can display their abilities without hesitation.

“…Thank you for your concern. Let us first proceed straight ahead while gathering information. The castle town is surrounded by walls. Even without rushing, we will make it in time.”

When I said that and smiled, Orto-san and the others blinked, then nodded with impressed smiles.