Goats, goats.
They ate the flowers.
Goats, goats.
They entered the garden.
Goats, goats.
They ate the flowers.
Bugs, bugs, everyone was eating the flowers.
Animals, animals, all were eating the flowers.
Master of the garden, master of the garden, why are you crying?
Master of the garden, master of the garden, your favorite flower is on the cross.
Master of the garden, master of the garden, your daughter has come to the garden.
A merchant from the Northern Border traveled around the Principality of Olexian with silk, listening to children's songs. This was Baron Kage's town.
Previously, Lynn had mostly traded with merchants from the eastern Kingdom of Alev. Now he had some business to discuss with the nobles.
After the Wolfkin's devastation, the place was already somewhat dilapidated, but that was no problem.
"Sir Green, greetings."
"Greetings, Baron Kage. I bring you greetings from Baron Lynn."
Green took a road construction plan and a company share allocation sheet from his breast pocket and handed them to Baron Kage. "I'll get straight to the point. Our Sir Lynn wants to build roads on your lands and lay a wooden track clad in iron. If completed, it will bring huge returns to both sides. Baron Kage, you can take a good look at the profits it promises."
Baron Kage's impression of Lynn was still rooted in his memories of the Territory Expansion from a year ago. Recently, there had been rumors about him and the Demi-human Princess, and people said that some of the Demi-humans had already sworn allegiance to him. They also said that Lynn had brazenly established a Demi-human Commissioner jurisdiction that was practically no different from a Demi-human Kingdom. After all, the commissioner of the Demi-human Commissioner jurisdiction was the Demi-human Princess. The jurisdiction didn't govern everything beneath it, but only oversaw roads and Minerals. As for the question of rule, everyone used the same constitution, and on that basis, the Demi-humans could establish Autonomous regions according to their various races and enact laws of their own, so long as those laws didn't violate the constitution.
Still, there were plenty of other rumors about Lynn, too.
For instance, the scandal involving Third Princess Yuffie.
The scandal involving Saint Knight Leticia.
The scandal involving Saintess Ria.
Everyone treated them as gossip.
They treated the matters involving the Orcs as gossip, too.
Prejudice was a mountain in people's hearts, impossible to move no matter how hard one tried. After hearing so much, many people stopped taking any of it seriously.
Baron Kage looked at the documents Green had handed him. They were titled Trade System Community.
If completed, the project would speed up the flow of commerce.
Lynn would provide the materials and technology, while also recruiting merchants and nobles to contribute funds to build the road together. The plan was to connect everyone outside the fortress and make communication easier.
Under the shareholding arrangement, Lynn would hold 51 percent, while the remaining 49 percent would be divided among the nobles and merchants who invested.
Anyone using this stretch of road would have to pay a fee, and the annual profits would be distributed according to the shares. It was practically a guaranteed, immensely profitable scheme that would benefit future generations. There was no way to refuse.
But...
"Knight Green, this project would place an excessive burden on the people and the treasury. Baron Lynn has been in Aningsbe for less than a year, and it's so far from here. This road-building plan also requires bridges, and the route is so long—it's supposed to extend all the way to the fortress. Isn't that a little unrealistic?"
Green chuckled, then took out a Magic Crystal Ball. "Baron Kage, rest assured. Take a look at this Magic Crystal Ball."
In the image, six Devil Beast Horses pulled several crates of ore along the track. The speed made it clear that the wooden track clad in iron allowed for rapid travel, all the way toward Aningsbe. The image also showed many soldiers wearing matching Cloth Armor uniforms.
Since the armor had rivets on the outside and iron plates inside, Baron Kage could tell it was armor, but he couldn't tell where its weak points were or how many plates it contained.
The soldiers wore belts with pouches hanging from them, carrying something inside. Beside the pouches hung a wooden stick, something like a hammer (grenades and ammunition pouches).
They also had a Short Sword.
At the same time, the soldiers held strange objects in their hands. Well, not exactly strange—they looked a lot like Matchlock Guns, but not quite.
Matchlock Guns had serious problems with moisture and were heavy. Eventually, people started asking whether such rubbish was worth using at all.
Then everyone tossed them into storage, where they gathered dust.
But the scene that followed caught Baron Kage's attention.
A Fold-eared Cat seemed to be training the cavalry, pointing things out as she stood there.
The cavalrymen all wore breastplates and held curved sabers.
They were light cavalry.
The problem was that there were a lot of them.
A whole sea of them, several hundred men.
What baron had that many soldiers?
Was he buying them in bulk?
A baron could have at most ten knights and a few attendants, a hundred men at most.
A viscount could have at most a few hundred soldiers, with the most powerful perhaps commanding a thousand.
A count could command a thousand, or even ten thousand.
A marquis could also command around ten thousand.
A duke's forces mainly depended on whether he was the West Grand Duke. The West Grand Duke also served as a border guardian and had an army of hundreds of thousands, though it usually numbered no more than three hundred thousand.
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