"Ahem! As the Main God is my witness! Cedar Shaman promised to provide our entire fleet—more than five hundred people—with five months of grain. That way, with the camp's one-month stockpile added in, and by hunting some seals and sea dogs along the coast, it will be enough to last half a year. And even if the grain harvested from the fields in October isn't enough, we'll still have two or three months of surplus food..."
Scholar Miki pointed at the Longship carrying grain and explained softly.
"This is the grain from the first ship. There are many more ships behind it!... And in exchange, we're giving the North Bay Tribe eighty Copper Spears, forty Copper Axes, ten Longbows, ten sets of leather armor, and one borrowed set of Bronze Cloth-covered Armor... Each time a batch of grain arrives, we hand over a batch of equipment, with the cloth-covered armor last."
"Mm, this exchange ratio... Fine! It's reasonable enough."
Hearing this, Exploration Captain Zuwaro gave a slight nod. The farther north they went, the colder the weather became, the less surplus grain each tribe had, and the higher the value of grain rose. On this journey north, the fleet had carried many Bronze Weapons, but the battles they had actually encountered were few. The fleet still had plenty of surplus weapons; even after taking these out, there would still be enough for the Kingdom Warriors to have two spare weapons each. However...
"Miki, you also promised Bronze Cloth-covered Armor?..."
Exploration Captain Zuwaro frowned and asked in a deep voice.
"How did that Cedar Shaman know the fleet had cloth-covered armor? Did you let it slip?"
"Uh... Ahem!... Cedar Shaman never thought about fighting. He only wanted to borrow a set of kingdom armor to study it properly... Once he's studied