novelraw Chapter 80: Merchant (02)
Chapter 80: Merchant (02)
Ethan didn’t mind Ron’s silence much. It was only natural.
Fifty bottles for a total of twelve hundred and fifty gold coins.
It wasn’t much for powerful aura warriors and mages, but for ordinary peasants?
It was a fortune capable of sustaining a lifetime of luxury.
And it wasn’t just that.
Ron didn’t mind paying twenty-five gold coins for such high-quality wine, and rightly so.
After all, just the second-stage beast slaughtered to make that drink would be worth at least a hundred gold coins, not to mention the other ingredients, let alone the most valuable part of all: the recipe itself.
The real problem lay in the final request: opening a shop in Goldenveil.
Such a small place.
How could they possibly turn a profit there?
Ron was certain he could make absurd profits selling the wine, but setting up a shop in such a remote village with so few people seemed like pure madness.
He’d need to restock monthly, pay salaries, hire trustworthy staff.
"Are you sure you can supply a thousand bottles a year?" Ron asked, finally breaking the silence.
If that were possible, it wouldn’t even matter if the store ran at a loss for a while. He’d be filthy rich either way.
"Yes." Ethan smiled with quiet confidence. "You’ll supply the glass bottles and I’ll produce the wine. When winter ends and the first grass sprouts, I guarantee a thousand bottles of the green fairy will be waiting for you."
He could already picture what he’d do with the twenty-five thousand gold coins those bottles would bring in.
Hiring an engineer from the kingdom to build the palace he’d been planning would no longer be a distant dream.
"Ah..." Ron sighed, and then simply stood and extended his hand.
Ethan shook it without hesitation.
"It was good doing business with you, my lord. I’ll be back in a month."
"The pleasure is all mine." Ethan was already refilling a glass as he spoke. "Come, have a little more. Let’s not let the effects of this wine go to waste."
Ron accepted with a satisfied smile and drank happily. Today, both of them had come out ahead.
Ron could resell the wine at an absurd profit, and Ethan would finally have a functioning shop and a real economy taking root in Goldenveil.
With twelve hundred gold coins circulating through the village, it would be possible to build the foundation of his economy: wages, property, trade.
For now, that wouldn’t benefit tiny Goldenveil in any visible way, but in the future? Ethan would thank the heavens for having taken this step.
He would, of course, need to maintain strict control to avoid triggering explosive hyperinflation by injecting so much gold into such a small economy.
But with Goldenveil’s current population of just over two hundred and seventy people, that level of control wasn’t out of reach.
The two continued drinking, conversation drifting toward the current state of the western plains.
Ethan had plans to expand in that direction, and to do so, he needed to understand how those city-states were organized and what their actual power looked like.
He already knew a few fifth-stage experts, lords of powerful cities, but knew almost nothing about the broader power base of that region.
What Ron told him didn’t exactly fill him with enthusiasm.
Even the smallest of those cities was ruled by third-stage specialists and boasted forces numbering two or three thousand men, though none maintained standing professional armies.
Ethan took a deep breath. It wasn’t worth getting desperate over something so far off.
Given time, he was certain it would work itself out.
After a few more minutes of easy conversation, Ron finally said his goodbyes and left the Lord of Goldenveil’s mansion, his guards carrying five sealed crates, each holding ten bottles of the green fairy.
He was careful not to breathe a word about the wine, not even to his own escort.
He knew he could sell that drink for a fortune to certain noble contacts. Fuck, the king himself would buy wine of that quality without batting an eye once he tasted it.
Ron had no intention of letting anyone learn the source and come after Ethan with a better offer.
He could only pray Ethan wouldn’t raise the price further. He’d wanted to pay five gold coins, but even twenty-five felt too cheap for something like that.
Before leaving, he visited one of Goldenveil’s master builders alongside Ethan, and together they discussed the location and size of the future shop.
In the end, they settled on a generous plot of land beside the Lord’s mansion.
Ron was already climbing onto his giant bull when Ethan remembered something.
"I need someone with skills in government administration and legal knowledge," he said before the merchant could depart. "Do you think you could bring someone like that to Goldenveil? I’ll pay well."
With a functioning economy, Goldenveil would also need to start collecting taxes and establishing a formal legal code. Those were things that could wait, but Ethan wanted to begin planning now.
Once winter ended, he intended to ratify a legal code and stand up a real government.
Ron considered it briefly, finding nothing strange in the request. He nodded and rode off, leaving Ethan standing in the quiet.
"Ah... everything worked out, thankfully." Ethan let out a grunt of satisfaction, stepping back inside the mansion and stopping in front of the safe in his office.
Silver, bronze, and gold. A total of one thousand three hundred and forty-five gold coins in value.
A smile spread across his face before he could stop it.
"The goblin attack must be approaching. I’d better start using the gacha tickets I’ve accumulated." He sank into the chair behind his desk and stared at the ceiling for a moment.
Evelyn and Alice were meditating in their rooms, and the whole day still stretched out ahead of him. He cast around for something to do and opened the system inventory.
Seven premium gacha tickets. Seventeen common gacha tickets. Over seventy free gacha tickets.
Starting with the premium ones, Ethan gathered them all in his hands without hesitation and tore them apart in one clean motion.