/
Lennon disappeared.
After that, Alan moved quickly.
Melphir and I will proceed with the acquisition of the merchantry right away. Thank you, Teacher. I have told them to send the merchandise to the territories immediately, so please let me know if you need anything else. There doesn’t seem to be anything else that is lacking except food. I’m going to be meeting the two Lords soon, so I’ll tell you if there’s anything else after we talk. I understand.
Thanks to Alan and Melphir’s faster than expected work, Calian, who felt much lighter, called for the Lord of Sting and the Lord of Nerika to come to the elven village early the next morning. It was to hold an intervention, so he could mediate the conflict between the two lands.
Once the matter of the Lords was complete, Calian, who no longer wanted to stay in the elf village, decided he would leave immediately afterwards. Of course, it would be through the forest path that the elder, Ger, would open.
While they were waiting for the Lords to arrive, Yan struck up a conversation,
“Our dear prince has even become the owner of the merchantry now.
“Somehow, that’s what happened. I didn’t plan for it to be like this though.”
“But still, don’t you feel good about it?”
He really meant it when he said he hadn’t thought of owning the Brissen Merchantry. He had just wanted to remove the annoying Lennon from his sight, but he hadn’t known he would end up buying the entire merchantry.
Calian smiled slightly, as he absent-mindedly tossed the item in his hand up and down.
“By the way, what is that?”
In Calian’s hand, there was something like a black pebble. It was something that Luca, who had returned to the village, had picked up.
Calian’s brows furrowed, as he fiddled with the black pebble, that had been kept among Divine items. He was recalling the change that had occurred in Sia when he had seen the stone.
Some time earlier, when Sia had been going through the things Luca had stolen to hand them over to Calian, he had opened his mouth to speak, and Calian had gotten quite a surprise.
Sia’s unique way of speaking, the ability to answer before the question had been asked, had disappeared.
Since Sia, who had had to accompany him for a while as he was there guide to the forest path, was in front of him, Calian handed the black pebble across to Sia and opened his mouth,
“Sia, have you eaten?”
“Yeah, I did.”
When Sia answered after properly hearing the question, Calian’s eyes narrowed. He heard Arsen, who was standing not far from him, take in a sharp breath. That’s how strange this was.
Calian took the pebble back.
He once again, spoke to Sia.
“Yes, over there.”
“Have you seen Hina?”
Again, the answer came out before the question had been asked.
Calian looked down at his palm. It was a small black pebble, there were some golden letters etched into it, but apart from that, there was nothing special or different about it. It also didn’t have any affect on anyone else, apart from Sia.
As Calian examined the pebble, Arsen, who had observed the way the pebble affected Sia’s way of speaking, asked,
“Is this also a Divine Item?”
“The likelihood his hight. But it’s a little more….”
Calian shut up.
Arsen hadn’t seemed to have noticed anything. But Calian felt it. Yuran, was also frowning, as he looked down at the item in Calian’s hand.
“It looks dangerous. The smell of blood has been deeply ingrained into it.”
Blood that is shed when a healthy person, full of life, is killed.
The unique energy felt from blood with that strong life energy; knights train specifically to be able to sense it.
That same energy, was what could be felt from the stone. Calian felt the strong vitality of blood that was shed as a life, that could still go on living, was forcibly extinguished. It also meant that, most likely, the person who had owned this pebble, had been killed by someone.
He asked Luca,
“When you stole this, was it with the Divine Items you stole?”
“I don’t remember.”
It was understandable that he couldn’t remember. After all, it wasn’t just one or two things that they had stolen.
Calian sighed, it should be true that elves can’t lie, so it was true that Sia truly couldn’t remember.
More than that, Luca didn’t have a face of someone who was reflecting on his behaviour at all.
Rather than not knowing what he had done wrong, he was probably showing that kind of attitude because he knew that humans couldn’t hold elves to human law.
Soon, Ger approached Calian and said,
“I have already asked the mother tree. You will be able to start on the path of the forest right away. So don’t worry about this place.”
He could see the restlessness on his face at once.
He had realised after the missing elves had returned to the village, but Luca was the real son of Ger. That’s why, he was worried that Calian might lose his temper and swing his sword at Luca, so he came to direct his attention elsewhere.
Instead of pulling out his sword, Calian handed the stone back to Sia.
“Use it for now, since we need to communicate on the way.”
“Isn’t this Luca’s?”
Calian looked directly at Luca when he answered,
“No, it isn’t.”
“Okay Leader. Then I’ll return it when he get to the other side of the forest.”
“Okay.”
Sia put the pebble in his pocket.
Not long after, the Lords of the territories arrived to meet Calian. There was only one thing he said to them,
“The Pollun merchantry will be here soon to make a deal.”
Wasn’t it a truly a simple matter?
If a merchantry that can handle the demand, agrees to trade with the territories, then the very reason for fighting disappears.
Of course, the Lord couldn’t have known that the cause of the fight began with Calian angering Lennon and ended with Calian buying the Brissen Merchantry. Therefore, they simply liked Calian’s solution and thanked him. They also promised to end their fight.
And that was all.
Calian did not bring up unnecessary words that implied they would have to get along well in the future. Either way, the royal family did not intervene heavily in the power struggle among the nobles.
Only when they wasted their strength, keeping each other in check, would it reduce the number of excessively friendly people working together to point their swords at the royal family.
Calian turned his head for a moment, looking at Ger and Luca, then asked the Lord,
“Do you happen to do business with the elves?”
“Yes, we often purchase food items form them, including vegetables that are difficult to get nearby.”
“I wonder how fair that deal might have been – how was it?”
“Well, because the environment hasn’t been good lately….”
Just looking at the two Lords, glancing sideways at each other, then at the ears of Ger, which had turned red, it was enough to say Calian had heard the answer.
It meant they had paid the elves several times what was considered the normal amount in many other regions to purchase food from them.
“They even tried to make use of a prince, so I was wondering how they would be with people other than me…”
Shaking his head, Calian looked straight at Ger, before turning back to the Lords,
“Let me know what you were buying from the elves. I’ll add it to the merchandise from Pollun Merchantry, so don’t trade with those who don’t even obey the basic laws.”
“Have I not already apologised for that? To cause that kind of damage to use elves is -”
“And I haven’t said a word about the things your son has done. It seems now that you’ve got everything you need from me, that remorse has disappeared too.”
Ger’s lips went dry but Calian was no longer willing to listen to him.
“Live well on your own. Just as you elves originally did.”
When Calian, who said this, climbed on to the back of his horse, Ger’s heart became restless.
With his ears bright red, Ger came forward to block Calian’s path.
“Wait. Wait a minute. Can we talk about it?”
“I have nothing more to say.”
Ger’s hand reached out, trying to hold Calian’s horse to keep it from moving, but the moment his hand touched Raven’s neck, the Prince’s horse, which had shown off it’s noble appearance until that point, turned its eyes back in rage. In shock, Ger pulled his hand away immediately.
His path now clear, Calian leisurely entered the path of the forest that Ger had opened in advance for them. One by one, Calian’s party followed behind him.
Ger was left behind in his embarrassment.