Kudo wasn’t on the ship when the others got back, and since they had already sent Lily─their specialist in search and investigation─after him, a vague sense of anxiety gripped the members of the delegation.
“Should we try to track his mana?”
Los and Zero both shook their heads at Hort’s suggestion.
“’Tis a fool’s errand, I fear. The presence of mana all round us is too strong. ’Twould help somewhat should young Kudo use his magic, but otherwise…”
“And they call this state of affairs a mana shortage─I find myself in awe,” said Zero. “Though I cannot imagine the importation of a few mana potions will have much effect.”
Har Bell had excused herself to go see her family, and had yet to return to the ship. The plan was to meet on board the following morning for a guided trip around town.
Since the question of what they were exporting had been settled from the start, it remained only to determine what the delegation would be importing from the New World in return. Luckily their lands shared a common language, and the writing systems were largely identical. Zero and Los had already procured several books on wizardry, and were scanning their pages even as they spoke.
Hort puffed out her cheeks and waved both hands at them. “Come on, quit reading and listen to me for real! Kudo and Lily are missing!! Look at the priest over there! He’s doing such a good job pretending not to care that it seems totally suspicious!”
Hort pointed to a corner of the deck, where the priest was sitting with a few mice in his lap, feeding them bits of fruit. It wasn’t an especially strange thing to be doing, but for the ever-vigilant “killer priest,” it did seem a little too nonchalant─as if he might crack open a book and start reading at any moment, blindfold notwithstanding.
“The two are merely taking a stroll to stave off the boredom. With young Lily in tow, Kudo can hardly lose his way. And should anything go awry with Lily, ’twould cause quite the fuss among those mice ’pon the priest’s lap.”
Zero nodded in agreement. “Fret if you must, but too much clamor over such trifles will impede our work. There are none traveling aboard this ship who cannot act alone for a single night without arousing concern.”
“But─!”
“Look, there’s Kudo now.”
Just as a disheartened Hort was sinking to the floor, Saybil pointed out at the wharf.
“No way! He’s back?!” Hort exclaimed, racing over to the gunwale.
The sun had set completely by this point, but swaying lights dotted the harbor, driving away the darkness. Kudo slipped easily down the path of light aboard a strange two-wheeled vehicle, Lily riding on a rack at his side.
“K…Kudo?! What’s that…that…that super cool thing you’re riding?!” called Hort, leaning out over the side of the ship.
“Just somethin’ I bought,” he replied with a straight face.
+++
With Kudo and Lily’s return, the members of the delegation gathered in the captain’s cabin. The room would ordinarily serve as private quarters for the captain of the ship, but there was no real captain to speak of on this voyage. The crew was so small relative to the size of the vessel that everyone had been assigned their own first-class cabin, and the captain’s quarters had become their makeshift strategy room. Los was completely entranced by the two-wheeled wizard carriage Kudo had brought back with him, and had been riding it around and around the deck until just moments before their meeting.
“So like, I just want to make sure our mana potions make it to the store that sold me the wizard carriage… That is, to all the folks in town.”
“I-I can’t believe it…! So Danna Ryl’s gonna monopolize all the potions we sell her?!” Hort exploded when she heard Kudo’s story. “She seemed like a nice person, though… Should we just set up our own shop in the harbor, then?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The Dragon Conqueror King had a harsh scowl plastered across his face. “You want to start doing business in someone else’s territory without permission…? That’s tantamount to an invasion.”
“Even if we’re just doing business?”
“You need a lesson in politics?”
“Y-Yes please!”
“I was being sarcastic…” Ghoda heaved a deep sigh, and tossed some round tokens used to plan naval engagements onto the table in front of them. “Let’s say these represent all the assets the New World currently has.”
“Umm, like money, you mean?”
“Not just money. Assets can mean food, industrial products, all sorts of things. You understand that the people of the New World are trading money, food, and goods to get by, right?”
“Sure, uh huh.”
“Now here comes a foreign merchant.” Ghoda added a piece shaped like a ship.
“That’s us?” asked Hort.
“That’s us. Now let’s say we set up shop willy-nilly─releasing new assets into the market while collecting the existing assets for ourselves.”
Ghoda added some square tokens to the tabletop marketplace─just a few. In return he took a massive handful of the round tokens and piled them up behind the ship.
“Oh… There they all go.”
The number of round tokens on the market─the New World’s assets, in other words─had decreased significantly.
“But isn’t trade all about an equal exchange of assets?” Saybil interjected. “If you’re going to take so many round tokens, shouldn’t you put in a lot more square ones than that?”
“Kudo got himself that vehicle for just five mana potions. Sounds like he had a lot of cash left over, too. The value of goods isn’t equal. It’s quite possible that the more mana potions we sell in the New World, the more their existing assets will dry up.”
“Huuunh… R-Right, I see.”
“That’s not all.” The crease in Ghoda’s forehead deepened. “What do you think would happen if we sold all our mana potions for cash? Then used that cash to buy up all the farmland? That’d give us a stranglehold on the New World’s food supply, wouldn’t it?”
“Th-That…would be just like an invasion, wouldn’t it…?!”
“And what do you think the leaders of this country might do to prevent that?”
“Umm… Regulate the amount of goods we’re allowed to sell, I guess?”
“That’s right. But suppose we were to ignore them─suppose we just started up a business in the harbor without permission. What then?”
“Well… They’d need to make us stop…?”
“They would. By force, if necessary.”
“Force…” Hort muttered. If they were to attack us, we’d defend ourselves in kind. And that little act of aggression could lead to war between the New World and the Great Continent.
“That’s why we need to disclose the contents of our cargo to the people in charge here, then negotiate with them to determine how much we’ll sell and at what price.”
“…Even when it’s ‘medicine’ we’re talkin’ about?” Kudo’s icy voice pierced Ghoda like a knife. “Our mana potions mean the difference between life an’ death for the longer-lived folks here. We can save people with these, but the bigwigs are plannin’ on takin’ ’em all for themselves, from what I hear. And we’re s’posed to just sit back and let that happen?”
“I don’t suppose you’ve considered the possibility that the bigwigs you’re talking about might just take all the mana potions we sell by force, have you?”
“Huh?” Kudo’s jaw dropped. He took a moment to envision the scenario, then shut his mouth bitterly.
“Don’t forget, we aren’t here on some charity mission. We’ve come to get the lay of the land. And those mana potions we’ve got on board are meant as a gift─a tool to prove to the rulers of this land that we can be useful to them,” said Ghoda bluntly.
The moment he finished there was a round of applause─from Zero, who had been listening in silence. “Fine work, fine work. A marvelous refutation, Dragon Conqueror King. Now I see why you were chosen to lead this delegation. Come to think of it, you were a statesman once, were you not?”
Zero’s praise was sincere, but Ghoda took it as ridicule and scowled fiercely. “…I am the impotent king of a ruined nation.”
“But the strength of your feelings for your people helped you vanquish a dragon. You are a king who led a rebellion of the downtrodden and abused. Tell me now: how are we to smooth over this vexing matter the lizard has brought to our attention?”
“You want me to continue the politics lesson?”
“It is unavoidable. We have come here to engage in politics, after all.”
Ghoda lightly massaged his furrowed brow and looked down at the tokens he’d scattered across the table.
“…We only have to worry about the monopoly if there’s no guarantee of continued supply. Suppose we agreed to sell the rulers ten thousand potions a year, on condition that they allow us to sell a thousand more on the open market. And we promise to turn over a third of our profits by way of tax.”
“Huh?! We’d be givin’ up so much money!”
“The price of doing business peacefully.”
“One more thing,” the priest said, raising a finger. “We ought to insist on a charter.”
“A charter…?” Ghoda repeated, confused.
The priest raised an eyebrow. “Do you require a lesson in economics?”
“You’re as unpleasant as ever.”
“Please, my dear countryman, you’re embarrassing me.” The priest offered a hint of a smile, then began his lesson in economics.
“At present our only assets are these mana potions, and we have no other means of acquiring New World currency. Ideally, therefore, we secure the right to sell even just a hundred potions a year entirely at our own discretion. With such a charter in hand we would be able to prove the legitimacy of our product, in turn enabling us to travel freely about the New World and conduct our investigations, earning enough to cover our expenses as we go. Money tends to take up a lot of space, and while it seems this nation uses paper currency, the amounts involved would still make it difficult to travel.”