“My goodness. I had no idea the head of the up-and-coming Rurban Trading Company was still a child.”
These were the first words said to me by the manager of a trading company who was meant to be presenting a large trade deal to me—the entire reason I’d decided to attend this merchants’ party.
“It’s true that at sixteen years old, I’m still considered a child. However, I don’t believe that will have any negative effects on this deal,” I said.
“My apologies, but I’ll need to put our trade on hold.” He sighed before walking away.
As rude as he was, I didn’t feel at all angry. Why would I when I could read him like a book? He was anticipating that by shifting the blame onto me for why this huge deal was about to fall through, I’d panic and scramble to compromise.
It was an effective strategy when dealing with younger people, who tended to be more emotionally volatile and easy to bait into seeing red, rendering them incapable of making levelheaded decisions. Unfortunately for him, this tactic had no effect on me—someone who had the memories of all eighty-two years of his previous life. I’d seen my fair share of unreasonable events after living as long as I had. This game of his was nothing to me.
Once I began chatting with the other traders, another merchant by the name of Tom came up to me.
“Are you sure about that, Mr. Adolni, sir? That’d be a shame considering the large amount I’m offering with this trade. I think you should go after him and talk things through.”
For the record, Tom was in cahoots with the guy who’d walked away. The risk in upsetting the person you wanted to do business with was losing their business permanently. That’s where the “smooth talker” came into play. Tom’s job was to smooth things over and convince me to chase after the guy who’d left. When I did, he’d apologize for his rudeness and overly praise me for my maturity. This was all part of the setup—to create a situation where I’d want to compromise with the original merchant.
Both of them were in their forties, which in my eyes was still very young. The very act of hiring a “smooth talker”—a cliché—made it easy to discern his true intentions. He wanted this deal to go through. By deliberately upsetting the person he wanted to trade with, though, he ran the risk of having it backfire on him. His willingness to employ such a high-risk strategy stemmed from his vitality, courtesy of his youth.
“Oh, I see. You have reservations about doing business with a kid like me as well?” I asked.
“Of course. You’re still quite young,” Tom replied.
My full name was Ginorious Adolni, and I was the fourth son of a destitute viscount. The customs of this country dictated that the eldest son take over as head of the family; therefore, there’d never been a chance that the sun would shine on me in that regard. Furthermore, our family hadn’t exactly ever been in a position where they could focus their attention on anyone but my eldest brother, the heir. From the start, it had only ever been a matter of time before I lost my status as a noble.
For those in my situation, it was typical to choose the path of knighthood and achieve status that way, loath to falling down the social hierarchy. I, however, had chosen the commoner’s path, even choosing to be a merchant.
Once I had decided on my vocation, it was best that I start training as soon as possible. There was no age restriction on conducting business in this country, so I’d been preparing to live my life independently since I was around ten years old by running my own merchant company.
I’d been negotiating with adults and doing business since that young age. These men weren’t the first people to try this trick on me, nor were they even the second. If they’d done their homework, they would’ve immediately found out how I dealt with guys like them. The reason you two lost is because you couldn’t even bother to investigate me.
“I’d now like to introduce the Rurban Trading Company’s new product,” I announced to everyone gathered there.
These words were the signal to have a mirror brought in. It was a single pane of glass with a plate of silver on one side—the exact same as mirrors of the world I’d come from. I knew how to make them thanks to what I’d learned in high school in Japan. I was fortunate that it was such a standard lesson, as we’d learned about it from a chemistry class experiment.
Up until now, these merchants had only known about metal-based mirrors that needed to be polished enough to be reflective. The vivid reflectiveness of the glass mirror elicited sounds of surprise from everyone.
New products typically sold very well wholesale before they were distributed for commercial sales. And at a party filled with merchants, every single person there knew they couldn’t let this opportunity escape them, so they madly flocked to me. What had once been a social gathering became a room to conduct business with me.
This was precisely the reason I’d chosen to become a merchant instead of a knight. The knowledge from my past life was best put to use in this way.
I’d borrowed money from my father in order to start my company. It wasn’t much though—maybe enough to afford a single horse-drawn carriage. But that was the kind of paltry amount expected of a poor noble. Six years later, my business had grown large enough to have locations in essentially every major city in the nation, becoming a second-tier company. It was all thanks to the unfair advantage I had from my previous life’s experience.