WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
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◈ The Protagonist of a Romance Fantasy Only Likes Me ◈
Chapter 30: Wealthy Marigold. (4)
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8.
Come to think of it, trading companies in this world were very different from twenty-first-century corporations.
This was a civilization where even the concept of division of labor had yet to emerge, so a trading company was ultimately just a group formed by people who said, “If it makes money, we’ll do anything!”
In that sense, the Mary Company had been unusual from the start.
“We’ll deal in salt! Salt only! We’ll gather every bit of salt across the continent and pile it up here, then sell it once the price rises!”
“You won’t deal in leather, oil, or spices?”
“We’re buying salt only!”
“What about beeswax or honey...?”
“Only salt!”
“Textiles...?”
“Salt!”
Whatever had happened over the past few years, Marigold had become fixated on salt and stubbornly insisted on nothing else.
When he later asked why,
“There was a time when I crossed the plains on a trading journey after running out of salt... Urgh...”
“...”
Marigold trembled as though recalling trauma. He had expected that sort of reason, and naturally, she had not disappointed him.
Of course, Lancel did not stop her from making that decision. He did not want to involve himself too much in this iteration, which was meant to be a vacation.
Besides, this was around the time salt prices were truly set to soar.
The increasingly heated war would be the cause.
‘Salt is what war needs most.’
Where many people gathered, much salt was naturally needed. An army that ran out of preserved food would lose morale so thoroughly that it could no longer fight.
Lancel knew all too well just how badly an army could deteriorate simply because it could not taste that bit of saltiness.
Whenever even a handful of salt entered his mouth, he had felt dizzy as blood rushed to the crown of his head, overcome with the feeling that life itself was surging back into him. He had never felt anything close to that in the blessed twenty-first century.
Perhaps his once obsessive fixation on the sea and seafood had come from spending most of his early iterations on battlefields.
‘It’s because she grew up unable to eat salt.’
Salt.
In three more years, a special tax would be imposed on it. The Imperial Household would hardly keep allowing everyone else to buy and sell such precious salt.
==========
Market Alert!!! The price of purchased salt has risen 7.5 times! Rumors are spreading that the Mary Company’s storehouses are piled high with salt!
※Suspicious people are offering as much as ten times the price! Shall we sell some in secret and make a profit?
==========
And as expected, the price of salt soared.
They did not even need to go out and sell it themselves. Merchants who heard the rumors came directly to Viscount Dante’s territory with their wagons.
“Khahahaha! From today on, tell all our people to stop farming! Tell them to hurry over and smash rock salt with hammers!”
Kyaah!
Watching Viscount Dante lose all dignity before gold coins as he danced about with Marigold on his shoulders, Lancel could only let out a wordless laugh.
Marigold, owner of the Mary Company.
She had struck it rich.
“I’ll restore House Dante to greatness!”
Around then, Marigold’s nose began rising to the heavens as well. This was precisely when her peculiar antics began.
“Hey.”
Lancel found twenty-one-year-old Marigold hiding beneath his blanket.
9.
Lancel had sensed something strange as soon as he lay down in bed. Feeling a presence pressed close against him, he lifted the blanket.
Marigold was hiding in his bed with her eyes shut. Breathing steadily as though asleep, she slowly edged closer to him.
Lancel narrowed his eyes at the warmth radiating from her body.
“Are you asleep?”
“...”
Ah, so that was the act she was putting on.
Lancel reached toward the table. He picked up a quill and gently brushed its feather against Marigold’s ear.
Eek, eek!
She flinched in surprise.
But only for a moment. Soon, Marigold resumed pretending to sleep.
“...Asleep?”
“...”
Once more.
Eek!
It was an extremely dramatic reaction, yet Marigold stubbornly continued her sleeping act.
Lancel finally put the quill down and covered her nose instead. When she hurriedly tried to open her mouth, he covered that too.
“...”
She was holding out for a long time.
Thirty seconds, fifty seconds, then sixty. Marigold’s face reddened, and she gradually began to struggle.
Pwah!
Marigold sat up, gasping for air.
“Ah, um, Benefactor, why are you here...?”
“Because this is my room.”
“Ah, ah! I think I got the rooms mixed up!”
Her acting was terrible.
“It’s too bothersome to go back, so can I just sleep beside you? Good night, Benefactor.”
“It’s only a short walk. What’s bothersome about it?”
Marigold shamelessly flopped down beside him.
She had been displaying this strange behavior quite often lately.
Lancel already had an idea why.
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<Marigold (Age 21) Status>
Charm 75.
Morality 19.
Elegance 58.
Sensitivity 63.
Sex Appeal 152.
Mana 1.
Muscle Strength 38.
Stamina 33.
Faith 21.
Condition 77.
--------------------
‘Why on earth?’
Even Lancel did not understand why, of all routes, that stat alone had risen so high on the Merchant Route.
One thing was certain. She was a beast now. A beast always eyeing something of his.
“You must be tired, so go to sleep, Benefactor. I’ll sleep too.”
“Take your hand off me.”
“...I don’t have anywhere else to put it...”
Her hand crept toward his leg like a snake.
Lancel eventually picked her up and carried her back to her room himself.
* * *
What was the biggest change when that stat rose?
From the player’s perspective, it meant the variety of outfits Marigold could pull off expanded.
As the weather warmed after spring had passed, Marigold’s indoor clothing became increasingly revealing.
“Benefactor.”
At first, she wore clothes that showed only her shoulders. Later, she approached him in outfits that left her stomach bare. Sometimes, they were almost sheer.
“I’m tired, Benefactor. I must have worked too hard today.”
“You left the trading company running on Auto-Hunting all day, and you have the nerve to say that.”
“Auto...?”
“There’s something like that.”
It had become routine for her to subtly cling to Lancel.
It would not be an exaggeration to say she was always like this, except when Lady Dante was watching.
Unlike Viscount Dante, who had little interest in marriage alliances, Lancel’s mother held the firm belief that nobles should marry nobles.
Then, the next day.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
Lancel stopped a Mary Company employee visiting the manor. The man was carrying something wrapped in silk.
The way he kept glancing around made him look suspicious.
“Let me see what you’re carrying.”
“Ah, th-this is nothing, Young Master. It’s just, um, that, well...”
“If it’s nothing, there’s no problem with me seeing it. Hand it over.”
“It really is nothing...”
Lancel grabbed the collar of the fellow trying to slip away and forcibly took the item from his hands.
“N-No!”
“What is this?”
Inside the silk was a small wooden box. When he opened it, he found a round object with a sweet scent, carefully rolled into a ball.
‘Medicine?’
Could it be poison?
When Lancel glared sharply at the company employee, the man immediately threw himself to the floor.
“I-It’s something the company owner asked for! They told me to keep it absolutely secret, so I was only trying to deliver it quietly! I never thought this would happen...!”
“So what is it?”
“Th-That thing noblewomen are always looking for, Young Master. Expensive medicine.”
‘Noblewomen?’
The company employee made a wordless gesture with his hands.
Lancel immediately understood what it meant and closed his eyes.
“...Take it to her.”
“Yes... Um, Young Master, please keep it a secret that I was caught...”
Lancel waved him away.
Even he did not want to interfere with Marigold’s secret private life.
‘Is this also because of that stat?’
The next day, Marigold began puffing out her chest and trying to show something off to Lancel for some reason.
“My shoulders have been stiff lately. Why could that be, Benefactor? Maybe I’ve been working too hard. Haa, it’s strange. Do you have any idea why?”
“...”
“Mmm, why are they so sore? How strange.”
Of course, knowing the full story, Lancel tried not to react.
If he encouraged her, she would undoubtedly keep buying and taking that medicine. It was expensive.
“I think I got scammed.”
“What?”
“It’s something.”
Not long afterward, Marigold wandered around the estate with her shoulders slumped.
“...It was expensive.”
Many other things happened as well.
In any case, one year became two in Viscount Dante’s territory, and Marigold eventually turned twenty-three.
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Fame Event: Congratulations! Marigold has acquired the title of “Wealthy”! Now she will not need to check price tags when buying things! (Charm, Elegance, Sex Appeal UP!!)
==========
At last, she came to be called Wealthy.
Considering she had once been a little swindler running gambling scams in a village, it was an astonishing rise. She was still far from her goal of becoming the wealthiest person on the continent, though.
.
.
.
Not long afterward, troubling news began to arrive from throughout the Empire.
10.
“It seems a war is breaking out.”
Viscount Dante said it that evening. Everyone dining with him turned their eyes toward him.
“Isn’t there always a war going on?”
When Lancel asked, Viscount Dante shook his head.
“If it were a war against an enemy nation, yes. But I mean another kind of war. A war happening within this Empire.”
Ah.
That one.
For a moment, events from an old iteration flashed through Lancel’s mind.
A war within the Empire.
It was the very essence of the war to which he had once devoted so much time.
“It appears the Emperor is no longer among the living.”
“My goodness, there are so many ears around us. What are you saying?”
Lancel’s mother asked in alarm, but Viscount Dante only rubbed his face.
“It’s a story everyone will learn soon enough. A rebellion broke out on the Eastern Front over supply issues, and it seems to have caused trouble. I heard they ran short of salt.”
“Huh?”
Marigold murmured blankly. Viscount Dante waved his hand.
“Don’t worry. It is not because of the Mary Company. The salt we gathered is only a tiny fraction of the continent’s supply. The real problem is the other merchant companies that stockpiled salt after following our lead. Apparently, they bought up a ridiculous amount.”
So, since they had copied Marigold, she really had started it.
“The Fifth Prince, who was stationed at the front, learned that the Emperor was absent and raised troops after making it known. If that is truly the case, then this war will now... decide the Empire’s next ruler.”
Civil war.
A war of brothers.
It was the signal flare marking the beginning of a great war that would encompass not just the entire Empire, but the whole continent, all to seize the next imperial throne.
‘It seems the Fifth Prince became the spark this time.’
The timing and cause varied each time, but one thing was certain.
The Empire would no longer remain one nation.
Sooner or later, it would be split into pieces by the various factions, and the age of warring states would return.
“It will return to what came before the Empire.”
A familiar voice replayed in his mind.
“Then...”
In the silence, Marigold suddenly spoke with a tense expression.
“Should we raise the price of salt starting tomorrow?”
“...”
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