After arranging with Dean Levins and Great Swordmaster Kurud to send people to Northland for an inspection,
Was this the butterfly effect? Lorist stroked his chin in thought. Those two letters about glass formulas and production processes had been like the fluttering of a butterfly's wings, setting off such sweeping changes across the entire Galentea Continent. That the Commercial League had risen to become the continent's foremost power was something no one could have predicted. But the glory of being number one was all on the surface — beneath it, things didn't look nearly so comfortable.
For Lorist, perhaps this outcome was actually the most ideal. It gave him the chance to bring
The more Lorist thought about it, the more excited he became. He was resolved to see Dawn Academy's northern move come to fruition — whether it required land or funding, the family would provide full support. Though his territory was thriving, it was still in its early stages of accumulation and desperately lacked talented, well-educated personnel. He recalled how, just a few years ago, anyone who could count and read could be appointed as a statistical officer in his domain, and the thought left him with a resigned sigh.
When Lorist finally snapped back to reality, he realized he'd been lost in thought for the better part of the day and had wandered to a somewhat familiar area. Right — two more streets ahead was the Mercenary Guild. Back when he was still a student at Dawn Academy, he used to take this route to the Guild to pick up missions. Maybe he should go take another look and relive those days — a bit of nostalgia in its own right.
The Mercenary Guild was quiet too. Lorist looked around and didn't recognize a single one of the old clerks. A round-faced young woman approached him eagerly, asking what he needed. It made Lorist think back to the old days, when the clerks handling mission submissions and assignments had barely bothered to acknowledge you. Back then, the mercenary hall had been packed shoulder to shoulder — you couldn't hear a thing without raising your voice. Now the entire hall had barely a handful of people, which explained the clerks' new-found friendliness.
Lorist waved her off and headed to the bar, where he ordered a mug of barley ale and settled into a seat to sip it slowly. Every time he'd finished a mission in the past, he and his friends would come here for a mug of ale and listen to other mercenaries recount their adventures or spin their tall tales. Back then, every seat at the bar had been taken, and even though the barley ale here cost twice as much as elsewhere, it was still enormously popular with mercenaries fresh off a job. Now, out of more than a dozen tables, only Lorist sat alone, savoring his ale at a leisurely pace.
That round-faced young clerk had been staring at him the whole time. Perhaps Lorist's casual yet remarkably fine-quality long-sleeved shirt had given her the wrong impression, leading her to think he might be here to post a mission. After all, a shirt with platinum-silk embroidery on the collar and cuffs couldn't possibly belong to some rough-cut mercenary — the price of that single garment was enough to keep a mercenary working himself to the bone for a solid month.
Lorist raised his cup toward her with a smile. "Young lady, you're making me a bit self-conscious with all that staring. How about I buy you a drink?"
The young female clerk's round face flushed crimson, and she turned her head away, pretending she hadn't heard Lorist's teasing.
Things were better now. Back in the day, if anyone was rude to or flirted with those female clerks, the Mercenary Guild's fearsome guards would beat them black and blue without a second thought. Lorist had seen more than his share of brawls and bloody incidents in the mercenary hall sparked by jealous quarrels over women.
A middle-aged mercenary in his forties or fifties came cursing into the mercenary hall. He casually found a window to turn in his mission, weighed a few silver coins in his hand, then headed back out the door, still cursing under his breath.
"Hey, Brother Good, where's the rush? Sit down and I'll buy you a drink." Lorist greeted him with a smile. He knew this middle-aged mercenary — a Silver Two-Star, who had once been gravely injured during an expedition. Although he'd eventually recovered, the prolonged treatment had damaged his body, and his combat force could never advance again. He could only muddle along among the lower-tier mercenaries. Back when Lorist was crafting double-shoulder backpacks, this Brother Good had been his very first customer — a fine fellow who kept his word. Later, he'd teamed up with Fatty and Lorist on a few missions, teaching Lorist plenty of little tricks of the mercenary trade.
The middle-aged mercenary stopped in his tracks, turned to look at Lorist, and froze for a moment, unable to place him. "You are…?"
"Hehe, Brother Good, forgotten me already? I'm Lorist — Little Lock."
"Aha, it's you, Brother Lock!" The middle-aged mercenary was overjoyed. "It's been so long — nearly ten years, hasn't it? I never expected to run into you here again. Back then you became a legend in
Lorist stood up and gave the middle-aged mercenary a warm embrace, then ordered him a mug of barley ale.
The man guzzled down half the mug in a few great gulps, wiped his mouth, and sighed. "Still the same taste. Ah, what a pity — it's been over half a year since I've had a proper drink here."
Lorist laughed. "Don't rush, there's plenty if you want it. Barkeep, two more mugs! My treat today, Brother Good. Take your time and drink to your heart's content."
"Thanks, Brother Locke, you're as generous as ever." The middle-aged mercenary didn't stand on ceremony either. He raised his glass and drained it in one gulp, and Lorist pushed the freshly poured mug of barley ale toward him.
"By the way, Brother Locke, what brings you here today? Did you come to find some mercenary help or post a job?" the middle-aged mercenary asked.
Lorist shook his head. "Nothing like that. I've been back in Morant City these past few days, and it got me thinking about old times. I remembered I still had a mercenary badge from here, so I came by specifically to sit for a while and taste their barley ale again. I just didn't expect the place to have gotten so quiet — it's nothing like the packed hall I remember. The one lucky thing is running into you, Brother Good. At least the trip wasn't a total waste."
"Ah..." Good took a few sips from his glass and sighed. "Brother, you and I are both lucky. You came here and still get to see the Mercenary Guild — by the end of the year, this place won't exist anymore. There won't be a Mercenary Guild at all. My luck is that I came to turn in a job today and got to see you again, got you to buy me a few drinks...
Mercenaries have no future in the Commercial Union anymore." Good let out a burp. "Brother, you probably never imagined it, but mercenaries are going to go extinct in the Commercial Union. Well, not exactly extinct, but Morant City is no longer a place for mercenaries. There are no jobs here — even if there were, we couldn't afford to take them. The Chikted Trading Association, on the other hand, set up a new Mercenary Guild on their own trade territory, at the entrance to those famous and dangerous underground caverns in the former Ulobaha Duchy. They're recruiting mercenaries to explore the underground caverns, and the pay is supposedly quite good. A lot of free agents have already relocated there."
"Huh? The Mercenary Guild is gone? What does that mean, Brother Good? Wasn't the Commercial Union called the land of mercenaries? What happened to all those mercenary companies and nearly ten thousand registered mercenaries?" Lorist asked curiously.
"The land of mercenaries? Haha — what mercenary companies? Everyone's gone their separate ways. Every last mercenary went off to serve under some noble. You know what, Brother Locke? The bosses of the top ten mercenary companies here all landed titles of their own. The lowest is a Viscount, the rest are all Counts. The boss of Dragon's Claw Mercenary Company, ranked fourth, even managed to snag himself a Grand Duke title — stepped in a lucky pile of dog mess, that one. Where are the mercenary companies now? They've all dissolved. The bosses became nobles, and the brothers under them became knights. The worst-off ones at least got jobs in the garrison...
You know, this time around the Commercial Union handed out four hundred and fifty-one titles in one go. Those with any ability got themselves fiefs, and the rest were recruited as knights by those nobles. So where are the mercenaries now? The only ones still hanging around here are the hundred or so of us losers who couldn't make it. We don't want to grovel and serve someone else — we just want to earn an honest living to feed our families the way we always have. But look at me now: I've been running around for half a month and earned one large silver coin and three small ones. At current prices, how is that supposed to support a family?" Good's mouth was full of resentment.
"No way — that many titles handed out?" Lorist looked somewhat stunned. "But if no one's doing mercenary work anymore, doesn't that mean no one's fighting over jobs? That should be a good thing, right?"
"Good thing, my foot!" Good spat. "Before, neighboring countries and the trading associations inside the Commercial Union would all come to post jobs. There were plenty of mercenaries, sure, but there were plenty of jobs too, and everyone got to eat. Now the neighboring countries have cut off trade routes. Even when we mercenaries try to do a job, we get denied passage. We have to sneak across the border, and if we get caught, a whipping is the least of it. The worst part is they accuse you of scouting for military intelligence, and without a second thought they hang you..."
"That's not even the biggest problem. Worst case, we just stop taking jobs from other countries. The real issue is that the Commercial Union's territory has expanded, but there aren't nearly as many jobs anymore. Except for the Mana Hill Plains, every other place is someone's fief. When something goes wrong on their land, they handle it with their own people and stop posting jobs here. What's even worse is that when we mercenaries pass through their fiefs on a job, we have to pay toll fees — and if you don't pay, they won't let you through…"
Good lifted his mug and gulped down another drink, then wiped his mouth and pointed at the Mercenary Guild. "Brother, remember Schlawck, that bastard who runs this Mercenary Guild? That cheapskate got himself a Viscount title too this time around. His fief is right where the old Drelia Duchy used to be.
The job I just took happened to pass through that bastard's territory. I hunted a rabbit in the wild and roasted it like I always do, and then that bastard ordered his garrison troops to arrest me. He said the rabbit I ate, the firewood I used, and the spot where I slept were all on his fief, and demanded I pay compensation. He wrung two large silver coins out of me. If I hadn't said I was doing a job from his own Mercenary Guild, that bastard would've paraded me through the streets…"
Well, some merchants had even fewer scruples than nobles. No matter how harsh nobles were to their subjects, they still had to worry about their reputation. But those merchants — there was nothing in their eyes besides gold coins. Especially when those merchants turned their business cunning on their own subjects, Lorist couldn't help but wonder whether those poor folk would be left with nothing but a rag to cover themselves. But there was nothing he could do about it. At most, he could silently mourn for those subjects for three seconds…
The oldest of them was only fourteen or fifteen at most, and those were the hardest years.
Good stared ahead with glazed, anguished eyes. "I don't know. The mercenary path is dead. Maybe I'll go guard some trading company's warehouse — as long as the pay is enough to feed my family…"
Lorist stood up and slipped a gold certificate into the waist pouch of the drunken, despairing Good. By now the man was already on his seventh mug of barley wine, hovering somewhere between tipsy and sober.
"I left some gifts for your children in your pouch, Big Brother Good. Take a look when you get home. If things don't work out in Morant City, come find me in the Northland. Just go to the Peterson Trading Company and say you're my friend — they'll send your whole family to my fief."
Then Lorist called over a carriage and helped Good into it. He still remembered where the man lived. After giving the driver the address and paying the fare, Good's family would take care of him once they arrived.
Back at the Mercenary Guild, Lorist said to the round-faced young female clerk, "Summon the person in charge here. I want to buy that copy of Blood-Burning
This would serve as a memento of the ten years he had spent in Morant City and his mercenary career. Back then, Lorist had mistakenly believed his family's inherited combat force was fire-attributed. When he lost contact with the family and could no longer obtain the advanced manuals needed to advance to the Silver rank, he had spent a small fortune purchasing several high-grade fire-attributed combat force manuals available on the market, only to find they were completely different from his family technique. He then bought high-grade manuals of other attributes, but still couldn't cultivate any of them. In the end, with no other option, he had cultivated the Gold-Water Art passed down from his previous life, earning himself the legendary title of "Invincible
This Blood-Burning Combat Force was the Mercenary Guild's most prized treasure, priced at fifteen thousand gold Fordes — an astronomical sum for a manual in Morant City back in the day. It wasn't that Lorist hadn't considered buying this blood-attributed manual before. But at the time, he had thought the price was too steep, and he never imagined his own family technique was also blood-attributed, so the opportunity slipped by. Now that he thought about it, if he had gritted his teeth and scraped together the money to buy this Blood-Burning Combat Force, he might have advanced to the Silver rank, and he would never have cultivated the Gold-Water Art inherited from his previous life.
Perhaps Lorist would have walked an entirely different path — never again able to slay enemies far above his rank, instead plodding steadily through the Silver and Gold ranks like everyone else. Maybe he wouldn't have become a Great Swordmaster by now, and the
Now Lorist wanted to buy this Blood-Burning Combat Force purely out of sentimentality. With thirty thousand gold Fordes' worth of gold notes on him, he didn't bat an eye at the steep price and paid for it without hesitation. The person in charge at the Mercenary Guild even tried to recommend a few other high-grade manuals of different attributes, but Lorist declined. The family collection now housed nearly a hundred high-grade combat force manuals of various attributes — more than enough to reward the family knights. Especially after the conquest of the Haneyabata Kingdom, they had seized forty or fifty high-grade manuals as spoils of war; there was no need to buy duplicates. But this Blood-Burning Combat Force was different. It was the second blood-attributed manual besides the family's Crimson Blood Combat Force, and it could serve as a reference when his children cultivated in the future.
Leaving the Mercenary Guild, Lorist hired a carriage and headed east to the Phoenix Tail Flower District. Gazing up at the dark red three-building, four-story gabled attic house, Lorist once again thought of that girl dancing barefoot in the moonlight. She was the one who had let him taste the sweetness of first love, who had turned him from a boy into a man in this life. And she was also the one who had made him feel despair and heart-wrenching pain — the memory of watching her leave with another man still felt like his heart was being burned to ash…
Facing the old, dilapidated building packed with tenants, Lorist was surprised to find his heart as calm as still water. The old agonizing tremors and grief were gone, replaced by only a faint thread of nostalgia lingering in his heart. That girl who had once been the most important person in his life — was she doing well now? How was her life?
Time flowed on, things changed while people moved on. This was simply a beautiful memory buried in the deepest recesses of Lorist's heart, one where even the pain was worth savoring. The spirited, fairy-like girl and her two mischievous, lively little maidservants were no longer here. Lorist took one last deep look at the dark red three-building, four-story gabled attic house, let out a long breath, and turned to walk out of the alley.
The fruit stand at the mouth of the alley was gone too, replaced by a general goods store — but the owner was still that same loquacious Uncle Jiro. After ten years apart, Uncle Jiro's hair had gone completely white, and it was clear life hadn't been particularly kind to him.
Uncle Jiro recognized Lorist and was overjoyed. He rattled on about all the changes in the neighborhood — how the little girl Lorist used to buy fruit candy for, the one named Little Loni, had lost her grandmother when she was ten and left with her father. He'd heard the father was doing quite well and had become a Family Knight for some Grand Duke, and so on…
Lorist listened to Uncle Jiro's chatter for nearly an hour before finally leaving behind a gold note and departing.
"Driver, to the Red Crow Tavern," Lorist ordered.
……(To be continued.)