Chapter 113 – Imagination
“Now let’s imagine another situation. You attack us and somehow manage to kill us all. On top of that, we didn’t have enough time to break all the weapons before dying. You take one of them, thinking of gifting it to your precious daughter. Your daughter, full of curiosity, asks you where you bought it. This is how you answer her: ‘I got my hands on it after massacring a completely innocent rank 0 merchant who was full of goodwill toward us and stealing all of his goods. What do you think, my daughter? Do you like it?’”
A few of the women rocked on their feet uncomfortably. I was almost there, now. It was time to switch the mood with a grand finale.
“I believe it’s time to correct our last critical misunderstanding. You understand now that the real treasure isn’t so much the weapons but the ingots, correct? According to my estimates, you should be able to create a few thousand weapons with the quantity I bought with me. Now let’s think about this.”
My audience was now completely focused on me, no matter their age or specialization. There wasn’t a single noise apart from my voice resonating in the surroundings and the sound of Wico’s flapping wings.
“Since having a weapon fit for your martial arts is a matter of life and death on the battlefield, let’s imagine that having them allows around a thousand more of your warriors to survive the war. That thousand will go on with their lives, give birth to many daughters, and teach them their martial arts. In one generation, one thousand women will give birth to five thousand warriors. And those five thousand will then give birth and allow twenty-five thousand fighters to reinforce your army. And those twenty-five thousand will give birth to a hundred and twenty-five thousand warriors. In the ridiculously short amount of time of three generations, you’ll get that many expert fighters, all taught by parents who survived on the battlefield in the first place. And that is on top of your already existing army!”
Some of the younger women now had their mouths slightly opened in wonder.
“Can you see it? The great army of Makji, strong of hundreds of thousands of expert warriors, irresistibly sweeping over your enemies, conquering the surrounding countries in a single unstoppable charge? Your daughters and granddaughters bringing absolute glory to your name and martial arts with their incessant victories? Makji dominating the whole region without any contest?”
I made a pause, looking at each of them one by one.
“This, great warriors, is what I came here for.”
I checked everyone’s expressions and could see that most of them were conquered by my talk. A few were rolling their eyes incredulously but the vast majority were in my pocket. I noticed that the younger women, who had initially been the most aggressive and dismissive, were now looking at me with the most fervor, the fire of glory burning inside their eyes. It was my complete victory.
Things became easy after that. Having lost any aggressivity and maybe even looking at me with some newfound respect, I was able to negotiate on good terms with Zhuri. I found out that she was initially simply trying to exploit the fact that I was a man with a very small escort to get a scandalous deal out of me. Now that many of the elite warriors had a better opinion of me, she couldn’t do that anymore. It wasn’t like she didn’t have the budget for it anyway. It was just a few hundred weapons and ingots while she had the whole Duchy’s economy backing her up. Buying my goods, no matter how critical they were for them, was still only a drop in the ocean compared to the territory’s global expenses.
Eventually, I managed to get a much better final price than expected. It might have helped that a few women boldly asked me to become their companion while I was negotiating, not caring in the least about the time and place. Interestingly enough, the rank 6 sorceress was part of them, arguing that her husband had recently died of old age and that she was looking for a new partner to warm her bed. Fortunately, Wico handled all of them and no trouble occurred. They had a good amount of respect toward her, as a rank 6 sorceress herself.
I sold the weapons for 70 silvers each, the chief of internal affairs not caring about adjusting the price depending on their size. As for the ingots, it was even better, maybe due to my great speech, each going for 3 golds. My total earnings for this trip ended up being a very nice 1,100 golds, of which more than 500 were pure profits. For the first time since I arrived in this world, I exceeded the thousand marks in terms of gold coins.
When it was time to separate, Zhuri gave me a metallic token with the image of an animal tiger engraved on it.
“Come to me directly next time you have weapons or ingots to sell. Use this token if you ever get into trouble in Makji. It might be less useful outside of Chian but in the duchy, people who recognize it will treat you well.”
“Thank you very much. I’m glad we managed to reach such a pleasant and peaceful outcome.”
She smiled wryly.
“I know your speech was mostly nonsense but I liked your courage and charisma. You’re always welcome here as far as I’m concerned.”
I grinned innocently and she shook her head before turning around and leaving with her group. Some of the warriors waved goodbye to me or Wico and I responded to them while Wico ignored them all. Selva was watching me with a baffled expression, just like she had done since I started blabbering a lot, making her look funny.
Once they were gone, Wico reclaimed her usual spot on my shoulders and tapped on my head happily.
“That was great, my disciple. You did far better than I expected.”
Read 30 more chapters here: https://subscribestar.adult/dictatelion or here: https://www.patreon.com/Dictatelion