Tradeheart merchant company? And why had Arzan taken a debt?

More than being confused about this entire situation, he was curious. His silence dragged on for a few more seconds. He wanted to know more about the situation they were in before speaking, as he lacked a lot of information.

Kai didn't want to give away his cluelessness, so he simply focused on eating. The bread wasn't particularly appetising, but he'd had worse.

“We have to do something about the ten thousand gold debt. Either pay it back or come to some sort of settlement. The interest rates are already high, but I doubt that man would be willing to hear anything from us. It’s been months already.” Knight Killian went on saying while the rest of the room fell into a deep silence.

“We were barely able to pay the interest and the representative from the company simply threatened us yesterday and demanded that we hand over the farmlands. If not that, then the mines. Those greedy bastards! Lord Arzan, we need to find a solution. We are in no position to give away valuable resources for your personal loan,” Killian said, looking at him with a stare that demanded an answer.

Kai kept his head low and took a sip of the water. Personal loan? 10k gold coins? What was Arzan even doing with this much money? Questions started popping into his mind.

Even high-end prostitutes won't take so much.

Frowning, he wondered what to say. He had no reply to that, so he decided to answer back with a question.

“When will they be coming back to take the debt back?”

“After two weeks, my lord.”

Killian didn't answer. Instead, it was the man sitting in front of him in robes and glasses that he had taken note of before.

He was sitting calmly and quietly, but he could see his hands shaking below the table.

His face was weary and experienced, full of wrinkles. The man gave the impression of someone who had heard things, yet hadn't been in danger himself. He had grey hair and a clean-shaven look.

“I was the one who handled the meeting, my lord. It's sufficient to say it went worse than expected.”

“What expectations were you even having, Francis?” Killian asked. “They have acted brash every single time. A few weeks back, one of their bodyguards even kicked a guard in the estate. They are pretty sure that they won't have any more business with us after this.”

“Word goes around, Killian. Everyone in the neighbouring territory knows we aren’t doing well. Our yields haven’t been great lately, and the city’s on the brink of an economic breakdown. We can’t just magic up gold. It will take us at least a few more months, most probably even a year to get things to normal if we start taking care of our problems. The winter is not helping with the crops, and to get everything back—we need more time.”

The old man looked at Kai. His words were clear and straight.

It gave the necessary context to Kai and he wasn't surprised by a few things.

The maids, staff and even the guards looked like they weren't getting their fill. If they weren't fed well working at the lord's estate, he wondered how the common populace was living.

Aside from him, most people seemed to be malnourished.

Kai stayed silent as he thought back to Claire's eyes shining looking at the gold coin. He grabbed another piece of bread and munched on it.

He scanned through the room, seeing how the guards continued to eat, but their ears were perked up. They were paying close attention to the conversation, even though they didn’t say a word.

“I agree with what you’re saying–” Knight Killian started to reply.

But soon, he was cut short.

“The Tradeheart merchant company is known to be harsh on nobles who aren't doing well. I have dealt with them before,” Francis said, his voice low. He was barely able to stop it from shaking with anger. “They are vultures that try to act innocent until they think they won't get the money back on time. We could only cooperate with them since we have contracts signed up. However, we would need to find some mutual agreement as the estate simply doesn't have that much money. We need more time.”

He adjusted his glasses with a frown. It didn't seem like he liked the company based on his reaction. Kai also didn't get a good impression of them based on what he was hearing.

They seemed like typical merchant companies that would start thinking of themselves as bigger than even nobility. Kai was never a fan of such people.

Knight Killian nodded, understanding the situation.

“Will they even give us more time? I don't think so. It's the right opportunity for them to take over the farmlands. Like you said, they are greedy vultures.”

By now, Kai had a good idea of who Francis was. Based on his look and how he talked, he was a scholar, probably an administrator handling the estate.

From the information that was in the diary, Arzan had been pushed to the city suddenly, so he doubted he had time to go over things on how to run a place. Having an administrator made complete sense to get him used to things.

Though, he doubted Arzan had tried to take charge of things.

“They will give us time if we put our weight down. We could sell a few valuables from the estate and I think the standing of Lord Arzan will do the rest. They aren't idiots to antagonise nobles completely based on debt.”

“Will we be able to pay it back with enough time?”

“I… don't know,” Francis said, his words almost getting stuck in his throat. “We would have to do something about our basic problems and if we can solve them, things would start to look up. It won't be easy since there's hardly any support from other nobles in the area.”

Uneasiness lingered within Kai as he heard more and more. He had misread Azran’s background. Although he belonged to the line of a Duke, it seemed as if he was more or less on his own.

Otherwise, nearby nobles would do everything to do a favour to a Duke's son.

The only reason they were ignoring him might be because of the succession of the Duke's title to his brother whom he clearly did not have a pleasant relationship with.

“What do you think, Lord Arzan? You’ve been silent.” Killian brought him back from his thoughts and he realised that he had almost finished his food.

A few heads turned to look at Kai curiously. He needed to think of something.

“I believe that breakfast is not the place to talk about matters related to work. Why don’t we first finish breakfast, and then I’ll take a look at the records before deciding what we should do.”

His words seemed to surprise Killian as he raised his eyebrows. Kai expected him to retort back, but he simply sighed.

“Well then. I will leave you and Francis to it. I have other matters to handle anyway.”

Francis from the corner of the table nodded, looking up at Kai. It seemed like he wanted to say something, but didn't dare to utter it out.

Silence descended as the table went quiet.

His mind was a mess as he pondered upon the new problem he had encountered suddenly. From everything he knew, Arzan seemed like someone who was destined for a bad end from the start.

Though he had been unlucky with his Mana Veins being blocked, he had clearly mismanaged the estate given to him.

To distract himself, he looked at Killian, “Well, about the mana weaver, any signs of corruption from its family?” he asked.

“Not yet. They are in a cell and being fed, but there's no sign of any corruption on them for now. We are monitoring them. If there's something, then it will come out sooner or later. Mana weavers don’t like to be kept in closed spaces. We are also using Syphon stones in case they change,” Knight Killian paused and looked at him with strange eyes before continuing, “I heard from my men that you subdued the mana weaver in no time. Pardon me. I assumed that you stopped training when you were fifteen— around the age when the basic sword training should end. You didn't continue to train after that.”

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His words made Kai realise that Killian had known Arzan for a long time. He wouldn't know whether he had stopped training or not otherwise. He might be one of the retainers that had shifted with him straight from the Duke's household.

He felt the opposite from Francis who seemed to be in this city for a long time.

“They said it only took you a few seconds. I'm not able to understand how you were able to do that.” Killian looked at Kai suspiciously.

“It was a newly transformed weaver. Certainly not at the peak of its power,” Kai said, already knowing such questions would come up.

“Still, you put a monster to sleep. I beg your pardon, but I believed only Mages could achieve such a feat.”

“I got it from a book on Mana Weavers. They have a nerve on the back of their neck. If you press it, it could send them into slumber. It won't work on fully transformed individuals, but the mana weaver has just mutated. I had to take a chance.”

Kai doubted the technique was widespread. It could be that it hadn't even been discovered yet. Such information had only come up after there had been a major move to study the creatures.

It had resulted in a few things Kai didn't want to think about, but it had largely benefited humankind as a whole.

“Why am I not aware of something like that? If there’s such a thing, I believe every knight should know. It will be very useful at these tiring times.”

The guards turned their heads towards Kai as Killian spoke. They were all curious about how and when he learnt something like that. If it was really that simple, they might just be able to deal with the Mana Weavers.

“I picked it up from a book back at the household. I don't think it's famous enough. You can spread it among the guards, just in case we have more sightings of these creatures,” Kai said, glancing over to the guards.

Killian nodded at those words. It seemed like he wanted to ask more about how the confrontation had happened, but Kai was sure he'd heard everything from his subordinates.

Instead, Killian changed topics.

“I understand you got mana weaver’s weakness, but why haven't we killed it yet? Lord Arzan, we can't afford to take chances. It's common knowledge that mana weavers corrupt their surroundings,” Knight Killian said, looking like he wanted to pick up a sword and cut off the head of the weaver himself.

Francis and the guards also nodded. It seemed like Kai had really gone against the normal method, which in comparison was easier, than what he intended to do.

Still, he didn't want unnecessary blood on his hands.

“No, we can’t do that.” As soon as Kai rejected, the knight furrowed deeply. He probably wanted to know why they couldn’t kill a threat to them as quickly as possible. “Give me some time. I have something better to do with It rather than killing.”

“Time is a luxury that we don’t have, and can’t afford,” Knight Killian’s dissatisfaction was written on his face as he talked. “What if the mana weaver got out of the chains and started attacking everyone again?”

“It's your and your guards' job to keep it in chains. I trust you to do your job well. As for time, give me a few days and you will know what I plan to do.”

Killian opened his mouth, but instead of talking, he stuffed a piece of bread in it.

The rest of the breakfast went as silently as possible. No one spoke and as soon as it was over, Killian left with the guards after bowing to Kai.

Once he was alone with Francis, he turned towards him.

“Lord Arzan, you said you wanted to take a look at the records?” Francis questioned as he was almost done with his food.

He wiped his hands from the napkin and stood up.

Kai nodded and they started walking back to wherever he kept the records.

Francis was a short, stout, old man. But his walk was rather fast. With his shoes tapping against the floor, he started taking the staircase that initially led Kai to the diner.

“Are things really that bad?” Kai asked before hesitating a bit. He didn't want to sound clueless, but again, Arzan seemed like someone who kept to his room and didn't care about anything else.

He doubted he knew of the situation of the city, or he wouldn't have taken on such a large debt.

“It's the worst I have ever seen.”

Francis replied with a frown and Kai could only ponder one thing.

It couldn’t be that bad, can it?

***

Kai's face scrunched up and his eyebrows twitched as he stared at the discoloured book. The words written with black ink on yellow pages made him frown.

It was really that bad!

“As you can see, Lord-” Francis started to say, but stopped as he glanced at Kai's expression.

The economy of the city was in hot water. The farmland yield had plummeted, taxes weren’t enough, and even signs of famine lingered. The debt is just the cherry on top. What was Arzan even doing?

His assessment of Arzan went even lower once he realised the state of affairs in the city.

“Why wasn’t anything done about this earlier?” Kai inquired, wanting to know why they’d let things get worse.

The numbers were much worse than Kai had expected.

“We tried, Your Lordship. But, the previous lordship, a Baron, died two years back from a heart attack. His wife died before him, and umm,” Francis hesitated before continuing to discuss the previous Lord’s unfortunate fate. “His only son was in the army and perished. Before you came here, this city… It was almost abandoned.”

Francis shook his head, sighing deeply as he continued to remember the situation they were in.

“Bandit attacks increased a lot since retainers left for better opportunities. We used to have a few Mages in the service, but once they left things became worse,” he huffed. “Our forces are too small to deal with them. All that is just the insult to the injury. And then, Your Lordship got here. You were mostly spending time in your room, with no intention to change any-” Francis immediately looked down. He understood the mistake he made. “Please, forgive me for running my mouth.”

Kai didn't say anything. If anything, as he had assumed before, Francis seemed to be in the city for a long time. His features matched guards and maids around the estate, so he might as well be from around the area.

He also clearly cared about the estate.

“What about the coal and iron mines? A lot of the revenue used to come from there, right?” he probed.

Francis cleared his throat and nodded. “One of the mines, unfortunately, fell into the hands of a bandit group. They’re the ones calling the shots. The other one, well, it’s run dry. A lot of miners lost their jobs due to that, taking a hit on the population of the city.”

Kai sighed. From the documents, it seemed like a ton of people left for the city after the mines closed up. He felt anger about bandits capturing one of them, but he wasn't in a position to capture them back.

“How big is the bandit group?” he asked.

“They are militants, formerly drafted in the Black Rose War. Once they returned, they became bandits. Around 100 of them. It's a whole band.”

“We don't have enough forces to go against them.”

“We have, but if we took a significant force to fight them, other bandit groups in the area might try to take advantage of it. Knight Killian wanted to have a go against them, but you refused three months back.”

Francis promptly said, making Kai’s frown worse. Maybe Arzan didn't want to put himself in danger. Either way, it was a shame that a bandit group ran around like this in their land.

He closed the book that was in his hand and kept it on the wooden table. He pushed it forward towards the administrator and leaned back.

If I can get the mines back, then maybe we will be on the road to recovery. Still, it won't be easy and quick.

Kai pondered over it until he recalled something.

Wasn't there a Mage that Claire had mentioned before? A Mage could easily handle such a situation if they’re properly trained. So, why hasn’t he done anything?

“Francis, didn’t Mage Actra at least try to help? What is he doing?” Kai questioned.

The old man chuckled. It was an angry, sarcastic chuckle. “Your Lordship, that Mage is drowning the city with his alchemical research. He doesn’t lift a finger and it is already reported that he was rude to a few maids. He doesn't try to help at all.”

Kai’s eyebrows raised. Is that so?

He wanted to meet the Mage for obvious reasons. Even so, there were some answers Kai needed first.

“Uh, this might come out rather odd, but why did I require such a huge loan? My memory is running low.” Kai’s hand met with his chin as he acted to be in deep thought.

Francis was quick to reply. “You needed some materials for something. Lord Actra was aware of it. I was not informed of the specifics.”

Kai’s shoulders tensed as a brief silence spread between the two. The things he kept hearing about the Mage continued to get worse and worse.

He had to think fast to get over the debt first of all.

Arzan had messed up by a lot and if he was going to take his place, maybe he needed to start from his duties as a lord of this region. It seemed tiring, but authority wasn't bad in his opinion, especially if he could take things under his control.

Looking at Francis who sat upright, he said, “I'm sorry. I haven't been good enough in my duties, but I will be changing it from now on. Next time the guy from the Tradeheart merchant company comes, call me. I will be doing something about the debt soon.”

Saying that, he stood up and left the room, not waiting to take a good look at the shocked expression on the face of Francis who looked like he had seen a dragon hoarding gold in his bedroom.