Chapter 177 - The Life of a Baron (Part 3)

The quant.i.ty of the majeong the rake eagles brought me was substantial.

Perhaps it was because they are birds of prey but their area of activity was very wide.

They hunted anything they came across in our territory, of course, and neighboring areas too in the forests and wilderness.

It was like I had unleashed a predator with no natural enemy into the ecosystem. The eagles raked up all the monsters.

Thanks to that, all of a sudden there was peace in the territory. The biggest problem to humans in Arena, the attacks of the beasts, had stopped.

And it wasn"t only that. With Cha Ji-hye starting to organize the territory"s business and army, our control over the territory became stronger as well.

So of course the public opinion towards my rule of the territory was pretty good.

For me I didn"t really have anything to do so I played games on my notebook and took care of the majeong the eagles brought all while my public image was improving.

"I didn"t know it either but I hear I"m a pretty good baron?"

Getting into bed together at a late hour, I asked her jokingly.

Lying next to me, Cha Ji-hye nodded her head.

"Yes, as soon as you became the new baron the eagles became active and we"ve been having a good ride because of it."

"As it should be. No matter how we look at it, we"ve only been given two years" time."

"We have to do something else so that we can continue to ride this good wave."

"And what would that something be?"

"This whole area had a war not too long ago."

"Yes, the war between the Count of Wolfenbrooke and Baron Bastian."

How could I forget?

Baron Bastian was working with the dark magicians to go after the silver clan lycanthropes and the Brown Mountain elves and started a war over it.

In the end he fell to Odin, the Count of Wolfenbrooke.

Viscount Heinz, who was the original owner of this territory, had close ties with Baron Bastian.

For anyone living here it was obvious they were working together closely.

Then he became neighbors to Count Wolfenbrooke who had defeated Baron Bastian.

Because of that Viscount Heinz had left and this area became free because he was still feeling nervous in the aftermath of the war.

"To get rid of the troubled atmosphere, in the people"s eyes, we must ensure the safety of the territory and earn their trust. That way the stagnant economic activity will become lively again and tax revenue will grow alongside it as well."

"That isn"t a hard thing to do. I just have to show them I"m on friendly terms with Count of Wolfenbrooke."

I"m close with Odin, that won"t be a problem.

"I should just pull the elves in too and make a triple alliance."

If I include the elves in the alliance too, from a foreign perspective (like neighbor) the territory will be that much safer.

The elves that are flourishing on Brown Mountain are now on our side, who would touch us?

Now that I"m thinking of it I immediately put in a call on the radio.

-Alright.

-Yes, we"ll do as you wish, Kim.

Odin and the mothers at the Brown Mountain too were all in agreement.

"It"s been a long time, Kim."

This elf with a cool baritone voice was none other than Derek.

"Thank you for coming all this way, Derek."

"It"s nothing. I came quickly on the eagle you sent. Anyhow, I thought you would return to the Brown Mountain at some point, but have you set up here?"

"Things turned out that way somehow."

"My wife is very disappointed."

"Hahaha, please send her my apologies. I"m so close I can always visit anytime."

"That is true. Everyone misses you so please visit often."

"Yes, but not just me visiting there but I"d like it if you guys would visit here as well."

"Us come here?"

Said Derek doubtingly.

For him, as an elf, leaving their territory to come here seemed like an awkward thing.

I said.

"The Wolfenbrooke territory and here as well are all the same side as you. Anyone who is going to harm an elf won"t be able to just do that here."

"But there is still a lot of danger for us to be wandering outside our area. The reason I came as a representative was just in case my wife might come into danger."

"I understand that feeling. But rather for the safety and rights and interests of the elves, shouldn"t the foreign operations of the elves become livelier?"

I explained to Derek.

"If you, as you are now, are stuck inside Brown Mountain and maintain your closed demeanor, we"ll never be able to change how humans regard elves."

"How they regard us you say……"

"Yes, exactly. And humans think of elves as a separate species that cannot live together with them. What do you think that reason is?"

"There have been innumerable instances when humans have taken advantage of us. Excluding you, Kim, most of them have tried to harm us."

The Second Advent revivalists that were trying to take the Tress of Life or the hunters that tried to sell the elves as slaves……

Of course the elves would be hostile towards humans.

"That was because elves were weary of us and closed off to maintain exclusivity."

"It"s not like you do not know why it is we are that way."

"Of course I know. But the chances for us to empathize with each other is dwindling."

"I know that as well."

"Rather, can we not take this alliance as an opportunity for you guys to enter human society? You could sell the beasts you hunt, the fruit and medicinal herbs you gather. In exchange, you"ll be able to buy equipment you need and other things from the human marketplace. The more chances we have to meet, the more the bias will disappear."

I continued to explain.

"As you well know, if there are bad apples among people, there are bound to be good ones too. You can work hard in exchange while siding yourselves with good people."

Derek thought carefully about what I had said then nodded his head.

"You are right. This world doesn"t belong to only to humans, I think our kind have stayed hidden in our area for too long."

"Exactly. It is a bit of a rough comparison, but a beast needs a large area. That way there is more to eat and better chances for survival. If you guys come out and encounter more things, there will be more ways to protect the elves. Just like today"s alliance."

"Looking back, the reason we were able to overcome those many dangers was because we met you, a human. You"re right."

"Haha, that"s exactly what I mean."

"Understood. I will return and tell my wife. I don"t know what the mothers will decide, but I have a feeling they"ll agree with you."

Just then, from the Wolfenbrooke territory, Odin arrived on the eagle I sent.

We all greeted each other and then cemented our alliance.

We each took a copy of our written agreement with the Baron seals, and in Derek"s case his signature, and spread the word of this alliance throughout the territory.

Thus the strongest powers in Arend kingdom"s southern area, the Count of Wolfenbrooke and the elves ruling over Brown Mountain, came to our side.

This was the same as saying the powers threatening the Heinz area have disappeared.

Peace to the territory!

Foreign relations and the problem of public peace due to monster appearances were solved and as Cha Ji-hye had said, our territory became lively.

As the elements of danger were solved, the civilians looked brighter.

As the pa.s.sage of visitors and merchants increased, the toll tax jumped up as well.

And I heard back from the elves on Brown Mountain and the eldest mother agreed to what I had said.

-Even now, we feel reluctant to freely roam around human territories, but at least your suggestion to trade what we need with each other is worth a try.

When I told Cha Ji-hye of this, she came up with an idea.

"I think it would be good to set up a post where we can trade with the elves."

"A trading post?"

"Beasts from Brown Mountain or animal hides and various medicinal herbs, there is an abundance of high price specialty items that can be traded. If we set up a trading post, there will be many merchants who will gather to trade with the elves."

"And we can receive tax from those merchants using that trading post."

"Yes, along with that we have to manage it so that the elves who know little of the world won"t get taken advantage of."

"That"s a good idea. Let"s make plans for that trading post."

"Okay."

Cha Ji-hye a.s.signed Edward to be in charge of doing the trade post stuff.

While Edward was building the trade post in an adjacent area to Brown Mountain, he got in touch with the large merchants organizations and spread word of the trade post.

At the news of being able to trade with the elves who held firm control of Brown Mountain, there were many important large merchants showing great interest.

"Inquiries are flooding in. Many merchants are curious what products can be acquired from the elves."

Edward came to me and asked.

I answered.

"Things you can get off Brown Mountain…anything is possible. Investigate what it is the merchants would like to trade. I"ll let the elves know what people are interested in and teach them how to make those items. Then they"ll have time to prepare lots of it for the trade post."

"Understood, sir."

So that"s how the trading post started.

On the side of Brown Mountain, male elves came to the trading post with lots of things they prepared.

Employees of large merchant organizations and even lots of small time merchants gathered and the trade post quickly became surrounded by hordes of people.

With Edward himself taking command of managing the trading post he supervised every transaction so the elves weren"t swindled.

The trading post project was a success.

Merchants gathered from all around and our tax revenue drastically increased.

As people from other territories started to gather in, our territory"s merchants and industrialists also were also positively impacted.

The only problem was that even though the elves sold and made all that money they didn"t really have any use for it.

With lots of monsters and the rough Brown Mountain, they bought a lot of iron weapons but even after buying all the weapons they needed, they said they had tons of money left over.

-Where would it be good to spend our money? Unlike humans, we don"t really have a need for it.

Is what the eldest mother asked me through the radio.

For the elves that have been self-sufficient all this time, other than weapons, there wasn"t really anything they really needed.

I thought it over carefully and a good idea came to me.

"With that money, buy up all the elves that have been sold as slaves!"

My idea was as follows.

Through a powerful merchant, buy elves owned by n.o.ble families and bring them home.

As soon as she heard my idea, the eldest mother moved to action.

Big merchants with relations to many royal families took on the commission.

Recently, the Arend kingdom, through the order of King Alsefon the 3rd, elf slave trade experienced a strict crackdown.

Royal families, not wanting to take on the wrath of the king for no reason, began to release slaves.

Just like that, slaves became freed one by one and returned into the embrace of Brown Mountain.

Thanks to that, the trading post became livelier and the number of elves on Brown Mountain grew every day.

Of course, so was the tax revenue in our territory.

The mission was carrying on smoothly.