Chapter 498 - Strings (Patreon)

The more Sami saw of Hueatlan, the less it matched his established image of a Chutwa town. At the harbor and around the town's edges, the town still had looked old-fashioned, almost frozen in time. Many of the buildings looked like they had stood there for centuries, or possibly even longer, with thick layers of discolored mud and grime layered atop their walls, or with thick moss growing along their sides. If he hadn't known any better, he would have thought that these buildings had been around since the dawn of time itself.

However, even there, some of the piers had looked newly built. The officials had been quick-witted and well-organized, ready to receive foreign trade, much unlike Sami's image of a stuffy, closed-off country. Rather than being closed off, numerous ships from Saniya and the Verdant Isles had already been docked at the port when they had arrived. Everything he had experienced since he had entered town had been far beyond Sami's previous understanding of this old country.

Yet this impression got even stronger when he and Chanca traveled deeper into Hueatlan. The closer they came to the city center, the more new buildings he saw. Although they were still blocky stone constructions, they had clearly been rebuilt recently, with new, sometimes even glossy stones. Some of the new buildings even had open yards like those of Medala, rather than high walls like a fortress.

All in all, the town's image was a lot more accommodating than he had assumed before their arrival, though the straight roads and large, yet somehow cramped buildings still felt a lot more restrictive than anything he was used to in Saniya. Still, even here, there were places which could match any in Saniya in comfort.

One of the most accommodating — as well as the most puzzling — among them was a strange shop in the best position in the town's main market square.

"This is too convenient, right?" a baffled Sami commented to himself as he looked over the wares in the shop.

The entire lower floor of the building was one large hall filled with rows upon rows of shelves. Within these endless rows, he could find Chutwa tea and silk, precious handicrafts made from silver and gold, as well as all the other luxury products Chutwa was so famous for.

Lined up here were the very goods which had made this empire so immeasurably rich, and also the ones which had made it the main target for trade ships from all across the world. However, there was only a single piece of each item, together with a number next to it. Some of the goods were even locked away behind clear glass from Saniya, with no way to handle them at all. Everything looked well-organized, but it also looked nothing like a traditional shop.

As he looked around some more, Sami didn't spot a single customer who wore one of the locals' broad shoulder pads. The only locals seemed to be the handful of shopkeepers who eagerly offered their services to anyone entering the front door. For what it was worth, Sami and Chanca had declined the offer, since they wanted to look around before some overly clever salesman could force his subpar goods onto them. However, other customers had gladly taken these shopkeepers up on their offers. Although there were no local customers present here, there were still plenty of foreigners like them.

Three other groups of foreign merchants sat in comfortable seating arrangements hidden behind precious silken sight blockers, which were painted with pictures of two-headed roosters and mountains with eyeballs. Despite the strange imagery, these blockers alone would be worth a fortune.

Within such luxurious privacy, the customers enjoyed precious Chutwa tea and a large spread of various delicacies for free, while the shopkeepers presented them with one luxury good after another, eager to sell their wares at the best possible price.

Very clearly, this shop wasn't intended for use by the locals. Everything here had been specifically designed to attract foreign merchants, all in an effort to extract as much money out of them as possible. Even the numbers next to the goods were written not only in the old Chutwa script, but even in modern Yakua, a written script which had only been invented by their king a few years prior, one which had hardly spread beyond of the limits of the southern kingdom so far.

"Why is being convenient a problem?" Chanca asked, as he held up a bronze mirror with gold decorations. He bit the metal to check its quality, before he mumbled: "It's better for us if it's convenient, right?"

"I don't know. Convenience comes at a price, usually," Sami tried to articulate his unease. "I fear they won't offer us a good deal for all those fancy goods here. I also bet there won't be any other shops like this one in the entire city. So even if we don't like their prices, we'll have to take them."

Chanca finally took the expensive mirror out of his mouth and looked at Sami in confusion. He didn't even bother with the panicked shopkeeper who rushed over to tear the precious piece of art out of his hands. In response to his friend's inquisitive look, Sami sighed and pointed at a banner emblazoned with an unknown Chutwa language character.

"Look over there," he said, and looked sideways at the shopkeeper who was putting the mirror back on its intended place on the shelf. "I asked one of those guys earlier while you were busy biting stuff. That's the banner of the local Huemac family, the lords of this estate. That means this shop is owned by the local lord. I guarantee you he won't allow any competition in his city, and I also guarantee you that he'll do whatever he can to shake as many coins out of us as possible."

In Medala, merchants were held in very low regard. Thus, few nobles would ever directly get involved in the trading business. Sami had assumed that this would be also be the case in Chutwa. Yet here, the local lord didn't mind using his personal banner to decorate a mere merchant's walls. Even more, it felt like all merchant operations in the city were secretly being controlled from the lord's manor. How else could they be so well coordinated?

As soon as foreign ships docked, the merchants aboard were greeted by locals — who operated in an extremely professional manner — willing to assess and buy their goods. Then, there was a dedicated shop like this, specifically designed for all their purchasing needs. So, while they were still waiting to get paid for their goods, they were already encouraged to spend all of their earnings again, in a very pleasant and convenient manner.

Although Chutwa was known for its strong central power, with the Immortal Emperor at the very center, this still felt different from what Sami had expected. Rather than the ancient country in the grip of a tyrannical ruling class, this city felt modern somehow, comparable to Saniya in many ways.

If nothing else, this entire trading setup was an effective way to stack the odds in the favor of the local lord. To Sami, it somehow felt like something Medala's own King Corcopaca might arrange, though he couldn't really articulate why he felt that way. Yet as he thought more about his surroundings and their purpose, he noticed something else.

"Aren't there any everyday goods?" he thus asked. "There is cloth, but nothing cheap. Everything is silk, and satin, and expensive furs. Where is the wool, or the cotton? And I haven't seen any staple foods or cheaper pottery offered either. Maybe there's a separate shop for bulk goods?"

As he was talking to himself, Sami tried to make sense of the strange shop yet again. Maybe, in order to preserve the dignified atmosphere of this luxury store, they sold bulk goods like grain, cloth, or salt in another place. Maybe they were also being sold directly from the warehouses at the harbor, without all the little tricks surrounding these luxury goods. After all, anyone who came to Chutwa for bulk goods wouldn't have much money to extract in the first place. However, before Sami could express his theories, Chanca had already denied them.

"No, I don't think so," he said. "Father said that you can't buy cheap goods from Chutwa, only the pricey stuff."

"What do you mean, 'you can't buy cheap goods'? You don't mean 'we shouldn't', do you? Rather, you're saying they're not even selling them in the first place? Does that mean they don't produce any here? Or they only produce enough for themselves? Or maybe there's a ban on the sale of these goods to guarantee food supplies," Sami guessed one after another. However, to his predictable disappointment, Chanca only shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't know. Father just said that, as far as Chutwa's concerned, cheap stuff goes in, and pricey stuff goes out. That's all. The pricey stuff pays better anyways. To me, that sounds good for us."

And to me, that sounds almost like someone in Saniya came up this, Sami thought.

Indeed, this entire setup had produced an unbelievably convenient trade route for all Saniya merchants. They could load cheap, bulk materials in their home port, then upgrade the value of their hold in the Verdant Isles by buying new mass-consumption goods like cheap cloth. Finally, they would sell the large volume of goods in Hueatlan for massive profits, and then use those profits to load up on luxury products here.

However, Sami felt that there was more to this whole setup than a simple maximization of profits. As the merchants moved back and forth between Chutwa and Medala, they would bring in cheap things for the common people at the bottom of the Chutwa Empire, while they would take away expensive luxury goods for the wealthy. He couldn't quite explain it, but somehow this approach felt unbalanced, as if it was bound to cause problems sooner or later.

And there was one more thing he noticed as he looked across the wares in the shop.

"Where's the Chutwa Glaze, by the way? Isn't Chutwa famous for its shell craft?"

The question elicited an arrogant laugh from Chanca.

"That one, I can answer. You wanted to know what happens to the shell craft we bought, right?" he asked, a crooked grin on his face. "Follow me, I'll show you something good."

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In a small warehouse in Hueatlan's harbor district, a bizarre procedure was taking place. Sami saw the box he had seen in Chanca's cargo hold before — the one containing the shell craft from Saniya — get opened. Then, one by one, the precious cups and bowls were extracted from the filling straw, which was meant to protect the fragile cargo on its journey. After, the bottom sides of those same dishes were stamped with a precious blue color. The stamp printed yet another Chutwa character Sami couldn't read, but it sure seemed imposing. Finally, the shell craft was set down next to a fire for a short while to dry the ink, before it was promptly returned to the same box it had just left, and the box was simply closed up again.

If he only looked at it step by step, Sami could tell exactly what the people here were doing every step of the way. Yet when he put all of their actions together, he had no idea what the point of any of this was. Surely, ruining their shell craft with a stamp would only reduce its value, right? In the end, Sami could really only comment one thing.

"What, in the endless depths of the underworld, is going on here?"

In response, Chanca next to him once again laughed arrogantly and finally revealed his master plan, or rather, his father-in-law's.

"They're turning our cheap shell craft from Saniya into priceless Chutwa glaze, that's what's going in. Once it's Chutwa glaze, we can sell the same pot for five times the price up north," he explained. Although Sami finally knew what these workers were doing, the explanation made him only more confused.

"But why do all that extra work?" the baffled Sami asked. "Why not just send the glaze straight north to Sinchay, tell the northerners that it's from Chutwa, and just sell it for the higher price? We're lying anyways, right?"

"I have no idea. Something about legal security, and origin tracing?" Chanca scratched his head as he responded with a troubled look. Just as Sami opened his mouth to ask, Chanca quickly added: "Don't ask me what any of that means. I have no idea."

I guess that father of yours told you stuff again, Sami guessed. Either way, there was no point trying to figure out why Saniya would be making such a strange arrangement with the locals here. Though another question troubled Sami even more.

"Fine... but... what exactly is in it for the people here?" he asked, as he gestured towards the workers who were busily transforming their shell craft into Chutwa Glaze. "All this just seems like extra work for no benefit. I mean, they don't actually earn any money from the glaze we bring them, and it even prevents them from selling their own glaze."

Sami thought back to the shop, where no Chutwa Glaze was being sold.

"I assume they get a cut somewhere," Chanca just said, and added another shrug. "If you wanna know why they'd agree to a big scam like this in the first place, then here's something you might not know." Eager to share the rare instance of actual knowledge on his part, Chanca got closer and whispered in Sami's ear: "The wife of the local lord is apparently our miracle king's sister."

"No wonder."

Finally, things began to make sense for Sami. The strange way their wares had been handled, the shops designed for foreign merchants to buy luxury goods brought in from all over Chutwa, and this strange operation with the shell craft, which turned out to be nothing but an elaborate scam.

All of this hadn't grown naturally, out of the interests of eager merchants. Instead, it was all set up on purpose, by the lord of this land, in cooperation with the king of southern Medala. Their purpose was of course only one, to extract the maximum value possible from outsiders and enrich themselves in the process.

In this setup, both the lord of Xallisco and the merchants of the southern kingdom would gain great wealth. While the merchants bought cheap luxury goods — brought to Hueatlan from all over the rest of Chutwa — and sold them for a massive profit in the two northern kingdoms of Medala, they also brought cheap consumption goods from Medala and the Verdant Isles, which the locals could sell on in the rest of Chutwa with massive upside as well.

Meanwhile, the merchants from Saniya would take their wealth back to Saniya, where they would pay taxes or invest in more ships or manufactories. Ultimately, such an operation would strengthen the southern kingdom and thus benefit the king more than anyone.

Without anyone's notice, the lords of these distant lands had cooperated to build a system which would slowly suck the blood of their competitors to strengthen themselves, and over a vast distance to boot. More impressively, without an insider like Chanca's father-in-law Ekkoko, Sami would have never even known about it. The more he thought, the more he felt in awe of this grand plan, a plan which stretched across the entirety of the Verduic Sea, and maybe even beyond, where his eyes couldn't yet reach.

Although he still felt like he was missing pieces of the puzzle, although he still felt like there was even more going on behind the veil, he couldn't help but once again scold himself for his own arrogance. Not only had Chanca's purchase of shell craft in Medala been a smart idea — against his prior beliefs, it would produce the highest profits out of any cargo they had loaded in Saniya — the Chutwa people also didn't seem quite as stony and inflexible as he had previously thought. If nothing else, they had managed to outsmart both him, and the entire northern half of Medala.