Profession, Merchant Volume 9 Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Finale – The End, III

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“But before I do the convincing, I need two conditions.”


“Mmm, tell me.”


“First, you have to pass the budget without needing to send the priestess back to Andersen.”


“All right. We can manage that part.”


“I’m counting on you. The contract must be fulfilled. We’ve already done most of our purchasing.”


“Don’t be cheeky and arrogant. We’re doing this without even asking you where you’re getting it from.”


I was overwhelmed by the minister glaring at me. Does he, by any chance, know that these are Newland’s magic ores? Well, no matter how he asks me, I’ll just answer: “I bought it at the market in Venussa.”


“And?”


“What?”


“You have two conditions. Didn’t you say so? What is the other one?”


Ah, that’s right. This is the most important one.


If I don’t ask for this, I can’t leave Andersen.


So I bowed my head and begged.


“Please lend me your clothes.”


〇●〇●


I finally got back into my regular clothes of trousers and a shirt.


Feeling a little overwhelmed by the sight of my masculine appearance in the mirror, which I hadn’t seen in a long time, I heard the doorknob click again.


“Miss Transfer Student?”


It was the young lady. And this time she also brought a bucket of water and a towel.


“What is it, my daughter?”


The minister asks.


“Ah, Father. I thought my friend was here. I wonder where she has gone.”


This isn’t good. Come to think of it, the Minister of Finance is also a doting idiot parent. If he found out that I had any kind of relationship with her daughter, then…


“The girl who was here left as soon as I arrived. She looked very sick.”


“I see. Well, that’s a pity.”


I feel a little sad that I, in my male form, seem to be out of the daughter’s consciousness, and she is not aware of the fact that ‘I = new student’ at all.


But it seems to have been enough to fool her, so that is fortunate, too. Now, all I have to do is get out of here quickly.


“Well then, please excuse me.”


I said as I reached for the door, but before I could get to it, the Minister grabbed my arm and said,


“Was it you?”


I’ve been found out.


Oh no, how can I explain?


He’s a doting parent, so he’s going to squeeze me until I confess.


If I do, I’m sure he’ll find out that I did indeed do this and that with his daughter.


It’s over.


“Was it you who took out the priestess in the square?”


Huh?


“Fu, fufu, fufufufu. If so, what about it? Do you have something to say, Minister?”


“No, I just thought it would be a big deal.”


“Well, I don’t know. I’m not going to answer that. This is goodbye for now. Until we meet again.”


With that, I left the residence of the Minister of Finance.


Needless to say, I fell to my knees in relief after walking quite a distance after I left the premises.


〇●〇●


Now that I had crossed Andersen’s ramparts and reached the highway, I continued on my way, scurrying around and scanning the area here and there.


I thought there might be a wounded female hero lying around somewhere.


But it seems that there is no such thing as a convenient meeting with your beloved on the streets.


Well, if you think about it, there is no way she would be in a conspicuous place, and if she were resting, it would be in an area off the beaten path.


Is it really impossible to find her along a road like this?


However, I had made up my mind that the next time I met the female hero, I would take her with me, no matter what the cost.


Technically, I haven’t fulfilled my contract to ‘buy a country to return to,’ but I don’t remember making any promises that we wouldn’t be together until then.


Besides, I am sure that a country is not the kind of thing that just comes to you when you pay a considerable amount of money.


People are very complex, and the ‘countries’ that these complex people have historically built are so complex that it is not enough to put ‘super’ in front of the word ‘complex.’


Andersen Castle Town is an excellent example of this.


Well, it’s not a ‘country’ per se, but it seems to me that I already have ‘something like a country.’ The former slave workers and the dark elves I sent out to train are beginning to get a life under the contract I took on.


If you gather together people who have no country to return to – stragglers of no value – you can create a place where they can have their own ‘way of life.’ Well, as long as they have a job and are fed.


Surely, this is the sperm of the state. The egg, of course, is the land, but that is the easy part because it can be bought with money or won in battle.


But even if there is land and life, I don’t know if a common concept like a country will be born from it, and even if it is, it may take generations.


In other words, the only thing I can do is to do my job as a merchant, taking as many orders as I can, buying as cheaply as I can, and employing as many stragglers as I can to make a living, so as to make the sperm of the nation more plentiful and full of vitality.


If I could do such a thing until I die, then at least it would be on the grounds of barely breaking the contract with the hero.


As I was thinking this, I saw the ginkgo tree where we were supposed to meet.


Along with the relief, my injury started to hurt again.


Let’s go ‘home’ quickly.


After leaving the main road and walking further, I came to the foot of a hill.


There, I saw a carriage and beautiful women playing under a tree at the top of the hill.


I looked at this glittering scene and said to myself with a wry smile.


“What the hell. Looks like I’ve already fulfilled that part of my promise to build a harem, haven’t l?”


The end.


Author’s Notes


The main story from the merchant’s point of view ends here.


Translator Notes:


But this novel is far from finished. Or rather, we’re only HALFWAY through the novel.


From this point on, the following chapters are referred to by the author as “Side Stories,” “Extra Stories,” and “After Stories,” and if I were to follow my usual policy, they would be locked under 20cc patrons only, but I will not consider them as such, as the content is still aligned/following the plot.


There may be proper extra stories here and there, but with the author’s inconsistency on this, I would consider them part of the main story for convenience, and so I will not lock them for 20cc patrons until the end. In short, they will still be part of the ‘regular’ chapters, that is, until I have finished translating this novel.


At the moment, we’re exactly halfway through book 3 if you follow the e-book. The novel has six(6) books with two(2) editions, the first edition being five(5) digital e-books and cover the entire novel, including the extra stories, etc., and the second edition being one(1) volume which is a paperback that covers book 1&2 of the e-book edition combined. To sum up, we are still a long way from being finished.


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