Profession, Merchant Volume 11 Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Chapter 1 – Penis Merchant I

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This was a few years or so after I had left home and parted ways with the female hero.


I had not yet visited Andersen or Newland, and I was in my late teens. In terms of age alone, I was just starting out.


At that time, I was based in the water city of Venussa.


Nowadays, Venussa has degenerated into a lawless area where bouncers are essential, but at that time, it was a city with stringent laws, a strong police force, and a solid framework of rules and regulations for doing business.


Despite its location on the water, Venussa had a solid social infrastructure. It was the work of merchants from other lands, who repeatedly made ruthless deals through the net of law, that caused Venussa’s legal system to sink.


In other words, people like me are to blame.


A stable social order, infrastructure such as ports, and an active market.


In Venussa at this time, while sipping my morning tea in bed, I was still able to use my magic phone to order various products from all over the world in whatever quantities I saw fit.


I quickly made a name for myself among the merchants of Venussa and felt like a rising dragon.


But such a time did not last long.


…


……


Looking at the horizon and puffing on a cigarette. Yet unable to taste anything because of the bad mood.


“Hey, have your ships finally arrived?”


It was the slave trader with the silver-rimmed glasses who called out to me with a grin. Yes, he was already a slave trader from around this time. Or rather, he had always been a slave trader ever since we met. I hated him because I was prejudiced against people like him who treated people’s lives as a commodity.


“Shut up. Go away.”


“From the looks of it, I don’t think they’re coming. Hahaha. And they probably won’t come in the future. Your luck is finally running out.”


“Crap.”


“I’ve heard. Three of the five ships you financed went down in the storm and sank.”


“They didn’t sink. We just haven’t heard about them. Even if they had sunk, it wouldn’t have mattered.”


“Ha, that’s very optimistic of you.”


The man with the silver-rimmed glasses smiled cynically at me, who was already in a sour mood.


What? If you have something to say, just say it.


Seeing that he wasn’t saying anything, I decided to ignore him and opened the newspaper with a flourish.


But after a while, he suddenly spoke to me again.


“Hey. If three ships are sunk, how much money will be lost? I’ve never made such a daring mistake, so it’s hard for me to imagine.”


The silver-rimmed glasses punk remains stubbornly close to me. I ignored him and looked down at the article.


“Hee-hee. If this goes on, you’ll probably be fired because of your debts. You’ll be a debt slave. And if that happens, hehehe. I’d be happy to take care of you at our ‘home.’“


Silver-rimmed continues to spout flippant lines. But at the same time, I slam the newspaper down and stand up.


“What? You want some? I can take you on!”


Surprised by my action, silver-rimmed freaked out and stood on guard.


“This is it!”


But instead of hitting the single-braincelled lot, I pointed to a newspaper article, much to his dismay. In the presence of this article, it no longer mattered to me whether this punk was pissed off or not.


“Huh? Ahh. You mean the story about Hermes, the land of the white elves.”


“You know about that?”


“It’s about a princess who is looking for her future husband. It’s all the talk of the town at the moment.”


Yes. That’s what the newspapers said.


The king of Hermes, the land of the White Elves, had died the previous year. While it’s already enough of a headline for elves to die of old age because of their long life expectancy, it’s even more so when it’s the king himself who passed away.


The problem was that he had only one daughter and no sons to take his place.


This meant that if this daughter – the one and only White Elf Princess – did not marry and bear a child, the entire royal family would be cut off.


Naturally, the ministers immediately tried to find a suitable prince for the princess. But the princess refused to accept any of their offers.


To make matters worse, she declared that she would only accept marriage if it were out of love.


Naturally, the ministers said they could not wait for a love marriage. They thought it would be a disaster if she fell in love only to be unable to bear a child because of old age.


So they came up with a compromise: she would put the man who came to ask for her hand to a trial, and the one who passed the trial would be taken as the bridegroom.


It was hard for me to understand how they came up with this compromise. Still, since both sides agreed, it meant that if they did it this way, two objectives would be met: Firstly, it would satisfy the ministers’ desire for the princess to marry as soon as possible, giving them peace of mind. Secondly, by providing the suitor a trial it would also add a fateful and romantic element to the whole thing, which would hopefully be enough to convince the princess to marry out of love.


At any rate, I saw an opportunity in this.


“Hey, silver-rimmed. Can you lend me some money?”


“No way, man. You’re not going to the Hermes, are you?”


“No, I’m not going to Hermes.”


He’s right. If I can get a princess in the land of the White Elves, I can get my own country without having to go out of my way to earn money through business.


At the time, I was fed up with the gambling-like jobbing in Venusa and wanted to quit being a merchant.


That’s right. I wanted to quit, for it is much more sensible to be a relative of a wealthy foreigner than a merchant.


“Don’t do it. They say the trials are impregnable. On top of that, there is also the rumor that those who fail the ordeal never return alive.”


“Don’t worry. Newspapers and rumors usually have a tail. I’m not going to die.”


“Well, I don’t really care whether you die or not. But you borrowing money on top of that is rather amusing. Where in the world would you find someone who would lend money to a man who was about to die?”


Much as I hate it, silver-rimmed is right.


But now I’m in trouble.


This is because unless you have a considerable amount of money, you won’t be able to reach Hermes. The amount needed for this journey alone would be about 30 million bonds, by estimate.


So for me, whose ship hasn’t returned and who can’t think of anything to do about it, it’s a tremendous amount of money.


Why does it cost so much money just for transport in that country?


The reason is that Hermes, the land of the white elves, is beyond the sky.


Yes. It is a country located far above the clouds.


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