Herald of Steel

Lady Miranda chose to be very clear in retelling the difficulties Alexander would face when trying to negotiate some sort of settlement with the Heeat family- which was that they wanted an abnormally high percentage of the trade

"The family wants nine tenths of the profits in exchange for giving such access to the safe routes. However if Quentin is made the family's next head, then they promised they will drop it to one-tenth!" Lady Miranda complained bitterly.

While Alexander almost had a heart attack at the sheer greed on display.

He was beginning to see why most of the Margraves had switched sides because there was almost no benefit to sticking with Lady Miranda.

It made no logical sense.

So Alexander then asked, "...Are none of them afraid I will refuse to sell them my goods if they oust you and tear up my free trade agreement? Surely they will give me some face right?"

Alexander could certainly threaten to employ a trade embargo if the need so arose.

"That… they don't think you will refuse them." Lady Miranda's answer however revealed the arrogance of the other side and made Alexander produce a very curious gaze as he really wanted to know why they thought so.

And seeing this, with a hesitant pause, Lady Miranda elucidated with a weak smile, "According to them, you have no other trading allies, my lord. Nor a navy to sell the goods yourself. So they believe as long as they are willing to offer you a fair price you will not refuse."

Alexander was frankly a bit insulted by hearing this Lady Miranda.

But much more than that, there was a stinging sensation in his heart because it was true.

He really had only one method of contact with the other world.

And that name was Lady Miranda.

This was a fatal weakness.

Alexander had not noticed it till now not because he was careless or foolish, but because of how young Alexander's rule was.

Things like trade routes simply took time to develop as merchants slowly and organically made connections with you.

There was no way around it.

And since up until now, Alexander had been content with the service the Margraves family provided, he saw no need to look for alternatives to them.

But now learning of this, Alexander swore in his mind, 'I will need to find other traders. Thesos should be the most obvious place. Once is return to Zanzan, I will send some trade delegations to Cantegena and the other city states.`

Saying this, Alexander then added in his heart, 'I wonder what happened to that Senator Klyser? Shouldn't have he returned with some merchants?'

Alexander still remembered that day almost four years ago when Leosydas, posing as an envoy from Tibias and Klyser, who was a senator and once Ophenia's future father in law had come to meet with him.

And the latter then had brought many of Alexander's unique specialties, with the promise to showing them to the senate and coming back for more.

But strangely he never did.

This was because unbeknownst to Alexander, the man had suffered a disaster at sea and drowned, taking all the tales of visits and sights with him to the watery depths.

And the Cantagenan senate never bothered to send a follow up delegation.

This was because even the trip Senator Klyser had made was done more on a personal basis than a state one, fueled primarily by his want to track his future daughter in law.

So with him gone, nobody else really bothered- Ophenia being mostly kinless and assumed death by most, even the Shiva Temple.

While the Cantegenan Senators got to know all they wanted about what had happened at Adhania from Petricuno and left it that, instead choosing to focus on much more important matters, such as fighting the reignited war with Exolas.

Which Cantegan fortunately managed to win, thus keeping its independence.

But by the time it was over, almost everyone had forgotten about that promise Ptolomy had made about giving Zanzan to the city state.

It had been always a pipe dream and they knew it.

As for getting to know about Alexander through his unique products and being drawn to him, well being a famous trading power, they had of course detected the appearance of these never before seen products.

But it was just that here Lady Miranda, or more specifically the old Lord Margraves IV had played a trick that Alexander had no idea about.

Being Alexander's first and sole distributor, he had spread the rumor that it was his family that made these products, not Alexander.

And with Adhania being almost a completely closed off country, everyone naturally bought it without question.

So all the traders went to Galiosos, not Zanzan.

It was a marvelous plan that killed two birds with one stone- the Margraves got all the customers they wanted, while also eliminating any competitors to their distribution service.

The shrewd old fox had not lived close to seventy as a merchant for nothing.

Now, the secret was bound to get out sooner or later, but the plan was not to hold onto it forever, but to make as much money as possible while the good times lasted.

Alexander was naturally unaware of this little diversion, and instead much more fixated on the enemy's assessment of his, which caused him to end with a light growl in anger, "How bold of them."

He was quite angry to know the other side thought he was this easy to push around.

Sure Alexander not selling to the Margraves or more specifically the outside world would be a hit to his accounting books, but it would not destroy him.

Alexander would still have Adhania's internal market to sell to, and besides, worse comes to worst, he would close the workshops and have the workers simply go back to farming.

Alexander had made enough money to last him a while and more than enough empty land to make sure these workers were not unemployed.

Even without the Margraves he would survive if he was pushed to the edge.

But from Lady Miranda's wording, he also understood that the Heeat family knew that, which was why they seemed to be in favor of making the deal as tolerable to Alexander as possible.

However this then gave rise to the question,

"If they are willing to give me a good deal, then how are they going to protect the native merchants? Isn't that the main reason the people rose up against you? Because my cheap goods were destroying the local economy?"

The equation did not seem to make sense to Alexander.

Lady Miranda however was unable to give Alexander a reasonable answer to this.

Instead, producing a slightly taunting smile, she hypothesized with a shrug of her shoulders, "Who knows? I would not be even surprised if this was all just Linda lying to those stupid guilds. This is not even the first time she has done something like that. Did you she killed Uncle Janus's eldest daughter using one of her lies as well?"

It seemed Lady Miranda was adamant about painting Miss Linda in as negative a light as possible.

And it kind of worked, as Alexander was certainly intrigued by the claim.

"Oh? How?" He thus could not help but crane his head in eagerness, remembering the naked hatred that old lord had displayed towards that lady of the Margraves family.

And with Alexander hooked, Lady Miranda revealed with a nod,

"Yes, Uncle Janus's eldest daughter Miss Naina was Linda's personal maid, tasked with looking after her everyday needs. On one of my father's birthdays, Linda had accidentally broken a vase in his study. An extremely expensive glass vase imported all the way from Tulicia."

"This is a huge taboo here… to break someone's dear possession on their birthday. It signals bad luck for the rest of the year. So Linda was terrified of what father was going to do to her. She would surely have a few layers of skins peeled."

"Thus to escape punishment, she quickly laid the blame on Naina saying she broke it while trying to clean it. And this caused father to fly into a rage that I had never seen before, and in his fury, he violently beat the poor girl, even cracking and breaking a few of her bones."

"And even after that he was not done. Instead of letting the battered girl go see a doctor, he instead made her stand the whole night outside entirely naked on the cold December night! This was too much for her and Naina was dead by the time the sun rose."

Lady Miranda slightly teared up as she said this, while Alexander suddenly felt a lot less sympathy for her deceased father.

Given that he just beat a little girl to death over an inconsequential vase, Alexander felt that the man kind of deserved to have his navy destroyed and bloodline cut off, plummeting to the depths with all his sons and even grandsons.

If gods did truly exist, they had done the right thing.

As for Alexnader's feelings towards Miss Linda, they too were affected, as he began to increasingly see that working with her might indeed not be viable.

Conflict seemed more and more likely.