The Damn Family Is Back Again

181. The Second Agent (2)

Daik and Frikte returned.

The guards who had come to meet them stood up, turning their attention to the sound of footsteps approaching.

But the fellow guards had already vaguely guessed the outcome.

Working in the same profession, encountering each other everywhere within the same domain. After work, entering the lodging and sharing meals goes without saying.

Bitterly, even the sound of their footsteps lacked brightness.

Their trudging steps, predictably, pointed to yet another obvious failure.

Noticing the mood, Dyke spoke up.

“Don’t worry. The year isn’t over yet, is it?”

“Right. There’s no need to be so down just because a few days have passed. Let’s wait a little longer.”

From noble mtl dot come

With Dyke’s effort to lift the spirits, Fricht also chimed in agreement.

But they couldn’t be blindly optimistic either.

“It’s been months like this already. Wait here longer… until when exactly?”

“Hey.”

“I never imagined it would be this hard to find even a bunch of grapes. Has anyone here even seen a single proper one? And strawberries! It’s the same with strawberries. Haven’t you never even seen a strawberry leaf?”

Unable to hold back, someone shouted, and silence fell once again.

Among them, not one had ever seen it. The two specialties of Chatren.

“We came here just to see those. Having come this far, staying for such a long time. Just waiting, necks craned. If it’s going to be like this… rather… rather…!”

-Thump!

As if there was no other choice, Dyke stepped forward and grabbed the arm of the one swept up in impulse.

“If you resort to theft, those people will harbor nothing but distrust towards you. What if the nobles have reserved them? Then you’ll be the only one behind bars.”

“Fricht. But…!”

“Calm down, like Fricht said. The off-season goods were always hard to get. It’s a time when the harvest is scarce.”

“When the peak season comes, production will increase. Then there will be goods for sale. I know you’re anxious, but try to calm down.”

“…Alright.”

The excited colleague managed to quell his excitement.

The fellow guards knew all too well why their colleague was so anxious. They were in the same boat.

But if the fact that they had stolen was discovered, they would be driven out of the village, and the sought-after specialties of Chatren would be taken away again. In short, there would be no turning back.

The two decided to reiterate the conclusion of the conversation they had on their way here to their colleagues once more.

“Don’t get too anxious. Like we said earlier, when the peak season comes, production will significantly increase. And this time, it’s going to increase even more.”

“It’s going to increase more?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. The Chatren domain has said they’ve expanded the land for planting grapes and strawberries. They’ll buy the existing crops from outside.”

“Ah…!”

For the gloomy guards, it was like rain after a drought.

If the number of fields increases, naturally, the yield will too. With the peak season coinciding, this time, there might truly be an abundance of crops left over.

“So, everyone, don’t rush. Got it?”

“Let’s head back!”

The two who had diffused the tense atmosphere.

Thus, the guards returned, carrying a glimmer of hope.

The next day.

A letter arrived for Daik.

However, the contents of the letter were far from ordinary.

“Daik. Your sister has───”

It was news from his hometown that his sister’s illness had worsened.

Daik, who had reassured his colleagues there was no need to hurry, became the most urgent person at that moment.

After finishing his duties, he went unnoticed to where the domain’s residents gathered.

“Hm? Aren’t you one of our domain’s guards─”

“Strawberries. Can’t it be arranged by reservation?”

-Clack.

He sharply interrupted, pushing his purse forward.

The money he had scraped together, both present and absent, spilled out onto the wooden desk.

But the domain resident shook his head.

“Sorry, but it’s not enough. You know well that reserved strawberries cost more.”

The demand for Chatren’s specialty had skyrocketed, and so had its price.

To secure a purchase, one must make a reservation, and even that had to be done in advance due to the frequent touch of nobility.

For such reasons, the already expensive strawberries and grapes had doubled in price.

“…”

“Just wait a bit longer. If there’s any surplus, you’ll be the first I sell to.”

Bitterly, Daik had to walk out of the exchange empty-handed again today.

His hands felt as light as his heart was heavy.

“No. The price will, the price will eventually drop. Yes.”

The peak season was approaching. There was news of field expansion, so surely the prices would fall then. Maybe, even without a reservation, there would be strawberries left over.

Clenching his fist tightly, he tried to soothe his growing anxiety.

Just then.

A man walked out from nearby, step by step.

“The name of the disease afflicting your sister, was it Heketa I?”

“…!”

“It’s a rare and special disease, not well-known. One must gather various ingredients to create a special medicine, and without drinking it, there’s no recovery. It’s not a fatal disease at the onset, but if left untreated, the mortality rate increases over time.”

His hair stood on end.

The disease was so rare that few knew of it.

Yet, this man pinpointed the characteristics of the disease that Daik knew all too well.

“Who are you? How do you know…!”

“The price of strawberries won’t drop as you expect.”

“What… did you say?”

***

Why were the Chatren strawberries necessary?

They were needed for the medicine for his sister, who was suffering from a disease back in his hometown.

Daik’s sister, who had been ill for about a year, contracted a special disease. This disease required a special medicine, which couldn’t be made with ordinary methods.

The biggest obstacle for Heketa I was the Chatren strawberry.

He had gathered almost all the other ingredients, but it was that one item, the Chatren strawberry, that thwarted him, preventing the completion of the medicine.

Due to a severe crop failure, Chatren strawberries became scarce. He had traveled to the local area to find them, and in desperation to acquire them quickly, he resigned from his original security position and took on a much lower-valued security job in Chatren.

All this, just to get the Chatren strawberries.

But now, the price was going to rise even more?

The cost of the strawberries needed to cure his sister’s disease?

“What are you talking about?”

“The demand for Chatren strawberries is steadily increasing. If you check the selling price statistically, you’ll see it’s been rising continuously, despite the harvest amount remaining unchanged. The buying frequency and reservation times are getting shorter, which confirms the statistics.”

“But…! They said they would increase the planting amount this time! Then there would be surplus, and the price should drop, right?!”

“That’s not the case.”

From the darkness, he answered decisively, cutting off the conversation.

“Chatren strawberries and Chatren grapes. Their main clientele are none other than the nobility.”

“…!”

“Even though the price is skyrocketing, and the quality is dropping with reduced supply, the purchase timing hasn’t changed. That means, only those who can afford such prices are buying. The strawberries have become a crop that commoners can no longer afford to eat.”

“Is that… even possible…”

Daik collapsed with a thud.

Yes. Perhaps he had already known the truth.

He had been guarding Chatren for over a year now. Compared to the other guards, Daik had stayed the longest in Chatren, allowing him to vaguely notice the oddities.

The fact that you could only buy with a reservation.

And that absurd price being the reservation fee.

It all made sense if the sellers were of the noble class.

Just as the man in the darkness was saying.

Chatren’s specialties had become premium products for the nobility.

-Crack.

“No. It can’t be! That’s impossible!”

But he couldn’t accept it.

Did he understand what it meant not to find the last ingredient for the medicine?

To just accept his sister’s death?

“I…! I’ve been in Chatren for a year, so I know. This time, the price will surely drop…!”

But it was not possible.

As an older brother to his sister.

“I get it. It’s hard to accept. I can’t really empathize since I’ve never felt that way about my family.”

-Swish.

As the man fully emerged from the darkness and took off his hood, Daik’s eyes widened.

“You are…!”

The man who had been appointed as the current lord of Chatren after passing the 21st Eastern Nobility Conference test, and who had also been the lord of Chatren in the past.

Karsein Bagrand.

He stood before him.

“I’ll give you a few days. You can see for yourself whether the prices rise or not. However.”

-Thump!

“Whoa!”

“If you change your mind, come to the place written here anytime.”

After throwing a small notebook to Daik, Karsein left those words behind and departed.

In the notebook, there were detailed statistics and graphs showing the price fluctuations of Chatren strawberries and Chatren grapes over time.

And there was a gap in the notebook that particularly opened well.

As I slyly pried it open, a paper with a map sketched on it peeked out.

“Really… did he investigate all of this?”

Daik, with a puzzled look, gazed at the alley where Karsein had disappeared.

It’s Karsein.

Among the nobles, he’s known not as a noble but by many other labels, that Karsein.

The very Karsein who directly caused the ‘Disgrace of Chatren,’ bringing about a massive famine to this land.

I had no doubt that any investigation he’d conduct would be half-hearted, shoddy, and filled with unreliable data.

But the contents of this notebook were anything but.

***

-Ding!

▶Sub Episode. Agent: Daik has been accepted.◀

▶Fully persuade Daik to accept him as an agent.◀

-Ding!

▶A preceding event has been discovered and executed.◀

▶Daik’s affinity has increased.◀

[ Current Value: -11% ]

‘-11%?’

When I first took on a sub-episode in the game, the number was much lower than this.

‘…to think that this one event, starting from Ferdi’s ability, would close a 10% gap.’

Originally, Daik was an agent who could only be accepted towards the end of the third week, after spending the entire second week.

Considering the time spent, it would take an enormous amount of time just to raise affinity, but this narrowing gap means that the starting point has been significantly advanced.

“Should I head back first?”

Now that it’s certain this has taken hold, there’s much to do.

To recruit Daik as the second agent as soon as possible, considerable preparation is needed.

More meticulous analysis and tighter statistics are required.

In this era, lagging behind the modern times.

To prepare those and to set up countermeasures that exhaust the enemy by triggering traps in advance, time is sorely lacking.

It seems I’ll have to work late into the night, inevitably facing nagging. The persistent nagging of my fiancée.

“But, if I sneak out, that should do, right?”

She must have returned to her own domain by now, needing a soil comparison group.

It should be fine. Sneaking around all night.