Chapter 200 – 200. Negotiation Table (3)
“Hmm… What good Miss Cecilia.”
“Yes.”
Along with Cecilia, who appeared in response to Alex’s call, the butlers following her brought dozens of wooden boxes.
Before long, the wooden boxes were piled up in front of Alex.
“Professor Cecilia… ?”
“Cecilia was of great help in improving Manastream’s cure at the workshop run by our duke’s family. Thanks to this, it is possible to produce a large amount with a small amount of materials. The effect could of course be verified.”
Here, the impact of Cecilia, currently the most talented alchemy professor in the Kingdom of Pernias, participating in the development and directly notarizing the efficacy of the drug was insignificant.
At the same time, her trust rises at once, and at the same time, she is encouraging the judgment of the nobles even more urgently.
“…”
“I will sell one cure for 5 gold coins.”
“Five gold coins…”
To be honest, from the point of view of nobles, it is not that burdensome amount.
However, many of them had already been exposed to Renion Hersha’s embezzlement and had to pay an enormous amount of fines to the kingdom, so it was true that it was burdensome to abuse their property recklessly.
Nevertheless, the nobleman, who prioritized the idea of saving his son, took the money bag from his chest and presented it to Alex.
“Three months worth.”
At Alex’s short words, the butler who was waiting next to him carried three boxes and put the money bag in front of the nobleman, and Alex replied with a smile.
“I hope your son gets better.”
“Big… !”
The nobleman who had knelt immediately got up from his seat and ordered his servants to carry the box.
It was a very rude attitude to leave the mansion without a word of greeting with a humiliated expression, but Alex rather made a satisfied expression with such a noble’s reaction.
Soon, he looked at the remaining nine nobles and opened his mouth again.
“Six gold coins.”
“Uh… Chop!”
“Demand remains the same and inventory is down. And now that we’re only going to sell to four people, isn’t it natural?”
The aristocrats gritted their teeth at Alex’s attitude of calmly asking for the obvious.
Eventually, four other nobles knelt down in front of Alex, bought a cure, and hurriedly left the mansion. The remaining nobles in the central hall were only five who did not bend their pride in front of Alex until the end.
“Now, all the five people who first announced are gone.”
“The medicine… Isn’t it still left…”
“Iknow, right. I am truly amazed by the will of all of you who have not yet given up your pride.”
“The cheeky bastard…”
Count Orba gritted his teeth at Alex’s attitude of making fun of him.
“We have more stock left than expected. I will just sell it.”
“… What?”
“It is my heart that I offer this in admiration for not yielding to the end. Instead, it is 15 gold coins each.”
“Keugh…”
In the end, even Count Orba took out a purse from his bosom and handed the money to Alex with trembling hands.
The nobles, who bought the remaining stock of medicines at the highest price, left the mansion, using the thin self-consolation that they had preserved their pride like the nobles before them until the end.
“Count Orpah. Do you know who is responsible for developing the cure?”
“… What?”
And finally, when Count Orba was about to leave the mansion, Alex opened his mouth and spoke to Count Orba.
Count Orba, who was about to open the door of the mansion opened by the count’s attendants, looked back with his eyebrows twitching.
He immediately looked at Cecilia standing next to Alex, but Cecilia had a very calm expression.
As a matter of course, Cecilia was not the one who developed this cure.
She was said to have helped to improve her.
In the first place, it was none other than Count Orba and other high-ranking nobles who encouraged Cecilia, who was engaged in alchemy and cared for patients, and sent her to the dukedom so that the cure would be monopolized to the high-ranking nobles of Pernin who desperately needed the cure.
Someone from the Duchy of Armitas who developed a special potion that cures the symptoms of Manastream poisoning.
Earl Orba didn’t know why Alex was bringing up the name of the cure’s developer at this timing.
“This time my brother-in-law developed it.”
“That… Keugh!”
Speaking of Alex’s brother-in-law, he is the husband of his sister, Eleanor.
He was the most talked about and noisy man in Pernin, and at the same time as the news of Eleanor and her planned marriage, it was because he was the man who would become the husband of the Black Witch.
And remembering the unfortunate incident between him and Eun-hyeon, he distorted his face.
The fact that his own son, Villa de Orba, kidnapped and tried to rape a girl named Erin, who was being protected by Eun-hyeon, was a disgrace to Count Orba’s family, which only a few knew about except for his party.
“That guy…”
Realizing that the source of the medicine he had already purchased was Eun-hyeon, Count Orba, whose pride was hurt, clenched his fists and trembled.
“You don’t have to tell me why I am revealing the existence of this Eun Hyun.”
“…”
This isn’t just a warning to the royalist aristocrats that the dukes, including Alex, drew the sword against them.
A very personal message from Eunhyeon to Count Orba.
– Can you? Try it, once. By mobilizing all the power, money, and force you have.
The power, wealth, and power that you have.
Eun-hyeon is not even a citizen of Pernias, let alone a noble.
However, as he became the son-in-law of the duke’s family, he had virtually no position or power.
The ability to develop and sell a cure, and the financial power to pay 200 platinum coins in a lump sum without hesitation for Ashton’s embezzlement at the court meeting hall.
I even personally experienced armed forces to the extent that I felt the threat to my life once.
“Big… !”
Count Orba contorted his face as he realized that neither power, wealth, nor force had the upper hand.
The true value of the man who had nothing from the beginning and thought he was just a pathetic man living like a pillar west by clinging to a witch made Count Orba feel miserable and crushed his pride.
Count Orba remembered the words of warning Eunhyeon had given him in the past.
– Count, this is a warning. If you’re going to fight, come on foot. I will accept you. And, I don’t want your son to apologize for trying to hurt Erin forever. But at least don’t block my child’s path. At least I hope you don’t even come close to Erin. Do you know?
The reason why Alex dared to reveal to Count Orba that the developer of the cure was Eun-hyeon was nothing more than an extension of this warning.
A warning that if Erinn or the duke’s family were touched one more time, he would not be tolerated.
“By the way, they also asked me to tell them that this is just the beginning.”
“…”
Count Orba left the ducal residence without saying anything.
After the negotiations with the aristocrats were all over, Cecilia put on a complicated expression as she stared at the table topped with an enormous amount of gold coins.
“With this… Was it really okay? With human life…”
“It is the property of those nobles that suffers. It’s not people’s lives.”
Alex quietly leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Before long, he muttered, thinking of Eun-hyun, who was already at Perninro.
“Next, please…”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Shit! Cheeky bastard! With the status of a small duke and believing in the cure, dare you humiliate me like this!?”
Count Orba, who could not hold back his anger and returned to his mansion with a huff, took a deep breath to calm his mood and thought slowly.
“Are you okay. There are many nobles who need this cure. If Villar’s condition improves and there is room for the amount of cure, you can sell it for 16 or 17 gold coins to make up for the loss.”
Alex noted that he’s been able to do a lot of production with less.
That means that sooner or later, a cure will be released for Pernin.
Before the supply was released and the supply stabilized, the reason why he deliberately sought a large amount of medicines was to treat his son, Billard, of course, but in addition to that, he said that he was selling the medicines he had purchased in large quantities to other nobles in Pernin. There was also a target.
In Pernin, there are still many aristocratic children who are not cured of drug addiction because there is no cure.
Demand is still there.
It was a very painful loss, as he used more than half of his property for the purchase of the cure, but he could make up for that loss if he sold it to other nobles at a higher price.
First of all, if you send a communication to the nobles who bought the cure at the price of 5 gold coins each before you and persuade them to buy all the remaining cures after using them for 10 gold coins, you will monopolize the supply of more cures. It is much easier to control the price you want.
Until the cure was mass-produced and spread to Pernin, he was convinced that if he sold as many cures as possible at high prices, the current painful expenditure would surely bring great profits.
“Stupid bastard. In the end, they even dabbled in drugs!?”
Count Orba, who had calmed his mood a little, suddenly remembered his son, the culprit of the situation, and became angry again.
At the previous court meeting, she recalled the memory of tasting the threat and humiliation she had suffered from Eun-hyeon because of the fact that her son, Billard, tried to rape Erin.
After curing his drug addiction with a cure, Count Orba took his steps, determined to re-educate him.
“Honey! Why are you here now!”
“… What happened?”
Seeing his wife look very happy, Count Orba made a puzzled expression.
“I’ve been looking for a drug to cure Billard’s drug addiction! Now, after eating it, Billard fell asleep, and the doctor says he’s getting better!”
Count Orba, who stopped his steps at the good news from his wife, looked at his wife with his bug-bitten face and asked.
“… Did you say you got some medicine?”
“Yes? Yes. Not only us, but merchants from the dukedom are now distributing the cure, so all the doctors who purchased the cure are stepping up to treat the patients.”
Count Orba’s face hardened as the image was drawn more and more vividly in his head.
“How on earth… ?”
Didn’t he sell all the cures to nobles from the royalist faction, including himself?
What made me even more curious was how the heck was able to circulate the cures in Pernin in such a short period of time.
It was very embarrassing news for Count Orba, who did not know the existence of a means of transportation through the gate that was not restricted by distance and time.
Earl Orba, who woke up with the shock of being hit on the head with his hammer, asked his wife, drawing ominous images in his head.
“The price of one cure… How much was it?”
“Yes? It was one gold coin each?”
Realizing that Per Nin already had a lot of supplies for one gold coin, his hardened face gradually contorted with anger.
If the cure is being supplied in a stable quantity at a reasonable price, it is only natural that no one would buy it if they tried to sell the monopoly cure at a higher price by buying it in bulk at an expensive price of 15 gold coins.
In the end, the trip to the duke’s family, enticed by the letter, was a trap deliberately drawn in so that Pernin’s situation could not be grasped.
They realize belatedly that the fact that they bought at more than 5 times the price with pride and bending their knees, or bought at 15 times the price inflated without bending their pride to the end, was a trick to completely fool them and feed them a large taffy.
The fact that more than half of the entire wealth of his family was beaten and ripped off by the duke’s family in a futile way.
It’s not enough to deliberately make the nobles kneel down and submit, and after brutally crushing the pride they had, they feel insulted as if they were hit hard in the back of the head.
Eventually, Count Orba remembered the faces of Eunhyeon and Alex, who were laughing at him thinking of him in the duchy.
“This… You son of a bitch!”
