The Gene of the Ancients (Rogue Merchant Book #2): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (top books to read TXT) 📕

just bought and moved from the Bazaar eight hundred sets of rare, “blue” armor just for that — to fill up the storage facilities of Condor.

Overall, before my coming, the process of supplying the clan was fair to middling. For the last few months, Green had been seriously slacking off. The clan warehouses were in chaos. Damian, one of the Keepers, occasionally tried to sort them out, as he had been chosen by the Council for that thankless task. I couldn’t say that the Condor vaults were empty. Indeed, they were full of junk: loot, various crafted items, ore, bullions, and other stuff. What was lacking were various consumables. Having rolled up my sleeves and obtained the Council’s blessing, I set to cleaning the Augean stables. The optimization took up almost two weeks and ten trips to the Bazaar and back. Over that period, I had also pulled off my personal trade battles with the Reds and arranged the attacks on the Eyrian borderlands.

But now, I was finally content. Scrolls, elixirs, potions, ritual ingredients, Growth Techniques, Skillbooks, armor and weapons — the castle storage was stuffed to the brim with everything listed by Damian. The order was immaculate, too: all items were sorted by type and by properties. The Watchers could start an all-out war without a single worry about supplies: that stock was enough for seven or eight mass raids. Merciless sale of old stuff brought us a lot of money, and six-digit numbers appeared in the clan accounts.

Noticing how savvy I was with this whole deal, the other clans of Northern Alliance started making orders with me, too, as trade wasn’t exactly their strong suit. It made sense, as the very concept of PvP-oriented clans was at odds with developing the Trade skill. There weren’t any local traders there, either, as people didn’t hold it in high regard — and too bad. Money ruled the world, both this one and the other one.

As for Cat... Well, Cat was always ready to help, especially for a small percentage. The leadership of the clan should be happy with me — the results, as they say, were there for all to see.

The week of terrorizing trade routes bore fruits, too. Dozens of caravans had been destroyed, and hundreds of kills had appeared in the kill rating, glowing vicious red, with loot worth more than half a million. The cherry on top was a downed astral nave, a monstrous overtonnaged vessel that had risked the life and limb of its sailors to take the cargo from the region I had targeted. Gossip spread in an instant. Fish of that size didn’t swim often in our waters, and even in the whole of Sphere, astral naves weren’t destroyed every day. The best thing, however, was that no captain of a flying ship would dare wander into such an infamous place anymore.

Quite right, too. Why would I need competition?

As I finished typing the letter to be mass-mailed to the alliance, informing them of new terms and regulations of the logistics, I thoughtfully re-read it and then, forwarded it to Alex, so he could check it with fresh eyes.

“Hmm. An interesting plan. I think it’s quite easy to understand,” he said. “I have only one question: how did you get Komtur to agree to that?”

* * *

 

“...I don’t even know what to do with you. Do you even realize that you’ve placed the reputation of the whole clan into jeopardy? The Watchers’ honor?”

I chose to keep quiet. Reputation, honor, integrity — those were melodramatic words that had nothing to do with business. Still, arguing was pointless. Komtur, to whom I was now talking one-on-one, was more than a little bit furious. He also seemed determined to give me a good dressing-down. I understood him well; he had to show who ran the house. A cat might look at a king, but Cat certainly had no right to look down on his clan leader.

“If push comes to shove, and the truth comes to light, no tenant will want anything to do with us,” Komtur said flatly. “Can you even imagine the money we could lose?”

I could. Around a million and a half of net profit for the Watchers only. Half of those funds was spent on the upkeep and development of the clan, while the rest of the money got moved around to the clan accounts I had no access to, some of it going into storage, and some of it most likely converted into real life by the Council. Aside from that income, the Watchers had other contributing sources, even if smaller ones: a mithril mine in their own province, a dribble of masterwork items crafted by clan artisans, and the epics deposited into the clan warehouse. Still, rent was by far the biggest factor.

However, Komtur was overdoing it. The carebears had nowhere to run. Implementing my plan required assistance from certain members of the Council of Keepers, or it would fail. I was able to bring Olaf and Abel over to my side. Both of them in unison claimed that our alliance had the best conditions for carebears in all of Dorsa, if not Sphere itself. The north was carebear heaven: lots of space, nobody to push them around, great loot, and in-demand resources. Therefore, Komtur’s words were all bluster, intended to impress me. Nobody would move away for ten or fifteen percent of the Bazaar’s price, while many would, in fact, be glad if we took logistics and selling off their hands.

“So here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll kick you out for good and start killing your buddies at resp points, slowly and painfully,” said Komtur, squinting. “How long do you think they’ll last without you feeding them information?”

“Go on, then. It’s your right,” I nodded. “But you won’t touch the guys.”

“Really? And why’s that?”

“You owe me. For those hundred souls, remember? One