Published: August 10, 2026
The following week, the cargo brought back from Ipsandros on the ships was less than half of normal.
According to the purchasing staff, he had walked through the shopping district of Ips to buy supplies as usual, but every shop was sold out of everything except food. He had even gone straight to the workshops of familiar craftsmen, but there was still no stock. A merchant said to have come from Oracle had bought everything up at several times the usual price.
When the purchasing staff blamed them for not setting items aside for Granado Trading Company, the craftsmen of Ips wore bitter expressions.
"We've always appreciated Granado Trading Company's patronage, sure. But we're in business too. We'll sell to whoever pays more. We've got no reason to be blamed for that."
The purchasing staff then headed out to the suburbs. It was once a ruined town, but Granado Trading Company had invested in it and helped revitalize it as an industrial district. Naturally, they should have been stockpiling goods there, with the intention of delivering products only to Granado Trading Company.
And yet even there, the results were poor. They managed to secure some stock for now, but the person in charge, Ogran, apparently had a troubled look on his face.
"...We can't get materials. I checked every raw silk wholesaler in Ips, but everywhere says they're running low on stock, and they'll only sell at outrageous prices. At this rate, no matter how many hands we have, we can't make textiles. We're going to lose our jobs again..."
――Please do something, the letter from him said.
"Textile materials... cotton and silk..."
Lord Cyrus muttered in a bitter voice, pressing his fingers to his forehead and falling silent.
"...For now, let's send funds to the factory district in Ips. Even if the price is 'outrageous,' buy the materials and keep the factories running."
"Where are the wholesalers in Ips getting their supplies?"
When I asked that, Lord Cyrus shook his head. He didn't seem to know that far.
I nodded and stood up.
"Maybe there are records in the castle library. I'll look into it."
"...Ah... There may have been something wrong at the production source. It would be worth making contact with them."
Before Lord Cyrus had even finished speaking, I was already running.
I felt like there was no time.
Ogran, the factory district manager in Ips, was still young, but he was an intelligent and strong-willed boy. And he was the one who had complained. He was asking us for help. The situation on the ground might be worse than the reports made it seem.
From that day on, I locked myself in the library and researched the history of trade in Ipsandros, and where Ips was actually "buying" from.
Ipsandros is on the western edge of the Eastern Continent. So normally, the supplier would be to the east, Shaina. Going on that assumption, I searched further and, as expected, it seemed they were importing huge amounts of materials from Shaina.
And if that wasn't reaching Ips, then that meant stocks were being drained at the Shaina side...
...If there hadn't been any disaster there in recent years... could it be that someone was buying everything up in Shaina?
That's ridiculous!
I hurried to Lord Cyrus's room, carrying several books.
"――That's ridiculous!"
As expected, Lord Cyrus had the same reaction.
"...Right? I mean, to buy up the products of Shaina, the great eastern nation, you'd need funding on the scale of a national budget and warehouses the size of an entire city..."
"There's no way Hadwell could do that. Not even Granado Trading Company, no, not even the Dilz Royal Family could manage it."
Right, I nodded again.
Ashamed of having made such an off-base guess, I closed the books.
Hadwell Trading Company couldn't possibly do something like that. The only one who could――if anyone could――would be――
"...Oracle Kingdom..."
Lord Cyrus murmured softly.
If one were to describe Oracle in a single phrase, it would be "a clever country."
First of all, scholarship is flourishing there. They provide education to all citizens, including farmers in the suburbs, and the literacy rate is said to exceed eighty percent. Talented people are sent abroad on the nation's support regardless of status, while scholars from other countries are invited in and hired as lecturers at universities. Thanks to that, their science, economy, and medical technology are the most advanced in the world.