And so, the return festival ended in great success

And so, the return festival ended in great success.

One of the reasons for that was receiving the quasi-artifact "Foot-Pedaling Harvest" as a reward.

"Man, the festival was so much fun!"

"By the way, Karina-oneesan. As a merchant, how much did you make this time?"

"… Aaaaaah!? Now that you mention it, I didn't do any business at all…!!"

The festival was supposed to be prime earning time for a merchant!

"… I was so busy with the organizational side of things and pampering the Five Elders that it completely slipped my mind…!"

"Good work out there."

Ugh. The name Karina Shounin weeps…

So anyway, even though I failed to make money at the festival, I figured I might as well use the Five Elders' power to earn some cash.

Since the Five Elders, meaning the top leaders of the country, have become my local wives, I have quite a bit of clout.

If I ask for something, the Five Elders will make it happen for me.

That said, I can't ask for anything too outrageous.

The Divine Artifact return this time was fortunately a reasonable request they could grant, but if I'd asked them to make all of Tessin's dwarf girls my wives and create a super harem, that would've been absolutely impossible.

Getting them to cover up serious crimes would also probably be best avoided.

It's not that they couldn't do it, but it'd be a waste of political capital. It would diminish the Five Elders' power, or rather, their authority.

There are also areas beyond their reach when it comes to cross-national organizations like the Guilds.

For example, liquor licenses.

Apparently Tessin has already issued the maximum number allowed as a nation, so getting a new one issued to me wouldn't be simple.

Even when existing license holders retire due to unfortunate circumstances, there's a long line of people waiting.

Well, cutting in line might be possible, but…

I really don't want to pull that kind of underhanded move on people who are seriously doing the liquor business.

I'm the kind of girl who respects her senpais, you know.

So I limited my requests to having Mie-chan and the others buy up all my goods, and getting introduced to quality drinks from quality breweries.

They bought everything at a generously marked-up price, so my funds are now two gold coins!

That's equivalent to two million yen in Japanese currency! (According to Karina-chan's research.)

Now, alcohol trading is basically in a gray zone in Tessin, and fire liquor still counts as alcohol, so it needs to stay within the bounds of personal transactions, but—

Amazingly, the ridiculous logic of "the Five Elders drink so much that no matter how much you buy, it counts as a personal transaction" actually works!! Yes, if you have power!!!

Now then, give me as much fire liquor as I can buy with my full merchant power—two gold coins!!

… Huh? This amount is totally normal since plenty of regular dwarves drink this much, so I don't even need that excuse?

O-oh. Is that so.

(Also, I got a 10% discount for being referred.)

Hmm, well, I managed to clear out my miscellaneous inventory, and if I wholesale the fire liquor to a Merchants' Guild in another country it'll apparently net me three gold coins, so I guess you could say I made a profit?

Yeah.

… It's kind of hard to feel satisfied though?