Luido's True Value Becomes Clear

Just as we were all wondering what to do, Alexia clapped her hands and dispersed that atmosphere.

"Shouldn't we see it as room for growth?"

"That's true. If they've managed up until now with this much land under haphazard management, with everyone doing their own thing, we just need to properly intervene. That said, I'd like to hire some people."

"We'd be defeating the purpose if we have to be here constantly."

"Right. I want you all doing things with more added value… ideally, I'd like to get it to where we only need to check in once a year. If I'm too involved, it'll probably sap their motivation."

The tenant farmers weren't unmotivated. Rather, they would definitely work hard if it meant more profit.

With accurate numbers and proper guidelines, there shouldn't be any problems.

Getting too involved would sap their enthusiasm, same as anywhere.

Delegation creates discretion, which leads to motivation.

… That said, the previous managers went too far. Complete laissez-faire wasn't good either.

Managing the entire process would be difficult, but anyone with a bit of education could handle number-checking.

I'd like to hire someone like that from within Luido.

For now, we finished what could be done today.

We decided to have pizza baked in a kiln for our meal.

"The dough is delicious."

"It's just different flour, but it makes such a difference."

The dough was made with flour I'd bought, topped simply with cheese, salami, herbs, and sauce. The dough itself was incredibly good.

Incidentally, Finn was struggling with the endlessly stretchy cheese and nearly dropped some on her clothes.

Azu was eating skillfully.

Selling this pizza when advertising Luido's flour might be interesting.

If I supplied it to the inn I'd entrusted to Kazusa, the food would become well-regarded.

It was definitely wasteful to only grow the bare minimum quota.

Over the following days, I gathered information by talking with the townspeople.

If I only gathered information from the tenant farmers, they'd likely only tell me what was convenient for them.

Apparently, the people of Luido thought their flour was ordinary.

Probably because they'd never had a chance to compare it with others.

When I had them try bread from Kassad, their expressions were disbelieving.

The crops here were delicious.

As for educated people, there were surprisingly many.

There was apparently a private school that some craftsmen's children attended.

It seemed hardly any children of farming families did.

When I gathered young people of working age who had no jobs and were helping with their parents' work, I got positive responses.

With proper training, they should reach the necessary level.

Until then, we couldn't leave Luido, but it couldn't be helped.

"Grow more wheat, huh."

"We're growing what we're told to, but it doesn't make much money."

"There's no need to worry about that. In the first place, you don't sell much elsewhere, right? Haven't traveling merchants been asking you to sell to them?"

"That has happened, but the scale was small."

It seemed mainly small-scale peddlers came to Luido.

Livestock was apparently more active, but crops lacked momentum.

This was probably because the surrounding trade networks hadn't developed much.

Dealings were mainly with the Royal Capital, with the rest being whatever profitable crops they grew and sold randomly.

Even if you wanted to buy in bulk, there were no routes, and no goods.

If we could fix this, it would definitely make money.

This was becoming work beyond what a merchant with just a small shop should be doing, but if we didn't do it, it would become work that took all effort for nothing.

That wasn't acceptable. I wanted earnings that matched the effort, at least.

For now, I instructed the tenant farmers not to leave fields fallow and to grow wheat.

"All wheat is impossible. The land will die."

"Crop rotation issues."

"Right. We'll prioritize wheat like you said, but we'll have to plant turnips and other things in between, then barley."

"I have no choice but to leave that to the professionals."

In discussions about future plans, it was decided they would stop planting other crops during wheat season and focus on wheat.

That meant at least no issues with the quota.

How to sell the surplus would be the challenge.

I wanted to send some to my shop in the meantime to spread the word.

Apparently, they fermented all the barley within Luido.

Selling that to the Royal Capital and converting it to money was the most profitable thing here.

So "profitable crops" meant barley…

The liquor in particular was apparently very popular.

"Hey, wouldn't it work if we just had a proper shop in the Royal Capital? From what I hear, everyone's going to sell there separately."

"They're probably getting lowballed."

Alexia and Elza made good points.

No, they were definitely selling below the true value.

They were farmers, not merchants.

I could easily imagine them selling cheap because they wanted to convert to cash as quickly as possible.

And that's exactly what was happening.

When I had them let me taste various things as a test, the quality was good enough to find buyers immediately at the proper price.

I quickly gathered the representatives.

This needed to be done city-wide. I explained that doing it individually meant they'd never make money.

Their argument was that they didn't want to lose manpower trying to sell at higher prices, and they couldn't afford unsold stock.

So I proposed that we buy up all the processed goods in bulk and sell them.

By consolidating, we could reduce costs while securing volume.

"Are you sure you can handle that?"

"Honestly, it's tough. Given the volume, I'll probably have to pass it on to a large merchant house at a slight discount from the proper price. But the reputation in the Royal Capital seems good."

Even so, it would be much better prices than selling separately, and we'd get our margin too.

I was starting to realize how difficult it was to be involved in a city's industry.

This was a scale the Yohane from before meeting Azu and the others couldn't possibly have handled.

More money going out, but also more coming in.

I felt like I might get a hole in my stomach, but at the same time, an indescribable thrill was welling up.