By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 10 - Chapter 6

Chapter 7, Episode 6: Skirmish of the Rich

At the front of the grand conference room stood a podium and a blackboard, with rows of desks and chairs before them to accommodate the crowd, like for students in a classroom.

Once all the attendees were seated, the man who had formally commenced the meeting took his place behind the podium. “Thank you for sharing your precious time with us today. My name is Wanz, and I am the organizer of this conference. I am not as experienced as most of you, but I’ll try to conduct a productive meeting.”

Applause rang out from the crowd.

“Thank you. Let me begin with this question—how do you feel about the safety of our city?” With that question, he began his speech emphasizing how desperately the city required our coordinated action.

The speech was met with occasional moments of resistance.

“The city guards know what they’re doing. I’ve heard they’ve increased their numbers and reinforced patrols.”

“I have heard the same, and I do not dispute the competency of our city guards. But let me be clear! Those measures were taken by the guards because their numbers were insufficient to prevent the crimes now ravaging our streets!”

“Well...”

“The increase in patrolling guards is a desperate measure to counteract the rise in crime. As a result, there are more and more cases where perpetrators get away or take down guards because the new recruits are not trained adequately. They are trying their best, I’m sure. But their best efforts cannot erase the fact that more and more of the guards tasked with protecting our city are becoming victims. Can you be so sure that we will all be safe in their hands? Can you put your full trust in the guards as they are today?”

“B-But—”

“But, nothing! When the unthinkable happens, when the trust in them is betrayed, it could be you or your loved ones who suffer the consequences.”

Any criticism or opposition was quickly silenced by Wanz, in a manner which left the attendees quite intimidated.

I had a similar thought process of considering the worst-case scenario; maybe that helped me feel a strong sense of revulsion to Wanz, despite following his logic. When I tried to dissect that feeling, I found a critical difference between Wanz and myself. While I couldn’t help but think about the worst-case scenario and always prepared my best for it, I never felt the need to push my fear onto others. On the other hand, Wanz, under the pretense of an impassioned plea for us to recognize the situation and prepare accordingly, seemed to be fanning fear in the attendees by painting vivid portraits of the slippery slope that could come of not listening to him.

“Just this year, I was finally approved by my mentor to open my own shop—a young bird fresh out of his nest, now in the unfamiliar city of Gimul. Unfortunately, I am not a man with the necessary trust to just sit back and put my own life in the hands of the city guards. My business took a lot of work to open, and the changes in our city have given me many sleepless nights; no doubt they have done the same for you as well.”

“He does have a point; crime is definitely a problem.”

“I agree that we can’t just sit on our hands and do nothing.”

Throughout his speech, Wanz made sure to paint himself as “one of us,” while expressing concern for the city. Every time a sympathetic comment came from the crowd, more and more people seemed to buy into Wanz’s speech.

The way he played on the fear of the attendees brought to mind the tactics used by con men. I was beginning to recognize the air in the conference room. This gathering was a mere formality, being used to repackage something that had already been rendered a fait accompli by committee. Despite this ostensibly being a conference, there was no opportunity to share new ideas or have any actual discussion. Anyone who dared question Wanz was silenced or ridiculed. They may as well have just sent us all a letter instead.

Laying down the groundwork was important for any endeavor, but this conference was following a script. There was no doubt in my mind that the first few people who jumped to agree with or defend Wanz were doing so on his pay. Wanz had fed their fears, and he could steer the room in whatever direction they wanted him to. The more I thought about it, the more red flags I could see spring up. The increase in crime was already rumored to have been instigated by a group of nobles. If Wanz and his lackeys were involved in the crime spike, was this conference a trap? What were they going to force us into under the guise of “cooperation?”

“In these challenging times, us local merchants would do well to keep together and get through it all!”

Applause rang out, this time much more enthusiastically than before.

“Carme,” I whispered.

“Yes?”

“Sorry about this.”

“What?”

Leaving Carme confused, I raised my hand. “If I may.”

The eyes of the attendees focused on me, but it took some time for Wanz to spot me in the back row.

“Uh, who is it, back there...? I can’t see your face, I’m afraid.”

“My name is Ryoma Takebayashi. I run a laundry shop called Bamboo Forest on the west side, near the residential area.”

“Thank you! Even I am aware of your reputation as a young, talented business owner. I apologize for not recognizing you sooner.” The friendly smile and apology drew a trickle of sympathetic laughter from the crowd.

“I wouldn’t blame you. After all, I’m a kid surrounded by grown-ups here.”

“I appreciate that. Did you have a question?”

“Yes. I’d like to thank you for holding this conference. I only just opened my shop last spring, so I’ve been listening with great interest. Being a new face in Gimul myself, I don’t have much connection with other shopkeepers here, so I was looking forward to the opportunity to meet those of you with more experience. Naturally, I have my own concerns about the city’s safety, so I was hoping to strengthen bonds within our community and work together to combat the issue.”

That much, at least, was true. I hadn’t met many other shop owners in Gimul, and I wanted to build a good relationship with the community. You could probably chalk that up to me being Japanese in my past life; striving for harmony among people was part of my culture.

“Wonderful! I’m sure you—”

“So I must ask you something! You say that we must keep together to fight back against crime, but how exactly are we meant to do so?”

For a very brief instant, Wanz’s smile faded. If I hadn’t been watching his expression carefully, I likely wouldn’t have noticed at all. Would my normal self have picked up on that? I couldn’t say for sure.

“Of course! A natural question to ask. Excuse me.” Wanz went on with his speech, more so working on the crowd than answering me directly. He was only mixing some ideas that sounded like solutions (exchanging information, frequent communication, nighttime patrols, self-defense classes, training seminars for employees, etc.) with comments that exploited the pride and sense of responsibility in the attendees like, “We can no longer rely on the guards!” The four or five plants in the crowd took turns chiming in with approvals.

“Those are my suggestions,” Wanz concluded. “What do you all think?”

“Absolutely bril—”

“Worthless,” I loudly stated, cutting off the man who leapt to agree with Wanz. The conference room froze, and I even felt animosity from some of the attendees.

“Worthless? Whatever do you mean, Ryoma?”

“I mean what I said. Your suggestions will only prove effective in the long term. In the short term, they are next to worthless.”

“Of course, their effects will not be immediate. But nothing ventured, nothing gained!”

“Exactly!”

“What’s the point in giving up before you try?”

“I swear, kids nowadays are just...”

As expected, some of the attendees began attacking me. I had to dig my heels in. “Are all of you really that stupid?”

Apparently, the people trying to knock me down weren’t expecting such a blunt insult.

“Sir?!”

“Shut up, Carme.”

Sorry, Carme, but this really isn’t the time. He always was intuitive, and seemed to pick up on times when I flagrantly broke my character. While he didn’t seem to know where I was going with this, he placed his trust in me all the same.

“We are here because we need an urgent solution to fight crime.”

“Surely any solution is better than nothing!”

“What’s the harm in learning self-defense?”

“Or patrolling the streets?”

I heard a few muttered agreements to my point, but they were promptly drowned out by Wanz’s lapdogs.

“Please, everyone, settle down. I appreciate your enthusiasm, and I’ve heard some good ideas. I do believe patrolling is one of the more immediate solutions that was mentioned, and I don’t see the harm in learning self-defense either.”

“Well, then try doing those if you’re so confident about them. But speaking of self-defense, Wanz, did you not mention yourself that newly recruited guards are inadequately trained and more likely to be overpowered by criminals?”

“Well—”

“It’s a good point. Paying guards to keep us safe is moot if they’re not trained well enough to deal with a criminal packing heat. But now you’re telling merchants like us to learn self-defense while we work our shops and deal with those same criminals? Does anyone seriously believe they could protect themselves that way? I sure don’t. Also, you said that you don’t dispute the competence of our guards. I agree wholeheartedly; my stance on night patrols is no different. I do believe potential witnesses can prevent crimes before they happen. But if the patrol comes across someone suspicious or witnesses a crime, they could be attacked immediately. Just as some criminals may plan to kill during their robbery, some of them may become enraged and try to attack any witnesses. Do you really believe all of us could handle a situation like that? Take a look around.”

The attendees were a mixed bag of men and women, some of them portly, others skinny, and a number of them clearly in their elder years. They were merchants, not fighters. More than half of them probably didn’t even get regular exercise.

“And patrolling at night means poor visibility, with few pedestrians or witnesses outside of the patrol team. Some of you may know that I am also an adventurer. And so, speaking in my capacity as an adventurer...you really have no idea what actual combat is like.”

This world was rife with swords and magic, but these merchants never went outside the city. With guards around practically every corner, they seemed detached from any life-or-death situation. I looked from Wanz’s yes-men to the rest of the attendees, as if to see whether they truly understood how dangerous these “solutions” really were.

While most of them shrunk away from my gaze, a man stood up two rows ahead of me and returned it—Darson. “I understand what you’re saying, Ryoma, but calm down. No one’s going to speak up if you intimidate them like that.”

“What’s there to be intimidated about? I’m just a kid, aren’t I? Plus, they believe they can just take a self-defense class and deal with the criminals themselves, so I don’t see the problem here. The people who haven’t said anything are ready to take up arms and risk the lives of themselves, their families, their employees... Or else kill the attacker. Are any of you ready to do that?”

“You’re no ordinary kid... But when you put it like that...” Darson grimaced and turned to the podium.

“Hey, Wanz. I gotta say, as a former adventurer, Ryoma’s got a point. No matter your intentions, if you get into a fight, it’s survival of the fittest. I got nothing against everyone here learning self-defense tactics, but it’s a bit too optimistic to say that’s enough.”

“Self-defense tactics are designed for limited types of situations, where you have exhausted all other options save to fight for your life. It’s a last resort. You need to keep danger away from yourself. If you’re planning for a fight, that’s not self-defense, that’s just combat training. It’s not the same thing,” I added.

“I see, I see... Yes, we do appreciate the input of adventurers with real-world experience.”

I was starting to see that Wanz maintained his friendly demeanor while he pretended to accept a differing opinion before denouncing it. Guess this wasn’t his first swindle. “In that case, allow me to ask the experts: what do you suggest we do?”

“Yeah, let’s hear it!”

“Surely they’re just full of ideas.”

“Hire adventurers or mercenaries,” I answered without missing a beat. I had just discussed this the other day, after all. “Bring them out of retirement if you have to. We only need to hire a good number of people who are already trained to fight, and set up a system that allows for regular patrols and emergency responses. If we share the cost, it should be less than each of us hiring our own protection. We’re all merchants here, right? So we’d best act like it. Playing guards vs. robbers on our own with no training is pointless.”

Some attendees seemed to agree and a few of them began conversing with each other, when Wanz let out a dramatic sigh. “I was expecting something better,” he said.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Setting up a fund and hiring adventurers would bring enough fighting power to the city at a relatively low cost... But there’s one big problem with that idea!” He emphasized.

“Just spit it out,” I said.

“Bluntly speaking, it will draw the ire of the nobles.”

The attendees’ murmuring grew louder.

“Have you ever considered why guilds exist?” Wanz continued. “For nobles, I might add.”

“To manage the power and arms commoners have.” Another topic I had heard discussed the other day. Since he was being so dramatic about it, I figured I’d finish his train of thought.

For the first time, Wanz showed visible uneasiness. “If you know that, why did you even bother making that suggestion?”

“Have I struck a nerve?” I countered.

“Hey! You want to explain for the rest of us?!”

“Order!” Wanz’s authority as the head of this conference was certainly strong.

“The first thing I want to clarify is that nobles always fear one thing—a revolution. They will try to protect themselves with their gold and power, of course. However, the noble population is a mere fraction of the size of the commoner population; less than a tenth, to be exact. There are numerous historical accounts of commoners banding together to rebel against the unending oppression from the nobles. And nobles fear revolution because it can happen at any time. So what do they do to protect themselves? They prevent us from banding together.”

Wanz continued his soliloquy, playing to the attendees. “All guilds are managed by the government, under the permission of His Majesty the King, which prevents nobles from directly interfering, but they are still the ones running the country. In a roundabout way, the guilds are also ruled by the nobles. The Merchant’s Guild can track individual finances, and the Adventurer and Mercenary Guilds can track the size of individual forces. We pay the price for the benefits we receive by working through the guilds and giving our information to the nobles. If we end up concentrating too much power in one city... Well, it’s clear as day what the nobles will do. They can practically kill a revolution from their cribs.”

“B-But Wanz, no one here’s trying to start a revolution, not even that Ryoma kid.”

“Of course not! While none of us here intend to start a revolution, nobles would be wary of one organization consolidating so much power. We can argue it’s for safety, but they’ll suspect revolutionary intent anyway. That is just the way nobles think. Our intentions, in the grand scheme of things, do not matter. What matters is how our actions will appear to the nobles! There is no doubt that, if gathering such forces were to catch the nobles’ attention, everyone here who chipped in for the effort will be seen as accomplices to the revolution!”

His theatrics weren’t making things any easier to follow for the attendees.

“Really?”

“They wouldn’t go that far...”

“Would they?”

“What if...”

Concerned murmurs buzzed throughout the conference room.

“Hate to rain on your parade, but that’s not happening,” I said.

“Pardon me?”

“Anyone with their heads on straight would understand that we’re only looking to defend our shops, and would gladly permit us to do so.”

Wanz’s input was skewed towards the worst-case scenario from the get-go. I had indeed heard of examples where people had gathered enough forces to raise the suspicion of nobles. But it was also common for people to pool their money and hire adventurers or mercenaries. For some smaller villages and settlements, that was the only way they could protect themselves from monsters and bandits. Really, we didn’t need to hire any more of them than necessary.

“Some of you might know that I have a friendly relationship with the duke and his family. I’d be happy to clearly inform them of our intentions beforehand,” I confidently stated.

“And how does that help anyone but yourself?”

“If it’d even help at all.”

“Sure, I’ve heard he has connections with the duke...”

“A kid like you working that out? Like that’ll ever happen. Walk the walk, don’t talk the talk.”

I got quite a bit of pushback in return. Nothing I didn’t expect, though.

Wanz chuckled. “Ryoma, my boy. I don’t think you understand just how ordinary merchants like us feel.”

“Yeah, if I had a noble backing me, I’d be pretty laid-back about things too. I should be so lucky.”

“No wonder a little punk like you can run a business.”

“Good for you, you don’t have to worry about anything. How about you shut up and let the grown-ups talk now?”

Right. Now I see how it is.

These people were technically business owners, but not in the way Serge, Pioro, and Orest were. Those three had the gall to face down nobles when it came to their business; that surely must have helped them to get to where they were now. But I could not say the same of the other people in this room. Their shops were in the city, and they made a decent, steady living from them. While they no doubt worked hard to earn their daily bread, they didn’t have the drive to expand their business. Dealing with nobles was nothing but an added risk in their eyes. They were successful, but not so successful that they could stand with the bigwigs. And it seemed that trying to convince them to put aside their fear of the nobles was a futile exercise.

“Well, I think we’re at an impasse, so I’ll be taking my leave,” I said as I rose from my seat.

“Oh? Leaving so soon?” Wanz asked.

“Yes. I’m not keen on having any more of my time wasted, and it seems unlikely we’ll be able to work out a solution anyway.”

“I bet you never wanted to work with us in the first place.”

“You sure don’t sound like the cooperative kind.”

That did it. I wasn’t about to let Wanz’s yes-men have the last word.

“And so many of you are such upstanding beacons of fellowship, right? Not to point fingers, but I’ve definitely sensed a lot of judgment from you people the moment I walked in here.”

I looked around the room, and many of the attendees looked away. Nothing different from when I came in. They greeted me with smiles, but I sure didn’t feel any sense of respect, or anything but an air of complete patronization. That was another difference between them and Serge or Pioro. In my defense, I was a kid, and I did rely heavily on Carme when it came to running the shop. But I knew I wasn’t a very skilled business owner on my own anyway, so I didn’t see it as a point against me. I had hoped that this first meeting would allow them to understand me better, and now I was going to make damn sure that they did.

“Let me spell things out for you all. I am a child, and Carme here helps me a lot when it comes to running my shop. And I’ve definitely been lucky; I managed to get connections with the duke. That being said, seeing how I was invited to this so-called ‘Gimul Union of Small Businesses,’ you ought to know that my shop’s scale and profit is comparable to all of yours. I don’t care if you want to think that it’s all down to the duke, or that I’m just some punk who got lucky. I kindly suggest that you do not screw around with me. What’s it to you that I have money and connections, anyway? If you fail to understand how important those are in business, and how it gives me quite an advantage, then you’re in the wrong line of work.”

I finished my screed, and was met with an icy silence. Here I was expecting at least one of the trained dogs to bark back at me. Ah, well. No skin off my nose.

“Let’s get out of here, Carme.” I shook Carme, who was frozen in his seat.

“Y-Yes, sir!”

And with that, the two of us walked right out of the Merchant’s Guild.