Chapter 17

Author was in a set of magical armor with a sword that was also enchanted. They were of the basic tier, mostly because the caravans didn't sell anything better.

He was at the very end a large group of troops, but they could also be seen as small, they only numbered a hundred while the cavalry that chased them numbered one hundred fifty. But it was common sense that cavalry was better than infantry.

"Who do you think will win?" Rosa asked.

"Common sense would dictate that the enemy would win, but my guts say that our allies will win." Jessica answers truthfully.

"I see, do you know why?" She asked.

"I don't know. What I do know is that every combatant under that lord is high quality even if their weapons and armor are not." She answered.

Soon a large group of cavalry charged into the clearing. The soldiers unloaded their bolts into the middle of the cavalry, and caused some damages, but not much. The cavalry were soon upon them, but a rope popped up from the ground. This surprised the cavalry who didn't have the chance to stop, and thus they were tripped. But the top seemed to have been popped up too early and thus the enemies leader seemed to see it happening.

As the leading knight was in the middle and saw what happened he shouted. "All troops halt!" His shout resounded through the area, causing everyone to stop. But not before over half of them had tripped. The other cavalry had their hands tied up. As another barrage of bolts flew across the sky. It slammed into the middle of their formation. And soon the soldiers and squires charged.

They were in an arrow formation. And with their moment they made a cut right through the enemy forces.

"We need to retreat."

"Help!"

"How do we get out of this?"

The enemy troops were panicking, and Author made good use of that. The forces were split in two with most of his troops keeping them from each other.

But that was not the end. He had more troops in the side, hiding. Most of them were on the left side. The ones of the right kept them from running away while the ones on the left charged forwards. With one charge most of the left side of the enemy troops were smashed, the remaining ones were butchered as they tried to surrender. Unfortunately for the enemy, the leader was with the left troops and were killed with the first strike.

"What how did they do that?" Rosa asked.

"I see." Jessica said to herself.

"See what, what did they do?" Rosa asked.

"The arrows were a distraction, they then pulled the rope early on purpose so the troops would stop. They then pierced the middle of the troops. One side had less troops in the forest just to stop them from leaving while the other side had much more troops to quickly end the battle. They did this so to cause fear to fester in the hearts of the other side, the fear will help them keep casualties to a minimum." She explained.

And she was right, the ones on the right side were afraid, they just saw as a force equal to them were smashed within a few seconds. They gave up and surrendered. To which they were bound by ropes and captured.

[ Evaluation: A battle well done, a master strategy with good execution was done, but because of the aggressiveness of the attack, some troops were very injured. ]

[ The people spread word of your feat. ]

[ Acquired: Reputation + 50 ]

"My lord. We were victorious." Nick replied.

"Tsk, weak ass troops, I didn't even need to enter the fray." Author said, showing disdain in his eyes at the enemies, he honestly thought that there would be more troops.

"Capture the captives and keep them in the dungeon, keep the horses, they could help with the farms." He said, Nick agreed and ordered the soldiers to take the captives away and to get the horses.

"What are the casualties?" Author asked, "Zero deaths, twenty with serious injuries and thirty with light injuries." Olivia replied.

"I see, heal them up." He ordered, he then left to Rosa and Jessica.

"Let's take about the deal now." He said. His face looked like the devil at this point.

"Yes." Rosa said, bowing to him.

"So your saying you just want to large merchant family to trade with you?" Rosa asked, very confused.

"Yes, you see, very few caravans come through here, we are selling our specialties, the problem is that they don't have enough money and the products will go bad at this point, we are producing more stuff than they can buy." Author explained the situation of the trade with her. She understood, some villages and towns produce more than the demand thus the products are left to rot, and now one wanted that.

"I will do my best." She replied. With a bow.

"Though, I am curious about the products." She said.

"Nothing too much, some oil, soap, ale, and paper." He said nonchalantly, but this shocked Rosa, after all, besides salt, these were very valuable products. The kingdom they live in is far from Orario, thus they do not get much magic stones so they use a lot of oil. Soap is a commodity that few can enjoy, this is due to the ineffectiveness of their production method, so their are not a lot of soap. Paper is in high needs, they are not very good, but they are also kinda short on supplies, people often wrote in very short messages as paper is expensive and the ink spreads a lot. Ale, people just like ale so they sell very well.

"May I see the products?" Rosa asked, although she was not a merchant, one of her friends were one, so she also knows the value of products.

So imagine her surprise when she saw the products, the oil was smooth and refined and didn't smell bad, good for cooking, oil lamps, and insect repellent, they would be at least twenty percent better than the normal oil in her kingdom.

The soap had more lather than normal soap and was more smooth compared to normal soap which were rough and didn't feel good to scrub their bodies with. Not only that but it smelt nice, which would make it very popular among everyone. Well over twenty maybe even thirty percent increase in price compared to normal soap.

The paper was good, much better than everything else. It was smooth and very white compared to the normal light brown rough paper. It was also more tough and harder to tear. The ink did not smear. The paper was thinner and much lighter. It was at least twice as expensive as normal paper.

The ale, just from the smell she could tell was quite high quality, not as good as the wine nobles had, but was very high quality compared to normal ale and wine. At least twice as expensive as normal ale.

"What are with these products?" She asked.

"We made them with what we had, the paper are made from trees, the oil and soap from vegetables, the ale is made with vegetables as well." Author answered her.

"I see, these would sell very well. Actually, can I buy some soap right now?" She asked, she had money with her at all times and so she produced some money from between her chest.

"Sure, that will be a thousand Valis." Author said.

"What?! This soap is high quality, it might even go for over ten thousand Valis in some places!" She shouted.

"Yes, but what we want is for everyone to get the soap, we make money not from just a few purchases. But from a lot of purchases. Even if the profits are not large, each one slowly adds to our profits. The common people rarely use soap, that is because it is expensive, but if ours is much cheaper, than it is obviously who they would buy from." He said, and it made sense to her, people will always buy the cheaper one if both of them are of the same quality, but these soap are of even higher quality while also being cheaper.

And as a noble, she was very happy with this, she was well educated, she knew the advantages of using soap, and if everyone on her familiy territory were to benefit from the use of soap, her family might rise a bit in the rankings. After all, less people would die and if less people die the population would rise, if they rise then they have more man power, if they have more man power then it means they will have more production and better economics, which means they will have a a rise in power and ranking.

"Don't worry, I shall make sure you definitely get a good deal from this." She said, she would have the merchant family go to her family territory first and thus get the best benefits.