CH 404

The Splendid Life of Shalloak Cornrogue, the Merchant King

Shalloak Cornrogue the King of Merchants.

When the great famine hit, he saw a once-in-a-lifetime business chance and took it, taking over the food delivery network for the whole continent in one fell swoop. He started calling himself the Merchant King after he bought a lot of companies and got power over a lot of independent merchants.

The next part of his life was full of wealth and beauty. He was without a question a very smart businessman, and if there was a god of money and greed, he must have been blessed by him as well. His wealth kept growing, taking him to heights of wealth that no one before him had ever reached. He was both a hero and a villain, a rogue and a champion. He was a warrior of fortune who took fame from the mouths of chaos and did well in times of trouble.

What comes next is the ending of this story, which shows how Shalloak Cornrogue’s long and interesting life came to an end.

—

Shalloak Cornrogue collapsed on his way to make a business deal. Years of overeating and not getting enough exercise had put too much stress on his body. Even though he was unable to move, he lived, but his body didn’t. His limbs no longer belonged to him. He couldn’t move or talk anymore, so all he could do was lie in bed and watch the world go by. Since he didn’t have a wife, children, or even brothers, the law said that his fortune should go to his top servant.

His “god” didn’t help him out of his trouble. Instead, it left him little by little as his chief assistant wasted his money. Shalloak’s subordinates did not get his business sense, which is a shame.

“You’re a flaming idiot!” He wanted to scream at the man over and over again. Shalloak thought it was clear when the top attendant agreed to deals that he should have known better. He was so angry about how stupid everyone was. If only he could say how angry he was.

Even so, his anger didn’t last for very long. Soon, the life he had been given started to go out, too. Then, the richest king who ever lived took his last breath while sleeping in a beautiful bed in a room fit for a king. The room’s furnishings were worth more than a person’s lifetime’s wages. He died alone, and he didn’t want anyone to be there to see it.

So, the story of his life came to an end. It was a sad and empty one.

—

…Then he woke up.

Shalloak said, “Hmph, what a stupid dream,” as the noise of the carriage came back into focus.

In his dream, he saw how his life would end if he reached the top, which was the highest goal for a merchant. It showed him how a man who had made money his god lived his last days. For a dream, it felt too real to be a dream, leaving behind a bitter taste of sorrow.

“Everything is due to what that girl said. Such nonsense…” He snorted, and the sound made him feel better. Still, Mia Luna Tearmoon’s words kept going over and over in his head. “‘More important than money’…Friendship. Loyalty. Trust. Gratitude. These are the things that the princess said were worth more than money. Mere cliches. The mindless chatter of a child.”

He had given up on those ideas a long time ago. No, he’d already sold them. Even though they were dirt cheap, they still cost money.

Friendship? One gold made for a good deal. Gratitude? He could get everything he could ever want and still not be any better off. He thought that people who said that money wasn’t everything and that there were things more important than money were just repeating the tired chant of losers. But…

“That damn girl…” He bit his teeth together. Even though the Great Wisdom of the Empire had a lot of money and power, she believed what she said. Even though she was a live example of unimaginable wealth, she said that some things are much more important than money. Hearing her say those things made him feel like he had wasted his whole life. It scared him more than he could have imagined.

“I heard something stupid, and it gave me a stupid dream. So, that’s it. Great Wisdom? Hah, give me a break. Who would have thought she would be so stupid that she can’t even see the value in such a kind offer…? Tearmoon is about to die if it holds up a girl like that as a wise person.” The words came out of his mouth like bile. Then he tried to smile in a mean way, but failed. Something in him rang the bell. It was trying so hard to convince him that the dream was real. That at some point in the far future, he would die a cold, angry death like the one he just saw. Despite the fact that…

“Then what? I’ve been this way for too long to change now.” He was over the age of 50. Was he supposed to change his whole way of life now? It couldn’t happen.

Shalloak had given up a lot of things in his life to make money, but the one thing he couldn’t give up was the “way of life” he had been so careful to follow. Even though the Merchant King was very smart, he couldn’t win this one time. Because of this…

“I will never agree to a way of life that doesn’t understand the value of money.”

Forkroad was one of the things that made him sad. Even though he was a fellow business owner, the man ran his business with making money as a secondary goal. It went against everything that Shalloak stood for. Mia Luna Tearmoon was even more of a pain.

“Money is strength. Money is my god. Who does that girl think she is, saying that there are things more important?”

She flat-out didn’t agree with his values, so he didn’t agree with hers either.

“Unacceptable. Completely unacceptable.”

The fact that he was good at business told him that the famine was not something that would go away soon; it was here to stay. So, the trade routes that Forkroad used to bring foreign wheat into the country would be worth their weight in gold. If they could control how much wheat got on the market and slow it down just enough to make demand go up, they could make a lot of money.

Sure, it would mean that some people would go hungry, but that’s fine. The news that a few people have died from hunger could even make the situation worse. People would lose their sense of right and wrong because they were afraid of dying. This made it possible for a bag of wheat to sell for the price of a castle.

So, a strategy of giving enough wheat to the continent to meet demand and keeping prices from going too high was fundamentally incompatible with what he wanted to do. It would mean that he would have to bring more food on each trip, which would raise his shipping costs and force him to sell the food for less.

And, for some strange reason, Forkroad was eager to go along with this crazy plan the princess was trying to make happen. He made fun of them in his mind for being so stupid.

He had to, so he did. Anything else was just too much to bear.

“Tearmoon has a low chance of being able to feed itself. That shows that Perujin Agricultural Country is relied on a lot. As far as I can remember, the king there is…”

Mia didn’t know that the next plot was already in the works.