Olaid wasn't surprised by Virgil's reaction in the slightest. He straightened up, looking at Virgil with an easygoing grin. “Don't be in such a rush. Let me finish first.”
“About ten days ago, I heard that someone had paid a hefty sum on the market for a batch of crops.”
“I didn't think much of it at the time. You know how those nobles are—they always have some bizarre hobby. Spending a few hundred gold on a singing flower isn't anything unusual.”
Virgil sat back down, his fingers lightly tapping the desk as he listened to Olaid continue. “But then, someone told me that the people who ate those crops underwent a change.”
“Not only did their spirits improve and their fatigue quickly vanish, but even some of their old physical injuries began to heal.”
“My first reaction was that some contraband had slipped into the Imperial Capital, so I sent some people to look into it.”
Virgil nodded. Olaid's logic was sound. Certain alchemical potions strictly banned by the Empire could produce similar effects, so investigating was well within his duties.
Olaid shrugged. “As it turned out, the batch of goods was just ordinary beans. The alchemical tests didn't find any banned substances either.”
“So I thought, this doesn't make sense. Ordinary beans couldn't possibly sell for that kind of price, nor could they cause that kind of reaction.”
“So, I followed the trail of the city entry approval paperwork...”
At this, Olaid gave Virgil a meaningful look. “And guess what? These beans had absolutely no approval paperwork. They were smuggled in through the black market.”
Virgil's eye twitched slightly. He could already sense that things were starting to get troublesome. Seeing his expression, Olaid couldn't resist teasing him. “Although they didn't sell many of them, they were extremely expensive. Do you know how much a single bowl of this soup would sell for at market price?”
Glancing at the bean soup beside him, Virgil didn't say a word. He merely stared at Olaid with a rather ominous look in his eyes.
Olaid grinned, deciding not to tease him any further. He held up two fingers. “Twenty gold.”
“Twenty gold!”
Even though Virgil had braced himself, hearing Olaid say the price still made him draw in a sharp breath. He stared at the bean soup, his cheek twitching involuntarily.
One had to realize that twenty gold was equivalent to about half a year's income for an average family in the heart of the Empire.
In the more remote provinces, it was equivalent to an entire year's worth of rations for a family of four.
And yet, just moments ago, with a few gulps of warm soup, he had swallowed down an amount of wealth that would take others a very long time to save.
“Extravagant,” Virgil spat out with a dark expression, a trace of resentment creeping into his gaze as he looked at Olaid. “Before you brought this over, shouldn't you have made its price clear first?”
“If I told you, would you still have eaten it?”
Olaid laughed heartily, not feeling in the least that his behavior was inappropriate. “Besides, you drank it of your own free will. I didn't force you.”
To this, Virgil merely took a deep breath, swallowing back the words that were about to escape his mouth.
Having known him for so long, Virgil naturally knew there was no point in arguing such matters with this guy.
“Go on,” Virgil pulled his attention back to the main topic. “How did you determine that these things came from the Golden Sea?”
Olaid pulled over a chair, sat down, crossed his legs, and rested his hands on his knees. “I had people trace the origin of the beans and found that most of them came from a few cities in the western provinces. You know what the situation is like over there—they only grow crops like wheat and cotton. So, I figured the goods could only have come from further west.”
“And that place is the Golden Sea.”
“To be honest, I thought it was absurd at the time too.”
Olaid shrugged and continued, “What could possibly grow in that dead land? It's a place where even grass can't survive. But then I thought about it again—whose territory is that right now?”
“That woman.”
Virgil didn't use the Third Imperial Princess's name, referring to her only with a general term. At the same time, a certain name immediately came to his mind. “The druid, Elon Windrunner...”
Virgil leaned back in his chair, his fingers unconsciously tapping against the armrest. Although he didn't doubt Olaid's judgment, he still found it somewhat absurd.
Humanity's records concerning the Golden Sea were neither too many nor too few, but they all provided a clear answer regarding whether anything could be grown there. That answer wouldn't change just because of someone's profession; otherwise, the Golden Sea would have changed long ago.
Could it be that the druid had acquired some new method?
Virgil didn't quite believe this theory, but the facts were already laid out before him, leaving no room for doubt.
After a moment of thought, Virgil looked at Olaid. “This shouldn't be something that someone who has only just secured their footing could achieve. Yet, that woman has not only survived, but she is also developing at a speed beyond my expectations.”
“This is not a good thing.”
Hearing this, Olaid raised an eyebrow, clearly recognizing the gravity of the situation. “Will the impact be that significant? For His Highness?”
“Yes.”
Virgil stood up, walked over to the bookshelf, and pulled out a yellowed dossier with the Third Imperial Princess's name printed on the cover in gold foil. He handed the dossier to Olaid. “Most people believe that the struggle between the First Prince and the Second Prince is the core of the fight for the next throne.”
“But in reality, the struggle for the Imperial throne isn't limited to just the two of them.”
Virgil flipped open the dossier, which was packed with dense records of the Third Imperial Princess's deeds, most of them written in Virgil's own hand.
“The Second Prince is naturally gifted, but he is arrogant and lacks basic empathy for the common people. Such a personality dooms him to never gain the support of the lower classes and grassroots officials.”
“As for His Highness... he never actively fights for anything and has a clear understanding of himself. Yet, the more he appears free of desires, the more others perceive him as having the bearing of a monarch.”
“What about the Third Imperial Princess?”
Olaid asked. He didn't know much about these palace power struggles; usually, he simply did whatever the First Prince ordered him to do.
Virgil looked at him and remained silent for a long time before slowly speaking. “That woman possesses immense charisma. She once, in a short period, made a group of people who originally despised each other willingly follow her through life and death.”
“Her political maneuvering goes without saying. Even you have heard of some of her achievements.”
“If she hadn't been exiled, I would probably still be getting headaches over her various affairs.”
This piqued Olaid's curiosity. “Then how was she exiled?”
“She made a foolish mistake—she trusted someone she shouldn't have.”
Virgil's answer was brief and to the point, clearly not wanting to dwell on the matter. “The details aren't important. What matters is that she has now made things grow in the Golden Sea.”
“Knowing her, she won't be content with the status quo, Olaid.”
“That place seems like a land of exile, but without the constraints of the heart of the Empire and the infighting among the nobles, it will instead set her free.”
“We cannot simply let her be.”
Hearing this, a smile gradually appeared on Olaid's face. “I knew you'd say that.”
He stood up from his chair and stretched his shoulders. “So, I came to you because I wanted to know if you had any ideas.”
“I do.”
Virgil returned to the desk, his gaze landing on the very center of the engineering blueprint. “We need to find someone who can influence that druid, investigate the actual situation in the Golden Sea, and leave that woman powerless to do anything about them.”
Olaid raised a hand to scratch his head. No such figure came to mind. “Those conditions aren't easy to meet. That old fellow Elon is a core figure of the Church of Life. The only people who can influence him are even older than he is.”
“Besides, if those old geezers heard that Elon managed to grow things in the Golden Sea, wouldn't they praise him to the high heavens?”
“Indeed, those old fellows certainly would.”
Behind the desk, Virgil gave Olaid a confident look—one that even made Olaid feel a bit uneasy. “So, we won't look for the old fellows. We just need to find that person.”
Instantly, Olaid's expression changed. He clearly knew who Virgil was referring to. A flash of fear crossed his eyes before he spat out the name: “Sern Lancaster? That half-beastkin?”
“Exactly.”
The confidence on Virgil's face didn't fade. He looked at Olaid. “You will arrange this. Pass the news to her.”
“No problem.”
Nodding, Olaid turned to walk toward the door. But halfway there, he stopped, turned his head, and asked, “I say...”
“You aren't sending me just to get back at me because you drank a twenty-gold bowl of bean soup, are you?”
By now, Virgil had picked up his pen and hunched over his desk once more. His voice was steady, betraying no emotion. “Guess.”
Olaid burst into laughter and dashed out the door.
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