Chapter 393: Time for Business (P-2)

Ryan finished speaking and left the proposal hanging in the air. What he had just asked of Edwin was direct: he wanted him to help commercialize weapons immune to the deity’s control.

Edwin did not respond immediately.

As the leader of the Kallistia Nation’s Merchant Guild, he hadn’t reached that position by blurting out the first thing that came to mind. He remained silent, his eyes cast down and his lips pressed together, processing the size of the problem in front of him.

Ryan watched him calculate without rushing him. You could almost see the man weighing every word before deciding whether it was worth speaking.

"Just a moment..." Edwin murmured quietly, without looking up yet. "Let me think about it for a second, Your Majesty."

He fell silent again, breathing slowly through his nose as he gathered his thoughts.

When he finally decided to speak, he carefully measured his tone to avoid sounding as though he were outright rejecting the person in front of him.

"I am aware of that, Your Majesty," Edwin said cautiously. "Although it is something the church has denied on more than one occasion, the rumor has already done its job, and adventurers have lost confidence in those weapons."

He paused briefly and let out a heavy breath. That part affected his wallet, and that always hurt.

"My business, like that of many others, has been affected because adventurers no longer buy like they used to," he continued, tensing his fingers. "No one wants to spend their gold on weaponry that could become a problem at the worst moment."

He stopped again. His voice lowered a couple of tones.

"But what you are asking of me... is quite risky."

Ryan did not look surprised by the objection. He settled into his seat without rushing and rested his cheek against the back of his hand, observing the merchant from that relaxed position.

He didn’t expect him to jump for joy right off the bat.

It was obvious that Edwin would hesitate and be afraid. It would have been very strange if he wasn’t.

’If he had said yes to me without blinking, I would have been immediately suspicious,’ Ryan thought, keeping his gaze fixed on him. ’A man who runs an entire guild knows full well what he’s getting into when he touches church matters.’

Fear was a healthy reaction. The only thing that mattered now was that this fear didn’t make him turn a deaf ear to logic.

Ryan didn’t change his posture or raise his voice. If he wanted the man to take the leap, he had to speak to him in the only language a guild leader understood, regardless of the danger.

"That is exactly why it’s a good opportunity for you, Edwin."

He said it with complete naturalness, letting the sentence hang between them without adding anything else for the moment.

Sometimes it was enough to cast the hook and wait.

It worked. Edwin looked up instantly.

The fear was still there, tensing his jaw, but the word "opportunity" had done its job. You could scare a merchant whose sales had hit rock bottom, but it was much harder to take away his curiosity when he smelled a profitable way out.

Edwin blinked a couple of times, trying to make sense of that logic.

"Excuse me...?" he murmured first, and then immediately formulated the question more clearly. "What exactly do you mean, Your Majesty?"

Ryan held his gaze calmly. There was no need to dress up the explanation when the facts spoke for themselves.

"A merchant must look out for his own interests, isn’t that right?" Ryan said, without moving his cheek from the back of his hand. "If adventurers don’t want to buy weapons they don’t trust, it’s no surprise that a merchant would do everything possible to obtain weaponry they can actually trust."

He took a short pause to let Edwin process the argument he was laying out in front of him.

"You would just be catering to what your customers are asking for," Ryan added simply. "That will benefit you, because you’ll recover your sales, and it will benefit the adventurers. Both win."

The calculation was very simple.

Edwin opened his mouth to reply, but closed it immediately without making a sound.

He hesitated for a moment.

You could see on his face that the idea tempted him. On one hand, his business losses were a real problem weighing on him every day; on the other, getting involved in a matter the Church had denied on more than one occasion still sounded dangerous.

His fingers tensed slightly as he silently went over the risks.

’He’s weighing it,’ Ryan observed without rushing him. ’He knows the business makes sense, but the fear of what might happen if things go wrong still weighs heavier on him.’

As the silence dragged on a little longer than usual, Ryan decided to give that doubt the push it needed.

"Think about it for another second," he said in a calm voice. "Tell me, whose side do you think the adventurers will take if a problem arises?"

Edwin blinked, attentive to every syllable.

"Do you think they will side with the church that seeks to subjugate them through deceit?" Ryan continued, clearly marking the difference between both options, "or on the side of the merchant leader who shows them a way out?"

There lay the true backing of the business.

If conflict ever broke out, the buyers themselves would be the first to defend the man who had put clean weapons in their hands.

The change in Edwin’s expression was quick.

He pressed his lips together for a moment and, almost unable to help it, smiled nervously. It wasn’t the calm smile of someone who has everything figured out, but rather that of a man who finally sees an open door where before he only saw a wall.

He let out the breath he had been holding since the beginning of their conversation.

"That makes sense..." Edwin admitted quietly, nodding slowly as he finished shaping the idea in his head. "Yes, seen that way, I believe it’s something that could work."

His posture lost a good deal of the stiffness he brought. He no longer sounded like a cornered man, but like someone who had just found the exact argument to justify his actions to himself.

"In the end, it’s not a matter of taking sides, is it?" he added, seeking Ryan’s confirmation with that same nervous smile. "I’m not getting involved in other people’s disputes. It’s a matter of acting like what I am: a merchant."