Chapter 40
Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
I'll purchase divine power with money.
Chapter 40
All operations of the Lumen Merchant Guild proceed under the permission of the Sheary Duchy.
Occasionally decisions are made at the branch manager level, but selling potions alongside the Sun God Grand Temple is no ordinary business venture.
Lute Sheary's hand must have touched this matter without question.
How had I not known until now that Lute Sheary had made contact with the Sun God faction!
"Carmen, what's the matter?"
At that moment, someone entered.
Unlike Carmen in her resplendent dress, a man wore the pristine vestments of a Holy Knight.
With deep blue hair and sky-colored eyes, opposite to Carmen in every way, he was Dominic Aria—a Holy Knight of the Grand Temple of Sea God and Carmen's brother.
"Those leeches from the Sun God faction are still alive."
Carmen spat the words with venom.
Dominic's eyes widened.
"...What did you say?"
"And as if that weren't enough, the Lumen Merchant Guild is the one distributing their potions!"
Dominic's expression turned glacial.
His gentle demeanor hardened into something far more savage.
The oppressive aura radiating from the temple's strongest Holy Knight and Holy Maiden made the priest's legs tremble uncontrollably.
"That's strange. According to the letter, they started selling over two weeks ago. How have we been ignorant of this until now?"
Dominic took the crumpled letter from Carmen and read it before questioning the priest.
His voice was quiet, yet the momentum he exuded was anything but.
"We shouldn't lack informants. It makes no sense that we didn't know until now, doesn't it?"
"H-Holy Knight, that is..."
"To think we entrusted such an important operation to someone so incompetent."
"Holy Knight! I sincerely apologize!"
The High Priest, drained of all color, dropped to his knees.
But he would not be given a second chance.
"Take him away. Replace the potion division manager immediately."
At Carmen's command, the Holy Knights standing by began dragging the High Priest away.
"Holy Knight! Holy Maiden! I was wrong! Please, give me one more chance...! Consider the effort I've put into growing this business...!"
He cried out desperately, but Carmen and Dominic had already turned their backs.
As though they had long forgotten his very existence.
In the end, he was dragged away to some unknown place, his mouth sealed shut by the Holy Knights.
"Ugh! This is absolutely infuriating."
The room fell silent once everyone had left.
Carmen ran her hand through her hair and collapsed back onto the sofa.
"Those insufferable bastards."
It had been quite some time since I'd thought of the Sun God, yet they hadn't even died—they crawled back out!
"This was the perfect opportunity for the Sea God to become the sole supreme deity!"
This was precisely why they stood opposed to the Sun God.
Three principal deities had been revered across the Continent since ancient times.
Yet as time passed, the standing of these three gods began to shift dramatically.
The Sun God, who had once commanded the greatest influence among the three, began a precipitous decline.
As people forgot the Sun God's very existence, they naturally turned to the Sea God instead, and so the Sea God's position rose steadily—the inverse of the Sun God's fate.
Before long, the Sea God stood as the supreme deity of the entire Continent.
The third principal deity among them showed no interest in expanding influence, so had circumstances continued just a bit longer, the Sea God would have become the sole principal deity.
Yet at this critical juncture, word arrived that those cursed Sun God worshippers had not only failed to collapse—they had somehow clawed their way back to prominence!
"And they dare venture into the potion business? Those wretches on the brink of ruin from poverty—how did they manage it? And how exactly did they secure Lute Sheary?"
Lute Sheary was a man of capricious temperament.
When he came to the Sea God Temple, I thought he had finally become a believer, yet he mocked us and departed without warning.
So why in the world would he join hands with those doomed Sun God servants and conduct business with them? What are we lacking compared to them!
"What should we do?"
Carmen gazed at Dominic Aria with an anxious expression.
Dominic Aria, possessed of far greater composure than she, might yet devise a sound strategy.
"...The god has sent no revelation?"
Dominic Aria asked quietly, his mind troubled.
Carmen let out an exclamation of realization.
"That's right."
The Sea God typically sends divine revelation—the god's word—whenever grave matters arise at the temple.
Yet until they learned this fact belatedly, no message had been conveyed.
"In fact, the god hasn't even looked upon me at all."
"I haven't felt the god's presence in quite some time either."
The Sea God, who would always come when matters arose despite not visiting frequently, now maintained silence—which could mean only one thing.
"It means the Sun God's Temple will not be revived."
It was reasonably convincing.
The siblings who served the Sea God most closely knew better than anyone how insatiable the god's ambitions were.
"So let us leave it be for now. If Lute Sheary is already supporting their enterprise, we cannot interfere."
Though frustration burned, the logic was sound.
Even if the Sea God Temple was the strongest among all temples, it was not yet a match for the Sheary Duchy.
Especially since the duchy maintained good relations with the Imperial Court.
One misstep could turn the entire Empire against us, making it impossible to obstruct the duke's business.
However.
"Still, we should gather intelligence on the situation, so let us dispatch an informant to the Sun God's Temple."
While directly confronting Lute Sheary was difficult, the Sun God's Temple was another matter entirely.
"Excellent. I approve."
Carmen smiled with satisfaction at Dominic Aria's decision.
Had she been forced to sit idle and merely observe without taking action, she would have gone mad from frustration—so this was truly a relief.
Carmen recalled the informant she had carefully cultivated within the temple, and her lips curved upward.
She eagerly anticipated what intelligence he would bring back from the Sun God's Temple.
* * *
Kyaaah!
I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle the shriek that had burst out unbidden.
I glanced around nervously, but fortunately, no one seemed bothered by my outburst.
It was because the others present had already lost themselves in shock.
"U-uh... uh? Gasp..."
"...Is this... is this really true?"
Airic Dert asked me on behalf of Seth Noel, who couldn't seem to form words.
I lowered the hand covering my mouth and nodded.
"Yes, it's real. This is our potion sales report!"
In other words, what we were now examining together was none other than the potion sales report sent by Jun Ludmin, the deputy director of the Lumen Merchant Guild.
We couldn't contain our screams upon hearing that all five hundred bottles we'd made as prototypes had sold out in just ten days.
Moreover, advance orders were pouring in relentlessly.
Thanks to Jun Ludmin's keen business sense in collecting deposits, sales far beyond our imagination had fallen into our hands.
I hadn't anticipated such a massive success from the very start.
"The beginning is so promising that it's almost frightening."
"H-how... how is this even possible?"
Seth Noel only managed to speak after drinking cold water repeatedly.
I explained the frequent price increases of alchemical potions.
"So in other words, we timed it perfectly. Honestly, if there were a potion with similar effects at a comparable price, wouldn't people naturally choose ours instead?"
Our potion ranks as intermediate grade. To be frank, the price is slightly high for its effectiveness.
But ours is a potion infused with divine power.
It was only natural that people were eager to buy it, since divine potions that only nobles could use were now accessible to commoners.
"How did the Saintess come to know of this?"
Seth Noel asked me with sparkling eyes.
I wanted to claim it was all because I'm a genius, but... this wasn't my achievement.
"It's thanks to Monica. She conducted the current market research."
Monica, who had completed the survey, insisted that now was the right time, that we absolutely had to proceed immediately.
The mass production we undertook, burning through the Potion Production Team and the healing power shuttles, was all because of that.
Thanks to her, the potion business had established itself very well.
"And the Lumen Merchant Guild's reputation also played a significant role."
If the Lumen Merchant Guild hadn't handled distribution, I'd probably still be anxiously biting my nails, unable to sell all the potions.
Because of them, people bought every single potion without any hesitation, despite the Sun God potions being quite unfamiliar.
Bringing Lute Sheary into the business was definitely the right choice.
"The Potion Production Team and the divine power-handling priests will need to work hard going forward."
I smiled and looked at Airic Dert. Seth Noel drooled slightly as he gazed at Airic Dert with sympathy.
There was only one reason we were doing this.
"Hang in there, High Priest."
Airic Dert was one of the healing power shuttles who infused divine power into the potions.
As the representative shuttle, he was burning himself out with unparalleled enthusiasm.
Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org