The Villain Who Made the Empire Prosper

Exodus

Above all else, the most important task was building the roads. I mobilized all spirit mages of the Iron Legion.

“We need to build roads to the Golden Plains of the Western Continent. Build a road to the trading city of Dagamba!! We also need a road from Elrond’s territory to the commercial city of Porto!! Make haste!!”

The main roads began to smoothly connect from the trade route in the Rako Mountains, which linked the western and eastern continents, to the trading cities on both sides. When generous compensation was offered, many people volunteered for the work, and thanks to that, the roads started taking shape quickly.

I ordered premium quality roads that would be as solid and lasting as possible, spending plenty of time, manpower, and money. As a result, roads as sturdy and durable as the Emperor’s roads in the capital were being constructed. Meanwhile, Sultan Saladin and Karl Hansen were also fulfilling their roles sufficiently.

“Don’t spare any expense!! Build the finest buildings!!”

The Merchants’ Guild commissioned the Builders’ Guild to construct numerous lodgings and commercial buildings outside the commercial city of Porto, sparing no expense. The Merchants’ Guild’s vast assets flowed into Porto for projects like expanding the sewage system and renovating water supply facilities.

People couldn’t understand why the Merchants’ Guild was spending money on such things. Some said that Karl Hansen, the guild master of the Merchants’ Guild, was wasting money on unnecessary things. But these were merely the words of people who were ignorant of rumors and information.

“Let them talk all they want!! Pour in money without restraint!! We must make this the finest commercial district!!”

Karl Hansen continued the expansions day after day, wearing a constant grin.

The moment when the commercial city of Dagamba in the Western Continent and Porto in the Eastern Continent completed their renovations and preparations for full-scale trade coincided almost exactly with the completion of the main roads connecting to both cities.

As I had requested, magnificent main roads wide enough for 10 carriages to pass simultaneously were completed, cutting through the Golden Plains of the Western Continent and the frigid zones of the Eastern Continent to connect to each commercial city.

It was the moment when the first massive and long road connecting both continents was completed.

It was an achievement accomplished exactly one month after breaking through the trade route in the Rako Mountains.

And with that, I completed all preparations.

I held the exclusive business rights received from the Emperor, and the Merchants’ Guild, expert in distribution, was in my hands.

Karl Hansen had already ordered and completed the manufacture of hundreds more carriages for trade, which were stockpiled in Porto commercial city.

The Western and Eastern Continents were ready to exchange with each other, and I had no intention of blocking that flow.

“All goods from the East and West! Buy and sell them at Elrond’s territory, the midpoint!!”

I announced this to the merchants of the Karamba Empire and Ailam Empire, and with that announcement, I opened the trade route.

The passage that the Iron Legion’s spirit mages had worked hard to create for three months was solid and sturdy enough to withstand hundreds and thousands of people and carriages.

And.

Finally, the first historic land trade between the two continents took place in Elrond’s territory.

“What did you say?!?”

Duke Pellings slammed his desk with a loud bang. Though it was done in anger, it was obvious that the solid wooden desk was harder than his hand bones, and he shook his painful hand while glaring at the head butler who had come to deliver the news.

“They say the trade route has been opened. Enormous amounts of goods from the Western Continent are now coming in through the land trade route between the Western and Eastern Continents. And Elrond’s territory is leading this trade.”

Duke Pellings listened to these words in a daze for a while before becoming enraged and slamming the desk again. This time, with twice the pain, he angrily knocked over the documents on the desk.

“Why are you only reporting this now!!!”

“I apologize, Your Grace.”

The head butler bowed his head and apologized, but he felt wronged inside.

Hadn’t the Duke himself said that whatever Randor was doing in Elrond’s barony was foolish and bound to fail, so there was no need to monitor it closely and to only report news of his death?

Following those words, they had withdrawn all spies deployed to Elrond’s barony and hadn’t bothered to spy, which was why they learned of this so late, yet now he was placing all the blame on him.

But what could he do? Duke Pellings was always such a petty man.

“Damn it!! What are they importing??”

“Massive amounts of spices, silk, perfumes… Most of the Western Continent’s goods that couldn’t be transported by sea are coming in. Pepper, in particular, is explosively popular.”

Pepper had previously required complex and thorough multi-layer packaging to protect it from sea moisture, which limited the total amount that could be transported. As a result, it had been a luxury that only well-off nobles could afford, but now that it was being imported in bulk, the price had dropped so much that even commoners could afford it.

And naturally, there was a world of difference in taste between foods with pepper and those without.

Demand was exploding across the country, and as a result, Randor’s Merchants’ Guild, which held exclusive trading rights with the West, was raking in enormous profits from the pepper trade.

“Damn that bastard. To think he would succeed. No, how could he have figured out so quickly which part of the maze-like Rako Mountains to break through?”

Duke Pellings had been absolutely certain that Randor would fail. He had to be. The densely packed mountains were like a maze. The surface of the mountains was terribly slippery and covered in ice harder than steel, formed by thousands of years of snow melting and freezing repeatedly.

Beneath that lay mountains made of rock said to be the hardest in the entire continent.

They needed to find and dig through sections with soft soil or movable rocks while avoiding such areas, which required unimaginable amounts of money, time, and countless explorers willing to die.

That’s why everyone had given up on the Rako Mountains tunnel project until now, as it was simply beyond their capabilities.

“How did he manage to succeed in less than half a year!!! That damned bastard!!!!”

Duke Pellings shouted at the top of his lungs.

The Golden Adran, who held tight control over the Empire’s key departments with his strong sense of justice and excellent administrative abilities.

The Blessed Selene, who controlled the Empire’s technology and magic sectors with her outstanding beauty and even more outstanding observational skills and intelligence.

It was already giving him a headache trying to keep these two forces in check, but now the influence of the invincible Karia and Randor was growing even greater than these two forces combined. For Pellings, who had been planning to depose the incompetent Emperor and take the throne for himself, it was impossible not to be furious at this situation.

“Summon the members of the Vineyard Party. We need to hold a meeting.”

He had no choice but to call in the members of his faction.

Seven nobles who controlled the finest western granary region of the Ailam Empire.

Together with Duke Pellings, they were known as the members of the Vineyard Party, and they were planning to drive out the incompetent and foolish Emperor and his children to take control of the Empire themselves.

He needed the wisdom of all party members to discuss how to overcome the current situation where Randor and Princess Karia’s forces were growing monstrously, and he was about to tell the head butler to send summons letters to the party members.

“Duke Pellings! We have an emergency!!”

However, he realized he wouldn’t need to go through the trouble of sending a letter to Marquis Halloran, one of the Vineyard Party members. Because Marquis Halloran came bursting into his office in a hurry.

“Marquis. I was just about to send you a letter to meet, what’s the matter?…”

“The peasants!! The peasants and nobles are trying to flock to Elrond’s barony!!!”

“What do you mean? Why there all of a sudden?”

And the answer that came back was most unexpected.

“To find jobs!! And they say they want to visit something called an amusement park!!!!”

The Barony of Elrond was a ruin just a few months ago. A desolate city where skeletal buildings with only pillars remaining creaked out screams in the cold winds blowing from the Rako Mountains.

But now.

The Barony of Elrond had grown into such a prosperous city that Baron Elrond must be wailing over having handed it over to me.

The well-constructed lodging facilities, which could accommodate tens of thousands of people and which all nobles in the capital had ridiculed as foolish, were now packed with merchants from both east and west.

Interpreters capable of translating between both nations’ languages were busy darting about, and money equivalent to what the Merchants’ Guild would earn in a year in the capital was pouring into their pockets daily.

This was thanks to the massive amounts of spices, perfumes, and silk being traded in Elrond.

The enormous marketplace I had built in advance couldn’t accommodate all the merchants from both nations flooding in, resulting in people trading on the streets, which meant I now had to expand the market by building three more of the current size.

Where money flows, people naturally follow.

‘We won’t return. Could we become citizens of your barony?’

The 20,000 farmers who had fled from exploitative lords and initially planned to just help with construction as temporary work now wanted to settle here permanently. None of them wanted to return to their original territories. In principle, I should have denied their request.

This was because subjects were legally the assets of their lords, and it would be illegal for another lord to take them without permission.

But I had the ultimate backing that could ignore all laws.

‘Oh my! Such a pitiful situation! If the Count needs them, he should have them! Those 20,000 people – I recognize them as your subjects.’

Just by running to His Majesty the Emperor, those 20,000 people transformed into my subjects in a single day. Not wanting to miss this opportunity, I swiftly completed all the paperwork cleanly within a week and submitted it to the imperial court, and thus within a week, those 20,000 who had come just for temporary work became my subjects.

‘This, this cannot be! Your Majesty! How can you suddenly move our subjects to the Barony of Elrond?! Who will farm our lands if you do this?!’

Naturally, the nobles who had their subjects snatched away – mainly nobles from the Vineyard Party aligned with Duke Pellings – protested furiously to the Emperor, but the Emperor obviously didn’t give a damn.

‘Are you questioning what I have permitted?! The bestowal of subjects is clearly the Emperor’s prerogative! Moreover, those 20,000 farmers – I hear they traveled all the way to the cold, distant Elrond territory to earn money because they couldn’t bear the exploitation and extortion! Are you sure you’re collecting taxes according to the law? Would you like a tax audit?’

The Emperor struck right at the nobles’ most sensitive spot. The usually dim-witted Emperor strangely becomes sharp-eyed and intelligent when defending me. Usually, the Emperor’s support of me, a court official, wouldn’t benefit the empire, but this time was different.

‘Well, that is…’

‘Speak no more of this matter! Coming to tell me that your subjects ran away! Tsk tsk! It’s obvious how you’ve been managing your subjects! Are you here to boast about being incompetent lords?’

The nobles of the Vineyard Party had no choice but to return, having lost both their workforce and their dignity.

And the story of their humiliation became excellent gossip material for the common people. The peasants eagerly shared stories about how their lords, who had exploited them with heavy taxes, had been humiliated, and along with this, a strangely distorted rumor began to spread.

‘I heard if you escape to Elrond territory, your original lord can’t come after you?’

This was the story that emerged after several distortions as rumors spread from mouth to mouth. However, for the empire’s farmers who had been suffering from exploitation, it was eye-opening news.

And two more pieces of news were added to this.

‘They say there are jobs overflowing in Elrond territory!!’

‘And they say there’s something called an amusement park too?’

‘Amusement park? What’s that?’

‘They say it’s a place with fun things… I heard it’s incredibly enjoyable! They say you can ride something called skiing and skating?’

Randor, the true lord who doesn’t exploit.

A territory overflowing with high-paying jobs.

And even a special place created solely for entertainment, rare in this medieval era.

The Barony of Elrond quickly became known to the empire’s farmers as a land of dreams and opportunity.

And when combined with the rumor that original lords couldn’t chase after those who fled to Elrond territory, it led to one result.

A massive exodus began of farmers who had been groaning under exploitation.