Chapter 486: The First Family’s Circumstances 1

The First Family’s Circumstances 1

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“…………Damn it!”

That night.

Kalamaruyu, his eyes red and swollen, was downing cheap alcohol in his office.

It’s a simple office, with a plain desk and chair, just the bare necessities, but spacious.

A single, small candle illuminated the room.

Convenient, modern tools like magic lamps don’t exist in this rural town.

Therefore, when night falls on First Town, very few lights leak out from the houses, and looking up, there’s a magnificent starry sky.

But to Kalamaruyu… this young lord… the brilliance of the starry sky has no meaning.

What he needs is the brilliance of gold coins.

“I have a plan to make money… Preparations are already in their final stages…”

Kalamaruyu, completely drunk, muttered to himself, staring at a map on the wall.

It’s a map of the Great Grassland of Beginnings… and its surroundings.

The thick line running just south of the grassland is the Igamo Tenart River.

And to the north is the Haigagadan mountain range… and on the map, the area between the mountain range and the grassland is colored in a belt shape.

“I’m not wrong… There’s definitely a Kodorokizo ore deposit in the Great Grassland of Beginnings… and it’s quite close to the surface…”

Yes, the colored area on the map.

That’s the Kodorokizo ore deposit distribution prediction map that Kalamaruyu has spent his entire life creating.

Kodorokizo ore is a type of magic ore, one of the essential materials for making the ‘Barrier Stones’ developed by the Great Mage, and even a layman can predict that its demand will continue to grow in the future—it’s a valuable stone, like a jewel.

When he was a child, Kalamaruyu found a strange, purple glowing stone while playing in the grassland.

His father didn’t pay much attention to it, saying it was ‘just a stone that can be found in the grassland sometimes’, but Kalamaruyu couldn’t get that strange stone out of his mind.

That stone was actually a piece of Kodorokizo ore, and encountering that piece is what led him to pursue a career as a magic ore researcher.

…Yes, Kalamaruyu, although he’s currently the lord of the First Viscounty against his will, was originally a researcher at the Somatoko Academy.

What drove his research was his love for his hometown.

He wanted to make the lives of the people of First Town, a rural town with no major industries… better.

With that thought in mind, he continued his research.

And as a result, he found out, with a high probability, that there’s a Kodorokizo ore deposit in the Great Grassland of Beginnings.

Kodorokizo ore has been mined in the Haigagadan mountain range, which stretches to the north of the grassland.

If you draw a line along that mountain range, it hits the Great Grassland of Beginnings.

The Kodorokizo Belt.

That’s what Kalamaruyu named it, but anyway, the Kodorokizo ore deposit is distributed in a belt shape along the Haigagadan mountain range, and the Great Grassland of Beginnings fits that condition.

Furthermore, analyzing the components of the Stone Head Rabbits’ helmets, it was found that a small amount of Kodorokizo ore is contained in them!

This means that the soil of the grassland, which these rabbits consume to make their helmets, contains Kodorokizo ore!

Furthermore, the existence of the Kodorokizo ore fragment that Kalamaruyu himself picked up when he was a child.

All of this evidence strongly supported Kalamaruyu’s theory that there’s a Kodorokizo ore deposit under the Great Grassland of Beginnings!

His father and brother were still alive when he discovered that.

So Kalamaruyu, overjoyed, wrote to his father, suggesting the development of the Great Grassland of Beginnings.

Many times.

Again and again.

But.

His father’s answer was always ‘no’.

His father never tried to start a Kodorokizo ore mining business…

And then, his elder brother, the heir, died.

He didn’t ask for the details of what happened, but his brother, Wakiteryu, unlike Kalamaruyu, was a physically strong, warrior-like person, and it’s hard to believe that he died of illness.

‘I’ll tell you the details when you get here’, his father wrote in a letter.

But his father also suddenly collapsed from a heart condition while Kalamaruyu was on his long journey back to the remote First Viscounty (a great journey, crossing many countries), after resigning from his position as a researcher at the Somatoko Academy.

Kalamaruyu was grief-stricken and bewildered, as the first thing he had to do after returning home was to attend his father’s funeral.

…He was struck with even more bewilderment when he checked the state of the First Viscounty’s finances, but.

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This First Viscounty.

To put it simply, it’s a financial disaster.

Its management is in a terrible state.

In fact, they’ve been behind on their taxes to the country for generations.

Honestly, it wouldn’t be surprising if they were dissolved at any moment.

When the young Kalamaruyu entered the Somatoko Academy, his father didn’t pay a single penny for his tuition or admission fees.

He only gave him a third of the necessary amount for travel expenses to the academy.

That’s why he needed to work harder than anyone else, in order to pursue his studies.

At the time, Kalamaruyu was indignant, thinking that it was due to his father’s lack of understanding of academia… but that wasn’t the case.

They simply didn’t have the money.

His father couldn’t pay, even if he wanted to.

Now, in such a situation, why is the First family still in existence?

Weren’t inspectors sent from the country?

Kalamaruyu, appalled after checking the books as soon as his father’s mourning period ended, asked that simple question to the old steward who had been serving the family for a long time.

‘Of course, they came many times’, was the steward’s answer.

So why is the First family still in existence?

Why haven’t they been dissolved?

To that question, the steward replied, ‘Because we satisfied the inspectors’.

‘Satisfied’?

They don’t have the money to bribe them.

They don’t have any gourmet food to boast about.

How… did they entertain them?

When asked that, the steward looked away.

…Women?

When asked that, the steward remained silent, his eyes welling up with tears, and then closed.

…First Town is a rural town.

There’s no brothels or anything like that here.

So, in order to satisfy the inspectors—

The women who were offered to them were…

From the town.

“AAAAAAAAH!!”

Kalamaruyu had never been so furious—at his father, his brother, all the previous heads of the First family, and at himself, who had been spending his days leisurely at the academy.

And then… he felt he had to do something.

He made that resolution, from the bottom of his heart.