Chapter 463

Meeting with Kiri Again
“I must apologize for troubling even Lord Sazaby to come here.”

After discussing among ourselves, we concluded it would be best to talk with Kiri again, and so we arranged another meeting.
This time, Lord Sazaby, who came as soon as we brought up the matter, was with us as well.
Now then, I wonder what Kiri is really thinking deep down.

“My daughter told me she wished to study abroad. But... is education in the Isles of the Eight Gods truly that lacking? I was under the impression that the basics were covered.”

“About that… to be honest, we cannot say that education has reached the general populace. Only the wealthy receive education, and among other families, there is very little understanding of its necessity.”

“Hmm. However, wouldn’t it be necessary to first change that mindset? Unless the people understand the value of education, even if it is provided, they won’t follow.”

“That is true, but… we’ve found ourselves in a situation where we can’t afford to wait for a shift in awareness.”

A reason more urgent than reforming public awareness?
What could that be?

“Recently, there have been a number of cases where merchants who went abroad for business were deceived—not only were their goods and money stolen, but even their families were taken and sold into slavery. In the Isles of the Eight Gods, it’s common to make business deals based solely on verbal agreements. There isn’t much of a culture of leaving written contracts. This has been exploited, with some merchants ending up signing contracts with false terms written on them.”

Doing business on verbal agreements alone sounds pretty risky, but apparently that’s standard in the Isles of the Eight Gods.
Because the teachings of the Eight Gods are deeply rooted there, deceiving others is considered an act of defiance against the heavens and one of the gravest sins.
So, verbal agreements are accepted in business, and even minor discrepancies are typically overlooked.
Of course, they do use written contracts for official transactions or very large-scale deals.

But when merchants from the Isles with such customs engage in trade abroad, they often suffer due to the differences in commercial practices.
Even if they speak the language, they don’t leave written contracts, which results in them being deceived with defective goods or outright scams.
And without a contract, they have no proof when making complaints afterward.

To make matters worse, these merchants from the Isles often can’t read or write the languages of other nations, so when they’re handed a contract with different terms from what was discussed, they don’t even notice.
Of course, those who prepare such deceitful contracts are the worst kind—aggressively enforcing the false terms and taking everything from them.

These contrasting business customs have become a serious problem.
But since written contracts are the norm in the outside world, it’s hard to defend the merchants from the Isles.
Even the Trade Guilds can’t intervene much when contracts exist.

Taking that into account, it seems they’re considering providing education to the general populace.

Now that I understand the reasoning, I can see where they’re coming from, but isn’t the leap in logic a bit much?
Shouldn’t they start by educating the merchants first?

What do you think about this chapter?