Chapter 630

Teysa and Hannon’s Proposal
Once we’d decided what to gather from each country, the next step was to prepare the actual arrangements.
I might only meet directly with five people, including Alizée, but I know there are plenty more working behind the scenes.
Not just people from the Trade Guild—some of them were likely recruited as official members of the Saltas Company too.
We’ve really grown into quite a large organization.

As for me, since there’s nothing much for me to do at the moment, I’ve been spending my time at the mansion making clothes.
I haven’t done any silk weaving at the goddess’s hut—it just didn’t feel right somehow.
Besides, I haven’t stockpiled enough Ice Prison Spider thread yet anyway.

Then one day, a message arrived from Teysa and Hannon requesting a meeting.
I figured there was no reason to refuse them, but according to Modalphas, it’s proper etiquette to require a formal step of introduction no matter who the visitors are.
I suppose that’s fair enough.
They’ve got their own shop to run, so we decided to meet on their next day off.

“… Lily, you really did hang that sword in the reception room, huh?”

“It’s supposed to be decorative, right?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen a decoration that dangerous.”

Two days later, when Teysa and Hannon arrived, they were immediately taken aback by the sword displayed in the reception room.
It was the one Teysa had originally crafted as an ornamental piece, which I later… modified into a fully functional weapon.
But since it looked nice, I decided to leave it up as a display.
Not that it poses any danger—anyone else who tried to use it would find it little more than a blunt blade.

“Well, it’s yours, Lily, so you can do whatever you want with it… still, that’s a bold choice.”

“Only a few of the servants know what it actually is. To everyone else, it’s just a decorative sword.”

“That so? Well, if that’s the case, I guess it’s fine.”

Let’s just leave it at that.
It shouldn’t explode or anything.

After chatting a bit over tea, we finally got to the real reason for their visit—
they wanted to join the Saltas Trading Company.

“If *Gleam of Molten Iron* is short on funds, I can lend you some…”

“Don’t be stupid, that’s not what this is about. We’ve already ranked up to Copper-rank merchants, but even so, it’s rare for us to get the chance to work with magic metals. If we become affiliated with a Platinum-rank merchant like you, we’ll be able to use better materials for our gear. Of course, we’re not giving up on making beginner gear either.”

“We’ve ranked up too, but now we’ve started running into interference and trouble. So we figured we might as well come under your protection, Lily, and work with you instead.”

Ah, I see now.
They’d mentioned before that people were jealous of their success—but it sounds like that’s started to become serious.
Can’t blame the others, I suppose.
From their perspective, it must be frustrating to watch a Dwarf and an Elf who drifted into Vardmoi rise to Copper-rank merchants in just a few short years.

In my case, since I only dealt in women’s goods, the number of people directly benefiting from my work was small.
And being under the patronage of the Marquis Vardmoi meant no one could really afford to harass me.
Teysa and Hannon, on the other hand, don’t have that protection—so people can hassle them all they want.

“Are you sure about this? If you come under my banner, there’ll be times I’ll need you to prioritize my commissions. For example, mass-producing decent-quality equipment for Saltas Company’s remote support operations.”

“That’s fine by us. In return, we’ll get access to rarer metals, right?”

“Well, I think I can arrange that much. I even still have a large amount of magic metal from the reparations I received from the former royal brother a few years ago.”

I had plenty of that left over with no real use for it, so this is actually a great opportunity.
It’s nice to finally have a reason to put it to use.

We’ll handle the formal paperwork for their contract another day, but the decision’s made—
they’re officially joining us.

The Smithing Division just got a major boost!

What do you think about this chapter?