Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 63: The Shadow Alliance
Merlin had no idea that the one he always overlooked—the ratman, Sigma—was watching him every single day with those cold, beady eyes that glimmered faintly in the shadows. Even if Merlin had known, he would never have taken it seriously.
For more than a week now, Sigma had been laboring in the hills behind Merlin’s estate. By all rights, the ratman wasn’t short on coin. After all, he bore the name Pluke Sigma, scion of the Turing Empire’s Count Pluke—quite a different sort of noble compared to Count Leo. His family was wealthy, their coffers deep and steady.
Yet, like every member of that lineage, Sigma suffered from the same inherited disease: stinginess. Not only were they miserly toward themselves, but they were equally tightfisted with others, delighting in exploiting the smallest advantages wherever possible.
Sigma had long wanted to come to the back mountain to earn some extra gold. The only problem was that the one who paid the wages happened to be Merlin himself—a fact that had made Sigma hesitate more than once. Fortunately for him, someone standing in the shadows behind him had given clear instructions: watch Merlin closely, report his every move. With that order, Sigma could come to work here under the perfect guise of laboring for coin, his conscience clear and his motives justified.
And one had to admit—the wages Merlin offered were ridiculously high. The Sigma family had never paid their own tenants anything near such rates. In fact, the amount he pocketed in a single day of work here was more than what one of his family’s peasants could earn in an entire month.
You’ll go bankrupt sooner or later! Sigma thought with a cold gleam in his eyes. He intended to work with all his might, draining every last coin from Merlin’s purse. What he didn’t know was that the fortune Merlin made daily at the Academy dwarfed anything Sigma could imagine—had he known, his envy might have driven him into madness.
“Boss Merlin… would you be interested in buying red tea?”
Senior Jean stood before him, shifting nervously from foot to foot. His hands fidgeted as he clasped them together, his posture stiff with unease. He glanced up at Merlin with a mix of hesitation and hope.
Merlin raised his brows in surprise. “Of course I’d buy it. That’s the first time you’ve ever asked me whether I’d take something off your hands. This batch of tea—was it grown at the Beast-Taming Academy?”
Jean shook his head quickly. “No, not by the Academy itself. The students cultivated it on their own. To be honest, before you arrived, life for the students at the Beast-Taming Academy was… difficult. Some of them came up with the idea of planting fruits and vegetables to sell in Arcane City. After all, if the Academy has anything in abundance, it’s land.”
“Red tea as well?” Merlin pressed.
“Yes,” Jean nodded. “Over time, the students developed entire tea gardens, handed down from seniors who graduated many classes ago. The purpose was simple—help support students from common families. If those students tended the gardens diligently, the harvest would belong to them.”
Merlin blinked, genuinely surprised. He hadn’t expected the Beast-Taming Academy to possess a tea garden of all things—let alone one nurtured entirely by students themselves.
“But if this was established so long ago,” he asked curiously, “surely there are dedicated buyers already. Why suddenly try to sell it to me?”
Jean sighed heavily. “There are buyers. At first, the price was fair, simply because the tea came with the prestige of being associated with the Academy. But once the merchants learned the truth—that the red tea was not grown by professors, but by students—they began lowering their offers again and again.”
His voice grew bitter. “When they discovered that the earnings from these sales went to support ordinary students with no family background, they pressed even harder. They squeezed the price down until the profits from planting red tea were barely worth the effort.”
Merlin’s eyes narrowed in surprise. These merchants… they’re bold, I’ll give them that. Aren’t they afraid that one of these students might one day grow strong enough to wipe them out in revenge?
“Couldn’t you switch buyers?” he asked.
Jean gave a helpless shake of his head. “No. The tea merchants have colluded with one another. They’ve joined forces to corner us into selling at rock-bottom prices.”
His voice dropped as he leaned closer to Merlin, eyes flicking about cautiously. “And… there’s more. Behind all this lurks a colossal power: the Shadow Alliance.”
Shadow Alliance? Merlin’s gaze sharpened, his eyes narrowing into slits.
The Shadow Alliance was the largest commercial guild in all of Aize Continent. Its ranks were filled with titans of industry—merchants and magnates who dominated every field imaginable. They possessed not only unimaginable wealth, but also sprawling networks of contacts and an intelligence web that spanned the continent.
With careful schemes and ruthless strategies, they manipulated markets, swayed economies, and at times even nudged the policies of the Six Great Empires, the Beastfolk, the Elves, and other races.
They were called the “Shadow Alliance” for good reason: their members lived under strict secrecy. None could reveal their affiliation. Everyone knew of the Alliance’s existence, but no one could say for certain who its members were, nor the identity of its mysterious leader.
The Alliance could be anywhere, anyone. Their influence seeped into every large-scale transaction, their shadow often cast just behind the curtain.
“So that’s it,” Merlin murmured, nodding slowly. “If it’s the Shadow Alliance, then it makes sense. They wouldn’t be afraid of a mere Academy’s reputation.”
Jean scanned the area, then leaned closer to whisper urgently: “Boss Merlin… I strongly suspect that the Arcane Academy itself harbors members of the Alliance. This red tea business—what if it’s actually some member’s attempt at promotion?”
Promotion. Merlin’s brows knit at the word.
The Shadow Alliance’s hierarchy was notoriously strict. The higher your rank, the greater your voice within the guild. To ascend, one had to prove themselves in business—by generating profits of staggering scale. The more money, the higher the profit margins, the greater the achievement. The methods used to achieve such profit? The Alliance did not care.
Merlin understood at once. If he stepped in to buy this tea, he’d be standing in the way of someone’s promotion.
This water runs deep, he thought grimly.
Jean seemed to take Merlin’s silence as rejection. His shoulders slumped, disappointment written all over his face. After all, who in their right mind would willingly antagonize the Shadow Alliance?
But Merlin surprised him.
“Jean,” he said firmly, “I’ll take all the red tea the Beast-Taming Academy produces. In fact, in my future plans, I was already considering adding red tea into the business.”
“What?” Jean blinked in shock, convinced he had misheard. “Boss, you don’t have to do this! It’s not worth going head-to-head with the Shadow Alliance.”
Merlin shook his head, his tone decisive. “No. I’ll buy it. If it were the Alliance itself running the tea trade, I would step back. But it’s not. What I’d be crossing isn’t the Alliance, but just some individual desperate for promotion. That’s not worth fearing.”
Inside, another thought flickered through his mind. Strange… I’ve been earning massive profits at the Academy for so long, yet no one from the Alliance’s core has approached me. Could it be they’re underestimating me? Or are they simply waiting?
“As for the purchase price,” he added, “I’ll base it on quality. But I guarantee it’ll be higher than what those merchants are paying.”
Merlin leaned back, a faint smile tugging at his lips. It was time, he decided, to introduce new drinks alongside the food he had been selling. After all, fine cuisine deserved fine beverages.
Gold might seem plentiful in his hands now, but he knew better than to be complacent. With each step his strength advanced, the cost of alchemical equipment and resources would climb ever higher.
And so—he had to keep harvesting more “crops”… and the fattest field to reap was still the wallets of those who underestimated him.