Chapter 1056 Trouble

"What are you doing right now? Do you know that the price has plummeted?" Earl Canmond roared, glaring at the three n.o.bles before him.

"Do you think we don't know that? No. Do you think we're not facing the same problem?" Count Yatcher shouted back.

"Kh!" Count Lesen bit his lips, not knowing what to do in this situation. "The price has decreased so much in just two weeks. Some of the n.o.bles have stopped buying our products because the price doesn't increase."

"Aren't those n.o.bles under their faction buying it to help the Ardagan family?"

"Yeah. They should have done that. In the long run, we should be able to win. No, as long as the trade ban lasts until winter, we can win."

"But we don't have enough money to even maintain a stable government."

"What are we going to do?"

The four n.o.bles looked at each other.

Earl Canmond gritted his teeth. He couldn't help but remember what he saw when coming to meet them.

He was inside his carriage, looking at his own city. The atmosphere inside the city was without hope.

There were not many soldiers patrolling around the city, causing several thugs to appear. In fact, the Earl could see several of them waiting for him to pa.s.s so that they could begin robbing the people.

Due to the severe lack of money, he had to cut back on some costs, including the soldiers and even the production of the wool itself.

It meant that a lot of people had become unemployed, which halted the economy of this city.

The royal family and Matthew had given him some money to keep the city afloat, but it wouldn't last long. He could give the people a lot of things, but he had to sell the wool if he wanted his territory to survive.

The problem was that this was only a single city. He had a lot of cities in his territory. Even the royal family couldn't send out that much money, let alone the fact that they had to send some to the other three n.o.bles.

If they kept subsidizing everything for these four n.o.bles, there would be inflation in the kingdom, which other kingdoms would definitely take advantage of.

In other words, Earl Canmond and the three n.o.bles had to find a way to solve this problem themselves.

After remembering the scene, Earl Canmond shouted, "This is because of all of you. You should know that the Ardagan family will point their blades at all of you once I'm gone."

"Calm down, Earl Canmond."

"That's right."

"We should discuss it first and see if there is another countermeasure."

The three n.o.bles saw the desperation Earl Canmond had in his eyes. The trade ban was definitely a powerful sword for a n.o.ble. And it was even more ridiculous when four essential items were banned.

Yet, it was surprising that the Marquis hadn't done anything. The Ardagan family should have been suffering.

However, there was one thing that they miscalculated. If it were any other place, they might be useful. But this was Lounstein.

A messenger had finally arrived, bringing a letter of report.

"My lord. The situation doesn't look good."

Earl Canmond furrowed his eyebrows and grabbed the letter, reading it. He would never have thought that this letter would be the last straw that broke his pride.

"I'm leaving. I'm going to Count Valentia to ask him to buy my wool." Earl Canmond bit his lips.

"What happens?"

Earl Canmond simply tossed the letter to them so that they understood the severity of this situation.

Before coming here, he had dispatched a spy to Noel's territory to a.s.sess the condition there. He thought that Noel's city would be ruined, and people's morale would drop significantly.

However, when the three n.o.bles saw the content of the letter, they realized it wasn't the case.

"Laivaen City is full of energy. They are already aware of the trade ban, but the people don't care. The Marquis has come personally to the city and he is asking the people to believe in him. He has used his wedding ceremony as proof that everything is going to be alright.

"Laivaen City has been the frontier on the border. They've endured all kinds of hards.h.i.+p under the siege of the demons. So, this ban is something they can endure.

"All the water had been provided through the rune technology, and the food was provided from the main city (all of it was demon meat). Despite knowing that winter is coming soon, they have at least a house to s.h.i.+eld their heads. As for interiors or utensils, they can still share them. Water is not a problem, so cleaning them is easy.

"Without any iron production, they still have the Moon Temple and even several Spirit Grandmasters from the Ardagan family as protection. Soldiers are focused on maintaining the orders.

"Their morale is still high even after the ban. They are even building more cities to show that they have enough wealth to continue and keep the people employed all the time."

When the three n.o.bles read the letter, they gasped.

"Is this really possible? Where does he have the funds to do all this?"

"No. Right now, his company hasn't sold anything, so his fund shouldn't be that high."

"NO! We've miscalculated something." Count Caulbot sucked in cold breath. The other two looked at him in confusion, so Count Caulbot explained, "It's the size of our territory, specifically the population."

"Ah! Lounstein only has two cities. Laivaen City only has 12,000 people, while the main city has 8,000 people. It's far less than ours. There are some villages, but we have only known that villages are still able to maintain a certain degree of self-

sustainability. In other words, he only has 20,000 people to sustain."

"In the meantime, we have approximately 200,000 to 300,000 people scattered across more than thirty cities. If we sacrifice ten cities, we might be able to cut spending, but that means the cities would be destroyed. Even then, we still need to take care more than ten times what the Marquis has to."

This ban was indeed a double-edged sword. While they had a lot more money than the current Ardagan family, they would have to spend much more as well.

If they had to think about the stability of their territory, they couldn't make any rash decisions.

In addition, they had a hard time providing for their basic needs because of the lack of funds. The water was hard to get. While they had wells, they didn't have the rune technology to pump those wells to make it easier for the people.

In addition, Lounstein was next to demon territory. Meat would be abundant. How about them?

Earl Canmond had a lot of sheep since he focused on wool production. But if he killed those sheep, even if he could escape from this predicament, he wouldn't produce enough wool to sustain the entire territory.

What about the food? Most of the demons had been cleared up. While they had some farmlands, it wasn't enough to sustain the city. The only way to get money was to either increase the tax, which ended up squeezing every little thing the citizens had. In addition to the fact that they had cut some budget for their army, it wouldn't be weird if rebellions occurred.

In other words, if they couldn't get money, their territory would be destroyed from the inside.

"Not good. We have to do everything we can in order to gain additional funds."

There was one big miscalculation in their plan. It was the morale of the people. Laivaen City's circ.u.mstances were special. So, it wasn't that hard to maintain their morale.

The main city was even easier. Since they were disconnected from the outside world, they wouldn't know anything about the ban. In addition, Noel was staying there personally, suffering together with his subjects.

For an outstanding Marquis who led his people in battle, maintaining their morale was an easy task.

That was why, the moment Earl Canmond read the letter, he immediately took his leave.

There was only one option left to avoid the worst-case scenario. If the royal family couldn't help them anymore, he had no other choice but to do it himself.

The other n.o.bles also realized that option and immediately dispersed. Instead of returning to their territory, they headed to another territory.

Yes, the solution was what Matthew suggested. They had no other choice but to bow to another n.o.ble.

However, traveling from their territory to meet the other n.o.bles took several days, and it took another few days to go from the meeting point to the respective n.o.bles.

By that time, the price had dropped even further.

While Matthew wanted to crush Noel, he still had to keep his company afloat. That was why he was unreliable in his support for these n.o.bles as he wouldn't spend all that money to actually support them.

In fact, that greed was enhanced even further after Maxwell, Theressa, and Zephyr cooperated with Theo. Because of that cooperation, Maxwell's company had taken a hit, allowing Matthew to actually surpa.s.s him as the number one merchant in the kingdom.

There was no way he would abandon that position. Noel knew this fact from the first time he met him, specifically saw his affection.

Hence, the four n.o.bles had no choice but to actually lower their heads to other n.o.bles, pleading with them to buy their products.

Finally, Earl Canmond had arrived at one of the n.o.bles in the neutral faction, Count Siegfried.

He was currently sitting before him with a dark expression, feeling humiliated that he needed to beg him.