Tales of the Reincarnated Lord

Given how much effort it was to properly treat furs for storage, it was far more useful to just turn them into clothes for his soldiers. The king thought Lorist was very invested in training his force to be elite winter troops, so much so that he was willing to spend ludicrous amounts of money on their material and training, but the reality was that it didnʼt cost him much. It wasnʼt that he was obsessed with having a good winter military, but that it was just a more convenient way of using the materials and time he had. It wouldnʼt cost him much to make the winter clothes, he already had the material by the storehouse, and he had to pay his men their salary anyway, so instead of having them sit in their barracks the whole winter, he might as well have them do something productive.

When he led Tigersoar to hunt in the demonic lands, most of their prey was dire wolves and some herbivorous magic beasts. Similarly, their furs had high value but a non-existent market.

He could still remember that he had once considered selling the pelts in bulk at the price of livestock leather and thought the low price would let him forge a market. But the Peterson Merchant Guild turned him down. The supervisor said that if magic beast fur was sold at that price, it would collapse the price of normal fur and decimate the market. When the supply then ran out, there would be no livestock fur industry to replace it.

The house hadnʼt feared the freezing winter when they had moved the refugees the previous winter because every person got a set of magic beast fur clothing for free. The abundance of rest stops and the fast travel facilitated helped as well. If he declared his house used the most magic beast fur on the continent, no one would argue the point. The annual winter training also swelled his stock by over 100 thousand. His storehouses had never been fuller.

The furs he got from the recent hunts werenʼt much use to the house as materials, and the delicate market made it nigh impossible to sell off. Had this been a time of peace things might have been different, but, alas, it wasnʼt.

So far heʼd only bothered to ship the best pelts, like the skins of gigantic swamp crocodiles, back to the dominion because they would always sell. He had yet to worry about the rest. He certainly didnʼt think the king would take such an interest and end up taking them all off his hands. He couldnʼt be happy about this turn of events.

These days, fools are just as hard to find as rich tycoons.

He had offered the discount and included a few of the remaining precious pelts to make sure the deal would go through. He also agreed to sell a few catapults at 150 gold each without hesitation. Heʼd even offered to sell them 2500 carroballistae he had with him, but the king would have none of it.

Auguslo considered House Nortonʼs catapults the worldʼs ultimate weapons. They were far more flexible than the simple lever-style catapults, even in defensive situations. At the very least, they were mobile, not the fixed emplacements that were so easy to target.

The houseʼs carroballistae had tempted him. But the advent of shield carts they had become far less attractive. No one but the greatest fools still deployed armies without proper protection against them. Whether it was offense or defense, shield carts had become a standard in the continentʼs armies. And they were always improving.

He only had six million gold left and he had other things to do with his money, so he turned the sale down. He couldnʼt wait to form his new standing legion. The campaign hadnʼt ended pyrrhically as he had expected, and he was thankful for that. It made it much easier for him to move on the next one quickly.

He needed a strong force in the kingdom as soon as possible to keep the alliance, Duke Fisablen, and his three new vassals in check. He planned to rest for two or three years and rebuild his military strength before taking on the Union. He wasnʼt afraid of having too much money. Even what he had felt like too little, instead. It would have been preferable to have wiped the rebellious dukes out rather than taking them back under his wing.

Kings had to be true to their word, Auguslo could not just withdraw his offer to buy all Loristʼs pelts without good reason, a predicament Lorist exploited excellently. He forced the king to buy all the furs, even though it cost him three times what he had expected to spend.