Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem

While Kadricke and the other merchants stood up and Derot mirrored their movements, the man who had brought the news of what was happening in the capital left, neither side sparing him a glance. At the same time, armed men poured out from behind the bar.

A last-ditch effort or a backup in case Derot had laid an ambush. The Kadricke Coalition was prepared for a physical altercation. They surrounded Derot with their swords drawn.

As soon as Kadricke gave the order, Derot would be skewered and turned into a pile of blood-soaked croutons on the slightly sticky floor. But Kadricke wasn't satisfied with just that. He had to know.

"Did you know?"

Had Derot outsmarted him or did he just win the battle of information?

"Your plan? Or who your spy was?" Derot asked, doing his best to keep calm. Kadricke had prepared a little more force than he had anticipated. He wasn't sure if he would get out of this as easily as he had planned.

"...My plan," Kadricke answered. It wasn't strange for Derot to have figured out who the spy was. It could only be one person, all things considered. But if Derot had found out who it was and pried information out of them, his plan to bait the Coalition's men and sell the potions through other merchants wouldn't have worked since it relied on the spy delivering the wrong information to the Coalition.

The spy either wouldn't have been in workable condition or he would have alerted the Coalition when he tipped them off about the firesale. No, the spy had no idea they had been caught. But it was obvious from this morning that they had been caught.

Derot smirked. If there was one good thing about his current situation, it was the expression on Kadricke's face. Frustration and knowing he should leave and deal with the burning pile of dogshit Derot had left him painted a masterpiece with Kadricke's facial muscles.

But he couldn't help himself. Kadricke had his pride after putting himself at the top of the Coalition. He wasn't at the top of the capital's market world, but he could stand his ground, and he was far from the bottom. He had worked like a mad dog to reach where he was, and he took pride in that hard work.

However, now an upstart still wet behind his ears had dealt him a blow that threatened to tear down everything he had built over the past decades. Was it because Derot was a better merchant? Had Kadricke made a mistake somewhere? Where had he gone wrong?

Derot shrugged. He could somewhat understand what Kadricke was feeling, even if only because he could read the later's expression well. But he couldn't sympathize. Kadricke was the last person he would hold high enough to empathize with.

"I guessed," he said simply. It was like the answer to someone who asked how he knew where an object in the household was located or how he knew which horse would win the race.

It was a trivial answer. A simple answer.

Kadricke had lost years of work to a mere guess. Find more to read on empire

"..." The air slipped out of his lungs, and he plopped back down on his chair like an empty sack of potatoes.

Sure, it wasn't the best scheme he had concocted over the years. It was straightforward and brutish, and it relied on his superior manpower and financial resources. But against someone who hadn't anticipated it—guessed it, it would have dealt a serious blow to them.

After all, Derot took a huge risk with his firesale.

He sold his potions at a rate where he didn't profit from them, even more so since he had to pay the merchants to get them to agree to sell them. He flooded the market with them, driving down the gaps in the market—the demand for more, and thus the future market value for them.

Since they were consumables, the market price would bounce back before long. But Derot wouldn't have had enough money to buy ingredients and pay alchemists to make more, especially if the Coalition made a big profit off of reselling the potions at a steeper price, thus controlling the market valuation of both the potions and the ingredients for them without even targeting the ingredients, which they were sure to do anyway.

It wasn't an immediate death blow to the alchemist guild and Derot. But they would suffocate and drown before long, unable to recoup their losses of this risky plan.

It was the best Kadricke could come up with on such short notice after hearing about the information from the spy and the discrepancies between the ingredients Derot was buying, what his alchemists were producing, and the amount hitting the streets.

Kadricke sighed again, letting out the tiny bubble of air still left inside him.

He should have figured it out then.

There was no way Derot would commit to such a reckless plan if he didn't have anything to make the risk worth it.

Kadricke looked up at Derot after a long silence.

"...It's my loss…" His voice held none of the vigor it had during their discussion, which most likely wouldn't have led anywhere in the end, considering both parties were scheming against each other outside the restaurant at the very moment the meeting took place.

But it had been a lively discussion anyway that reminded Kadricke of his youth.

Kadricke slowly stood up like he had aged several years since he last did the exact same thing.

He nodded at the armed men before taking his leave with the others of the Coalition. Even if he was the one who remained standing in the end, Kadricke couldn't find it in himself to consider it a victory.

For a moment, the armed thugs considered waiting for a moment to let the high and mighty Coalition heads leave before they covered the restaurant in blood.

But they had witnessed what had just happened and figured that Kadricke needed something to soothe his heart. So, they lunged forward.

A clanging sound and soft thud later, there was one less visitor in the restaurant.