The Witcher: Make Witcher Great Again

Chapter 347 Hawthorne I: I desperately want to improve.
"I have a question that has been bothering me for a long time, and only you can give me the answer."

“Then I am truly honored,” Alphonse said with a smug smile. “Please ask, Your Excellency.”

"Now that you know who I am, why are you still targeting my business?"

Alphonse Willie was indeed very powerful in Novigrad; even the city council had to defer to him.

The problem is that we are not a capitalist society yet, but still in the feudal era.

In a capitalist society, capitalists can indeed have an advantage over the nobility. After all, even among the old British Union Jack nobles in their home world, not everyone lived an enviable life of luxury.

Some of these nobles were mired in debt crises for one reason or another.

In contrast, capitalists are different. These financial magnates, which also have a history of hundreds of years, often live much better lives than nobles and can even secretly control the country.

But it was different in the feudal era.

In this backward era, the common people's fear and apprehension of the nobility were deeply ingrained and passed down through generations.

Merchants and landlords, in theory, were still commoners, no different from the workers outside the manor who unloaded goods at the docks or worked in the workshops, in the eyes of the nobles.

It's not uncommon for commoners to be driven to the brink of killing nobles, or for incidents similar to the hunting of fallen warriors.

However, it is truly abnormal for someone like Alphonse to not be barefoot and yet actively provoke the nobles.

Alphonse stood up from his chair and gave an exaggerated bow.

"Please forgive my rudeness. I did not really intend to seize your property. My rude behavior was only for a request."

Lynn frowned and asked, "A request?"

“I would like to meet with you,” Alphonse said with a smile. “The Baron is a big shot in Toussaint, while I am just a gangster boss in Novigrad. Our statuses are worlds apart. If I didn’t use some tricks, how could we have this conversation today?”

Linn was silent.

He had previously thought that Alphonse was taking advantage of his local power to do so.

Now it seems they had ulterior motives.

Alphonse continued.

“Your Excellency, actually, I would like to discuss cooperation with you.”

"Well, keep talking."

“I know that Baron Toussaint’s territory produces rosé wine. Although it is not as famous as East East, it is still a famous wine of Toussaint. I hope to get the exclusive distribution rights. You just need to transport the rosé wine to Novigrad and you don’t need to worry about anything else. I will take care of the sales. We will split the profits 30/70.”

Perhaps realizing his words were ambiguous, Alphonse paused and added, "Of course, 70% is yours, I only want 30%."

Lynn crossed his arms and said, "I really didn't know that the Novigrads would arrange to meet people to discuss business in this way."

“It seems the Baron is still angry. How about this?” Alphonse clapped his hands.

"Bring it in."

The door opened, and two guards carried in a box and placed it in front of Lynn.

The box contained gleaming crown coins.

"Your Excellency, regardless of whether our cooperation today succeeds or fails, this money will be considered as compensation to you."

Lynn glanced at it and realized that if the box was full of crowns, it could probably hold several thousand crowns.

Several thousand crowns—the average person in Novigrad, from the lowest rungs of society, had probably never seen so much money in their entire life. "You wanted to meet me just to sell wine?"

If Lynn is really just an ordinary baron from Toussaint, and the other party isn't a gang leader, then it's not something that can't be considered.

I only bear the transportation costs; all expenses and troubles, such as local sales channels, labor costs, shop rent, and maintaining good relations with local officials, are borne by the other party.

Therefore, the actual share that the other party can get is far less than 30%.

And you can get 70% without doing anything.

No matter how you look at it, you're guaranteed to make a profit.

But he was more than just the Baron of Toussaint, and Lynn didn't believe that Alphonse Willie was content to be a middleman who didn't make any money.

“Mr. Willie, I’m afraid you have some additional conditions that you haven’t mentioned.”

“As expected of a baron, your intuition is quite sharp. Actually, it’s not a big deal,” Alphonse said, leaning back in his chair. “I enjoy making friends, and I just hope to take this opportunity to get to know some people from the South.”

"Friends from the South? You mean the Nilfgaardians?"

Lynn pondered for a moment: "In recent decades, although Nilfgaard has been constantly waging wars and invading many countries, Novigrad doesn't need to worry about the shadow of war looming over it, does it?"

"The Nilfgaardians must first cross the Manada Valley, conquer Sintra, then cross the Yaruga River, capture Temuria, and finally stand across the Pontal River from Novigrad."

Do you think the Nilfgaardians could accomplish this?

Lynn, who was familiar with the plot, knew that Nilfgaard had done it, but he wondered how Hawthorne I, who did not have the ability to foresee the future, could have predicted it.

It should be understood that even kings may not necessarily have much knowledge or experience.

In the original storyline, after the Nilfgaardians conquered the entire territory of Cintra, some kings in the north naively believed that the Nilfgaardians would stop south of the Yaruga River.

It was not until the Nilfgaardians attacked Soden that the northern army united and, at great cost, defeated the Nilfgaards in the Battle of Soden.

Then, surprisingly, he felt that Nilfgaard was no longer a threat and stopped regarding the Nilfgaardians as such.

If even a king is like this, how could a mere gang leader have such foresight?
“Your Excellency, you have a great misunderstanding of me. I have never believed that the Northerners would eventually succumb to the iron heel of the Southerners.”

"I've only heard that in Nilfgaard, even commoners have the opportunity to rise to nobility. Old Willie just doesn't want to be a commoner for the rest of his life anymore."

Lynn suddenly realized.

That's a perfectly normal thought.

Just like in Japan's Edo period, merchants, who were originally at the bottom of the social hierarchy of samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants, not only took in many bankrupt samurai who lacked business acumen as their subordinates after acquiring a large amount of wealth, but also spent money to buy themselves the identity of a samurai.

This is even more true in modern times; once you have enough money, buying a noble status is no problem at all.

That's just how people are.

Once the current goal is achieved, one will yearn for a more distant goal.

Although we are still in a feudal era, that only applies to the north where you can't buy your status with money...

Okay, actually the South can't either.

However, Nilfgaards can acquire noble status through other means.

(End of this chapter)