From Shati's perspective, it was better for Azadin's wish to be fulfilled than to fall into the schemes of the Water Snake Naga, Dehashuram.
Yet Azadin himself… Just moments ago he had seemed to be pulling all sorts of strings to save Bruma, but once the duty of the Herald Tribe loomed over him, he quickly shifted his course in that direction.
"If we go to Bruma and it's already under attack, what then? I don't know what petition means to the Herald Tribe, but it must be something important. Still, isn't going to Bruma first more crucial?"
Shati urged him to abandon the petition and head directly for Bruma, but Azadin shook his head.
He had begun dismantling the hilt of his Azure Steel longsword Bluey to remove a broken rivet. The wooden components fitted into the tang to absorb shock between blade and hilt had snapped.
While repairing his sword, Azadin grumbled.
"Mm, that sounds too much like heroics. It makes it sound like I'm going to save Bruma. I'm not that great a person."
"You can't say that now."
"If Bruma collapses in the time it takes to resolve a single petition, then going earlier wouldn't help anyway. At every moment I do my best within the realm I can, but I must know clearly what I can and cannot do."
Shati found something odd in Azadin's words and actions.
"You declared you'd go to Bruma alone to stop the massacre that will happen there, yet now you doubt your own actions?"
"It's not doubt, but rational skepticism. Anyway, shall we head to Bel Hoda? You must be tired—let me row."
"Are you sure? I've worked the oars despite it not suiting me, but Master…."
Jiswa had seen Azadin lay waste to an incredible number of soldiers.
True, he had used the necromancer Scott's undead wall to avoid being surrounded and instead fought one-on-one several times, but even so, the physical toll must have been enormous. A single half-day's rest wouldn't be enough to recover from that exhaustion.
And yet, Azadin took up the oar.
"It's fine. Let me row. Rowing through this starlit night sea feels like it might have some charm."
The shock of the Kazas Haeseo weighed on Azadin, and he wanted to vent his strength through rowing.
Though his body ached from the constant battles and harsh journey, sitting still in idleness felt more painful to him.
Moving in some way, any way, was actually less painful for Azadin.
***
Bel Hoda was famous for its sugar industry.
Sugarcane had originally been a specialty of Bruma, and among those regions, the Bel Hoda delta was the perfect place to grow it.
The Bel Hoda delta had once been an expanse of reeds with no jungle, but when turned into sugarcane plantations, its output became so massive that sugar was exported across the world.
Bruma's wealth in gold, ivory, and sugar sustained the Bruma Kingdom despite endemic diseases, the threats of the Naga Empire, and jungles swarming with monsters.
But this sugar industry required vast manpower, and so Bel Hoda became infamous for something else—slave trafficking.
Bel Hoda's human hunters.
Though all Eight Kingdoms had outlawed slavery by law, Bel Hoda's plantation owners hired mercenaries to raid villages themselves and abduct people.
They would strike distant villages and fishing settlements outside Bruma, abduct the people, and confine them inside workers' quarters hidden deep within their plantations, forcing them to toil until they collapsed. Thus, even if families were lucky enough to come searching, there was no way to find the abducted.
Many criticized and sought to reform Bel Hoda's human trafficking practices. But the enormous profits from the sugar trade were spread as bribes to Bruma's nobles, and huge donations were also poured into major religious institutions such as the King's Church and the Order of Salvation. Because of this, the plantation owners' hunts rarely faced meaningful opposition.
The sugar industry of Bel Hoda brought immense wealth to the Bruma Kingdom.
The sugarcane planters established guilds to lobby the nobility, bought off priests with money, and armed themselves by hiring many mercenaries into private armies.
Among these plantations, a new head rose in the small Banema family's estate—Randa Banema.
And that Randa Banema was the petitioner of the Gold Coin.
***
Randa Banema, who had studied abroad with the Order of Salvation, true to her foreign-educated background, refused the arranged marriage set by the sugarcane guild and began managing her plantation independently.
First, she freed the enslaved laborers brought through human trafficking, turning them into free citizens. She also decreed that free workers would be paid wages for each bushel of sugarcane they harvested.
The more they harvested, the higher their pay—a revolutionary system.
Other sugar planters mocked Randa Banema's actions. Rousing workers' morale that way brought no benefit, they thought.
Paying more money to laborers only drove up production costs.
In Bel Hoda, where competitors abounded, even if one produced more sugar by motivating workers, merchants wouldn't buy it if the price was higher. Merchants only cared about cheaper sugar by the coin, never how it was made.
Yet, when word spread that Randa Banema's plantation treated workers well, other plantations began facing problems.
Workers began running away to her or staging slowdowns to demand higher wages like those at the Banema estate.
Before, since all plantations were the same, whipping, starving, and threatening laborers had sufficed. But now that there was an alternative in Banema, worker resistance became no trivial matter.
As rival plantations began suffering production setbacks, Banema's "deviation" could no longer be ignored.
***
"Hahaha!"
In the sugar guild's clubhouse at Bel Hoda, the planters had gathered.
They reveled in the immense wealth their sugar brought them—fine tobacco, drugs, liquor, and pleasures.
This clubhouse was their arena, where they competed in decadent indulgence and exchanged ideas on how to enjoy life to its fullest.
And now a common enemy had appeared.
The foreign-educated Randa Banema, who spurned their pleasures, ignored the guild's traditions, and managed her estate in her own way, had become a serious threat.
"Did you see her wretched state? Hahaha. They say her cauldron sprang a hole, and now she's scrambling to find a tinker. Hahaha."
"No fool with a single life would risk repairing the cauldron of that estate."
"Still, Randa Banema has requested the Order of Salvation to provide her with a tinker."
"She doesn't even realize the Order of Salvation leaks information to us?"
"Keheh, with the amount of offerings we give the Order of Salvation every year? To think that just because she studied abroad with them, they'd be on her side—what a fool."
The sugar guild planters burst into vulgar laughter, reveling in their competitor's downfall.
Just then, the clubhouse door opened and a young man rushed in.
"B–Big trouble! Randa Banema…"
"What now? What big trouble?"
"Hey, you're going to expose yourself as a spy barging in like this."
"It's not that kind of problem. Randa Banema has… summoned the Herald Tribe."
"What?!"
"The Herald Tribe? You mean that?"
"Yes. The one summoned with the Emperor's gold coin. The soulless blasphemer! The Divine King Slayers!"
"Hmm…"
The plantation owners groaned.
"In the old days, this would've been a good chance."
"We'd have contacted the King's Church to brand her a heretic."
"Tsk, let's not kill her. She's still only about the age of my daughter."
"And isn't she the same generation as Lord Salco's youngest wife?"
At that, the guildmaster clicked his tongue.
"But times are different now. You've heard the rumors—Korasar was swallowed up by the Herald Tribe, yes? Korasar is already right at our doorstep. If we foolishly antagonize the Herald Tribe here, when the day comes that kings are toppled…"
"That's true."
The planters knew well that the Herald Tribe had seized the Kingdom of Korasar.
It was best not to earn the hostility of such people. Bel Hoda's sugar industry survived only by clinging to those in power, funneling them enormous sums of money.
"For now, when this Herald fellow arrives, let's talk. Surely they're not stupid enough, after all their brutal training, to fail to distinguish the weight of matters."
There was an old Bruma proverb: Even Nagas can be tamed with money.
And these sugar barons, who overflowed with gold, firmly believed there was nothing their money could not accomplish.
***
Sailing into the Bel Hoda delta, endless plantations unfolded before their eyes.
"Wow. Is this all sugarcane?"
Azadin, rowing, spotted a stalk of sugarcane drifting in the water. He snagged it with his oar and pulled it aboard.
Cutting a piece, he held the stalk to his nose—the faintly sweet aroma tickled his senses.
"Let's see."
He carefully bit into the inside of the cane. Sweet sap flowed into his mouth.
"Whoa. Sweet. Here, try some."
Azadin cut the sugarcane into portions and handed them to his companions, who each tasted it.
"Oh."
They all marveled at the sweetness.
Even though these stalks had drifted in the water and weren't of proper quality, they were remarkably sweet.
"But the fibers are tough. You just have to suck the juice and spit the rest out."
As Azadin said this, Scott held out his own piece.
"Captain. Mine, uh…"
Inside Scott's sugarcane stalk were worm-eaten holes, crawling with strange insects.
"Sorry. I guess the ones floating in the water really aren't the best."
"…"
"Scott, did you want some sugarcane too? Take mine."
Azadin handed him the one he'd been eating, then spoke to the Emperor's Voice.
"There's a petitioner around here, isn't there?"
[That is correct, Azadin.]
"Mm. Ah…"
Azadin spotted a sugar transport pier.
Above the docking crane hung a corpse of a man, draped with a blood-stained tablecloth scrawled with the words: One who tried to escape in vain.
"So, this is the place."
Clicking his tongue at the sight, Azadin steered the boat toward the pier.
There, a tall woman with black hair stood frowning.
"Looks like that's the petitioner."
[Indeed. She is the petitioner, Randa Banema.]
"Randa Banema?"
[The head of the Banema family. Hear the details from her directly.]