A month had passed, and the day of the meeting have come.
Outside the wooden gate of the city of Vindia, amidst gentle snowfall on a simple dirt road, stood a gold-and-black ornate carriage assembled from the finest walnut wood. It was flanked by ten knights in black-and-gold plate armor, each riding a majestic armored warhorse. Behind it followed another squad of twenty knights.
All of them, including the carriage itself, were led by a group of black-cloaked men wearing black leather armor and tricorn hats adorned with yellow feathers. They bore the flag of the Conti family, a golden sea serpent coiling around a ship upon a jet-black sea.
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"What a backwater place," Lady Valeria Conti said while staring out the window of her luxurious carriage with her luminous amber-colored eyes, one hand holding a glass of fine red wine.
She was a tall, well-groomed woman by the standards of the era, with fair skin and long, silk-like blonde hair draped over one shoulder, wearing a deep black velvet gown subtly reinforced with soft leather armor and embroidered with gold woven knots. Draped across her back was a black silk cape with golden weaving.
But the most unique feature of all was a finely carved, ivory-white carnival style mask that covered half her face.
"As I said, my lady, this might be a trap set by your debtor to extort you out of his own debt!" her advisor and right-hand man, Serafino, said with a concerned look on his face. He was tall but unnervingly thin, his face bearing unmistakably serpentine qualities. He wore jet-black leather armor and a black fur cloak.
"I would like to see him try, when my guards are present," she said mockingly, a smile playing on her lips.
"Overconfidence is a slow but insidious killer, milady. Please reconsider this," he voiced his concern again.
"Relax, relax. Look out the window and see how po—hmm, better than expected, huh?" she said as the view outside the carriage shifted from the wooden gate to the interior of the city itself.
The dirt road slowly gave way to a crowned road neatly paved with gravel and crushed stone, with drainage ditches lining both sides. Guards in neatly cut leather armor patrolled the streets, while torch-post refuelers went about their work.
That did not mean the buildings around the city were in good shape, though. Quite the opposite—the houses here were in poor condition by her standards.
As the carriage arrived at the gate of Frosthearth Manor at the center of the city, John and his knights greeted the oncoming entourage with smiles, while men in butler attire pulled the gates open.
Then the carriage arrived at the front door of the mansion, the place where her today's business partner currently resided.
She slowly stepped down the stairs at the side of the carriage, her arms wrapped around herself. This place was far colder than her own fiefdom by a wide margin. Had it not been for the letter promising her a "once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity," she might not have come at all.
Lie or truth? She gambled on truth—not for any particular reason, but because of her instinct, which had never failed her even once.
And that was a decision that would change her life—and all of humankind—forever.
Her advisor followed closely behind her, while her bodyguards began to dismount and form a line, as if to intimidate any foes who might attempt a dirty trick. It had happened before—assassins with poisoned daggers, pitfall traps, poisoned crossbows. She had faced them all and persevered through them, though not without great cost of both gold and lives.
From the front doors of the mansion, a maid emerged and smiled at her.
"Our liege is waiting for you inside the mansion, in the council room. Please follow me."
The maid then bowed deeply and guided her and her followers through the mansion.
The interior of the mansion was quite underwhelming by her standards. There were no signs of great wealth or pride anywhere. On the contrary, it felt more like an enlarged commoner's house, with only small touches of nobility scattered here and there.
She walked up the stairs along with her bodyguards, who checked every corner for any sign of traps or assassins. Luckily, there were none… yet.
The maid led her to the council room, which was little more than an ordinary room with a round wooden table. By her standards, it was less a council chamber and more like a private room in a restaurant she had once visited—and that place had been on the lower end of her scale, by the way.
At the head of the round table sat a pale-skinned, white-haired blue-eyes man dressed in a finely cut white suit, as white as freshly fallen snow, with a dry deep necktie. His face was neither rugged nor otherworldly beautiful, yet somehow she found him a little bit naively cute by her own standards when it came to men.
When he saw her enter the room, he stood up and bowed gently for a moment.
"Welcome to Frosthearth Mansion, my lady. Would you like any food or drink to sate your appetite?" he asked with a smile.
"No thanks. Let's cut to the chase and go straight to business," she replied curtly, sitting down on one of the chairs without waiting for an invitation.
That was how she gauged the pride and desperation of her opponent. If he had too much pride, he would react poorly. If he was desperate, he would either awkwardly encourage her or timidly say nothing at all.
Now she simply sat there, waiting for his reaction.
"Cut to the chase, huh? Great," he replied with a gentle yet confident smile, his voice clear and without any hint of malice.
Positive and confident. That meant he truly believed he had something to offer his way out of his debt.
"Daisy, bring out the first item," he said, snapping his fingers toward the maid who had led her here.
The maid followed his command, bringing out a small wooden chest and placing it on the table in front of her. This prompted all of her bodyguards to go on high alert, yet she simply made a calm gesture to settle them. She knew in her heart it was not dangerous—her instinct told her so.
"What's in the chest?" she asked, curiosity flickering across her face.
"You just have to open it," he replied with a simple smile and a small hand gesture, inviting her to do so.
And so she did. She opened the chest—only for what lay inside to twist her expression into confusion.
Inside the chest lay a piece of soft white brick and a jug of clean water, along with a towel.
"A soap?" she asked, genuine confusion slipping into her voice.
"Correct, my lady. And I believe you already know how to use it," he said.
"Hm. I don't quite understand your proposition yet. You want me to lift your debt… for a soap?" she asked jokingly.
"Try using it first. The water and towel are there," he replied, his tone more serious now.
"Alright… like this?" she said, wetting her hands and rubbing the soap between them.
Bubbles quickly formed, carrying a faint sweet scent of honey and the mild richness of milk."This is quite a good soap," she murmured.
"Do you like it? I would like to sell it to you in exchange for my debt."
"Just one soap, or even a few of them, won't cover a debt of that size—even at this quality," she replied lightly, wiping her hands with the towel.
"I'm not selling you a soap. Or even a few," he said confidently. "I'm offering something better."
He gestured toward the knights standing in the room. At his signal, they wheeled forward a barrow filled with identical white bars and tipped its contents onto the floor beside her, as if to say these were worth little—and that more could be made at any time.
"I'm selling you the soap," he continued, "or rather, the knowledge of how to mass-produce it."
"Mass-produce?" she asked, her voice turning cold and calculating. "How much is mass?"
"As much as you have supplies and manpower, and as long as you use my specific method" he answered, meeting her gaze without flinching. "At minimum—around a hundred bars a day."
His answer perplexed her. That was quite a large amount of soap per day. "This is bad", she thought, as her mercantile mind take over and immediately began calculating the profits she could make.
"Um… the best I can do is twenty percent of your debt, in exchange for your knowl—"
She didn't even finish her sentence. Or rather, he didn't allow her to. He snapped his fingers once more.
"I knew you might say something like that, so I brought another product to go with it," he said with a smile, as Daisy placed another small chest in front of her.
"The second product—please open it, in my honor," he continued.