Ultimate Gamer System: Factory Must Grow!-Chapter 99: High-class politics at low-class, makeshift table

"So, to sum it all up, you've pretty much broken every taboo and law that existed, dabbled with some criminal guild, and then pretty much rose up in a rebellion against the established authority… just to pull me out of this place?"

Sitting down at the huge makeshift table consisting of just a huge, round slab of concrete resting on several pillars of the same material that Theo whipped out in a single instant, Callane's mercenaries snacked on Theo's berries while Theo himself had now attempted to reiterate the full story the girl told him.

"Well, that's certainly one way of putting it together," Callane muttered, cupping her hands together while resting her elbows on the concrete table and turning her head to look away. "And well, to a degree…" she hesitated for a moment. "No, it doesn't matter what my intention was. All that matters is how others will perceive my movements. And from that perspective, yeah," she finally nodded her head.

"That's pretty much it."

Theo closed his eyes and took a deep breath, holding it in his lungs for as long as he could before slowly, slowly breathing it out, hoping to use this trick to cast all of his emotions aside.

Sadly, despite all the times that this trick had worked, right now, it proved to be insufficient.

'In other words, even once I reach the point at which I can blast through the wall and get back to civilization, rather than finding peace, quiet, and safety, all I'm going to get is an entire kingdom chasing after me?'

It already took all of Theo's willpower to stop himself from slapping his own face in despair.

Even though he never could know for sure if there was another life for him waiting for the moment of his death, he never really concerned himself with the possibility of danger.

Sure, he wanted to avoid pain if possible, allowing him to fight so desperately against the monsters that would be quite sure to maul him to death if given the chance…

But no matter how hard the monsters would try, they would never even come close to the level of pain another human could inflict upon him! Not when there were entire schools of thought focused on nothing more than developing new and exciting ways of causing someone pain!

And now, the comparison between the world he was in and the world that awaited him on the other side of the wall...

"I can see you are worried, but frankly speaking, if I wanted to take the kingdom down, I could do it quite easily," Callane mentioned, somehow reading a bit from Theo's face and either lucking out or actually guessing his thoughts.

"You could?" Theo raised his eyebrows, struggling to believe such an outlandish claim. "And how would you even go about it? Didn't you claim that your force, while big and full of elite mercenaries, still cannot measure up to the armies of other lords of the realm, not to mention the royal army and crown guards?"

This was the very crux of the problematic change of view that this girl brought to Theo's mind.

Before, he saw the world on the other side of the wall as a place where he could finally forget about worrying about his own safety, with all the powerful monsters ending up stuck behind on this side of the wall.

But now?

Now, the world on the other side of the wall suddenly turned out to be much more hostile than Theo assumed. And if Callane's political enemies managed to figure out her goal, not only would that part of the world be potentially dangerous, but quite likely, it would turn extremely hostile towards Theo specifically too!

"That's right," Callane nodded her head, ignoring whatever it was that she managed to read from Theo's face as she stuck to the earlier topic. "My army might not be up to par, but if a push ever came to shove, combined with the army of the Evilbanes…"

Theo's face tensed up as he heard the name he only ever saw written out by his system before.

Now, however, with so much more context that he had, it was quite clear that the family Callane had in mind was no one else but Theo's parents!

Or, in other words, the parents of his very own brother that he apparently murdered in cold blood!

"Then again, I've never planned to rebel through military means," noticing the changes on Theo's face, Callane quickly raised her hands up while showing the open palms of her hands. "In a way, when it came to my army, this expedition never was more than just an exercise. When it came to fighting the potential war, though…"

At this point, despite the obvious traps and hoops she had to avoid in this conversation, Callane… smiled.

"All they would have to do would be holding the enemy offense back, am I right?" Theo attempted to guess after analyzing every detail of the story the girl said thus far.

'She belongs to one of, if not the richest family in the whole kingdom. She has the means to raise a massive army with just her own assets alone and is free to move them as she wishes. And as if that wasn't enough, she has connections to a powerful underground guild and the balls to actually exploit this connection,' he thought, summing up all the factors.

"How did you know?!" Taken aback, Callane leaned back in her chair, giving Theo a wide-eyed stare for a moment before shaking her head as her face took on a helpless, slightly nostalgic look. "Right, how could I ever hope to fool or hide anything from you?" she said in a mocking tone directed at no one else but herself. "But yeah, you are right. As long as my army can hold the kingdom's offense for two weeks, I can take over the throne with ease. Then again…"

The girl squinted her eyes as she locked them on Theo's face.

"How did you figure it out?"

At this point, Theo chuckled a little.

"Isn't it obvious?" He asked while shaking his head. "Being the richest doesn't mean you have the greatest stockpile of gold in your treasury. To truly be the richest family, you would have to hold at least several branches of key industries firmly in your hands. And thinking back," Theo's smile grew slightly bigger, "I think I can even guess them to be farming, metallurgy, local trade, and banking. That is," he paused for a moment, his smile growing even further, "any combination of those four."

By trading in the grain, one could never run out of customers for it. After all, everyone had to eat, and both bread and grain-based porridge were the most common meals of the era Theo judged this world to be at. And just like in his own country in the past, holding the land and selling the grains was often the most stable, predictable, and consistent way of building up a fortune.

Then came metallurgy which, in this day and age, translated to smithing swords, tools, and armor of all kinds. This guess, contrary to the others, wasn't based on just logical reasoning but also on what Theo observed in Callane's group - her own armor and weapons or their equivalent when it came to the men she brought along.

To an outsider, smithing would appear as just another field of crafting, no better than the Chandlers, Coopers, Potters, or Cartwrights.

In reality, however, those who controlled the supply of metal products controlled what could only be called the proto-heavy industry of this world, wielding the reins of not only the weapon and armor trade but also the aspect that many would often ignore - the tool trade!

Finally, there was the guess of the local trade and banking, both of which translated to working with the money which, across the ages, was often the best possible money multiplication method one could dabble in.

That's how Theo made his guess.

A stable base in either the grain or metal industry and then its multiplication either in the network of local trading companies or through banking.

"At this point, I don't think there's even a point in asking just how you figured it out…" Callane shook her head with a small, slightly exasperated smile. "But to confirm, yes, it's all four of them and then more. In short, I could use the fingers of just one of my hands to count out the economic fields my family isn't involved in. And that means…"

Theo smiled gently, this time opting not to interrupt the girl even though he could already tell what she was about to reveal.

"The moment we decide to go against the kingdom for real, their entire economy is going to grind to a halt."

"And that's why you only need your army to hold for two months," Theo added, building up on the girl's point rather than trying to counter it.

A strange part of himself just couldn't help but first immerse itself and then get extremely amused by the idea of manipulating the lives of hundreds of thousands of people while gathered around this crude, concrete desk with nothing but berries and berry mush for refreshments.

"That's right," Callane nodded her head, "that's how long I've predicted it will take for the effects of such a collapse to come into play, forcing all the other players to salvage whatever will be left from their lands at that point, making them too busy or simply too vulnerable to my power to dare to rise against me."

Nodding his head, Theo tensed his face in what felt like a natural yawn before relaxing back on his makeshift chair.

"Now then, where do I come in?" he asked, looking directly into Callane's eyes. "Unless you want me to believe that you had all of this prepared… just in case anyone dares to oppose your attempt at rescuing me?"

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