Reincarnated As A Lion In Another World-Chapter 102: Fox Merchant
"...But that’s not enough," Kael said.
Bibi IV bowed his head, noticing the sternness in Kael’s tone. He had a feeling that the king was pissed at something, he just didn’t know what it was.
"... All we have done is set up a good foundation, the warriors still lack in quality and quantity. With only a hundred or so wolves, it can be considered an army, but not a good one." Kael lamented.
"Yes my King, I’m aware of all this and have made efforts to improve it. All of the wolves except the cubs have already engaged in early mating rituals.
The only problem is time, we wolves also need a year plus to grow into maturity, maybe two years even depending on our breed.
I’m afraid we will have to wait, unless…" Commander Bibi trailed off, unsure if he should say what he wanted to say.
"Bibi, please, feel free to share any suggestions you have. That’s why we’re having the meeting in the first place." Kael said. He couldn’t be the one coming up with all the ideas by himself, he just had to make sure their ideas aligned with his goals.
"Okay, my King. I was thinking, why don’t we try recruiting from beyond the kingdom?" Commander Bibi offered.
"Recruiting?"
"Yes. Some wolves have mentioned seeing other creatures, including other wolves, hanging around our borders.
These creatures did not show any hostility and instead revealed looks of longing.
I believe that a lot of animals want to join our kingdom. I just don’t know why." Bibi IV said.
Vixy who heard this could not help but scoff in her mind. Commander Bibi might not know but she knew.
Almost every spirit-type creature in the forest knew and had communicated to as many as they could.
Kael’s work was just appealing to many of them who felt the need to surrender to someone powerful.
"Very well then," Kael said after thinking about it, "Recruit only the wolves into the Warrior caste system. Building our army is most important right now.
The recruitment phase will end after the one-month rest period ends."
"I’ll do as you wish, my King," Commander Bibi replied. The more wolf warriors they had, the more power they could have, so he was rather excited for this development.
Kael then faced Vixy, "As for you, I have thought of the perfect caste for you and the foxes that may soon join us.
The Fox Merchant Caste." He said.
Vixy tilted her head, confused. "What does it mean?" She asked. She genuinely didn’t know what a merchant was and Kael didn’t expect her to know.
"Merchants are people who engage in the business of buying and selling goods for profit. For example, they buy something at a certain price and then sell it somewhere else at a higher price.
The job of the fox merchant is to boost trade in this kingdom’s economy. You will be responsible for facilitating trade between two or more parties that want to sell or buy something.
Basically, the fox merchant would act as a medium, or broker, between buyers and sellers.
Let’s say a wolf just hunted down two deer, and he wants to sell one, you can buy that deer from him and pay him in whatever he wants.
Or you could wait until you’ve sold the deer to another creature before paying the wolf. At the same time, you could take a percentage for yourself as a commission.
In the future, most trades will be done with The Powder as a currency so trade by barter would not be common.
This is also important as many animals wish to buy or sell something and would prefer if no one knew who they were. You could act as an agent that respects their privacy, only doing the job of a merchant for them then moving on." Kael explained.
Vixy digested the words and was slowly understanding what Kael meant, "I think I understand the concept.
But there’s just one problem, what if other creatures decide to do the trading themselves without the fox merchants as mediums? Won’t that slowly make the fox merchants irrelevant?" Vixy asked. As expected if someone was with her, she had already seen some flaws.
"I am aware of that. That is why any trade commenced without a fox merchant must be reported and the perpetrators will be dealt with severely.
I am not trying to run a full capitalist kingdom, it will be a mix of both and everyone having a role to play.
The kingdom is to function like a machine, each part having a role to play in ensuring the efficiency of the machine. Any part that is no longer good will be discarded and replaced swiftly.
With this, I have given the wolves military might and I have given the foxes economic power.
As we find more creatures to fill in different caste systems, the kingdom will become more self-sufficient and a clear hierarchy would become present…" Kael could not help but raise his voice as he spoke.
The eyes of Commander Bibi, Vixy, and Kursela widened. They could see a glimpse of the future Kael was planning and they were impressed as well as terrified.
Kael’s ability to create such long-term plans was truly outstanding. Kael wasn’t just planning ahead, he was creating a system of his own, a system where every little thing worked together to achieve a grand goal.
Every creature in this system would unknowingly work to increase Kael and the lion’s might.
"Do I get a responsibility?" Kursela asked. She was a bit excited to be part of this grand thing that Kael was planning and had difficulty hiding it.
"You? The bears?" Kael thought deeply.
He had wanted to give the bears a caste system similar to the wolf warriors but figured that would be counterproductive and their roles would overlap too much. His OCD would not allow that, everything had to be in order.
"The bears will carry the Bear Priest Caste." Kael declared.
"Bear priest?" Kursela asked, confused.
"Yes, the job of a priest is to lead a cult-like following around a certain figure.
A priest would evangelize and bring others closer to the supreme entity of worship, ensuring that they all stay in line.
In short, the Bear Priest would be responsible for managing the cult of personality around me. With your help, the animals of this forest won’t see me as just a special lion.
No, they’d see me as a divine entity sent down from the heavens to lead them. Can you manage that?"
Kursela thought for a while, she still didn’t understand what or how a bear priest was supposed to work. She didn’t even know what a cult of personality was.
What Kael was trying to do was create a religion around himself, just like the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs or the Roman emperors of earth.
One could say that Kael had thought very well about this. He was bent on addressing anything that could affect his legitimacy to rule.
"Truthfully, I don’t understand it much," Kursela admitted.
"It’s okay, I didn’t expect you to. I’ll guide you through the role and you teach your cubs because one of them will eventually take over from you." Kael said.
"Really?" Kursela asked.
"Yes, I don’t think you will be fit to lead any caste system. For now, you will be the stand-in leader of the future bear priests until I choose one of your cubs." Kael said bluntly, he didn’t bother to mince his words.
Kursela could understand what Kael meant, obviously, he didn’t see her as a truly loyal person even though she could be capable. Kael wanted one of the cubs to grow into the role.
Kursela looked down at her cubs, they had changed in the last weeks. One still had brown fur, just like hers. While the other had brown fur mixed with white fur, the white fur was slowly taking over and soon the bear cub would be entirely white, just like his father.
Looking at them, Kael could already tell that the cubs had both awakened their bear hearts already, they just didn’t have the adult body to show their power yet.
"Anyways, beyond all that we have said, caste systems are nothing without caste members.
Bibi will work on recruiting the wolves, Vixy, you are to look for foxes that are willing to join the fox merchant caste." Kael said.
Vixy nodded, she knew that if she explained what was going on to other foxes, they would definitely be interested in joining.
"As for you, Kursela. If other bears are anything like you I don’t think we should try any recruiting. Instead, we will see if we can draw them to us, a bait if possible."
Kursela kept her calm expression, Kael had subtly insulted her multiple times and she was upset, but she didn’t forget who held the power to the life of her cubs. Simply because her loyalty to Kael was not genuine, Kael would be very tough with her.
Kael and the ordained caste leaders continued their meeting, talking about many strategies that they wanted to employ. Kael was very attentive to their opinions, he knew that he couldn’t think of everything.
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And indeed, their ideas helped him further refine his other plans. But even toward the end of the meeting, he still chose not to tell them about Darius.
