As Steward Warren's caravan pulled into Redwood Town, he couldn't help sweeping his eyes around curiously. It had been 5 months since his last trip here as he had been busy with business elsewhere, but in that short amount of time, some subtle signs of development had begun to appear.
The roads and shops were basically the same as when he was here in early May, but the atmosphere was somehow different. There was an air of excitement which lingered about, and the smiles on people's faces were also broader. It was as if a new burst of energy had been injected into the town.
"I'd heard about it from Able in his reports, but it's quite different seeing it in person," Steward Warren commented to himself as he observed the people of Redwood Town hurrying about, seemingly caught up in a great flurry of activity.
Now, some of this was undoubtedly due to it being the beginning of the fall harvest season, but that wasn't enough to explain why everyone seemed so cheerful and upbeat.
As the Rising Sun Merchant caravan arrived in the Central Square, Warren was greeted by the familiar sight of eager crowds, though if he wasn't mistaken, there appeared to be more people present than previously.
Getting of his carriage, Warren made his way over to offer his usual greetings, "Lady Sasha, it's only been a few months since we last met but you're looking more radiant than ever!"
"Oh? You must be joking, Steward Warren. I'm just a simple country woman," Sasha replied in a casual, nearly professional manner, easily deflecting his flattery.
Of course, Warren was just making small-talk and meant nothing else, so he didn't mind this deflection and simply got down to business, "You'll be happy to know I managed to acquire the items you requested last month and have brought them all with me today."
"Excellent," Sasha smiled happily before gesturing to the large cart behind her, "I believe you'll also be very satisfied with the quantity of soap which we managed to produce last month."
Glancing over at the fully loaded cart and estimating that there must be more than 3,000 bars inside, Warren couldn't help widening his grin.
Sure enough, Sasha reported, "This month, after opening a new workshop dedicated just to making soap, we managed to produce 3,420 bars, all of them packaged and ready to be sold."
3,420 bars of soap would cost nearly 700 Gold for Warren to purchase from Redwood Town, but through various deals he had struck over the past few months, he could now easily sell them for over 1,700 Gold, earning him a hefty profit even after subtracting his expenses!
This was truly a lucrative trade for Warren and represented more than half of all the business he did in Redwood Town now. Re-selling soap had earned him not just a healthy profit margin, but also some high praise from his immediate superiors in the Guild.
It was nowhere near the uproar which had occurred when he had brought back 120 kg of sugar from Redwood Town, but, so far, that had been a one-time deal rather than a regular transaction.
What Sasha didn't tell Warren was that Lucas' soap workshop had actually manufactured over 4,000 bars of this cleaning product last month! However, with the opening of the new bathhouse, many more bars had to be held back just for the ordinary townspeople to use.
Lucas also sold a few hundred bars to the local peddlers, who brought them out to sell in the neighbouring villages, towns, and even in Harold City. In short, the demand for soap was only growing, rather than shrinking.
On top of increasing the quality of life in Redwood Town by improving hygiene, Lucas' soap had another positive effect of bringing in a large amount of wealth to the community.
As production expanded at his workshop and with the opening of the bathhouse, Lucas had hired more workers, now employing about 30 full-time staff, all of whom were paid extremely high wages and generous bonuses.
In fact, Lucas' jobs were so popular now that many townsfolk, young and old, were begging the boy to further expand in order to allow more of them to be hired.
Of course, it wasn't just Lucas' direct employees who benefited from this increased cash-flow. There were also the hunters, butchers, woodcutters, smiths, masons, carpenters, and many others who were now receiving coins from the young boy as he bought ever-increasing amounts of supplies and equipment from them.
The young boy's workshop had such a huge demand for materials that Lucas had now begun striking deals with the surrounding villages to buy rendered fats and other supplies as stocks in Redwood Town were being stretched a bit thin.
Purchasing supplies from out of town was naturally more expensive than sourcing everything locally, which raised the cost of producing a bar of soap from 20 to about 25 Coppers. However, since Lucas was selling bars of soap locally for 100 Coppers (1 Silver), and selling them to Steward Warren at 2 Silvers a bar, he really didn't care about this slight increase.
Even if the price to make a bar of soap rose to 30 or 40 Coppers, it would still be worth it to continue increasing production!
As for the other critical ingredients in soap, Lucas was burning so much firewood to render fat and to heat water at the bathhouse that he literally had piles of wood ash stashed away at his workshop. The only thing more abundant was fresh, clean water, that had never been in short supply.
The wealth brought in by Lucas' soap business, along with a new type of compost fertilizer which significantly improved crop yields, another of the boy's inventions, were the primary reasons behind the improved 'energy' of Redwood Town that Steward Warren had noticed.
…..
As Sasha and Warren were settling accounts for this month's trade, a rare guest appeared in the Town Square.
"Baron Newton! What a surprise!" Warren called out as he saw the burly, brown-haired man approaching.
"Hahaha! There's no need for all that stiff noble etiquette here, just call me Charles," the Redwood Town Lord laughed heartily as he walked over and patted Warren on the shoulder in a friendly manner.
Just now, Charles had been out in the fields with the farmers, helping to organize the fall harvest. Strangely enough, Lucas' new fertilizer had actually created a bit of a problem in that all the fields which it had been used in were producing far more than normal.
This should have been a wonderful thing as it meant there was even more food in Redwood Town than normal, decreasing the likelihood of anyone going hungry and also increasing the amount of money the farmers earned, but it also meant more hands were needed for harvesting, more carts were needed to transport grain, more mills were needed for grinding, and so on and so forth.
Lucas had actually anticipated this problem and encouraged the local artisans to increase the production of farming equipment, but even he had underestimated just how effective his new fertilizer would be, leading to the current situation where all the farms were short of hands and looking for helpers.
Now, having just been working in the fields, Charles was naturally covered in dirt, mud, and dust, all of which transferred over to Warren's fine robes when the Town Lord was slapping him on the shoulder.
"Ah… Sorry," Charles apologized sheepishly when he noticed this and tried to dust off the mess he had just made, which, of course, only made things worse.
Fortunately, Steward Warren was a rather easy-going man himself, and since he had just managed to acquire over 1,000 Gold Coins in profit in the form of 3,000 bars of soap, he was in a very good mood and laughed this incident off, "Hahaha, no need for apologize, Baron Charles. A quick shake and it'll all come off."
Grinning awkwardly, Charles nodded before an idea came to him, "Say, you must not have had a good wash in days. Why don't you accompany me to the town bathhouse?"
"Since when was there a bathhouse in Redwood Town?" Warren asked with surprise.
As a well-off and well traveled merchant, Warren had been to a bathhouse before, several of them, in fact; however, such establishments were normally only built in big, wealthy cities. Given this reality, the fact that there was a bathhouse in a small place like Redwood Town came as quite a shock.
With his work basically settled for the morning, and feeling a bit stiff and itchy from all the traveling he had been doing recently, Warren decided to accept Charles' offer.
To be honest, he was also quite curious to see what this countryside bathhouse looked like.
Receiving the other party's agreement, Charles let out another burst of happy laughter and nodded in approval, turning to his wife and saying, "Well, you heard it. We'll be heading over to the baths!"
Seeing her husband acting so familiarly with this Rising Sun Merchant Guild steward, who she was certain was a Sea Establishment Realm Practitioner, Sasha wasn't sure whether to marvel at Charles' boldness, or groan at his ignorance.
Shaking her head wryly, Sasha just smiled and said, "If you're headed that way, take these Spirit Lamps with you. We ordered them for them for the bathhouse anyways."
"Right right!" Charles nodded, trotting over and picking up a dozen lantern-looking objects from the handcart, awkwardly holding them and tucking them under his arm before finally running out of carrying capacity and turning to Warren and shamelessly asking for help.
"Haa…" Sighing audibly, Sasha turned and bow slightly, "Forgive my husband, Steward Warren. He's too used to the simple life here in Redwood Town and sometimes forgets his etiquette."
Taking half the Spirit Lamps from Charles, Steward Warren just waved his hand and replied, "No need for that. I prefer the peaceful environment out here in Redwood Town to the stiff atmosphere in Harold City."
"Hahaha, exactly!" Charles nodded in agreement, "Having to deal with all those stuck-ups all day long must be exhausting."
"Oh, you…!" Sasha was exasperated, but didn't know what to say. Even if she completely agreed with her husband's sentiment, there were still things that should, and should not be said aloud.
"Relax, Dear," Charles brushed off his wife's concerns before turning to Steward Warren, "Come on then, I'm sure you'll love the bathhouse! Everyone in town does!"
And with that, the two men set off, with Charles leading the way.
…..
Maintaining a leisurely pace, the two men took just over a quarter hour to reach the Redwood Town Bathhouse, but when they got there, Steward Warren couldn't stop his eyes from bulging.
The size of this bathhouse was, quite frankly, enormous.
Some 100 metres long and over 30 metres deep, this was undoubtedly one of the biggest single structures in Redwood Town, and that was just the main building!
Outside the bathhouse, Warren could see a massive waterwheel which was constantly drawing up water from the river and then dumping it into a complex set of wooden channels, all leading to 6 large reservoirs set up beneath some kind of open-air shed.
What's more, this was clearly not just an establishment that offered a cold slash of water to rinse off with.
Sniffing the air, Warren smelled a familiar floral fragrance wafting from the bathhouse, mixed with the scent of burning wood. Taking note of the series of smoking chimneys lining one side of the main building, the middle-aged steward concluded that this place offered soap and hot water in abundance.
For a small settlement like Redwood Town, this didn't just seem excessive, it bordered on ridiculous!
Warren estimated that over 150 people could enjoy a hot wash inside of this bathhouse simultaneously without it even feeling cramped, and if it remained open for all the daylight hours, 1,500 people being able to bathe here daily wouldn't be an issue.
As far as Warren knew, the population of Redwood Town was only slightly more than 3,000, which meant that this bathhouse could accommodate half of the entire population every single day!
What was even more astonishing, though, was there seemed to be ongoing construction nearby to further enlarge this bathhouse!
Do they want everyone in town to be able to wash themselves here every day? Warren was honestly baffled by this prospect as that was a luxury that wasn't possible even in the kingdom's capital for most upper middle-class civilians.
"Come on! Let's go inside and get cleaned up! I'll show you how it's done," Charles interrupted Warren's thoughts, urging the latter forward, clearly excited to show off his town's latest and greatest attraction.