The Elder Sister Who Ran Away After Being Cheated by Her Fiancé and Younger Sister - Chapter 10:

Six years had passed since then.

Estelle was now working at the headquarters of the National Army Supply Department in the capital.

She had passed her promotion exams and been slightly promoted.

Her work wasn’t much different from when she was with a merchant house.

Managing incoming supplies, inspection, sorting, purchasing, price negotiations, and so on.

The only difference was that there was no retail involved.

When traveling on business to various regions, it was also her job to search for potentially useful items and make proposals.

Estelle flew all over the territory.

Single, estranged from her family, friends only within the military, neither nobility nor having any connections.

A volunteer soldier from a commoner with a completely blank background, one of the few female officers.

The lowest ranking in her department.

Estelle was a convenient presence.

Even within the Supply Department, there were various tasks.

To prevent collusion with suppliers, they had to change suppliers every few years, or they couldn’t procure all food from the same region. Once you understood the reasons, you could accept them, but there were truly many complicated rules.

Even when changing suppliers, there were considerations like the types and quantities handled, and the need to go through reliable, legitimate merchant houses, so it wasn’t as if just anyone would do.

They had to investigate the merchant houses’ backgrounds, and sometimes engage in sharp, back-and-forth exchanges.

Back when she was with her family or the Petrak Merchant House, Estelle had been afraid of business negotiations.

She would get tense and find it painful. She thought she wasn’t cut out for it.

But after being betrayed by her lover and sister, separated from her family, and going through training to overcome truly difficult experiences, she now had courage that made those days seem like a lie. It really was all about building resilience.

“What’s the reason for the price increase?”

“We’re in a tight spot ourselves. This price is unavoidable.”

Sitting across from the merchant house representative in the reception room, she looked over the documents handed to her.

She pretended to be seeing them for the first time as she glanced down, but she had already obtained the numbers beforehand, and the department had finished reviewing them.

The final decision was left to Estelle, but after taking a quick look at the smirking representative’s face, she made up her mind.

“I see, that’s unfortunate. Then, since we couldn’t reach an agreement, the contract will not proceed. Thank you for coming today.”

As Estelle sighed as if to say “too bad” and started to stand up, the representative hurriedly stopped her.

“Eh, no, wait a minute! That’s…”

“We have a budget too. It’s regrettable.”

“No, no, what about the relationship between you and me?”

What relationship?

Estelle thought about it. Then it hit her.

This representative was fairly good-looking, and it seemed he had used that to his advantage when dealing with women.

She recalled something like that being written in the documents from the intelligence department.

After Estelle became the National Army’s responsible officer, the merchant house’s representative had been replaced with this man some time later.

Incidentally, the previous representative had been a voluptuous beauty.

Estelle considered that sort of thing “sales effort,” so it didn’t bother her. But if he made a move, he’d be banned.

It was true they had continued transactions with this merchant house until now, but Estelle thought it was time to cut ties.

They couldn’t use the same supplier for too long anyway. The time to change would come eventually.

This was a bit earlier than planned, but Estelle intended to sever the relationship.

“From our perspective, as long as you deliver exactly what we specified within the budget, there’s no problem. Even if there’s some ‘ingenuity’ on your part in preparing the supplies, that’s the merchant house’s discretion and a chance to show your merchant skills.”

The prices of items supplied to the National Army were set slightly higher than actual market transaction prices.

Even for the same item, the price differed depending on whether it was procured locally or from a distant location with transportation costs added. Moreover, they couldn’t always procure under the same conditions every time.

If this were a private merchant house, they’d review prices each time, but at the National Army’s scale, that would be too cumbersome for both sides.

So, they set a smoothed-out amount that factored in these various conditions.

Therefore, from the merchant houses’ perspective, they could sell to the National Army at a higher price, making it “profitable.”

If they managed to procure cheaply, the difference would be greater, increasing the merchant house’s profit.

That’s why transactions with the National Army were fiercely contested among merchant houses.

Before Estelle was assigned, the responsible officers often got caught up in these merchant house rivalries, becoming exhausted every contract renewal period.

As her successor, Estelle was a complete novice with no connections to anyone, and she took advantage of that to ruthlessly clean up the previously lax relationships.

Of course, there were various incidents—threats, being followed, garbage scattered in front of her quarters but thanks to her National Army training and Valken’s guidance, she had the confidence that “even if attacked, I can escape,” so she was surprisingly unfazed.

Besides, the perpetrators were quickly identified, and the merchant houses that hired them were uncovered.

Estelle didn’t know what happened to them afterward, but they certainly disappeared from sight after that.

Frankly, if they had the poor judgment to think they could pick a fight with the military and get away with it, they were bound to disappear sooner or later anyway.

She didn’t mind “ingenuity” in procurement. That was where merchants showed their skill.

But there were things that were acceptable and things that weren’t.

An extreme example was stolen goods. If the initial cost was zero, it was pure profit. But that couldn’t be allowed.

There were other issues, like unfairly undercutting suppliers, so Estelle made sure to include all such clauses in the contracts and had them submitted.

There were complaints about it being troublesome, but if they didn’t like it, they just didn’t have to contract—it didn’t matter to her.

There was even a time when the merchant houses colluded and none of them stepped forward to contract, but then she called in merchants from Holland through Fretes.

That time was a masterpiece. The Holland merchants, who understood their role, relentlessly provoked the merchant house crowd and, in the process, shrewdly made a profit before leaving.

“Of course, we understand. We too engage in legitimate transactions for procurement. But when costs rise gradually from the bottom, it’s only natural that they get passed up, right?”

Although the merchant house’s share was in between.

Trying to raise the ceiling without reducing that share. Well, she could understand that.

But the budget wasn’t increasing, so there was nothing to be done about that.

They probably wanted Estelle to do something about it, but she had no obligation to, nor the authority in the first place.

It wasn’t as if these were items that only this merchant house could procure.

Nor would this merchant house collapse if this contract ended.

Conclusion: this was the end for now.

“The budget is fixed.”

“Isn’t it your job to do something about that?”

I don’t need you to tell me what my job is.

In the end, this man maintained this condescending attitude till the very end, she thought.

It’s fine if he looks down on people, but the moment the other party realizes it, he’s third-rate and that meant the merchant house that put such a third-rate person in charge of negotiations.

If fate allowed, they might contract again in a few years, but it was probably better to cut ties once and for all.

Good grief. Estelle sighed inwardly.