All matters of the Lumen Merchant Guild are carried out under the permission of Duke Sieri.
There are rare occasions when the Vice Guildmaster makes decisions, but selling potions in collaboration with the Temple of the Sun God is no ordinary business.
Without a doubt, Lute Sieri must be involved in this matter.
How could they have not known until now that Lute Sieri had made contact with the Sun God's faction?
"Carmen, what's going on?"
At that moment, someone entered the room.
Unlike Carmen, who wore a flashy dress, the man was clad in a neat saint's robe.
With deep blue hair and sky-blue eyes—the opposite of Carmen—he was Dominic Aria, Saint of the Great Sea God's Temple and Carmen's older brother.
"Those leech-like bastards of the Sun God are still alive."
Carmen shouted venomously.
Dominic's eyes widened.
"…What did you say?"
"Not only are they alive, but they've also started a potion business. And it's the Lumen Merchant Guild that's distributing it!"
Dominic's expression hardened.
His previously gentle features now appeared far more savage than Carmen's.
The overwhelming pressure emanating from the strongest Saint and Saintess of the Great Sea God's Temple made the priest's legs start to tremble.
"That's odd. According to the letter, they began selling potions over half a month ago. So why are we only hearing about this now?"
Dominic took the crumpled letter from Carmen and read it before questioning the priest.
His voice was calm, but the aura he gave off was anything but.
"We're not lacking in informants, so how could we have not known until now?"
"S-Saint, that is…"
"To think we entrusted such an important business to someone this incompetent."
"Saint! I'm so sorry!"
The senior priest turned pale and dropped to his knees with a thud.
But he would not be given a second chance.
"Take him away. Replace the one in charge of the potion business immediately."
At Carmen's command, the paladins waiting nearby began dragging the senior priest away.
"Saint! Saintess! I was wrong! Please, just one more chance! Consider all I've done to grow this business…!"
He cried out desperately, but Carmen and Dominic had already turned their backs.
As if they had long since forgotten someone like him even existed.
In the end, he was dragged off to an unknown place, his mouth forcibly shut by the paladins.
"Ha! This is driving me crazy."
Now that everyone had left and the room had gone quiet,
Carmen ran a hand through her hair and slumped back onto the sofa.
"Those damn bastards, I'm so sick of them."
It had been quite a while since she'd last thought about the Sun God, and yet here they were, crawling back up from the depths, not even dead!
"This was the perfect chance for the Great Sea God to become the one and only true god!"
And that was the very reason they were hostile to the Sun God.
Long ago, the continent worshiped three principal deities.
But as time passed, the influence of the three gods drastically shifted.
The Sun God, once the most powerful among them, began to fall into decline.
As people gradually forgot the Sun God's very existence, they naturally turned to the Great Sea God, whose influence steadily grew.
Eventually, the Great Sea God rose to become the most revered deity on the continent.
The third god among the trinity had no interest in expanding their influence, so if things had gone on just a bit longer, the Great Sea God could have become the sole god of the continent.
And yet, at this critical juncture, those damn Sun God bastards hadn't vanished but instead resurfaced!
"And now they dare to start a potion business? Weren't they supposed to be on the verge of collapse from poverty? And how did they even manage to win over Duke Sieri?!"
Lute Sieri was a fickle man.
He had once come to the Great Sea God's Temple despite not believing in any god, and they had thought he might finally become a believer—only for him to suddenly scoff and leave.
So why in the world was he now partnering with the cursed Sun God to start a business?
What do we lack compared to them?
"…What are we supposed to do now?"
Carmen looked at Dominic with an anxious expression.
Since Dominic was far calmer by nature than she was, perhaps he would come up with a decent plan.
"…Has the god given you any revelations?"
Dominic asked after quietly pondering for a moment.
Carmen let out a small gasp.
"That's right."
Whenever something significant happened at the Great Sea God's Temple, the deity would usually deliver a divine message—a revelation.
But until they belatedly found out about this matter, there hadn't been a single word from him.
"He didn't even bother to glance at me."
"I haven't felt the god's presence in quite some time either."
The fact that the Great Sea God—who would always appear when something happened, even if not frequently—was silent could only mean one thing.
"It means the Sun God's temple hasn't truly made a comeback."
It was a reasonable conclusion.
No one knew the extent of the Great Sea God's greed better than the two siblings who served closest to him.
"So let's leave it be for now. If Duke Sieri is backing the business, there's nothing we can do to interfere anyway."
It was infuriating, but he was right.
Even though the Temple of the Great Sea God was the most powerful among all temples, they still weren't strong enough to stand against House Sieri.
Especially since the ducal family had good ties with the imperial household.
If they made one wrong move, they could end up turning the entire empire into an enemy. Interfering in the duke's business was simply not an option.
However—
"We do need to understand the situation at least, so let's send an informant to the Sun God's temple."
While they couldn't touch Lute Sieri directly, the Sun God's temple wasn't off-limits.
"Good. I like it."
Carmen smiled in satisfaction at Dominic's decision.
If they had to just sit back and watch without doing anything, she would've gone crazy. She was glad that wasn't the case.
Carmen thought of the informants the temple had painstakingly raised and smiled slyly.
She was truly looking forward to the information they would bring back from the Sun God's temple.
Screeeech!
A scream burst from my mouth before I could stop myself, and I quickly covered it with both hands.
I glanced around nervously, but thankfully, no one frowned at my outburst.
The others with me were already halfway out of their minds in shock.
"U-Uh… Huh? Gasp…"
"I-Is this… Is this real?"
Unable to form words, Seth sat there stunned while Eirik turned to me and asked.
I lowered my hands from my mouth and nodded.
"Yes, it's real. This is our potion sales report!"
The document we were all poring over was none other than the potion sales report sent by Jun Rudmin, the Vice Guildmaster of the Lumen Merchant Guild.
We couldn't suppress our screams after hearing that all 500 bottles of the prototype potions had sold out in just ten days.
And on top of that, pre-order inquiries were flooding in.
Thanks to Jun Rudmin's quick thinking in taking prepayments, we had profits in our hands that far exceeded our expectations.
Even I hadn't anticipated such an explosive success right from the start.
"This launch has been so good, it's almost scary."
"H-How is this even possible?"
Seth only managed to speak again after gulping down some cold water.
I explained to him about the recent price hikes in alchemy potions.
"In short, we timed it well. Honestly, if you can get a more effective potion for about the same price, wouldn't you buy ours?"
Our potion was mid-tier in terms of grade. To be frank, its price was slightly high for its stats.
But ours was infused with divine power.
Making potions imbued with divine energy—once used only by nobles—available to commoners naturally created a surge in demand.
"How did you even know this would work, Saintess?"
Seth looked at me with sparkling eyes.
I wanted to say it was because I was a genius… but this time, the credit wasn't mine.
"It was thanks to Monica. She did the market research."
Monica had practically screamed that this was the perfect time and that we had to push forward now.
It was because of her that we overworked the potion production team and the divine-energy channelers to mass-produce everything.
And thanks to that, the potion business took off flawlessly.
"Also, the Lumen Guild's brand name played a big role."
If the Lumen Guild hadn't handled distribution, we'd probably still be biting our nails, worried about unsold inventory.
But thanks to them, even though Sun God potions were completely unfamiliar to most people, they bought them without hesitation.
Having Lute involved in the business had definitely been the right call.
"Now we'll need the potion production team and the divine-energy priests to really step up."
I smiled at Eirik. Seth gave him a pitying look.
There was only one reason we were treating him this way.
"Hang in there, High Priest."
After all, one of the divine-energy channelers responsible for infusing the potions was Eirik himself.
As the de facto head channeler, he had been enthusiastically grinding himself down more than anyone else.
[T/L: Read extra chapters on my ko-fi page "Pokemon1920" : http://ko-fi.com/pokemon1920 ]