They decided to hold their business meeting in the Terendala estate simply because they could furnish a comparatively modern conference room to go with their business suits there.

  Whiteboards were a bonus. The markers even came with magic refills. In this world, a refill lasted for maybe half an hour at a cost that would have pretty much anyone on Earth puke from the shock. Here it was part of the power play. This was their last time marketing clothes, and they were supposed to fail. Even in the form of three-piece suits a modern business suit was simply too outlandish, but it would have the federation capital looking in the direction of Isekai for anything associated with fashion in the future.

  The formal purpose was different, though. Trade routes, and it really was the purpose of this event.

  Ioha prepared the meeting. This was something he had done several times from long before he even got his bachelor. His family was at fault.

  “Why the odd colours?” Harvali asked after he studied himself in a mirror.

  “Not odd, natural,” Ioha answered. That was the thing. Looking normal in a modern world meant looking like a commoner. Or rather, just about everyone looked like a commoner, since everyone were. Did it mean the modern world lacked social strata? Of course not, but you simply didn’t talk about nobility and commoners in a civilised society. You pretended the super rich were the same as everyone else, and that they actually had the same laws applied to them because that was the civilised thing to do.

  “I’m interested in those real modern clothes of yours. I mean what you wear over there.”

  Ioha smiled. “We can take a trip. I’ll be your guide.”

  “I will hold you to that.”

  It could be interesting. Ioha made a mental note to have Harvali see both Sweden and Japan. A month unless they spend most of the time gate-lagged. Eight hour instantaneous time difference was brutal on the body.

  “Gods! What are you wearing?” The door swung shut behind the voice.

  Ioha looked up from the documents he prepared on the conference table. “Derina, haven’t seen you since the zone.” He let his eyes wander to Derina’s left. “Welcome miss Wari.”

  The door opened again, and the Terendala butler let half a dozen men and women inside. They gave him and Harvali just as outraged stares as Derina and Almina had.

  While the federation capital didn’t furnish their high society mansions as depressingly dark as in Wergaist, the light softwood furniture in the room received its own share of scoffs and acid remarks. So did the abundant lighting, but Ioha had insisted on as modern as possible a style for this event. If you planned outlandish, there was very little reason to pull the brakes. As more guests arrived, servants entered with serving trolleys and simply left them in the corners and along one wall. To add insult to injury, they were laden with fruit and flavoured water.

  “Welcome all,” Harvali started, and invited anyone to express the outrage they must all feel. He merely represented one of a dozen exceedingly powerful houses and had just brought home someone associated with the strange but rising star to the north-west. If you wanted to be left out, this was a good place to start.

  They took their seats. Left out was bad.

  “My name is Ioha Questingtank, and I’m an associate of Isjase,” Ioha said and broke all decorum. He was knighted but he wasn’t a noble.

  “How dare he…”

  Harvali frowned and glared at the door. The protester quickly decided silence might be a better option.

  “If I may,” an older lady began, “what exactly is an Isjase?” She had been outwardly polite enough to get away with the barb.

  Ioha, however, was prepared. He had waited for this. With a rehearsed smirk in the direction of the young Wari siblings he switched on the whiteboard. The magic setup would collapse within a couple of hours, but for now, he had a backlit presentation screen. “As you can see here,” he pointed at a section of the whiteboard that lit up in a highlight. This was a very different use of the triggered magic he invented together with Ai back at Spellsword Academy. “We’re a conglomerate.” He looked at the faces seated around the table. “We’re currently around fifty subsidiaries or partners.”

  Some of the faces nodded. A merchant company of fifty souls counted as fairly strong.

  “Right now,” Ioha continued, “we employ around two thousand this side of the gate.”

  “Two thousand?” Almina’s voice came out as a squeak. She, if anybody, understood the relevance. “Including how many guards?” she added in an obvious attempt to downplay the numbers. Soldiers represented a substantially lower economic value per head.

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  Ioha smiled. “Employed? Maybe a hundred. We usually hire our escorts from the adventurers guild.”

  She stared at him, and even Derina offered him a shocked expression. Around them the others exchanged worried looks, and Ioha noticed how the more mercantile of the bunch started to make sums in their heads.

  “You said this side of the gate,” Almina began.

  “About the same numbers Earth side,” Ioha finished helpfully. “Well, plus recruiting and students of course,” he added and grinned.

  She almost collapsed in her seat. “How many?”

  “In total? I honestly don’t know. We left Isekai quite some time ago, and I haven’t been to outworld since last summer.”

  He had, Ioha knew, just threatened the foundation of the Wari house. When outworlder corporations used huge sums of money for expansion they grew at a rate unheard of in this world.

  “If you had to make a guess,” Almina asked.

  Ioha tilted his head Ai style. “Mm, it’s just a guess, OK?” When she nodded he continued. “Say anything between eight and twelve thousand.”

  She exchanged glances with her brother, and they apparently came to a silent agreement.

  From there on the meeting proceeded at a brisk pace. Ioha wanted to export cloth, miscellaneous home appliances, border zone loot and education. He desperately needed to import raw materials, including food. Most of all, Isekai needed silver, which was a huge problem for a growing city depending more and more on imports. They were rapidly running out of coins, which literally meant a lack of physical coins.

  They wrote contracts, and Ioha lied about the trading port and prayed the people back home made good enough use of their employed mages to have that port ready when the first ships arrived. The more militarily inclined houses wanted to trade by caravan, which came as a great relief for Ioha despite the rather blatant attempt to get permission to move troops disguised as escorts.

  As the meeting continued their guests slowly got used to the business suits and Ioha signed quite a few contracts for woollen cloth. Both fruit and water eventually found their way into hungry mouths, but Harvali had been adamant they could push it only to a certain limit. When they were done the butler arrived and led everyone to the hall of lords where a proper banquet had been made ready. Harvali even got an opportunity to show off the glassed veranda.

  Their guests had started to depart when Almina and Derina asked for a private meeting with Ioha. He led them to Harvali’s latest pride and took a chair.

  The siblings sat down facing him.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to go to Isekai,” Almina said.

  “Yes?”

  “I would also like to have you as a business partner.”

  Ioha nodded. Making partners had been the reason for the meeting after all. “I don’t see a problem there.”

  “We need to see Isekai for ourselves,” Derina shot in.

  Ioha looked at him. “You spent four years in the academy and never visited Isekai?”

  Almina stabbed her brother with an angry stare. “He’s a cat. Great at jumping but not at thinking.”

  “Hey!”

  Both Ioha and Almina backed away in their chairs when Derina extended aura to his lower body, but he never jumped.

  Your sense of humour sucks. “As I said, how can I be of help?”

  A servant suddenly arrived with fruit juice and some biscuits on a tray. He left just as quickly.

  Almina grabbed one and munched on it. “We need to go to Isekai. If not as an escort I would still want you to accompany us.”

  He had dropped a bomb on them. “I see. Us as in?”

  “Sorry?”

  “I mean, how do you define us? You people say ‘I’ll tag along’ and when it’s time to go I find a school class waiting.”

  The siblings looked at each other. “You’re asking how many people we’ll be?”

  Ioha nodded.

  “Guards, drivers, mm…”

  “Merchants, mm, servants…”

  “Don’t forget…”

  “Guests, I know!”

  “So, er…”

  “End of summer, mm.”

  Ioha stared in fascination at how they exchanged thoughts and estimates that went far beyond what they dressed in words. Almina might insult her younger brother, but it was clear how much they trusted each other.

  They fell silent and looked at each other again. Derina nodded at his sister.

  “Our estimate,” she began, “is two carriages and ten wagons plus maybe ten extra horses.”

  “Six passengers in the carriages, twelve drivers and four servants. Add six knights as escort.”

  “And me?” Ioha wondered and smiled.

  “You and Harvali. Another four wagons with a driver each. I don’t know how many extra horses you use.”

  So they’d sleep in roadhouses with the staff in nearby barns. If they planned to arrive at the end of summer some kind of major detour must be in the plans as well. It suited Ioha perfectly.

  “When do we depart?”

  Both siblings lit up. “Tomorrow, or the day after.”