Chikdor Merchant Guild

The emblem of the guild is a sword-impaled wine barrel, encased in a circular frame.

The Chikdor Merchant Guild, one of the seven largest merchant guilds of the Forde Trade Union. Initially, they were known as the Sword and Barrel. Their name only changed after Chairman Chikdor took control of the guild because he felt that it didn't sound too good. They are rather low-profile within Morante City, and not many would know that they are one of the seven largest merchant guilds.

The Chikdor Merchant Guild is one of the hegemons on the ocean, having up to 100 large merchant vessels and countless middle-class cargo vessels as well as seven or eight shipyards. They have huge influence over the Invincible Fleet. They also engage mostly in purchasing loads of goods and dumping them in other lands. They mostly deal in wholesale distribution, so not many are aware of them.

At sea, they controlled the routes that head to the Shyarsia Kingdom and Hanayabarta Kingdom. The Chikdor Merchant Guild purchases most of the spice produced by the Shyarsia Kingdom annually. The Hanayabarta Kingdom, on the other hand, use their immense profits from the slave trade to purchase luxury goods and daily necessities from the guild. The guild's formed four large merchant fleets that rotate every three months.  They trade along the coast between Hidegold Bay and the Golden Coast.

Even though the Chikdor Merchant Guild doesn't grab much attention on land, they are incredibly domineering at sea. There have been instances where they caused trouble for smaller merchant guilds or individual ship owners. If it were the fleet of any other merchant guild, they might let us sail through their fleet. But this guild's fleets will only let you in to attack you once you're inside. They would always leave the crew of the ships they attack right there, floating in the middle of the ocean.

Even though the Chikdor Merchant Guild had the highest number of ships at sea, they still had to rely on their long distance carriages on land. Otherwise, they would not be able to gather so much resources and supplies that secretively.

The third interception fleet had Blademaster Kumori with them, and their admiral was also incredibly experienced.

The Chikdor Merchant Guild was not one that was controlled completely by one family. Initially, they were known as the Sword and Barrel merchant guild, which was originally formed by a group of close friends. Eventually, when one of the ancestors of the Chikdor clan took over, and brought the guild to the ranks of the other largest guilds in the union, the Chikdor clan obtained 70 percent shares of the guild and changed its name to its current one. Also, the position of president could only be inherited by the descendants of the Chikdor clan.

As for the families of the other founders who were part of the guild, the incompetent ones would survive on the dividends of the guild, while the competent ones would eventually serve as the high-ranking officials within the guild. After Blademaster Udi was discovered to be talented at a young age, he was raised with the utmost care and attention. This caused him to become a force that the guild could rely on. In terms of seniority, even President Chikdor had to refer to him as uncle.

The guild makes 2 million gold Fordes annually. Deducting the expenses and bonuses they must pay out, less than 400 thousand or so goes into the treasury. That’s why the guild refused Saibyoeff’s request to form another armed fleet, they couldn’t afford to maintain another one. It cost 500 thousand gold Fordes, almost as much as the yearly revenue of the northern fleet, to eradicate pirates every year.

## Dominion

The territory Serihanem had in mind was the Urubaha duchy. The duchy was located to the south of the Forde Trade Union and could be considered to be the starting point for the Golden Coast at the southern seas. At the south of the Falik Plains (where Morante City was located) were the Callisto Hills. The Tedanini mountains, where the dwarven kingdom was located, was further south. At the very southern end of the Tedanini mountains, was the Urubaha duchy.

While the terrain of the duchy was mountainous and near the coast, it was incredibly crude and rural. Its main 'export' was pirates and mercenaries. Half of the pirates that operated at the Solar Seas were the so-called fishing folk of the Urubaha duchy. They were a hodge-podge bunch who didn't care whether a fleet they spotted belonged to a large merchant guild or not. As long as there was an opportunity for profit, they would attack and make off with the precious cargo. Should the merchant guild be the least bit careless, they would suffer huge losses to the raids.

Serihanem had made his decision purely based on his mercantile perspective. Half of the Urubaha duchy was desolate mountains. The other half was coastal beaches. As such, there wasn't much space for farmland. The thing the duchy was known for was its subterranean caverns which were known to all of Grindia as one of the seven most dangerous places on the continent. Legend says that within the caves lie a mysterious underground world, which saw 9 out of 10 explorers to the caverns failing to return alive. However, it didn't deter Serihanem at all. He was a merchant, not an explorer, nor a mercenary. Perhaps, he could even use the mystery surrounding the caverns to profit off some foolish adventurers. As for their safety, they were none of his concern.

The Urubaha duchy was a relatively poor nation. The merchants, however, believed that the reason for its poor economy was poor management, and that it could be improved if the right person was in charge. Serihanem felt he was the perfect fit to do just that. Other factors aside, he already had his eyes on the ancient forests in the duchy which would be ideal for timber production. The current duke wasn't keen on investing in roads, and didn't take advantage of the natural resources the duchy possessed. Given that the duchy was near the Tedanini mountains, trade with the dwarves would net quite a bit of profit too. At the same time, he could have people looking for ore veins; yet another avenue in which to invest. The first young master was quite adept at coming up with ideas to make a profit.

The greatest benefit of making the Urubaha duchy the dominion of the clan was how the guild could use the pirates for their own benefit. Not only would that be able to cut out the costs of wiping out the pirates, they could even be added to the naval forces of the guild. By spending the least resources, the guild would be able to convert the poor fishing folk into sailors for its fleets, and decrease the cost of hiring and training rookies.

Additionally, traveling from the duchy to Morante City would only take three to four days by ship. The ease of transport would also allow the guild to set up their trade headquarters at the beginning of the Golden Coast, allowing the guild even more ease of control of the trade routes at the southern seas.

However, there were also huge obstacles associated with taking the duchy. Firstly, Duke Urubaha was known to be a hugely stubborn person who was also a rank 3 blademaster. Even though he didn't have any hope of breaking through to become a swordsaint, he was still fit as a fiddle in his seventies and wouldn't be easy to deal with. Other than that, he had two elite armies each numbering up to 24 thousand soldiers. Not only were they the main reason the duke was able to form his duchy, they were also his means of making money.

As the Urubaha Duchy was rather poor, it was rather curious how it was able to maintain two huge armies that would cost a lot of money to maintain. In actuality, the two armies are often 'rented' out to others. Whenever one army's rent term is over, it would return and the other army would be rented out. They would rotate their shifts like so to earn the funds to bring in wealth traded with blood for the duchy.

However, Serihanem felt that if the guild could conquer the duchy and make it the guild's dominion, the two armies of the duchy would be able to make up for the guild's weak influence on land. He would not rent the two armies out and believed that the soldiers would quickly become loyal to the guild with his new policy.

Also, Duke Urubaha was also a relative of the president of the Twinhead Dragon Merchant Guild. This was the most troubling obstacle for Serihanem; not only would taking the Urubaha duchy cause them to be on the bad side of the president of the Twinhead Dragon Merchant Guild, the conflict between the two big-seven guilds would most definitely greatly affect the situation of the trade union. That was also why the high officials of the Chikdor Merchant Guild had never even considered taking the territory belonging to the Urubaha duchy as their dominion.

For Serihanem those obstacles wouldn't pose much of a problem. The only difficulty he had was how he would go about convincing the higher-ups of the guild to agree to his idea. He would need at least 10 million gold Fordes to build up the infrastructure of the duchy, that's if he even managed to take it, to improve the living standards to win over the duchy's inhabitants. Even though it would stabilize the guild's control over their dominion, and gradually bring in profits, it's a little too slow for merchants like them who felt that transactions that took too much time wasn't good business.