We were back at the inn and the only ones in the room were me and Lena. Bnche was in the Dimension home feeding the monsters and I was about to go join her soon. First though, I needed to roast Lena alive for what she put in my kids' heads.
"Umm… well…"
"Don't even try to lie to me. I know where screaming out the name of your fighting technique came from," I looked down on Lena with anger boiling over the top of my head.
"Well, I remembered my swordsmanship teacher who uses Nopoin rapier style. He said that he used to call out names of his techniques when he was younger… so I thought that if the kids tried it they could pull it off somehow…"
"'Pull it off somehow…' Do you even realize what you've done? Rifa got a title and a bunch of weird skills because of you!" I pinched her cheeks in anger.
"I'm sowwyyyy~" she cried out, a single tear escaping the corner of her eye.
"Haaaa… What am I supposed to do with you now? I'm sure this will bring troubles one day… You know what? Forget everything, I have to meet those mercenaries tomorrow, so I'm going to feed the monsters and go to sleep early."
"Oh, in that case, could I ask you something?"
"Sure, hit me up."
"You found grimoires from the Sage, right? Could I borrow one?"
"I guess it would be good for you to learn some of the forbidden spells… oh, I know this blood magic spell called Bloodstream Expel, which can stop bleeding and expel foreign objects from your body. It works on poison, of that I am sure at least."
"Wait… how did you learn of that?"
"I just poisoned myself a little, nothing that serious."
"ARE YOU PRONE TO SELF HARM?!" Lena screamed at me, her eyes bloodshot.
"C-calm down… it wasn't even strong enough to raise my Poison resistance level and I barely felt anything…"
For some reason I had to expin myself. What a pain, I just wish blood magic could use other blood than just my own.
"Haaa… Does Bnche know?"
"Of course not," I said ftly.
"Aaanywaaayy… you did take a liking to Necromancy, did you pick some spells already?" Lena clearly tried to change the subject.
"Well… it's not going great. According to the book, I need to be able to perceive Soul shards, or something like that, so I can only make my hand chilly with a Chilly touch spell. I did develop a new skill though. It's called Soul Sight and it allows me to see Soul Shards and what we would call paranormal."
"You can see ghosts?"
"Well, since it's just level one right now, it's more like I feel them. Nothing concrete. The Soul Shards —or fragments— are apparently what remains from the soul that left a body and what I'm feeling is more akin to ghosts from our world."
"A-are you trying to spook me?"
"No… just don't look out of the window," as I said that, there was a snap, as if a branch cracked.
"Kyaaaaaa!!!!" Lena jumped up and hid behind me, shaking.
"Pfft! Hahaha Haha! That was a good one!" I dried a tear that escaped my eye as I pced a snapped twig in Lena's hand.
"Y-y-you!!!" she turned red with anger as she clenched the twig in her hand.
"Now we are even, okay? Good night," I patted her shoulder and went to feed the monsters in my Dimension home before heading for bed.
***
The next morning, I received a message from Nene, who said that someone tried to sneak into the store during the night and she captured the attacker. However, the attacker took poison and died shortly after.
Why is someone willing to obstruct my business this much? What is their deal? Unsatisfied customers I would understand, but attacking like this? What leads them to do that? Do they try to destroy competition? I should look into other shops that sell alcohol and have enough power to hire ruffians…
Anyway, I headed out to Grieva's house, where I was supposed to meet with the former mercenaries.
"Oh my~ What a cute boy came to us," a dy who's age was most likely around mid-twenties, smiled as I ran into her by accident.
"I'm sorry for bumping into you…" now that I got a closer look at her, I noticed a mask that hid half of her face. The witch…
"You are going to meet lil' Grieva, right? Don't leave him waiting too long," she smiled as her honey-ced voice entered my ears.
"Right… Oh, one more thing, was it you who was looking at us when we purchased the house here?"
"You noticed me?" her sweet facade gone, repced by genuine shock.
"Well, it was from afar, but I wouldn't forget the half-mask."
"I see, so you saw me even though I was using Hide, Invisibility and Presence Warding? I'm quite impressed. Not even Grieva can see through all of them. Especially when I use his skills…" the witch put a hand on the mask that slightly vibrated.
So this is the Silentmask, a fay type monster that looks like a mask on first look, eh?
"I'm quite confident in my detection after years I spent in the forest. Not using detection for a minute could result in death."
"That certainly is something to worry about. I do remember when the city used to be attacked by Skull Bears and Marblecw pumas… Well, that was a very long time ago. It might be better to say that at the time this town used to be nothing more than a vilge…"
Yeah, Grieva did say she was in this town since its founding.
"Oh, look at the time! I shall not hold you any longer, here take this potion I made," she gave me a vial with red liquid with a grandmotherly smile.
"Thank you. I shall be on my way," I bowed slightly and ran to the house I visited yesterday.
As I was running through the streets of slums, I noticed the trash pickers going around me and what they had in their carts and baskets. Aren't those… the bottles from my alcohol?
When I made it to the pce, I saw a group of ten people standing before the house, one of them standing firmly on a pegleg. He was especially eye catchy as his skin was green like Jade. Though the Jade stone doesn't exist in this world, when you say Jade, or Jades, you often refer to a humanoid race with green skin, little to none hair and incredibly tough skin. He's a strong one. Even without a hand and leg, the aura he sends out is on a different level compared to the rest of the guys. Though they are good as well, maybe they are around A rank?
"Sorry I'm te!"
"Oh! It's Arito, right on time!" Grieva welcomed me with a warm smile.
"You… you just thought I'm the only threat here, didn't you?" The man without an arm and leg spoke to me with an accusing look.
"Not quite. I can say you are the strongest here, but I wouldn't say you are the only threat here," I answered honestly.
"Hahaha! I like you kid. I was trying to mask my strength, but you saw right through me! Let's hear about the job you have for us," the man's aura completely changed. Before it felt grim, mucky and now it was more like a sunny prairie.
We all moved to the house, which we couldn't really fit in, so only Grieva, me, the boss and two of his underlings came in. The remaining seven were waiting outside, stacked behind the opened window, or rather, hole in the wall.
"So, what I would like you to do is to guard my shop I have on northern street. We deal in various monster produced materials and alcohol. Maybe that is why we are targeted, but that is still only a specution."
"Yeah, I could see that. There are only two or three producers of alcohol in this city the pubs and restaurants get their stashes from. Maybe they don't want to have more business rivals and that's the reason behind the recent actions."
"I will tell you something important. The st attacker upon being captured used poison to kill himself, so they are serious about not letting the information slip."
Honestly, the people here could cherish their lives more. Is messing with small shops really that important for them that they would die for their mission?
"Hmm… you might be in deeper trouble than you thought before. If they are willing to kill themselves, then, that means they have quite a powerful backer, who wouldn't let them off the hook easily if they returned defeated."
"My thoughts exactly," Grieva nodded alongside us.
"Hmmmm…"
"What do you think, Boss?"
"We will follow you no matter what, it is your decision, Boss Saibert."
"Thanks guys," the boss smiled at his right and left hand men, "Alright, Mr. Arito. Us, the Humming Fairy mercenary group will enter a contract with you. Let us go over the details."
"Happy to have you on board."
The contract we decided on was that I would pay every member of the group 300 Alba per day, with their Boss taking 350 Alba. They will be staying in the lodgings for employees and be responsible for protection of the shop and alcohol deliveries across the town. Since they have horses, they will be kept in the building block of Cosli's old orphanage after I rebuild it, with one or two horses being used for pulling the cart with alcohol across the town. The food will be offered by me in lieu of our resident cook. Of course, if they wish to cook for themselves, they are welcome to do it.
"Okay, now that that's settled, do you want to take a look?"
"Of co— umm… could we first take a bath? I think since we are so smelly right now, we wouldn’t bring any merit to your shop as we are," the boss’ right hand sniffed his armpit with disgust as his boss said so.
"Oh. Okay, let me help with that, then.
"Slimes?" The people around us looked disbelieving.
"They are called Cleaning slimes. They feed on dirt and clean in the process. Plus…" I stuck my hand inside one of the slimes, "they don't eat anything else unless ordered."
"Who would've thought that such interesting little critters could exist in the world…" the right hand man pushed up his gsses as he investigated the slime closely, "Oh, I should introduce myself. I go by Figaro Laynn, I am a necromancer, but I study monsters as a hobby."
"Oh, a necromancer? I would like to hear more about that."
"Uh… really?"
"Indeed. I study a little as well, but the best I can do right now is using Chilly Touch," I confessed.
"I see, so you are a novice, then… I guess I could tell you some of my tricks, but are you sure? Necromancy isn't really… you know, positively received."
"My old magic teacher told me that it is used to send the dead who got stuck here on their way, though…" I looked a little confused at him. Hip hip hooray for this childish body that can fool any adult.
"Your magic teacher seems like a great man. Alright, I will help you with your studies. I could teach you spells like [Speak with the Dead], [Drain Touch] or [Animate]."
"Animate? I can imagine the first two, but not how the st one works, could you expin?"
"Oh, Animate is quite a handy spell as it can bring to life inanimate objects."
"Does that mean, like Golems?"
"Well, not only them, but everyday items, weapons and even some types of Magical equipment, though it is true that golems are the most common. Naturally occuring golems require core to function and fall apart when it's destroyed, but Golems made with Animate spell do not need a core. Animate gathers Soul Fragments and pces them in the physical body, no need to say that the golem made this way needs to learn, like any other living being—"
"Figaro…" the boss said, with a heavy reprimanding tone.
"Oh, I'm sorry, it seems I've lost myself in magic again. I will write you a description of the Animate spell, young master" Figaro scratched the back of his head and bowed his head.
"Thank you very much! Oh, and you don't need to be sorry, I was the one who came up with the theme. Let us discuss it another time," I bowed back, though I could not leave the theme at all.
"Shall we head out to the shop? I would like to get a look at it," the boss spped Figaro on his head as he stood up.
If I can make myself some golems, I would have a force of workers to expand my fields without them tiring anytime at all. I wouldn't need to feed them, or have them sleep. Eternal workers, huh? That sounds nice.
Wait, now that I think about it, wouldn't this be a way to make chimeras as well? Well, given what the Goddesses said, I think it wouldn't be a good idea.
As I was thinking about that, we made it to my shop and the company was positively astonished.
"Wow, look at those lines!"
"The lower shop's line seems normal enough, but why is the upper shop’s line so long?"
"Ah, the lower shop is a general store and most of our customers are adventurers, but the upper shop is only for liquor and as you can see, a lot of people find it enjoyable."
"All those people came for liquor?! You either sell cheap, or the stuff is as addictive as drugs in the Capital."
"I'm sure the first one is correct, but I hope the tter is not. We have some unusual liquors, you see?" I opened my Item Box and took out [Taste set], which was a set of seven small fsks each filled with different types of liquor. The fsks were hexagonal with Vodka in the middle and various liquors surrounding it. This one was the 'General' type, which meant that it had various types of liquor. I also had specialized types of these [Taste Sets] with differently fvored, or drinks of various strengths.
The [Taste Sets] actually became something of a perfect thing for first time gifts, as when you found your favorite drink, you could purchase a gift bottle on your next visit. I had the Amber slime make these bottles and let it choose the shapes most of the time, but never did I think that a slime would be able to recreate one of my stone statues as a bottle so fwlessly.
"May I?" the boss —Saibert— took the Taste set from me, opened the bottles one by one and sniffed them. "Yeah, this is good stuff. I'm not one to enjoy fancy fruit drinks, but this looks good even to me."
"You won't taste it?"
"I'm on a job, sir," Saibert smiled like a professional with a spark flying off his eye, "But I won’t say no when I’m off duty."
"That’s our boss!" The rest of the crew ughed in unison.
"Well, let's take the back doors," I smiled a little wryly.
"Yes indeed," the mercenaries nodded and followed me to a back alley, smiles still pstered on their faces.
On this street, we could find almost no shops, but there was a big gate serving as our back doors. Next to this gate is a small shack that houses two shops. One is a undry service and the other is a florist shop. These two shops belong to a family of five. We don't have much contact with them, but I sometimes see their boys pying in the garden of their house, where the mother is drying the clothes she washes.
We went through the gate and entered the shop, where we met Emma and Jamie who apparently just came back from shopping.
"Hey there, how was the shopping?" I called out to them with a smile.
"Oh, hey there Boss! We went around the market, so we got some tasty fish for tonight's dinner! Wanna join us?" Jamie smiled at me with her ever present smile.
"Maybe I will. I brought the guards for the shop, is Hugh upstairs?"
"Yes. He guards the Liquor shop today."
"I see, was there another attack?"
"Ever since Miss Nene took out the st guy, no new delinquents appeared," Emma smiled a little exasperatedly at the memory of the thief who took his own life upon his capture.
"That's good, in a sense."
"It would be great if we knew why they caused ruckus and who was behind them… may we take a look around?" Sukeld Saita, the Lightning and Ice magic user of the mercenary band asked me politely. He is a White Dragonewt, but except for his two pairs of white horns he looked completely human.
"Jamie, could I ask you to show them around? I'm going to refill our merchandise."
"Sure thing boss!"
Since most of my items were made by Slimes, my only real work was to bring them food and check on quality of created items. If, for example the Resin slime ptes were full of bubbles, I broke them down and gave the shrapnels to Amber slimes to recycle them. Coincidentally all of our gss-like products were being bought out by nobles passing through the city. Well, most of the gss usually used for windows are only small discs bound together with metal. Even clear gss used by nobles is hard to come by. And to this rarity I come with my cheap knockoff…
When I got to the underground I took the empty crates and exchanged them with full ones.
"Phew… alcohol sure sells best, huh? I guess it's time to start expanding the fields, too…"
"Manager, are you there?"
"Hugh? It's good to see you, I just refilled stock and was about to go to talk to you," we moved to my office and we started talking about various stuff around the shop before we moved to what I wanted to talk about.
"On my way to meet the mercenaries I hired, I saw the trash pickers and their carts. Some of them had bottles from our shop and I thought of a way to help the city while also helping ourselves."
"Really? Please enlighten me."
"What about buying out the bottles?"
"Buying out… the bottles? Hmm… it could work, the bottles aren't decorated in any way, so nobles won't be jumping at them to add them to their collections. There might be merchants trying to copy us, but they would only be reselling our products. That can be used against them. Heheh, we could say that we are buying them out as a charity and a way to help out the city and the poorer residents… some might bring us back the bottles they drank themselves."
"Another thing. What do you think of the mercenary group I hired?"
"The Humming fairy mercenaries used to be quite famous in the past. Just having their name around should be enough of a deterrent from other assaints. Coincidentally, I've talked with master Gemma and he seemed quite concerned with the state of affairs. Should we ask him for help? I believe his information network is quite vast and using it might be helpful."
"Hmm… No, let's not do that. I don't want to be too indebted to him. Plus, it could give us a bad light in the merchant guild."
"Understood, sir," Hugh nodded with a soft smile, most likely wishing to hear my answer, "Also, these four bars asked us if we could supply them with our liquors. The prices they offer for it are written below."
I took the papers from Hugh and inspected them. "Hmm… there doesn't seem to be any problem with the owners, but why are they turning to us?"
"It seems the quality of the spirits from their other suppliers is rather bad, so their sales are on a decline. From what I've been able to pick up, they were getting alcohol from the Allbarett company."
"Allbarett company?"
"They are a group of merchants who buy out excess food from vilges and use it to make alcohol, though there are some unsavory rumors about them, I believe that those are mostly spread by their rivals from Tauman association and Fagot company."
"Could I ask you to get some info on those three? Something tells me that there is something bad happening behind the scenes."
"Of course sir, I will see what I can dig out. Finding dirt on others is something my family excels at, as sad as it is," Hugh ughed self-deprecatingly.
"Well, it is not important where your talents came from, but how you use them, if you ask me. Also, I don't really need dirt or anything like that! Just info on the three and their leaders. We might find out something about the mysterious attackers if we do."
"Indeed, sir manager, indeed," Hugh smiled a little too evilly for his manly face.
With that, I was off to expanding fields, on my way out I grabbed the description of the Animate spell from Figaro and headed to the mines. The first underground floor became restricted to fruit trees and grapes. Second floor, where the Kobolds reside, became purely potato fields. The third field got about ten times bigger and was dedicated to wheat and other grains. And finally, the fourth floor became a traditional orchard. I also got some seeds from the medicinal pnts that the Medicine slimes liked and pnted them here. Alright! With all this done, I can start preparing for Blue Moon for sure!
"Hey Arito, didn’t you forget something?" Bnche asked me as she y down next to me.
"Forget what?"
"The orphanage, for example?"
"Fuck! I did! Uhh… It’s too te for me to think about it now! Let’s do it in the morning, okay?"
"It’s alright with me. I don’t have Earth magic to help you, so I will at least cheer you on."
She’s so frickin’ sweet!
Early in the morning, when the sky was starting to turn red, I was already running through the tunnel leading to the city. Today I didn’t want to be seen, so I used this way, not to mention that it would be shorter than going through the city gates.
The dipidated warehouse looked even shabbier than before.
"Alright, guys! Let’s do this!" I called out my slimes and started taking apart the warehouse floor by floor. I used my Earth Magic spells to remake the bricks into new ones and stored them in my item box.
"Lunchtime!" Bnche called out to me and I obediently went to eat with her while letting the slimes take care of the debris I couldn’t use.
"I must say, I didn’t think you would take down the entire warehouse before noon!"
"Yeah. My Earth magic skill rose up, so I’m going to build the walls in the afternoon and call the carpenters that worked on the atelier after that."
"Actually… I already did that."
"Hm?"
"I had Miss Laina with me and we hired them. Once they finish their current work, they will come here."
What is this warm feeling? Is seeing her grow really moving me this much?
"A-Arito?"
"Ah, sorry. I wanted to tell you, great work. I’m proud of you," I smiled at her brightly and continued eating my sandwich. May these warm days continue forever.