49 Episode 48 Stores and Warehouses

The next morning after receiving the demons and rewards, I fell asleep.

I woke up at the usual time.

I've never been woken up while sleeping by a demon before, but besides the fact that the inn is near the center of town, I may have raised the front line.

When I checked my status, I found that I had added 5 explosion magic and 5 warding magic to my skills.

My level has gone from 27 to 30, and my INT has gone up to 280, though I don't remember the original value.

Since the stats have been increasing in an equilibrium fashion up to this point, they have probably increased by about 1.1 times.

It seems to have increased significantly every 10 levels, so it may have increased a little more.

So I can increase the blast range.

Thinking about this, I had the Green Wolf Set Meal for breakfast.

I don't think I've had a breakfast like that since I came here.

Well, I guess I'm consuming an unusual amount of calories for that.

In fact, I'm rather worried that I might starve to death.

I'd like to go to Photoren once, since I've accumulated a lot of demons.

Even if I had ten employees, and they were all NEETs and the store was closed, I'd have enough initial capital to live for a year, so there's probably no need to worry, but I'd like to increase the scale of my business.

Now I can use tactical grade magic to destroy demons, bring back materials and food, and after a while I'll even have some coke-related income.

I don't know what's going on because I'm not involved in places that use coke or anything like that, but judging from his reaction, it's not like there's no income.

It may take months or years, but once the capital investment is settled, there will be income.

I might as well make the investment myself, with my current flight I can make it to Herrera and back in half a day.

With this in mind, I crossed the outer wall of Decibatore.

This morning, I'm going to save my magic power and hunt demons as usual.

It's a strange thing to conserve magic power when you have almost infinite magic power.

It would be useful if there were more tools that could use magic outside of the speed limit of 10 seconds, like the magic sword.

Well, if I'm going to go to Photoren anyway, I'd like to have some time to spare.

Maybe I should tell the mayor that I'll take tomorrow off from logging.

It won't take more than half an hour to just fly in and blow it up, and if we can keep the magic power for two days, we can just dump it into the forest the next day.

Yeah, let's do that.

I'll use wind magic to speed up the process a bit, and slam the magic sword into a big black Gargon.

According to the guild card, this thing is called Galden.

Well, I don't care, it's just a demon that I can kill while I'm thinking.

To me, it's more of a food and resource than a demon.

Now I'd probably put it in the same category as a metal lizard if one appeared.

Go get a dragon or something.

Oh, don't do that.

If they come out now, it'll interfere with my trip to Photon.

If you're going to come out, do it the day after tomorrow when we bomb them all, and die in the process if you can.

While thinking about such trivial things, I eradicated the demons, cut down the trees that were left behind in some places, and stored them in the item box.

The speed of the battle was too slow and the enemies too weak compared to a battle using the full power of magic, and it was impossible to do without thinking.

The fact that the magical armor is impervious to attacks also adds to the lack of tension, and the fact that the trees near the front line have been destroyed makes the visibility even better, making it even more difficult to stay alert.

It's not a battle, it's just work.

It's no different from picking herbs.

After hunting demons like this, we gathered at noon, blew up the forest, and logged until evening.

Nothing unusual, just a peaceful day in Desibatore.

Logging (bombing?) In the meantime, I'll ask about tomorrow's report.

By the way, I cut 50032 trees today, finally reaching the 50,000 mark.

"I'd like to go to the photo-ren tomorrow morning, is that okay?

"As I said before, the Adventurer's Guild cannot bind adventurers. 　Of course it won't be a problem, but I'd like to know if you have any plans for when you'll be back.

I'll be back tomorrow afternoon or evening, if nothing happens.

Tomorrow afternoon or evening, if nothing happens.　I heard it took you about fifteen hours to get here.

Oh, when you were being escorted.

After the bombing on the way, it was hard to tell which one of us was being escorted.

That was because of the escort. 　It wouldn't have taken you more than an hour to get there by yourself.

You don't even need an escort. ...... It's true that the magic would have slowed down the escort. ......

The first time I came here, I didn't know my way around, so that was a big help, but now I'm going to be on my own.

All right, you go ahead.

They didn't ask me why I was going to Photoren, but I think I'd better transport some food as well.

Maybe we should ask the guild over there.

"Okay, that's it.

Permission was granted as usual.

I'm going to sleep, preparing warding and explosion magic for the day after tomorrow.

It might be a good idea to charge up a non-corporeal type of magic and keep it on hand when this logging is over.

It's inefficient to prepare magic in front of a powerful demon.

The next day, I traveled to Fautren at slightly less than the speed of sound to conserve magic power, or rather, to protect the ecosystem, and visited the Kaede Catrine Armory.

I don't know where the Kaede Store itself is.

When I entered the store, I saw an unfamiliar woman.

She was sitting at a table that looked like a counter, so she must be the store keeper.

"Excuse me, do you know where the Kaede Store is?

If she is the store keeper of Kaede Catherine, then I should be her employer, or rather the owner of the store, but I can't help but use honorifics.

I don't know what kind of honorifics are used in this world.

I don't know what kind of honorifics are used in this world, but... "Well, if you go down the street here, you'll see four shops on your left, but they're still preparing to open.

Oh, well, thank you very much.

It's only been a few days since we started working on opening the store.

I think it's quite fast that the location of the store has been decided as of today.

Well, I can't say for sure until I see the store.

I hope I've reached the stage where I can leave the demon.

When I went to the place I was told, I found a two-story building that looked like a store.

The gate was open, so I took a peek and found it to be quite spacious.

The area of the first floor was about twice that of a convenience store.

Is this size normal for a business with about 10 people?

There is no such thing as labor standards in this world, and if you are a slave, you might even have a zero-day workweek.

If there are 10 people in the store, it seems to be very large for a single store.

As I was thinking about the size of the store, I saw Mercia, so I asked her about the progress.

"How's the store coming along?

We've got the employees and the space, we've filed with the guild, so all we need to do is stock up on merchandise and get the building ready to be used as a store.

Oh, that could have come at the right time.

I've brought some demons. Do you have the facilities to make them into dried meat?

Yes, that's already in place, though we don't need much equipment, so we'll just use the warehouse.

Do you have a warehouse in addition to this building?

"You got employees, this building and a warehouse? 　How much did it cost?

It could be rented, but somehow I can't imagine renting a store in this world.

I bought this building for 10 million ter, the warehouse for 3 million, and three slaves as employees for 7.6 million. 　I plan to hire about five more.

All slaves.

Well, considering confidentiality and trustworthiness, slaves are probably more efficient unless you have a long-time friend.

The warehouse seems pretty cheap. Is it small?

No, it's bigger than this one. 　No, it's bigger than this one. This is the center of the city, so it's more expensive.

Land cost.

The building itself may not be too expensive.

All right, it's going well. 　Should I put the demon in the warehouse?

That'd be great. 　Would you mind waiting a moment while I show you around?

Yeah.

Mercia went upstairs, gave some instructions, and came back.

Shall we go then?

Yes.

The warehouse was about 500 meters away from the store.

The store was on the main street, but the warehouse was about a quarter of a mile down the street, turn left, and go about a hundred yards.

The building itself is a one-story structure, but its size differs greatly from that of the store.

It's probably five times the size of the first floor of the store.

It's a big place. How many demons should I leave?

How many do you have?

There's a certain number of them. ...... There are 4023 Kuro Wolves, 1327 Guldens, 2256 Red Gulgons, 6257 Hami Crabs, that's about it. 　There's also a giant spider crab, what do you want?

The Red Gargon is, as the name suggests, a red Gargon.

It's one size larger than Gargon.

What? ...... How in the world do you get that many? ......

It's a byproduct of the anti demon warfare, blowing up the forest a bit.

It's not all byproducts, though, as many of the actions are done for demon materials.

I'm sure you've heard of the massive counterattack going on in Decibatore right now, and if you gather up all the demons that will be defeated there, that might be the case. ...... Well, I think Galden is the best tasting of the bunch. 　It's a shame to turn giant spider crabs into dried meat.

Well, how many should I leave behind?

Well, ......, can you show me their condition?

Oh, I'm just throwing them in the item box without draining their blood or anything, is the floor okay?

Yes, this warehouse has trenches that can be used as a countermeasure, and I think it was originally designed to handle meat and other items.

If you look closely, you will see that the ground of the warehouse has trenches dug at even intervals, with a gentle slope towards the trenches.

That's very thoughtful.

Let's put it down.

I said, and placed a rather good-looking Galden on the ground.

The neck was cut off, and blood was pouring out, but...

"This one's in pretty good shape. 　Probably more than half of his legs are blown off.

It's in good shape. 　It is indeed in good condition, and there is no sign of decay. 　At this level, we can process about fifty of them before they rot.

"Okay, then we'll leave about fifty of them here. 　Do we need to buy more?

Yes, it takes a long time to make dried meat, so we'll have to buy more until then. 　If they are not for storage, the poison will be gone in ten days and we can start selling them.

Is it that easy to buy them?

Do you have the means to buy it?

Yes, we're weaker than the stores we used to have, so we won't be in the black, but I think we can keep a small deficit while we're buying.

You've got enough money. 　When do you want me to bring in the next one?

That depends on the pricing. 　If you have all the materials you need, it's easy to lower the price.

Yeah, right. ......

"It would be bad to destroy all the other companies in the same business, so keep the price slightly lower than the other stores and sell moderately.

"Okay, I'll adjust the inventory so that it will run out in about 10 days after we start selling.

Five fish a day?

Five cows in a day sounds like a large scale production, but I guess it's no use comparing Japan to here.

On Earth, we take the trouble to grow them, but here, they just spring up by themselves.

Okay, that's how I want it.

Well, whatever it is, it looks good.