75 Episode 74 Time and Money

When I asked Mercia, it was easy to find out where Catherine was.

She seemed to have already finished her own work today, and was teaching the new magic artisans hired by the merchant company.

I haven't heard anything about it, but I guess it's not a problem since it's not much of an investment and they seem to be making a profit.

It's been a while, how are you doing?

I've gotten used to it and can make it more efficiently now. I make it twice a day until I run out of energy and then use the rest of the time for teaching and resting.

So you've become more efficient. I heard that the amount of production hasn't increased in spite of that.

Yes, that's true. ...... Why is that?

I thought it might be a sign that a dragon would appear, so I appraised Catherine.

In the event you're not sure what you're looking for, you'll be able to find a lot more information on the web.

There is almost no magic left, so it's not that she didn't use all of her magic during the creation process.

The maximum value of the dragon is not decreasing, so it is not related to the dragon.

"I don't know .......

I'm not sure. ...... Well, the unit price of magic tools has been on the rise lately, so it seems that revenue is increasing. Is that what you came here today to talk about?

"No, it has nothing to do with that. I'm in the market for a magic tool called "Magic Freeze", have you heard of it?

I don't know of any magic tools by that name. ...... Is it a spell that freezes things?

I don't know.

What are you going to use it for if you don't know what ...... it is?

Maybe it's used to freeze dragons.

I don't know, I didn't find any details in the book I was given, but I'm sure there's no other way.

Maybe .......

"Well, just in case, make something like that. I want one that can be enhanced with wisp cores.

I'd like one that can be enhanced with a wisp core, because from the status of the people around it, it doesn't seem to have any precursors.

"I don't know if it'll work against dragons, but okay. If you want to take advantage of the wisp core's output, I think you should use a disposable that cools the entire space.

"Whole air. The range is going to be very wide, but will the power be enough?

Normally, it's tough, but if you use a wisp core, it should be powerful enough to freeze the air for an average demon.

Will it kill them?

I don't know if it's enough to kill a dragon, but it should be enough.

Okay, that's it then.

Yes, sir.

Before leaving the store, I appraised the newcomers and found that they all had inert magic.

Like Catherine, they all had much more magic power than the average person.

Maybe they've learned how to make use of their inert magic while I was away.

Well, I'm done with my business.

I wonder if there's anything I should have done. ......

Speaking of which, how is the potion going?

As far as I can tell from the situation around me, there's a possibility that I don't have enough potions, no matter how many I have.

Or, rather, it is highly likely.

If that were the case, he could have told me, but if he forgot to tell me for some reason, that would have been terrible.

Come to think of it, I don't even know exactly how much Zunana grass concentrate they are making and how much they are selling it for, let alone what they have in stock.

I've heard that the business is doing well, but that's all.

It wouldn't hurt to know while there's still time.

So, I decided to ask Mercia about the situation.

"Hey, what's going on with Zunana grass these days?

"We're still selling as much as we make, and we're told to make as much as we can.

Have there been any particular shortages lately?

Demand is increasing, but supply has been low in relation to demand since the beginning.

How much are you short and how much are you making now?

We've tried to streamline production as much as we can, but it's only about 10 liters a day, or 300 pills. The price has been revised due to the recent uproar and now it's about 500,000 Tel per liter.

What are the bottlenecks in terms of cost and production volume?

The bottleneck is the size of the farmland on the island, but even if we expand the farmland, we will soon run out of distillation capacity, so with the current system, the limit is probably less than 15 liters per day. I'm also a little worried about the shipping capacity.

Daily profit exceeds 4.8 million tels: ......

We can build a house every day, but we still have a shortage of medicine.

If we were to increase production by a factor of ten, would we still be able to sell out?

On the islands we've seen so far, if we don't think too far ahead, we should be able to increase production to about 100 times the current level.

However, Zunana farms are like slash-and-burn farms, so you should keep your production at about 10 times the current level, considering the rotation.

...... Major merchants are transporting the goods to distant cities, so I think that 10 times the current amount would be enough to sell out quickly even in normal times. I'm sure you'll be able to find something that works for you.

"How low can it go?

Even if the income is too low for the risk, increasing the production of medicines will help the war between humans and demons, so I would like to do it if possible.

But if it's too unprofitable, I'm not sure it's a good idea for the Chamber of Commerce to take the initiative, so I'll just ask.

At best, it will be 70% of the current price, and at worst, about half. In normal times, it could drop another 30% from there.

I did a quick calculation and found that if you increase production by 10 times, your income will increase by 4 to 7 times.

If you increase production by a factor of five, the increase in revenue per day is about 19 million.

If you have ......, you can recoup the cost of building mithril transports, which cost 190 million Tel per ship, in 10 days.

What a rags to riches business.

And on top of that, you can contribute to society.

Is there any reason not to do it?

"Okay, let's just see how it goes and increase it tenfold.

"...... I had a feeling you'd say that, but we're going to need more ships. Are you okay with that?

We have enough money, of course, and this Leviathan we've just taken down is so long that if we chop it into pieces, we can build ten ships of the same level as before. What else do you need?

We'll need six new ships and about six new distillation units if they're as good as the current ones. Six ships?

Six ships, that's a lot.

I don't think we'll need the same number of distillation units.

Why do we need so many ships?

Why do we need so many ships?" "If we increase the number tenfold, the distance to the island we'll farm will increase. Also, the magic-powered ships can't travel back and forth between here and the island as often as they should because of the magical equipment they carry. On the other hand, non-magic powered ships are useless near demon territory.

So each ship has to go back and forth between here and the island.

Seems inefficient to me.

Why don't we just find a nice island and accumulate the goods there and then take a big ship?

"...... That's a good idea!　That would certainly be efficient!

You look as if you've never heard of this method before.

You look as if you've never heard of this method before. "No one has thought of it before?　What did the other ship-using merchants do?

I think our business is the first to use ships to continuously send large amounts of goods to the area around the demon territory.

If you think about it, it's definitely something you've never heard of.

Am I too far ahead of my time?

Is that so?

Yes, we are.

...... Well, I'll leave you the materials and money later, so if you think it's better to transport it that way, so be it. I'll probably be on the next job by the time I finish the first one.

"Okay, sir. What about the distillation unit?　It would be difficult to transport it to the island without Kaede, but if we were to gather it now, ......".

It's true that one of these machines could build a house.

I don't think there's any place that keeps six of them in storage.

"I'll try to scrounge some up. "I'll try to scrounge some up, and if I don't have enough, just use what I can scrounge up.

All right.

Is there anything else?

No, sir.

All right, well, I'll go out and recruit.

Okay, I'm going to go post a job.

A job offer.

It might be easier to attract people if you write that it's a homey place to work.

Apparently, the benefits are pretty good, but the work involves interacting with plants on a nature-rich island and endless weeding called .......

There's no problem in terms of cost, but it might be time to mechanize some of the work.

With that in mind, I'm going to make the island explode.

I used to do this slowly and thoughtfully, but now it's just a process.

It's a simple job of casting explosion spells on the islands you see, and finally throwing in one of the many anchors you brought with you.

There are so many islands to deal with that you'll lose track of them if you don't do this.

We repeated the process a dozen times.

By a rough estimate, we have created a potential zunana farm site that is about nine times the size of our existing farmland, so we are done.

I wanted to start a sugar cane farm, which was the original reason why I started picking zunana grass, but I'll put that off for now.

I would have liked to take a break, but that's not going to happen.

I had to finish collecting the distillation equipment before I left.

Therefore, as soon as I finished cultivating the land, I had to go to the blacksmith shop in Herrera at the speed of sound.

Excuse me!　Please sell me a distillation device!

"Oh, you're the rich kid from last time!　I've got one just like it. I'll give you 5.3 million.

I'll buy that too!　But I need six of them. Can you get me five more?

I don't have that many. ......

Do you have any other locations?

I'm the only one in town that makes them, no one else does. When do you need it?

From what I hear, it's about six days from today until the ship arrives.

Considering the travel time, ......

I'd say five days. I don't mind paying a little more.

I can't do it in five days, I can't even make two ...... If it costs about ten million a piece, I can get another blacksmith to make them, but that's impossible, right?

Double it.

That's about 5 million per unit, for a total of about 25 million.

To be honest, it's not worth it to make them for a daily income of 500,000 ter.

But ......

No, I'll take that. I'll pay you in advance.

He takes out 5 white gold coins and 53 large gold coins.

This is not just a money-making scheme, but also a form of front-line support.

Since he was going to make a lot of money anyway, it wouldn't be wrong if he gave some of it back to the market.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!　I don't like the idea of charging more for the same product. ...... Well, okay. I can make two of them myself, so you can pay me 50 million for all six.

Thank you very much.

The day came when the ship arrived in no time.

I was busy, but I managed to finish all the work I needed to do.

I've got the magic freeze ready.

Now I can concentrate on my "simple task" of guarding the ship from the absent Sublong.