CH 93

“Starting up, Greg Company.”

Translated by Dawn

“Starting up, Greg Company.”

“Hey, boy.”

“Sorry, did I keep you waiting?”

“No, I just got here.”

I came to the commercial guild again and walked up to Greg as soon as I spotted him. I was in my usual goofy mode and in my commoner’s clothes, so it wasn’t like they would all be prostrate this time. Even so, I had deceived my family and the people of our fiefdom for six years. I had some confidence in my ability to feign ignorance.

I told the receptionist that I wanted to meet the guild master, and waited in the reception room.

“!? Well, well, we have been expecting you.”

“As I told you in the morning, I have brought an agent to sign the store contract and set up the company of commerce. I need you to take care of it right away.”

“Understood”

“Hm?”

Greg watched the exchange between me and Kascher with a blank expression on his face, but when he understood the content of our exchange, Kascher called out to him once he left the room to prepare the necessary documents.

“B-boy, was that story true?”

“I told you in the morning. Why are you surprised?”

“I wouldn’t believe it if you suddenly entrusted me with the management of the store! And why is the guildmaster being so respectful toward you?”

“That’s……well, because it’s me.”

“That’s not an answer!”

Then, after dodging Greg’s questioning, Kascher returned and Greg became quiet. Yeah, I don’t hate people who can read the air. Hm? I can’t read the air? ……Don’t know what you’re talking about.

“Here are the store lease documents and the documents required to start up a new company. What is the name of your company?”

“The Greg Company.”

“B-b-b-b-boy!?”

He never thought I would create a company in his name, Greg called out the same words like a broken radio. ……Your puberty is long over, are you going to turn from an old man to an old man in your middle age?

After that, I silenced all of Greg’s words of protest against this matter and finished registering the store’s rightful owner and the person in charge of the company in Greg’s name. Furthermore, Greg who continued to raise his voice in protest, I physically silenced him by shoving a piece of bread that I had taken out of my magic bag via storage into his mouth.

“Mogu, mogumogu mogumogu!?”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Ngg, boy! This is beyond the bounds of common sense!”

“It’s too much trouble to explain…….for now, just shut up.”

“Wha!?”

He again looked stunned by my unmannered attitude. Activating the unmannered mode that I have shown in the past to the Malbert’s people, and doing unreasonable things to Greg.

“You dream of owning a store, don’t you? I’m going to make that dream come true for you. Why don’t you take it?”

“B-but. Even if you do that for me, I won’t be able to repay you.”

I made a serious face and asked him a question while laughing inwardly at Greg, who reverted from his usual tone of voice to a polite one.

“Greg, are you worried about running the store? You don’t feel confident?”

“N-no, I’m not. With the goods you deliver, it would be difficult for me to fail.”

“Then do it. If you feel that you owe me a debt of gratitude, show me that you will make this business grow even if you have to risk the rest of your life. You are a merchant, too.”

“B-boy…T-thank you very much!”

Greg, moved by my words, got down on his knees with tears streaming down his face. Hey, hey, hey! Aren’t you exaggerating a little too much, Greg?

I let Greg get up and sit on the sofa again, at which point Kascher called out to us. ……Oops, I’ve shown something a little embarrassing.

“Then I will receive six large gold coins for the building contract, two large gold coins and forty medium gold coins, and three medium gold coins for the initial cost of setting up the trading company, for a total of six large gold coins and three medium gold coins.”

“Yes.”

When I paid the large sum of money so easily, Kascher was startled and warned me not to pay so much money so carelessly.

For now, the contract for the store and land to sell the accessories and the establishment of the company were completed without any problems, and when I tried to hand Greg a copy of the contract and the certificate handed to me by Kascher, he said, “Please keep that, my boy. This is the one thing I won’t give up!” I had no choice but to accept it. ……Well, I’m going to throw it to Greg at the right time. Fufufufu. I’ll try to evade responsibility this time, too.

“That concludes our contract for this time. If there is anything else I can do for you, please do not hesitate to contact me.”

“Wait, Guildmaster Kascher.”

I stopped Kascher, who was casually leaving the room and made him sit on the sofa again. I was aware that I had caused him a lot of trouble in this one case, so I decided to reward him for his labor.

“Oh, um, is there anything more?”

“Guildmaster Kascher. I know I have caused you a lot of trouble with this one. I want to repay you for it. Do you have any requests?”

“……I can’t think of anything that can be said on such short notice. In the first place, it is my fault that I knew the reality of the corrupt commercial guilds and compromised without improving the environment.”

“In that case, Guildmaster, I have a profitable proposition for you, do you want to hear it?”

“…Sure.”

After confirming that Kascher had become a merchant’s eye, I took out five rings from my magic bag via storage. Each ring had a different gemstone: emerald, sapphire, ruby, topaz, and diamond. Each ring was cut into a different shape, such as a square or oval, and the diamonds were cut in a process known as brilliant cut, which we on Earth have heard of at least once.

When Kascher and Greg saw the ring, they both gasped. Even in this world, jewelry made of gemstones was sold at a high price, but most of them were roughly cut and distorted in shape. Yet, the ring in front of them was beautifully shaped. That alone made them understand how much skill had been put into this ring.

“I’m going to ask you to keep certain conditions, what do you think?”

“What are those conditions?”

“First of all, when you sell these, you must sell only one unit per organization. For example, if you sell these to the nobility, you may only sell one to each noble family.”

“That would not be a problem. Anything else?”

“Next, I would like you to keep the information that I am the wholesaler of this ring confidential, and I would like you to inform the seller that this ring is a one-of-a-kind item that will not be reproduced, and I would like you to agree that I will not accept any repeat orders.”

In other words, the plan was to avoid trouble by emphasizing that this ring was obtained by chance and that if they missed out on purchasing it on this occasion, they would never be able to get it again, while keeping the fact that it was obtained from me a secret.

This was the condition I gave Greg when I first entrusted him with the consignment sale of the accessories, and I later gave him permission to wholesale a certain number to other small and medium-sized merchant associations as he increased the number of consignments. However, it would take a long time to process all the consignments if they were in units of fifty or a hundred.

“I understand. I’m fine with those conditions.”

“Those are the conditions, but for the time being, I’d like you to appraise it to see if it’s genuine.”

“If it’s this good, I can tell it’s genuine without an appraisal, but if you insist, I’ll have it appraised.”

The guildmaster himself then conducted an appraisal and once again confirmed that the ring was genuine, but at some point, Kascher opened his mouth in disappointment.

“This is unfortunate, then.”

“What is?”

“If it’s this good, I’m sure it would fetch a considerable amount of money if it could be put up for auction in the Royal Capital…….”

“Then why don’t you do it?”

“Actually…..”

According to Kascher’s explanation, it seemed that a large group of bandits had recently become active along the trade route between Orargrand and the royal capital, and the merchants who used the trade route were suffering serious damage. The knights in the royal capital and the Orargrand side had often formed a team to take down the bandits and strengthen patrols, but the bandits sensing the situation went into hiding, and the game of cat and mouse continued.

“If it could be sold at an auction held in the royal capital, it might have fetched more than fifty large gold coins, depending on the circumstances…….”

“I see, so why don’t just strengthen the guards?”

“I have often submitted requests to the Adventurers’ Guild, but other high-ranking adventurers have been reluctant to accept them because of the prospect of direct combat with bandits. The rewards they get are much higher for hunting monsters in dungeons than for escorting them.”

“I see…….By the way, Guildmaster Kascher. I know a party of four A-rank adventurers who might be willing to take on that escort request.”

“R-really?”

I nodded slowly at Kascher’s words. Now that I had a good excuse to get rid of those guys, I would have to immediately use my master’s authority to have them accepted the next time I see them……. The ring was to be sold at auction in the royal capital, and the escort to take it to the royal capital was to be nominated to Gyrmzak and his party via the commercial guilds. With all transactions completed, Greg and I shook hands with Kascher to signal the completion of the transaction and then left the guild.

After leaving the guild, we headed to the site to check the condition of the building that would become the actual store. Originally, I had wanted to make a contract after checking the condition of the building, but it was obvious that if I went there in aristocratic mode, I would have caused a commotion that would have caused the residents of the town to fall flat on their faces, so I had to give up. In that sense, it was a mistake to put out the aristocratic mode.

“Is this the place?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Since then, Greg’s tone of voice had not returned to normal, and when I pointed this out to him once, he stubbornly refused to break his polite tone, saying things like, “I can’t talk like before to you anymore, boy.” I didn’t mind, but if he was okay with that, I had nothing to say.

We arrived at the desired place, but isn’t there one question that comes to your mind here? Even if I didn’t want to go out in aristocratic mode, why didn’t I actually see the property in spite of the fact that it was a big purchase of a large class of gold coins? The answer is quite simple.

“I’m back, Nusana.”

“Oh, you’re back early today. Is something wrong?”

“No, I just happened to be coming back at this time. I’ll be going out again soon.”

“If you want to have lunch, should I prepare it?”

“Then, I’ll take it. I have a companion with me today, so I’ll take two.”

Yes, in fact, the store and villa where I signed the contract was the property directly across the street from the inn where I was staying [Summer Sunlight Through The Trees]. I was amazed that such a place had remained, but it seemed that when the previous owner passed away, he had left a will saying that he wanted the property to be given to a person whom the guild master had approved. Was I the right person to be the recipient of that will?

The merchant who left the will was apparently a single man for the rest of his life, and he donated all of his remaining property to a commercial guild. It seemed that the donated money was used to regularly maintain the building, and it was much cleaner and tidier than I had expected.

“Well, this just needs a little cleaning up, and we’ll be open for business in no time.”

“I guess so.”

Next, I checked the villa, but there was no indication that anything was broken, and with a little care, this place would be ready to use soon as well.

After looking around, I had lunch with Greg at Summer Sunlight Through The Trees at lunch time and proceeded to make preparations so that the store would be ready for business until the time promised to Natalie and her sibling. Thanks to that, we were ready to open for business for the time being, and when the appointed time came, I decided to leave Greg at the store and pick up the siblings.

When I visited them, I found that they had packed up their belongings as I had instructed them to do, so I put everything in storage and returned to the store with them in tow.

“This is where you two will be working from today.”

“There’s nothing here.”

“I’ll be bringing something for sale tomorrow.”

At first, I took them to the villa. There were six rooms in total in the villa, and I asked them to choose the place of their choice. Incidentally, I asked if Greg would also live here, and he said, “By all means, please,” so I asked him to choose the room of his choice. I took out the belongings in storage to each sister and brother’s room and gave them all to them.

As for today, I decided to leave it to Greg as it was since I was done with it and paid for dinner for the three of them to eat at Summer Sunlight Through The Trees for today’s dinner. Greg tried to decline, but I insisted since we were going to take care of each other.

“Then I’ll be here a little earlier tomorrow, so please take care of me from now on.”

“Likewise.”

“Please take care of us.”

“Please.”

“I’ll do my best.”

After greeting each other, I was finally able to return to my room at the inn. When I returned to my room, I found that the golems that had been working while I was out had finished their work, and a large number of bracelets had been completed. The number of finished bracelets was about 110 6mm bracelets and 170 4mm bracelets. I left the processing of all the magic quartz and dark magic ore that I had stored in storage to one hand, and it seemed to have been processed without any problems.

“Thank you all for your hard work. No more work for you today, so please stand by yourselves.”

“Mrrr.”

When I offered words of encouragement, they still responded with a strange cry and stopped moving after a certain interval. It seemed to be in a waiting state. Incidentally, Proto was waiting next to No. 1 in the same way.

“Now then, after eating dinner, let’s rest up for the day.”

Then after dinner with Greg and the others, I did my daily workout to cleanse my body before going to sleep. Tomorrow we would start selling accessories, and I was looking forward to seeing how many we would sell.