CH 60

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Since I arrived at the beach by carriage drawn by Silvers, I asked Master Elza to ride the carriage as well.

“Is it okay if we don’t wait for the others to arrive?”

“It will take another hour before they reach the pier. You can show me the outline of the island in the meantime.”

Come to think of it, what you can see on the map is very different from the island itself. Even if she has memorized the map, she wouldn’t get a real feel for the island’s condition until she saw it herself. Which is why she’s intending to inspect the island first before she can give detailed instruction to her subordinates.

On the road leading from the beach to the cave, there is a campsite used by the soldiers; we decided to inspect it first. After proceeding for a while, we came upon a scene where the Iwaos were walking in formation.

“That’s the golems that was helping with the construction work? I’ve read about them in the report.”

“Yes, that’s right. I call them Iwaos.”

“What are they doing right now? They way I see it, they are just walking around.”

It’s like what she said; the Iwaos are just walking around.

“I asked them to keep walking along the road.”

“Ah, I see. So that’s how it is.”

Master Erza quickly understood why I asked the Iwaos to do that. She may seem like she’s quick tempered, but she’s a quick-witted person.

I am the only inhabitant of Monte Cris Island. Even if I build a road, if no one comes and goes, it will soon be overgrown with weeds, and if no one is stepping on it, the soil will become soft soon that the road will disappear. Afterall, a road can only stay as a road if people are using it [1], so when there was no work to be done, I told Iwaos to walk on the road as often as possible.

“It has been a month since the survey team left, so the condition of the camping site has worsened a bit.”

“It won’t be a problem. People will be living there starting today, so it will soon be restored.”

The guild will build a simple lodging house in the clearing where the survey team had camped, and various merchants will also set up stalls there.

“The guild might end up being your business rival, huh…”

“If you’re talking about the lodging, I don’t think you need to worry about it. Our inn only has six guest room anyway.”

To begin with, I don’t have any intention to aggressively expand the inn business. Besides, I don’t think regular adventurers would have that much money to stay at my inn. All of the people that had stayed at my inn said that a fee of 5,000 Lehmens per night is reasonable, but I don’t think there are that many people who can afford to pay that much for a night.

“How much would the fee for the guild’s basic lodging house?”

“It’s 500 Lehmens to use the shared large room. Food will be charged separately.”

In a sense, you could say that the guild-managed inn is cost-efficient for the masses, while my inn is a high-class establishment. Actually, compared to the other high-class establishment in the capital, my inn’s fee can be considered fairly reasonable.

After she finished looking around the camp site, Master Erza ask me to show her around the inn. As she looked around the cave her eyes shined with wonder and curiosity.

“Hey, what’s this? You have bath, booze, and beautiful private rooms! To think that you’re able to make it in such a remote area.”

I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you.

“By the way, Okami, are the only services you provide lodging and meals?”

“Well, yes?”

“Alright, got it. I’ll have to give warnings to the others, so they won’t get any wrong idea.”

Ah, she was asking if I’m offering night services too.

“Please do so. After all, I don’t want to be embraced by a woman I don’t like.”

“Yeah. Tell me if one of the women gets too loose with their hands. I’ll be sure to discipline them myself.”

What a reassuring woman.

“Well, it seems you already have someone volunteering as a bodyguard, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it if I were you,” Master Erza said while glancing towards Sierra.

“I won’t forgive anyone laying a hand on Shirou. I’ll reduce them to cinders.”

“Generally, starting a fight is forbidden, you know.”

“And if they would not leave Shirou alone?”

Master Erza scratched her head, unsure how to respond.

“It’ll be a problem if you always resort to brute force. Can’t you try to solve problems more elegantly instead?” Master Erza said this while glancing a bit at me.

I know that she wants me to agree with her, but it’s not like I can really tell Sierra not to act too recklessly, you know.

But well, I don’t dislike this granny’s method of doing things.

“I think Master Erza is right. We might be able to learn a thing or two from her how to solve problems with adventurers.”

“Quite right!” Master Erza eagerly nodded.

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That day, I helped the guild unload their goods on the beach, and I was paid for the work. I say I helped, but it was actually Iwaos and Silvers who did most of it. I asked for all the rewards to be in form of magic stones, since the more golems that I have the harder it is for me to keep supplying them magic power directly from me.

Since I want to create as many things as I can with my creation magic, I need as many magic stones as I can get to keep my golems working.

Two of the ships in the fleet that arrived at the island were guild ships, but the last one was a merchant ship. They were wary of being attacked by pirates, so they came together with the guild’s ships, ahead of the other merchant ships.

In the evening, some of the merchants came to greet us; the head of their group was a burly merchant, she called herself ‘Madame Damas’.

“Our business is in weapons, tools, food, and other such things. We also run inns and whorehouses, so we would like to extend our greetings to you.”

The reason why she was speaking politely to me, even though I’m a man, is because I’m considered a middle-class citizen.

“Thank you very much for your kindness. Please feel free to ask me if you have any questions on the island.”

I exchanged the social greetings as Madam Damas kept an appraising gaze towards me.

“Thank you very much for your kind offer. By the way, let me introduce our boys from the store. Come out, you lot, and introduce yourselves to Okami-san here!”

I was absolutely speechless when she said that. [2]

Madam Damas then brought out several more people to greet me, and there were five men among them. This is the first time I’ve met other men since I came to this world. I think they’re between late twenties to forty years old.

Wait a minute… is that an old man with a barcode head [3]… is he one of the prostitute too? He has a thick beard, and his stomach is sticking out. And his glittering red shirt is painful to see.

“Quite unsightly, right? These are the only ones we can round up who agree to work here so far out in the frontier; men who have passed from their youthful peak.”

I guess the one who can still get customers in the city would decide to stay there. Once again, I’m being hit with a sad reality.

“Nice to meet you”, the barcode old man greets me in a coarse voice, muffled by alcohol and cigarettes. I thought he looked somewhat like Mr. Yoshida, the general manager of the general affairs department. He also had chest hair sticking out from his shirt.

“Nice to meet you too…”

The five men looked unenergetic and pale.

“Your complexion looks terrible, are you alright?”

“Not really. Feels like we’re about to die…”

“About to die?”

I was surprised when I heard the details. It seems like they were transported together in one room, treated like livestock. Generally, it is forbidden to have men on board a ship in this world, there is even a discriminatory superstition that says if a man gets on a ship, it will meet a storm or run aground. In reality, the reason for this is probably to prevent sailors from fighting over men, that’s why they’re usually not allowed on board.

The only exception is when men are brought on board as slaves or other commodities, which is the reason why these men are being treated as livestock, to prevent anything bad from happening to the ship.

As a fellow man, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.

“Here, drink this right away. It’ll make you feel better.”

I pulled out a life potion I had stocked up on for myself from the storage bag I carried with me at all times. It’s called a life potion, but it doesn’t actually have that dramatic effect like bringing someone back from dying. Still, it’s good enough that you can count on it to alleviate some of your physical ailments.

“Okami-san…”

“Hey now, as fellow men, we need to help each other in difficult times, right?”

When I said that, tears came to the eyes of the five male prostitutes.

Come to think of it, Chief Yoshida was also a man who cries when he drinks…

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1 It needs maintenance too, though, unless if we’re talking about simple dirt path.

2 By the way, the Madame used the word ‘お前たち’[Omae-tachi] here, which does actually kind of a rude way to say y’all.

3 It means balding head. The hair looks as if it’s a barcode.