CH 88.1

Pickles, a centaur with a body of both a human and a horse, pulls the string of her bow as the muscles in her arm expand violently.

She is pulling a special one-of-a-kind bow that even the strongest men would find difficult to pull.

The bow is a combination of materials from a behemoth with a strong exoskeleton that only mages could defeat and a magic metal made by an alchemist.

Its string, which is made by twisting the threads of an Arachne and steel threads, is now being pulled hard by Pickles.

The place she was doing it was at the Schenker Baseball Stadium.

Many baseball fans were watching the bow being unveiled as a prelude to the practice game between the Schenker Scorpions and the east city’s shopping district’s Skinhead Boys.

As the tension in the stadium gradually reached its peak, the slaves in charge of safety checks raised a white flag to signal the start of the game.

At that moment, an arrow was shot soundlessly from Pickles, who’s on the pitcher’s mound, at a target made of bricks(5mx2m), between the homebase and 1st base.

At first it seemed as if the arrow had never been fired.

Only the arrow in Pickles’ hand was gone and there’s no change in the target.

「What happened……?」

「Where’s the arrow?」

As the audience buzzed, a slave who had gone looking for the arrow pointed on the ground and shouted “There”.

On the other side of the target, there was a hole in the ground.

Looking at it closely, there is also a hole in the brick target.

So, did the arrow penetrate through the brick target?

That sounds awesome but kind of plain…..

「Awesome!」

「Right! She pulled it so hard!」

「It was so fast you couldn’t see it!」

An indescribably cheering flew as Pickles bowed to the audience with a terrifying expression.

Thus, the unveiling of the bow specially made for Pickles ended with a mixed reaction.

No one present that time had expected that news a few weeks later would circulate throughout Torquiva….that she had shot down a flying behemoth with her bow.

-0-

The recent decision to rebuild the Magical Schenker Group Headquarters from a single story building to a multi-story building.

There was a talk of creating a late night convenience store in the building but…..our organization doesn’t have the know-how for late night business.

If you don’t have it, just make it.

Thus, it was decided to experiment with a late-night store, one step ahead of the construction of the building.

It is located at the end of Schenker Street, a good location for our people and the residents to easily stop by.

We were particular about the location facing the street and made the whole area around the store entirely made of glass…..at night, the area around the store was as bright as daylight and on the first day of the opening, the store was plunged into chaos by insects that had gathered to the point of death.

I immediately hung a hastily developed ultra violet light emitting insect repelling magic construct on the eaves of the building. From the next day on, the store was no longer bothered by insects….maybe.

I don’t know. I haven’t been there.

It was good that they were no longer plagued by insects but the shopkeeper got tangled up with drunk customers the next day’s of business. Apparently, the drunken customers got into a lot of trouble.

At the moment, the late night shopkeepers are chosen from the adventurer’s group so…..they are all tough girls.

For the time being, the number of shopkeepers was increased to 3, making it possible to handle everything peacefully with just them….maybe.

I don’t know since I never had a time off from work.

I also had them displace a sword that looks very sharp, unsheathed, behind the cash register.

That would reduce both nuisance customers and shoplifting.

The business continued, solving all sorts of problems along the way and in no time, two weeks had already passed since the store opened for business.

There aren’t many late-night customers but they are usually drunks and since they pay well, the business is surprisingly profitable.

And I was about to sneak off to that late night store.

It’s not that I’m trying to inspect the place or anything, it’s just that I got hungry in the middle of the night.