“Roro, gimme some magic recovery potions, antidotes for insect poisons, and five of them good preserved foods. Whatever’s cheapest.”
“Young master, sword maintenance. And the usual.”
The flood was truly underway now.
Most of our regulars had a “usual,” so Roro spent a lot of time teaching our newbies their names and orders.
They weren’t expected to remember this the first time, but getting the names down would be a good first step.
“You’re good at teaching, Roro.”
“I’ve trained all of them,” she explained, patting the hamsters.
“Roro, great?”
“Roro, trust!”
“Roro, praise!”
“Boss! Satou! Help!”
Oops, no time for goofing off.
Evenings weren’t as bad as the morning rush, but they were pretty bustling. I’d have to do the work of three.
By the time the shift ended, our new hires looked wiped out, but when I said we had some food ready to welcome them, they perked right up.
“I’d never had Taurus meat.”
“Roro and Satou are both so nice!”
“Just getting food this good is bliss.”
They only talked like that at first. Once they heard they could have as many extra helpings as they liked, they began shoving food in their mouths like there was no tomorrow. It was practically an eating contest.
But compared to my beast girls, this was tame. We had plenty of leftovers, so I stuffed them in pots and sent them home with the rest.
“I’m working here forever!”
“We’ll have more food in the morning.”
“Thank you! I can’t wait to let my family share!”
They took the leftovers and left dancing with joy.
That must have really gotten to them. I’d have to make extras every time.
Three days after being hired, the new staff could handle the shop themselves, outside of the morning and evening rush.
I thought I’d have a little more time to craft for fun, but trouble came knocking uninvited.
“What?! You’re selling defective products and then blaming the customer?”
I headed toward the raised voices and found some fierce-faced beastfolk screaming at Hou.
They were dressed like classic hoodlums—maybe I wouldn’t have noticed right after coming here, but now I could tell at a glance.
“Quit making stuff up,” Pepe argued. Shipo was watching Hou’s back.
The wolf pup on the shelf, Fen, was no longer sleeping; he’d moved to the counter, standing firm and growling.
“Is there some sort of problem?”
The situation seemed primed to explode, so I stepped in, my voice calm.
“Problem? We got a big one!” the thug swung his arm, sweeping everything on the counter onto the floor.
“Uh-oh.”
I caught everything in the air.
I did consider letting it break and bringing in a guard, but it felt like a shame to let our hard work get damaged by these fools.
“Wow, Satou!”
“Swift!”
Ship and Pepe were agog.
“I heard something about a defective product?”
“That’s right! I drank this magic potion, and it didn’t do anything!”
The man showed us a potion bottle of the type sold at the Adventurers Guild or other stores, one not for sale at Hero’s Rest.
“We don’t sell that potion here.”
“What? Don’t make excuses!”
The man roared so loudly, spittle flew, but I blocked it with a bowl from the counter. I’d have to disinfect that later.
“I’m not making excuses. This is a Hero’s Rest potion; we’ve got a mark on the base of the bottle, and the top is designed so we can tell if it’s been opened.”
The mark was a hiragana “yu” in a circle, and the seal on the top was like any plastic soda bottle back home. It was pretty easy to get these materials from the Jungle Labyrinth, so I planned to spread that through the Echigoya Company, too.
“Shut your foul month! Pay us recompense right nowwwwww!” he roared, making the scariest face he could in the hopes of bullying us.
I’d rather he not alarm our new hires, thanks.
Fen added the “Intimidation” skill to his growl.
“Eek!”
It worked like a charm, and the men started backing off.
“B-bro!”
“Let’s not do this today!”
“Y-you fools! If we blow this, we’ll be in shacks by the wall tomorrow!”
They were muttering to each other, but my “Keen Hearing” caught every word.
“Blow this”?
Were they acting on someone’s orders?
“Fine! I’m going for it!”
The man they’d called “Bro” roared and swung a fist toward the counter.
““Eek!””
“Satou!”
To a chorus of the new staff’s screams, the man’s fist closed in on my cheek.
He telephoned the hell out of it, so I deflected at point-blank range and threw him at his two henchmen. All I had to do was tug his wrist, a combination of my “Hand-to-Hand Combat” skill and absurd STR.
They grunted like a pack of frogs, and I proceeded to toss them each out the door in turn. Hopefully they’d skedaddle.
They’d said something that bugged me, so I marked them and tracked the man they’d called “Bro” with Space Magic’s Clairvoyance and Clairaudience. For a while, I wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on my own party, which made me fret, but it was high time I let them be more independent.
“Thank you, Satou.”
“You’re so strong, Satou!”
“Mm, like an adventurer.”
“I am one.”
I showed them my silver tiger badge and earned looks of respect from all of them.
I took puppy Fen off the counter and put him back on the shelf, whispering, “Thanks for looking after our new kids.”
“I protect Roro’s pack. That is all.”
He spoke with a form of telepathy, using a very wolflike turn of phrase.
We cleaned up the mess the men had made, and I left the new girls on duty, heading to the back room.
I resumed the work I’d been in the middle of, but once the men got back to their lair, they started arguing.
“We’re back, but should we be?”
“Yeah. We were told to raise hell until Boss Jigoco’s people stepped in to help.”
“I know that! But nobody said the boy on duty was that strong!”
Since they’d dropped a name, I did a search and found a leader of a backstreet criminal group around thirty strong.
The map showed one of his men lurking around the Hero’s Rest. I followed the blinking light as he stepped into the shop, looked confused, and quickly left again. Presumably heading back to their base.
So they’d tried to run a con and place us in their debt? Too bad.
“Bro, what do we do?”
“We’ve gotta complete this job somehow! I need to feed my wife and kids!”
“Yeah, but they’re too strong! And that puppy’s freakish!”
“Suck it up! You said you need new clothes for your kids!”
“If only we could find real jobs, we wouldn’t need to cause trouble…”
“What choice have we got?! We didn’t cut it as adventurers.”
“Got hurt bad day one, nearly died…”
Classic failed adventurers, then.
If the Hero’s Rest could get their own factory going, then they could hire ex-adventurers like this, and fewer people could force them into crime.
That gangster had almost made it back to the base, so I switched targets on Clairvoyance and Clairaudience to this Jigoco joker.
“Boss, the smooth-skin’s back.”
“Done already?”
“Nope, seems like a bust.”
“Once a smooth-skin, always a smooth-skin. Give him a chance, and he blows it.”
Guess the guy at our shop was human.
He was soon dragged in. He was dressed like a ladies’ man but wasn’t that good-looking.
“B-boss, wait! There was no commotion at Hero’s Rest!”
“What? Bubui skipped out? Hey!”
“Yes, boss.”
Another man ducked out and went off somewhere.
Likely to grab the three men who’d made a scene.
“You wait over there until Bubui gets here.”
Jigoco sent all but his top guys out of the room.
“The rest of our land grab going all right?”
“Yep. Anyone who don’t fold on a threat, we got failed adventurers snatching them up, forcing them to sign.”
Some nefarious shit going on right next door.
I’d said hi to a few people but not had any prolonged discussions, so I hadn’t heard about this.
No, by the time we hit the Hero’s Rest, the places on either side were empty and the street itself only sparsely populated; perhaps these people had been acquiring property for a while now.
“Good, the Gorgoru Company’s demanding we move on.”
Gorgoru?
I’d heard that name before—right, the company that swiped the centaur alchemist from the Hero’s Rest.
Was that part of their land grab scheme?
“Hero’s Rest had a lot of adventurers as regulars; violence ain’t gonna pay off.”
“When they were failing, it might have worked, but now they got silver tiger and golden lion regulars…”
“Seriously, that asshole Pendra-whatsis-face sure made our jobs harder.”
Was that me?
“And the Great Sorceress’s apprentice goes there. We gotta be careful.”
“Fair enough. High-rank adventurers attack us, we’ll be dead before we can even lift a finger.”
“They’re monsters, man. Only an idiot would fight ’em head-on.”
“True. Once the land grab’s done, the contracts say we’ll be running the pleasure quarters. Gotta make sure we do this right.”
“Yes, boss.”
So that was the long-term goal?
I’d recorded this whole discussion with Picture Recorder and Sound Recorder; now I just had to get more proof of Gorgoru’s involvement, and I could turn it all over to Tia. I’m sure she’d break a leg for Roro’s sake.