“Why should I care? The lives of the lowly matter not. Once the pleasure quarter is complete, we’ll put up a blank gravestone in a corner and say a prayer for them.”
What a piece of shit.
“You think I’ll go out easy?!”
Jigoco pulled his dagger and lunged at Gorgoru, but the ex-adventurer swordsman knocked it from his hand and rendered him helpless. This must be their “master.”
“Your role is done. Master, finish him.”
The master nodded, flipped his sword, and put the tip to Jigoco’s back.
“…Stop right there!” a familiar voice called.
Earth spikes shot up from their feet, binding them all.
Only the master dodged the first strike, but he failed to dodge the follow-ups; he, too, was taken down.
“You’re…Tia?! Why is the Great Sorceress’s apprentice attacking innocent civilians?”
“Howl away, thief.”
I had not expected Tia to lead the charge in person.
I figured she’d leave this to her other apprentices.
“I’ve heard all your wicked schemes. We’re revoking your trading license and seizing your assets. You’ll be executed in the town square. Your employees will be punished in accordance with the gravity of their crimes.”
“Why? I merely ordered some land purchases?! Jigoco handled all the dirty work!”
“Are you a half-wit? Ordering a crime is the same as committing it yourself.”
“Do you have proof? Proof I ordered any of this?!”
“I heard everything. That’s all the proof I need.”
“Absurd! I’ve never heard of anything so oppressive! I’m appealing to the Great Sorceress herself!”
“Are you? And who do you think you’re talking to now?”
The frosty glare in her eyes was one she’d never used at the Hero’s Rest.
“Y-you mean…you’re the…?!”
Gorgoru managed to take the hint.
“That’s enough chatter. Take him away!”
Tia’s minions had been filing in, and they took Gorgoru into custody.
“Case closed,” Tia said, winking right at me.
Looks like she knew I was peeping.
She’d earned that “Great.”
“Er, um. Why is this happening?”
“Compensation.”
With the Gorgoru Company gone, their stores and factories all became property of the Hero’s Rest.
Including what they’d gotten in the land grab. Where the previous owner wanted it back, those requests were granted, but many of them had already started new lives or taken the money in the first place; the deeds for these properties all came to us.
On paper, these had been put up for auction, and the Hero’s Rest had simply successfully bid for stores, factories, and warehouses. I loaned the funds necessary for these bids. I hadn’t had enough copper coins on me, so I had to pay with a copper ingot that had been wasting space in my Inventory.
“Really a headache for a deal this size,” Arisa grumbled as we finalized the deal. “Why does the fortress city only allow copper again?”
“Can’t get anything else reliably.” Tia shrugged.
The Jungle Labyrinth had monsters that dropped high-purity copper ore, and the fortress city had an ancient coin press system, so they’d wound up using copper for their currency.
This coin press system had a huge start-up cost, and once it was running, it produced an absurd number of coins at once, so from an efficiency standpoint they’d wound up only minting copper. Accepting foreign currencies caused problems from an administrative standpoint.
“This is a good thing, Roro,” Lulu said.
“Exactly! Now you’re ready to scale up to how your grandmother ran things!” Arisa chimed in.
We hadn’t planned on it, but Roro now had the holdings she’d dreamed about.
Naturally, with that many properties, she needed more than four employees; even with my party helping, it wasn’t nearly enough. She’d been forced to take an introduction from Tia to the merchants’ guild and borrow staff from them.
“Satou, can’t wait to work with you!”
“I’ll leave the staff dorm unlocked, so come see me tonight. I’ll stay up.”
We’d put the rejects from the last round of hires on provisional contracts, but perhaps we’d been too hasty. While we settled them in…
“Is Roro here?” Tia said, making her usual entrance.
But she had company.
“Are these the staff we asked for?”
“They are. Roro said—”
“Lujib! Tonperry!” Roro cried, the moment she saw the two old men.
Those names sounded familiar. That’s right—they were the factory and workshop owners her grandmother had used.
“That tiny little Roro, all grown up!”
“You fool, she’ll be our new employer! You’ll call her ‘Boss Roro’ and like it!”
“Oh, right. Got lost on a trip down memory lane.”
They set about catching up.
“Um, shouldn’t we be—?”
“Right, right. Boss Roro, we’ve also found the former chief of staff, Tovan. He quit to move to the country during your mother’s time—but he’s brought his wife with him!”
Old man Lujib, former factory owner, was pointing at a middle-aged gnome and a little girl. She only looked like a little girl—she was actually a brownie, a house fairy. Tovan himself only looked like a middle-aged gnome—his actual age was far higher than either of those old men.
“It’s been too long, Roro.”
“Uncle Tovan! Wow, it’s really you!”
She was jumping for joy, talking like a kid again.
“And this is my wife, Aekiki.”
“W-wife…this little girl?” Roro yelped, gaping at the very young-looking brownie.
“Nice to meet you, Boss Roro. I may not look it, but I have reached the age of majority, don’t worry.”
Aekiki seemed used to how people saw her and was ready with an explanation. Given her actual age, the expression she’d used was a bit of an understatement—but I knew better than to point that out.
“I once handled the books at the Braiheim Company, so I imagine I can be of some assistance.”
“Braiheim—that’s Tovan’s hometown, right? Did you screw up and get sent packing?”
“I did not! My hardheaded parents wouldn’t approve my marriage to Aekiki, so we ditched the place!”
“Eloping at your age?”
“Leave it,” the gnome growled, not letting his old friends tease him.
If memory served, gnomes and brownies were unable to have children, so a conservative gnome settlement would have been against their marriage. The fragility of life here might mean people placed greater stock in matters like that than they did in modern Japan.
“I’ve checked all four of them out, so don’t worry about a thing. They worked well with your mother and grandmother, so I’m sure they’ll be a great help to you, Roro. Tonperry has a lot of connections, so he should be able to help you find craftsmen.”
“Thank you so much, Tia.”
They were clearly already getting along swimmingly.
Tovan would be able to back her up in my place, and Aekiki could take over accounts from Arisa; Lujib could handle factory lines, and Tonperry knew half the craftsmen in town. With Roro in the lead, Hero’s Rest now had the management it needed.
“So many new people, Satou…,” Hou said, looking tense.
“Yeah. Hou, you’re a veteran now—you’ll have to show the new hires the ropes!”
Roro called her over, and she started making friends.
Hou’s group was used to the job by now, so I put them in charge of training the new hires. With Tovan and the old guard shoring up the core staff, the Hero’s Rest was well on its way to operating without my party’s help.
✦ ✦ ✦
A half a month after that, they’d successfully weathered the expansion.
Tia’s broad-ranging support had helped, of course, but our factories had hired a ton of the poverty class as welfare labor, and we’d found several capable individuals among them. That had helped with the rapid expansion; the new storefronts were remodeled and operating, and we had second and third smaller Hero’s Rest stores operating near the gates.
……Yeah, maybe overkill.
Roro had wanted this expansion, but it had been a bit too rapid, and she’d been ready to turn tail and run several times.
She was slowly easing into her new role and getting good at managing her numerous new staff.
She no longer needed us at every turn, and I’d passed off most of the duties I’d been handling.
✦ ✦ ✦
About that time.
Roro was growing independent, and I could leave the shop for extended periods of time.
And if I was around, Roro would continue to turn to me over her new core staff.
We could head back to Shiga Kingdom, but while we were here anyway, I wanted to join my party in their plans for a castle conquest.