But as those days passed, a problem cropped up.
“Zomamurgormi’s dead?”
Ms. Nona and company had brought him back, and he’d been in the tower dungeons—but they’d found him dead that morning.
“Do we know the cause?”
“We know it was poison, but appraisal failed to identify the type.”
“Can I take a look?”
“Go right ahead.”
With Tia’s permission, I inspected the weasel’s corpse.
No obvious injuries. No signs of strangulation. I tried using the See Through spell and found a half-dissolved capsule in his stomach.
I touched that with Magic Hand and took it out through Storage.
“A capsule?” Arisa muttered.
Medicine often came in these water-soluble capsules back in Japan.
And the half-melted capsule bore clear signs of our world’s writing on it—not the English alphabet, but the Cyrillic writing seen in Russia.
There’d been no such capsules or bottles in the villain’s clothing.
“…Where’d it come from?” Arisa asked.
I shook my head.
“I’ve seen it before.”
Arisa and I both looked at Tia.
“That was in the things they found in Zomamurgormi’s hideout.”
Two bottles filled with the same capsules we’d found in his stomach.
“This one’s poison, and this one’s the antidote,” Arisa said, reading the labels.
“I’ve never seen writing like this—you can read it? It’s not Shiga Kingdom writing, is it?”
“No, not at all. It hails from the world of the heroes.”
The printing on the bottles said they were made in the People’s Republic of Northern Japan, by Myosunogi Pharmaceuticals.
“Did an old hero bring them?”
“Seems likely.”
But I didn’t get why there was nothing else along those lines.
“Did a friend of his rub him out?”
“Maybe he’d taken it already.”
I tried putting one of the poison capsules in hot water, but it showed no signs of dissolving.
I assumed this was a slow-release capsule. This was confirmed when I dropped one of the antidotes in water and the capsule melted right off.
“So if you don’t take the antidote within a set period of time, you die?” Tia asked.
I nodded.
“Likely to prevent sharing intel under torture once captured.”
“Like some spy story shit.” Arisa sighed.
Tia hadn’t ruled out an assassin or a mole, but to my mind, this was evidence enough to dismiss those possibilities.
An unexpected outcome, but at least we knew Zomamurgormi’s schemes against the fortress city had been foiled.
I’d have liked to learn who was helping him back in the Weaselman Empire, but for now, I was just happy there were no more threats to Roro herself. The Weaselman Empire might still be up to something, but after a failure this big, it would take several years for them to gear up for another attempt.
“Welcome back to the shop, Roro!”
“Oh, Satou! You came back!”
The staff at the Hero’s Rest greeted us enthusiastically.
“Nice to be back.”
Tovan—a new manager—and Hou—a managerial candidate—emerged from the back.
“Welcome back, Roro. Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, I’m fine now. Any problems here?”
“None at all. You’ve trained them all well.”
Tovan was in no rush, but Hou barged in, arms full of paperwork.
“Roro! We just received a proposal from the Ussha Company.”
“Keri said it would be coming. Um, in that case…”
Roro started poring over the documents.
Hou looked at me for advice, but I shook my head. I wasn’t sticking my nose in anymore.
“Yeah, let’s push back on this part. We won’t make a profit as is, so let’s offer thirty—no, forty percent, and settle on thirty-five,” Roro concluded, after a lengthy internal debate. “That should work, right, Tovan?”
“I believe it will.”
“Okay, Hou, let’s go with that.”
A quick sanity check with her staff, and she gave the go sign.
The old Roro would have turned to me there, but she’d finally started to trust Tovan on these issues.
It might have been some rough medicine, but distancing myself from her had been the right call.
“Roro, the haberdashers want to know if we’ll carry their new products.”
“New hats? Are they armored?”
They headed to the back, where a row of headgear awaited.
Half of them were thick cloth—which might function as basic helmets—while the others were pure fashion statements.
“Roro, these wouldn’t work as armor, right?”
“But I bet the adventurers would like them. I think they’d sell if we stocked them in the second shop—the one near the residential district.”
Lulu and Roro were looking at hats as brightly colored as any tropical flower.
“I think you could both pull these off,” Arisa said, holding up a brimmed hat with fake hair in a variety of colors attached.
“Oh, I do want to see Lulu with that on.”
“I think this would be right for you.”
They each picked a hat that would match each other’s hair.
“Do this, and you’ll look even more alike,” Arisa said. She braided their actual hair, tucking it into the hats.
True, that did give them that twin look. Like they’d swapped places. Kinda fun.
“Hello? Kerina Gure, the next manager of the Ussha Company is here? Come out and greet me!”
A voice called from the front room.
Sounded like Keri had come over to hang out.
“Roro, forty percent is way too much! Be reasonable!” she yelled, advancing with paperwork in hand.
“Er, um…”
“What?”
“Keri, I’m over here.”
Keri had been marching toward Lulu, and Roro patted her shoulder, laughing.
“Er, augh! Your eye color—you’re Roro!”
“Eh-heh-heh, right you are! I’m Roro!”
These two went way back, and Roro’s tone softened up when they were talking.
“Then this must be—”
“I’m Lulu,” she said, taking off the hat.
“Those hats are confusing!”
“They’re a new product from the haberdashers. I’m thinking about selling them at shop two, in the residential area.”
“Hmm, diversifying isn’t a bad thing, but stick to a range you can keep tabs on.”
“Mm, I know. Thanks, Keri.”
“Well, just some advice from a veteran merchant—hey! Don’t shorten my name! I’m Kerina Gure! Of the Ussha Company!”
She’d been calling her Keri this whole time, but she’d only just noticed.