by Roy
Getting this many customers on opening day was even rare in my old world, unless you were a pachinko parlor. For this world, it was apparently extremely rare to have this much business right away. From what the customers told me, news of my store was spread by adventurers.
The adventurers that I slayed goblins with told their fellow adventurers, their families, and average civilians. When I introduced the place to Pauline, that also seemed to deliver the news among the local housewives, so people had heard about the laundromat from various sources.
“Our services are cheap, so a lot of customers came to try it this morning.”
“A lot of the customers in the afternoon said they heard about it from people who tried it. I imagine we’ll see similar results for the next few days.”
This world had no cell phones or social media, so I underestimated the power of word of mouth. Maybe my haphazard advertising was to blame, though it was certainly to my store’s benefit. It was over for now, at any rate, so I decided to take the time to cure Fay’s leg.
“Carla, Carme, can you clean up the shop for the night?”
“Understood,” they said.
“Thank you. Fay, Lilyn, come with me.”
I had them wait in the break room, then fetched two healing slimes. They were surprised when I said these creatures could cast High Heal, but they appreciated and accepted the help. Thanks to the healing slimes’ efforts, Fay’s leg fully recovered. Broken bones vary in severity, but this injury took them three casts of High Heal each for a total of six casts.
“Thanks for that, I’m glad to have this leg taken care of.”
“Healers charge a lot for their services. You don’t mind doing this for free?”
“Making it easier for my employees to work is my job. If my slimes or I can do something for you, I won’t charge for it.”
There were healers in town, but you had to pay them an amount based on their skill and magical energy for each individual spell they cast. To fully heal a broken bone required multiple casts that would demand a high price, so rather than seek healing, Fay planned to do assorted jobs within the guild as he waited for the fracture to recover.
“If I had just brought more money from my country, I could have had it healed with magic right away. I used everything I had for bribes when I was fleeing across the border.”
“And that’s why you’re broke?”
“The border guards from our country are awfully greedy. They’ll let any crime slide if you pay up, but if you don’t have money, they’ll turn you over to the government and be rewarded for it. I couldn’t be stingy about what I paid, unfortunately. If they could’ve made more for turning us in, we either would’ve been captured or found it harder to escape.” Fay whispered.
“Because of the type of work we did for our country, the reward on our heads would be higher than normal. Some of the guards get suspicious enough to capture ordinary people as it is, so anyone who tries fleeing our country gives up most of their assets. You don’t think much about saving money when your life’s on the line,” Lilyn murmured equally quietly. Gilmar sounded like a nasty country with all that war and chaos they mentioned. After we talked for a bit longer, I gave them their rooms, where they set up all their belongings. Then I returned to the store and asked Carla about our earnings that day. The answer surprised me.
“Today we made 791 medium bronze coins and eight small bronze coins for a total of 7918 sute,” she reported. I asked the twins exactly how good that was, since they were the pros. They said that for a business that doesn’t have nobles as customers, a mid-sized company makes around 4000 sute a day. Even if we subtracted our expenses, the fact that we made more than that on our opening day was shocking.
“This is amazing!”
“We can already start to compete with the big companies that don’t sell to nobles!”
“How much do they make in a day?”
“Around 20000 sute, generally speaking. If you have any nobles as customers, that can cause your earnings to skyrocket. The expenses are high, but if you sell high-quality goods, they can turn a big profit.”
“A lot of people will pay a premium for luxuries.”
“I see. Well, nobles aren’t relevant to our case, but if we can make 2.5 times what we did today, we really could rank among the big companies.”
“Considering what we managed today, I expect we’ll reach that goal within the month. We’ve yet to receive our share from the Adventurer’s Guild, so when you consider them, we’ll have even more customers.”
“There may come a time when our daily earnings add up to a whole medium gold coin.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said with a chuckle. A medium gold coin was 50000 sute, well beyond the realm of what was reasonable.
“It’s possible,” the twins said, much to my disbelief.
“This is a mining town. There are a lot of miners and metalworkers. I hear there aren’t as many people as when the big mine was abandoned a few years ago, but there’s still a population of ten-thousand.”
“And the customers won’t necessarily pay for only one bag each. I think it would be hard to make more than a medium gold coin’s worth of profit all the time, but in the event that we get a big request from the Adventurer’s Guild, for example, we could earn as much that way.”
“I see,” I said. Maybe it could happen once or twice.
“Also, if you open branches in other towns, you could easily earn more than a medium gold coin’s worth of profit per day.”
“Talking about opening branch stores already? It’s a bit early for that.”
“Maybe so, but it’s worth thinking about.”
“As long as you have employees you can trust, opening more stores is well worth considering.”
It was true that we turned quite a profit for our first day. I decided to consider it for the future, but I wanted to see how this played out for now.
“Oh, I forgot to give you something. Here’s the work history for the two new employees.”
“We’ll take a look,” the twins said and began to read the papers.
“They say they’re willing to work for the bare minimum they need to live on, but I also decided to ask them to be bodyguards, so pay them 150 sute a day, please.”
“They both served in the military? That’s reassuring.”
“Understood.”
After that, I said goodbye to my four employees and returned to the inn. When I got there, I reported to Reinhart and the others about my earnings that day. They were stunned.
Chapter 2 Episode 30: Personnel Additions
The next day...
After I prepared to open for business in the morning, I went shopping for products to welcome my two new employees with, then returned to the store.
“There are this many people already?” I asked. I left the store when it opened at 8AM and shopped for about an hour. It should have only been around 9AM. Now I wondered what time of day we had the most business.
I pondered about that as I entered through the employees only door behind the store. Carla and Fay were taking orders while Carme and Lilyn were carrying and returning laundry. We didn’t seem to have any problems so far. I left the work to them and started cooking.
There was no telling when it might get busier, so I wanted to feed everyone while there was still time to eat. I kneaded the dough, then rounded and stretched it. Once that was finished, I smeared it with meat sauce.
By the way, this meat sauce was left over from the opening party two days prior. I made a fridge using barrier magic that preserved food better than leaving it outside. I appraised it just in case, and it turned out there were no problems. If, say, Serge heard about the fridge, it might cause another uproar. Maybe Pioro would be more likely to make a ruckus over it. He did say that he handles food.
I sprinkled cheese, sliced onions, and some herbs on top of the base, then stuck it all in a heated kettle to bake it. In the meantime, I prepared the salads and dr
inks. While I took care of that, the pizza finished cooking. It exuded a fragrant scent. I tried out a piece for myself, and it was excellent. And ready to eat before it got too busy, thankfully.
“Lunch is ready, everyone. I can take over for someone so we can take turns eating.”
“Thank you,” my employees said. First, Lilyn and Carla switched places with me. After they ate, Fay and Carme went to get their share, giving everyone a chance to rest and eat. When noon passed, it got just as busy as yesterday, but we somehow managed to get through it together.
“Good work, everyone.”
“Good work, Ryoma!” they said. It went better than the previous day, but we only went from overworking our employees to being able to function as a normal business. If even one employee were unable to work, we would take a big hit. I wouldn’t even have time to cook lunch for everyone if that happened.
“Another busy day. How much did we make?”
“According to my calculations, 11877 sute,” Carla said and showed me her notes. If we made 1.5 times as much as yesterday, that was a significant increase over a single day.
“Those are some nice sales.”
“More than just nice, business is booming.”
“At this rate, we’ll end up with even more customers.”
“Lilyn, Fay, you think so too? Maybe I should hire more employees. My original plan was to hire three or four people, but if anyone gets sick or something now, it’ll put a heavy load on the rest of us.”
“Yes, I think that would be wise.”
“I know you just did this yesterday, but it would help if you can go to the guild and hire someone again.”
“Understood. I’d also like to hire a cook, but could I find one at the Merchant’s Guild?” I asked.
“Yes,” Carme answered. “But why a cook?”
“If we have our hands full with work, how are we supposed to make lunch? I was thinking I’d hire someone who can take care of that.”
“I see what you mean, but any regular employee could do that job.”
“But if we had someone to do that job exclusively, it gives the rest of us more time. Besides, wouldn’t it motivate you more if there were a good meal to look forward to? Consider it a perquisite.”
“I agree with you, but what is a perquisite?”
“Oh, well, it’s a way of considering what would help your employees work most comfortably, I guess you could say,” I tried to explain. Apparently they didn’t think about employee benefits here. Or maybe most businesses didn’t have them.
“I do think you’ve thought a lot about what’s best for your employees.”
“You’re giving us housing and paying as well at the same time. You don’t find employers like that very often.”
“Good pay, warm, comfortable rooms, and today’s food was great too. My father and I would be lucky to find something better.”
“I’m glad to hear that. So can you handle the rest of the day without me? I’m planning to go hire someone, then head on home.”
“Have a good day,” the four of them said as they saw me off.
■ ■ ■
When I got to the guild, I was once again let into the reception room for a meeting with the guildmaster.
“Nice to see you. Here to hire someone again?”
“Business has been unexpectedly good, so we have the money for it.”
“I see, then how many more employees do you want?”
“I’d like three more employees to work the store, plus a chef.”
“A chef?”
“We’re so busy that our employees barely have the time to cook, so as long as I’m hiring people, I thought it might be nice if they had the chance to eat something good. And for the sake of their health, I want them to get something nutritious.”
“That’s why you want to hire someone just to cook? That’s pretty atypical.”
“Is it?”
“Most stores just have one of the regular employees do it. Bigger stores will hire people to do assorted work like this, but you seldom see anyone go out of their way to appoint a chef. Well, it’s not a bad idea. Hold on a sec, I’ll see if anyone’s interested.”
“Ask people who weren’t here yesterday, please,” I requested. Some time later, the guildmaster introduced me to four people.
“Nice to meet you! I’m Jane!”
“I’m Maria!”
“My name is Fina.”
“I’m Chelma, a chef.”
The first three were young women who came to this town from an impoverished village as a group, looking to make some money. Jane was energetic, Maria was laid-back, and Fina was more the serious type, based on first impressions. Chelma couldn’t have been substantially older than them, but she was to some degree. She came across like a mother.
I assumed the guildmaster knew how to pick people better than me, and when I asked if they were interested in working for me just to be sure, they all nodded. Apparently they changed their mind after hearing about my store’s success, since I did see them in the lineup when I came yesterday. The guildmaster also lectured them about how safe my store was.
Me and all my employees had been evaluated by the guildmaster, so there probably wasn’t much to worry about with these women either. The three village girls seemed like what I saw was what I’d get. They wouldn’t have any unique skills, but that was fine. Chelma’s previous job was at an ordinary inn, and she said she couldn’t cook anything lavish, but that wasn’t an issue either. They seemed like good people, so I decided to hire them all.
Business was taken care of within ten minutes of arriving at the guild. All the connections I had turned out to be important, to be sure. The four new employees wanted to live in the store as well, so after the contracts were signed, we ended up returning to the shop with the carriage waiting outside. Before that, the guildmaster told me one last thing.
“Ryoma, if this keeps up, I’d consider opening up a couple more stores in other towns. You can do it right away if you want. Just consult with me when you’re ready,” she said. I was stunned to hear the same thing Carme and Carla said. Then she tapped me on the back with her staff and encouraged me to keep it together. When we got to the store, Carme and Carla were still there.
“Boss, I thought you were going home,” they said. I told them about the new employees who wanted to live at the store, introduced everyone, then let them handle the rest.
■ ■ ■
Four days had passed since I hired the new employees. The three village girls worked hard, and Chelma’s cooking was delectable. I stayed at the store on the first day to be sure everything could run well without me, and there were no problems. Two days ago, I even had the time to wash the walls outside and trim the lawn. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to patrol the abandoned mine.
It had only been a week since opening day, but our sales still hadn’t declined. If I lived frugally, I could survive three months for each day’s worth of profit. I was somewhat awestruck, but it was all thanks to my tireless employees.
They could keep everything running fine without me by that point, so I could return to my adventuring work. But just when that occurred to me, I was summoned by Serge.
“Sorry I took so long to get here.”
“Master Ryoma, I’m glad you’re here. Now, come this way.”
“Excuse me.”
“Apologies for the sudden call.”
“That’s fine, my employees are good enough to run the store themselves now. The twins you sent me have been doing good work too.”
“Is that right? It sounds like they’ve proven useful to you. That’s a relief.”
“You’ve done a lot to help me, Serge.”
“Same goes here. I’m making a tidy profit thanks to all the bags and daily necessities you’re buying off us.”
“That’s been great for me too. Everything’s going so smoothly that it’s almost scary.”
“Everyone in town’s been talking about it lately.
It’s even drawn the guild’s attention,” Serge said, then sighed before he continued. “And you have the chance to make even more money. Isn’t that a shock?” I cocked my head at that. “Master Ryoma, I’m talking about the waterproof cloth.”
“Oh, right.” I had completely forgotten.
“Did you know that the mass outbreak of grell frogs is coming up soon?”
“Yes, I’ve heard.”
“Grell frogs live in swamps. Their hides can produce armor and their organs make good medicine, so they sell for a high price. During the mass outbreak, tons of adventurers travel to the swamps where they thrive. It would be a good opportunity to advertise products such as boots made from that waterproof cloth, so I was thinking we should begin to produce and sell them soon. As such, I wanted to ask just how many you can make, which is why I called you here today.”
I had 907 sticky slimes at the moment, so it depended on how much cloth I had.
“The process involves modifying regular cloth, so I would need to ask for the material, but how long would a strip of cloth be to start with?”
“If you’re getting it from me, then about seventy meters,” Serge answered. Taking more than I could use would do neither of us any good. Thinking conservatively, ten slimes could do maybe one strip of cloth in a day. If I had twenty of my slimes work on one sheet each day to be safe, that’s at least 45 sheets.
“Then once we’re ready for production, we could create around 45 to 90 sheets a day. They’ll take some time to dry, though, so it may be a bit less than that,” I said. Serge’s face brightened.
“Ten sheets a day to start with would have been good enough. Any more than that is much appreciated.”
“Understood. Shall I get started on that today?”
“Please do.”
“Then I’d like to buy some cloth to use as materials.”
“You can have it for free. It’ll be returned to me as waterproof cloth, so I’ll simply pay the production cost when you hand it over. How much will that be?”
“You can decide the price. Whatever is reasonable, please,” I said. Serge lightly laughed.
