By the Grace of the Gods: Volume 3

by Roy

  “We have informed your associates, and they all approved of the idea.”

  “When did you do that?” I asked. I didn’t notice this at all.

  “We’ll be watching very closely, making certain you don’t get to work today.”

  “Being forced to take a break like this may make you feel restless, but you have to relax at some point for the sake of your health. If you keep working as you have been, we’ll drag you to our house by force if we must.”

  “I’m sorry I worried everyone.”

  “Maybe you don’t feel like you’re pushing yourself too far, but if a normal person did the amount of work you did, they’d undoubtedly hurt themselves. It’s possible you simply don’t realize what you’re doing to yourself, so you need to be careful.”

  “So there you have it, you’re forced to take a break today. I’ll begin my performance now.”

  Eliaria was being oddly pushy. Or maybe she was always pushy. To say her naivete made her demand a lot of people was probably more accurate. While I was pondering this, Eliaria took a violin from Sebas and began to play. I didn’t realize violins existed in this world, but maybe someone brought them over from my own.

  Eliaria’s performance sounded simply excellent. She played a slow and relaxing song. Once it was over, she asked for my impressions.

  “Ryoma, how did you like my performance?”

  “It was great, seriously,” I said, and I wasn’t flattering her. I got a guitar as a gift back in my world and tried to learn how to play it, but I was never that great. I didn’t have much musical knowledge, but her performance sounded pleasant.

  My simple compliment was enough to please Eliaria. She began to play the violin again. I listened and petted my slimes, along with the surprisingly receptive Luorg, having a tranquil time. Eventually it came time to feed my slimes, so I had my three newest ones absorb magic energy. I was shocked to find that one of them began to transform.

  “It’s happening!”

  “What?!” Eliaria exclaimed.

  “Ryoma, what’s going on?” Elise asked.

  “Did something happen?” Reinbach wondered.

  My shout put Eliaria’s performance to a halt and made everyone approach to see what the hubbub was.

  “A slime is evolving!”

  All eyes turned to the slime I was petting. It jiggled like when the iron slime evolved, then stopped and repeatedly released and absorbed magic energy. It changed to a brown color at the same time. Nobody could look away. When the evolution ended, I used Monster Appraisal.

  Earth Slime

  Skills: Earth Magic 2, Earth Resistance 8, Earth Magic Absorption 1, Jump 1, Consume 3, Absorb 3, Split 1

  The experiment was a success.

  “Ryoma, what is it?” Eliaria asked.

  “This slime evolved into an earth slime. It can use earth magic now.”

  “Oh!” Reinbach exclaimed. “Another rare slime.”

  “Ryoma, earth slimes are extremely rare. How did you manage that?” Elise asked. I explained my method. Eliaria and Elise tested it themselves.

  “How does this work?”

  “This is surprisingly difficult.”

  They changed the element of their magic energy and released it, but it became magic spells in the process. That or it turned back into non-elemental energy. Keeping your magic energy in its transformed states seemed to require a high level of skill with magic energy control. I only had to use a bit of focus, but that was because my Magic Control skill had reached Level 4 after playing around so much. I came to the conclusion that Eliaria and Elise couldn’t do it at the moment.

  Frustrated about this, Eliaria stopped playing her violin and began to practice controlling her magic instead, but she never succeeded in the end. Ultimately, she proclaimed that she would strive to learn the Magic Control skill later. She never took her eyes off the slimes I evolved. All three of them had now evolved, giving me two earth slimes and one dark slime.

  Dark Slime

  Skills: Dark Magic 2, Dark Resistance 8, Dark Magic Absorption 1, Jump 1, Consume 3, Absorb 3, Split 1

  The evolution of my slimes was a bit of a surprise, but when my magic energy had just about run out, we settled down again.

  “Oh, a horned rabbit.”

  As I listened to the music and petted my slimes, I sent out the crew bird and found a pack of horned rabbits with it. Maybe I could give their meat to my employees as thanks. When I told the duke’s family about this and began to head out, Reinhart and Eliaria offered to help, so we easily hunted down tons of them. I killed a few with my bow, while Reinhart, Eliaria, and my sticky slimes went after others. The job was made simple when so many people were involved.

  I met up with the rest of the group, returned the crew bird to its cage and canceled my contract with it. Elise said I could take it with me, but I turned down her offer. I could live without being able to see through the crew bird’s eyes, and if I did ever have need of one, I wanted to capture it myself.

  “Shall we return home now, then?” Reinbach asked. A lot of time had passed before I knew it. We got on the carriage to return to town before it got dark. We weren’t in a hurry, so the rocking of the carriage was quiet and pleasant. I must have been more tired than I thought, because I ended up dozing off. When we got to the inn, I headed straight to my room and went to bed.

  Chapter 2 Episode 38: For Hiring Purposes

  The next day...

  I woke up refreshed and went to my store before opening time.

  “Good morning, everyone.”

  “Good morning,” my employees said.

  “I appreciate how you looked after the store yesterday. Thanks to you, I was able to take some time off.”

  “I see, that’s good to hear.”

  “Too much work is bad for you. Remember to practice self-care.”

  “Boss, you work too much. When we heard how much work you do, we were shocked.”

  “You built this store in about ten days. That’s crazy. Not even Lilyn and I could do that. If you start doing all this work at your age, you’re going to die young.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Please do.”

  “You try to act like an adult, but you’re still a kid, you know.”

  “Even adults have to take it easy sometimes.”

  My employees were more worried about me than I thought. Thanks to them, I didn’t feel like I had to work that hard, however. I did appreciate their concern regardless, so I thanked them before I headed to the kitchen.

  “Chelma, are you here?” I asked.

  “Right here, Boss. Need something?”

  Chelma was the only one in the kitchen, where she seemed to be making some kind of soup. She walked away from the pot she was stirring and approached me.

  “I left town during my break yesterday and hunted some animals that I brought back for you. Cook these up for everyone. I drained the blood and froze them right after they were killed, so they should be in good condition,” I said, taking the meat out of my item box.

  “My goodness, thank you. Horned rabbits, I believe? Put them in the fridge. I’ll cook them for lunch.”

  “Thank you,” I said, while relocating all the remaining meat to the fridge.

  “Oh my, that’s a lot.”

  “I found a pack of them and caught them all.”

  “Good thing we have a fridge. It’s very convenient.”

  “Is it? I suppose so.”

  I had to conjure a new cooling barrier every day to keep it effective, so it was pretty annoying to use. If I got better at barrier magic, the effects would last longer, but this was much better than when I had to put up a new barrier once an hour back when I started using them in the forest.

  “It very much is convenient. You can’t do anything with food when it goes bad. Vegetables are one thing, but meat rots in no time! When it’s hot out, it doesn’t even last a day. But with a fridge, you can preserve leftover meat for use the next day, waste less food,
and save on money. I’ve heard there are magic items that do the same, but they’re expensive and hard to get ahold of.”

  “Yeah, now that you mention it, I went hunting for my food in the forest until recently, and when anything went bad, I fed it to my slimes, so it wasn’t a big deal. This is what they manufacture preserved food for.”

  “Those slimes are pretty convenient too. They eat animal bones and other waste from my cooking, which is nice.”

  After we chatted and I put up a new cooling barrier, I left the kitchen. That’s when Carme approached me to talk about something.

  “Hire more employees?” I asked.

  “Normally I would say we have plenty already, but in the event that you open some branch stores, you’ll have to train new talent, which will cost valuable time. I would at least suggest you start to train a branch manager now.”

  “Good idea, I’d be happy to hire any decent talent. I know education takes a while too. I feel like I could leave that to you in the end, but you’ll need a tamer too, right?”

  “Yes, this store absolutely requires cleaner slimes and a tamer. We have to come up with how to hire a tamer who we can trust not to run off with the slimes or do anything shady.”

  “The Tamer’s Guild doesn’t seem to have many tamers who specialize in slimes. Although I suppose that in a sense, they’re a monster that anyone can use, from what I’ve heard.”

  “All we have to be concerned about is whether they can be trusted, then.”

  “By the way, you haven’t had any trouble with those people who interrupted business before, have you?”

  “No, those hoodlums only showed up that one time.”

  “At any rate, be careful. I’ll ask around the Tamer’s Guild and figure out where to find a good tamer.”

  “Thank you.”

  With that, I left the store.

  “Whoa! Well, if it ain’t Ryoma?” Jeff said when I ran into him on the way to the mine. It was one of the only times I saw him without armor on, and he wasn’t carrying his spear either. He was stuffing his face with a shish kebab as he walked toward me.

  “Good morning, Jeff. Are you on break today?”

  “Fighting every day gets tiring, so yeah. You got work today?”

  “I was on my way to go patrol the abandoned mine.”

  “The one where we went hunting?”

  “Yes, I’m the manager there now. I have to go check it out periodically to make sure no monsters are dwelling there.”

  “You got that for a job too? Adventurer, laundromat, and this? Aren’t you busy?”

  “I hired people to run my laundromat for me, so it’s not much of a job. I’m free to take a break from adventuring whenever I want, and I don’t have to take care of the mine every day either. It’ll get difficult when I open more stores later, but I’m not that busy.”

  “Good if true, I guess. Oh yeah, you want one of these? My treat,” Jeff said, handing me a bag of kebabs.

  “Don’t mind if I do. Mm!” I exclaimed when I took a bite. There was no salt or herbs, but some spicy seasoning. Sugar and spices and the like were expensive, so food stands tended to season with salt only, but this was different.

  “This is pretty good,” I said.

  “Right? The kebabs they sell there use a tiny bit of spice. Makes them kind of expensive, but they’re great. The city square’s right over there, if you want to go sit down and eat with me.”

  I followed Jeff down a side street and arrived at the city square, where we sat at one of the benches around the well. It was sort of like a park.

  “But man, you just opened a store and you’re already planning to open more? You were just saying something about that.”

  “The Merchant’s Guild and my employees asked me to consider it, but it’s not like I’m going to open more right away. Besides, there would be a lot of issues.”

  “What, something bothering you?”

  “My next stores would open in other towns, and I’d have to go around to each city to see if there are any tamers to hire. My business requires someone that can manage slimes.”

  “That ain’t much of a problem. Just have the Tamer’s Guild hire someone for you.”

  “That’s an option, but from what I’ve heard, nobody specializes in slimes. Beginners work with them before they move on to other monsters, for the most part. There’s also the matter of the hoodlums someone hired to come to my store once. Thankfully I had security to stop them, but now I really feel like I have to prioritize employees with good character,” I said, biting into a kebab. The spice brought out the meaty flavor.

  “Then I’ve got an idea for you,” Jeff said as he grabbed his second kebab.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah! Can’t help you when it comes to business or whatever, but for labor, I’ve got you covered. If you’re not hiring from the Tamer’s Guild, how about finding someone in the slums?”

  “The slums?”

  “Sure, they’re poor, but it’s not like they can’t do nothing. I’m from the slums myself, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be an adventurer. I know some guys that can use taming magic too. Also, this town’s got more work than most, so even the poor don’t go broke and have to resort to crime too often. Plenty of us are perfectly nice people, and best of all, we’ve got a sense of camaraderie. As long as you don’t go cutting salaries or turning on your employees like the public office, I can’t imagine that folks from the slums would betray you. They want a stable income and a comfy life just like anyone, so if you want to hire someone, you can get that done in no time. Then it’s just a matter of building trust with them.”

  This was a new revelation for me. Now that he mentioned it, the guild was just a middleman. I could search for people myself, then hire them through the Tamer’s Guild or Merchant’s Guild when necessary. It wasn’t a bad idea. Even Reinbach hired people from the slums to clean out the tanks. There was no reason not to hire them, at least, and maybe I could locate someone trustworthy.

  “Just think about it,” Jeff said. “If you’re serious about hiring someone, I can act as a go-between for you. I’ve still got some sway in the slums.”

  “Thank you. I’ll consider it.”

  Jeff got up to go somewhere. I thanked him for the kebabs I had just finished eating, then decided once again to head to the mine.

  ■　■　■

  I had gotten accustomed enough to space magic to reach my destination in an instant. Fifty sheets of cloth went fine last time, so I decided to make seventy today. Once that was done, I got to training. My sticky, poison, acid, and scavenger slimes were good, but it didn’t seem like I could expect much from the bloody slime in combat. It was closer to liquid than most, so it had next to no striking power. It had no other means of attack either. Its strength was its fluid movement, making it the fastest of the slimes. It looked like it could flee from threats, thankfully. In any case, I would have to take my time and watch to see what it was capable of.

  The metal and iron slimes were tough, but it had only been a few days since I made my contract with them, so I couldn’t control them well yet. I doubted they could form tentacles. If they could do that and harden the tentacles, that would have had some applications, but alas. I needed to keep an eye on them for a while too.

  I confirmed that the earth and dark slimes could use magic. The earth slime knew Rock and Break Rock. It also knew a spell that was like a weak version of Earth Needle. The dark slime knew Darkness, for dimming the surrounding area, and Dark Ball, which fired an orb of darkness. I had hardly used Dark Ball myself, but I knew it was offensive magic that stole the enemy’s life force. This slime was no more mobile than the others, but if it improved its magic, maybe it could act as a moving cannon of sorts. It would need experience using offensive magic in real combat, so this could take some time.

  For now, I had confirmed that the two earth slimes could use Break Rock and Rock, so I wanted to try teaching them Create Block. When I tried it, they learned the s
pell after a few attempts. I was surprised they picked it up so quickly, but there were no problems there. As I trained the slimes, we created stone to use as materials. They could likely be used for something in one of these mine shafts.

  I tried to have the dark slime use magic more freely, which amounted to practicing Dark Ball. I had little experience with dark magic, so we spent some time learning it together. Watching the slime while I trained was pretty fun. As a bonus, I felt better than usual today, so I kept training even after the cloths dried.

  ■　■　■

  That night, I returned to the inn and visited the room occupied by the duke’s family.

  “Welcome, Ryoma.”

  “A pleasure to see you.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “There was something I wanted to discuss.”

  “Hoh, and what would that be?”

  I shared my conversation with Jeff from earlier that day and got a mostly positive response.

  “There’s nothing wrong with hiring someone from the slums,” Reinbach said. “As long as you can trust them, of course.”

  “It’s great that you’re hiring for more positions, I’d just suggest doing it through the guild. You don’t want to give them more opportunities to take advantage of you down the line.”

  “That’s true, I was going to have them register with either the Tamer’s Guild or Merchant’s Guild, whichever they’re interested in. Would that be fine?”

  “That’s good. Much like how you’re a tamer who’s also registered with the Merchant’s Guild, they’ll still have freedom of choice when it comes to work. They couldn’t criticize you for that.”

  “You may want to speak to both guildmasters about this in advance. Then this should all go smoothly.”

  “All right, I’ll visit the guilds tomorrow.”

  With that settled, I drank tea and chatted for a while, then returned to my room.