Chapter 54: Ambition

“Ambition, aspiration, happy weather forecast!”

“Are you supposed to be Wapiko or a motor company?!”

It sure is nice to have someone who understands my jokes...

“I was just thinking that we should start that private enterprise we’ve been talking about...” I said to Reiko, who was giving me an exasperated look.

Our public business was already reaching its natural ceiling. It wasn’t that we had run into a roadblock, but there was a physical limit to how much work that two fifteen-year-old girls, a nine-year-old girl, and a six-year-old boy could do.

Plus, it wasn’t as if we exploited our workers, nor did we have to endure grueling work to save up a little money. Sure, we had to earn a living, but we were already making enough to get by in our current situation. We didn’t have to pay rent, since we already owned a house, and being tax-exempt was pretty huge.

Sales for the processed fish and seaweed, along with the toys and folkcraft goods, were going well, and the farm should yield crops soon. It would be a bountiful harvest as long as I used my growth-acceleration potion.

I also carved out the back side of the cliff with my Item Box to make a staircase, then made a sort of indentation into the cliff at an appropriate height, forming a space of around four to five tatami mats, about the size of an average room. Yes, I had made a little fishing spot. It was carved into the cliff, so we could fish even when it was raining.

That said, I wasn’t sure if the rain would affect how much fish we’d catch. Fishing could be affected by all sorts of elements, like the water temperature and position of the tide. The concentration of salt on the surface would be lowered in the rain, and the ambient sound probably had an effect too...

In any case, we would be able to get a decent supply of fish instead of having to buy everything at the market. I still had that bracelet I had made a while back, so I didn’t need to worry about parasites or poison either.

Well, Mine and Aral could eat fish infested with parasites or poison without issues while they lived with us, but I would need to teach them not to eat like that anywhere else. It could cost them their lives otherwise, so I had to be careful. I definitely didn’t want them eating fugu liver under normal circumstances...

“Kaoru, this is dangerous. Maybe we should teach them not to eat poisonous fish at all. Imagine what could happen if they slip up or something...”

“Hmm, you might be right...”

It was one thing for us to partake, but maybe it was too dangerous to get kids accustomed to eating food that tasted good in some parts but could kill you in others.

A shame, but I guess I should give up on my amateur all-you-can-eat fugu project...

“Let’s just do it in our secret base with the two of us.”

“Ah, thought so.”

It seemed Reiko also wanted to eat some 100% safe fugu. Some said the slight tingling sensation you get from the poison was actually pretty thrilling, which was a bit too intense for me...wait, maybe we’d be fine with my potions and Reiko’s healing magic? I glanced over at her and saw her grinning.

She’s probably thinking the same thing...

Anyway, both sales and manufacturing of our products were going pretty well, but we didn’t have enough manpower to make any more items to sell. My business wasn’t sinister, unlike Reiko’s appetite.

Little Silver is a company with morals!

And so, my public enterprise would maintain its current trajectory. If someone ended up copying our products and our sales took a hit, I would think about what to do then. I had plenty of ideas for new products, so it wouldn’t be too big of a deal if one of them did get copied. Not that they could even compete with the quality, designs, or variations of my crafts anyway.

So, about my private business... It wasn’t as if I was going to become an assassin or anything...though we probably could...

No, I wanted to move my products on a larger scale instead of just selling them to small retailers and wholesalers, but also avoid standing out too much. And by “larger scale,” I didn’t want to sell a massive number of things; I wanted to sell a decent number of items at a decent price.

I knew I would attract people who wanted my money or know-how if I drew too much attention. They hadn’t shown up yet, but once they decided it would be worth taking a small risk to get what they wanted... We looked like minors, and we were all girls besides the youngest, making us easy targets...

And so, we started our plan in hiding. Well, the news would leak out eventually, but we just had to think of a countermeasure before that happened.

Some may wonder why we started doing this in the first place. After all, we had made enough profit already, I still had the gold coins I had earned a long time ago in my Item Box, and I could make even more using my potion containers. Besides, there was no way I would ever need a large sum of money because one of us had gotten sick or injured.

So why were we planning all this?

As they say... “Doth thou desire the power?”

If it had just been me, I could use my special move: “Run away if I get in an argument.” But I couldn’t do that with such a big household to take care of.

Well, I mean, it was physically possible. I could store all my important belongings in the Item Box, blow up the base to hide any evidence and keep it out of the bad guys’ hands, and run away with everyone.

But I didn’t want to discard everything I had built up so I could run away from bad guys. Not to mention, it would get real old real fast if that was my solution every time. Besides, I wouldn’t ever be able to do anything out of fear of drawing attention from evil and influential people.

Celes had granted me potion-making powers and gave magic to Reiko, and we didn’t intend on only using them to make our lives a bit more convenient without helping the people of this world. It would’ve been a different story if Celes had been a true Goddess watching over the people of this world, and she didn’t want us to spread our divine blessings to regular folks.

No, Celes was effectively a complete outsider with no real connection to humans. Her only task was to fix distortions in this world; not abstract things that could distort the progression of mankind, but literal “dimensional distortions.”

Since we had received our powers for reasons unrelated to the people of this world, there was no issue with us using them however we pleased here. Celes probably didn’t care one bit. In fact, as I recall, she had said so herself.

Yup. That was why I would become the god of this new world...or not. I wouldn’t be able to live a proper life if I did, and I’d just end up attracting a bunch of hyenas and getting eaten alive in the end.

And so, what I wanted wasn’t the ability to defend myself in a physical sense, but a degree of social standing that would keep me from getting taken advantage of by others. A place in the world that would put me out of reach; not of just thugs and small-time crooks, but also wealthy and influential people, government officials, and low-ranking aristocrats.

To be more specific, I suppose I would need to be an influential merchant.

Becoming an aristocrat wouldn’t be easy, and I had no desire to put myself in the middle of factional struggles that involved political power and relationships. Besides, their hierarchical system meant that I would have to obey my superiors and otherwise be weighed down by unwanted obligations. It was out of the question.

Besides, Reiko and I didn’t age, so people would notice something was up right away. The ability to stay young forever was the kind of thing the rich and powerful wanted above all else...

Maybe I could have passed as someone who “looked young” in my twenties for ten or twenty years, but I clearly looked like I was twelve or thirteen. It would only be a few years before someone started wondering, “How come those sisters haven’t grown in all this time?”

It was no wonder vampires avoided recruiting children into their ranks. Children would draw suspicion, and they would need to move a lot more frequently.

And so, I couldn’t deal with anything like an obligation to meet with the same people frequently or having my household strictly managed by someone else. I wanted to live in the outskirts somewhere, and only come into town for the occasional grocery run.

I could use clothing and makeup to make it less obvious, and I could have the kids go out to the city for me. And after a good number of years pass by, I could go to another country, then return as “Kaoru’s little sister” or “her daughter”... Wait, there was no point in thinking so far into the future. For now, I would focus on building up my influence and making my debut one day as a powerful merchant.

I wanted to lay low at first because putting a lucrative business on display while we still didn’t have any power would surely bring some unwanted attention onto us. And so...

We would work in the shadows, hide our abilities, and save up for now. We would keep to ourselves completely. The key point here was that I was aiming to become an influential merchant. Not a big-time merchant, but an influential one.

I had no interest in building a giant shop, equally huge storage, and then stocking a massive amount of products. No, I wanted to be a small-time merchant, but also one that couldn’t be disrespected due to the importance of my wares.

I would be known among the big businesses and aristocrats, and be well-connected within them, meaning anyone who tried to mess with me would get burned for sure. That was the kind of position I wanted to be in. Once I was in such a position, I could do things that might be a bit strange or suspicious, and also help people out along the way, while still living a normal life.

“All right, let’s prepare some products so we can get to know some mid-scale merchants first. After that, we’ll move on to products that will give us an in with the big businesses and lower-class aristocrats. We’ll start with the basic stuff at first, then gradually work our way up to the more unusual items you can’t find around here...”

Then we both struck a strange pose and shouted.

“Gradually unusual items!”

Yeah, we’re on a roll!

“Let’s start things off with the go-to cheat items for life in other worlds: salt, sugar, and spices! I’ll make these using my powers. Things like flour and corn are pretty common but expensive here, so we’ll be questioned about where we got them if I make them with my powers, but we could talk our way out of small, portable things.”

“Maybe we should avoid sugar itself and go with processed sweets instead? People will want to know where we got sugar, and they’d probably be less likely to bother us about it if we offer snacks with a small amount of sugar in them instead of the actual thing. This way, our trade would be our baking rather than our supply,” Reiko suggested.

“Good point...”

“Let’s only use salt for cooking and processing goods. Using it for our processed food is one thing, but there will be some legal trouble to deal with if we started selling it outright. Plus, your ability to create something out of nothing with your potions goes against the laws of nature, so you shouldn’t use it unless you need to. We can extract salt from the seawater.”

“What? But if we evaporate a huge amount of seawater with your magic at once, it could leave behind magnesium chloride or cause a sudden change in the regional weather, what with all the warm air containing so much moisture moving upward...”

“We can extract the salt by storing the seawater in the Item Box.”

“Good point...”

“As for spices, we should only handle the expensive ones, and just a small amount at a time. We’d be a magnet for criminals if we had too much of that stuff... Let’s use it only as bait for merchants and aristocrats. If we’re not careful, things could get out of hand once lords from other territories, nobles from the royal capital, and merchants from other countries start flocking to us.”

“Good point...”

“If tasty food that you can’t find around here with an unknown value and ingredients starts getting more popular, that would be good for us. What I’m saying is, how about soy sauce and miso? We could prepare them underground, it would be hard for others to imitate, and no one would try to take something that’s so unusual...” Reiko trailed off, then continued.

“And I’ve already learned how to make them, of course. I’ll need you to make the first batch of koji mold, though. If your powers are backed by Lady Celes, she should be able to get us some from Earth.”

“Good point...”

Oh no, I’ve only said “Good point” this whole time! You’re too helpful, Reiko!

I had to provide an idea of my own too... Then, it hit me. The perfect cheat item to create in another world.

“Um, how about mayo...”

“No mayonnaise. Eggs are too risky. You shouldn’t eat uncooked eggs unless they’re the kind you’d find in modern Japan. There’s a high chance that they’d be infected with salmonella otherwise. Being able to eat eggs raw like in Japan is the exception to the norm. And in a world without any methods of disinfection or refrigeration, they’ll go bad right away,” Reiko explained.

She continued, “Not to mention the other issues, like that the mayo could expire if you try to ration it out because it’s so expensive, hygienic concerns, things like that... It could last a decent number of days if it was mixed well, but I’ll bet that someone will make an inferior rip-off version that will end up giving people food poisoning. And what if people start blaming us then? That’d be kinda bad, right?”

Good poi— Wait, that wouldn’t just be “kinda bad.”

Damn, the trusty ol’ mayonnaise had failed me...

“Japanese sake...”

“Do you realize how much effort, skill, and equipment we would need...? High-quality water, rice that’s suitable for brewing sake, polishing that rice, plus koji mold, yeast, temperature control... Even if we can get and do all that, we’d probably still fail by letting it go bad or something. Making a small batch with your power is one thing, but we won’t be able to brew our own. It’d be too heavy to smuggle in from somewhere else too. The containers in this world are too fragile.”

Damn.

Well, I could still make some for myself as a potion. It was fine. I was twenty-two in my previous life, and you would be considered an adult at fifteen in this world. I had reincarnated in this world in the body of a fifteen-year-old, and it had already been five...no, nearly eighty years since... No, no, no, no, no! In any case, I was a full-grown adult. Though, there was no age limit for drinking here in the first place.

I had to come up with a better idea...

“Plum liquor!”

“Making some with brandy might be a good idea.”

Ah, I finally got one!

“Anyway, let’s not make anything that people would make people go crazy and take it by force, or resort to murder to find out where we got it. Just something that’s good enough to catch the interest of some middle-class merchants. As for spices, let’s have a pretty good selection, but keep the stock low for each. And once we earn some trust and get introduced to the big business and aristocrats...”

“That’s when we bring out the big guns!” we yelled in unison.

Yes, we would bust out our most powerful product then.

“Okay, let’s go with that!”

Our plans were set.

“What? Oh, please wait a moment!”

Reiko and I were out for market cultivation today. Mine and Aral were at home taking care of the horses and doing farm work. Meanwhile, we were meeting with a new client for our private enterprise today; it was still too early for those two to be handling business like this.

We were at a mid-sized trading company with a sample of our product. Considering that the people of this continent thought we were only twelve or thirteen, we normally wouldn’t have been taken seriously, but Little Silver was pretty well known for various reasons already...though, it was unclear whether it was for good reasons or bad.

In any case, the person dealing with us seemed to hesitate to make a judgment call to shoo us off. This was all thanks to that merchant who tried to mess with us before. The higher-up who had been called down must have feared for the worst, because he invited us into a meeting room in the back.

Special treatment, huh?

Not that this pleased me or anything.

“...So, you say you would like us to stock your wares? But we already do an extensive amount of purchasing already, so we’re not exactly looking for a small quantity of vegetables... Perhaps it would be better to reach out to a smaller shop, such as a retail vegetable store, or otherwise sell them directly at the market...” the person, who seemed to be a shop assistant or sales clerk, suggested.

It didn’t seem like he was just brushing us off to get rid of us. I had a feeling that he had assessed the situation, considered what was realistic, then gave us advice based on what he thought would be best for us.

Maybe he would have bought our products if it had just been this once, even if it was just a small amount. But if I was to do business long-term, it was better to secure a place that would be a good fit from the get-go. He must have considered this, and he gave me a recommendation based on what he thought was the most optimal option.

We wouldn’t have been invited into the back room and received an appointment with someone higher up otherwise. But this was because he thought we were selling a small amount of vegetables, grown and harvested by orphans, and a few fish that we had caught on our own. And so...

“This is what we’re looking to sell. We get them sent to us from our territory... I mean, home.”

With that, I produced sample bottles from my bag and lined them up on the table. They were an array of rare spices contained in highly intricate glass bottles. Pepper, saffron, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves...

Starting with humans, the same creatures existed in this world as Earth, so it was logical to assume that the same plants existed here too. And of course, these were all extremely valuable.

“...”

The merchant’s eyes were like saucers as they stared at the small bottles on the table. Of course, no merchant would miss the fact that I had let slip that these were from “our territory.”

That statement should have immediately told him about our status and position, as well as the fact that we were the only ones who could stock these items. In other words, nobody could take our supply route even if they wanted to, and eliminating us meant they would lose access to our supply.

Besides, even if someone meant us harm, they would have to deal with our imaginary people back home, who clearly still supported us. Who knew what they would do if anyone harmed their adorable—yes, adorable—twelve- or thirteen-year-old daughters. Yeah, it was highly unlikely that he would try anything funny.

These had all been made at Celes’s Factory (potion-making powers). We had no choice! There was no way we could obtain these otherwise without resorting to my powers. Even if we had found a supplier somehow, we would have had to pay as much as we were selling them for here, so it would have been pointless. The spices were just a means to get in with big merchants and aristocrats, and for teaching the kids a trade and how to earn money, so we decided it was fine.

So, how would the merchant react? We would just move on to a different shop if we didn’t get the response we were looking for, though.

“...J-Just a moment, please!”

Hey, he ran off!

No, he must have gone to get his superior. Well, this was a decision that had to come from someone higher up than a shop assistant or young clerk, so that made sense. Maybe the chief clerk or the head of the trading company...

Oh, they’re both here.

And so, we went through the standard exchanges, then moved on to talking about price. The shop would be able to buy as much as they wanted, up to a certain limit that we set. I guess that went without saying. Of course we would only sell what we could sell, and they would buy however much they wanted to buy.

They probably wanted to buy as much as they could, but we had other factors to consider. We had to manage the circulating supply, and it didn’t make sense for us in terms of risk and efficiency to approach only this one shop when our goal was to make connections with influential people. No, we had to establish multiple routes at once.

The merchants also understood that we would be dealing with several business partners at once. That is, unless they thought we were idiots who would only deal with one client in a seller’s market, throwing out any room for negotiation or risk diversification.

They probably would have tried to surround us by now, but they must have heard about what happened to that stupid clerk that had tried to mess with Little Silver, and they were well aware of the aristocratic comment I had made earlier. As such, they strongly requested that we provide them as much of our wares as possible, but that was common practice within the back-and-forth of negotiations. Merchants were pretty scary when they were desperate, though...

In any case, we went around visiting three other shops or so. It wasn’t a good look to go around too many shops in the same city, and it was also too much work. Three shops should have been enough for them to keep each other in check from trying anything funny. Then...

“We could use a boat...” I muttered.

“Like, a luxury cruise ship? Or maybe a battleship, an aircraft carrier, or Atragon...”

“Where’d that come from?! No, a fishing boat!”

Yes, a fishing boat would yield far better results compared to fishing from land. The points where you could fish from the shore were extremely limited and were highly dependent on the tide. But if we had a boat, we could even target the routes that migratory fish swam through...

And if we laid out some traps and some bait, we could quickly switch targets even if we didn’t catch the fish we’re going for. For example, if we anchored our boat somewhere and failed to catch horse mackerel, we could relocate near the sandy beach and let the boat drift around without lowering the anchor, using lugworms as bait to fish for whitings instead.

Depending on the season, we could even let the boat run and fish for hairtail. We could go trolling with the boat moving at low speeds, using reels and lures without fishing rods. Like those rubbery squid-looking things with hooks built into them.

It took far longer to remove the hooks and fix the tangled bait than the actual fishing, though! That said, sashimi tasted so good...

“Doth thou desire a boat...?”

That Reiko...

“Yeah, I’ve been saying I want a boat! And don’t say it so ominously...”

Rowing a boat myself would be too much work, and that kind of boat would be too small anyway. Not to mention, we wouldn’t be able to go trolling...

Still, using a powerboat would attract far too much attention. Not just from fishermen, but from merchants and influential people...and if anyone associated with the military saw me, it’d be game over. I had to avoid that at all costs. But if we were to go pretty far from the coast, I at least wanted a cabin to shelter us from any sudden rain. Oh, and a restroom. That meant it would have to be a cruiser or a mega yacht...

Who the hell is gonna drive something like that?! We’re not even qualified to drive a small vessel...

I mean, it wasn’t like we needed to get a license or anything, but we needed to know how to drive those things.

Damn...

“I have a vessel operator license. I’m also a certified weather forecaster and radio operator,” Reiko said.

“What?!”

“I got them just in case. I did have over seventy years to prepare...”

“Urgh... But what use is a radio operator certification with no one to communicate with? Or a weather forecasting certification in a world with no weather charts?” I asked.

“Urrrgh...”

Yeah, take that!

Anyway, we probably didn’t need a boat that big. A swan boat was probably enough if we were just going fishing nearby. The kind that was shaped like a swan and used pedals to move forward! Even if the military saw us in one of those, they wouldn’t think of appropriating it or anything. The enemy army would probably fall over laughing if a fleet of those came advancing toward them.

But since those boats were so shallow and had such little propulsion power, they’d be in pretty big danger anywhere with a strong current or turbulence... Maybe they were exclusively for using in lakes and ponds... And as a girl, I had to have a restroom. I didn’t want to be exposed, so naturally, a cabin would be a necessity.

“A fishing boat that won’t draw unwanted attention, comes with a cabin and restroom, and is safe and stable... There’s no way something so convenient is even a thing...” I said with disappointment, then Reiko immediately spoke up.

“It is.”

“It is?!”

I didn’t think such a thing existed...

“The part that shows above the surface will be just a small boat that’s tall on the broadside. We can have a bigger, underwater part just below it.”

“What is this, the Apollo Norm?!”

“You mean that thing that combined three giant carriers with six atomic submarines attached below them? No, this is more like the Submarine Fortress Saluud... We could even have a hatch below the ship so we could dive underwater when needed...”

“What are you even talking about?! And you only get the number-three Andromeda-class battleship when you look up Apollo Norm, unless you add Satoru Ozawa to the search.”

“Such an old reference...”

“But you know it too, Reiko!”

What’s with her...

“Well, I had over seventy years to look up all sorts of stuff...”

And so, we made a fishing vessel. Well, it was a potion container that looked like a fishing vessel, but yeah...

We had an emergency exit that was specifically for the ultra-compact submarine, and we also made a separate spot behind the rocks where we could embark. The L-shaped groove looked like a shallow indentation from the outside, but the end of the path turned to the right and into a waterway where the vessel was stored.

Not a lot of people would even look at the rock wall from the sea, and the groove wasn’t visible from the top of the cliff. In order to get there from the land over the cliff, you would need to rope down from above or have some impressive rock climbing or bouldering skills. As for us, we just used the interior walkway.

When bringing Mine and Aral along, we would take them to a floating pier we had built at a rocky area some distance away—even though it was just three logs stuck together with a thick board on top—and have Reiko bring the vessel to that spot. Of course, I had carved out the seafloor with the Item Box to make sure the bottom part of the vessel wouldn’t run aground.

That said, the water was clear enough to see a bit of the bottom part...but we didn’t fret over the small details. I had told Mine and Aral not to mention anything about the vessel because it was a new model that was still under development, so I was fine on that end. The kids had no reason to do anything that would compromise their place to stay.

We only used the vessel for fishing when all four of us went out for leisure. When we wanted to catch some fish for dinner, we just fished on land. I had dug stone steps into the cliff wall leading up to the groove that we used as a fishing spot, so it wasn’t as if the children couldn’t reach it by themselves, but I had forbidden them from doing so.

It was too dangerous for kids to go there alone. The stone steps were just there so people wouldn’t realize that we actually used an underground pathway to get there. The kids would only fish there when Reiko or I were there.

That place was basically our rainy day fishing spot. Practically the whole area was suitable for fishing, so there was no reason to go out of our way to use such a small space when the sun was out.

And so, we could now farm, fish, and hunt in the forest, we owned horses, and we could build things and do construction in our DIY lifestyle. It was the slow life that tired old men in the big city dreamed of. It was just like Green Acres!

“I don’t know about that...”

Shaddap!

“How are the plans for the spices going?” Reiko asked, sitting low in her gaming chair. She held a hot cocoa in her left hand and ice cream in her right, as if she was about to cast Antipode.

“Two-thirds of the total supply will be lower quality than what’s in circulation around here, and a third will be a bit higher in quality. I’m planning on selling them all wholesale to three different shops, once a month, and the quantity will change each time to make it seem as if the supply is unstable. If we sold the same exact amount each time, they might demand a steady supply each month, or assume the minimum quantity should be a given and try to negotiate better terms using that as a baseline. I want us to have full control of the deal.”

The reason we weren’t increasing the quality right away was so we could hold on to the good stuff for later. We were planning on saving the high-quality goods for the local lord, for high-class aristocrats, and eventually even the royal palace, when we got there. We would only be hurting ourselves by putting our best products into circulation right away. It would certainly attract some weirdos too. I mean, no super hero would use their special move or secret weapon right from the get-go.

Also, by putting the cheaper, lower-quality goods out there, they were likely to start being used by your average eateries and such. I didn’t want the nobles and the wealthy to have all the good food for themselves; instead, I wanted to improve food quality for everyone. There wouldn’t be any growth in food culture otherwise. It wasn’t the rich and powerful who became cooks, after all. Good food had to be made and popularized by the common folk.

“Yeah, I think that’s fine too. It’s not some amazing product that you can’t get anywhere else or something that’s exclusively sold by a single trading company. Besides, even if someone wanted to take our supply route from us, it’s supposed to be a product that’s being sent to us from home, so it’s not like they could get it sent to them in our stead.”

In other words, it would be impossible for someone to take our supply route from us. The moment someone hurt us, all imports of our products would come to a halt, and they’d be held responsible. Plus, considering we look like young aristocrats, anyone who messed with us would be risking an international problem.

That should be very effective in stopping trouble before it happens. No low-ranking aristocrat, or even a local lord, would want to take on that much risk.

Perfect!

The rest of our items were things like dried and half-dried fish, and the higher-ups likely wouldn’t be interested in that stuff, even though there were probably some aristocrats who liked them. Our products were really tasty, after all.

We intended to keep the fact that we sold spices and other luxury products to retailers, eateries, taverns, and other such common folk a secret. There was even a clause in our contract with the three trading companies we were dealing with detailing our need for anonymity.

Of course, we hadn’t told Mine and Aral either. We intended to go on as peculiar kids who made a decent living doing business with commoners. People would know that we’re surprisingly savvy and put-together, with powerful people at our backs, deterring others from messing with us.

Reiko was on the same page as me, so we decided to keep things as-is for now.

Then, after that...

“What do you wanna do about stage two?” I asked.

“Hmm... I guess we should just slowly climb our way up. It’s not like we’re running against the clock here...”

She had a point...

One possible issue was that someone might ask, “Hey, the sisters at that house don’t look like they’ve aged at all, do they?” and think we’re vampires. I mean, it wouldn’t be quite so bad if they decided to drive the monsters away, but we couldn’t have people going on a hunt in search of immortality. After all, it’s not like we can create spawn or anything.

“I guess we’ll have to compromise somewhere...”

“We could make a defense outpost in case things go south... One that comes with an escape route. It needs to be easy to keep hidden, difficult for powerful people to muscle their way in, inaccessible to assassins and spies, and highly defensible, which means...”

“An island...”

Yes, if we got our hands on a decently-sized island, we could defend it with ease. We wouldn’t have to worry about intruders from the air or sea for quite some time, so we would just need to keep an eye out for ships, which were easy enough to find and sink.

The most important thing about living out in the middle of the ocean was securing a water source, but that shouldn’t be a problem as long as the island itself was decently sized. If it came down to it, we had water magic, “water-like potions,” seawater desalination devices, water filters, and other such potion containers to deal with that issue.

Then again, it wasn’t as if we wanted to live on a deserted island hundreds of miles away from land. We could just make our base on some island that was less than an hour away from land via boat, then live on the mainland coast for the most part. Then we’d only need to flee to the island whenever things went south. We had no shortage of water, food, or medicine; we had access to all the seafood we wanted; and we could just sink any ship that came our way.

We could spend years...no, decades cooped up in there.

“Well, we could just move to some distant country instead of going through all that...”

“Yeah, that goes without saying...”

Yes, the world was a big place, and information had a tendency to spread slowly and without accuracy. That was even more the case when the source of that information was farther away. At least, that’s how it was for this continent, but who knew if people even spoke the same language in other places. Not that language barriers were a problem for us, thanks to Celes.

“Well, that’s that!”

“Yup!”

I didn’t really know what that meant, but that was indeed that. We had implemented sturdy infrastructure for our intended lifestyle, which would keep others from suspecting us. Our relationship with the local lord was pretty good, and we were friends with the authorities too. That was partially because they worked under the local lord, but we had been delivering gifts to the guard posts, and they were aware that we were the ones making the dried goods that they had been snacking on at the taverns.

We also laid down a bunch of groundwork to get the local city folk on our side, which included the guards and the hunters. Many of them had wives and children, after all, and they would tell their husbands and fathers about rumors they had been hearing.

Yes, they would spread the word about the two girls who were seemingly of high status and had bought the former orphanage with their own money, working hard while taking care of children that had nowhere to go. It was no wonder that average citizens would want to rush over and help if we were getting harassed by some punks.

Yes, we’re invincible! Mua ha ha ha...

“Then we’ll keep things as-is for now and wait for Little Silver to get popular enough to reach the big businesses and aristocrats. Once we get their support, we can take it easy as a small-scale manufacturer and hope the royal capital doesn’t catch wind of us.”

“Yeah, agreed. I’d like to enjoy the slow life I’ve always dreamed of and take it easy for a while too,” Reiko agreed.

What, she lived to be over ninety and she had never taken it easy?! And come to think of it, between making all the dried and smoked goods, stocking fish, working the fields, and making craft products, we had been working pretty hard...

I mean, we were doing it old-school instead of using big agricultural machinery, but... Could this be considered the slow life too?