Chapter 45: The Bear Becomes an F-rank Merchant

Chapter 45:
The Bear Becomes an F-rank Merchant

 

THE MERCHANT GUILD was just as jam-packed as it was yesterday. I didn’t want to think that all this was because of me.

Wading into the crowd, I noticed Tiermina was there too. Our eyes met.

“Yuna?”

“Hello, Tiermina. What’s going on? What’re you doing here?”

“I came by to see whether they had jobs at the merchant guild.”

“You’re looking for a job?”

“Yeah, I was actually hoping to be reinstated as an adventurer, but the family vetoed that. Since I can read and write and do math, I thought maybe I could find a job that skews more towards that, so I came to check out the merchant guild.”

More mumbles in the crowd: “She could read and write…”

“And do math…”

“Tiermina, would you actually be interested in working for me?”

“For you, Yuna?”

“I kinda started a new business. You’d be a lifesaver if you could help me out.”

I needed someone to manage the eggs and be an intermediary with the merchant guild.

“So, what kind of work is it?”

“I’m not sure about explaining it here…”

There were a lot of merchants around. It was a pain going out of our way to do it, but I had us go back to the bear house so no one would overhear about my egg scheme.

“So what’s your business?”

I got Tiermina something to drink, and then got to explaining what the work would be. I told her how the orphanage was keeping the kokekkos and how they’d lay the eggs. I told her I wanted to sell the eggs to the merchant guild.

“When you say you want me managing things, do you mean you want me to manage the kokekkos? I haven’t really raised birds before.”

“The orphans will manage the birds. I was thinking you’d manage the sales at the merchant guild.”

“And by sales you mean?”

“I was just about to go to the merchant guild to line up a sales contract for the eggs with them. I was thinking you could do the management, finances, inventory, and cost checks. I’d want you to make sure our books are straight and stuff.”

Even talking about it was such a pain. If Tiermina didn’t accept my offer, I’d have to do everything myself.

“I understand what you’re saying, but this seems like a big deal. Are you sure you want to leave all that up to me?”

“I don’t know that many people in this town anyway, and I at least know what kind of person you are.” When I explained my reasoning, Tiermina smiled.

“Okay, I get it. I’ll accept the job. You’ve been looking out for my daughters and I as it is, and I was already thinking of working, so I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

Business manager acquired! My job was getting smaller and smaller.

Since I was done talking with Tiermina, I headed back to the merchant guild to get the egg business going. It was still overflowing with people. Waiting at the entrance of the merchant guild like I had the other day, it was the same old story. I caught them muttering about “the bear,” and they made a hole at the sight of me.

“Yuna, you’re amazing.”

Tiermina seemed stunned at the sight of it. Maybe she didn’t know what happened with the black viper?

I went into the guild and took a look over at the reception desk. There were several people there. I tried looking for Milaine, but it looked like she wasn’t around. Maybe it was her day off? I was actually hoping to get somebody I knew. When I reluctantly lined up at the desks, someone called out to me from behind.

“Oh, Yuna. What brings you here today? And who is this?”

I wheeled around; Milaine was behind me.

“Why did you sneak up on me?”

“I was outside on my break. What did you come by to the merchant guild for?”

“I had something I wanted to sell, so I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“And that something is?”

Milaine’s eyes glinted. Excuse you, I thought, that’s terrifying.

“In that case, let’s talk in another room.”

Milaine latched onto me and dragged me away. Tiermina followed behind us.

 

“So what was it you wanted to talk about?”

We were in a small, private room. There was a big desk surrounded with chairs. We sat down across from Milaine, and I pulled the eggs from my bear storage.

“Are these kokekko eggs?”

“I’d like to start selling these eggs. Can you help me with that?”

“How many would you be looking to move, on average?”

“For now, between ten and twenty a day, but later on I’m hoping to aim for a thousand in a day if I can get a lot.”

“A thousand? How can you collect that many?”

“By raising kokekkos.”

“You’re raising birds…is this connected to the land around the orphanage?”

I explained my business plan.

“So then, do you think it’d be possible to sell the eggs regularly?”

“Let’s see. It would depend on the price, but it is possible.”

“I’ll leave the pricing up to you.”

Letting the specialist do what they do best was the right thing to do. I didn’t know how much eggs were worth anyway.

“Are you sure that’s what you would like?”

“What’s there to be worried about?”

“You’ll force the price down if you flood the market with eggs. There isn’t any need to go out of your way to increase the number in circulation…”

“I have a couple of reasons for doing this, but I want regular people to be able to eat eggs. Plus, I think that people will eventually figure out the orphanage is providing the eggs. People would be less likely to try stealing lots of cheap eggs than a few expensive ones. That’d be safer for the orphans, too.

“Plus, if they’re cheaper, then we’ll get to have a lot more egg-based meals.”

Milaine and Tiermina seemed surprised by my explanation. Apparently, no matter which world you’re in, operating a business without thinking much about your profit margin puts you in the minority.

 

The three of us talked over things and drew up a contract. Every day, someone would come by the henhouse near the orphanage to get the eggs. We’d leave pricing to the guild. It’d be a problem if they were too expensive and didn’t sell, after all. The guild would provide vegetable scraps for feed. That’d take the burden off of Liz. Tiermina would basically be in charge of delivery. We’d keep how the eggs were obtained and who was producing them a secret. In addition, we wrote a certain “something” in for the last clause.

“Is this contract agreeable?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Well then, I’ll register you at the merchant guild, so if you would be so kind as to allow me to see your guild card.”

“You want me to register?”

“Generally you need to be registered with the guild if you want to do legitimate business.”

I wish she wouldn’t look at me like she was saying “even little kids knew that.”

“So do you only need me to register?”

“I’m afraid I’ll need Tiermina to register as well. When doing any transactions with the eggs, they’ll need to check your guild cards.”

“In that case, can I use the card the adventurers’ guild made me?”

“Yes, all guild cards are fundamentally the same. All we’re doing is adding information to the card, so you can use the same one you created at the adventurers’ guild.”

Tiermina and I handed over our guild cards to Milaine. After taking them, Milaine headed over to a crystal panel in the corner of the room, placed the cards there, and processed them. It took a couple of minutes.

“I should explain how the merchant guild and these cards work.”

I checked the card.

 

Name: Yuna

Age: 15 Years Old

Class: Bear

Adventurer Rank: D

Merchant Rank: F

 

As usual, my class was still bear.

“Just like the adventurer rank, the merchant rank indicates your merchant level. The higher you increase in rank, the more your credibility increases. As a result, when doing business in a new town, a higher rank gets you more preferential treatment.”

“Preferential how?”

“For example, those towns might allow you to rent better plots of land, give you introductions to people you need, or let you have better materials, since you look like a good investment.”

I see, I thought. So my reputation goes up along with my rank. That’s basically the same for adventurers.

“By the way, how do I increase my rank?”

“That would be through contributing to the guild. To put it simply, it’s based on how much you collect in taxes.”

That was pretty simple.

“Also, this applies to any town you go to, but you’ll be required to receive permission to trade at the merchant guild wherever you go. If you do business without permission, you’ll end up getting penalized, so please be careful.”

Basically, they didn’t want me to do business arbitrarily. I wasn’t planning on setting up shop or anything right now anyway.

“Also, just as with the adventurers’ guild, you can deposit money here. You should be aware that any money you deposit at the adventurers’ guild is combined with the amount you deposit here. You may also withdraw money at either guild.”

I’d gotten the same explanation at the adventurers’ guild, but I hadn’t used that feature. I had the bear storage and the fortune the god had converted for me. Another hundred million yen wouldn’t make a difference if you already had ten billion.

“How would you like us to handle the proceeds from the eggs then? Would you like that in cash? Would you rather deposit the money in either your card or Tiermina’s?”

“Please deposit it in Tiermina’s,” I said, without hesitation.

“Hold on a sec,” said Tiermina. “Do you mean you’re depositing all the money with me?”

“Well yeah. I need to pay your wages and the kids’, plus there are probably going to be expenses. It’d be a pain for me to prep all the money each time.”

“While I’m glad you trust me, I’d rather not be responsible for what might potentially end up being a large sum of money.”

“In that case, what if we decide on a set amount of money? How about we deposit only the amount Tiermina would need in her card and put the rest on yours, Yuna?”

“We can do that?”

“Yes, we often do that for merchants who have separate people responsible for the stock and managing the wages.”

After deciding on the amount of money we needed for Tiermina’s and the kids’ wages—and for any necessary expenses—we decided the rest would be deposited into my card.

Since we’d figured out how we’d do things moving forward, I left the guild. If I needed to do anything else, I could come back again later. I gave Milaine the eggs I’d brought in today for free so the guild’s valued clients could try them. I needed to sink some cost in first before I could start seeing returns.

 

With the guild behind us, we headed to the orphanage in order to introduce Tiermina and talk about our next move. Basically, I asked the headmistress to manage the orphanage like usual. I’d hand over the wages the kids earned to the headmistress and would have her make the arrangements for their necessities. I asked Liz to take care of the kids and, of course, figured out what I’d be paying her. I asked Tiermina to manage the eggs and money. I wanted her to be the face of operations when dealing with the merchant guild.

As for me?

I wouldn’t even lift a finger.

I made the henhouse and the walls, caught the birds, and made the contract with the guild. I didn’t have a role anymore, except to catch more birds. Since it’d be an issue if I caught them all near the village, I’d go further afield to procure the others.

Because of that, we increased the number of kokekkos we had to three hundred and even had some chicks born from the eggs to raise.

Then one day, the lord Cliff paid me a visit.

“Welcome, Lord Cliff. What brings you by?”

I at least welcomed him politely.

“Yuna, I have something I want to ask you.”

“What could that be?”

“Why will you not sell eggs to the Fochrosé family?”