CH 48

Chapter 48 – Seeing them play was cute

It was nice to spend some time talking to Mika and celebrating with everyone, but the forge can’t be left alone forever, so, eventually, Merge gave us the order to restart working, and everyone quickly got back to hitting metal.

They’re truly pros, aren’t they? Feels nice to be in this kind of environment.

Well, I’m running out of time though, so I’ll be leaving early. After saying goodbye to Merget and the other apprentices, I left the workshop and logged out.

******

I logged in after having lunch and finishing my other usual stuff. By then the workshop was unfortunately closed, so I couldn’t continue my practice, but… It was fine, since I had a promise to fulfill today, so I immediately went to my store.

By the time I got there, the other party had already arrived. She seemed to be very nervous and uncomfortable for some reason though…

“Ah, Bucket! Good evening!” She exclaimed.

“Good evening. Though you arrived early, there were still about 20 minutes left before the time we arranged.” I replied.

“I just couldn’t relax when being faced with the prospect of meeting a Real Estate Agent!” She exclaimed.

… Lolita really was fidgeting a lot right now. Seriously, just what is her problem with real estate agents?

“Oh well… We’re just gonna look around a bit to see what properties are available, alright? You don’t need to be so nervous, okay?” I tried to calm her down.

“B-but… It’s a real estate agent… They deceive us, trick us, and by the time we realize it, we’re in debt! In debt!” Lolita replied in an extremely unusual fashion.

Well, it might be hard to check out possible locations like this, so let’s try relaxing a bit before we go.

******

Lolita heaved a sigh. We had just finished drinking a bit of milk tea that we bought from a stall, which seemed to, at the very least, stop her trembling.

“Did that help you calm down a bit?” I asked her.

“Ah, yeah… Sorry. I’ve calmed down.” She replied.

I still don’t get what’s her trauma with real estate agents, but I can’t really ask her about it today, as I don’t have that much time available… I’ll ask her some other day though.

“Well then, shall we go?” I asked her.

“Yes! I’ll do my best!” She exclaimed.

“… You don’t need to be so enthusiastic about it.” I replied.

Seems like her mood is still quite unstable. I’m a bit worried… Guess the tea wasn’t as effective at calming her down as I hoped.

Oh well, at least it was tasty.

******

As we arrived at the real estate agent that I used when I rented my own store, I could see that Lolita got extremely tense. Her whole body became extremely rigid and she seemed to be having a hard time moving.

I had to ask her to take a few deep breaths to recover, so as to let us go inside… Seriously, what is her problem with real estate agents?

But well, as soon as we started talking, Lolita became completely unable to make coherent sentences, so I had to serve as an intermediary, much to the real estate agent’s amusement.

Besides, she did tell me that she wanted a store that was about twice as big as mine and why she needed it to be that big, so I could still explain what we needed to the real estate agent… Though of course, there were budget and location concerns that we needed to be wary of, so it’s not like any big place would work.

But well, with this we could at least start moving around to see the locations available for rent.

“Oh, look at this one, Lalalu. It’s not as big as you want, but it’s right next to my store and has an acceptable price. It’s a great option, isn’t it?” I asked her as we visited one of the possible locations.

“A-a-ahi!” Was her reply… She really is unable to make coherent sentences right now, isn’t she?

“I also think it would be good for business, as I’ve been asked before by clients if I made lighter clothing, so you could take care of that demand while I handled the heavier equipment.” I told her, but she just gave another incoherent reply.

“Moreover, wouldn’t it be pretty nice if we got most stores on this street to be purchased by members of our clan? There are of course some complications with this idea, since not everyone might want a store here, or maybe there might not be enough stores for everyone, or no suitable store for someone’s specific needs, but… I think it would be pretty nice.” I told her, and she once again said something unintelligible.

Following that, we kept on looking at other properties, with me and the real estate agent doing all the discussion, since Lolita seemed to be out of commission.

Luckily enough, there weren’t that many stores that fit our criteria, so this didn’t take that long… And well, we were able to get a better idea of what were the available options for her budget.

… I mean, we could try coming back at another day to try seeing more locations, but considering how Lolita feels near real estate agents, I think that isn’t an ideal option.

So, it’s probably best to wrap up the tour here and let Lolita decide on what is best for her… After all, it’s her store, so she’s the only one that can make the decision.

This trauma she has with real estate agents is truly mysterious…

******

“I’m sorry for today…” Lolita apologized once we finished the tour and parted ways with the real estate agent.

“Don’t worry too much about it. It was fun.

“Besides, we were still able to look at locations properly, so do tell me what place you will rent once you decide on one, alright?” I told her.

“Okay…” She meekly replied.

She did seem to feel pretty down about her behavior, but I truly do think there is no point in worrying about it now. Better spent that energy on thinking about which is the ideal property to choose among the options we were given.

She didn’t seem to have the right mind to think about that right now though, as she walked away in a very slow and clearly disheartened pace…

Oh well, she’ll recover in due time. Let’s just put on my disguise, then head to the Rental Production Facility and start working! I need to earn a lot of money while I have the advantage over other crafter player pioneers in being the only one selling Iron Gear regularly!

******

After quite a few hours of work, I ended up making a lot of Iron Gear.

I also ended up getting too caught up on it, so I didn’t realize Homun had ran out of ingredients for his work, so he spent his free time playing around with Manthe.

It was kinda cute to see them together, but it was troublesome that he wasn’t crafting for some time. I don’t earn as much Summoning experience if he isn’t making anything, after all.

Oh well, it can’t be helped if I run out of ingredients though. It’s really a shame that Homun can only use half of my crafting level, since this really limits what he can make… Well, he’s still plenty useful nonetheless.

Not to mention that I crafted quite a bit of equipment myself, so it’s gonna take a while to get all that evaluated at the guild, so it’s okay if he isn’t as efficient as I’d want him to.

So, after unsummoning Homun, updating the store’s blog, and putting my disguise up, I left the production facility and went to the guild.

It was pretty late at night, but the main street was still quite lively, with many stalls being lined up at it.

However, they’re certainly fancier than they were before. Instead of having people selling items on top of some cloth on the ground, I’m now seeing some stalls with desks, or that are more decorated in order to draw attention.

The food stalls in particular seem to have a lot of care put into them, in order to highlight all the delicious dishes available. And since most of the meals available were made just a small while ago, I can eat all kinds of fresh things, such as sardines.

Of course, if you save those for too long, the hot things will cool down and the cold things will get lukewarm, but as most things I buy tend to last quite a while, it doesn’t matter too much to me. I also buy food often, so I don’t need to keep too much of it with me.

Pioneers that go out to the field have it rougher though. With Hunger and Drought being systems that they need to take care of, they now need to prioritize eating things that don’t spoil quickly, but those aren’t necessarily as tasty as fresh things that they can eat on the spot… And well, everyone prefers eating delicious food, right?

People on the forums have been discussing a lot about it. Some people seem to be trying to see if they can make insulated bottles and other similar things to better preserve the heat of food in order to make them tastier even after a while… It sure would be quite interesting to see this kind of thing in a medi-fantasy world.

******

After all my gear got evaluated at the guild, which is getting more and more crowded with each passing day, I immediately headed to the store.

On the way there, I ended up glancing to that property with enough space to build a workshop in… I really want to purchase it soon.

Nonetheless, it can’t be done for now, so let’s put it on the back of my head and focus on the important stuff.

I arrived at the store and went to the waiting room, which already had someone inside it… Of course, it’s not a break-in, but the person I had arranged to meet up with.

“Good morning.” Hime told me.

“Good morning, Hime. Where is Mika?” I asked her.

“At her Room.” Hime replied.

“Got it. I’m gonna replenish the store’s stock real quick, so can you tell Mika that I arrived?” I asked.

“Understood.” Hime told me.

After all, it was now time to celebrate! Mika had just defeated the Lich, after all!

And there is still some time before the clerks arrive, so let’s party to our hearts content! I bought plenty of things from the stalls earlier exactly for that purpose!