CH 145

Chapter 145 – Oh… It’s big

It’s been more than one in-game year since the release of Frontiers.

Even in Capital Zabrina of the Zabrina Kingdom, which is my home country, there are still plenty of vacant buildings and vacant lots that have yet to be purchased or rented by player Pioneers. *

Quite a few were purchased or rented too though, as those buildings can be used as Clan Homes, stores, or workshops.

Also, the closer a building is to the main street, then the higher the price and the higher the demand for it will be.

On the other hand, if you have to cross many roads from the main street, the transportation time will become longer, and some locations will even need you to go through a maze of alleys to get there.

Naturally, those places far from the main street have a much lower demand and are considerably cheaper.

After all, if you want to reach those places from the city gates, you will need to walk for way too long.

Sure, a system like the Party Auto-Matching does allow you to instantly go to a hunting ground regardless of how far you are from it, but your equipment will still naturally wear out as you fight, so you’ll need to go repair it.

Consumables will also be spent, so you’ll need to go buy some more as well.

Due to that, it would be hard to stay completely shut-in inside a faraway area and only use the Party Auto-Matching to move around. Maybe it could work if you had an exclusive producer, but it’s still complicated.

But in any case, the important part is that the demand for properties in the back alleys is low, and they are relatively cheap.

Among the available properties, I looked at the particularly large ones that were relatively close to my own workshop.

And thanks to the fact I contacted the Kederick Store in advance, I was able to get a letter of recommendation from them, which gave me some nice discounts on the properties I was interested at.

Though well, since I got a letter of introduction from the Kederick Store, the Real Estate Agent decided to first introduce me to a large property that had recently been vacated and that directly faced the main street.

It was a fairly large building that had enough space to have both a store and a workshop inside it… And of course, its price reflected its status, so it’s unlikely that I’d be able to buy it on the spot.

… Maybe I’d be able to purchase it if I paid in installments, but I really had no need for such a large building, as I don’t have enough products to line up in such a gigantic store.

Moreover, I only need a workshop right now.

******

“And this concludes the contract.” The Real Estate Agent told me.

“Thank you.” I replied.

“No, thank you. This was a leftover property, so I’m glad you could take it.” The agent said.

Seems like they were grateful that I bought something that had a low demand.

Though right after that, I was recommended another large property.

This is the same Real Estate Agent that I went to when I bought my workshop, and the property I bought this time was a fairly large one that could be used by multiple people.

I’m sure they thought I was going to get a disciple when looking at this purchase.

The more disciples you have, the more items you can sell, after all.

Therefore, I’d need a bigger store than my current one if I were to take in disciples.

This was said in a bit of a roundabout manner, but unfortunately, my purpose is different this time.

So I just smiled vaguely at them as they recommended me bigger store.

And well, the Real Estate Agent is also a professional, so they knew when to stop making recommendations.

******

Thanks to the recommendation letter from the Kederick Store, I was able to purchase a larger property at a lower price than I had expected.

And it’s not too far from my workshop, so I think it was a good purchase.

… Though I don’t know if I’ll ever use it after Mika’s project is finished.

Next are the facilities.

As for the tools, I made them while waiting for the Real Estate Agent to open, so that was already taken care of.

I made a lot of tools, but since I was able to purchase a property that was larger than what I was expecting, there is no problem there.

Though that also means I don’t have any spares.

In any case, I went to the specialty store to buy intermediate facilities.

Advanced facilities are way too expensive, so I’m not getting them.

Besides, if I were to get advanced facilities, I’d rather purchase them for my own workshop instead.

Intermediate facilities on the other hand, even if I buy plenty of them, the cost won’t be too big.

Ah, and let’s buy beginner facilities too, since even at my workshop I have both beginner and intermediate facilities.

The beginner facilities barely take up any space, after all. The intermediate ones are a bit bigger, but their size is still reasonable.

Advanced ones are really big though.

I wonder if my current workshop will end up getting too cramped once I finish upgrading all my facilities to advanced-tier…

In any case, there weren’t many questions in the specialty store when I went there to buy new facilities. Perhaps because plenty of Pioneers have taken on disciples recently.

Or rather, I received a bit of a lukewarm gaze that seemed to hint that they understood my circumstances. That I was buying facilities for cute new disciples.

I mean, I was buying not only intermediate facilities, but also a complete set of beginner facilities, so I guess it’s natural that they imagined that I was making this purchase for the sake of apprentices.

… Well, regardless of all those misunderstandings, the facilities can be easily put on the inventory, so there were no issues with their transportation and installation.

Other than that, I just needed to set up a new personal warehouse.

I needed to make a new contract to allow multiple people to use the warehouse.

It was quick and easy to get the new contract done at the Guild though.

This type of warehouse contract doesn’t make multiple warehouses connect their contents, but instead lets multiple people access the contents of their own warehouses through the shared warehouse.

Of course, the contract fee is about twice as high as the one that can only be used by whoever signed the contract, but this is still within my expected spendings, so it’s fine.

And since I was at it, I decided to also make the warehouse of my workshop a shared warehouse too, since Mika, Hime and the people from Works often come there, I might as well let them access the contents of their warehouses through it.

It’s really convenient that the Guild allows us to make warehouses that can be accessed by an unspecified number of people, alright.

And well, I think that’s about it for my preparations for the workshop?

Thanks to the recommendation letter, I was able to get it done cheaply, so I have to thank Mr. Kederick for that.

Though somehow, he ended up learning that I was able to make Royal Steel gear, so he requested me to deliver him some 3* Royal Steel gear in exchange for the recommendation letter.

He also requested specific bonuses on the equipment provided…

It’s still something that I was able to do, but this request was definitely a lot harder than what he usually asked me to do.

That said, steel gear with two good Options is stronger than 3* Royal Steel gear, so sales of Royal Steel aren’t that great.

Though their price is higher than normal steel gear.

Moreover, after the steel gear sells out, there will still be people who want to buy equipment at my store, so the Royal Steel stuff always sells out within the same day that they’re put up for sale.

And on the matter of Royal Steel, after I disclosed some information about it on the forums, a lot of people started raising a fuss over it.

People started asking for simpler methods and tricks to make the Ceremonial Bonus work, as well as people asking how to make steel items with Options, or how to acquire advanced tools and facilities.

… Tools aside, advanced facilities can be purchased for as long as you pass the test. Why would they ask about this one?

In any case, as people from other countries can now post on the forums too, the threads are a lot livelier now than they used to be.

Due to that though, more trouble seems to be occurring, and the number of people that have their posts deleted seems to have increased.

Regardless of your country, violating the rules always leads to the same kind of punishment.

I guess it happens more often because threads are getting heated up more easily?

Well, regardless of people making a fuss or not, I’m the one who chooses what information to disclose, and I’m not going to give out more information than necessary.

There may be pros and cons to my method, but that’s how I handle it. I monopolize what I can monopolize and devour the profits that come from it.

After all, I still need money!

******

“Oh… It’s big.” Mika commented.

“Large.” Hime added.

“You can work with plenty of people here, right?” Mika asked.

Once I finished installing the facilities on the new workshop, I called Mika and Hime to come see it.

Even after installing the beginner and intermediate facilities, there was still plenty of space in this workshop.

Compared to my workshop, this was about three times larger.

“This is a bit… How much did it cost?” Mika asked.

“Looks expensive.” Hime commented.

“That’s not the case at all. Mr. Kederick gave me a recommendation letter, so it lowered the price. That’s the result of having a connection with a powerful NPC.” I told them.

“Ooh.” Hime said.

“As expected of the chairman of the Kederick Store.” Mika added.

“Anyways, the preparations for the workshop are done, but what about the people on the other side?” I asked Mika.

After all, it also depended on what they were okay with doing… Though I really don’t want to work at the Rental Production Facility, especially after making this investment.

“Basically, they left it up to you.” Mika told me.

“Basically?” Hime repeated.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Since they’re the invited party, they decided to leave it up to the organizers, the Mist Knights.” Mika explained.

“… I’m not a member of the Mist Knights, though?” I replied.

“Well, that’s basically it! Nothing to complain about!” Mika gave a strained laugh.

“I suppose that’s fine… Ah, but considering how the event works, we should have another producer from the Zabrina Kingdom working with us too, shouldn’t we?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, that’s right. Please do it.” Mika replied.

“Please do it doesn’t cut it!” I exclaimed.

“I’ll provide all the materials for free! Please!” Mika begged.

“Hmm? Mmmm… Okay, that’s alright.” I decided to accept it.

“… Oh? Yay!” Mika exclaimed.

“You’re way too soft, Bucket.” Hime told me.

“I’ll be asking for plenty of materials though.” I told Mika.

“Eeek!” Mika exclaimed.

“That’s fair.” Hime nodded.

Seems like the fighting members of Mist Knights and Beyond The Faraway Time will be hunting together and collecting materials for us.

The combat-focused members get points by forming a party and hunting together, after all.

And then the materials will be returned to us, so… Let’s use them all up!

I was forced to accept a lot of unreasonable demands, so you should work hard to collect them, Mika!

————-

* Translator’s Note: So, since chapter 131, “Capital Sabrina” became “Capital Zabrina” in the raws. I have kept translating it as “Capital Sabrina” anyways, since that’s how the name has been since the start of the novel, but after quite a few chapters with it being listed as “Capital Zabrina” in the raws, I have decided to just go ahead and change it to “Capital Zabrina” in the translation too, so it will be “Capital Zabrina” from now on.