NOVEL NEXT Chapter 055: Waste No Time
It took quite a while to arrive at the merchant's place.
Usually a lot of businesses remained at the busy gate in order to target wandering travellers (such as adventurers, mercenaries, vacationists or even their fellow merchants) due to it being profitable. A regular person may buy one utility knife, for example, then keep it “for when they need it” while those travelling with actively use said knife resulting in them constantly needing a replacement. One didn’t need to be a genius to see how profitable such a market could be.
A lot of businesses were set up in front of the gates in order to cater to those sorts. Meanwhile, the place I ended up parking the wagon in front of - based on the information that femme fatale gave me as well as the matching motif - was closer to the wealthy residential area. Certainly not your average place.
“Certainly looks impressive enough; could be useful to make a connection with the owner of this place even if he ends up just being a branch manager.” Speaking to myself as I half-heartedly “guided” those strange beasts down the road. No one foolish enough to not make way for the massive monster who were guiding a finely furnished coach.
It also seemed to be far better maintained than many of the buildings that I went past on my way towards here; the building accommodating a lot of various types of people but none of them looking… Poor. The building itself was host to more glass than I thought they could ever manage to deliver to one location when recalling that breakable goods were still quite likely difficult to deliver “in one piece”.
Yet, once I hopped down from the carriage to enter, I was met with something akin to a high end shopping mall filled with all sorts of inherently risky things to ship from city to city. A ton of glass structures, pottery and a whole lot of delicate ornamental pieces. There was even a “exotic foods” section according to the guide board at the front.
Even if this world appeared to be akin to our own 21st century - there was still a big elephant in the room that had to be considered when discussing city to city travel.
Monsters.
They didn’t care if you were just planning to repair a road or wipe out their enemies; monsters saw these squishy humanoids as a chance to grow stronger since mortals naturally give more Xp to them. An alluring prospect that most likely would never be able to resist. It wasn’t because they were drawn to being powerful but because they needed to be powerful to defend themselves.
The easiest way for them to achieve that would obviously be to wipe out any humans that they happen across which is why it often seems like monsters have it out for mortals. Although, technically, killing a dragon or even a high level monster would likely give far experience… They were also far harder to kill than random malnourished peasant number five.
Think just because you’re carrying glass that they’ll reconsider?
Sure, adventurer guild was literally allowed in every territory in order to take care of monsters, there were certainly solutions yet the costs were certainly not cheap. Something many people don’t realise in business is that you don’t plan around success if you want to succeed. There is no “hoping for the best” but instead preparing for the worst to occur.
That is why so many people find themselves with their pants down and cuffs around their wrists; simpletons simply never expect to be caught. True professionals acknowledge that it can happen and so create backup plans in case failure occurs rather than pocketing all the extra profit as “bonus”. Usually this just translated to playing the public (often by genuinely doing good while subtly guiding their eye) however that becomes more stringent when it comes to something like this.
To ensure that there are no accidents you’d need to hire top-tier adventurers and that is just to deal with monsters without mentioning the chance of more… Organised opponents. That alone is enough to make some businesses go under without a single chance to turn a profit.
Plus you also had to retrofit the wagons to help cushion the merchandise rather than just hoping that the roads weren’t complete shit.
Thankfully I wasn’t stopped from heading inside. Though it shouldn’t be surprising that the staff here were professionals who knew how to judge whether someone belonged or not. It wasn’t a simple matter of what I wore nor how I spoke; no matter who liked it, at the end of the day, I was rich.
This wasn’t the case of me sneaking inside in order to talk to the person in charge - I was simply in my element when it came to these kinds of places. As stupid as she was (which was really) me and that sister of mine regularly visited these kinds of places since the time we could walk. Even if I regularly refused to spend any money-
That god really was right about my sinful nature…
“Well, not like there’s much I can do about it~!” Promptly deciding to not worry about any of that nonsense as I soon reached what seemed like a completely ancient elevator. Literally just looked like a metal box with no sort of gravity or repulsion tech attached to it. I wasn’t sure how much I trusted it (I wouldn’t be surprised if it genuinely used a pulley system) yet I still decided to press the button for the top floor.
Of course I wasn’t alone however all of us were people of class so we did little more than glance at each other with a short nod. Keeping to ourselves as we waited for the elevator doors to close. Something they did soon enough and began to take off with an almost unnoticeable jolting as the metal compartment was lifted upwards in its shaft.
There was some novelty in such a low-tech civilisation although the constant jostling of the lift did suggest that I was indeed right about that pulley. Hopefully it wouldn’t break since I didn’t want to take the effort of using the no-doubt bustling stairs. Plus, even if it did break, I was sure that I’d survive.
Not so much these other rich people.
Thankfully it was quick enough despite the inferior tech - even if the bar was spectacularly low on account of their only being three total floors. This place really was backwards. I literally had houses with more floors than this “mall” even if there were technically higher ceilings per each of the floors.
From there it didn’t take me very long to reach the office of the head of this place; there was a girl dressed in a simple black suit in front the door along with a secretary at a desk beside said door. The guard obviously kept her gaze following me but I didn’t matter as the male secretary turned up towards me from his documents with a smile. “Hello miss - how can I help you?”
“Yes, I just got into the city from the port city and happened upon a stolen carriage, who I assume was the captain of the gate guard told me I could notify as well as get my reward here.” Offering my classic smile which seemed to have stunned the pair. Taking a moment before he nodded along.
I am pretty sure that my charm (if the system kept track of) would be in the thousands at least~!
Without needing him to speak up I took the note that the old guard captain gave to me - the secretary quickly glanced just enough to see the signature as he nodded & held it out to me. Turning toward the security to order them. “Let her in to see mr.Green.”
The security didn’t make any visible complaint as they knocked on the door only to hear a “come in” leading to them opening the door for me to enter. Having no reason to refuse I of course walked in to see a surprisingly simplistic office with an aesthetically matching man. There was nothing expressly expensive in this office (unless they hadn’t invented the printing press to mass-produce books) but it was quality.
Even the man sat at the desk in front of the window, looking like every stereotypical office ever, looked like your average white guy. Brown hair in that typical swoop with matching hazel eyes. Neither fat nor thin and especially not spectacularly muscular; if you saw him on a street you would never take note of him.
“What can I do to help you, today?” His brow visibly rose upon seeing me; clearly confused as I noticed him lingering on my facial marks but not doing any inadvertently creepy so I didn’t mind. It was rare to have face tattoos in my world let alone this one.
I just smiled while handing over the note and letting him read which was precisely what he did.
From there it was simple and within the new 20 minutes I was guiding him out of the office.