By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 7 - Chapter 8

Chapter 5 Episode 8: Mild Growth?

“Hold on, Ryoma, were you planning to ask for our assistance when you execute this plan?” Reinhart asked.

“Well, yes, that was the idea. I considered the possibility that you would say no, of course, in which case I would live with it. But you’ve always been good to me, so I thought maybe you’d at least listen,” I explained, wondering if I’d expected too much.

“Oh, no! We can at least hear you out.”

“We thought you would try to do everything yourself,” Elise said.

That would be ridiculous. Some things would never be possible on my own. I may have said that I would do this, but I never said I’d do it alone. I’d want to do it even if I had to, but it would be risky. I needed at least some base of support to get this going. Serge and Pioro were both the presidents of big companies, so they had plenty of knowledge, negotiation skills, wealth, and connections. Reinhart was a policymaker, and he held the greatest authority in the Duchy of Jamil. Elise also seemed to have a similar degree of influence, so I couldn’t ask for better partners. They were always looking out for me anyway, and I appreciated it when they supplied me with the common knowledge I lacked. I always planned to ask them about this first.

“This was always the plan?” Serge asked. “My subordinate told you the same thing we did, so I wasn’t expecting that.”

“You thought I’d try to do it all myself?”

“You do have a tendency to go down that road. Whatever your idea was, I was worried that you’d just try to charge right into it,” Reinhart said.

The other three agreed with Reinhart. I didn’t realize I gave off that image, but it was somewhat hard to deny it.

“Have you learned to rely on others when you need to?” Reinhart continued. “At any rate, I’m glad you chose us to ask. I do think you have interesting ideas. I wouldn’t hear your opinions from anyone else, at least. I think you see things a bit differently than we do. The plans you come up with may sometimes be seen as odd and get rejected because of it. But such perspectives are important. If you hear the same opinions for too long, it becomes hard to think outside the box. Despite all we’ve said, we’d appreciate it if you continued to share your opinions with us in the future.”

The other three didn’t seem to disagree. Of course, they probably couldn’t always help in cases where it would be disadvantageous, or if they had other obligations. But they weren’t just laughing off my ideas either.

“I can’t tell you that our response will always be favorable, though,” Reinhart said.

“Of course.”

They were content to hear me out, but they probably needed something to gain from helping if I wanted to convince them. I thought about that a bit before too, so I took this chance to tell them about it.

“Oh? It sounds like you have a plan,” Serge said. “Perhaps we should brace ourselves.” His tone was casual, but his mood changed a bit. It was like when we talked about selling music boxes before. I decided to brace myself as well.

“It’s nothing complex enough to be called a plan, but a lot of what I’ve discovered through my slime research may be advantageous to all of you, so I thought I might share that information.”

“You always find a way to bring the conversation back to slimes, don’t you?” said Elise with a smile. The mood was easing up.

I decided to start with Serge. This wasn’t anything new, but it was about the waterproof cloth we had been selling since the spring. “I looked into how well-received the waterproof cloth is, and sales still seem to be on the rise,” I said.

“Most of the customers we had before were traveling merchants and delivery people, but the rain gear is becoming popular with regular customers nowadays,” Serge replied.

I had seen quite a few people with that rain gear around Gimul, plus I knew that the Morgan Trading Company was asking for even more waterproof cloth from me with each order. My sticky slimes did most of the work for that, so I was still keeping up, but it was, to be frank, time-consuming.

“What would you think about the idea of building a factory to help keep up with the ever-increasing demand?” I suggested.

In other words, I was transferring control of the production of waterproof cloth over to him. The sticky slimes could soak the cloth in fluid on their own, but workers would be needed to prepare, dry, and ship the cloth. If I wanted more employees, I needed to create more jobs first.

“I can provide the sticky slimes you’ll need for it.”

“And the more employees we have, the more we can produce, right? It’s certainly true that the demand for waterproof cloth keeps growing. It would help to increase production, for preparation’s sake.”

Serge was taken somewhat off guard, but didn’t have as much of a problem with this as the previous topic. I would have probably needed to keep ramping up production myself anyway, and I didn’t mind if Serge and the Morgan Trading Company ran the factory. But as the person providing the slimes, I did want a portion of the profits and to be the advisor on slime management and usage. I could use the money to expand my laundromat in the future.

“So, who’s in charge of hiring?” Serge asked.

“I think you can do that. And don’t feel like you have to hire former felons. I’m sure such a sudden and aggressive change would create chaos and friction, so my two goals right now are to acquire funds to expand and stabilize my business, and to create employment opportunities. There are people in the slums who want to work, but can’t find jobs. I think it’d be great if you could hire them.”

“Well, I could consider hiring them if they’re just poor, not criminals,” Serge said. Construction and factory jobs always seemed to be relatively lax about who they hired, so I figured he would find that acceptable. “I’ll look into how plausible the idea is. We can discuss the scale of the operation, the compensation for the slimes, and how to handle them another time.”

“Thank you.”

Serge’s response was favorable. That was a good sign. Next, I had a suggestion for Reinhart. This wasn’t new either, but I presented the idea of using scavenger slimes to process the garbage cities produce.

“Trash processing is a public project. It’s an important source of income for those in the slums. Wouldn’t you be taking that away from them?” he asked.

“I thought about that, but after an investigation in Gimul, I found that there’s more trash per day than the citizens of the slums can collect.”

The people of the slums were proactive about collecting garbage for money, but they couldn’t deliver all the trash that came from everyone in the city. They also had to hire workers from outside the slums for the rest of it. My first job after becoming an adventurer, when I had to deal with the dump next to Miya’s house, was one such case, and there still seemed to be similar areas all around the city.

“It would also provide better ways to dispose of the garbage. I believe some animal corpses are incinerated and buried, which uses a fair amount of manpower and fuel. You’ll need a tamer to oversee the work, but if you used scavenger slimes, it’d eliminate the fuel costs. Reducing the number of employees working on disposal would increase the number who can collect trash.”

Scavenger slimes also had the Nutrient Reduction skill, for processing the garbage into fertilizer. I had been growing food with it for a long time and it never had negative health effects, plus it took some of the burden of using wood magic off of me. It was good fertilizer, which also had the side effect of magicifying plants sometimes, but that also happened with magic fertilizers. Even overusing regular fertilizer could hinder growth, so it was always a matter of using the right amount. As long as you did that, it could be used for farming and even sold on the market.

“The income from that could be used to pay the workers who handle trash processing. But there’s no guarantee that it’ll sell. Honestly, this proposal still has too many uncertain elements.”

“I suppose. Could you give me some of that fertilizer? I’d like to show it to our gardener, who’s an expert on plants, fertilizers, and medicine. That might give us some valuable input.”

Thus, I decided to give Reinhart some scavenger slime fertilizer. That settled the discussion for now. I could wait until hearing this gardener’s opinion of the fertilizer, then give them time to think about it.

Next, I told Pioro about how I used scavenger slime fertilizer to produce running mushes in great numbers. I also told him that I was doing research on how to cultivate edible mushrooms without letting them magicify. I heard that stable mushroom cultivation would be one step toward making a fortune, so I thought he would be interested.

“Ryoma, is that true?” he asked.

“Yes. They all turn into running mushes right now, so I can’t cultivate ordinary mushrooms, but I think I’m headed in the right direction. I showed Glissela a basket of running mushes as proof, by the way. You can ask her about it if you want, or I could use space magic to show them to you myself.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I have no reason to think you’re joking.” He was interested, but looked rather exasperated as well.

Next was Elise. “A former slime researcher that I employ recently found that cleaner slimes have some beautifying effects,” I told her.

“Beautifying? That’s fascinating.”

“Yes. I think this could be popular with women.”

The cleaner slimes could remove dead skin, or make the skin drier, depending on the individual’s age and the kind of skin they had. Still, I figured some additional care could compensate for that. My knowledge of medicine told me that there were a number of magic beauty products, and from what I heard the other day, the medicine was too expensive in the Gilmarese Empire, so they developed techniques like acupuncture and massages to treat the body. I was no expert on beauty products, but I sometimes overheard women in my old workplace passionately researching them. I didn’t really understand why they took it so seriously, but then again, I knew better than to look down on a woman in pursuit of beauty.

“So if you put together slimes, medicine, foreign techniques, and more all for the pursuit of beauty, don’t you think it’d work out?”

“This is terribly interesting.”

My idea here was still kind of vague, but Elise’s reaction wasn’t bad. Noblewomen had a tendency to buy beauty products like their lives depended on it, so if this worked out, it could make a killing. Especially if I could make good connections with some noblewomen.

“Ryoma, that’s quite the fearsome idea for someone your age to have,” said Reinhart.

“It’s remarkable that you know how to capture a lady’s heart,” said Serge.

“And a lot of noblemen have to bow to their wives,” said Pioro.

“Quite the schemer,” said Elise.

“Well, it’s honestly more of a side idea I have,” I said. It was fun to think about, but it seemed a bit too high-risk and high-reward. Women are strong and depending on the situation, they can be a really fearsome bunch. I learned that in my past life. “I’m just saying that it’s a possibility.”

“Aw, and just when I was getting excited about it. Well, ask me for advice if you ever want to go through with it.” She didn’t push me any further than that, but didn’t hide her interest.

“Well, at any rate, it sounds like you’re full of ideas,” Reinhart said, redirecting the conversation.

“There’s just a lot of things that interest me.” There was plenty more I could say about slimes, including some more useful information.

“You don’t mind telling us all this for nothing, do you?”

“Hey, it’s not like I can do everything myself.” Once I learned that slime X could do Y, I was already 80% satisfied. I figured it would be better to give that information to people I trusted, rather than just keep it to myself.

“I thought you’d be more reluctant to tell us.”

“I don’t see why I should hide anything from any of you.”

“You should be at least a bit more protective,” said Elise. “I hope you’re careful not to be tricked by any suspicious characters. Still, we’re always willing to hear you out.”

“We’ll do that for free,” said Serge.

“Especially if there’s money in it for us,” said Pioro.

As the night grew later and the conversation ended, I got the feeling that they were worried about me for different reasons from before. Oh, and I forgot to tell them about bloody slime serums. That was the best idea of all.