I Said Make My Abilities Average! (LN) - Volume 19 - Chapter 132

Chapter 132:

The Aftermath

THUD!

Thud thump!

Thud thump whunk!

“………”

A massive pile of fish was deposited onto the floor of the Merchants’ Guild seafood storage facility. Silence fell over them all.

Not unlike the Hunters’ Guild, the Merchants’ Guild was in the business of buying and reselling unprocessed animals, monsters, and large fish, so they had a warehouse for storage purposes. Naturally, it was a well-insulated structure, and the temperature was regulated by means of magic. The Crimson Vow and friends had persuaded the guild master, executives, and key staff members to take them there. A few of the junior employees had been left to attend to the reception counter.

Had the group of elderly retired fishermen come alone, no one would have given them the time of day. As it was, the guild leadership had obviously heard the rumors of an all-female party of newbie hunters with an outrageous amount of storage. Of course, due to issues of confidentiality and the girls’ agreement with the Hunters’ Guild, the nature of their skills were supposed to be kept secret from everyone but the guild employees, but secrets had a way of getting out. Plus, selling off this particular haul required an explanation of where the goods had come from, so there was a limit to how much a confidentiality agreement could cover.

Thus, the Merchants’ Guild staff had concluded that the presence of the Crimson Vow was a good sign that there was something to the old men’s story. Quite a few merchants, clearly having come to the same conclusion, tried to follow the group to the warehouse, but they had been chased off by guild staff. This was an official negotiation between the Merchants’ Guild and nonmembers who had come to sell their products, with no room for curious bystanders. 

It should go without saying that the size of the haul was impressive—and the fish themselves were of incredibly high quality. The pile of fish might as well have been a pile of money.

The guild master was the one to finally break the silence. “Are you serious?” 

“No wonder the Hunters’ Guild wanted to keep you girls all to themselves,” the assistant guild master chimed in.

The other employees and butchers just looked on in awe.

“So… Any chance you’d be willing to take all this off our hands?” an old fisherman ventured.

“It would be our pleasure!” the entire guild staff chorused.

“There’s just one problem,” the guild master interjected, a troubled frown overtaking his face. “It might be difficult to sell everything here before it goes bad. We could deliver some of it to the neighboring towns and villages, but there are still limits to how much can be transported and consumed. We do have the option of shipping it to the bigger towns farther away, but it’ll go bad if we leave it raw, and we definitely don’t have enough salt to preserve such a huge haul. We can’t dry this amount of fish, either—the size of the haul and the fish themselves are too big for that. That leaves cutting the fish into smaller slices to dry, but that’d be too much work, and we don’t have the space to do it anyway.

“I’d estimate we could sell maybe a third of what’s here before it rots. Mm, but I’d really like to find a way to get rid of at least half of it… Normally, I would simply suggest lowering the price, but that can’t solve the problem of time and transportation. Hmm…”

It was ironic: The guild had been lucky enough to get its hands on a haul of extremely valuable merchandise, but their own limitations were going to cause half of it to go to waste. The guild master clutched his head and groaned. His pride as a merchant made this a bitter pill to swallow. The rest of the staff likewise grimaced in frustration.

The guild had the option of purchasing only half the haul, of course. But that would mean taking only the items that would fetch a good price and foisting the half doomed to rot back onto the fishermen. From a business perspective, it made sense, but it was a terrible waste, and the staff of the Merchants’ Guild was intent on finding another solution. 

Might it be possible to buy the whole haul at a lower price, which would make up for the losses incurred by the inevitable spoilage? It wasn’t ideal, but it was a preferable alternative to sending back half of the old fishermen’s catch.

Then Mile threw them a lifeline. “We wouldn’t mind delivering the goods in smaller batches,” she offered, as if this were no big deal. “Items kept inside my storage space don’t go bad.” 

A violent tremor rocked the entire warehouse. “THEY WHAAAAT?!”

“Ack.”

“You idiot!” Reina screamed, furious that Mile had slipped up and blabbed about the special features of her so-called “storage.”

“Uhh, I mean, because I pack everything in there with magical ice!”

“Oh, that’s all you meant? A section of this warehouse is devoted to cold storage, so we’re already capable of making ice with magic, keeping the building cool, and preserving the fish a little longer. I can’t imagine you have room to store a haul this big and enough ice to keep it all chilled. We do appreciate the sentiment, though.”

“Er, right…”

Mile smiled, satisfied that she had managed to pull the wool over their eyes. To be fair, it was rather unbelievable that her storage would have both the ability to halt the passage of time and a seemingly unlimited capacity. It was far easier to accept that she used her enormous storage space to transport tons of magical ice or that she could cast a freezing spell over its contents. 

After all, people are wired to believe what they want to believe.

In the end, the bargaining process was a success. Since it was the first time either party had made such a large transaction, neither was sure what counted as a fair price. By the same token, they couldn’t accurately predict how much of the stock could be sold and how much would go bad and need to be thrown out. As neither party was in a position to overcharge or haggle the price down, the negotiations were conducted in good faith.

It helped that one side was the Merchants’ Guild and the other was a group of old men from a fishing village near the port city. If it came to light after the fact that the guild had been dishonest in their dealings, it would look very bad for them. In this world—actually, in just about any world, Earth included—swindling elderly folks who had poured many years into honest work was considered a despicable act. The Merchants’ Guild could lose all credibility in the blink of an eye.

And of course, this case involved the fabled Supersized Storage Space Squad. There was no need to worry about the men getting cheated out of their money.

Still, no matter how rare the fish were—or how rare they had been, until moments ago—the prices would plummet if so many showed up on the market at once. And as the guild master had already acknowledged, the stock didn’t have a particularly long shelf life, so even if the guild seized a carriage house’s entire fleet of wagons and devoted the whole town’s resources to transporting the haul to the neighboring towns and villages, it was difficult to say how much of it they could sell before it went bad. After working in the fishing business for decades, even an idiot would realize that much. Therefore, the old men had accounted for this and had already taken the inevitable loss of any unsold stock under consideration in estimating their earnings. 

Besides, the men didn’t have their hearts set on striking it rich. All they wanted was to tell the town the tale of how they had sailed gallantly out into the open sea. They wanted to share the joy of vanquishing their sworn enemy. They wanted others to join them in chowing down and filling their bellies with that same foe.

Of course, that didn’t mean they didn’t want the money. Just that they were keeping their expectations in check.

The Crimson Vow’s share of the catches was still sitting inside Mile’s inventory, unsold. There was no danger of any of it going bad, and adding it to the pile would only make more trouble for the Merchants’ Guild. After witnessing the guild’s distress, not a single one of the girls had the guts to diabolically double the haul before them.

Transaction complete, the Crimson Vow and the old fishermen left the Merchants’ Guild together. All that was left was to say their goodbyes, after which the Crimson Vow would head back to their room at the inn and the old men to their fishing village—or so the girls thought.

At first, the men were all smiles. But then… 

“We’ve got a favor to ask of you ladies,” they began, trading out their grins for looks that meant business. Apparently, they had some sort of request to make. “Y’see, we’re hoping to build an open-sea raiding vessel. No… An open-sea raiding fleet!”

Reina’s response was cold. “Do you honestly think you would have made it home safe from our last venture if we hadn’t gone with you? Without us around—or without Mile around, I should say—you’re going to end up with a hole in the bottom of your ship. And you’d be looking at a full party wipe before you manage to take down those sea serpents.”

Thus far, she had been taking care to treat her elders with a decent amount of respect, but clearly she had decided it was time to dispense with the courtesies. Most likely, she was playing up her bad attitude to discourage the old men from getting carried away and doing something stupid.

Mile piped in, too. “For a start, every single fishing boat would need around three or four mages capable of sending search magic underwater, erecting a barrier, and slaying the sea serpents that slither aboard with a single blow,” she explained. “Another way to protect the ship’s bottom would be to get yourselves some armored ships. But I don’t just mean attaching a thin iron plate to your wooden boats. The hull would have to be made completely out of iron.”

“A boat made of iron would never float!” Reina protested.

“Not true. We know that covering a cargo ship’s bottom with iron of an equal weight to its freight capacity won’t make it sink. So why wouldn’t it float if you make an iron hull of the same weight as its wooden hull and cargo combined? Besides, metal basins bob on the surface of the water just fine, don’t they?”

This was an eye-opening explanation for the rest of the party.

“Oh…”

“Good point.”

Mile carried on with her lecture. “Next up would be making the sides of the ships taller…”

“Would you quit indulging their fantasy?!” Reina snapped.

“Do you really think they can manage without your barrier or search magic, Mile?” Mavis asked, ignoring Reina’s interruption.

“I don’t see why not, if they have a thick enough iron hull. Upper C-rank frontline fighters or combat mages should be enough to fend off the encroaching sea serpents. And there’s no need to venture too far out into the open sea. They can go a little further out than usual, do some longline fishing, have a quick bout with the sea serpents, and return home without taking too many risks. They might sustain a few injuries in the process, but they can keep a healing mage on standby in the village. Not to say that completely eliminates the possibility of casualties or shipwrecks, of course.”

“A fisherman is always prepared for those dangers! And the only ones allowed to join the raiding fleet will be us geezers with nothing to lose! If word of our exploits gets around, I betcha decrepit ol’ fishermen from all over the continent will flock to our village!”

The fishermen erupted into hearty laughter, only for Reina to dash their hopes yet again.

“Great. So who’s going to supply these iron ships?”

The old men groaned and fell silent.

“That’s where the idea falls apart, unfortunately. It’s a real shame, since I think an iron-hulled ship with decently thick armor could manage without my search magic or barrier. As long as they have a wide and stable deck to fight on, a fair number of hunters could take down sea serpents of that size without issue. But I’ve never seen the kind of metal ship I’m envisioning in a town pier…”

“I’ve never heard of a ship made of iron, period!” said Mavis. Reina and the old men bobbed their heads in agreement.

“Even I couldn’t construct an iron ship… I don’t think?” 

No sooner did the words leave Mile’s mouth than it occurred to her that she could perhaps just order the nanomachines to make one. It wasn’t like she’d be asking for a powerboat. A simple iron hull shouldn’t count as a prohibited request. 

If that failed, she could always go through the Slow Walker and ask the Scavengers to build it. All she’d need to do was provide them a sufficient amount of scrap iron or iron ore. With her bottomless inventory, it would be a simple task for her to transport large quantities of iron ore from a deposit. Actually, given her authorization level of 7, she might be able to use her magic to smelt the ore herself. 

And if she could track down the Scavengers on the new continent, she wouldn’t even need to return home. By this point, the Slow Walker had probably gotten its communication system back in working order, established contact with the living ruins around the world, and dispatched Scavengers to do the needed repair work. As Mile was their custodian, the Scavengers of this continent were naturally under her control as well. If she could just get in touch with them, they would be sure to entertain any request of hers.

“I know that look, little lady! You do know a way to get us one!”

“Just name your price! We old-timers have saved up quite a bit of money to help get our grandchildren boats of their own. Haven’t got much else to spend it on, at our age. We can pool all those funds together! If that still won’t cut it, we’ll rope in the neighboring fishing villages until we’ve got enough coin! So, please, give us those iron ships!”

The old men’s eyes were sparkling with a reckless hope more often seen on the faces of adolescent boys.

Hold on! No! Nope, nada, not happening! Let’s say I do make them an iron ship. How will they perform maintenance after we’re gone?! How will they replace one if it sinks? Busybodies will flock from every kingdom on the continent to find out where the ships came from! What answers are they supposed to give?! I can’t just pop out some out-of-place construction these people can’t manufacture or maintain and wander off! Besides, every sunk ship will come with a death toll! People who could have spent the last years of their life surrounded by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren might die because of those stupid iron ships!

“Denied!”

“Nooooo!” the men whined in unison.

“Please reconsider!”

“C’mon, little lady! We’re begging you here!”

Mile refused to bend to their pleas. “Your only choices are to have us go with you or to figure out how to build iron ships of sufficient strength. We’re hunters, so we can’t hang around in this area forever. And where do you plan to acquire the technology, shipyards, engineers, budget, iron, and everything else you’d need for the second option?”

The old men said nothing. They seemed to realize how unreasonable their own demands were. After all, these were seasoned fishermen who had been in the business for decades.

Still, accepting something on an intellectual level wasn’t the same as coming to terms with it. The members of the Crimson Vow couldn’t bear to see the dejected looks on the fishermen’s faces. No matter how hard they tried to put their foot down, the party had a soft spot for little girls and boys and cats and old-timers.

“Oh, fine! All right already!” Reina relented. “We’ll accompany you however many times you want until we pack up and leave town! You good with that, girls?”

“You bet!” the Crimson Vow chorused.

“Yahooooo!” the old men whooped for joy.

Mile agreed alongside the rest of her party, but her mind was still whirring. She was pretty sure she could make things work even if the Crimson Vow moved their base somewhere far away. All she had to do was bust out her brute-force move of “falling horizontally” via gravity control. Of course, she had enough self-restraint not to consider transporting the rest of the party with the same method. Still, whenever she had a free week, she could show up alone, hire a party of four to five upper C-ranks or B-ranks, and escort at least one boat out to sea.

Plus, Mile’s healing magic was probably some of the most advanced in the world. Even if one of the hunters lost an arm in the jaws of a sea serpent, it would be nothing she couldn’t fix. It would take her about a month to fully heal anything as dramatic as limb loss, but second-rate healers often took the same amount of time to heal simple fractures, torn ligaments, and internal injury, so no one would dare complain. In fact, they would be more likely to thank her profusely.

The only problem would be if word got around that she was repairing lost limbs. 

If that happened, I’d have to make everyone who witnessed the limb loss promise not to talk, then send the rest of the victim’s party on a one-month trip so no one sees them in recovery… And while the rest of the party was off earning money, I’d have to keep the injured person holed up in an inn… Oh, I guess I could have them wear a disguise during the rehabilitation period! And once they were healed, they could waltz back in like nothing happened. 

The Crimson Vow would be somewhere far away, and I could disguise myself with an optical illusion to remain anonymous. I’d have to bypass the guild and treat it as an independent request—meaning I form a direct contract with the client. I highly doubt anyone from the fishing village would try to sell my personal information. And if anything did get out, that would just be the last time I ever came back here.

Hmm. It does sound like it’d be an extra headache if someone loses a limb… I’d better do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Preoccupied with every possible eventuality, Mile mumbled, “Well, I can cross the bridge when I come to it. Things might change between now and then, anyway. It won’t help me to spend that whole time worrying! Best to limit the angst to the few days beforehand and focus on fun things until then!”

“What nonsense are you planning this time?”

“I have no idea what you’re thinking, Mile, but you shouldn’t make promises before you have a plan for how to accomplish them!”

“Mile, please…”

Mile wilted under the suspicious looks of her three companions.

“Okay okay, I get the message! ‘Consider it advisable to launch attack force immediately.’ We’ll help when the time comes… Oh, and for the record, you’d better wait more than a handful of days!”

“………”

Mile’s addendum made the fishermen’s eyes dart to and fro.

“Hey! Why are you all looking like that?! I can tell what you’re thinking!” Reina called them out. “But think of all the trouble it’ll make for the Merchants’ Guild if you show up with another mass delivery so soon after the first one! They’ll have no choice but to buy it off you! At least wait until they’ve processed the first delivery, gotten everything to the retail stage, and the market is ready for the next shipment! Wouldn’t it be a blow to your pride as fishermen to let all the sea serpents and fish you caught go to waste?!”

“Hmph… Good point…”

The old men were forced to concede. Apparently, Reina was right about a wasted catch being too bitter a pill for them to swallow. Sea serpents were one thing, but regular fish were a gift they gratefully accepted to sustain their livelihood. Letting them rot would be unacceptable.

It was interesting to note how much consideration Reina showed the Merchants’ Guild, considering she had next to none for the Hunters’ Guild. After the Crimson Lightning were wiped out, she had put on a tough act and turned aggressive so she could make it alone as a young, female hunter, but deep down, she was a caring girl.

Well, unless someone made fun of her or got on her bad side, at least.

Offering their profuse thanks to the Crimson Vow, the old men went home to their village. Considering how much money they were carrying, Mile had planned on escorting them back in case something went wrong, but that turned out to be unnecessary. The fishermen had explained that they would never be stupid enough to take their profits back to the village. Very few transactions in the village were conducted with currency, so the only times most villagers paid with coins was during their visits to the port city. In which case, there was one very easy way to avoid tangling with petty thugs looking for a bit of pocket change.

You guessed it—they opened a bank account with the Merchants’ Guild and deposited their earnings there. They made personal accounts for themselves and a shared account for the whole village. Most of the money was split up between accounts, so they could each withdraw however much they needed during their visits to town.

The money they had deposited into the shared account was the portion of their earnings collected to cover the village’s operating expenses, similar to a residence tax. That’s where the village budget and the taxes paid to the local lord came from. Farming villages could make those payments in the form of wheat, thanks to its long shelf life, but fishing villages dealt in fresh catches, so there were a few extra steps to consider.

“Phew, I guess that settles things,” said Mile on the way back to the inn. “Now all that’s left is to join them maybe once every few months on an open-sea hunt. In the future, we can limit ourselves to a slightly more modest haul. And I’m sure the old folks’ interest will wear off once they’ve gone another round.”

“I sure hope so,” Mavis muttered, meeting Mile’s optimism with skepticism.

“I have my doubts,” Pauline agreed.

“You clearly don’t understand human nature, Mile,” Reina chimed in. “Though I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise…” 

She had a point. Whether in her past life or her current one, Mile was terrible at putting herself in other people’s shoes.

Upon arriving at the inn…

“Oh, welcome back! What was today’s big catch?!”

“Oh, great…”

“She’s still here…”

“I forgot all about her…”

“Right, there was a reason we went on that whole trip…”

“Arli,” all four girls groaned in unison.

“We didn’t accept a request from the guild this time around. We just went on a private hunting trip,” Reina explained. “We didn’t have the equipment we needed, so we requested a vehicle and as many support personnel as we have party members. That meant we had to pay those people a commission and the charter fee, not to mention that we only got to keep half the spoils, so we ended up barely turning a profit.”

For once, the Crimson Vow had been the ones making a request rather than the ones fulfilling it. However, they hadn’t gone through the guild to make their request, and they had been dealing with ordinary fishermen, not fellow hunters. Thus, the commission had come out of their own pockets. To make matters worse, they had yet to sell off their own share of the haul, so they had lost their deposit with no new earnings to show for it. They were effectively in the red.

Still, it would be a poor move to try and sell off their stock in town so soon after the old fishermen had unloaded their own portion of the catch. Therefore, their potential earnings were currently a pile of fish sitting in Mile’s inventory. It was already clear that as soon as the market returned to normal the old men would be sure to come back around begging for their next sortie, so the Crimson Vow had resigned themselves to selling their share only after they moved on to another town.

Needless to say, the girls had no obligation to offer so much detail about their completed jobs. Most hunters would never share this sort of information with an outsider—not even in the case of a clientless job they had tackled of their own accord. There was a good reason why Reina, who tended to be the most particular about matters of confidentiality, had chosen to disclose all this. She wanted to impress upon Arli that half of the spoils were already on the market, meaning the prices had taken a nosedive and there were no more tantalizing business opportunities to be had. As an added touch, she had camouflaged the nature of the haul by saying “support personnel” instead of “fishermen” and “vehicle” instead of “boat.”

“Whaaaat?! But what about my profits?!”

“Not our problem! Why did you expect us to sell you valuable merchandise for cheap in the first place?! The Hunters’ Guild would give us a better price for the goods, and we’d get contribution points! The only conditions under which we’d sell to you instead of the guild would be if you offered us more money (with a premium to compensate for the contribution points we’d be missing out on), if it didn’t break any of the quotas the guild master imposed on us, and if you agreed to pay us up front. No way we’d agree to a deferred payment if we’re not going through the guild. There’s too much risk of you skipping out on the bill.”

“Mavis and Miley might be more easily fooled, but I come from a merchant family, and Reina is the daughter of a peddler,” Pauline added. “If another girl around our age is doing her best to strike out on her own, we’d like to help where we can, but that doesn’t mean we’re willing to break the rules or give you special treatment. That wouldn’t do you any good in the long run. Your operations really shouldn’t hinge on us. A one-time deal to get you start-up capital is one thing, but we don’t plan to stay in this town indefinitely, so making us an essential part of your business will spell disaster for its longevity. It’s never going to last.

“Plus, you won’t get anywhere by taking us for fools and angling to buy our products for cheap. We aren’t fools. We double-check the market prices in the area before we make any sales. None of that’s to say that we aren’t willing to sell to you, but those sales have to be at market price, with a markup for the contribution points we won’t be getting from the guild. In the end, it’ll cost you about the same as buying the goods straight from the guild. It might even run you a little extra.”

“Noooo! But that’s a terrible deal!”

“It’s normal, is what it is,” Reina shot back. “Did you think that if you hung around long enough, we’d give in and sell you our products at a loss?! If that strategy worked, we’d be stuck with you and a bunch of strangers trying to mooch off us forever!”

“Hmph…” Arli had no comeback for that one.

“Well, you’re not a stranger at this point, so if you can come up with a plan that makes us a modest profit, doesn’t involve hoodwinking us, and won’t end with more people hounding us, we’d be willing to bargain with you. If the most you can manage is mindlessly beating down prices to make a profit, you’re a failure as a merchant. All you’re actually doing is stealing your supplier’s earnings. As soon as that supplier finds a better buyer, any relationship you have will dissolve. The right way forward is to find a business model that makes both you and your supplier a profit—that’s the only way to build a partnership that lasts. Prove your worth as a merchant and use your head! Figure something out on your own! Otherwise, what’s the point of that thing sitting on your shoulders?! Is it just there for decoration?”

“………”

Dash!

Head hanging low, Arli bolted without another word.

“Oops, she ran off,” remarked Pauline.

“That was quite a speech for an aspiring merchant,” said Mavis.

Mile chose that moment for a Godzilla reference. “I can’t believe that Arli was the only surviving member of her species…”

“And I don’t want to believe there could be more of her!” yelled Reina, dutifully providing the punchline to her joke. Mile truly was lucky to have such good friends.

“I wonder if we’ll ever see her again.”

“If she comes back, we’ll ask her about her plan,” said Reina. “And if she doesn’t…well, I guess she wasn’t meant to be much of a merchant after all.”

“………”

The rest of the party appeared to be in agreement. 

For all Arli’s shamelessness, none of them wanted to pick on a girl doing her best to strike out on her own. They knew full well how difficult it could be for a young woman to rise up in the world. Prior to enrolling at the Hunters’ Prep School, the girls had been forced to adopt all sorts of strategies to keep creeps at bay. Mavis had taken on masculine mannerisms, Pauline had learned how to scheme beneath her harmless facade, and Reina had become all bluster and pride.

Of course, even now, they hadn’t really shed those traits.

The point is, the Crimson Vow realized that their standards were perhaps just the teensiest, tiniest bit higher than the norm. So as long as they weren’t dealing with a bona fide scumbag, they were inclined to go easy on eccentric young girls.

Besides, Mile had convinced them to give her a freebie once already. Since their own blunder had messed up that plan, they were willing to make it up to her somehow—even though they obviously had zero obligation to do so.

Still, she needed to prove that she had the integrity and brains to deserve to be treated as a merchant. 

We’ll be waiting, Arli! Mile called out to her in silent encouragement. 

***

Two weeks passed. There was no knowing what exactly had become of the catch sold to the Merchants’ Guild, but by now, all the fish left for the village’s personal consumption had either been eaten, dried for preservation purposes, or simply wasted. Therefore, Mile and friends decide to head back to the fishing village once more. It was time to show off their skills.

The villagers had probably spent the first week grilling, boiling, and eating their way through their massive haul, all the while salting or fully preserving as much additional fish as possible. After the grilled and boiled fish reached the limits of its shelf life, they would no doubt have turned to the fish they salted to extend its expiration date as long as possible. Even that fish wouldn’t keep all that long, but it was certainly less likely to spoil than if it had been cooked or left raw for a week or two. Only the fully dehydrated fish that had been sapped of all moisture would go uneaten and be kept as preserved food. 

In summary, the villagers had likely only feasted on fish for the first handful of days before turning to their salted stock, and then after another week, returning to their usual eating habits.

Actually, there was no “likely” about it. Mile had snuck back to the village and confirmed the facts for herself.

In light of all this, Mile had come up with a plan. She had figured that, between the craze of the big catch frenzy and all the work of cooking and preserving, the villagers would prefer to be left to their own devices. Out of consideration for this fact, Mile had stayed out of their business, but now that a week had passed since the end of the fish bonanza, she suspected the villagers would be feeling seafood withdrawal—a longing for the days when they could eat all the premium catch their hearts desired. It might sound odd for a fishing village to hunger for fish, but they had been feasting for the past week on silver salmon, marlin, and rainbow tuna—not the small fry they could catch near the coast. Occasionally, one of those gigantic, top-grade fish might wander far enough inland for them to catch, but that only happened about once every few years, and when it did happen, the villagers never got to partake. It was common practice among fishing villages to sell anything valuable in town and eat only the less marketable fish.

These less marketable fish didn’t necessarily taste bad; in fact, a few of these lower-priced fish were even more delicious than the bestsellers. There were a variety of potential reasons why they might be less valuable: Some looked unappetizing, others had a distinctive taste that wasn’t for everyone, and some had to be handled with care due to poison glands or spines that called for careful removal. 

Still, there was no denying that those silver salmon, marlin, and rainbow tuna were something special.

The size of the haul had far exceeded the Merchants’ Guild’s processing capacities. It had been too much for even the neighboring towns and villages to consume in its entirety. Thus, the villagers had been left with a huge mountain of unsold premium catches. Many of the children—and even a good handful of the adults—had never had a chance to eat these particular fish before, and those who had had only tried a few bites at most. Now they were looking at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Whatever they couldn’t eat was bound to go bad. Knowing this, the villagers had stuffed themselves full, then run over to the pier, stuck a finger down their throats, and hurled into the sea. No self-respecting resident of a fishing village would ever let perfectly good fish go to waste. Even the fish they regurgitated had their use: The small fry would eat the vomit, and the big fish would feast on the smaller ones. This was the only way for the village to be spared the wrath of the god of the sea.

Some might be appalled to imagine anyone going to such lengths just to keep eating, but even back on Earth, there were plenty of examples of people in power repeatedly throwing up in order to dine on gourmet cuisine for days on end. It just went to show how much people valued a fancy meal.

By this point, you might have guessed the reason the Crimson Vow were heading back to the fishing village. Now that a week had passed since the villagers had depleted their stock of super deluxe fish, the girls were going to slam them with an all-out assault of Mile’s diverse array of seafood dishes.

Fishing villages didn’t tend to put that much effort into preparing their food. Fish was a free resource, and small fry weren’t worth sprucing up. Painstakingly boiling or grilling their catches would be a waste of both firewood and their precious time, and they didn’t have any expensive spices at their disposal. As a result, they used salt for seasoning and made the cooking process as short as possible. They had no concept of the benefits of a thorough roasting or leaving a dish to simmer for more than a few minutes.

Mile was about to show them how it was done.

***

The village chief met the Crimson Vow’s proposal with more surprise than anticipated. “What’s this? You little ladies want to whip up some fish for us?”

Technically, not all the “little ladies” would be the ones doing the cooking. Mile was going to be the head chef and Pauline the sous chef. Mavis would be in charge of gutting, scaling, deboning, and filleting, and as for Reina… Well, someone had to be the server.

“Er, are you sure it’s a good idea for a group of amateurs to prepare seafood for a village of fishermen? We eat fish every day of our lives. We know everything there is to know about ’em: which types are hardest to catch, which types are underrated, which fish look too gross to sell well but taste great, and which of the entrails folks tend to throw out but are actually delicious. We could best a professional cook when it comes to filleting. Even for a talented bunch of ladies like yourselves, it’s pure hubris to try and serve us fishermen a tasty seafood meal!”

Despite the great debt he owed Mile and her friends, his pride wouldn’t let their offer go unchallenged.

“Hee hee, I guess we’ll see about that! Do me a favor, will you? An hour from now, I want you to assemble all the villagers on the beach!”

“Yeesh! Well, if you insist…”

Mile’s eyes were ablaze with enthusiasm. For his part, the village chief must have figured that his people wouldn’t object to indulging the Crimson Vow after all the girls had done for them. Besides, now that the village had run out of its stock of deluxe fish, no one could turn up their nose at a sample from the Crimson Vow’s share. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if the cooking wasn’t the greatest. 

As soon as the girls weren’t looking, he would have to warn the villagers to compliment the cuisine regardless of its actual quality.

***

“It’s been, what, two whole weeks? It’s good to see you all again! I hope you enjoy the smorgasbord of seafood dishes I’ll be preparing for you today!”

An hour later, the Crimson Vow and nearly the entire population of the village stood on the beach. The village didn’t often have fun surprises to look forward to, and any chance to eat for free was more than welcome. Even better when it was a break from their usual cuisine—and when the cook was such a cute young lady.

All of the men older than infants were in attendance. All of the women except the ones taking care of said infants were there, too.

“All right! Allez cuisine!”

Silver salmon, marlin, and rainbow tuna came raining out of Mile’s inventory. She could have taken them out in advance, but as usual, she had to maximize the drama. Taste, aroma, texture, and presentation were all vital aspects of cooking, but anticipation was the most important ingredient of all. Ambiance, suspense, and excitement could single-handedly make a meal several times more enjoyable.

Mavis did a magnificent job of cutting up the fish with her trusty sword. Naturally, the nanomachines had switched it into Fourth or Fifth Sharpest Blade in the World Mode for the occasion. Mile had assumed that the nanomachines would be reluctant to activate the sword’s Serious Mode over something so frivolous, but they were actually quite gung-ho about it, maybe because they hadn’t been getting much to do as of late.

Mile could have done the cutting herself, but it was always nice to give one of her friends her own time to shine, and Mavis filleted with flair. 

Once the fish had been cut into small enough slices to work with, Mile took over. For the sake of the performance, she had left all the actual cooking until now, but she had spent the last hour filling pots with boiling oil and making various other preparations. Even Mile wasn’t quite up to the challenge of cooking for an entire village on the fly.

“Okay! The karaage’s done!”

“Tempura, coming right up!”

“I’ve got steaks ready to go!”

The fish were sautéed with leek and miso sauce, turned into crispy fritters, crusted with bread crumbs and herbs, baked in foil, cooked meunière, teriyaki, chanchan-yaki, and shogayaki style, creamed, stir-fried with garlic, made into cheese cutlets, marinated and deep-fried, simmered in soy sauce, fried with seaweed batter, tomato-braised, and more. A wide assortment of seafood dishes came streaming out of the pots, frying pans, grill, and Mile’s inventory. The food just kept on coming, and the villagers shoveled it all down nonstop.

Cries of “Yum!” and approving moans came from every direction. 

“Why, I’ve never had anything like this!”

“Hey, Ma! Remember this recipe for us, will you?”

“Of course, dear!”

It would be difficult for the villagers to perfectly replicate the taste of Mile’s dishes, since some of the spices were too expensive for them to use on a regular basis, and only she knew how to make the miso and soy sauce. However, not all of her cooking methods called for special seasonings. Even the techniques that used inaccessible seasonings weren’t entirely off the table—as long as they knew how it was prepared, they might still be able to approximate the taste with substitute ingredients. Just as one could make coffee with dandelion root and tea with corn silk, fish sauce would do in place of soy sauce. 

Cooking was all about thinking outside the box. A hundred cooks could come up with a hundred different recipes for the same dish. Even the small fish that populated the coastal waters could be prepared in a variety of different ways. 

And surely someday they would have another chance to bring back a big haul from the open sea… 

Parents and children alike ate with relish. The act of eating was clearly becoming more to them than just a way to get nutrients, a necessary measure to avoid starvation. The idea of food as something delicious and meals as something to be enjoyed was taking root in their community, even if it meant spending a little extra time, fuel, and seasonings.

The members of the Crimson Vow looked on with smiles in their eyes.

“Hm?”

That was when the girls spotted a familiar face in the crowd. An outsider was seated among the adults and children chowing down on seafood. Up to this moment, she had blended in among the villagers gobbling down their fish. And the identity of this stranger was…

“Arli!” they all cried out in unison.

It was that fledgling merchant who had plotted to make a profit off the Crimson Vow, only to turn tail and run when faced with criticism.

“Did she seriously infiltrate the village just so she could get a free meal?!” Reina fumed.

“She must be up to no good!” Pauline agr“So… Any chance you’d be willing to take all this off our hands?” an old fisherman ventured.

“It would be our pleasure!” the entire guild staff chorused.

“There’s just one problem,” the guild master interjected, a troubled frown overtaking his face. “It might be difficult to sell everything here before it goes bad. We could deliver some of it to the neighboring towns and villages, but there are still limits to how much can be transported and consumed. We do have the option of shipping it to the bigger towns farther away, but it’ll go bad if we leave it raw, and we definitely don’t have enough salt to preserve such a huge haul. We can’t dry this amount of fish, either—the size of the haul and the fish themselves are too big for that. That leaves cutting the fish into smaller slices to dry, but that’d be too much work, and we don’t have the space to do it anyway.

“I’d estimate we could sell maybe a third of what’s here before it rots. Mm, but I’d really like to find a way to get rid of at least half of it… Normally, I would simply suggest lowering the price, but that can’t solve the problem of time and transportation. Hmm…”

It was ironic: The guild had been lucky enough to get its hands on a haul of extremely valuable merchandise, but their own limitations were going to cause half of it to go to waste. The guild master clutched his head and groaned. His pride as a merchant made this a bitter pill to swallow. The rest of the staff likewise grimaced in frustration.

The guild had the option of purchasing only half the haul, of course. But that would mean taking only the items that would fetch a good price and foisting the half doomed to rot back onto the fishermen. From a business perspective, it made sense, but it was a terrible waste, and the staff of the Merchants’ Guild was intent on finding another solution. 

Might it be possible to buy the whole haul at a lower price, which would make up for the losses incurred by the inevitable spoilage? It wasn’t ideal, but it was a preferable alternative to sending back half of the old fishermen’s catch.

Then Mile threw them a lifeline. “We wouldn’t mind delivering the goods in smaller batches,” she offered, as if this were no big deal. “Items kept inside my storage space don’t go bad.” 

A violent tremor rocked the entire warehouse. “THEY WHAAAAT?!”

“Ack.”

“You idiot!” Reina screamed, furious that Mile had slipped up and blabbed about the special features of her so-called “storage.”

“Uhh, I mean, because I pack everything in there with magical ice!”

“Oh, that’s all you meant? A section of this warehouse is devoted to cold storage, so we’re already capable of making ice with magic, keeping the building cool, and preserving the fish a little longer. I can’t imagine you have room to store a haul this big and enough ice to keep it all chilled. We do appreciate the sentiment, though.”

“Er, right…”

Mile smiled, satisfied that she had managed to pull the wool over their eyes. To be fair, it was rather unbelievable that her storage would have both the ability to halt the passage of time and a seemingly unlimited capacity. It was far easier to accept that she used her enormous storage space to transport tons of magical ice or that she could cast a freezing spell over its contents. 

After all, people are wired to believe what they want to believe.

In the end, the bargaining process was a success. Since it was the first time either party had made such a large transaction, neither was sure what counted as a fair price. By the same token, they couldn’t accurately predict how much of the stock could be sold and how much would go bad and need to be thrown out. As neither party was in a position to overcharge or haggle the price down, the negotiations were conducted in good faith.

It helped that one side was the Merchants’ Guild and the other was a group of old men from a fishing village near the port city. If it came to light after the fact that the guild had been dishonest in their dealings, it would look very bad for them. In this world—actually, in just about any world, Earth included—swindling elderly folks who had poured many years into honest work was considered a despicable act. The Merchants’ Guild could lose all credibility in the blink of an eye.

And of course, this case involved the fabled Supersized Storage Space Squad. There was no need to worry about the men getting cheated out of their money.

Still, no matter how rare the fish were—or how rare they had been, until moments ago—the prices would plummet if so many showed up on the market at once. And as the guild master had already acknowledged, the stock didn’t have a particularly long shelf life, so even if the guild seized a carriage house’s entire fleet of wagons and devoted the whole town’s resources to transporting the haul to the neighboring towns and villages, it was difficult to say how much of it they could sell before it went bad. After working in the fishing business for decades, even an idiot would realize that much. Therefore, the old men had accounted for this and had already taken the inevitable loss of any unsold stock under consideration in estimating their earnings. 

Besides, the men didn’t have their hearts set on striking it rich. All they wanted was to tell the town the tale of how they had sailed gallantly out into the open sea. They wanted to share the joy of vanquishing their sworn enemy. They wanted others to join them in chowing down and filling their bellies with that same foe.

Of course, that didn’t mean they didn’t want the money. Just that they were keeping their expectations in check.

The Crimson Vow’s share of the catches was still sitting inside Mile’s inventory, unsold. There was no danger of any of it going bad, and adding it to the pile would only make more trouble for the Merchants’ Guild. After witnessing the guild’s distress, not a single one of the girls had the guts to diabolically double the haul before them.

Transaction complete, the Crimson Vow and the old fishermen left the Merchants’ Guild together. All that was left was to say their goodbyes, after which the Crimson Vow would head back to their room at the inn and the old men to their fishing village—or so the girls thought.

At first, the men were all smiles. But then… 

“We’ve got a favor to ask of you ladies,” they began, trading out their grins for looks that meant business. Apparently, they had some sort of request to make. “Y’see, we’re hoping to build an open-sea raiding vessel. No… An open-sea raiding fleet!”

Reina’s response was cold. “Do you honestly think you would have made it home safe from our last venture if we hadn’t gone with you? Without us around—or without Mile around, I should say—you’re going to end up with a hole in the bottom of your ship. And you’d be looking at a full party wipe before you manage to take down those sea serpents.”

Thus far, she had been taking care to treat her elders with a decent amount of respect, but clearly she had decided it was time to dispense with the courtesies. Most likely, she was playing up her bad attitude to discourage the old men from getting carried away and doing something stupid.

Mile piped in, too. “For a start, every single fishing boat would need around three or four mages capable of sending search magic underwater, erecting a barrier, and slaying the sea serpents that slither aboard with a single blow,” she explained. “Another way to protect the ship’s bottom would be to get yourselves some armored ships. But I don’t just mean attaching a thin iron plate to your wooden boats. The hull would have to be made completely out of iron.”

“A boat made of iron would never float!” Reina protested.

“Not true. We know that covering a cargo ship’s bottom with iron of an equal weight to its freight capacity won’t make it sink. So why wouldn’t it float if you make an iron hull of the same weight as its wooden hull and cargo combined? Besides, metal basins bob on the surface of the water just fine, don’t they?”

This was an eye-opening explanation for the rest of the party.

“Oh…”

“Good point.”

Mile carried on with her lecture. “Next up would be making the sides of the ships taller…”

“Would you quit indulging their fantasy?!” Reina snapped.

“Do you really think they can manage without your barrier or search magic, Mile?” Mavis asked, ignoring Reina’s interruption.

“I don’t see why not, if they have a thick enough iron hull. Upper C-rank frontline fighters or combat mages should be enough to fend off the encroaching sea serpents. And there’s no need to venture too far out into the open sea. They can go a little further out than usual, do some longline fishing, have a quick bout with the sea serpents, and return home without taking too many risks. They might sustain a few injuries in the process, but they can keep a healing mage on standby in the village. Not to say that completely eliminates the possibility of casualties or shipwrecks, of course.”

“A fisherman is always prepared for those dangers! And the only ones allowed to join the raiding fleet will be us geezers with nothing to lose! If word of our exploits gets around, I betcha decrepit ol’ fishermen from all over the continent will flock to our village!”

The fishermen erupted into hearty laughter, only for Reina to dash their hopes yet again.

“Great. So who’s going to supply these iron ships?”

The old men groaned and fell silent.

“That’s where the idea falls apart, unfortunately. It’s a real shame, since I think an iron-hulled ship with decently thick armor could manage without my search magic or barrier. As long as they have a wide and stable deck to fight on, a fair number of hunters could take down sea serpents of that size without issue. But I’ve never seen the kind of metal ship I’m envisioning in a town pier…”

“I’ve never heard of a ship made of iron, period!” said Mavis. Reina and the old men bobbed their heads in agreement.

“Even I couldn’t construct an iron ship… I don’t think?” 

No sooner did the words leave Mile’s mouth than it occurred to her that she could perhaps just order the nanomachines to make one. It wasn’t like she’d be asking for a powerboat. A simple iron hull shouldn’t count as a prohibited request. 

If that failed, she could always go through the Slow Walker and ask the Scavengers to build it. All she’d need to do was provide them a sufficient amount of scrap iron or iron ore. With her bottomless inventory, it would be a simple task for her to transport large quantities of iron ore from a deposit. Actually, given her authorization level of 7, she might be able to use her magic to smelt the ore herself. 

And if she could track down the Scavengers on the new continent, she wouldn’t even need to return home. By this point, the Slow Walker had probably gotten its communication system back in working order, established contact with the living ruins around the world, and dispatched Scavengers to do the needed repair work. As Mile was their custodian, the Scavengers of this continent were naturally under her control as well. If she could just get in touch with them, they would be sure to entertain any request of hers.

“I know that look, little lady! You do know a way to get us one!”

“Just name your price! We old-timers have saved up quite a bit of money to help get our grandchildren boats of their own. Haven’t got much else to spend it on, at our age. We can pool all those funds together! If that still won’t cut it, we’ll rope in the neighboring fishing villages until we’ve got enough coin! So, please, give us those iron ships!”

The old men’s eyes were sparkling with a reckless hope more often seen on the faces of adolescent boys.

Hold on! No! Nope, nada, not happening! Let’s say I do make them an iron ship. How will they perform maintenance after we’re gone?! How will they replace one if it sinks? Busybodies will flock from every kingdom on the continent to find out where the ships came from! What answers are they supposed to give?! I can’t just pop out some out-of-place construction these people can’t manufacture or maintain and wander off! Besides, every sunk ship will come with a death toll! People who could have spent the last years of their life surrounded by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren might die because of those stupid iron ships!

“Denied!”

“Nooooo!” the men whined in unison.

“Please reconsider!”

“C’mon, little lady! We’re begging you here!”

Mile refused to bend to their pleas. “Your only choices are to have us go with you or to figure out how to build iron ships of sufficient strength. We’re hunters, so we can’t hang around in this area forever. And where do you plan to acquire the technology, shipyards, engineers, budget, iron, and everything else you’d need for the second option?”

The old men said nothing. They seemed to realize how unreasonable their own demands were. After all, these were seasoned fishermen who had been in the business for decades.

Still, accepting something on an intellectual level wasn’t the same as coming to terms with it. The members of the Crimson Vow couldn’t bear to see the dejected looks on the fishermen’s faces. No matter how hard they tried to put their foot down, the party had a soft spot for little girls and boys and cats and old-timers.

“Oh, fine! All right already!” Reina relented. “We’ll accompany you however many times you want until we pack up and leave town! You good with that, girls?”

“You bet!” the Crimson Vow chorused.

“Yahooooo!” the old men whooped for joy.

Mile agreed alongside the rest of her party, but her mind was still whirring. She was pretty sure she could make things work even if the Crimson Vow moved their base somewhere far away. All she had to do was bust out her brute-force move of “falling horizontally” via gravity control. Of course, she had enough self-restraint not to consider transporting the rest of the party with the same method. Still, whenever she had a free week, she could show up alone, hire a party of four to five upper C-ranks or B-ranks, and escort at least one boat out to sea.

Plus, Mile’s healing magic was probably some of the most advanced in the world. Even if one of the hunters lost an arm in the jaws of a sea serpent, it would be nothing she couldn’t fix. It would take her about a month to fully heal anything as dramatic as limb loss, but second-rate healers often took the same amount of time to heal simple fractures, torn ligaments, and internal injury, so no one would dare complain. In fact, they would be more likely to thank her profusely.

The only problem would be if word got around that she was repairing lost limbs. 

If that happened, I’d have to make everyone who witnessed the limb loss promise not to talk, then send the rest of the victim’s party on a one-month trip so no one sees them in recovery… And while the rest of the party was off earning money, I’d have to keep the injured person holed up in an inn… Oh, I guess I could have them wear a disguise during the rehabilitation period! And once they were healed, they could waltz back in like nothing happened. 

The Crimson Vow would be somewhere far away, and I could disguise myself with an optical illusion to remain anonymous. I’d have to bypass the guild and treat it as an independent request—meaning I form a direct contract with the client. I highly doubt anyone from the fishing village would try to sell my personal information. And if anything did get out, that would just be the last time I ever came back here.

Hmm. It does sound like it’d be an extra headache if someone loses a limb… I’d better do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Preoccupied with every possible eventuality, Mile mumbled, “Well, I can cross the bridge when I come to it. Things might change between now and then, anyway. It won’t help me to spend that whole time worrying! Best to limit the angst to the few days beforehand and focus on fun things until then!”

“What nonsense are you planning this time?”

“I have no idea what you’re thinking, Mile, but you shouldn’t make promises before you have a plan for how to accomplish them!”

“Mile, please…”

Mile wilted under the suspicious looks of her three companions.

“Okay okay, I get the message! ‘Consider it advisable to launch attack force immediately.’ We’ll help when the time comes… Oh, and for the record, you’d better wait more than a handful of days!”

“………”

Mile’s addendum made the fishermen’s eyes dart to and fro.

“Hey! Why are you all looking like that?! I can tell what you’re thinking!” Reina called them out. “But think of all the trouble it’ll make for the Merchants’ Guild if you show up with another mass delivery so soon after the first one! They’ll have no choice but to buy it off you! At least wait until they’ve processed the first delivery, gotten everything to the retail stage, and the market is ready for the next shipment! Wouldn’t it be a blow to your pride as fishermen to let all the sea serpents and fish you caught go to waste?!”

“Hmph… Good point…”

The old men were forced to concede. Apparently, Reina was right about a wasted catch being too bitter a pill for them to swallow. Sea serpents were one thing, but regular fish were a gift they gratefully accepted to sustain their livelihood. Letting them rot would be unacceptable.

It was interesting to note how much consideration Reina showed the Merchants’ Guild, considering she had next to none for the Hunters’ Guild. After the Crimson Lightning were wiped out, she had put on a tough act and turned aggressive so she could make it alone as a young, female hunter, but deep down, she was a caring girl.

Well, unless someone made fun of her or got on her bad side, at least.

Offering their profuse thanks to the Crimson Vow, the old men went home to their village. Considering how much money they were carrying, Mile had planned on escorting them back in case something went wrong, but that turned out to be unnecessary. The fishermen had explained that they would never be stupid enough to take their profits back to the village. Very few transactions in the village were conducted with currency, so the only times most villagers paid with coins was during their visits to the port city. In which case, there was one very easy way to avoid tangling with petty thugs looking for a bit of pocket change.

You guessed it—they opened a bank account with the Merchants’ Guild and deposited their earnings there. They made personal accounts for themselves and a shared account for the whole village. Most of the money was split up between accounts, so they could each withdraw however much they needed during their visits to town.

The money they had deposited into the shared account was the portion of their earnings collected to cover the village’s operating expenses, similar to a residence tax. That’s where the village budget and the taxes paid to the local lord came from. Farming villages could make those payments in the form of wheat, thanks to its long shelf life, but fishing villages dealt in fresh catches, so there were a few extra steps to consider.

“Phew, I guess that settles things,” said Mile on the way back to the inn. “Now all that’s left is to join them maybe once every few months on an open-sea hunt. In the future, we can limit ourselves to a slightly more modest haul. And I’m sure the old folks’ interest will wear off once they’ve gone another round.”

“I sure hope so,” Mavis muttered, meeting Mile’s optimism with skepticism.

“I have my doubts,” Pauline agreed.

“You clearly don’t understand human nature, Mile,” Reina chimed in. “Though I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise…” 

She had a point. Whether in her past life or her current one, Mile was terrible at putting herself in other people’s shoes.

Upon arriving at the inn…

“Oh, welcome back! What was today’s big catch?!”

“Oh, great…”

“She’s still here…”

“I forgot all about her…”

“Right, there was a reason we went on that whole trip…”

“Arli,” all four girls groaned in unison.

“We didn’t accept a request from the guild this time around. We just went on a private hunting trip,” Reina explained. “We didn’t have the equipment we needed, so we requested a vehicle and as many support personnel as we have party members. That meant we had to pay those people a commission and the charter fee, not to mention that we only got to keep half the spoils, so we ended up barely turning a profit.”

For once, the Crimson Vow had been the ones making a request rather than the ones fulfilling it. However, they hadn’t gone through the guild to make their request, and they had been dealing with ordinary fishermen, not fellow hunters. Thus, the commission had come out of their own pockets. To make matters worse, they had yet to sell off their own share of the haul, so they had lost their deposit with no new earnings to show for it. They were effectively in the red.

Still, it would be a poor move to try and sell off their stock in town so soon after the old fishermen had unloaded their own portion of the catch. Therefore, their potential earnings were currently a pile of fish sitting in Mile’s inventory. It was already clear that as soon as the market returned to normal the old men would be sure to come back around begging for their next sortie, so the Crimson Vow had resigned themselves to selling their share only after they moved on to another town.

Needless to say, the girls had no obligation to offer so much detail about their completed jobs. Most hunters would never share this sort of information with an outsider—not even in the case of a clientless job they had tackled of their own accord. There was a good reason why Reina, who tended to be the most particular about matters of confidentiality, had chosen to disclose all this. She wanted to impress upon Arli that half of the spoils were already on the market, meaning the prices had taken a nosedive and there were no more tantalizing business opportunities to be had. As an added touch, she had camouflaged the nature of the haul by saying “support personnel” instead of “fishermen” and “vehicle” instead of “boat.”

“Whaaaat?! But what about my profits?!”

“Not our problem! Why did you expect us to sell you valuable merchandise for cheap in the first place?! The Hunters’ Guild would give us a better price for the goods, and we’d get contribution points! The only conditions under which we’d sell to you instead of the guild would be if you offered us more money (with a premium to compensate for the contribution points we’d be missing out on), if it didn’t break any of the quotas the guild master imposed on us, and if you agreed to pay us up front. No way we’d agree to a deferred payment if we’re not going through the guild. There’s too much risk of you skipping out on the bill.”

“Mavis and Miley might be more easily fooled, but I come from a merchant family, and Reina is the daughter of a peddler,” Pauline added. “If another girl around our age is doing her best to strike out on her own, we’d like to help where we can, but that doesn’t mean we’re willing to break the rules or give you special treatment. That wouldn’t do you any good in the long run. Your operations really shouldn’t hinge on us. A one-time deal to get you start-up capital is one thing, but we don’t plan to stay in this town indefinitely, so making us an essential part of your business will spell disaster for its longevity. It’s never going to last.

“Plus, you won’t get anywhere by taking us for fools and angling to buy our products for cheap. We aren’t fools. We double-check the market prices in the area before we make any sales. None of that’s to say that we aren’t willing to sell to you, but those sales have to be at market price, with a markup for the contribution points we won’t be getting from the guild. In the end, it’ll cost you about the same as buying the goods straight from the guild. It might even run you a little extra.”

“Noooo! But that’s a terrible deal!”

“It’s normal, is what it is,” Reina shot back. “Did you think that if you hung around long enough, we’d give in and sell you our products at a loss?! If that strategy worked, we’d be stuck with you and a bunch of strangers trying to mooch off us forever!”

“Hmph…” Arli had no comeback for that one.

“Well, you’re not a stranger at this point, so if you can come up with a plan that makes us a modest profit, doesn’t involve hoodwinking us, and won’t end with more people hounding us, we’d be willing to bargain with you. If the most you can manage is mindlessly beating down prices to make a profit, you’re a failure as a merchant. All you’re actually doing is stealing your supplier’s earnings. As soon as that supplier finds a better buyer, any relationship you have will dissolve. The right way forward is to find a business model that makes both you and your supplier a profit—that’s the only way to build a partnership that lasts. Prove your worth as a merchant and use your head! Figure something out on your own! Otherwise, what’s the point of that thing sitting on your shoulders?! Is it just there for decoration?”

“………”

Dash!

Head hanging low, Arli bolted without another word.

“Oops, she ran off,” remarked Pauline.

“That was quite a speech for an aspiring merchant,” said Mavis.

Mile chose that moment for a Godzilla reference. “I can’t believe that Arli was the only surviving member of her species…”

“And I don’t want to believe there could be more of her!” yelled Reina, dutifully providing the punchline to her joke. Mile truly was lucky to have such good friends.

“I wonder if we’ll ever see her again.”

“If she comes back, we’ll ask her about her plan,” said Reina. “And if she doesn’t…well, I guess she wasn’t meant to be much of a merchant after all.”

“………”

The rest of the party appeared to be in agreement. 

For all Arli’s shamelessness, none of them wanted to pick on a girl doing her best to strike out on her own. They knew full well how difficult it could be for a young woman to rise up in the world. Prior to enrolling at the Hunters’ Prep School, the girls had been forced to adopt all sorts of strategies to keep creeps at bay. Mavis had taken on masculine mannerisms, Pauline had learned how to scheme beneath her harmless facade, and Reina had become all bluster and pride.

Of course, even now, they hadn’t really shed those traits.

The point is, the Crimson Vow realized that their standards were perhaps just the teensiest, tiniest bit higher than the norm. So as long as they weren’t dealing with a bona fide scumbag, they were inclined to go easy on eccentric young girls.

Besides, Mile had convinced them to give her a freebie once already. Since their own blunder had messed up that plan, they were willing to make it up to her somehow—even though they obviously had zero obligation to do so.

Still, she needed to prove that she had the integrity and brains to deserve to be treated as a merchant. 

We’ll be waiting, Arli! Mile called out to her in silent encouragement. 

***

Two weeks passed. There was no knowing what exactly had become of the catch sold to the Merchants’ Guild, but by now, all the fish left for the village’s personal consumption had either been eaten, dried for preservation purposes, or simply wasted. Therefore, Mile and friends decide to head back to the fishing village once more. It was time to show off their skills.

The villagers had probably spent the first week grilling, boiling, and eating their way through their massive haul, all the while salting or fully preserving as much additional fish as possible. After the grilled and boiled fish reached the limits of its shelf life, they would no doubt have turned to the fish they salted to extend its expiration date as long as possible. Even that fish wouldn’t keep all that long, but it was certainly less likely to spoil than if it had been cooked or left raw for a week or two. Only the fully dehydrated fish that had been sapped of all moisture would go uneaten and be kept as preserved food. 

In summary, the villagers had likely only feasted on fish for the first handful of days before turning to their salted stock, and then after another week, returning to their usual eating habits.

Actually, there was no “likely” about it. Mile had snuck back to the village and confirmed the facts for herself.

In light of all this, Mile had come up with a plan. She had figured that, between the craze of the big catch frenzy and all the work of cooking and preserving, the villagers would prefer to be left to their own devices. Out of consideration for this fact, Mile had stayed out of their business, but now that a week had passed since the end of the fish bonanza, she suspected the villagers would be feeling seafood withdrawal—a longing for the days when they could eat all the premium catch their hearts desired. It might sound odd for a fishing village to hunger for fish, but they had been feasting for the past week on silver salmon, marlin, and rainbow tuna—not the small fry they could catch near the coast. Occasionally, one of those gigantic, top-grade fish might wander far enough inland for them to catch, but that only happened about once every few years, and when it did happen, the villagers never got to partake. It was common practice among fishing villages to sell anything valuable in town and eat only the less marketable fish.

These less marketable fish didn’t necessarily taste bad; in fact, a few of these lower-priced fish were even more delicious than the bestsellers. There were a variety of potential reasons why they might be less valuable: Some looked unappetizing, others had a distinctive taste that wasn’t for everyone, and some had to be handled with care due to poison glands or spines that called for careful removal. 

Still, there was no denying that those silver salmon, marlin, and rainbow tuna were something special.

The size of the haul had far exceeded the Merchants’ Guild’s processing capacities. It had been too much for even the neighboring towns and villages to consume in its entirety. Thus, the villagers had been left with a huge mountain of unsold premium catches. Many of the children—and even a good handful of the adults—had never had a chance to eat these particular fish before, and those who had had only tried a few bites at most. Now they were looking at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Whatever they couldn’t eat was bound to go bad. Knowing this, the villagers had stuffed themselves full, then run over to the pier, stuck a finger down their throats, and hurled into the sea. No self-respecting resident of a fishing village would ever let perfectly good fish go to waste. Even the fish they regurgitated had their use: The small fry would eat the vomit, and the big fish would feast on the smaller ones. This was the only way for the village to be spared the wrath of the god of the sea.

Some might be appalled to imagine anyone going to such lengths just to keep eating, but even back on Earth, there were plenty of examples of people in power repeatedly throwing up in order to dine on gourmet cuisine for days on end. It just went to show how much people valued a fancy meal.

By this point, you might have guessed the reason the Crimson Vow were heading back to the fishing village. Now that a week had passed since the villagers had depleted their stock of super deluxe fish, the girls were going to slam them with an all-out assault of Mile’s diverse array of seafood dishes.

Fishing villages didn’t tend to put that much effort into preparing their food. Fish was a free resource, and small fry weren’t worth sprucing up. Painstakingly boiling or grilling their catches would be a waste of both firewood and their precious time, and they didn’t have any expensive spices at their disposal. As a result, they used salt for seasoning and made the cooking process as short as possible. They had no concept of the benefits of a thorough roasting or leaving a dish to simmer for more than a few minutes.

Mile was about to show them how it was done.

***

The village chief met the Crimson Vow’s proposal with more surprise than anticipated. “What’s this? You little ladies want to whip up some fish for us?”

Technically, not all the “little ladies” would be the ones doing the cooking. Mile was going to be the head chef and Pauline the sous chef. Mavis would be in charge of gutting, scaling, deboning, and filleting, and as for Reina… Well, someone had to be the server.

“Er, are you sure it’s a good idea for a group of amateurs to prepare seafood for a village of fishermen? We eat fish every day of our lives. We know everything there is to know about ’em: which types are hardest to catch, which types are underrated, which fish look too gross to sell well but taste great, and which of the entrails folks tend to throw out but are actually delicious. We could best a professional cook when it comes to filleting. Even for a talented bunch of ladies like yourselves, it’s pure hubris to try and serve us fishermen a tasty seafood meal!”

Despite the great debt he owed Mile and her friends, his pride wouldn’t let their offer go unchallenged.

“Hee hee, I guess we’ll see about that! Do me a favor, will you? An hour from now, I want you to assemble all the villagers on the beach!”

“Yeesh! Well, if you insist…”

Mile’s eyes were ablaze with enthusiasm. For his part, the village chief must have figured that his people wouldn’t object to indulging the Crimson Vow after all the girls had done for them. Besides, now that the village had run out of its stock of deluxe fish, no one could turn up their nose at a sample from the Crimson Vow’s share. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if the cooking wasn’t the greatest. 

As soon as the girls weren’t looking, he would have to warn the villagers to compliment the cuisine regardless of its actual quality.

***

“It’s been, what, two whole weeks? It’s good to see you all again! I hope you enjoy the smorgasbord of seafood dishes I’ll be preparing for you today!”

An hour later, the Crimson Vow and nearly the entire population of the village stood on the beach. The village didn’t often have fun surprises to look forward to, and any chance to eat for free was more than welcome. Even better when it was a break from their usual cuisine—and when the cook was such a cute young lady.

All of the men older than infants were in attendance. All of the women except the ones taking care of said infants were there, too.

“All right! Allez cuisine!”

Silver salmon, marlin, and rainbow tuna came raining out of Mile’s inventory. She could have taken them out in advance, but as usual, she had to maximize the drama. Taste, aroma, texture, and presentation were all vital aspects of cooking, but anticipation was the most important ingredient of all. Ambiance, suspense, and excitement could single-handedly make a meal several times more enjoyable.

Mavis did a magnificent job of cutting up the fish with her trusty sword. Naturally, the nanomachines had switched it into Fourth or Fifth Sharpest Blade in the World Mode for the occasion. Mile had assumed that the nanomachines would be reluctant to activate the sword’s Serious Mode over something so frivolous, but they were actually quite gung-ho about it, maybe because they hadn’t been getting much to do as of late.

Mile could have done the cutting herself, but it was always nice to give one of her friends her own time to shine, and Mavis filleted with flair. 

Once the fish had been cut into small enough slices to work with, Mile took over. For the sake of the performance, she had left all the actual cooking until now, but she had spent the last hour filling pots with boiling oil and making various other preparations. Even Mile wasn’t quite up to the challenge of cooking for an entire village on the fly.

“Okay! The karaage’s done!”

“Tempura, coming right up!”

“I’ve got steaks ready to go!”

The fish were sautéed with leek and miso sauce, turned into crispy fritters, crusted with bread crumbs and herbs, baked in foil, cooked meunière, teriyaki, chanchan-yaki, and shogayaki style, creamed, stir-fried with garlic, made into cheese cutlets, marinated and deep-fried, simmered in soy sauce, fried with seaweed batter, tomato-braised, and more. A wide assortment of seafood dishes came streaming out of the pots, frying pans, grill, and Mile’s inventory. The food just kept on coming, and the villagers shoveled it all down nonstop.

Cries of “Yum!” and approving moans came from every direction. 

“Why, I’ve never had anything like this!”

“Hey, Ma! Remember this recipe for us, will you?”

“Of course, dear!”

It would be difficult for the villagers to perfectly replicate the taste of Mile’s dishes, since some of the spices were too expensive for them to use on a regular basis, and only she knew how to make the miso and soy sauce. However, not all of her cooking methods called for special seasonings. Even the techniques that used inaccessible seasonings weren’t entirely off the table—as long as they knew how it was prepared, they might still be able to approximate the taste with substitute ingredients. Just as one could make coffee with dandelion root and tea with corn silk, fish sauce would do in place of soy sauce. 

Cooking was all about thinking outside the box. A hundred cooks could come up with a hundred different recipes for the same dish. Even the small fish that populated the coastal waters could be prepared in a variety of different ways. 

And surely someday they would have another chance to bring back a big haul from the open sea… 

Parents and children alike ate with relish. The act of eating was clearly becoming more to them than just a way to get nutrients, a necessary measure to avoid starvation. The idea of food as something delicious and meals as something to be enjoyed was taking root in their community, even if it meant spending a little extra time, fuel, and seasonings.

The members of the Crimson Vow looked on with smiles in their eyes.

“Hm?”

That was when the girls spotted a familiar face in the crowd. An outsider was seated among the adults and children chowing down on seafood. Up to this moment, she had blended in among the villagers gobbling down their fish. And the identity of this stranger was…

“Arli!” they all cried out in unison.

It was that fledgling merchant who had plotted to make a profit off the Crimson Vow, only to turn tail and run when faced with criticism.

“Did she seriously infiltrate the village just so she could get a free meal?!” Reina fumed.

“She must be up to no good!” Pauline agreed. “We ought to kick her out!”

Just as the two girls stalked off in Arli’s direction, Mavis called them to a halt. “Oh, leave her be. All she’s doing is enjoying a meal.”

“I agree,” said Mile. “Besides, if she wandered all the way out to this fishing village, there’s a good chance she was searching for a business opportunity. She’s doing her best to make it as a merchant, so what’s the harm in letting her have a little treat? Let’s give her some space.”

That was enough to convince Reina and Pauline.

“I guess you have a point…”

“If you insist…”

At the end of the day, all four girls were a bunch of softies.

***

After delivering their latest spoils, the Wonder Trio grabbed a bite to eat in the dining hall of the Hunters’ Guild.

“The Crimson Vow sure is taking their sweet time…”

“Quite. Granted, I doubt they headed straight for the capital. If we assume that they’re stopping at various towns along the way, taking on jobs, and getting a sense for the area, it’s little wonder that they would be delayed,” Marcela pointed out. “But if we try to go to them, we risk a repeat of our eastward journey.”

Monika and Aureana each pulled a face and heaved a long sigh. 

The last time the Wonder Trio had set out on a journey to find Adele (a.k.a. Mile), they had traveled along the main road, while the Crimson Vow had taken back roads to get to the capital, fulfilling requests from countryside villages along the way. The two parties had completely missed each other, and the Trio had wasted several days as a result. To make matters worse, this was before they had been taught the conveniences of cleaning, wash-up, or inventory magic. 

That smelly, unhygienic, and arduous journey had violated the very dignity of these fair maidens. It wasn’t something they had to worry about happening ever again, but just reflecting back on the experience was enough to make them cringe.

“Well, no need to fret. This town is right next to the capital. Supposing they do end up taking an alternate route, we have other means to find out if they’ve arrived. The next time a hunter from the capital comes by for work, we can ask them if a party of four anomalous young girls showed up at their branch.”

“Right!” Monika and Aureana chorused.

Upon overhearing their conversation, the hunters sitting nearby thought, We’ve already got a party of three anomalous girls right here…eed. “We ought to kick her out!”

Just as the two girls stalked off in Arli’s direction, Mavis called them to a halt. “Oh, leave her be. All she’s doing is enjoying a meal.”

“I agree,” said Mile. “Besides, if she wandered all the way out to this fishing village, there’s a good chance she was searching for a business opportunity. She’s doing her best to make it as a merchant, so what’s the harm in letting her have a little treat? Let’s give her some space.”

That was enough to convince Reina and Pauline.

“I guess you have a point…”

“If you insist…”

At the end of the day, all four girls were a bunch of softies.

***

After delivering their latest spoils, the Wonder Trio grabbed a bite to eat in the dining hall of the Hunters’ Guild.

“The Crimson Vow sure is taking their sweet time…”

“Quite. Granted, I doubt they headed straight for the capital. If we assume that they’re stopping at various towns along the way, taking on jobs, and getting a sense for the area, it’s little wonder that they would be delayed,” Marcela pointed out. “But if we try to go to them, we risk a repeat of our eastward journey.”

Monika and Aureana each pulled a face and heaved a long sigh. 

The last time the Wonder Trio had set out on a journey to find Adele (a.k.a. Mile), they had traveled along the main road, while the Crimson Vow had taken back roads to get to the capital, fulfilling requests from countryside villages along the way. The two parties had completely missed each other, and the Trio had wasted several days as a result. To make matters worse, this was before they had been taught the conveniences of cleaning, wash-up, or inventory magic. 

That smelly, unhygienic, and arduous journey had violated the very dignity of these fair maidens. It wasn’t something they had to worry about happening ever again, but just reflecting back on the experience was enough to make them cringe.

“Well, no need to fret. This town is right next to the capital. Supposing they do end up taking an alternate route, we have other means to find out if they’ve arrived. The next time a hunter from the capital comes by for work, we can ask them if a party of four anomalous young girls showed up at their branch.”

“Right!” Monika and Aureana chorused.

Upon overhearing their conversation, the hunters sitting nearby thought, We’ve already got a party of three anomalous girls right here…