The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 8 - Chapter 379

Chapter 379:

Safety First

“I’M SORRY.”

“Please forgive me.”

Kohl and Lizzy bowed to me and my father. On the table were a bunch of plates, licked clean. They’d eaten and loved the grilled onigiri, too. Lizzy needed a courage boost to eat them when I told her they were made of rice, but Kohl just said, “Oh, that’s interesting,” and promptly ate it. I wished he’d be a little more cautious—just not as much as Lizzy. When I told my father that, he shook his head at me for some reason.

“Oh, it’s all right,” I assured them. “It was a pleasure watching you two eat my cooking so enthusiastically.”

They’d even polished off the second batch of baaba meat I cooked. Their faces showed pure ecstasy as they ate. The only mystery was Lizzy: How could she eat so much and still be thin as a rail?

“I have a confession…” Kohl said solemnly, standing up straight. I got the idea he was about to talk about something heavy… Was he okay? “We’ve been really stressed out recently because it looked like we were all going to have to become slaves.”

“What?!” my father gasped. I was just as shocked—so much that I couldn’t even gasp. They were going to become slaves?

“The ranch and the butcher shop are both covered by a loan.”

Ah, now that makes sense. But wait a minute, didn’t the village chief make them raise baaba in the first place? He wasn’t helping them?

“But the village chief ordered you to raise baaba. Why didn’t he help you?”

My father was no longer speaking eloquently or politely. I guess he was exasperated.

“Well, he’s in a sticky situation, too, with the ranches…” Kohl explained.

My father sighed loudly. “Is there still time?”

His question made me confused. Still time for what?

“Probably. That’s where you come in, Mr. Druid and Miss Ivy. Please teach us how to cook this baaba dish. Tomorrow.”

Lizzy and Kohl rose from their seats and bowed. I could feel the eyes of the adventurers in the plaza shooting at us.

“Please, don’t bow. It’s all right, I’ll teach you.”

The couple’s faces lit up. “Um, so, we talked over a lot of ideas on the way to visit you two. We thought that if your baaba meat really was that delicious, we wanted to sign a proper contract with you.”

A contract?

“Could you register your marinade with the merchant guild? We would love to be your sole distributors!”

They want to be my sole distributors? Does that mean they’d sell my marinade all by themselves? But isn’t this getting a bit complicated?

“Ah, that makes sense,” my father said. “If we register our marinade with the guild, they can check and see if anything else like it already exists.”

That made sense to me. I remembered how we registered my grilled onigiri sauce with the merchant guild and they checked to see if there were any similar types of sauce. But this is the first time somebody will be our sole distributor. It is the first time, right? Our onigiri sauce wasn’t for a sole distributor, was it? Um…y’know, I can’t remember. Things escalated pretty quickly, and we were talking about registering with the merchant guild… Oh! That’s right, they’ve been making decisions while I was lost in thought. I feel like I said something, but I forget what it was.

“So, um, we don’t doubt you, Miss Ivy, I promise.”

Huh?

“It’s just, when we opened our baaba butcher shop, let’s just say, we went through a lot…”

Uh-oh. Were they tricked into it or something?

“Oh, I think it’s a good idea to register it with the merchant guild so they can look into it.”

“What?!” the couple gasped.

Had I really said something that shocking? If they were going to sell a product, it was only natural that they’d want to make sure it was genuinely safe. If registering my marinade with the merchant guild would give them that safety they needed, their request was entirely reasonable.

“Doesn’t it rub you the wrong way?” Lizzy asked.

I shook my head no. Lizzy glanced at my father and sighed in relief when he shook his head, too. I hope all that worrying right after eating such a big meal didn’t give her indigestion. We already have tea, but maybe I should get her some water…

“Would you like some water?”

“Water? Oh, no, I’m fine, thank you.”

So Lizzy’s stomach was okay, then. “All right.”

“Mr. Kohl, would you like to hash out the details?” My father came out of the tent with his noise-canceling item in hand. He activated it and set it down on the table so nobody nearby could hear our conversation. Boy, it sure is inconvenient not having the table with that magic item attachment that my father’s mentor gave him. I hope it gets fixed and comes back to us soon.

“Um, yes, please.”

I listened to my father, Lizzy, and Kohl talk things through. We would register the recipe and the marinade as a sauce with the guild, who would check to see if similar sauces already ­existed. Then, if it was successfully registered, we would draw up a sole distributor contract with Kohl and Lizzy. Whenever Kohl used the marinade, he would have a transaction with us. Wait a minute…is this the same deal we had with our grilled onigiri sauce? Well, whatever.

We finished talking business for the day and settled down to have some tea. It was a big relief to see my father deactivate the magic item.

“How are we going to advertise?”

“We’ll borrow my friend’s food stall. They’re out with an injury at the moment.”

Kohl really sounded confident that the plan would succeed.

“But I’m afraid it won’t go well. Everyone here already knows what baaba tastes like.”

Lizzy sounded worried, and for good reason. In Hataka, baaba was infamous for tasting bad. Even if you borrowed a friend’s food stall and made a big sign that said “It Tastes Good Now!” it wasn’t like anybody would believe you. People needed a reason to try it. With the grilled onigiri, the children were lured to the shop by the smell. Would the smell bring customers to us this time? No, it won’t. We’ve got a powerful enemy now: the wrapped lappo. It really smells amazing. They need a push… If everyone just had a bite, I’m sure they would change their minds about baaba.

“Oh, that’s it! A bite…”

“A bite?” Lizzy gave me a curious look.

“Yes, we’ll give out bite-sized samples of the baaba for free.”

“Free samples?”

“That’s right. We’ll get people to take just a bite of the baaba at no charge. Some people are bound to try it that way since they’ve got nothing to lose.”

Word of mouth was a powerful tool—it had been quite a force with our grilled onigiri.

“I like that idea,” my father said. “Seeing the way you two gobbled up the baaba tonight, I have a feeling just one bite can win this battle for us.”

Uh, Dad, this isn’t a battle. I glanced at Lizzy and Kohl and noticed they both looked embarrassed. They were probably remembering how messily they’d eaten dinner that night.

“I swear, we don’t always eat like slobs!” Lizzy insisted desperately when my eyes met hers. Kohl burst out laughing, and my father and I followed suit.

Wait a minute, isn’t that too many laughing voices? I looked around and noticed that the group of women nearby were shaking with laughter. Apparently, they had tried to hold it in and failed. Lizzy’s face turned bright red, and she sank her head down on the table.

“I’m sorry we overheard,” one of the women apologized.

“It’s all right, ma’am. I’m fine, ma’am,” Lizzy answered shakily…which only brought on more laughter.

“Where are you going to set up the food stall?” one of the ladies asked.

“Oh, um, the fifth corner off Main Street.”

“Okay. When will it be open?”

Wait a minute, are they going to be our first customers?

“Let’s see, we’ll register it at the merchant guild tomorrow, then we’ll have to get permission first, so…I think starting tomorrow?”

“Miss Lizzy, the meat is best if you marinade it for twenty-four hours, so the day after tomorrow would be better,” I said.

“Oh, okay. The day after tomorrow it is.”

Hm? Is Lizzy’s face a bit red? Oh, right, she’s been sipping on the wine my dad bought earlier today.

“We’ll come eat some to apologize,” the lady said.

“It’s a promise!” Lizzy said urgently. “A promise, okay?! You’d better be there!”

Is she drunk? I glanced at my father, who smiled sheepishly back at me. “Is Miss Lizzy drunk?”

“Yeah, probably. So’s that group over there.” My father pointed at the group of ladies. At a closer look, they had a pile of empty bottles in front of them.

“Think they’ll remember any of this tomorrow morning?”

Too bad. They were going to be our first customers.