By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 3 - Chapter 28

Chapter 2 Episode 28: Opening Day

The Next Day ~Ryoma’s Side~

After the gathering yesterday, Carme and Carla insisted they could get to work as early as possible tomorrow, so I decided to open for business today and come to the store early in the morning. It was 5AM.

“Maybe I came a little too early,” I wondered. I came in at the time I would have in my old world, which did me no good. I didn’t expect the twins to get there for a while, so I killed time playing with the slimes.

■ ■ ■

“Good morning, boss,” the twins said.

“Good morning, Carme and Carla. I’m excited to work with you today,” I replied. After they arrived, I performed a cursory check of the store and prepared to open for business. That probably sounds like more work than it was, but all I did was stick the cleaner slime in the standby room and get out the bags and spare change. The twins brought the bags I ordered in the morning, so they were put to use right away.

“Now then, I’m heading out,” I announced.

“See you later,” the twins said. I wasn’t sure whether to leave the store in their hands on the first day, but I couldn’t advertise with fliers or anything, so I decided to tell people about my store while I accepted a job from the guild. Serge did get me employees who could take care of everything, so honestly, maybe I wasn’t even needed. But I guess that’s the point of hiring people. I thought about it as I visited the neighboring store on the way to the guild. I had to tell Pauline that my store was open for business.

“Excuse me, is anyone here?” I asked. They appeared to be open, but nobody was inside, so I called out for someone. Pauline came running from the back of the store.

“Hello? Oh! If it isn’t Ryoma? Here to buy seeds again?”

“No, but my laundromat, Bamboo Forest, opened today. I just wanted to tell you.”

“Oh my, open already? That was quick.”

“Yes, thanks to everyone’s help. You can have that bag I gave you the other day for free, so I hope you try out our services. Tell Mary and Kiara about it too. I can tell my two employees that you’re coming.”

“You have employees?”

“An acquaintance introduced them to me. While I’m off adventuring, they’ll run the store all by themselves. Also, I’ll have to pay them with my income from adventuring until my business really picks up.”

They said that as long as they got to work in the end, they didn’t need to get paid, but that didn’t sit well with me. Honestly, I didn’t know why they wanted to work for me so badly. Serge probably offered more complex duties to make the best of their talents, and I’d think it paid better too. Maybe they were trying to make connections. Anyway, I couldn’t complain.

“Considering the size of your store, I have to wonder if that’s necessary. Well, good luck, you have my support. I’ll try it out today.”

“Thank you. I’ll get to work, then.”

I waved goodbye and left the store. As soon as I got to the guild, people called out to me.

“Ryoma, is your laundry place gonna open soon?”

“When’s it open?”

“I hope it opens soon!”

The adventurers I rode with when I went to slay monsters at the abandoned mine had been chatting with me a bit more lately. They were looking forward to when my laundromat opened, apparently.

“Bamboo Forest opens today, actually.”

“Really?!”

“Yes. We provide an equipment-cleaning service for adventurers that you’re welcome to use.”

“Heck yeah! I’m totally going there on the way home today!”

I loudly talked about the store to advertise to everyone around us, then took a job that involved collecting herbs. I decided to take care of that while I looked around the mine.

■ ■ ■

Hours later...

I told the twins they could run the store, but out of curiosity, I decided to wrap up my work and go back early. Even though it was our first day of business, people were gathered outside. More than twenty people, in fact! I panicked and entered the store, where Carla greeted me.

“Welcome― Oh, Boss!”

“Carla, what’s going on here?”

“We’re making a killing, but we’re so busy!”

“Boss! Some ladies from the neighborhood came to ask us to do laundry,” Carme said as he carried laundry from the back of the store. We had to handle all these people!

“I’ll help. You two take care of the customers, I’ll do all the carrying!” I commanded and focused intently on my work. But the more people we served, the more people came. What was going on?! In the end, the waves of people didn’t cease until after 3PM. I couldn’t say there were that many of them by that point, but explaining how our store worked to every single one of them took some time. Our store was evidently cheaper than the norm, so the customers were surprised they could get laundry done for our prices. It also made some of them ask if we were going to make a separate charge later for a high price. Many of them weren’t convinced about our service, unfortunately. The large crowd that we had for a while drew some city guards to come see what the hubbub was about, too.

But this turned out to be in our favor. The guard captain heard about the store from the other guards and asked us to do laundry for the whole squad. They paid for laundry for thirty-five, for which they bought two bags. They hired people to do laundry for the guards until last year, but a government official at the time implemented a budget cut that made it no longer possible. They were just glad their pay didn’t go down, but after a bit of complaining to me about the government, they said they’d ask me to do it. Maybe I had myself a big contract already.

But we opened at 8AM, and it took about three minutes to serve each customer. I didn’t know when the customers started coming, but it seemed like Carme and Carla were working for seven hours straight without even taking a lunch break.

That didn’t sound great to me. Maybe I could deal with that, but not these two. With these conditions, my store was hardly better than a sweatshop! I wanted to avoid that at all costs! I swore on my previous world that I wouldn’t let that happen!

“Good work today, you two.”

“You too, Boss.”

“That was a lot of people.”

“Yes, really. Do you think we should hire more employees?”

“It might be best to do that soon, yes. If you want to let your employees take turns taking breaks, you’ll need to hire somewhere from four to six people. We spent most of our time explaining the system to people today, but judging by the response from customers, we don’t have enough people to do even the minimum for our jobs,” Carla answered promptly.

“The customers were satisfied with the speed and quality of our work, so I expect we’ll see even more visitors tomorrow. You should be able to find more employees right away if you put out a notice at the guild.”

“I see. How much should I offer to pay?”

“Anywhere from 120 to 150 sute a day would be plenty. That’s enough to live on day to day and still have some savings. That’s extraordinary for a starting salary, so I’m sure you would be quick to find applicants.”

“If it weren’t so urgent, we could take the time to find employees who will work for less, but hiring people who can begin work right away should take priority.”

“Then I’ll head to the guild right away. It sounds like the sooner, the better.”

“Please do,” the twins replied. Trusting their input, I hurried out of the store. The problem would best be solved as soon as possible. But as I left the store, I ran into four neighbors carrying a large bag.

“Oh, Ryoma.”

“Pauline, Renny, Rick, and Sieg, you’re all together? What’s that you’re holding?”

“We were hoping to get laundry done at your place. I’m a butcher, so I’ve got blood stains on a lot of my clothes,” Sieg answered. He was Pauline’s husband, and he worked as a butcher next door to the flower shop. I got all the meat I cooked at the opening party from Sieg’s store.

TV shows and the like always depicted butchers as big and muscular men, but Sieg was the complete opposite. He was fairly tall, at least, but also skinny. Extremely skinny. Like a gust of wind could send him flying. He didn’t look healthy.

“An adventurer told me that you can even wash blood stains out.”

“I’d been planning to buy new clothes, but let’s see how you can clean these up.”

“Thank you. If you don’t mind me asking, do you have any employees?”

“Ten, myself included.”

“We offer a service for seven or more people, so I suggest using that. A bag that fits up to fourteen people’s worth of clothes costs a medium bronze coin and eight small bronze coins, so that will be cheaper for you.”

“Really? That’s a bargain.”

“We’ll take that.”

While we were discussing business, Rick butted in.

“Ryoma, what are you doing? Slacking off from work?”

“Hahaha, I’m sure that’s the way it looks, but no. I’m on my way to the Merchant’s Guild.”

“Is that right?” Renny asked.

“We have more business than expected, and it looks like we’ll be short on staff if this continues.”

“Seriously?! Didn’t you just open?!”

“We advertised in a few ways, but I never thought we’d get this many customers. I’m in a rush to hire more employees.”

“That’s a surprise. There are that many customers?”

“Yes, I have two employees who’ve been working since this morning, and they’ve gone for seven hours without breaks.”

After that conversation, I parted ways with them and visited the Merchant’s Guild. They let me into the reception office, where the guildmaster came to see me.

“Nice of you to visit. But didn’t your business open today? Is there a problem?”

“We’re unexpectedly busy, so we’re short on staff already.”

“On your first day? Even I couldn’t have predicted that. You want to hire more staff today? All right, I’ll get together some folks who could start work tomorrow. You can be the one to choose who to hire.” With that, she exited the room and left me waiting in the reception office.

■ ■ ■

I was told that the potential employees were assembled, then led to a meeting room. There were thirty people of all ages, sexes, and species. Among them was one strange pair standing together. They gave me a brief look, then turned to look straight ahead. Were they appraising me the same way I was them? Many others eyed me briefly, then looked away as if they lost interest.

“Now then, everyone here can do basic math. Any of them could begin work immediately.”

“Got it. Nice to meet you, everyone, I’m the manager of a laundromat called Bamboo Forest. My name is Ryoma Takebayashi. Thank you for taking time out of your schedules to gather here today,” I said. Everyone began to whisper to each other. From what I could hear, they thought I was an errand boy, not the one doing the hiring. They must not have been appraising me after all, but given I looked like an 11-year-old, that made sense. After my introduction, I ignored the clearly disappointed people and continued.

“Ahem, first I’d like to know if anyone here objects to working at my store,” I asked. There were some complaints, mainly from the young people. My childlike appearance was enough to demotivate some of them, and I didn’t need those people as employees. Considering the number of potential applicants who showed up, maybe pay should have been the last thing I discussed. Drawing such a crowd because of the money on offer was annoying. There were more than I could hire, so I had to weed some out anyway.

Some of them expressed their discontent, so I said I wasn’t forcing anyone to work for me. That led to a whole stream of people flooding out of the room. I didn’t think they would leave so readily. I was expecting them to at least stay for an interview, but I did say they could go if they wanted.

Five-sixths of them left, leaving only five. I understood the dissatisfaction of those who left, but it was still unfortunate. I would have to thank the few who stayed.

“For the rest of you, I’ll talk to you assuming you’re interested in working at my store. But before that, I should offer my appreciation. Thanks for being willing to work for such a young man,” I said and bowed to them before I moved on to the topic at hand. “Let me get to the main point. My store, Bamboo Forest, is currently hiring employees to serve customers and carry loads. The loads in question will only be clothes, so you don’t need to be terribly strong, anyone will do. The one warning I’ll give is that I’m a tamer, and my slimes live in the store. I use them as employees as well.”

The five who stayed behind were surprised. That I was a tamer was normal, but they didn’t seem to expect my use of slimes as workers.

“So anyone who fears or hates slimes might find it difficult to work for me. Does anyone have a problem with that?” I asked. A woman raised her hand. “What is it?”

“Are you using those slimes because you don’t have other employees? Or would you use them whether you had more employees or not?”

“I would use them either way. I know some people may not like this, but I’d want you to treat the slimes like your coworkers,” I answered. The woman and two of the other people refused to work with monsters and left. That left only a middle-aged man and a young woman. I didn’t know if job interviews were supposed to work that way, or if I was doing something wrong.

The guild simply gathered people who could work right away, and not necessarily ones who wanted to work at my store, but this still came as a surprise. It was clear enough whether they approved or disapproved, at least. The final two were, strangely enough, the ones who drew my attention at the beginning.