By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 8

Chapter 3 Episode 8: Changes After The Meeting

~???’s Side~

One Month Later

It was midnight, and most were asleep. In one corner of Gimul, men screamed and shouted.

“Run away! We can’t take him!”

“Damn brat—Gwaaaaah!”

“You fools! I said run away, not toward him!”

The men had come to attack Ryoma, but they were instantly subdued by his counterattack. The leader determined they couldn’t win and gave orders to the three men who were still standing, but they were too frenzied to pay attention. As a consequence of ignoring orders, their arms and legs were broken, their jaws were shattered, and they lost consciousness.

“Wait, I surrender! I’ll never bother you again!”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t buy that. All the ones who came before you did the same, so I hope you understand.” Ryoma approached the begging man faster than the eye could see and knocked him out with a punch. “That takes care of that.” He looked around and gazed at the thirteen unconscious or wailing men.

“It’s been a while since they last showed up,” he muttered. A few seconds later, four men ran toward him. They were city guards.

“What happened here?! Oh, it’s you, Ryoma. Are these today’s criminals?”

“Yes. Thanks as always.”

“Of course. Tie up anyone who isn’t heavily injured! As for the wounded, can you handle them, Ryoma?”

“Sure.”

“Make it quick.”

“Understood.”

Ryoma sent out one of his healing slimes to cast High Heal on the men’s limbs, handing them over to the guards to be restrained once he was done.

“That’s seven today, with twelve bones in total. This looks like it’ll be expensive.”

“One High Heal costs a thousand sute, and it takes six High Heals to cure one bone, so that’ll be seventy-two-thousand sute in all. I’ll cut the price a little for an even seventy-thousand sute,” Ryoma said. The guard’s face twitched.

“I know that it’s necessary, but that’s a frightful amount.”

“If they would stop attacking me, I wouldn’t have to do this.”

“Anyway, come to the station so you can be paid.”

“Understood.”

Ever since Ryoma was first attacked over his business, he was targeted by everyone from incited thugs to muggers who only wanted his money. An increasing number of them were taking these direct measures, but all the attacks ended in failure. Each time they did, Ryoma politely healed the attackers, then charged them a high price for it. The laws of this country stated that injuries could be inflicted as an act of self-defense. The attackers had no right to complain, and Ryoma didn’t have to do anything about their wounds. But if they did heal them, he had the right to charge a fair fee for the treatment. Beating up on someone and making them pay for the recovery sounded like extortion, but if it was done as self-defense, the laws of this world made it just barely legal. Ryoma disapproved of the idea at first, but it increased the amount of risk for the attackers and allowed Ryoma to expand his security. It also set an example, but it was after Glissela convinced him that this would be the quickest way to get the situation under control that Ryoma decided it was necessary.

Ryoma looked like a child, after all, and it was hard to present himself as a threat. Convincing them of the danger through his actions was his best option. It was similar to how businesses would put up signs that claimed security cameras were rolling back on Earth. This was a bit violent by comparison, but by hurting both their bodies and their pocketbooks, Ryoma reduced the number of attacks.

“Here’s today’s payment. Seventy-thousand sute, count it to be sure.”

“Looks right. Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it, it hardly hurts our budget, and we’ll be having these fellows pay us back for it later. Besides, sometimes the forced labor they go through when they can’t pay for it ends up reforming them, so it’s not all bad.”

“Thank you, that makes me feel better about it,” Ryoma said, then left the station. Other guards greeted him on his way out. The attacks had become such a common occurrence that Ryoma had come to know some of the guards. He waved back at them as he returned home.

■ ■ ■

The next morning, Ryoma came down to his store and found Carla at the front desk.

“Good morning, Carla. How was last night?”

“Good morning, Boss. We weren’t attacked last night either. What about you?”

“Thirteen of them came for me. Here’s the money from it. I’ll put it in the safe, you can take it to our account at the guild along with our sales revenue.”

“As you wish.”

As Carla continued her preparations, Ryoma walked past her and further into the store. He greeted the other employees busily running about, then entered the break room to get out of their way. There he was given a report about the store’s defenses.

There were five employees currently assigned to guard duty. In addition to Fay and Lilyn, there were adventurers named Gordon and Sher, plus a man from the slums named Dolce who was hired at Jeff’s recommendation. He was once part of a vigilante group in the slums. Fay and Lilyn captured the occasional ruffian at the store prior to the attacks, but after the late-night assaults on the store began, they began to make use of the skills they honed as assassins in earnest. Gordon and Sher were talented enough to be worth their recommendation from Worgan. On top of that, when they were put on watch duty out front, they got a lot of positive buzz. For example, Gordon knew not only adventurers and ordinary civilians, but a lot of rowdy sorts of men, and when fights started over simple things like bumping shoulders, he could get them under control right away. Sher was polite and good with people, and especially popular with middle-aged and elderly women. Dolce looked vulgar and spoke little, but got along with coworkers and took his job seriously. Thanks to their service, the store was safe from attacks. If there was ever any damage, it was nothing more than some cracks in the doors or windows from the hoodlums trying to force their way through, and all that cost to repair was some materials and magical energy. The repair fee was collected from the hoodlums as a fine, and since the store was built for next to nothing just by using magic, Ryoma hardly considered this any sort of damage. Rather, the attacks came as an unexpected source of income.

“All right! I’m a criminal adventurer! I’m starting to raise a ruckus!” Ryoma yelled. They had gone to an empty lot where he created a wall. On the other side of a counter also created with magic, the three village girls were holding transparent shields. They shouted for Dolce, who approached with a polearm. Ryoma saw him coming and fled with a fake scream. Balls came flying at his back, but he nimbly dodged them and gained some distance.

“All right, looking good!” Ryoma said. His acting made it look like a little skit, but he was training them to defend the store. When there were dangerous customers, non-combatants were supposed to swiftly pick up the shields, call someone, and run away. Fighters were trained to immediately respond to requests for aid. Fleeing criminals weren’t to be pursued too far, but paintballs were supposed to be thrown at them. Ryoma previously asked the five guards for their opinion on how other employees should act in these situations, then tested a few products based on anticrime goods from Japan.

“Dolce, what do you think?”

“They didn’t get in the way. Sir.”

“Seems like we’re good, then! Don’t forget, this is the way to do it!”

“Boss, I’m told that lunch is ready.”

“Thank you, Carme. Then let’s clean up and go eat.”

After working on his store’s defenses, Ryoma began to spend more time at the store. Now he was there from morning until late at night again. He did work, but not all of his time at the store was spent on that. His free time was used to mingle with his employees and customers. While Fay and Lilyn were accustomed to violence, the civilian employees had their concerns. He made self-defense tools for them and strived to make them feel as safe as possible. His efforts weren’t in vain, as there was no noticeable chaos or requests to quit. Ryoma and the employees had more personal conversations now too, and grew closer as coworkers. When they headed to the break room, this newfound camaraderie expressed itself.

“Hey, how was the training?”

“We started eating already.”

Ryoma sat next to Gordon and Sher in the break room and reached for a piece of bread.

“This bread seems fluffier than usual.”

“Fina and I used that natural yeast you taught me about to make bread with glenberries. It made some delicious, puffy bread.”

“Those small red berries? Oh, now that I take a close look, I see some pink.”

“It’s interesting how yeast gives you different results with different materials. You don’t have to deal with processing seeds, either.”

“Yeah, the bread takes a long time to make, but it’s easy to use.”

“Those seed husks are such a pain! Some bits of it always end up in the bread!”

“And it’s never tasty when that happens.”

“But if you’re careful when you’re making it, it can be dangerous.”

“Really? Shouldn’t try it at home, then?”

“It’s not hard in itself, but you need to sterilize the container and a few other things. But Gordon, I didn’t know you cooked.”

“Well, I don’t, but the violence is dying down and all. My contract’s gonna be over soon, which means I won’t be able to eat here anymore.”

“Chelma’s lunches are just so good. I don’t even have to think about what to eat.”

“I love it.”

“Oh, I’m not that special. One moment, the meat is ready. I cooked it with charcoal, I think it’s called? I got it from the boss. It came out wonderfully.”

Pleased by the praise, Chelma left the break room. When she next appeared, she was holding a dish stacked with meat. Ryoma and his employees enjoyed each other’s company safe from danger, despite the endeavors of the criminals.