By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 8 - Chapter 35

Chapter 5 Episode 35: Follow-Up #3—A Little Bit of Growth

Five days had passed since returning to Gimul. Now, I was knocking on the door of the Saionji Company in Lenaf. I was there under the pretense of contracting three bloody slimes to him to explore applications in his business, but my real plan was to diversify the bloody slime population to prevent losing them all.

I had only sat in the waiting room for about thirty seconds when Pioro threw in the door and walked in. “Ryoma! Thanks for waiting!”

Just like the time I had first visited, I hadn’t waited at all. It was almost like he knew I was coming.

“Perfect timing,” he exclaimed. “I’m glad to see you again so soon, but are things going fine on your end? You only just went back to the shop.”

“Oh, everything’s just peachy, thanks to the wonderful help you’ve introduced me to... Almost too wonderful, in fact.”

“Something up?”

“It’s a long story, but...”

The day after returning to Gimul, Ox and I held a sparring session in the empty plot by the shop, as we had planned. I was eager to put a little more effort in after my conversation with Carme, and this was Ox’s first chance to show his mettle at his new workplace. With two enthusiastic contestants, the session escalated without either of us intending. By the end of the match, the crowd of customers and employees was assaulted by the dust cloud, kids cried and the elderly fainted at the intensity of the clash. Carme told us that we might have gotten slightly carried away.

“Luckily, most of the customers were regulars, so they laughed it off once I offered everyone a head-to-toe wash for free. I had also notified the city guards about this exhibition, so we didn’t get into much trouble on that end...” I explained to Pioro.

After dealing with the aftermath, Carme and I sat down to talk. He admitted that while we were carried away in the execution of the match, we did successfully showcase Ox’s strength to our employees, our customers, and any potential wrongdoers. Then he reassured me that his comment the previous day was meant to show his appreciation for me being more proactive about expanding our business, and not to insinuate that I wasn’t putting in my fair share. In fact, he apologized for causing any confusion on my end, which, of course, I returned with my own apology for misunderstanding his intentions.

But as we kept talking, I realized that he was happy with the more aggressive approach to expanding the business, which led me to wonder what I could do to contribute. I decided that the best way to expand was to build more branches, so I asked myself what we would require to do that. While location and staff were important, the most crucial component was money; I needed to efficiently make more capital by either increasing the profit of the laundry shop or setting up side hustles. My ideas kept expanding, and once I mentioned the ideas of collection services to the elderly and those living far away from the shop, along with setting up a private waste management company, Carme shut down the conversation.

“I know you’re always taking things seriously, Boss, but stop trying to make more work for yourself at every chance you get. You work too much as it is.”

“And that was that,” I concluded. Carme had taken care of restructuring the shop’s security schedule, revisiting emergency procedures, and filing any paperwork needed for our venture going forward.

“I asked him what I could do, and he told me to relax, since there was nothing to be done until I returned from my next outing. I pushed him several times, but he kept insisting there was nothing for me to do. So, now I’m completely without any problems or work.”

“Ah, I see...” Pioro chuckled. How does he feel about this? “Get some rest while you can. You might need money down the road, but it’s not like you’re in dire straits.”

“That’s true. I do have a bigger clientele now that it’s getting colder. Actually, my deodorant solution is selling much more than expected.”

“Oh, that. That checks out, considering you used it at the duke’s. I bet the trend’s spread to other cities too.”

At the same time, I hadn’t heard of any subpar products going around; such was the mystery of the deodorant solution. The fact that it couldn’t be manually diluted, though I originally thought of that as a downside, was working in my favor. “Truth be told, the deodorant solution is earning me more revenue than laundry.”

“Is that so?”

“Laundry services will earn me a few small gold coins on a good day, but the deodorant usually makes double that, and occasionally it earns more than ten a day, especially in the second shop.”

“Then why are you rushing to make more money? Taking on a new service would be a huge project. That’s what that Carme kid was worried about. Telling him that right after telling him how well he’s doing his job would make anyone think that you just don’t get it.”

“I’ll admit my timing was bad... I just thought that after going out into town and starting to work, I learned a few things about what I can do. For example, do you remember when I talked about new applications for my slimes?”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

With my knowledge of slimes, I had proposed a new application of them in a different field of business. I was starting to believe that doing the same thing in other industries would be an ideal job for me. I had three concerns before starting the laundry business—Would I have enough free time to go adventuring (for sake of example)? Did I have enough experience to run a business? Would I have the social skills necessary to interact with customers and employees?

While the first concern was a matter of personal preference, I had virtually no experience in running a business, and even though I’d had some customer service experience in my previous life, I never felt adequately sociable. These concerns, however, had been alleviated by the ever-so-helpful duo of Carme and Carla; they were living proof that the majority of a business could be left in capable hands. Even without me there, the laundry shop was running fine, and all the employees and customers were getting along without issues. Serge had told me this before, but now I understood it.

So what could I do? Putting in the effort to learn the same skills that Carme and Carla had wouldn’t be a complete waste of time, but finding someone else to do something I couldn’t was much faster.

After thinking about my unique skill set, I landed on the idea of proposing new ideas into businesses. Originally, I was a systems engineer. Using my experience in that field, I wondered if I could propose new businesses, or help to problem solve for existing businesses using slimes. Could I offer a different point of view, since I’d lived in another world? I could construct a system that problem-solved or smoothed out a business, giving consideration for culture, customs, and social etiquette with the help of my friends. I think that I could be of best use to this world if I could design and provide a way to run a business with slimes involved.

I explained my thought process to Pioro (minus the part about systems engineering, obviously) and it looked like he saw where I was coming from.

“If you’ve put that much thought into it, Ryoma, I see no reason to disagree. Just don’t kill yourself working, all right?”

“Thank you, I won’t. I feel like everyone’s been telling me that lately... At any rate, my next step is still to expand the laundry shop. I won’t lose my mind trying to save up for those, but I’ll ask for a loan if I need one.”

“Oh? You wouldn’t even consider that before. Changed your mind, did you?”

“You could say that.”

Before, even if I was in a position to ask someone for a loan, I was still unsure of how the laundry shop would prevail; I would have been borrowing money without a guarantee that I could repay it. In hindsight, I might have had too much of an aversion to the idea. But looking at my current situation, I would be able to repay the money I’d borrow, especially with the income I expected to come in from the new shop I would be building. As long as I could repay those loans within reason, the sooner I built those additional branches, the greater my profits would become.

“I feel like I’m being a bit selfish, though. Here I turned it down before, and now I’m asking myself...”

“No sweat. We’d only just met that time; anybody borrowing money from a bloke they’ve just met without a second thought isn’t playing with a full deck. I didn’t take it personally. In fact, if you’re starting to recognize that there’s a right time to take that leap for a bigger profit, instead of keeping it safe all the time, then I’d say your business acumen has definitely improved.”

“Thank you for saying that. It certainly makes me feel like I’m improving.”

Then, something occurred to me. “You said ‘perfect timing’ when I came in. What was that about?”

“Oh, right! That totally slipped my mind. I just got my hands on the ‘goods’ we talked about. Remember? The food that’s good in everyday cooking, or to take to the Sea of Trees of Syrus.”

“The goods?! I thought it’d take much longer than that.”

“So did I. I guess we’re either lucky or unlucky with that... Well, there’s a catch to it. Better that I just show you first.”

While I could hardly wait to get my hands on the aforementioned goods, the first order of business was to take care of the slime-lending contract. After doing that, we handed off the three bloody slimes to an employee.