2
After saying farewell to Kamyua Yoshu, I headed back to the Fa house only to find a number of women there waiting for me.
“Hey, you all sure got here early. Hmm...? What’s that?”
“Ah, yes, it’s the jerky we promised.”
They belonged to the clans I had asked to help make the jerky I would sell to the Silver Vase, and they were delivering it in quite a timely manner.
Shumiral’s merchant group from Sym had ordered 40 kilos of jerky in total. And I saw this as a good opportunity to share the wealth, so I decided to request that other clans not only provide the meat, but also help to make the stuff.
“Thank you. Well then, allow me to check a bit from each.”
With that, I welcomed the women inside the house as Li Sudra and I carried in our luggage from work.
There were women from three clans gathered here: the Fou, the Ratsu, and the Gaaz. And the Ratsu and Gaaz in particular didn’t live all that close, so that really was my first time ever seeing those women.
“Well then, I’ll go first,” the Fou woman stated, holding out a large bag meant for carrying vegetables.
When I opened it up, the jerky stuffed inside came tumbling out. I randomly grabbed one of the chunks cut into about the size of my palm, and shaved off a bit from the end.
The hard, bark-like chunk of meat was made by removing as much moisture as possible with pico leaves and salt, then smoking it. When I tossed that chunk into my mouth, there was a powerful salty flavor with an herbal taste, as well as a condensed meaty deliciousness.
Yup, there was no problem here in terms of taste. The meat used had definitely been properly bloodlet.
Then, I moved the jerky atop a cutting board, and sawed down the middle with a knife. It sure was tough. But that was good, as it proved it had properly dried out and hardened all the way to the center.
“Alright, this is perfect. Good work. Umm, please hold on just a moment...” I portioned out some of the coins we had earned from our sales today, then handed them over to the Fou woman. “Here are seven white and seven red coins. Please check that over.”
“Right...” the woman said, her face stiffening up just as much as the jerky.
Seven white and red coins... Converted into horns and tusks, it would be around six giba worth.
It was pretty rare to be able to sell such a large amount of jerky. And so, chances to earn this much wouldn’t exactly be common from here on out, either. Plus, even if another such opportunity did pop up, I’d want to be fair and offer it to different clans. And so, I had to repeat myself over and over again when I offered the job, as it was certainly a pretty exceptionally high payment.
“Well then, could I test the next jerky?”
There were no issues with the jerky from the Ratsu and Gaaz women, either.
And each woman honestly looked more relieved than joyful when accepting the payment.
“Asuta, I believe we’ll be delivering the Sudra clan’s jerky tomorrow too,” Li Sudra stated from beside me, giving a polite bow as she did so.
It was then that there was a knock on the door.
“It’s me, Ama Min Rutim, along with four women from under the Ruu. Are Ai Fa or Asuta around?”
I stood up, thinking, Ama Min Rutim again, huh?
She had visited the Fa house both yesterday and the day before, first bringing one totos, and then three more.
I was worried I would find even more of the large birds waiting for me there as I hesitantly opened the door, but fortunately all I saw were women of the forest’s edge. However, one of the members of the group was rather unexpected. The slender little girl’s dark brown hair was drawn up into a shape reminiscent of an onion... It was the former youngest daughter of the main Suun house and current member of the Rutim, Tsuvai.
“Hey there. I hadn’t expected I would be seeing you three days in a row like this. So, what’s going on today, Ama Min Rutim?”
“Ah, yes... Today I’ve come here to escort my clan member, Tsuvai. There’s something that she said she absolutely wanted to ask you... but could you complete your business with these folks first? They finished making their jerky and wished to deliver it.”
They were women from the Ririn, Muufa, and Maam, which were clans that fell under the Ruu that I wasn’t at all familiar with.
I wanted to prioritize houses suffering from poverty when it came to splitting up the work making the jerky, but only the Fou, Ratsu, and Sudra were able to learn how to successfully bloodlet a giba in time. And so, I ended up asking the Ruu clan to provide the rest. Mia Lea Ruu was the one to then suggest having the less fortunate clans under them take care of it, rather than leaving it up to the Ruu or Rutim.
Even though they shared blood and bonds with the Ruu, apparently there wasn’t all that big of a difference between them and small clans like the Fou or Ratsu. And in fact, the women here now weren’t anywhere near as adorned as the Ruu, and had a sort of simple, plain feel about them.
Still, whether they were well off or not, all people of the forest’s edge seemed to be diligent and earnest when it came to work. None of the dried meat had any problems, and it was all more than good enough to be sold.
“Alright, there don’t seem to be any issues at all. Good work, everyone. I’ll be counting on you all again if the chance comes around.”
“We must thank you, too. Um... Asuta of the Fa clan, would it be alright for us to stay and watch your work?” the Maam woman asked.
“I don’t mind,” I replied, then turned towards the still silent Tsuvai. “But before that, what did you want to talk to me about?”
It wasn’t going to be some serious matter involving the Suun clan, right?
Tsuvai just snorted, “Hmph!” and crossed her slender arms in front of her chest. “Let me just say, it’s going to take a while. It may even last till after the sun sets. Is that alright with you?”
“That’d be a problem. After all, I still have to prepare for tomorrow and get dinner ready.”
“Then just go ahead and listen as you work! But I’ve got no intention of heading back to the Rutim house until I hear an answer that satisfies me!”
She was looking more and more restless.
Having little choice, I went ahead and started my prep work by dicing aria as I lent an ear to Tsuvai.
“Asuta of the Fa clan... You entrusted this task of making jerky to seven clans, didn’t you? I’d like to confirm something about that with you.”
“Huh? You wanted to talk about the jerky work?”
“That’s right. What else is there to discuss?”
It hadn’t even been six days yet since Tsuvai’s grandfather Tei Suun had passed away. And so, I had been half prepared for it to be something related to that, but apparently my concerns had been completely off the mark.
“You paid seven white and seven red coins for the work, didn’t you? And to make it would require the rib meat of two large giba... Is that all correct?”
“Yup, that’s all true.”
I had asked for a bit under six kilos of jerky from each of the clans. To make that much would require around 15 kilos of rib meat. That was just how much moisture was lost when making sure it was properly preserved.
“Then why is it that you only pay the Ruu clan 12 red coins...?”
“Huh?”
“The Ruu sell the Fa a single full giba pretty much each and every day, right? You only pay 12 red coins for that, but you pay a full 77 for just the chest meat used in the jerky? Those numbers simply don’t make sense,” she chirped away in her shrill voice, her big round eyes with prominent whites glaring at me.
As I diced away at the aria, I went, “Let’s see...” and ran some numbers in my head. “First off, let me just say that it’s always bothered me how ridiculously cheaply I’ve been getting fresh meat. But since it still doesn’t have an established market price, it’s been stuck at the same value as one giba’s horns and tusks.”
To be more accurate, Mia Lea Ruu pressured me into accepting that rate, saying they didn’t need the meat anyway and wouldn’t mind just giving it to us for free.
“So, how did you decide on the price of the jerky...?”
“For that, I set the price the same as the jerky that they sell in town from an animal called a karon. So the cost for the total amount I requested works out to 600 red coins. As an intermediary and for our labor, the Fa clan is taking ten percent, while the rest is split among the seven clans who helped out.”
“If the seven clans got 77 red coins each... that would add up to 539 coins total, leaving 61 for the Fa house. Hmm, I see. Those calculations seem to work out after all.”
By that point, the eight women surrounding us started looking obviously confused. They probably couldn’t keep up with those calculations, and may not have even understood what they were for to begin with.
But Tsuvai paid them no heed and just kept getting more into it.
“In that case, shouldn’t you match the price of raw meat to what it goes for in the post town, too? How much does that karon meat you mentioned cost? Surely it’s not just 12 red coins for a whole animal’s worth.”
“I still haven’t really visited a butcher’s shop yet. But apparently it makes a huge difference in cost if you’re just buying for your house or in bulk for an inn or whatever. Not that it’d be as cheap as 12 red coins either way, though.”
“Yeah, but how much are we talking?”
This time, I was the one running the math through my head.
When buying for a single house, karon meat supposedly cost a bit under a single red coin for a hundred grams. But for The Great Southern Tree, that came down to 0.37 red coins for the same amount.
Meanwhile, I was buying about 40 kilos of giba meat from the Ruu clan for just 12 red coins. I didn’t quite know how big karon were to calculate out how much meat would come from one of the beasts, so all I could do was assume it weighed around as much as a giba.
So, with that in mind...
For personal use, one kilo would be ten red coins, and 40 kilos would come out to 400.
In bulk for business use, one kilo would cost 3.7 red coins, and 40 kilos would be 148.
That was quite a difference, but most folks probably wouldn’t go around buying 40 kilos to use in their house. After all, the reason the personal price was so much higher was because folks just wouldn’t buy so much at once.
“For now, I’ve calculated it out to something like 148 red coins when buying in bulk for a business.”
“In that case, you’re paying the Ruu clan less than 10%!” Tsuvai wailed, shooting me a seriously doubting look. “And isn’t 148 red coins still a bit too low, anyway? How much would the same amount of jerky be?”
“When making jerky, over half the weight is lost in the process. But if you want to compare the prices between raw meat and jerky... Hold on just a moment, alright?”
The price for karon jerky was 1.5 red coins for a hundred grams, if I recalled correctly. And the bulk price for raw raw meat was 0.37 coins, so...
“Right, jerky costs about four times as much as raw meat.”
“Four times?! Why is it so expensive?!”
“You need salt to make jerky, so it probably comes down to ingredient costs, right? And then there’s the fee for the work, plus the people making it and selling it are often different, so all that must drive up the price.”
“I still can’t accept it... I get the feeling I’m being tricked, somehow.”
Right, in that case, I needed more thorough calculations.
And so, I considered a case of turning ten kilos of fresh meat into jerky. First off, after using the pico leaves, salting the raw meat, and smoking it, that would be down to about four kilos. And you need to use five percent of the meat’s total weight in terms of rock salt, so that’d work out to 500 grams. And that much would cost three red coins.
The raw meat itself would be 37 red coins, so it would come to exactly 40 when adding in the cost of the rock salt. And since jerky cost 1.5 red coins for 100 grams, four kilos would work out to 60.
For the cost/price ratio, that would be the ingredient cost of 40 over the selling price of 60 times 100, or 66%.
I’d say that not only wasn’t a high price, it was an extremely fair one.
And so, I went ahead and conveyed those precise numbers and my conclusion to Tsuvai.
“The raw meat is 37 red coins, and it’s sold as jerky for 60. Subtracting out the cost of the rock salt, that leaves 20 red coins of profit. And you’re saying that’s cheap?”
“It’s almost too cheap for Genos, I’d say. After all, the basic principle there is to aim for small profits but quick returns. For example, if you switched in the cost for karon meat to the dishes at my stalls, then I’d be earning around the same amount.”
Because I prepared the meat in advance for the giba burgers, that kept the cost/price ratio down at a mere 25 percent, but if I set it at the same rate as karon meat, that jumped up to 65 percent. In other words, that was the norm for other stalls serving light snacks.
“Hmm... So, you beat down the price of the meat you’re buying from the Ruu clan so low because you wanted to earn more profit, then?”
“No, that’s not it. I’ve tried to negotiate to pay them more over and over again, but Mia Lea Ruu has firmly shut me down every time. She just says they’d be returning the excess meat to the forest, otherwise.”
Maybe this was a good chance to set a fair, reasonable price for giba meat sold here at the forest’s edge. This girl just had such an unusually strong economic sense that I couldn’t help but feel that way.
“Well then, Tsuvai and Ama Min Rutim... Could I have you inform Mia Lea Ruu that I really would like to revise the price of giba meat? I’d like to buy meat from other clans than just the Ruu in the future, so it would be good to set a proper rate.”
“Ooh, then were you thinking the same 148 red coins as karon meat? That would mean the price shooting up to over ten times as much in an instant.”
“I wouldn’t mind that. In fact, I’d say that’s what we should do. After all, my ultimate goal is to steadily work towards that point where the townsfolk are willing to pay that much for giba meat.”
With that Tsuvai finally went silent, and then she looked me up and down as I stood there, having finished dicing the aria.
“...Very well. You really are aiming for a situation where all the people of the forest’s edge can earn coins, rather than just thinking of your own profits.”
“Yeah, that’s right. This may sound ridiculously arrogant, but the Fa clan doesn’t really have anything to use money on even if we keep earning more.”
“But if you have the coins, then you can buy anything, right?”
“Really? I don’t think you could buy bonds and trust between people, though,” I replied in a joking tone.
Tsuvai answered with a “Hmph! I figured I’d be questioning you till the sun set, but it looks like we’re done already.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And it felt like a really meaningful conversation to me too, Tsuvai,” I replied, not out of flattery or politeness but instead based on my true feelings.
Here at the forest’s edge, Tsuvai was probably seen as quite a nonconformist for being so obsessed with money. But I figured if we’re seeking even greater prosperity for the forest’s edge, folks with firm economic sense like her would be absolutely essential. And besides, I was easily the biggest nonconformist around, so it was like I found someone I could talk to on the same level. Honestly, I couldn’t help but secretly feel glad that the girl had ended up falling under the umbrella of the Ruu.
“Well, my business here is done. What do you want to do now, Ama Min Rutim?”
“Let’s see... Even if we hurry back, there isn’t any work left to be done, so I suppose we could also watch as Asuta cooks,” she responded with a satisfied smile. Faced with that, Tsuvai’s body trembled as she looked a bit uncomfortable.
It was then that, with no warning whatsoever, the door swung open from the outside. And since such actions were only permitted from members of the house, it was of course Ai Fa. She was once again shouldering a 60 kilo or so giba as she glanced over the room with a piercing glare.
“Welcome home, clan head. You caught one again today, huh?”
Two days ago she had resumed her work as a hunter, and she had already brought back two giba. And it wasn’t even supposed to be a period where they were thriving, which only made the accomplishment all the more astounding.
I had greeted Ai Fa with a smile, but she wore an incredibly chilly expression. Then, she just muttered, “You seem like you’re having fun again today,” only to slam the door shut rather than coming inside.
What did she mean by that? I honestly had no idea.
I guess the one key difference from usual was that I was currently surrounded by nine women. I mean, there were always women hanging around, but I suppose this really was more than normal.
“I’m sorry, Asuta...” Ama Min Rutim said with a bow of her head.
“Huh? Ah, no, you didn’t do anything you need to apologize for.”
“Really?” she replied while tilting her head a bit, then came in close to whisper in my ear. “But aside from me and the Sudra woman, everyone here is young and unmarried. I can see how that could leave Ai Fa feeling rather unamused.”
It honestly caught me a bit off guard, seeing Ama Min Rutim’s face up this close. She was always so composed and well-mannered, so it was rare to see her give such an innocent smile fitting to her age.
And so, the 22nd day of the blue month came to a calm, relaxed close.
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