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Epilogue 

Satou here. It’s hard to find the right balance when it comes to saving people. It might be delusional to want everyone to have a fairy-tale ending, but is it so wrong to at least want all the people around me to be happy? 

“We’re taking half a month off from exploring.” 

After our back-to-back areamaster battles, we ended up going back to Labyrinth City with Zarigon and company, during which time Zarigon made that proclamation to me. 

If he wanted to take a break, fine. Why did he feel the need to tell me? 

“I see. Yes, I’m sure you need some rest.” 

“Hmph. But let me know if you need help. If any explorers give you trouble, I’ll sort ’em out.” 

Zarigon snorted and left with a short nod. 

He’d been fighting normally on the way out, so that greater health recovery potion must have really worked wonders. 

“Hey, mister…” 

The redheaded Neru waved at us from a distance, flashing a smile that showed a pointy fang. 

Unlike before, the takoyaki stand had a proper line now. 

“We’re a huge hit, all ’cause of Miss Tama! We owe ya big-time!” 

“Don’t worry, be happyyy?” 

Tama fidgeted shyly at Neru’s praise. 

The new signboard Tama painted, TWIRLING TAKOYAKI , had the same kind of mysterious appeal as the other three signs, making it next to impossible to pass by without buying some. 

“Sir Pendragon, are you teaming up with Sir Zarigon?” 

This question came from Luram, a regular customer at the food stalls. 

For some reason, he sounded very worked up. 

“…No. I wasn’t particularly planning on it?” 

“Awww, I see…” 

Luram looked disappointed by my response. 

Was this sort of like wanting to be friends with the friend of a popular athlete? 

“Good-bye for now, mister! We’re gonna pay you back, I swear!” 

Amid the line of the expedition’s bag carriers, I heard the beastfolk kids call out to me. As usual, I adjusted for their unnatural-sounding speech in my mind. 

“I’m looking forward to it.” 

My response put enormous grins on their faces, like some neighborhood kids. 

“What do you think they’re going to do now?” 

Arisa looked worried. 

“The expedition party will probably break up, but they’ve got their bronze explorer badges now, so I suppose they’ll keep exploring?” 

I had already recommended that they take the rookie explorers’ class. 

“I hope they don’t get taken advantage of by another jerk like Besso…” 

Arisa seemed to have a lot of sympathy for the young beastfolk kids. 

To be honest, I thought there were probably plenty of candidates out there who might be fooled in the same way. 

“There should be some kind of seminar for kids who want to be explorers or something.” 

“Yeah, that does seem like a good idea.” 

Arisa and I chatted about this as we headed back to the mansion. 

 

“Welcome home, young master.” 

“Thank you, Miteruna.” 

I greeted the staff and the head maid, Miss Miteruna, then followed her into the study. 

“Do you have any pressing news for me?” 

“Yes.” 

Despite how casually I posed the question, she answered immediately. 

“We had no less than three nighttime burglary attempts.” 

“Was anyone hurt?” 

“No.” 

I let out a sigh of relief at that. 

“Sir Kajiro and Lady Ayaume apprehended them all.” 

What excellent guards. 

But they would probably leave once I healed them, so I might have to set up some surveillance golems like we had in our labyrinth vacation home. 

I could easily make an army of them with my Stone Object and Create Earth Servant spells now anyway. 

Oh right. This is a perfect chance. 

“Miteruna, would you mind calling Mr. Kajiro and Miss Ayaume here for me?” 

“Of course, young master.” 

While Miss Miteruna went off to find the two samurai, I checked through the letters I’d received while we were in the labyrinth. 

There was a package from the Muno Barony. Opening it, I found letters from the baron, Viscount Nina, and some of the baron’s daughters like Miss Karina and Miss Soluna. 

The baron and Soluna were reporting on the latest developments, while Miss Nina updated me on the progress of rebuilding the barony and thanked me for the support I’d gotten them from Ougoch Duchy nobles. 

Miss Karina didn’t seem to be too accustomed to writing letters; she used a template I’d learned in the new nobility lessons I attended in the Muno Barony. They were mostly to express sentiments like “I want to go to Labyrinth City” and “I want to eat your cooking again.” Typical Miss Karina. 

I also got a letter from the viceroy’s son Rayleigh, who was away in the royal capital. 

He reported that he had sold all the Heaven’s Teardrops there and attached a summary of the profits. It was pretty impressive. 

Rayleigh had already left the royal capital and should have arrived in the trade city Tartumina around this time. 

I also had letters from nobles of Labyrinth City, the Ougoch Duchy, and so on, but none from Seiryuu City. Since it was so far away, I would probably have to wait a little longer for any response. 

“Sir Knight, Kajiro at your service.” 

Knocking at the door, Mr. Kajiro and Miss Ayaume came inside. 

“Miss Miteruna told me about your hard work.” 

“Sake would make an excellent reward.” 

“S-Sir Kajiro, don’t be rude!” 

Ayaume grew flustered at Kajiro’s blunt request. 

“Well, I did acquire some fine sake recently, so I’ll share it with you later.” 

I responded with a smile, then asked about what had happened with the burglars. 

The burglars in question were layabouts from the downtown area, as well as criminal guild members. But they all confessed that they had been hired by some unknown person. 

They were after our extra Magic Swords and other magical equipment. 

Perhaps this was connected to the rumors of war in the western part of the continent. 

The viceroy’s wife, who commanded the guard, probably knew about this already. I figured I would just mention it to the guildmaster later. 

Once this conversation concluded, I produced the greater magic potion from my sleeve and placed it on the table. 

“A magic potion, is it?” Kajiro asked. 

“Yes, I acquired it with a little help.” I nodded. 

“Quite a large vial.” 

Ayaume peered at the potion with some confusion. 

“It’s a greater health recovery potion, you see.” 

“…Greater?” 

“It can’t be!” 

Kajiro and Ayaume looked from the potion back to me, a mixture of hope and restraint on their faces. 

“Please use this to restore your leg.” 

I affirmed my request with a nod. 

“…Oh, Sir Kajiro!” 

Overcome with emotion, Ayaume flung her arms around Mr. Kajiro. 

Normally, the pair didn’t have a whiff of romance about them, but at times like this, I thought they suited each other pretty well. 

“W-wait, Sir Knight!” 

Looking flustered at Ayaume’s rare show of affection, Kajiro nevertheless held out a hand to stop me. 

“Greater magic potions are so valuable that even nobles and royalty hesitate to use them. It is far too precious an item for a humble samurai such as myself.” 

“That’s not true. I ordered this potion specifically to heal your leg.” 

I had actually made it, but that was a minor detail. 

“But…” 

“Are you concerned because it has no certificate of authenticity?” I asked. 

“No! That is not my concern, of course. But if you were to offer this potion to the Shiga Kingdom royals or the old noble families, surely you would receive any title you desired. I have heard that the third prince of this kingdom is gravely ill, is he not?” 

No, he just got turned into an old man. 

“This potion would not cure His Highness’s ailment.” 

There might be some noble or royal family with a person suffering from a lost limb or similar, but I would much rather help a friend first than some rich person I’d never met. 

“Besides, I don’t need any more titles. Being an honorary hereditary knight is more than enough.” 

As long as my rank allowed me to bring the beastfolk girls into inns, get in and out of cities more easily, and so on, that was good enough for me. 

Mr. Kajiro continued to protest, so finally I prompted, “Or are you worried about paying off a greater magic potion?” 

Of course, I was planning to give it to him for free, but still. 

“If I can heal my leg, then I’ll gladly earn as many hundreds or even thousands of gold coins as it takes!” 

“That’s the spirit.” 

Kajiro had seen through my challenge but accepted it anyway, so I smiled and pressed the potion toward him. 

Of course, I warned him to wait until after dinner to actually drink the potion, lest we repeat the incident with Zarigon. 

Finally, I should note that the lesser cockatrice meat was more delicious in stew than any chicken I’d ever had. 

And then, that night… 

“Arrrrgh!” 

Kajiro’s manly face twisted in pain. 

Since Lelillil told me when I was healing Tifaleeza and Neru that magic can’t heal old wounds, I was a little worried, but when I reopened the wound and had Kajiro drink the greater potion, the regrowth began without issue. 

“Uuuurgh!” 

“Almost there, Sir Kajiro.” 

Obviously, regrowing an entire limb at this rate must be considerably painful. 

Miss Ayaume held Kajiro tightly, as if trying to take on some of his pain. 

My group stood by, their fists clenched as they encouraged him. 

Finally, the lost leg returned to normal, and the red flesh took on a normal color. 

“My leg… It’s really…” 

Looking exhausted, Kajiro stared down at his own leg. 

His usual politeness was gone, but this was no time to worry about such things. 

“Yes, it’s healed.” 

“Sir Kajiro! Congratulations, Kajiro!” 

Tears streamed down Kajiro’s face, while Ayaume wept openly and wore a glowing smile. 

The rest of my group let up a cheer from behind me. 

Once everyone had calmed down a little, I spoke to Kajiro and handed him a rehydrating concoction. “Well done. Here.” 

“Sir Knight. I cannot begin to express my gratitude…” Without even sipping the drink, he bowed deeply before me. “In order to repay this debt, I, Kajiro of the Zi-Gain style, swear on the name of my ancestor Simahzu that I shall live to serve you until my dying breath.” 

No, that’s going a little too far. 

More importantly, I wondered if his ancestor’s name Simahzu came from the Japanese feudal lord Shimazu. Was this Zi-Gain style based on the martial arts style Jigen-ryuu? 

“I, too, vow to serve Sir Knight’s house forever along with Sir Kajiro.” 

Ayaume lined up next to Kajiro. To me, this sounded like she was proposing to Kajiro in a roundabout way, but neither of them seemed to have realized this. I decided to let it slide. 

“Please raise your heads, both of you. I appreciate your show of gratitude, but there’s really no need for all that. I will certainly need you to continue protecting this house until we find your successors, but my only wish is for Sir Kajiro to return to the path of a martial arts master.” 

“Sir Knight!” 

The samurai pair exclaimed at my quiet proclamation and broke down crying. 

I wasn’t quite sure how to take this reaction, but evidently they were grateful that I wanted him to keep up his life’s work. 

For some reason, the girls all ended up crying along with them. 

“I swear to you that my name will be echoed across the continent as a master swordsman someday.” 

Kajiro’s face was still damp with tears as he made this vow. 

Whew, I’m glad I managed to change the subject. 

Having normal employees and servants was one thing, but taking on vassals seemed a little heavy for me. 

 

“Lord Kuro!” 

“Lelillil, can you get Tifaleeza for me?” 

“Right away, sir!” 

After Mr. Kajiro’s leg was healed, I transformed into Kuro and visited the Ivy Manor. 

“You called for me, Lord Kuro?” 

“Ah. Sorry to have disrupted your sleep.” 

Tifaleeza was wearing a skimpy nightgown, so I apologized and got right to business. 

“It’s about the financial deficit we were discussing the other day.” 

I produced a few different branding irons. Upon seeing them, Tifaleeza froze for a moment. 

That may have been indelicate of me. I had forgotten that she’d been burned by her stepmother and branded by a feudal lord in the past. 

“Sorry, sorry. These are for burning runes into bones for the purpose of making bone armor.” 

It was only 20 or 30 percent as effective as carving the runes properly, but they would be significantly easier to apply this way. 

“This is for carving runes, too, but while it’s more effective, it also takes more time and effort.” 

The second object was a bronze template and a chisel for carving runes of a specific depth. 

With these, even a relatively unskilled worker could carve runes into bones and wood. 

“If we’ll be making armor, won’t you need to join an armor-related guild to avoid any problems?” Tifaleeza asked. 

“Even if we’re just supplying bones to armorers and workshops as materials?” 

“I imagine they would allow it at first, but if we started to earn money from it, I’m sure they would try to intervene.” She sounded confident. 

I suppose it did make sense. Guilds were originally created to protect the rights and interests of artisans, so this would naturally fall under their jurisdiction. 

“Then ask Polina to get us signed up with a guild. In the meantime, you can sell these.” 

I produced a bag from my Item Box that contained a large amount of crystal rings. 

I’d made them by using the Stone Object spell on some of the many crystals that I acquired in the moss crab bee area. 

They were smooth rings without any fancy designs, but since they were made of crystal, I figured they should still fetch a good price. 

I tried making a sort of Venetian glass by fusing several kinds of crystals, but they came out so nice that I worried it might attract the wrong kind of attention, so I didn’t offer her those. 

Maybe we could start selling them once we had a storefront in the royal capital. 

“L-Lord Kuro, what are these?” 

“Use them to make money.” 

“V-very well. I’ll send someone to sell them who has acquaintances in the market. Does three silver coins apiece sound all right?” 

“Three silver coins?” 

According to my “Estimation” skill, the market price for these ranged anywhere from one copper coin to three silver coins. 

“I’m terribly sorry, but if we wanted to sell them for a higher price than that, they would need some sort of additional value…” 

“That’s fine.” 

I had assumed we’d sell them for one copper coin. 

At this price, that should be enough to raise money for the time being. 

Once the alchemist and doctors could reliably make veria potion, we would probably be selling those to the guild wholesale. 

Oh right… 

“I have a request about the veria potions.” 

I took out a sample veria potion and a fragmented recipe from the Item Box. 

“Tell Sumina to bring these to the guild.” 

“Understood.” 

I gave her a letter detailing the order in which to bring them to the guild and a story for how I’d found the sample and recipe. 

I also proposed offering a reward for gathering the fragments of the recipe. 

Big Sister Sumina and company could definitely handle this. 

“That’s all I needed. You may go.” 

For some reason, Tifaleeza seemed a little dissatisfied when I dismissed her. 

Oh, I get it. 

“Tifaleeza.” 

“Y-yes?!” 

When I called out to stop her, she jumped and turned around. 

Her voice sounded a little higher than usual. 

“Eluterina and the others reached the royal capital safely. In a few days, I’ll go over there myself to help them out.” 

“Erm, okay…” 

I updated her on the situation because I thought she might be worried about her friends, but Tifaleeza’s response sounded half-hearted. 

“Is that all?” she asked. 

“Yes, that’s all.” 

“Then, if you’ll excuse me.” 

Tifaleeza’s voice was as cold as ice as she excused herself. 

Girls that age can be so difficult. 

“It might be a little early to go home and sleep…” 

For a change of pace, I decided to build some defense golems to protect the house and the orphanage. 

I used the underground lab’s equipment to format a core, then engraved it with the lookout algorithms I’d made in the elf village for the figurehead golem on our ship and some simple battle algorithms. I supposed I would use this core as the base to make a golem with Stone Object and Create Earth Servant. 

I went to the trouble of engraving the core as a precaution because the book of Earth Magic spells that I found in the labyrinth included spells for taking over someone else’s golem, overriding their orders, and so on. 

First, I used the Stone Object spell to make a human-size dragon out of blue crystal with a wand-like spear and ten chubby cats out of stone. The latter were for the orphanage, hence the cute design. 

Crystal would be fragile, so I carved some strengthening runes into the dragon, then set all of them up with some prototype equipment to give them magic-barrier-producing circuits, awareness-inhibiting devices so they wouldn’t be recognized as golems, and so on. 

Furthermore, because I didn’t want the golems to spread miasma around, I also set them up with a magic circuit made out of magical blue. 

Finally, I used the Create Earth Servant spell to turn them into golems. 

Both ended up being level 30, but because of the magic circuits, they got the title Consecrated Golem, too. 

I also made ten of the simple, round original golems, each about four heads tall. 

These were all level 10 and didn’t have algorithm-engraved cores. 

The next morning, under the guise of the Pendragon family’s merchant, Akindoh, I went to the house to deliver the golems. 

I set the cat golems up as statues at the gates of the mansion and the orphanage and on all four sides of each building; the crystal golem I put in the entrance hall of the mansion. 

The regular golems were positioned to guard both buildings as actual golems. 

The former were for stopping intruders, while I was hoping the latter would deter criminals from trying to break in in the first place. 

When I set up the golems, I also installed the extra-large refrigerator Arisa had requested for the orphanage. 

 

“Hmm. What a fascinating magic tool.” 

In the parlor of Baronet Dyukeli’s home, I presented him with the juicer and explained how to use it. 

“Just open this lid, put fruits and vegetables inside according to the recipes, close the lid, and provide it with magic power.” 

The maid timidly followed my instructions. 

But when she reached the last step— 

“Eeeek!” 

Startled by the noise and vibration of the juicer as it pulverized the contents, the maid shrieked and threw the juicer across the room. 

“Oh dear.” 

I immediately caught it and held the lid in place, but it was only thanks to my high DEX and AGI stats that I was able to react so quickly. 

“I’m sorry. I forgot to warn you about the noise and vibration.” Apologizing, I completed the first test myself. 

“Intriguing. It looks somewhat like a thick soup,” Baronet Dyukeli said upon sipping it himself after the maid poison-tested the juice. 

“It’s tastier than I expected. The sweetness of the fruit hides the bitterness of the vegetables.” 

“Yes, that’s one of the benefits of vegetable juice.” 

When combined with fruit juice anyway. 

“Do you think your son will be willing to drink this?” 

“Yes, I’m sure he will.” 

Just in case, I gave him some recipes with suggestions for adding honey or sugar and variations with different kinds of fruit. 

“But will preparing them so violently not destroy the vitamin spirits?” 

“Don’t worry. The magic tool is engraved with a rune that keeps it from harming the vitamin spirits.” 

I reassured the baronet’s fantasy-world worries. 

I’d forgotten that he thought vitamins were good spirits that hide in vegetables and livestock entrails. 

“Very well, then. I shall have this juice prepared for my son starting with tonight’s dinner.” 

Baronet Dyukeli nodded, looking satisfied. 

…Oh right. 

I still had one other order of business here. 

“Your Excellency, could I ask you to have this potion and piece of paper analyzed?” 

“Analyzed, you say?” 

Looking suspicious, the baronet called for his servant with the “Analyze Goods” skill. 

“…I can’t believe it.” 

“Don’t beat around the bush. What are the results?” 

“Th-this is a genuine veria potion. It appears to be around the same level of effectiveness as a lesser health recovery potion.” 

I was impressed that his “Analyze Goods” skill could appraise the type of potion as well as the effectiveness. 

“Veria potion? And the paper?” 

“This is the recipe for veria potion.” 

“What?!” 

Baronet Dyukeli grabbed the recipe from the table. 

“Th-this is the recipe…?” 

“I believe it is likely a fragment of the recipe. I dabble in alchemy myself, and these instructions appear to be the preface and a list of necessary ingredients. The recipe itself is likely on a separate fragment.” 

I gave the confused baronet the answer I’d prepared. 

I was planning to hide the other fragments of the recipe in treasure chests in some of the more easily accessible areas of the labyrinth, along with a completed veria potion, so that young explorers could go looking for them like treasure hunters. 

The recipe was broken into eight parts; I figured I would hide a lot of copies of five of the sections and less copies of the final three. 

I also wrote the preface such that people could figure out that the recipe was split into eight parts if they read it closely enough. 

I was hoping that some greedy mid-level explorers would get so caught up in treasure hunting that they’d pioneer new hunting grounds, too. 

“Sir Pendragon, you’re giving this to me—that is, to the alchemists’ guild?” 

“Yes, that’s why I brought it here. If this recipe can be completed, I’m hoping that the price of magic potions in Labyrinth City will decrease and the tension between the explorers and the alchemists’ guild will be resolved.” 

Before he could name a price, I explained why I had brought it to the baronet instead of the explorers’ guild. 

“Grrr… Very well. I swear upon the great ancestral king Yamato and the Dyukeli family name that I shall do as you ask.” 

After crossing his arms and grumbling for a moment, Baronet Dyukeli promised to comply. 

This way, the highly in-demand lesser health recovery potions should finally be widely available at a cheap price. That should resolve the explorers’ resentment and could possibly increase their survival rate in the labyrinth. 

Hopefully, that would also mean that explorers would stop hating Miss Mary-Ann because she was the daughter of Baronet Dyukeli. After all, she wanted to be an explorer herself someday. 

As I took my leave, Mary-Ann saw me off with an imploring look in her eyes, but I ignored her in case it raised any weird flags. 

Taking care of her was a job better suited to the viceroy’s third son, Gerits, who had an obvious crush on her, besides. 

 

“Is this about your previous request, Sir Pendragon? Just a moment, please.” 

On the way home from Baronet Dyukeli’s house, I stopped off at the west guild to see how my request for scroll-collecting was coming along. 

The receptionist looked over a list, then brought up a small box from the back of the room. 

“We’ve received these three so far. Your initial deposit covered the reward for them, so there is no need for any further payment. Here are the details and your receipt.” 

Explaining quickly and smoothly, the receptionist took the scrolls out of the box. 

The three scrolls were for the spells Sand Control, Desert Mirage, and Acceleration Gate. 

The former were from the Sandstorm Labyrinth, like Stone Object and Create Earth Servant. 

Sand Control did exactly what it described, but I couldn’t find any description of Desert Mirage in my spell books. My guess was that it created spontaneous mirages, but I couldn’t think of any use for that except getting people lost in a desert. 

But I guess it’s all right to find a useless spell every once in a while. 

The Acceleration Gate spell was apparently found in a place called the Wilde Labyrinth. 

I couldn’t find a spell by this name in my books, either, but I assumed it was similar to the Wind Magic spell Quick, the Explosion Magic spell Boost, the Dark Magic spell Boost Gate, and so on. 

When I casually analyzed the scroll, it did seem like a composite of the above three spells. 

Well, I’d find out soon enough if I went to the labyrinth or the desert to the west to test these spells out. 

“There were seven other submissions, but…” 

The receptionist explained that three of these were just standard market scrolls dressed up to look special, and the other four were fake scrolls. 

“We’ve already disposed of them—don’t worry.” 

I thanked the receptionist and asked her to keep collecting scrolls. 

“Yes, of course. However, scrolls are found rather infrequently, so please do understand.” 

She said these three had probably come from someone’s personal collection. 

I was happy to keep my request going continuously. If people knew they could make a profit, I might get submissions from neighboring cities or the royal capital. 

Thanking the worker, I left the guild. 

“Satou.” 

“Oh? Why, if it isn’t master.” 

Mia and Arisa spotted me amid the crowd and came running over. 

I saw Liza behind them, too. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Some of the orphanage kids want to become explorers, so we came to ask if there’s any kind of school for that.” 

Oh right. A few of the kids asked Mr. Kajiro to train them before. 

“Since the kingdom collects cores from the labyrinth, that seems reasonable.” 

Being an explorer was a dangerous job, but I wanted the kids to be able to pursue their dreams. 

After I asked the teller at the guild, who didn’t know, I turned to the guildmaster’s secretary, Miss Ushana, when I spotted her. 

“I’m afraid not. There’s only the rookie explorers’ class for new bronze-badge explorers.” 

“Are there any that aren’t run by the kingdom or the guild?” 

“Some explorer parties take on apprentices or students to do errands while learning the job, but there isn’t anything like a school.” 

The only available option was a sort of apprenticeship system. 

“But although there isn’t a school for explorers, there are plenty of dojos and private schools that teach combat techniques.” 

There were also dojos that taught self-defense specifically for women, since the city was so full of rough-and-tumble explorers. 

“Would we be able to make something like that ourselves?” Arisa asked. 

“As long as you get permission from the viceroy to open a school, I imagine it wouldn’t be a problem. There are no restrictions about it in the guild rules,” Ushana answered. 

If I could just find some instructors, all I would have to do is ask the viceroy’s wife for permission and this could probably work. 

…No, hang on. 

I was getting carried away by Arisa’s idea. 

Since this was about the orphanage kids, all I really needed to do was hire a teacher to come to the orphanage once in a while. 

“Please! Just give us three more days!” 

“I swear we’ll pay up!” 

I heard a familiar conversation from the reception counter on the first floor. 

“It’s those girls again.” 

“Déjà vu.” 

Sure enough, it was the Lovely Wings pair negotiating with a guild employee again. 

This time, however, things sounded a little different. 

“I told you last time you were late on a payment, didn’t I? I said that if it happened again, you’d become slaves.” 

For real? This fantasy world sure is harsh. 

That certainly explained why they had been sobbing with gratitude when I saved them last time, though. 

“Th-then enslave me, and we’ll pay Jena’s part of the fee.” 

“W-wait a minute, Iruna! What are you saying?! Don’t you dare try to sacrifice yourself for me!” 

I couldn’t just ignore their plight, so I thanked Ushana for her help and headed over to the counter. 

“Hello, Miss Iruna, Miss Jena.” 

“Mister!” 

The two looked at me tearfully, like their savior had appeared. 

“Could I ask the total of their debt?” 

“Eight gold coins and four silver coins.” 

Oh, that’s not as bad as I thought. 

“Then let me pay off all of it, please.” 

Considering how bad these two seemed to be at earning money, they were probably going to end up as slaves sooner or later at this rate, so I decided to just pay off their whole debt in one go. 

“M-mister, we can’t let you go that far for us…” 

“Y-yeah! If you could lend us the interest, that would be more than—” 

“There’s no guarantee I’ll happen to be around to bail you out a third time, understand?” 

The two of them tried to protest, but when I pointed out the truth, they fell tearfully silent. 

I guess even they couldn’t deny that fact. 

So I gave the clerk nine gold coins and received my change in silver coins. 

“Thank you so much, mister! We’ll repay you with our bodies!” 

“Oh? I’ll take you up on that, then.” 

Since they had made such a ridiculous offer, I agreed to it with a cheerful smile. 

The Lovely Wings pair turned bright red and got flustered, but I heard bellows of rage from behind me. 

“Mrrr, guilty!” 

“Absolutely not!” 

The iron-wall pair of Mia and Arisa shoved their way between the Lovely Wings and me. 

Liza stepped in to stop the furious pair. “Calm down, you two. Do you really think our master is the sort of person who would ever use debt as an excuse to coerce women into such liaisons?” 

“I guess not, buuut…” 

“Mrrr.” 

Perhaps I’d taken the joke a little too far. “Sorry, sorry. I only meant to mess with them a little,” I apologized, making my real intentions known. “See, we actually have some kids at our orphanage who want to become explorers. I was looking for someone who might teach them for us. Do you think I could ask you two to take on the job?” 

“Y-yes, of course! If you’ll have us!” 

“We’ll teach the crap outta those kids!” 

Jena and Iruna agreed to my request immediately. 

They had teaching experience from the rookie explorers’ class, and they were both good-natured young women. They’d be the perfect instructors for the orphans. 

If I had time down the line, maybe we could even start offering a course for kids who wanted to be explorers. That might reduce the amount of gullible kids like those beastfolk children being taken advantage of by guys like Besso. 

I didn’t want to get too ambitious, but if there was enough demand and we could secure more teachers, I wouldn’t be opposed to opening an entire explorer training school like Arisa proposed. 

If we made it into a proper school, we could even offer lessons to noble kids who wanted to be explorers, too, like Baronet Dyukeli’s daughter Mary-Ann and the viceroy’s third son, Gerits. 

“While you’re teaching, feel free to use an empty room in our servants’ quarters.” 

They lived downtown near the barricade walls, which would probably make commuting a pain, so I decided to offer some employee benefits. 

“Man, that kid really knows how to rope in mistresses.” 

“The crazy thing is, he doesn’t seem to have any ulterior motives.” 

“I bet some country girls would fall for that in a second.” 

My “Keen Hearing” skill picked up on some tasteless comments from the explorers around us. 

The girls didn’t seem to have heard, but I didn’t want to let weird rumors spread about them. I stepped over to clear things up. 

But by then, those rumors had already vanished. 

After all, some much more interesting news had arrived. 

“Veria potions, you say?!” 

“Yes, that’s right! We found it in a treasure chest in the labyrinth! There’s even a piece of the recipe!” 

The first voice came from a clerk, while the next was Miss Sumina, speaking loudly. 

She must have come to carry out my request. 

“Did they say ‘veria potions’?” 

“What is this, another scam?” 

None of the explorers seemed to believe it. 

Still, I could tell that deep down they wanted it to be true. 

“No, it’s the real thing! Look, just analyze it!” 

“I-it’s true! We’ve got to report this to the guildmaster! Sumina, come with me to her office right away.” 

“No problem! What’d I tell you? It’s a real veria potion!” 

Once the word had spread, Sumina followed the clerk to the guildmaster’s office. 

“S-so it’s true?” 

“That clerk has the ‘Analyze’ skill. It’s gotta be for real.” 

“Damn! So we’ll be able to get cheap potions?” 

“Of course! There’s more veria outside the city than you could ever cut down!” 

“And even if you did, they grow back in half a month as long as you leave the roots.” 

The explorers excitedly chatted among themselves, the Lovely Wings pair included. 

Then a second information bomb dropped. 

This time it was another set of girls from the tenements, who came separate from Sumina. 

“Didn’t she say she found a recipe fragment, too?” 

“I wonder if there are others?” 

“She said she found it in the labyrinth!” 

“We’d better search all the labyrinths in the recipes for treasure chests, then.” 

Some of the girls really needed to work on their acting. That last one, especially, totally flubbed the line beyond comprehension. 

Still, the explorers seemed to get the gist of it anyway. The ones who overheard the conversation and understood it ran off in a tizzy. 

They were probably headed straight for the labyrinth to look for recipe fragments. 

“Is this your doing, master?” 

“That’s a secret.” 

I responded to Arisa’s whispered question with a wink. 

Once I introduced the Lovely Wings to Miss Miteruna, I would have to go hide the veria potions and recipe fragments in some treasure chests. 

“We’ve got to have a welcome party tonight!” 

“Mm. Celebrate.” 

“I shall go hunt for meat in the labyrinth, then.” 

Once I stopped Liza from her overexcited endeavor, we headed back to the house to introduce the pair to their new workplace. 

That night, the near-limitless quantities of meat and veggies put smiles on the faces of my kids and the Lovely Wings duo alike. 

Nothing makes people happier than delicious food. 





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