Chapter 79

I was bad at sales, but it was not as if I could not do it, and during the process of driving out Nodon, I had gained some confidence that my acting ability was fairly decent.

Besides, I had come to understand this world’s rules and savagery to some extent.

So I told myself.

I was a merchant.

A newly risen, wicked merchant who had maneuvered well in Jirenu Territory and ingratiated himself with the lord.

“Where did you hear about this place?”

A shabby district within an even shabbier ward. Every building leaned this way or that, and for some reason, dirty water kept flowing along the edges of the stone pavement.

As expected, coming here with only me and Kururu was frightening, so we once returned to the Iron and Tide Inn and brought Gerario with us.

While we were at it, for the props needed in our plan, we ended up getting one permission from Iiria, who was lying pale-faced on the bed while insisting that she had not smoked.

“We are in the same business of keeping hunting grounds secret, are we not?”

The one I answered was a man with a clichéd-looking scar on his face.

There were about five similar thugs in the dark room, but for now, the atmosphere was not that dangerous.

“Well, maybe so, but… this is a strange combination for a raid.”

The reason they were not getting worked up might have been because they were a little confused.

If it had been just me and Kururu, they might have seen through us like the brothel had and realized that one of us was a magician, but now we had Gerario, who looked exactly like a bodyguard. As a result, Kururu’s presence instead looked like an odd addition to a raiding party.

“Of course. We have come with a business proposal.”

“Business.”

It had been the same with Marks, but the thugs of this world were surprisingly sharp and rational.

Thanks to that, it seemed we could talk.

“I wish to open a brothel, and I am gathering girls.”

The man’s eyes narrowed, and the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.

“Not here. In Jirenu Territory.”

The man stared at me, then nodded as if he understood.

“As you have guessed, I successfully ingratiated myself with the lord during the political upheaval. I was able to obtain permission for that sort of business.”

Then I took out a piece of parchment from my robe and opened it for him to see.

It was a fake charter stating that I had Iiria’s permission, written carelessly by Kururu, whose handwriting resembled Iiria’s.

Even in this city, which was two days away from the island by ship, Nodon’s name was known among those in the know.

Moreover, since these men seemed to have been gathering the pitiful girls who could no longer remain in Jirenu Territory and using them for business, they were naturally supposed to know about the political upheaval.

“If it’s girls from Jirenu, then yeah, we do get them here now and then.”

“I would like to take all of those girls off your hands.”

“…”

The man stared blankly at the ceiling for a while, then looked at me.

“Are you really planning to open a brothel?”

Instead of dropping, the temperature in the room rose all at once.

The men in the room began to rise, and Gerario had Kururu step back.

I did not know where the landmine had been, but I must not flinch.

“That is correct. I am gathering prostitutes for a brothel.”

“Liar. Which company hired you? You came to crush our turf, didn’t you! A merchant who just wants to open a brothel in Jirenu Territory would never bother coming all the way out here!”

Kururu reached into her robe with a look that practically said, “See?”

But I stepped forward and said this.

“I would. Because the ones who have drifted here are only the girls who could afford the ship fare to leave the island.”

“…Mm… huh?”

I moved even closer to the man, who had stopped moving, and spoke almost in a whisper.

“In other words, they are former citizens of honor. Here in Roran, citizenship from a countryside place like Jirenu likely means nothing, but over there, that is not the case.”

“…”

The man looked at me as if the poison had been drawn out of him.

“A chance to obtain that unattainable former citizen girl.”

When I whispered that, the man once again made a face as if he understood.

“You… really do understand this business, don’t you?”

He grinned, poked my chest, and slapped my shoulder. I suppose this was what it felt like when men suddenly became close over dirty jokes at a drinking party.

“I see. No wonder you came all this way. But… you’ve got good taste, hey.”

“So, how many can you gather?”

“Hmph… Ten… maybe?”

According to our advance investigation, eleven girls had left the island.

“How long are you staying here?”

“For a little while yet.”

“Good. Come back in three days. We’ll negotiate the price then.”

“May I understand that as a price that takes future dealings into account as well?”

The man grinned and shook my hand.

Until we left the dim district, all of us were silent.

The reason was that Kururu was in an extremely bad mood.

“Hey, why did you bring Kururu-chan along?”

Gerario finally said that to me, together with an elbow jab.

“Because she would have been even angrier if I hadn’t.”

Kururu was walking a full five steps ahead of us, but that was still rather too close to whisper behind someone who had beast ears.

“I misjudged you, Yorinobu!”

Kururu stopped, turned around, shouted that, growled, and then started walking almost at a trot.

Neither Gerario nor I could chase after her, so we could only watch her go.

“Kururu-chan is surprisingly earnest, huh.”

I thought Iiria would probably be more understanding of this sort of thing.

“Well, from my perspective, I’ve reassessed you. As a reason for opening a brothel, that sounded very convincing. So you were a man after all.”

Gerario shrugged and laughed vulgarly.

“It is knowledge from my previous world.”

“Oh?”

When I had told Kururu about game scenarios, I had thought that I might be able to win against this world’s primitive entertainment with templates from my previous world.

So I had merely made use of that.

“In particular, stories about honorable female knights and the like were popular. ‘Ugh… kill me!’ That kind of thing. It was an application of that.”

After saying that, I suddenly noticed Gerario’s state and was startled.

His eyes were wide, and his mouth was trembling.

“H-Hey… what a damn blasphemous world… But… hey, what kind of story is that? ‘Ugh… kill me,’ you say? Hold on, that’s amazing!”

He even threw an arm around my shoulder as he asked.

As expected of keywords powerful enough to form an entire genre by themselves, their force seemed tremendous. Perhaps it was because with that one phrase, one could immediately understand what kind of situation it was and what was going to happen from there.

I thought that I needed to be able to create hooks on that level in game development too, but since I had not lived in a culture where I talked dirty with friends, I had no choice but to casually fend off Gerario as he pestered me.

While doing that, I wondered what I should do about Kururu, who had gotten sulky, but when I searched for a solution, my gaze returned to the adventurer who was still persistently begging to hear the story.

“In exchange for telling you.”

“Mm?”

Gerario was like this, but he was an expert adventurer.

“Please help me look for books containing rare magic circles.”

“…”

Gerario stared at me, then suddenly grinned.

It was a far more vulgar smile than when he had wanted to hear the female-knight story, but I let him think whatever he liked.

“When a girl sulks, a gift is best. If you try explaining logic to her, you’ll only make her angrier.”

If one wanted to know where the girls from Jirenu Territory were, one should visit the spiderweb in this town that captured butterflies.

But to rescue the butterflies from the spiderweb, one needed a bit of ingenuity. After all, the spiders were also catching butterflies in order to live.

So we had pretended to be in the same trade, hinted at future dealings, and offered to take the girls off their hands as merchandise.

That had been the pretext, but Kururu had been shocked after seeing me talk about something like a man’s desire that took advantage of the girls’ terrible circumstances.

The reason Iiria had not become completely jaded was probably because a straightforward girl like Kururu was by her side, but for someone with Kururu’s personality, even if she knew it was just a pretext, that kind of talk was unpleasant.

“By the way, how much is the budget for books containing magic circles?”

There was a bit of implication in the way Gerario asked.

While staring down the road where Kururu had run off, I said,

“It depends on how much we can bargain down the girls’ ransom.”

I did not call it a price, for the sake of their honor.

Gerario stared at me and hunched his shoulders.

“You have Iiria-chan, don’t you? I think you could get permission from the proper place, then blow away the fools who show up with magic.”

Indeed, they might have been taking advantage of the Jirenu girls’ weaknesses and making unscrupulous profits.

But I had something on my mind.

“That depends on the girls’ situation. Those people may have some similarities to Marks-san and his group too.”

Through Marks and the others, I had learned that in this world, thugs were somewhat different from those in my previous world.

Marks and his group might certainly be petty little villains, but as human beings, they could be trusted.

And if those men from earlier were excellent procurers with a sharp nose for gathering people, there was something I wanted to ask of them.

“…Don’t tell me you’re really planning to run a brothel?”

Gerario did not look as if he was blaming me, but he was bewildered.

“No. As the company expands, I want to gather talented people. In a port town like this, there are likely many people who arrived after falling into poverty, so I thought it might be easier to gather them if we asked those men.”

Using church connections to properly gather people who had received a legitimate education was also an option, but after hearing from Gerario about places where magicians gathered, such as the Ministry of Magic and the Ministry of Righteousness and Heresy, I thought that might be a little dangerous.

After all, one should not work together with elitists who thought it was only natural to trample on the lower classes.

“In that case, you really need to fix Kururu-chan’s mood.”

“?”

I did not understand that part, so when I asked back, Gerario smiled somewhat awkwardly.

“If she stays like that, Kururu-chan might turn those men into charcoal without any questions at the negotiation.”

That was possible, and there was something I was a little curious about too.

“Has Kururu-san’s magic skill improved that much?”

Gerario grinned and slapped my shoulder.

“Thanks to you opening one hole in her.”

He was definitely saying that on purpose.

When I turned a disgusted face toward him, Gerario laughed in a very good mood.