Let’s Just Give It A Try First! (9)

I called Matilda and Linda over for a meal and asked about their morning routines.

“What do the two of you have to do today?”

At my words, Linda said she had to head to the 4th Rest Area because of remaining schedules from yesterday, and Matilda said she would be busy in the morning since work that should have been handled late yesterday still remained.

I felt unnecessarily sorry. I hadn’t realized how late it was and had held them back. So I said to the two of them.

“I’d like you to clear some time in the afternoon; is it possible to adjust?”

“It is possible.”

“It’s possible for me as well.”

After hearing the answer that both were available, I continued my meal, and it was around the time I had finished most of the food.

“May I ask what it is for?”

At Linda’s question, I glanced at Matilda once and said.

“I’m planning to clear a path through the Forest of the Demon Dragon, and I intend to decide on the estimates, schedule, and the people to operate in the North Continent. Ah, but don’t worry, I’m not telling the two of you to go.”

The two of them had expressions of momentary flusteredness, making me wonder if they disliked dispatch work that much.

However, I also knew that they couldn’t leave the domain because of the work they were in charge of. That was why I intended to recruit new people, and I had brought it up with the intention of getting advice needed when looking for people.

After leaving word to see them in the afternoon, I returned to the Lord’s castle and began writing down the major outlines of what needs to be done on documents.

‘First is the cafe, but “tea” isn’t exactly a familiar culture…’

I could tell that, while they might know alcohol, the concept of “tea” was not well known. I didn’t know why it had become like this, but at least except for a few regions, everyone preferred “alcohol.”

No, to be precise, it would be more accurate to think of it as them drinking alcohol with an alcohol content of about 0.5 to 1% like tea.

For them, that was practically their “tea” culture.

‘Diluting wine with water or drinks… how should I break into this?’

A few alternatives that came to mind were selling things like bread made with chocolate together, but in this case, the roles of guest and host could end up reversed.

I had a hunch that instead of the unfamiliar tea, they would look more for the familiar bread—bread containing sweet and attractive chocolate.

That said, if asked if tea would fail, it didn’t seem like it would either.

So my judgment was that a level of adjustment was needed, but this was quite difficult.

I hadn’t run a business before, and since there wasn’t even data to draw an average from here, the fact that I had to figure everything out as if banging my head against the ground weighed on my mind.

Moreover, because I was doing it, cases of someone quick-witted following suit could arise, and procurement and delivery of materials were also problems.

This was because the key was how much material to prepare in advance since the sales volume couldn’t be known.

‘Should I hold a tasting event?’

It was full of problems. Price adjustment, the trade name, where to open the shop—there were too many things to consider.

“Hmm, for now, just the major outlines…”

In the end, after declaring a surrender, I began manufacturing medicine while waiting for my capable subordinates to arrive.

The medicine I was focusing on recently was a ‘Mana Recovery Potion,’ and I was in the middle of finding a way to eliminate side effects. Because the process of creating mana poison was essential in mana recovery potions, when a large amount was taken or taken for a long time, one would develop symptoms of addiction to that poison and their physical strength would be depleted.

However, if you suppress the generation of this mana poison, mana recovery does not happen again.

Literally, a mana recovery potion was something that could be seen as mana poison infiltrating the body and substituting physical strength for mana.

However, mana often recovered naturally even without physical exertion. It meant that even without mana poison, my body absorbed mana that it could accept.

So I intended to focus on this and find a method.

‘I think a method that literally only increases the absorption amount of mana without mana poison would work…’

There was a clue. However, how to turn this into a result was the key.

I had already repeated quite a few failures, and although a few medicines that could be called prototypes were completed, these were exerting effects toward mental recovery rather than mana recovery in a literal sense.

“Is there a connection between the mind and mana…?”

Even back when I sought advice from the mage Hare, it was a medicine produced by focusing on the fact that he said mental power was an essential factor in using mana.

But in a situation where I didn’t know how they were connected, and recalling that only my physical exhaustion was severe rather than mental power when I used mana, it was then that I fell into deep thought.

“…How foolish. I just had to find a medicine that fits only me.”

I thought there was no need to specifically cater to others. Literally, I hated the process of being addicted to mana poison and wanted to use a lot of mana while avoiding that, and I remembered hearing from Hare that the mana usage method I use is a form of generating mana by burning physical strength.

That was it. I realized that I had already produced the medicine that fits me.

“In that case… efficiency is the problem..”

Rather, if looking at physical recovery alone, the physical recovery medicine I had currently made had efficiency so poor it was a mess.

When compared with the excellent items taught by pharmacy, it didn’t even see 1/3 of the effect. However, there was one good point.

‘The point is that it doesn’t affect the basic recovery power given to life…’

Assuming a living being has the power to self-repair a life force of 10, the physical recovery medicine taught by pharmacy can recover 10 physical strength but instead turns the repair ability to ‘-1’, ultimately resulting in a usage limit.

However, in the situation of the medicine I made, it was right to think of it as the recovery power barely exceeding 3 instead of not affecting that repair ability.

Moreover, the recovery time also took quite a while… my head was filled by the fact that the pros and cons were too clear. Furthermore, when self-repair ability dropped, the way to recover was to rest for a few days.

Since he said that if this accumulates and an overload occurs, it could even affect life, it seemed right to take it for a long time with the method I manufactured in the end, but the point was that the construction schedule would become quite long if that happened.

‘But if I take the mana recovery potion… the addiction…’

It felt like a story of a squirrel turning a treadmill, so my head was complicated. At that moment, I saw Beni entering the workshop with Black Cow steak, saying it was lunch.

I didn’t particularly prefer eating in the workshop, but since I had requested it separately today, Beni had brought it.

“Thanks, Beni, but aren’t you eating?”

“The maids eat their meals in the dining hall beforehand.”

“But you’ve eaten with me every time?”

“Because of that, I’ve gained a bit of weight…”

Certainly, Beni has put on a lot of weight lately. Since I tended to prefer a voluptuous figure, I had been having a relationship with Beni without really minding, but she seemed to have found it a bit burdensome or embarrassing.

“You look just right, though?”

“Heh, but I don’t like it.”

“Well… that’s for you to decide. Thanks!”

After expressing my gratitude to Beni, I began to cut the Black Cow steak and put it in my mouth. Certainly, the sauce made by reducing wine and the texture of the Black Cow meat went so well together it could be thought of as a perfect harmony.

Moreover, since it was after I had delivered sugarcane powder to the kitchen, Riin was adding umami to dishes these days with it, and this time she had achieved ‘Sweet-Salty’ by appropriately adding sugarcane powder to the sauce.

It was a grand development.

“This is how food develops.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s nothing, I’ll tell them to make this for the maids later too, so try it then.”

“Yes, thank you.”

It was Beni, showing a bright smile.

After the meal, checking on Beni as she left with the dishes, I began to focus on the medicine again. The efficiency I wanted was to pull it up from 3 to 5.

Because I thought that alone would allow me to use the mana itself without deficiency. Moreover, I intended to manufacture and try eating things like nutritional supplements that increase the basic recovery power itself.

‘I’m going to end up filling my stomach with supplements…’

Since I pushed work onto others, it was a trend that new work was increasing.

I was in a state of sitting facing Linda and Matilda. Had they both spent quite a busy schedule?

Because they said they hadn’t even been able to eat their meals, I had told them to bring sandwiches and had brewed coffee in front of the two of them.

“It would be right to start with the work report, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, then I shall speak first.”

Since Linda was about to stand up from her seat, I gestured to stop her from doing so and was then able to receive the report.

“First, civil complaints were continuously increasing at the 4th Rest Area.”

“If it’s a complaint, what would be the problem?”

“First, they say that due to the location of the 4th Rest Area, if using the Sky Bridge, they can only arrive there late at night. But the problem is that because of a lack of parking spaces or inns here, there are many cases where they mostly have to sleep on the road. If not that, they end up staying together as several people in one room, and at this time, complaints are coming in about various crimes occurring, including theft problems.”

“Then are you asking me to make the rest area itself bigger?”

“No, a complaint has come in asking to create a passage that allows them to go down to the ground.”

“Ground… it won’t work because of monsters, will it?”

At those words of mine, Linda took out a document, pushed it in front of me, and said.

“It is information on a beastkin tribe settled nearby. They are a nomadic tribe called the Tiger-kin, and it has been identified that they have settled and are living in the area; thanks to them, it has been identified that dangerous monsters and animals do not invade the activity area of the Tiger-kin.”

Gamung was of the Tiger-kin. He was the chief, and it seems that group leads a nomadic life. Just when I thought they hadn’t been seen near the Lord’s manor lately, it seems they had been wandering.

‘Well… since they are a tribe that even rejected houses to maintain tradition…’

In some ways, they could be called the only tribe that couldn’t be absorbed as domain residents. No, it would be correct to say they are a tribe that registered as domain residents but cannot be easily seen.

“What will you do if they go on a journey again?”

“So there is an alternative. Please look at this in detail.”

Linda shoved a new document in front of me. Looking at it as she said, there was an interesting proposal.

“So, let’s have the Tiger-kin settle near that place and have them receive a ‘seat fee’ to settle down?”

“That is correct. It is to have them protect the vicinity in the name of a protection fee. Currently, it is reported that it is very difficult for them to procure food. Because as many beastkin have recently flowed into the Ingrad Domain, monsters and animals are being hunted to extinction; I thought it might be good to arrange jobs for them to manage a certain area at this opportunity.”

Arranging jobs—I thought it was interesting. Would a wandering nomadic tribe really accept our proposal?

I was having such a thought when Linda brought up the rest of the story.

“Actually, there is something I wasn’t able to tell you beforehand.”

“What is it?”

“We are in a state of having received cooperation from the Tiger-kin that they will unconditionally follow whatever the Lord says.”

A chuckle came out. It meant that if my permission was granted, I could have them manage the 4th Rest Area.

I wondered if perhaps the scolding I gave before for ‘acting first and reporting later’ had created this hesitation. But it was a matter to be praised.

Since this wasn’t a dangerous thing and was something that occurred while trying to solve a complaint there as quickly as possible, it wasn’t a matter to specifically say bitter words about.

“Well done. Let’s try making a request to them. And I wonder if it might be good to have several tribes manage each rest area in this form.”

It was the moment I was thinking of going around the rest areas and having the lands below those bridges managed.