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Volume 2 Chapter 13-2: Threat

 

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「Good morning Cyril.」

Lucy murmured as she rubbed her eyes.

「Good morning Lucy. Did you sleep well last night?」
「Un, the bed was so soft and fluffy that I fell sound asleep. It’s amazing, the beds in the city are really different.」

Lucy said and threw her body back onto the bed. Her small form sunk into the soft bed.

Kuu was still asleep but was suddenly awakened when the shock of the bed bounced her body into mid-air.

「Hmmm hyaaah!? What’s happening!?」

She sat up quickly and looked around the room furtively.

「Ah, sorry Kuu-chan.」
「Eh, ah…yes…….oh right yesterday we arrived in Erin….Good morning Cyril-kun and Lucy-chan.」

She was still half-asleep and had even forgotten where she was in a panic, but she soon resumed her older sister expression.

「Kuu it’s fine if you put on an Elder sister-like expression but your bed head completely ruins the effect.」
「Eh…really? Ah, it’s true…Awww how embarrassing.」

Kuu said and frantically patted down the hair on her tail.

「So you attend to that first?」
「What’s wrong?」
「No…it’s nothing.」

If it was Kuu…then I could believe it! Kuu continued to groom her tail to satisfaction.

「Okay then both of you should get dressed. After we finish breakfast we’ll go out grocery shopping. We’ll be ordering a lot so we’ll buy it all this morning and have them deliver it to this inn by evening. Once both the food and clothing is delivered we’ll be taking it and heading back to Erucy.」
「Un, got it Cyril.」
「Then we’ll get dressed quickly and head down….Cyril-kun we’d like to get dressed but…」
「Yeah please hurry a bit.」

Lucy and Kuu were wearing light thin pajamas that the inn had provided. For the two gold I had paid we received extra service. They had taken our clothes to be washed and given us pajamas for the night.

「What’s wrong Kuu-chan…aren’t you changing?」

Lucy said as she calmly got naked and nonchalantly changed into her clothes.

Since we had been raised as close as a brother and sister there was no longer any real sense of shame when changing in the same room.

Even I could do it without blushing.

「Umm, don’t you feel a bit embarrassed?」
「It’s just getting dressed right?」
「Well…Cyril’s here…」

Seeing me and Lucy being so calm about it Kuu was confused.

「That’s right. It’s just changing right.」

Kuu said and began bashfully undressing and changing her clothes.

I let her bashful figure enter my field of vision. I made sure not to stare at her while letting her figure float in my periphery. If I looked too much she would feel wary and might dislike it.

She checked to make sure my expression hadn’t changed and quickly got dressed.

Un, what a sight for sore eyes. I burned the naked figures of Kuu and Lucy into my mind as we passed the morning.

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「Uwaa, it’s so lively.」
「It’s making me dizzy.」

The three of us stepped out into the street. It was an energetic scene incomparable to what we had witnessed yesterday.

We ate some sandwiches as we walked along.

We hadn’t had time to relax and eat our breakfast so we had asked the inn to provide us some sandwiches we could eat along the way.

This egg sandwich had mustard and tomato puree. It was delicious that I almost wanted to just live here in the city.

The morning market was less targeted towards individual purchases and more suited to those who wished to stock their businesses. Even if the prices were only slightly cheaper people would flock to the shops. I couldn’t afford to make any losses here either.

「What have you been writing down so furiously Cyril?」
「I’m attempting to figure out the market price for goods here.」
「Is it so we can check the prices and keep them as cheap as we can?」
「That too, but I’m checking which shops are cheaper along with what goods are selling for what prices.」

Lucy and Kuu looked a bit confused at my response.

I’m sure they hadn’t realized that this shopping trip would affect my future plans depending on what I learned here.

「Today we came here to purchase things, but the next time we arrive we’ll be trying to sell goods. For that we’ll need to know what we can sell, where we can sell it, and how much it will sell for. If we put in a ton of effort to make products but they only sell for low prices wouldn’t we end up poor? We have to prepare things that can sell at high prices.」

This was the greatest principle of business. If we simply began selling without observing the market then all that awaited us was ruin. In the first place only spending these two days to determine the market price was a dangerous proposition in itself, but at least we could use it as a reference.

「It’s fine if we bring expensive things, but won’t they sell poorly?」
「There are goods like that, but if they’re things that everyone wants but there aren’t enough of them, they’ll sell for high prices. When you choose a product that highly sought after but low in supply you’ll have something that sells easily.」

It was a bit irrational but that’s how things were.

「There, look at that. It’s a prime example.」

I pointed towards a well built salesman who was holding a leather bag up in the air and calling out.

「This is our special feature for the day! Look in amazement as we have sugar that was brought to us from across the sea! For one bag we only charge a single gold coin! You won’t find a better price around here! Do I have any takers!?」
「Gimme three bags!」
「I’ll take five!」

Even though the price was ridiculously high people still fought to buy the sugar.

The bag was only large enough to fit 500 grams of sugar. Even that was probably mixed with filler so the actual sugar within was less.

「And so you see, if we were able to sell sugar then we could make easy money like that. It’s fairly impossible for us to sell sugar like that, but the important point is to bring something of similar value. On the other hand if we see something cheaper here that we need in Erucy then we would come back to buy it.」

I said as I continued to take notes. I memorized the different displays and used the data to average out the prices.

I thought of anything we had in Erucy that could sell like sugar at high prices…but realized that we didn’t have anything for now. But I knew we had something that could be developed into such an industry with work.

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