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Volume 1 Chapter 5-2: Art of Negotiation

「Alright then, how about we finish eating, Master? Would you like something too, Hotaru-san?」
「That’s right, I only ate a single bite so far. If you haven’t eaten yet then come join me, Sistina. Also…do you think you can eat, Hotaru-san?」
「Hm? I don’t seem to feel hungry, but I believe I can eat.」
「Then let’s all eat together.」
「I’ll just eat whatever you leave behind, Master.」
「Uh-huh. Nope, that’s definitely no good. I don’t think of you as a slave or a maid. Even though we have a contract I’d rather we acted as comrades or something like family. So I can’t allow that.」
「But…as an acolyte I…」
「Nope.」
「…Alright. I understand.」

I had denied it twice so Sistina no longer had a right to veto. It couldn’t be helped since she was coerced by the power of the contract. However, I could see that Sistina’s expression was pretty bright so I don’t think there was an issue.

「Okay, I’m almost finished with the skinning. I’ll put the things I removed inside the carriage zo.」
「Ah, I don’t mind if you do that for the fangs, but the fur will stink up the carriage so it’d be better if you hung them from the carriage. Also the leftover corpses should be burnt so just leave them there.」

If you had the time it was apparently good manners to burn monster corpses so they didn’t attract more of them. However, it seemed that many times there was not an opportunity to do so.

After that the three of us ate Sistina’s soup before setting off once more.

It was great to see that Hotaru-san had a sense of taste and seemed to greatly enjoy her meal.

From the flurried action of the previous day, you could say that today’s journey was very peaceful.

Sistina was entrusted with the carriage because Hotaru-san and I were walking. Hotaru-san did so in order to get used to moving in human form and I did so in order to train my movements and maintain my muscle mass.

Hotaru-san had explained the method of movement. She said to lower my center of gravity naturally, barely raise my feet, and walk as if gliding across the ground. Honestly it was a bit too difficult and I didn’t really understand it.

I looked to Hotaru-san’s movements as an example and saw that her head barely shook when she moved and it appeared that she was never off center or off balance.

I tried to imitate it by watching, but I really don’t feel like I grasped it. Even so Hotaru-san said 『As expected, you’re pretty quick』.

With that I spent the entire day practicing this new way to walk. By the end of it my body was aching and complaining, but that evening Sistina gave me a massage that soothed my aching muscles so I felt that I came out on top.

As usual Hotaru-san and Sakura-chan took care of the night watch. I felt guilty about it, but thanks to them I was able to continue on without overburdening my mind and body.

In the end we weren’t attacked by monsters or bandits and were able to continue our planned itinerary. On the third day of our journey we reached Mikrea around evening.

The reason that we didn’t get there around noon like Sistina had said, was because my walking training had slowed us down a bit.

「Finally made it…this is the town, huh?」

This was the first time I’d seen a town in this world and it ended up being more splendid than I had expected.

I couldn’t see the central area because there was a 5 meter tall wall surrounding it, but around the wall was a sprawl of different streets, houses, and buildings. I couldn’t see the entire thing, but it seemed to spread out in a circular shape.

「Strictly speaking the town of Mikrea is only the portion inside the walls. The buildings surrounding it are just from people who decided to live closer to it since they believed it would be safer. At first the Lord tried to drive them away, but as the number increased the profits also increased to the point where they switched to policy of tacit consent. The Lord set conditions that they had to maintain a minimum level of public safety and pay taxes to stay. Though he said ‘public order’ it is strongly implied that it is against monsters so vigilante corps rarely patrol these streets. This is the Lord’s public stance. By the way the two areas separated by the wall are called the Inner Town and the Outer Town.」

Sistina explained as we proceeded down the road towards the inner town.

Apparently it had been ordered that no buildings could be built in front of the four gates at the North, East, South, and West. This made it so that there was a straight road to each gate in every direction.

「Well, where are we headed for now?」
「Hmm, well…since none of us have any money by all rights we should sell off the things we have out here in the outer town to get enough money to pay the taxes required to enter the inner town. However, the inner town will buy our goods for far more money than out here…so I believe we should make an attempt to enter the inner town to sell our goods for a higher price. I didn’t want to stand out too much, but I believe I should use my authority as an Acolyte to secure us entrance.」

Most of the riches the Nobles had brought along had mostly been ‘donated’ to the temple when they brought Sistina away. So currently we were very poor.
Furthermore, on the return trip the Nobles had used what little they had left in order to return to their territory and had sold small high quality items to get spending money.
That’s why I, who had nothing to start with, and Sistina who had accompanied the Nobles, were both completely broke.