Chapter 64: Ys! I'M Back!

I was excessively and thoroughly stroked by Sword, just to get tightly hugged in the middle of it all.

"Hey, what's wrong? You're acting weird, you know?"

"The weird one's you. ...I haven't said anythin' since it'd have been useless anyway, but you haven't forgiven the brat from before, have you?"

......What is he talking about?

"What did I not forgive?"

"That's what I mean... ...He didn't want to apologize to the last, right? But back then he apologized, no?"

I tilted my head to the side in confusion.

"And how does that have anything to do with forgiveness? It's also different from the story with you. I just don't feel like ever seeing him again since 『I hate that childish, dependent personality of his, and I also hate his family who's been pampering him』. It makes me feel bad as it reminds me of the past. That's all there is to it. It doesn't really have anything to do with forgiving or not, okay?"

Sword was lost for words.

"As for the past matter with you; I misunderstood you having dragged me along without thinking anything, just to dump me right at our destination. But that was wrong as you had prepared all kinds of things while considering my well-being. Since I understood that, I reassessed you to be a human I can trust. I 『hate』 the pampered brat because he's been pampered so much. So it didn't really matter whether he apologizes to me or not. Watching him and his mother simply upsets me as they remind me of that man and his dumb daughter."

"Gotcha."

He profusely stroked me.

"...It's nothing you need to worry about, really. Or rather, you should seriously learn the spell to shut out sound. I'll be troubled if you get anxious each and every single time something like this happens. I don't care about such people and their shenanigans at all, just so you know."

"The more you don't care, the more I do!"

What the hell? I'd like him to give it a rest, seriously.

To put it into a single word, "Annoying."

"Argh! How dare you sling mud at my kindness!"

My temples were ground.

"Ou-Ou-Ouuuuch!"

How unreasonable!

*

After we returned to our base in Ys as fast as physically possible, I had Sword buy us a farm. Or to be precise, we extended the mansion's grounds.

I celebrated my reunion with the home-staying Ryoku by hugging him tightly, introduced the charge cows to the mansion's residents, and asked them to take care of the cows.

With this, it's about high time to pay them wages. Therefore...

"We'll bring up the liquor brewing to speed! We'll commercialize the wheat honey! We'll open a restaurant! Thus, it's time to establish a company."

Everyone froze.

A moment later, Sword raised a hand.

"What is it, Cadet Sword?"

"Captain Indra, I don't get what you mean by company."

Ah, this world doesn't have a corresponding term for it, huh?

"...The closest to it would be a merchant business, but a company procures and sells goods, I'd say. No, maybe it'd be better to describe a company as a distributor."

"You mean like stores?"

"Leaving aside restaurants, companies usually don't sell directly. They do consignment sales. We'll start by finding trustworthy merchants. Do you have an idea?"

Sword groaned, "It's not that I don't, but... I think you understand yourself, but we're goin' to sell quite expensive stuff. And if transport becomes an issue with such things, you'll need S-Rank adventurers to handle it."

"That's just perfect then. I'll build a transport vehicle."

"...Hey, just a sec, what kind of magic insect do you intend to build this time?"

Magic insect? What's up with that!?

"No, this time I'll stick to a plain, old transport vehicle. Anyway, I just need to build one, right?"

"Let me consider it for a bit, 'kay?"

Consider what?

The cook raised a hand.

"The opening of a restaurant is a dream come true for me. But, are you going to cater it towards commoners?"

"It's pointless to run a restaurant that targets people with no money, right? Of course you could also doubt whether nobles really have money at hand, but for now we'll target wealthy people. I've still got plenty of the pocket money I obtained from that man, even if I pay you guys a salary, so we might as well build a gorgeous restaurant!"

It'll be fine if we basically use a membership system. Since nobles are a pain, I don't want to deal with them, even if they're rich. Rather than that, the restaurant might be better received by wealthy people who want to experience the splendor of nobility.

"What about the detergent? Wouldn't that be quite popular as well?" I was asked by Sword.

But, shaking my head, I answered, "Producing the chemicals, which form the base of the detergent, would be next to impossible. I suspect that no one besides me can produce it with the current technological stage of this world. Should I meet an exceptionally skilled engineer by chance, I'd like to join hands with them and try to build magic tools for producing distilled liquor."

"I see. An engineer, huh...?" Sword brooded.

"Let's shelve that for the moment. For now the amount I can produce myself should be enough. Sword, I'm sorry, but our adventuring will need to wait."

Sword laughed.

"Oh well, this is kinda like an adventure as well. Makin' liquor is fine with me since I enjoy it to be honest. Anyway, let's do our best at it!"

""Okay!!"" Everyone answered energetically.