The Pseudo-Kunoichi from Another World (Part 10): Starting A Business

It’s been a few days since I made my Nellie a maid in name and reality. I now have enough money to lodge at this inn for a year but… as a Japanese-born woman, I didn’t like the thought of renting for the rest of my life. So it was that I decided to return to my original plan to earn money and buy some land for myself.

“Nellie,” I said.

“Yes, Lady Shino?” Nellie asked back.

I’m currently laying down on a bath towel, in the sauna area of the communal bath while Nellie massages me.

Aaahh… paradise.

I offered to give Nellie herself one later, but she said “No way!”. Alas.

“Ah, well, the thing is I noticed we’ve just been resting these past few days,” I said.

“We have,” Nellie said.

“But now I’ve been thinking about my original plans… I think I’m ready to go buy some land.”

“Do you mean that…?”

“Yes,” I said. “At the same time, while we were at the guild… I’m thinking of starting a business.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Nellie said. “What kind exactly?”

“Hmm, ah… maybe as a traveling merchant?” I said. “Do you need any licenses to peddle wares?”

“No, just an ID and your guild card will work just fine. If you open a store in the city, however, you will be required to join the Commerce and Industry Guild.”

“Hmm, so if it’s legal… right, I’ve decided: let’s go to Port’s shop after we’re done here.”

Nellie looked at me curiously. “Will you make something again?”

“Yes, but nothing as elaborate as ‘that weapon’,” I say.

“… I’m Lady Shino’s maid, follower, and escort, so I must always be armed,” Nellie said as “that weapon” hung from her neck in a sheath on a silver chain:

The [Shinoichi-style Yamagi Knife] that I specially forged for her. 

It turned out to be a great complement to her new skill, [Household Tool Mastery], with a 15% improvement over other knives she could have used.

Also, she’s developed a “Crafted by the Gods and Bestowed by Heaven” sort of obsession with it and refuses to part with it while she sleeps or bathes, such as now.

She’d used the reward money from our monster material hunt to buy the chain and the sheath. As I realized it would be risky to bring it into the bath, I’d also enchanted the sheath with [Environmental Protection].

… Somehow, this whole situation feels kind of like an elementary school student the day after they get their Christmas present.

Nellie finished her massage, I said, “Thank you, Nellie, I feel much better now… your hands felt quite good.”

“It’s no trouble, please feel free to ask anytime.”

“Oh, for sure I’ll ask for another one again,” I said before I paused. “Nellie?”

“Yes?” Nellie asked as she turned to me.

I cupped her cheek, hummed as I planted a kiss near her lips.

“La-La-Lady Shino…!” Nellie stammers, blushing.

“Ahahaha, your reward,” I say.

With a bright red Nellie in tow, I got out of the baths, changed back into our clothes, and headed to Port’s shop.

---

“… So, I’d like you to stock iron sand or iron ore for me,” I said, now talking with Port at his shop. “Then after those, coke or charcoal.”

“… But why, exactly?” Port asked.

“Well, I’m thinking of doing a little work as a traveling salesperson,” I replied.

“Hmm… well, it’s not competing with my business if you make knives instead of proper weapons… but I can’t make money at that cost.”

“How about you give me about a gold’s worth for the time being?” I asked. “I’ll pay 1.1 times the price.”

“Are you sure about that?” Port asked. “Can’t you just join the guild and get a direct line to a supplier?”

“I’ve thought of it, but I’d like to see if this will work out for business,” I said. “A test case, before I decide if I’ll join the Commerce and Industry guild.”

“Well, care to use my furnace, then?” Port asked. “As a favour, I’ll lend it to you for half-a-day at no extra charge.”

“Thank you ♪ you’re a life-saver,” I said.

The shop closed for business, Port had his assistants stack by the furnace almost a gold coin’s worth of charcoal and iron blocks from storage. “Well, I’m not sure how this venture’s going to go, exactly, but do your best!” Port said. “We’ll be out half-a-day, just holler when you’re done,” he said before he and his staff left. 

Such was the camaraderie between craftspeople and merchants, it seems.

I turned to the furnace and all my new raw materials. “So then, half-a-day, this amount of raw materials… even if it’s made with skills… I wonder if I’m going to make enough on time…” I said as I fed the furnace.

When it was hot enough, I took out a large amount of translucent sand from my inventory, mined from the river near the city: quartz sand. No matter how much it’s more like sand than a solid crystal, it’s still quartz. And in Sengoku Online, minerals were equivalent to jewels.

In other words: even if it was only a small effect, it could still be a magical catalyst, like, say, for “Super-Low-Cost Magic Weapon” manufacturing.

I grabbed my [Devil’s Hammer] and excitedly got to work…

---

“Pwah!” I said after I drank some water from a bamboo tube. “All done!”

“Great work, Lady Shino!” Nellie said.

“Yeah, I think it’s a pretty good result for the materials,” I said, gazing at the pile of finished products piled up in front of me:

[Shinobi EX Lightning Kitchen Knives]

No Level Limit

No Race or Class Restrictions 

Attack Power: 25

Special Effects:

• 1.2x damage against water-based monsters
• Additional Lightning Damage (Minor)

“I can’t believe my eyes…” Nellie said. “You’re so amazing, Lady Shino.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“Usually, magic weapon creators take days to infuse mana into their weapons, even starving themselves to do so…” Nellie said. “But you produced 50 small weapons in half-a-day…” 

“Ahaha, but you see, compared to your [Yamanagi Knife], it’s cut out from a mold, the attack power is only 25, and the lightning effect is minor from my using quartz sand as a catalyst,” I said.

“Even still, it’s not normal for a kitchen knife to match a short sword’s power at this level.”

“True,” I said. “I suppose that means it’ll sell”

“That’ll still depend on the price and how you market it, though.”

“Also true,” I said. “So, how about we go to a big city and start selling? … Wait, is there another large city near here?”

“There is,” Nellie said. “If we walk north for about 3 days, we’ll be in the capital city, Eriza.”

“Hmm, then let’s go looking for escort quests heading to the capital tomorrow…” I said.

I kept the kitchen knives stored in a stack in my inventory while I wondered about the challenges we’d face. I prayed we’d get a good quest

---

Unnamed Side Character’s POV

What did I just witness? 

The moment it happened, I had to stop and wait for my mind to comprehend just what my eyes just saw.

I’m a D-class warrior working for the Adventurer’s Guild,and my quest this time was to escort a wagon to the capital. I thought this was going to be an easy payday as the roads leading there were rarely targeted by monsters. Since the caravan wasn’t that large, either, only a dozen or so people were acting as escorts with me.

About the only concern was the beast-girl dressed like a maid traveling with the beautiful lady dressed in all black. But something much more sinister happened on the eve of the second day, as we made camp and us escorts spread out around the area:

C-class monsters, Jewel Lizards, suddenly jumped out of the trees near the highway, three of them in total.

“Oh, so this is the quest I die on,” I thought to myself.

They were C-class but the gems embedded into their bodies form a barrier against physical damage, meaning magic or magical weapons are the only things that would hurt them. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they had venom in their fangs, too.

I wasn’t escaping from this caravan without a wizard’s help. It was also us escort’s role to buy time for the clients to escape…

We decided to launch an attack on the jewel lizard and got their full attention. But, as expected, all our weapons just bounced off and the lizards were injuring almost all of us in turn.

That’s when it happened.

A beautiful girl in all-black and a beast-girl in a maid uniform jumped out from the convoy. The two of them took down the jewel lizards in no time with their lightning magic weapons, like they were just tearing apart paper.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The skill of these two warriors.

Their good looks and cuteness.

And then—their magical weapons being kitchen knives. 

End Unnamed Character’s POV

---

“Are you okay?” I asked the swordsman who had led the charge earlier.

Thanks to their work, we were due to be back on the road as scheduled, with no further issues.

An enemy in which ordinary weapons barely work, a time when a lightning kitchen knife comes in very hand… it was the perfect product presentation. I started our marketing campaign with a smile.

“Ah, ooh… thanks for the rescue,” he said.

“Don’t mention it, we would have done it even if we weren’t in the same party…” I say. “Oh, you’ve got so many cuts! Nellie!”

“Yes, Lady Shino?” Nellie said as she ran up.

“Treat this man’s injuries,” I said.

“At once,” Nellie said.

“I’m sorry… this girl’s a healer? She just showed some fantastic swordsmanship back there.”

“It was not swordsmanship, I’m a Luminous Maid…” Nellie said. “[Cure Wounds].”

Pale light envelopes the man’s body and heals his injuries. This was the power of [Cure Wounds], a Luminous Maid skill that consumes healing items to power recovery magic. The total amount healed is 3 times more than if they’d taken the item, and even if it’s single-target, it’s significantly more powerful than [Cure Light Wounds].  

“Sorry to sound like I’m imposing, but…” he says, “the knives? Can I ask about them?”

“Ah, this?” I ask, pulling mine out. “This is my new Kagura-brand product: the [Lightning Kitchen Knife]!”

“… It’s just a kitchen knife?” he asks.

“Not just any kitchen knife!” I continue. “Our unique technology also makes it effective as a magic weapon, but at a surprisingly low price! Nellie, now!” I yelled as I shot a pebble at her.

“Hah!” she cried as she slashed at it.

気合い一閃ー

“Fighting Spirit”

The pebble split into four pieces, neatly cut and with smooth cross-sections.

“As you can see, we haven’t neglected basic effectiveness,” I said. “And since they’re also imbued with a lightning element, it has 1.2 times the effectiveness against water-based monsters!”

“Oooooohhhhh…!” the growing crowds of escorts and merchants around us go.

“Because it’s so lightweight and low-profile, it’s easily carried around as a sub-weapon, and can be used as a normal kitchen knife would—two birds with one stone! It can even be used to deal with the unexpected threat of undead and magical monsters!”

“Woooowwww….!”

The level of excitement around us reminds me of how it was back in Japan.

“But isn’t that going to be very expensive?” someone asked.

It was the perfect question for Nellie. “Well you see, to commemorate the opening of our business, we’ve lowered the price from 50 silver coins to just 10 silver coins! However, it’s limited only to the first 50 people–waaahh?!”

We couldn’t say that particular line until the end. This was so not only the adventurers that were acting as escorts would come running, but the merchants who hired them as well.

In the end, the [Shinobi EX Lightning Kitchen Knives] that should have been sold in the royal capital ended up going out of stock on the second day of our traveling there in the first place. With a gross of 5 gold coins and a net of 4 gold coins… even including the material costs, I’ve made a fortune.

It was incredible.

After a closer examination of the Magic Weapon market a few days later, I found that their prices were much higher than I expected. 10 silver coins were barely 1/10th of the usual going price.

… Seems I was selling myself short.

---

The “Fighting Spirit” above references “Kiai”, a shout that accompanies strikes in Japanese martial arts as a sign of your fighting spirit.

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