episode_0054

After going to the entrance of the village and confirming that the Skeleton Mage was moving in the direction of the royal territory, he moved towards the blacksmith shop again.

I don’t know if it was because I was walking slowly, unlike before when I was riding a skeleton cart, but the villagers I had seen in a few days welcomed me warmly. I also greeted them warmly and arrived at the blacksmith shop.

“I’m the boss!”

As I opened the door to the blacksmith shop and entered, Jiena, who had not been able to come to me earlier because she was attending to customers, came running towards me with a very bright smile. In some way, I thought he might be trying to be embraced by me.

I thought it was because he was happy to see me after a few days, but in reality, it wasn’t at all.

“Boss! It was payday yesterday! I sold a lot, so please give me plenty of incentives!”

The reason Gienna ran to me with a smile on her face was to collect her salary. Since I was away from the village, he came running to collect my salary as soon as I arrived.

Jiena was in a situation where she could take money directly from the money box where she had been collecting sales proceeds, but she never touched the money box, perhaps because she thought that if she did so, her trust with me would be broken and the deal to free her from slavery would be cancelled.

There was a reason for running towards me with a bright smile. Still, it wasn’t a bad thing since I was able to see a bright smile in addition to the elf’s uniquely beautiful appearance. My eyes, which were tired from constantly interacting with skeletons, felt refreshed. Unlike the skeleton, which had nothing but gray, dull bones, Jienna was a beauty with fair skin and shiny blonde hair.

Anyway, I took Jiena, who was holding onto my arm and clinging to me as she asked for her salary, and headed to the money storage box I had built near the entrance to my studio. It was a storage box that Jiena filled with sales proceeds every day. Of course, it was also a dangerous item as a curse would be activated the moment an unauthorized person touched the storage box.

“Oh, you sold a lot?”

“Yes! Perhaps word got out among the mercenaries, but quite a few mercenaries came to visit. Everyone bought at least one, and it sold quite a bit.”

As I was admiring the storage box that contained quite a lot of coins, Jienna smiled. It seemed like he had calculated the amount of incentives he would be paid as his share in addition to his salary. Of course, it was a sight I had become quite familiar with by now, so I didn’t pay any attention to it and took the coins out of the money storage box.

When Jiena held out her pocket as if asking for money, she immediately filled the pocket with coins corresponding to her salary and incentives. My empty pocket suddenly felt a little heavy. This is because Jiena sells products so well that the incentive is now equivalent to a salary.

“Hihi.”

Jiena expressed her joy by raising her long ears, and carefully stored the money in her pocket as if it were a treasure.

I came out to the store again with Jiena, who seemed to be showing off that she was holding a precious treasure in her arms. I thought I would take a look around the store for the first time in a while and see if there was anything that needed to be changed.

As I was looking through the shelves to see if there was any damage, Jienna approached me while she was stocking the shelves.

“Boss. But why did you leave again earlier? Earlier, I tried to ask for my salary when the customer left, but I was surprised when the boss suddenly stopped showing up.”

The moment I put down my things in the workroom and left for a moment to send the Skeleton Mage to the royal administration, it seemed like he was looking for me to ask for his salary.

For a moment, I had a suspicion that maybe because he had failed to find me once, he was running towards me all the more happily. Somehow, the smile was brighter than usual.

Anyway, in response to Jiena’s question, which seemed to be asking why I was away for a while, I decided to tell the story right away.

“I have to go to Carbon or the direct territories periodically, but it takes too long, right? I can’t even move at night. So I made a skeleton mage to move for me. The reason I was away earlier was because I sent the Skeleton Mage to the territory under my direct control and had him bring the metal pieces I had made.”

“Skeleton Mage? Is it okay to move without the boss? Another warlock steals the skeleton you made, and you can’t do that?”

“There is no particular problem. When making a skeleton, it consumes the creator’s dark magic power. Giving orders to skeletons is only possible based on its dark magic. It’s impossible to control someone else’s skeleton.”

It was impossible to control someone else’s skeleton. Basically, the thing that makes it move is black magic itself, but that black magic does not work properly unless it is the owner’s black magic. That’s why I didn’t use my grandmother’s skeletons. Since I couldn’t use it in the first place, I was sleeping in the mansion with my grandmother.

Therefore, there was no need to worry about sending the skeleton a long distance alone. Of course, there was the worry that it would be damaged by someone’s attack, but since it was a skeleton mage, at least there was no need to worry about being attacked by bandits or something. You could control and deal with other regular skeletons, and you could use black magic or curses yourself.

“Ah, so there are several dungeons of warlocks that haven’t been defeated? Because you can’t manipulate someone else’s skeleton as you like, right?”

“Dungeon? yes. You have to destroy everything that isn’t your skeleton to enter the dungeon. Just because you’re a warlock doesn’t mean you can easily invade another warlock’s dungeon. Well, it’s clear that there are some advantages compared to ordinary people.”

“Hmm, that’s interesting.”

Jiena was a mercenary, so she knew about the warlock’s dungeon, but she didn’t know the details, so she reacted as if she had discovered something interesting.

But Jiena’s worries were not over yet. He seemed to be worried about what would happen if I suffered a huge loss and couldn’t pay him a salary. No, it was clear that it was.

“By the way, is it okay if I just send it? If a skeleton comes without anyone, you may misunderstand that it is attacking you without knowing that it is the boss’s skeleton, or that it is invading a village or city.”

“So, it was only sent to direct jurisdictions. Next time I go to Carbon, I’ll have to go there with you. Since I have received permission for this, I feel like I am introducing something like this in the future.”

They did not send it to the city even under direct jurisdiction, but only sent it to the place where the blast furnace was located. There is no problem in meeting people right away, but since there was a chance that it might happen, I was planning to accompany them when they go to Carbon. The plan was to plan things out in advance so that Carbon’s soldiers wouldn’t panic for no reason.

Anyway, after confirming that there was no major problem right away, Jiena smiled brightly again and gently grabbed my arm.

“Boss, I’m one day behind on my salary, so please buy me something delicious! Closing today!”

“Something delicious?”

“Yes! Please buy me a beer with the whole pig barbecue!”

“Oh, you said you liked that, right?”

Perhaps it was because of the hope that she would one day be free from slavery if she only received the same amount of money as she did now, but when Ziena received her salary, she would often buy meat and beer to eat. Although I never touched the base salary and only bought it at the incentive level, I was enjoying it in my own way.

“Yes, I’ve been out a lot lately, so you’ve had a hard time. It’s not difficult to buy it once.”

“Wow! Free whole pig!”

Jienna seemed to like the free barbecued whole pig and beer so much that she fluttered her long ears. He even stopped arranging the display stand and boasted about the single flower he was growing near the counter. Just looking at that appearance, it’s what you usually think of as an elf.

I looked at Jienna for a moment, who looked like a typical elf, and then looked around the store again. There were no problems other than some of the shelves creaking a little, so I sat down at the counter leisurely.

Thanks to using the Skeleton Mage for movement, the movement time was drastically reduced, which gave me plenty of leeway. As production volume increased significantly, there was no need to worry about tight delivery dates, so there was even more leeway. There was no problem even if I was sprawled out on the counter chair right now.

Jienna responded to customers as they came in, so I was worried that she would just lie down on the counter chair and fall asleep. It felt like I was finally escaping from my busy life and returning to my leisurely daily life.

But I couldn’t continue to relax like that. This is because Jiena, who was serving customers coming to the store, told me something I had forgotten.

“Boss. Father Thomas came and went a few days ago. I put all the blood in the boss’s workroom.”

“Really? Good job.”

I got up from the counter chair that was lying around and headed straight to the studio. I needed more dark magic to create and maintain more Skeleton Mages to make me comfortable.

When I headed to the studio, I found that the blood storage jar, which was usually empty, was filled to the brim. Because it was a jar with a special magic, the blood looked like it had been freshly drawn even though it had been stored for several days.

“I’ll have to make another jar soon. Why is the amount gradually increasing?”

I could see that the amount of jars filled was increasing compared to before, so I started processing blood essence, thinking that I would have to make more jars soon.

After processing the blood in an instant, a fairly large blood essence was created. At this level, it was enough to create and maintain one Skeleton Mage.

Of course, the blood essence was used to increase the total amount of dark magic that always felt insufficient. In an instant, the total amount of black magic increased, and a feeling of elation enveloped my entire body.

“Whew, I get this feeling whenever I feel it.”

For a moment, I felt a sense of exhilaration that could be described as intoxicating, but I struggled to shake off the feeling and stood up.

It was none other than Jienna knocking on the door of the studio and informing me that someone was looking for me. I immediately opened the studio door and went out, wondering if someone was visiting, and there was a familiar face there.

“Boss! I heard you came back. By any chance, do you have time now? The researchers have made some achievements while the president was away. I would like you to confirm this.”

The person who came to see me was the chief researcher. He was working at the research and development headquarters and came to visit after hearing a rumor that I had come.

Anyway, since the researchers at the R&D headquarters said they had achieved some results, I immediately headed to the R&D headquarters with the chief researcher.

In the R&D headquarters, I could see several researchers busy working on something in a place decorated like a blacksmith shop. Someone was pounding on heated iron, and someone else was diligently drawing something with charcoal on a wooden board.

“The boss is here!”

And, as soon as the researchers who were working hard at their jobs heard that I had arrived, they turned their attention to me and started running towards me.

“Boss! Please take a look at the new product I made!”

“Boss! This time I developed a new skill!”

“Boss!”

“I’m the boss!”

The researchers each dropped what they were doing and started running towards me with intense gazes.

As I watched the men, all of whom had big muscles because they were blacksmiths, running toward me with intense eyes, I missed Jienna, who used to run to me asking for her salary. It’s only been a few hours, but I already miss it.