episode_0024

“Hehehehe!”

After successfully completing and delivering the orders from the top and the guards, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the enormous amount of money that had been collected.

In my previous life, I worked so hard to make money that I died, and now I felt like I was being rewarded for it.

“But there’s still a long way to go.”

But I had no intention of being satisfied here. Basically, you need to fill a large swimming pool with enough money to be able to swim with money.

To do that, of course, we had to sell more products, so we started producing more and more products.

Starting with kitchen knives of all sizes, we made things like longswords and spears that mercenaries would find. Most people who would buy it had already bought it, so there wasn’t that much demand, but it wasn’t a problem because the bundle dealers started coming by quite often.

Some people came with a horse and a small cart and bought a lot of goods, while others came with a backpack the size of their body and packed all the goods.

Thanks to them, things were always selling well, and my wallet continued to grow.

And, thanks to such steady business, I felt the need to hire proper employees. Although customers rarely filled the store, one or two people came consistently.

If you wanted to do something, people came in one or two at a time to look at or buy items, so there was no time to do anything. There was no time to practice any kind of black magic, do research, or do any personal work.

In particular, as customers came to visit me while I was reading the book left by my grandmother, my black magic skills were not progressing any further from the current level. When I tried to engrave knowledge into my mind while reading a book, someone came in and started talking to me, distracting my concentration, so I had nothing left in my mind. I had to watch the parts I had seen again and again, and there was only a little left.

There was no choice because using a skeleton made it impossible to deal with customers. In order to make that possible, I needed an entity that had greater intelligence and could even vocalize with magic, but I couldn’t create such an entity due to my lack of accomplishments yet, so it was more beneficial to have such an entity create better items or artifacts. .

For that reason, I decided to hire an employee and immediately put out an announcement. Of course, in this town where most people are illiterate, there were very few people who would read the job posting and come visit. Therefore, the method chosen was to ask the village chief.

Since the person in charge of the village’s major and small affairs was the village chief, recruitment announcements had to be made through the village chief. It was a format where the village chief made a proposal focusing on those who did not yet have jobs, and then interviewed those who accepted the proposal.

Of course, the village chief very readily accepted my request. This is because many of the people who came in from the surrounding areas as the village expanded have not yet found jobs. Later, when the village grew to the size of a city, problems such as becoming poor or criminals could arise.

The village chief, who welcomed the creation of a job, immediately spread the word to those around him. It was a form of asking those who did not have a job or who were looking for another job if they would like to work at a blacksmith shop. Of course, it was fully explained that rather than learning skills at a blacksmith shop, I would be responsible for customer service and sales.

A few days after posting a job posting through the village chief, I was able to meet a total of ten applicants. Support was a bit low, perhaps because it was a sales-only type, rather than a way to learn special skills.

The jobs that most people in this world want are very different from their previous lives. The second condition was whether the work was difficult or comfortable. The most important thing was whether I could learn something or be able to do it until I got old and died. In that sense, working at my blacksmith shop was a bit far from the job people wanted.

If they had been looking for an assistant blacksmith, hundreds of people would have applied, but since the job was simply customer service and sales, there were only ten applicants.

Anyway, despite those conditions, I felt a little disappointed after meeting the ten people who applied for the interview. This was because there was not a single familiar face among the ten applicants. All people had settled in the village from outside. Well, most of the familiar faces have jobs and make a living.

After shaking off some disappointment, I started the interview right away. And, I could hear loud greetings from the applicants.

“Hello! This is Teft, who applied to the blacksmith shop. Argh!”

“… … Hello.”

“Ssajangni~!”

There were applicants who screamed in greeting, others who lowered their heads as if they were embarrassed, and there were applicants who made snoring noises and twisted their bodies around for no reason.

Still, it was fortunate that the remaining seven applicants looked fine, unlike the previous three applicants. Of course, the first impression was a little strange, but you wouldn’t make a decision based solely on first impressions.

“First of all, please introduce yourself. Please just tell us your name and age, and what you will do if hired.”

I forgot most of my memories from my past life, but there were some that I still remembered. During the interview, I was asked about my motivation for applying. No, I applied to make money. What else could I have applied for?

Because of that memory, I decided not to ask unnecessary questions and listened carefully to what the applicants were saying.

However, I don’t know if it was because I didn’t have any unnecessary questions, but I couldn’t decide who to hire. Everyone was talking about routine things. The content was something along the lines of, “I will do well,” “I will work hard,” and “I will sell a lot.” The only thing that was different was their name and age.

In the end, I chose the person I thought would have the most benefit in selling. It was a vigorous 17-year-old man named Teft who greeted him with a howl like an elk. So it was clear that he was able to introduce himself so boldly and loudly.

Anyway, the reason I chose Teft was because he was a blacksmith, so the weight of the items he had to handle was heavy, and I thought he would be good at selling, seeing as how he had no shame in dealing with people.

Unfortunately, for those who could not join us, we gave them 200 meds each as interview fees and sent them away. Although they were very disappointed, they were able to return in a very bright mood, perhaps because it was their first time receiving an interview fee.

Unfortunately, after the applicants who couldn’t join us returned, we started teaching various things to Teft, who became an employee.

“Mr. Teft. I remember the items here and when the items on display are missing, I bring the same items from the warehouse and put them on display. I’ll tell you the prices of the products I’m selling, so all you have to do is tell the people who buy the products the amount, take the money, and put it here. Oh, and sometimes there are people who request custom-made products. In that case, please let me know right away.”

“Okay!”

Teft responded vigorously and immediately began to understand the situation in the store as I instructed. I was working hard to figure out which products were going on which sections of the shelves and what the prices of the products were.

From then on, Teft worked very hard, finding out for himself what he needed to do. When customers stopped by for a while, he swept the floor or dusted the shelves, and even recommended products to customers who were worried, showing his sincerity.

I decided to practice black magic after seeing it and feeling that I could trust it. I practiced by applying the books my grandmother left me and what I had learned so far.

“Oh… … . If applied well, this could be able to transform the bone structure of the skeleton, right? If I find a corpse in bad condition later, I’ll have to do some experiments with it.”

Thanks to this, there were some achievements. Even if I can’t do it right now, I have learned things that will be possible someday, such as how to create a skeleton mage or use a familiar.

However, there was a bigger gain than that, which I discovered while conducting various theoretical experiments and applications based on the information in the book my grandmother left behind. Just as a skeleton could be reduced to the size of a finger, it might be possible to transform the appearance of the skeleton itself into a different shape.

For example, it was expected that it could be transformed into a skeleton with hammers instead of hands, or that the legs could be transformed into wheels to automatically pull a cart from the front. Of course, since this is still just a prediction, we need to understand the principle through sufficient experiments.

“I should go to the mercenary hall right away and ask them to catch some goblins.”

I couldn’t bear this without experimenting. A skeleton that swings hands instead of a hammer, and a skeleton with wheels that pulls a cart. I can’t stand this!

Thinking of running to the mercenary hall right away, I packed my coat.

“Warlock!”

However, as I was about to run to the mercenary hall, I heard a cry calling for me from the store attached to the blacksmith shop. No, more accurately, there was a pounding on the door outside the blacksmith shop.

I headed to the store to see what was going on, but outside the door was a bundle vendor who came by every now and then.

“Oh, you’re here again?”

“Yes. I came here to buy some things. however… … . If you are busy, I will come back later.”

“I was doing something, but it was okay because I had employees… … ?”

As I was trying to say that it was okay because there was an employee, I felt something was strange. If that employee had been there, there would have been no reason for the bag dealer to come knocking on the door and looking for me.

With that in mind, I turned my head to check inside, and couldn’t hide my embarrassment when I saw that Teft, who was supposed to be in the store, was not there. The person who was clearly supposed to be at the counter had disappeared.

Even so, that wasn’t the only thing that disappeared. Among the products on the shelves, several of the premium line products were missing, and even the money box on the counter was open. Even though the money box was something I protected using magic and curses, it was open.

Only me, my family, and Teft, who would be counting the money, could open the money box, and it was open.

Of course, that meant there was only one culprit. Teft, an employee at our store, that thief took the money and ran away with it.

“This is absurd.”

And, I was truly dumbfounded as I identified the culprit in an instant. I wondered how on earth they looked at the warlock and whether it was possible to steal the warlock’s money.

“Something has come up right now, so it might be difficult to sell things right away. Would you like to come back later?”

“… … Yes!”

Perhaps because it was evident that he was in a very bad mood, the bundle merchant cringed as much as he could and left the blacksmith shop in an instant. After looking at that for a moment, he immediately locked the door to the blacksmith shop and gathered the skeletons.

Since there were no large orders, there was no intention of having skeletons making things. Right now, my precious, bloody… … . No, I was planning to use the money that could have been used to buy precious blood to catch the guy who stole it. He immediately reduced the skeletons to the size of a finger and placed them in his pocket.

“The next employee should just be hired as a slave.”

Thinking of rescuing slaves as employees, which he couldn’t think of as foolishly as he is now, he immediately took out a skeleton horse and started running away.

It wasn’t impossible to find Taft because he was able to open the money box and at the same time cast a spell to track its location. Because he was from our village, he was not a person with whom we had a trusting relationship, so we had at least prepared ourselves for protection from the beginning.

If I had known this would happen, I would have made maximum defenses instead of just the bare minimum!

Regretting my irreversible choice, I moved the skeleton horse with all my might. When I tracked down Teft’s location, it seemed like quite a bit of time had passed since he ran away, and the distance was quite long. Seeing that the distance was so far that I could barely tell the direction, I thought it had escaped on a horse or something.

“If you get caught, you won’t be left alone.”

Boldly spilling my blood… … No, I ran at a very high speed, gritting my teeth towards the guy who stole my money.