by Funa
…Who let that catperson in here?!
***
“So, anyway. We got them.”
“…What do you mean, ‘so, anyway’? Well, I suppose… Let’s just see ’em!”
Given how quickly the girls had returned to him, the owner of Calamity held out little hope for their results, resigning himself to receiving only the smallest bounty, offered up merely for the sake of form and in the hope of earning a job completion mark.
For one, the Crimson Vow did not appear to even be carrying anything, which meant that their offerings could not have been anything more than what they could stuff in their pockets. However…
Boom!
From out of nowhere, a massive bucket suddenly appeared atop the table. Inside the bucket was a strange red power.
“Wha…? No, d-don’t tell me…”
Instinctively, the owner reached out to touch the powder, but Mile swiftly seized him by the wrist.
“Tch!”
Reina, robbed of a new ally in suffering, glared at Mile, fangs bared.
“R-Reina, you’re really scaring me…”
After finally persuading the owner not to sample (?) the powder directly, they procured a small pot full of soup and mixed a tiny amount into it. And then, when he sampled that…
“Pwah!”
He collapsed.
“W-water…”
“Here you go!”
Thinking that just such a thing might occur, Mile had already prepared a glass of cold water and stored it away in her inventory. Unlike in Reina’s case, the owner would not have the pure product lingering on his tongue, so the water should be enough.
Mile had to try desperately to restrain herself from instead withdrawing some earthworms that were still stored away in her inventory from the time they had all gone fishing, just for the sake of a joke. It probably would be less than prudent to offer a client a glass of cold “worm-ter.”
After a short while, the shop owner was back on his feet. Naturally, he had a few questions.
“Where in the world did you get your hands on this? No, wait, more importantly—what is this stuff?”
“Oh, well, this is a pure, concentrated version of the components of chilis that make them spicy. Unfortunately, the supplier swore us to absolute secrecy…”
“……”
The owner stared into the bucket with frighteningly serious eyes.
“So, how much of it would you like to buy?”
Leave it to Pauline to cut straight to the chase.
The market price for pepper was five silver per gram. It had roughly the same value as gold. Chilis were nowhere near that pricey, usually netting 1 silver per gram. This was still fairly expensive, but one gram of powdered spice worked out to a very large amount—so much so that you wouldn’t even use a tenth of it in one dish. Incidentally, if you used a full gram in a single dish, even that was only 1 silver’s worth, which in Japanese money equaled about 1,000 yen. And at any rate, the owner was only buying the spice at a 1.5x markup from the market rate. He could break even by just raising the prices of his dishes slightly, so it wasn’t a big deal.
There was probably about five kilograms there before him… At market rate, that would come to around 50 gold or five million yen in modern-day Japanese currency. At a markup of 1.5x, that would be 75 gold. Plus, it was already around 5,000 times hotter than standard chili powder—only a fraction of the normal amount of this special powder would still be more than enough.
Even so, the Crimson Vow obviously could not price it 5,000 times higher than the normal rate, and they were very curious as to how the shop owner would value it. While they all stared each other down, the owner casually stuck a finger into the soup from before and tasted it again, deep in thought.
Finally, he reached his conclusion.
“I’ll give ya ten gold for the lot.”
“What?”
The owner was an honest, hard-working individual who loved to cook. Therefore, Mavis, Reina, and Mile were shocked at hearing such a low price presented. Only Pauline showed no signs of surprise.
“Might I ask the basis of that appraisal?” she asked pointedly. “Bearing the standard price for chilis in mind.”
The owner flinched slightly, but then recalled that he was only facing a little girl, and his resolve swiftly returned.
“It’s too finely processed. There’s no hint of the original peppers. That’s why the price has gone down. This is merely spice—it has none of the complex flavors of a chili pepper. In fact, the price I gave you is already an undeservedly high one for less-than-third-rate, inferior goods such as these. But, since you did go out and do the job properly, I thought I’d cut’cha a break! Ahaha!”
The owner gave a forced laugh, but Pauline only peered at him, her eyes like ice.
“And what of the fact that, because it’s so spicy, you’d barely need to use any of it?”
“Oh? I’m pretty sure that was just a mismeasurement on my part. It’s just a little bit on the spicy side.”
“How much do you suppose it cost us to acquire this quantity?”
“There’s no way a group of greenhorns like you would have the money to stock up for very much. I bet you stole it from somewhere or got it on the cheap, right? Look, just hand it over already, and don’t make trouble. You are gonna tell me where you got this from, aren’tcha?”
“Mile, put it away!”
“On it!”
“Huh?”
At Reina’s command, Mile put the bucket full of spice back into storage at once.
The owner gaped, wide-eyed, at the suddenly empty space.
“That’s a ‘complete, with no results,’ then.”
The Crimson Vow moved to leave, but the owner rushed to stop them.
“Wha…?! W-wait! I’m the one who hired you all, so…”
“We failed to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement on the price, so the negotiation is a failure, isn’t it? The job was complete as contracted, with no penalties on either side. That was indeed the original contract. It says so on the guild record, in fact—in writing,” Pauline reminded him.
“Guh…”
The owner, backed into a corner, began to panic.
“W-well, what I meant was, I only have ten gold on hand right now! I definitely didn’t think that I was going to buy that much off of you fer just ten gold! Obviously we can’t keep much gold in the shop at one time. We’d get robbed blind if we did. I have to go withdraw the rest from the merchants’ guild, so it’s gonna take me a bit! Please, come back here this evening. I’ll have it ready for you then!”
How suspicious.
The Crimson Vow all shared the same thought, but they nodded to acknowledge his words and left the shop behind them.
***
“So, what do you think?” asked Mile.
Pauline shrugged.
“It’s not looking great. First off, he tried to avoid giving us a price. Then he tried to drive the price down, probably because he was underestimating us. And after that, he attempted to sniff out our source.”
“And here I thought he was a true artist, someone concerned with flavor above all else…” Mile said, disappointed. “If he hadn’t tried to belittle us or squeeze our source out of us, I might’ve been inclined to even charge him less than market price. It cost us nothing to make it, and it is true that it’s incredibly spicy without much smell or flavor, which makes it very difficult to cook with, after all.”
“Well,” said Reina, “I guess it just goes to show that all it takes is a pile of money to bring out someone’s true colors.”
She cast a sidelong glance at Pauline, who did not seem to notice.
Sighing, Pauline said, “I get the feeling that even if we wait until evening, it isn’t going to change anything.”
“Well, in that case, why don’t we go hunt something while we’re waiting around, so it’s not a total waste of our time?”
“Yeah!!!”
Mavis’s pr
oposal was well received.
***
That evening, the Crimson Vow returned again to the gourmet eatery, Calamity. There, they sat across a table from the shop’s owner, each side facing the other.
“Now then, shall we continue this afternoon’s negotiations? We have yet to hear your new proposal regarding a price arrangement. How much are you willing to pay?”
Pauline’s voice was cold. Clearly, she no longer regarded the man as a suitable trade partner.
“First,” he replied, “I wanna see the goods again. I can’t risk forking over a bunch of money just for you to take it and then say, ‘Oh, we actually already sold it all somewhere else.’”
Pauline nodded, and once more, Mile withdrew the bucket full of powdered spice from her inventory and placed it atop the table. Seeing this, the owner grinned.
“Now then, how about you tell me where this stuff came from? Give me that, and I’ll raise my price to eleven gold for the lot.”
“Ahhhh…”
The four girls let out a prolonged sigh. This was, in fact, a waste of their time.
As the four moved to stand and leave once again, the owner clapped his hands twice. The side door opened, and five fellows, who appeared to be hunters in their thirties or forties, appeared. Two of the men stood blocking the doors, while the other three surrounded the owner, as if to guard him.
“Well,” said the man, “I thought we could handle this peacefully, but I guess you all wanna do it the hard way. You three—capture them!”
“Ahhhh…”
Once again, the Crimson Vow let out a great sigh.
“Well, uh, I’m not exactly sure why you want us to capture them,” said one of the men. “It doesn’t look like you’re in danger or anything. You just had a failed negotiation, didn’t you? Taking them prisoner for that alone would make us criminals…”
Apparently, these were not some thugs on the owner’s payroll but just a group of normal hunters.
“They’re clearly wagon-raiding bandits! That bucket there contains the spices that were stolen from us. They waltzed in here out of nowhere trying to sell my own goods back to me, and when I offered eleven gold pieces to get them back, all they wanted to do was keep drivin’ up the price! So I’m gonna bring them down and hand them over to the authorities! Now hurry up and capture them!”
Even with these excuses, it could cause quite a lot of trouble to falsely imprison someone. Especially given that they were dealing with a group of young girls, it was entirely possible that the hunters would be given a red mark or even have their licenses revoked. They were not about to do something so imprudent.
“Mister, we were hired as your guards. We have no reason to capture a group of young ladies who have made no move to cause you any harm—whether or not they’re bandits. Though I suppose, if they were bandits, there would be a reward out for them, and, as good hunters ourselves, I can’t see why we shouldn’t want to cooperate with you… Have you any proof?”
The owner pointed straight at the bucket on the table.
“That! That right there is the product that our shop ordered from far away, which was stolen by bandits on its way here!”
The hunter turned to the Crimson Vow and asked, “Is that true?”
Fwp fwp fwp!
The girls shook their heads in unison.
“To begin with, that bucket contains a specialty spice that we obtained all on our own. It’s not something that you can get anywhere else. Why don’t you ask the owner there where it is that he ordered it from?” Mile started. “It would probably take a long time to confirm his claims with the source, but I’m sure that if you asked around at the neighboring shops and with the merchants’ guild, they could tell you whether such a source exists, whether they have ever sold such a product, and whether this product is one that is typically used by this store.”
The hunters’ gazes all turned toward the owner.
“M-my sources are a proprietary secret! That’s not something you go flapping your gums about! Why don’t you all tell us where you got that from and prove your innocence?!”
“Oh?” said Mile, a look of feigned shock on her face. “But didn’t you just say that a source was something you shouldn’t go flapping your gums about?”
The hunters snickered.
“Wha…”
“Plus,” she continued, “regarding those stolen spices, didn’t you tell us just yesterday morning that they had been stolen before you even had a chance to receive the goods—so you hadn’t lost any money on them? In which case, the stolen goods were never your property but that of the spice merchants, weren’t they? Are you really trying to say that you have a legitimate claim to their goods?”
The hunters looked on in surprise as the owner stammered wordlessly.
“Furthermore, did you really order this great an amount? Are you saying that the amount you ordered is exactly the same as the amount in this bucket?”
“Y-yes! I ordered five kilograms—it’s a perfect match!”
As the owner made this claim, a grin spread across Mile’s face.
“In that case… Allow me to clear up your misgivings!”
One after another, Mile drew out a variety of containers in many shapes and sizes, lining them all up on the table. Altogether, they contained an enormous amount of spices.
“Huuhhhhhhhh?!?!”
There was a cry of shock, not only from the owner, but from the five hunters as well.
“St-storage magic!!!”
The whole group was, of course, shocked at just how many vessels had appeared, although given that the owner was already aware of Mile’s storage magic abilities, he did not share the hunters’ surprise on this count.
“I would say that this is proof that these spices are not something that we merely stole from some caravan, wouldn’t you?” said Mile, facing not the owner but the five hunters.
The hunters nodded emphatically.
“Um, so. Judging by what I overheard earlier, I’m guessing that you all are hunters who were hired for what you thought was going to be a normal, legitimate guard job?” Mile asked.
The man who seemed to be the leader scratched his head and replied, “That’s right. It was a job that just got posted this morning and wasn’t discussed very much ahead of time. He told us that he was dealing with a group of hunters and that he wanted to have us ready as a show of force just in case the negotiations got a little hairy. We were supposed to show up and look intimidating when he gave us the signal. He said it was just a group of little girl rookies, so it would be no big thing—and that we’d get a feast of good food and booze this evening for doing just a little bit of work. So of course we grabbed that slip the moment we saw it…”
“In that case, I would say that the circumstances here are clear, are they not? This man wove a false tale in order to try and steal these spices away from us and secure our supply route for himself—and aimed to make you all do something criminal in the process. Our possession of these spices clearly contradicts the owner’s testimony earlier. Plus, if he truly thought we were bandits, wouldn’t the usual course be to contact the authorities rather than contracting hunters at his own expense? This man has hired you under false pretenses, given false testimony, and tried to force us to reveal our secrets. Would you all be so kind as to serve as witnesses to this with the guild and the city guard?”
“Y-yeah, absolutely. If we didn’t, we would get a job failure marked on our record or even be labeled accomplices to a crime, which would be bad for us, obviously. Yet we also have a request: please attest to the fact that our party never made any mistakes or did anything illegal—we were only deceived!”
Mile readily agreed. The hunters looked relieved.
“Now, as for our culprit…”
The man suddenly appeared queasy.
“You knew that these spices were not stolen goods, but you tried frame us as criminals just to get your hands on them. Furthermore, you didn’t even have any rights to the
stolen goods in the first place. You deceived the guards you hired from the guild and tried to make them accomplices to your crimes. Before we turn you over to the authorities, by way of the guild, is there anything you would like to say for yourself?”
As Mile offered the man a last word, he began to argue desperately. “I-I meant you no ill! This isn’t that serious—”
“Oh, ‘no ill?’ The thought never crossed your mind that you might be doing something wrong? You’re saying that for you, this is a completely normal procedure? That it didn’t make your conscience sting even a little bit?”
The Crimson Vow and the hired hunters all glared down at him as though the man were little more than a pile of dirt.
“Huh? Uh, no, that’s not what I meant! I just…”
“If you could try and trick someone into a criminal act with no ill will, then I just shudder to think what atrocities you might commit when an evil mood does strike you…”
And then Mile landed the finishing blow.
“Also, are you going to tell me that you intended to fight against the hunters who you yourself hired through the guild?” She turned to the other hunters. “What does the guild do in matters like this?”
“It’s seldom seen, but such acts of malice toward the guild are committed now and then. Not only will he no longer be able to place requests with the guild, but he’ll be taken in and turned over to the authorities. If things had gone south and we’d ended up fighting you girls, there might have been some casualties. He won’t get off lightly, I can tell you that.”
As he listened in on this exchange, the owner went white as a sheet. Seeing how terribly he was trembling, Mile thought to herself, Well, I guess we’ve frightened him enough.
“So then, what made you decide to do this?” she asked.
The owner desperately replied, “I j-just really wanted those spices! I thought that if I could get my hands on a spice like that for cheap—not just temporarily but for the foreseeable future—then I could start selling dishes that were chock full of spice for lower prices… I know it’s no excuse, but I figured that if I had a cheap, nearby source of seasonings with that much heat, then even if it was lacking in flavor or aroma, I could mix it up with normal chilis and use a few other tricks to make do! If I could get it as cheaply as possible, then all my the less-fortunate customers, for whom this food was out of budget so far, would be able to enjoy this spicy food whenever they liked, without a care…