By the Grace of the Gods: Volume 3

by Roy

  Chapter 2 Episode 39: Laying the Foundation

  I popped into the Merchant’s Guild in the morning, where I was once again let into the reception room. It happened every time, so I got used to it.

  “Good to see you, Ryoma. Looking to hire again?”

  “Yes, but I also wanted to discuss something.”

  “Hm? What?”

  I started by talking about the situation.

  “I see, I see. Well, I did introduce you to some unique employees on your first day myself. Fine, if you find someone you can trust, bring them on over. It’s not a crime or anything, and I’ll have the paperwork ready when you are.”

  “I’ll do that, then, thank you.”

  “No problem, and good luck to you.”

  The conversation ended smoothly, so I got off the couch to leave.

  “Ryoma, hold on a second. I forgot to tell you something, sit back down.”

  “What is it?” I asked as I lowered myself back onto the couch.

  “It’s about those hoodlums who came to your store. We looked into them and found that they were hired by someone, but couldn’t figure out who their employer was. They could be connected to a dark guild, so be careful.”

  “Are dark guilds for thieves and assassins or something like that?”

  “Right. They don’t just have the guys who commit the crimes, but guys who give them the tools to do it, guys who set up communications between these two parties, that kind of thing. They specialize in theft, extortion, and even murder, so watch out.”

  “Understood. Thank you for the warning.”

  “It was nothing. Besides, you’re about to go give Taylor a visit, right? There’s something I’d like you to bring over there,” the guildmaster said, then shouted to a staff member outside the room who came inside with a glass bottle. It was filled with a thin green liquid, and powder sat at the bottom. I assumed it was medicine. After the guildmaster confirmed it was the right bottle, the staff member put it away in a wooden box. Judging by the color and thickness of the liquid, and the powder it contained, I could tell it was a health drink. Not only that, but it was highly effective as a dietary supplement.

  “Curious?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, figuring I shouldn’t pry, but I certainly was curious, so I asked about it.

  “That reminds me, you’re the one who tipped off Worgan, aren’t you? If you know what kind of medicine this is, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but it’s not for any particular illness, so don’t worry about that. When you get old, you have days where you can’t help but feel fatigued, that’s all,” the guildmaster said as she wrote something up and handed it to me. “Give that letter to the receptionist. They receive these same boxes regularly, so they’ll know what it is. I wrote that you’d give it to Taylor personally, so you can have your discussion with him in the meantime.”

  “Thank you for everything.”

  “Tell the old man that I said hi,” the guildmaster said, seeing me off as I left the guild.

  ■　■　■

  “So, there you have it. I was wondering if I could hire through the guild, or register employees who I find outside the guild.”

  “I see,” Taylor said. With my delivery as an excuse, I got to meet with him. I also brought up what I had discussed at the Merchant’s Guild. The conversation over there went well enough, but for this one, Taylor looked conflicted.

  “Hm? Oh, sorry, I’ll make tea.”

  “You don’t need to do that. Anyway, is there a problem?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I’d say that. Hold on a second, let’s sit down and talk about this,” Taylor said, getting up to take a tea set off a small shelf to the side of the room. There was also a magic item similar to a portable stove which he used to start preparing some tea.

  “You make the tea yourself?”

  “I’d rather not waste my time getting someone else to do it, and it gives me a nice little break anyway,” Taylor replied and readied the tea as well as the duke’s maids would have, then brought it over. “Now, like I said, there’s no problem with your idea in itself. You can bring people you trust if you want, and of course you can recruit someone who’s already registered with this guild too. That’s one of our regular services. Besides, I’d love to offer support to your store, but there are some things that make me uneasy.”

  “What would that be? And why do you want to support my store?”

  “Well, see, if your store hires through the Tamer’s Guild, that gives us another place to do business. If you open up a couple more stores down the line, that means even more employment opportunities. That’s something any guild should welcome. The fact that the monsters you need for your store are slimes is another reason I want to support you. Remember what I said back when you registered?”

  “About how there were no jobs I could do?” I asked. Taylor nodded.

  “When the Tamer’s Guild determines that a tamer and their familiars can accomplish a task, then they’re assigned to the job. If they clearly can’t complete the job, we can’t give it to them. We introduce some other jobs they might be able to handle, but based on what types of monsters you work with, you’ll always be better at some things than others. Some folks have trouble finding jobs, don’t earn much, or have familiars that are expensive to take care of. They have a rough time getting by, but sadly there are only so many jobs I can give them. I hear they sometimes even try to switch to monsters they’re not compatible with, which never ends well. I try to get around this by having as many different sorts of jobs on offer as possible, but there are limits. Slimes, for example, are slow and weak. They’re generally considered useless, but every tamer’s worked with them at least once.”

  “Because they all start off by practicing with slimes, right?”

  “You got it. I’ve been doing this job for a long time, and every year I hear of a few cases where slimes are the only monsters someone can form a contract with. If you can’t even form contracts with slimes, then you’d have to have no skill with taming magic at all. That’s how easy it is, which is one reason they’re used for practice. I don’t know how much you pay your employees, but if it’s a job that could support someone’s life with their slimes, it might decrease the number of tamers who live in poverty. That’s my idea. After I said I have no work to offer you, I guess this sounds selfish of me.”

  “No, I wouldn’t say that,” I said. I understood why guilds wouldn’t provide work they thought would be impossible.

  “I’m glad you don’t think so. Anyway, that’s why I’d like for the guild to support your store. The issue is with the upper brass within the guild,” Taylor said with a nod and drank a gulp of tea. It contained sugar to make it fairly sweet, yet his face looked bitter. “If it’s simply a matter of providing my support, I’ve got the authority to do that, but to have the whole guild support you, I’d have to report to them. Then they might interfere in some weird ways,” he explained. He must have meant the guild’s shareholders. Maybe they’d demand something in return for the support. “Some of them could also be stuck in their old ways and refuse to believe slimes are good for anything.”

  “The same way you have people who managed to pull themselves out of poverty, there are people who’ve managed to make a living with the weakest and most easily captured monsters. I’m sure they can look at these examples and understand it to be reality, but in their hearts they can’t accept it’s true,” I speculated. It would be annoying if they got angry with me as a result, but I wasn’t going to stop running my store regardless.

  “Well, from what I hear, you don’t really need the support anyway. I don’t know how much that’ll help you find employees, though, so I’ll go ask a few people I can trust.”

  “Thank you, please do.”

  “Hey, I feel sorry that this is the most I can do, if anything. By the way, are you busy for the rest of the day?”

  “I was planning to go to the Adventurer’s Guild after this. I’m suppos
ed to meet with someone who’s introducing me to workers, like we discussed.”

  “You’re in a real hurry, huh? I was hoping we could take the time to chat more.”

  “After hearing what you had to say, I’ve changed my mind somewhat. It’s true that I have to act cautiously, but if opening more stores will help people out of poverty, that’s a good thing. Maybe I should be a little more proactive. Anyway, I’ve more or less decided on hiring people, so I need to go discuss these matters and consider my options.”

  “Hm, I’m glad you’re considering opening more stores, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Also, could you at least stay until the tea is gone?”

  “Gladly.”

  The branch manager poured some more tea. We chatted about a variety of subjects until it ran out.

  Chapter 2 Episode 40: The New Tamer

  The sun had risen to about its highest point.

  “There he is!” I exclaimed. I heard that Jeff was supposed to leave soon, but ended up waiting off in a corner of the guild for an hour before I found him. I watched for when it seemed he was done with work, then called out to him.

  “Hm? If it isn’t Ryoma? What’s up?”

  “I wanted to ask about what we discussed the other day.”

  “Oh, that was fast. I thought it might be a bit longer still. Want to go right away, then?”

  “Can we?”

  “Sure, I was heading to the slums today either way. Besides, my house is in that direction.”

  “Then thank you.”

  I followed Jeff and helped him shop for food and such along the way. He intended to give it to the denizens of the slums. In Gimul, those who managed to leave the slums tended to help those who remained there in what small ways they could.

  “It’s been especially bad lately with how much income has dropped. Look, we’re almost there,” Jeff pointed out. The further we walked, the fewer people we saw, the older the buildings looked, and the more ragged the clothes of the occasional children appeared. They waved and shouted when they saw Jeff, and he responded in kind. They looked serene, like they were pleased to see him. I drew attention too, but I didn’t sense any malice. It didn’t seem like I had to worry about being mugged. Further down the road, we arrived at another old, but sturdy building that was a bit bigger than the rest.

  “You here, old man?” Jeff asked and tapped on the door. It opened by itself. I sensed a little magic energy. “Looks like he is. Let’s go inside. C’mon.”

  I attended Jeff inside the building, where there was a large and mostly empty room. We passed through another door and found a makeshift desk beyond which a man in his 60’s sat in a large chair.

  “You again?” the man sighed and played with his gray hair as he leaned back. “Jeff, I appreciate all your help, but I’m not that old yet.”

  “You’re plenty old.”

  “I can still stand on my own two legs. That means I’m not old. Anyway, who’s the kid? You want me to look after someone again?”

  “I know what he looks like, but he’s an outstanding adventurer. This guy makes more than enough to put food on the table. That’s not why he’s here. He’s got an offer that could even help the slums out.”

  “Oh really?” the man asked and looked at me.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Ryoma Takebayashi.”

  “No point acting so polite around here. I’m Lible, boss of the Gimul slums. If Jeff’s introducing you, I’m sure you’re worthy of trust, but let me tell you something just in case. You can’t do with this place as you please, all right? If we can stay on good terms, that’d be great,” he declared with great force behind his words. I could see why he was the boss.

  “Of course. I don’t want any needless fighting either,” I said. Lible snorted and grinned.

  “Not scared, eh? You’ve got guts.”

  “You better believe he does,” Jeff interjected. “He’s got my approval for a reason.”

  “I see. So what’s this offer?”

  “I’ll talk about that,” I said. It was about my store, so it only made sense.

  “...And that about sums it up.”

  “All right, so you had some ruffians causing you trouble, and you don’t know where they came from. Now you want to find someone you can trust, and that can include someone from the slums; did I get all that? Sounds good to me, as long as you’re paying enough to live on. Hire whoever you want. It’ll mean that much more food and resources to go around for us.”

  The discussion ended surprisingly well. I expected them to charge a fee to find employees for me or something, but maybe Jeff’s introduction worked. At any rate, now it came down to gaining the trust of whoever I wanted to hire. Jeff and I left the boss’s house and headed off to see the tamer that Jeff knew. On the way there, Jeff called out to two kids and told them to go get somebody.

  “Where are those kids going?”

  “You’ll see later.”

  When we finally arrived at a building, Jeff violently knocked on the door.

  “Hey! Caulkin! I know you’re in there! Come out!”

  It felt like I was watching a debt collector. Soon enough, the door was thrown open by a skinny, middle-aged man who had the air of a white-collar worker that was laid off.

  “Quiet down, Jeff! You don’t need to knock so much, I heard you the first time!”

  “You haven’t come out when I knocked way too many times for me to believe that!”

  “Your fault for visiting when I was in the middle of research!”

  “Like hell it’s my fault!”

  “You’ve never researched anything in your life, what do you know?! Research is about submerging in the deep sea of your thoughts, trying to inspect the transient bubbles of your ideas before they pop. There’s no time to pay attention to anything else!”

  “And as a result, you dumped a bunch of money into your useless research, went broke, and ended up here, didn’t you?!”

  “Ugh, when you put it that way, yes. Enough about that; what do you want?”

  “I was gonna ask if you wanted a job. A taming job,” Jeff said. The instant he heard that, Caulkin blinked.

  “A job for me? As a tamer?”

  “Yeah, at the request of Ryoma here.” It was only then that Caulkin seemed to notice me.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Ryoma Takebayashi.”

  “Sorry, that wasn’t a great first impression. You’re hiring a tamer? For what?”

  “Could you just let us inside, Caulkin?” Jeff demanded. Caulkin scratched his head and let us through the door, then closed it behind us. The building had only one room. It was dim, lit only by the glow of a magic stone. Aside from that and a cloth near the wall that I could only assume served as a futon, the room was empty. There weren’t even chairs, so we sat on the floor.

  “So what do you want me to do? Sadly, I can’t say I’m that great of a tamer, so I don’t know if I can live up to your expectations. I do think I’m a pretty good researcher, though.”

  “What kind of research do you do?” I asked.

  “I used to work at a lab, and I focus on the last job they ever gave me,” he said bitterly. “I research slimes.”

  “Really?!”

  “Yeah, but I couldn’t produce any results, so I got the boot. That was over ten years ago now, but I could never forget about that lab, so I’ve kept up my research. Anyway, why are you looking at me like that?” Caulkin replied self-derisively, but the moment he saw me, he looked confused.

  “The lab considered this research unimportant, so it was thrust onto people that the ones in charge wanted to get rid of. That was the case with me. Why are you so excited?”

  “I do my own research with slimes.”

  “What?!”

  Caulkin and I stared at each other in silence for a few seconds, then exchanged a firm handshake.

  “My comrade!”

  “My brethren!”

  “What happened in those last few seconds?!”

  “Well,
something.”

  “Outsiders wouldn’t understand the joy of meeting a comrade who engages in the same research.”

  “You’re right, I don’t get that at all.”

  Then we heard a knock at the door.

  “Another guest? Awfully busy today,” Caulkin grumbled and stood up to go open the door. A man and a woman were standing outside.

  “Caulkin? We heard we could get work here. Is that true?”

  “I never thought we could get some tamer work, so I hurried straight here!”

  “What, Lobelia and Tony? You heard about it too? There’s someone here looking for tamers to hire, and he’s a comrade!”

  “A comrade?”

  “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “Anyway, come inside!” Caulkin said, dragged them into the room, and closed the door. We each introduced ourselves.

  The man, Tony, was 23 years old. He was an excellent tamer, but out of jealousy for his talent, his boss and coworkers took advantage of his sincerity. They blamed him for their failed experiments and scandals to get him demoted. He was then ordered to research slimes, and when he was unable to get results, they used that as an excuse to fire him. I asked why he didn’t work as a tamer if he was so skilled, and apparently the people who ran the guild at his old town withheld work from him. The Tamer’s Guilds had already heard through their information network that he wasn’t to be trusted, so he couldn’t find work as a tamer in any city. He was now working as a miner.

  “Have you been to the Tamer’s Guild in this town?”

  “The ones in other towns were just awful, so no. I couldn’t make enough to feed my familiars and ended up letting them go, so there’d be no use in it now.”

  He came to this city to work in the mines. He gave up on the Tamer’s Guild, apparently. Maybe I could get him a meeting with Taylor at some point.

  “It happens,” Lobelia said to reassure Tony. She was 25 years old and worked as a researcher, but got sexually harassed by her boss. She was so focused on research at the time that she never learned how to deal with men, and she was so shocked that she sent her familiar after him. It wasn’t a strong monster, so it only served as a threat, but her boss ignored his own scandal and hypocritically demoted her. She was later placed on slime research, then fired. She now worked at a brothel three days a week, where she did assorted chores and menial work. She also made a living selling mended clothes.