Chapter 244
Day 61 – Nighttime, Murimuri Castle
The majority is against door-to-door sales for the nobles’ army. The travel expenses are going to be covered by some middle-aged man, who will also provide a guide, and on top of that, sexy female knights are coming too, a wonderful line up, but it’s still a no?
「No, I mean, if we are going to wait for them, it will take the nobles’ army 10 more days to come here, right? I’ll probably forget all about the war in three days or so? And they are offering to escort me there and will even cover the costs, plus I still have some unfinished business in the carriage. Yeah, the real battle is from now on! That sort of stuff?」
During the last section of the journey back the carriage was surrounded by the girls, preventing the beautiful female knights from coming. But the destination this time is the nobles’ army camp. And a middle-aged man seems to『Hey, wanna come together?』be inviting me. Originally, at the very point of being invited by a middle-aged man I would’ve burned him to a crisp and escaped, but apparently this middle-aged man is the middle-aged man that ordered the two sexy female knights to escort me! Looks like this world actually had some thoughtful middle-aged men. He is a royal prince it seems. And being thoughtful, this middle-aged man offered me an escalating journey to help escalate things with the escorting sexy female knights. I have to go!
But that also means that I won’t be able to open the souvenir shop which we worked so hard on. Manju won’t be sold, and the same goes for the frontier pennants. The time making them – wasted.
But there still was the option of peddling. 『If you can’t wait for the clients to come, then why not go out to sell on your own?』as said by pen-name M-san.
But since the destination seems to be the army of the nobles who are all chummy with the church they have already been decided to be sent to the old fart (god). Let’s sweep this world clean of garbage by dumping it into the geezer’s (god’s) white room with pay on delivery forced home shipment. But in that case, I might lose the clientele before I sell them anything.
As a result, the Fake Dungeon, souvenir store, and Murimuri Castle, that I worked so hard to make to welcome visitors, will all become meaningless. Wasted effort.
But even if anticipated losses are this great, I still have a reason why I must go. As long as a possibility (sexy female knights) exists, I have to pursue the possibility (sexy female knights), , strip the possibility (sexy female knights), do this and even that to the possibility (sexy female knights), I have to answer the insatiable call to challenge the possibility (sexy female knights)!
Or rather, I have to move from here, or it will become a stalemate. I mean, with the tight blockage of 21 people’s flat gazes I can’t go to the knights’ place to play! I don’t have the locational advantage here, and the opportunity too, I’m surrounded in a circle of people staring at me. This is a lost battle. I have to leave this place, the lost fight named sermon is surely going to have a bonus round of beatings named training.
「Playing defensive is more advantageous, and there was so much preparations made for it, why go out of your way to meet them?」
「Drawing them into the Fake Dungeon and exterminating the survivors at Murimuri Castle is a certain approach.」
「Leaving to meet them sounds like nothing but a risk? And with all those defenses already in place?」
I’d like to persuade them, the problem is that they are absolutely right. The idea of going to them is full of demerits. But Beautiful Female Knights are leaving too! I don’t mind staying if he leaves them here, but otherwise, the lovely event of me being eaten in a highschool boy sort of way by aggressive beautiful female knights is going to depart! I’m not letting it slip away!
And so I thought I should go, but the majority is against it. Or rather, everyone is against it.
Well, indeed, there is no merit to it. I won’t be able to sell manju or even pennants, but a highschool boy has moments when he must go anyway! But were I to honestly tell them that I’m planning on escalating with two assertive sexy female knights, things will get very dire, or to put it in easier generally used terms, a sermon will ensue.
I need some sort of a pretext, and it’s not like there is none.
First of all, the existence or nonexistence of long-range weapons. If they have weapons capable of attacking over a very long distance or some other way of launching long range attacks, letting them get close would be a mistake.
So, with that in mind too, reconnaissance. There is no better way to gather intel than directly infiltrating the enemy camp. After all, I have『Rajingan』, if I have even a fleeting glimpse of something, 『Apex Thinking』-san will be able to analyze it.
Next are items that would allow them to cross the Fake Dungeon. If there is anything that would allow travel through the air, underground, or space, it would be a danger, but it should be impossible for an army that large to hide loads of the equipment that their numbers would require, so we should be able to expose their hand if I went to check.
And lastly, there is a certain possibility that is yet to surface. While the King is debilitated with an illness, the first prince is leading an army towards the frontier, and yet the Royal Prince, supposedly the current regent, went to the frontier ahead of the first prince. Yeah, so the capital is wide open? Like, completely exposed? Too good to be true level?
Waiting should be easy, but we will lose the initiative, there is a chance someone might go and do as they please in the meantime. There is even a possibility that this is someone’s ploy.
I like having fun and taking things easy, but I hate letting others do as they please or being tricked by someone’s plan! I’m a super ethical boy that even made 『Let’s proactively do what others wouldn’t want』that we learned during ethics lessons my motto, I like seeing others mad and I’m very good at doing what others detest, but I very much hate when the same is done to me, so losing the initiative is not nice at all.
In that case, reconnaissance-in-force isn’t meaningless, while I’m at it I can also install some traps or whittle down their forces with guerilla tactics. But what’s most important, the royal middle-aged prince might let us invade the very midst of enemy forces, that’s a delicious offer. I mean, invasion with assertive sexy female knights or even invading assertive sexy female knights! That’s delicious.
Then, postpone the souvenir shop opening, and go peddle the goods myself! Instead of souvenirs store (defense) it’s peddling (offense), 『Offense is the best rip-off』is what a certain ancient person I think might’ve or mightn’t have said. That’s why, it’s peddling time. Let’s add a traveling souvenir shop to the gorgeous bed carriage. The traveling offensive (High Pressure salesmanship) souvenir shop is what this world needs at the moment! Is what I tried to argue?
「Even with pressure sales you won’t be able to sell those pennants, okay? Why『Frontier』? Why would you make souvenirs if you don’t even remember the name of the place? And why did you have to make mushroom-shaped ones?」
「Can it even work as a souvenir if it has no mention of the place’s name? Well, it seems 『Frontier』 conveys the idea, but even so?」
「But manju will sell! Or rather, I’m going to buy them even if I’ll have to follow you! I’m buying them up!」
「Those wooden swords with『The Frontier』carving too, they are pretty plain, but come with enchantments?~ Were those originally goblin clubs?~」
Yeah, a new product that was added to the line up upon incorporating the idea that a souvenir store might need a wooden sword, it’s name『The Frontier Wooden Sword』. I simply used『Holding』,『Wood Magic』and『Alchemy』to process goblin clubs that I had in excess, getting nice enchanted souvenirs with 0 material costs. Cheap, light, and even if they are broken, can still be useful as firewood, a super reliable and economical new product.
「「「But those mushroom-shaped massager dolls are GUILTY! So their sale is prohibited!」」」
For some reason they were banned from sale and distribution? The elaborate mushroom dolls that I made in 1 to 1 scale to real mushrooms, faithfully replicating them in every minute detail. They even come with a massager function provided by Vibration Magic, and yet this genius invention of mine was rejected?! In fact, massage chairs are showing incredible sales. Super popular in the frontier, installed in the lord mansion, the inn, the weapon store, and even the general store, they are constantly working at full-capacity, bringing coin. I was sure that massagers should be a top selling line, but it looks like they are banned? I guess they prefer magic stone-shaped ones? I wonder what’s the difference, is this mushroom discrimination?
By the way『RemoteLand』T-shirts and『I Frontier』T-shirts were sold out to the girls and soldiers. I should consider some new goods too. An unexpectedly good sales line. Let’s try『I Frontier』cloth bags and towels too. This is a standard series so it should work.
And then, the sermon named conference continued until dinner, or rather, Meripapa-san came saying 『I’ll provide sufficient compensation, so if you don’t mind, could you please prepare dinner?』, so I used that opportunity to escape.
As I’m making my way out I arrange a huge load of Chinese food in the dinner hall. Fried rice, gyoza, egg foo young, deep-fried chicken, pseudo-chop suey. A menu of a cheap Chinese-like ramen place, but without ramen.
Since the food was supposedly for the Royal middle-aged prince, I thought that he might do with just fried rice, but since assertive beautiful female knights will be present at the dinner too, I also added gyoza and deep-fried chicken. A middle-aged man is one thing, but beauties should be fed good stuff. And since it’s just 50 portions it shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes?
In the end, things might end up depending on Royal Girl’s will, but this scenario is too complicated. It definitely might’ve been easier to just hit them head on. While waiting is definitely easier and more advantageous, it will mean fighting with our backs to the wall, leaving no options of backing down, on the other hand, going on offense would allow us to attack, and if things look bad, gradually wear down enemy forces while pulling back here. After all, without knowing what kind of trump card the enemy is holding there is no way to make any predictions.
Pres and the others were reviewing formations for the war and reorganizing tactics and strategies. They can just take it head on, but if I take it I’ll die, so it makes things a bit difficult. So for me it would be easier and safer to go out and go around killing. If it also reveals their ace there would be nothing to complain about left. That’s why I must go. Together with aggressive beautiful female knights!
Everyone was assigned rooms, so I headed to mine. Armored Pres should return when their girls-only gathering ends too. It would be great if the course of action was decided until then, but Meripapa and others are having a dinner meeting, so by the time anything is decided it will already be nighttime. For now let’s finish what I can at the moment. Like, night time side job time? That’s pretty much it. Well, to put it bluntly, it looks like another round of bra making is awaiting me today.