Translator: amenym
[TN: h.e.l.lo. I"ll be translating the chapters from here on.]
Chapter 66 The high priest smells of rumours
A market"s morning started early.
We operate a cloth shop, so we open around 9am at the latest. For many shops selling ingredients, however, they open at 6am and close at noon… Even if that"s not the case, it is the default for all shops at the market to close by the evening. We close shop at 2pm at the earliest, and 4pm at the latest.
Taking it easy, the longest working hour is 9am to 4pm, 7 hours of work.
However, on days when there is riding or sword training in the morning, there are those who turn up fashionably late for work in the afternoon, clocking in only 3 actual hours of work. But, this is a quality of the other world - it"s on Easy mode… Not. At least that is what I think so. You see, they often say that the j.a.panese work too much. This amount of work hours is the limit of a humane work load. Even if that"s not the case, it"s just nice for a NEET in social rehabilitation…
Etowa had already come to the shop and was doing the preparations for opening shop. Even if I say preparations, it was after all open air. It was just cleaning up the area, neatly lining up our products, and tallying the accounts and change.
"Boss! Sis! Good Morning! Did you bring more of the sold-out products?"
Etowa greeted us cheerfully when she noticed us. It wasn"t not sailor uniforms today. It was blue-dyed hemp one-piece dress. Isn"t it simple and quite adorable?
"Hey. Good morning. I brought everything. I also brought a few products for test sales, so line them up later. Alright."
I entered the booth while patting Etowa head.
"Meow~ Boss, you"re still treating me like a cat…"
But she"s so like a cat.
I only realised this a while after employing her, but Etowa meows and narrows her eyes in bliss when she"s patted. It made it worth petting her and enjoyable. At first, I thought that it might be culturally inappropriate to go around petting all the different tribe. I thought about that, but Etowa did say that petting and grooming each other"s" fur was a general means of communication for Canaan tribesmen, so I"m not standing on ceremony.
My parents have banned keeping pets at home, so I"ve always wanted to try keeping a cat or something.
"Since you"re already doing it, like this. It feels good when you pet the cheek and throat."
Fufufu. She has even been making requests recently.
When she first came as a disciple, she was a little resistant to being petted. But Etowa has fully given in recently. I shall pet her…
Pet pet pet pet…
"Purrrrrrr"
When I pet from cheek to throat and back, Etowa closed her eyes in bliss, purred, and rubbed her head against my hand.
She"s definitely a cat!
"… Princess. What do you think about that?"
"I see… I"ve been overlooking it since she"s a newbie, but as expected, it seems that Etowa must be taught what ranking is… Marina, do it!"
"As you wish! Ufufufufu. Be warned. Marina is not so capable that she can hold back even if you"re a kitty!"
As we were absorbed in the petting, Marina approached us while flexing her hands.
"Hn? Does Marina also want to do it? That"s fine, but first, remove your gauntlet. See, she"ll be happy if you pet her chin like this."
"Purrrrrrr"
"No. That"s not it. Marina has something she must tell Etowa."
"Do that later. See, here."
"L-like this…? Ah! ? It"s fluff-fy! It"s fluffier than princess"s hair."
Eh…? Does Marina usually pet Diana"s head? No. It"s true that that platinum blond hair makes you want to touch it.
"Purrrrrrrr. Meow~"
Etowa was delighted by me and Marina"s petting. This wanton kitty.
In the time I that petted Etowa, during which I also petted Marina"s hand which was petting Etowa too, customers were slowly coming in and we stopped. Diana fumed, "Marina, you useless child! " and proceeded to ignore us.
"Master, sir. I"m very sorry, but actually, I would like to take the day off today."
"Hn? That"s rare. Ok. It"s fine."
"Thank you so much! Thank you very much! Well, I"m going out for a bit. I"ll be back by the time the shop closes.
She is probably going to buy Aurica"s birthday present, isn"t she?
I don"t know what kind of personality Marina had before she became a slave, but I think it"s a good tendency for her to be able to voice out her wishes proactively like this. She had always been restricted by the thought that she must behave in a "manner appropriate to slaves".
It was the usual scene - selling cloth and small items to half familiar faces, new customers, and merchants from other streets. Etowa deftly cut the cloth into the requested length, I handled the money, while Diana said a word of blessing over the cloth as she pa.s.sed it to the customers.
It was easy to forget that Diana was of the Elf tribe, a highly venerated tribe in Erishe (in strict confidentiality, "High Elf").
The townsfolk were very thankful for the words that this Elf bestowed, such as "For a fruitful life", or "Lu Balka will always protect you", or "Melfelfo Milmeel Reine". (In the end, it seems like none of the towns folk understand what she"s saying anyway.)
"Even then… Somehow, aren"t there a lot of pious customers today? Diana is eye-catching, but…"
During our usual routine, for some reason, handshakes and baby naming were requested of Diana. And all of them were women… Why?
"Boss, there"s been a rumour recently. They say that a saintly elf is in the market. That the elf has subjugated the Human tribe, Turk tribe, and Canaan tribe and is selling blessed cloth from the Elf village for a low price.”
"Is that so. … Hn. It"s true that Diana is eye-catching…. Well, to some extent, the scenario is as I visualised… Even if that"s the case, isn"t this still a lot?"
Until now, such customers did come every now and then, so it wasn"t out of the place for it to happen… but it felt like there was at least twice the amount of them today. Well, thanks to that, our products were selling, so that wasn"t a problem - all"s well that ends well.
I asked a young mother, who was pestering Diana to name her baby, where she had heard the rumours.
As they say, there"s no smoke without a fire.
"Ehh, they say that the Mrs on 4th street heard from Priestess-sama about the rumoured white-haired Elf recently. Apparently, she said, ‘That person is so much more n.o.ble than I am. You can receive the blessing of Lu Balka even just by being near that person." And she thought, if that"s the case, I must visit her."
Priestess-chan…
Next time, I must remind her not to say weird things, and to take photos of her. No. I shall I go now.
"Boss, you"re going out? If so, could you visit the shop in the rumours?
"The shop in the rumours? Rather, isn"t our shop the shop in the rumours?"
"No. Could you confirm if it"s someone taking advantage of the rumour, or if it"s something real. Since I don"t know anything about suppliers."
According to Etowa, it"s like this.
Initially, the rumours were mostly, "An Elf is selling cloth at the market". But little by little, they became, "Elf village products are sold at the market", and recently, they became, "An Elf is selling Elf village products at the market". And then, in the midst of it, the "Elf village products are sold at the market" rumour was the ‘rumoured shop".
We don"t use the "product of the Elf village" when we sell our cloth. Sources are basically secrets (in fact, mine are lies). To market something as a product of the Elf village is bad standing as a Merchant.
In this sense, to sell velvet to that Chubby was, in a double meaning, a failure. They were sold at lower than market rate, and I had blabbed that they were supplied from the Elf village. Well, it could"t be helped as I was too engrossed in trying to talk him into buying them at a high price. As such, I have always been very careful after that incident.
Therefore, except for some regulars, we don"t use the term Elf"s village. (Etowa has also been strictly instructed about this.) So, there is a high chance that there is another shop dealing with real Elf village products. If not, aren"t they just taking advantage of the rumours to snag sales…?
"So, where is that shop? Since it started up so quickly, it must be in the market or a booth…"
"Ah. I think it"s a booth. I"m not sure, but they seem to sell blessed Elf village products…. The details are unclear since it"s messed up with the rumours of our shop."
I see. Well, I guess I"ll go and have a look.
And thus, I went out to search for the said shop with Diana. Well, it was a good opportunity to have lunch and go to the temple (but Etowa always comes with a lunchbox).
Surprisingly, we found the shop in question.
The square near the section of the market selling ingredients was a little booth village chock full of booths. While we had a lunch of our usual 3Ys (Yakisoba, Yakitori, Yakimeshi) at the Erishe booths, we asked around and found out that the booth nearby was the said shop.
Just as I was thinking "That"s some good fortune… We"ll check it out after we"re done eating", …
I"m looking forward to your opinions and feedback.
[TN: Me too.]
Elf doesn"t really mean priest, but in this country, their statuses are quite close, so.