167. As the Crow Laughs 2
(Narator"s POV)
Late night at the pier.
One small figure is standing there.
And…
"Alright, there"s no one in the vicinity …Transfer!" (Mitsuha)
Then a small ship suddenly appeared and created a series of waves as it hit the sea surface. The berthed ship swayed, and several sleepy-eyed sailors hastily looked around in the darkness to find out the cause.
The girl then instructed those on the small boat to moor on the boat. Of course, she has the permission to use this place.
After the mooring work was over, the men who were working… literally, [Disappeared], and the girl who remained alone returned to the room at the inn she was staying in.
(Mitsuha"s POV)
"Alright, load them in order! Don"t rush and stay organized. If you drop those wooden box and damage the content, you"ll get pay cut for a whole year!!" (Rephilia)
The cargo workers who were handling the wooden box twitched their faces when they heard that words.
It"s Rephilia who"s responsible for transferring the cargo from the small sailing boat to the carriage.
There"s no way I can do something like that. Besides, this is also to build the impression that this work was not by me, the [Viscount Yamano], but by a new firm run by Rephilia, the [Rephilia Trade].
Yeah, we settled on that for Rephilia"s company name.
She wanted to put my name on it, but I rejected it.
It"s natural to use the young maiden Rephilia as the figurehead.
It is almost certain that there will be some who look down on us and try to steal the purchase route by fraud or threats just because the firm is run by a young girl.
There are various countermeasures for that matter though.
One of them is that we employed a skilled former soldier as a servant.
…the man was retired from taking responsibility for the case that wasn"t his fault. He seems to be loved by his former executives, colleagues, and subordinates, and that they were grateful that we hired the man with a high salary. It seems that we can expect something from them in the event of emergency.
Also, we hired a former guard as the chief of staff. The man was unilaterally fired without a single explanation by the idiot son of a certain large store after he succeeded the previous master, and top of that, the man was being slandered by the idiot son that effectively jammed his reemployment chances.
It seems that he owes the previous master a favor, but since he only receives grudges from the current master and the previous master did nothing to help him at the time when he was fired and subsequently slandered, he felt that his sense of grat.i.tude towards that family has forfeited and that he no longer owes them anything.
If we have personnel who seems to be skilled, we don"t have to be afraid from being scammed or threatened to give our purchase route.
Well, there"s no such a thing as purchase route in our case, everything will come to an end once I decided to do so.
Even if the opponent attack within the rules, I still can counter it since I have a certain extent of influence in the social circles.
Yeah, it"s perfect!
And we hold an event to celebrate the opening of the firm and to show that we are transporting the product by ship from afar.
Probably, many firms who want to know the purchase route have dispatched their own hands. This is also to show those people.
The ship is the prototype small boat that was built as a practice platform at the well-known shipyard in the Bozes Territory.
It actually hasn"t ready to go in a commission yet, but this time there"s no need to actually sail with it, so no problem. That"s why I properly asked Count-sama to borrow it for a whole day.
And I requested the people from our fishing village to do the mooring work.
They"re not surprised about me anymore at this point. After all, I"ve done various things, such as [one-day breakwater placement], [one-day fishing port construction], [one-day highway construction], etc.
…ah, before that, there was the [Capturing the three enemy ships by myself].
No, even before-before that, there was the [Earth Dragon Subjugation], [Imperial Army Suppression]… well, there were so many things.
I don"t intend to do this every time. …… because it is troublesome.
Once they found out, I can insist on saying that [We"re changing the port every time for safety] or [We"re unloaded at midnight and the ship has sailed for home before dawn].
…well, it would never be completely clean of traces.
If push comes to shove, the goods will be transported from earth directly to [Yamano Product Store] and from there to the warehouse of [Rephilia Trade].
The contract to transport the goods from the port to my shop is undertaken by Rephilia Trade, once the goods were transported to our shop, the contract ends. Apart form that, a sales contract was made with Rephilia Trade, which only the sold goods are transported to the warehouse of Rephilia Trade. …or that"s what written on the paper.
It would seem like a ha.s.sle, but if Rephilia says, [The Viscount said that she wants to do it even if it"s a ha.s.sle], then no one will doubt it.
If they"re bulky goods like wheat or coal, then can"t trick anyone since it"s obvious, but if they"re non-bulky expensive goods then it"s not surprising if we transported them in secrecy.
Thus, the emerging firm [Rephilia Trade] has opened for business.
"… the sales have exploded. Well, it is to be expected. Currently, we only deal under the strict restrictions such as Limitation of Quota per Store, Prohibition of resale to other firms, prohibition of overseas sales, prohibition of contract contents leakage, and trade suspension as well as cancellation on all contracts for any kind of violations. And there are many companies that bought my own products in addition to the Mitsuhsan"s product, trying to buy my favor. It"s too late for that though. Fuhe, fuhehehehe…" (Rephilia) (Note: Another creepy laugh)
Saying so, Rephilia laughs with a sloppy face.
At first, she called me [Your excellency] or [Mitsuhsama], but I demanded her to change the way she addresses me and settled on [Mitsuhsan] after many twists and turns.
When a little girl who looks like 12-13 years old is called [Her excellency] or [Mitsuhsama] by a woman that looks older than her, it attracts attention. It"s not good if my face is known by a large number of people for personal safety reasons.
"Was there any evidence about the companies that sell the imported goods abroad at a very high price?" (Mitsuha)
"I sent my employees to tail those companies, tried to send some spy as employees there, and tried to bribe their employees. As expected, the companies who signed contract with Mitsuhsan does not seem to have the courage to launch any direct sabotage. …For the time being" (Rephilia)
Right, for the time being. I"m not sure how long the current status quo can be maintained.
There"s also the possibility that they will approach me directly as an importer. In large firms, there should be one or two n.o.bles who seek our weaknesses by using their connections. …however, if they want to play their connections, I can overturn them with their own game.
If they come for a normal business negotiation, I can either refuse or to use them.
But if they look down on me, I already prepared the countermeasure.
"If the opportunity arises, you should spread that I am not just your business partner, but also your close friend. That way, if there"s someone trying to mess with you, I can go all-out to crush whoever they are without being unnatural. …and it"s not a lie, it"s true" (Mitsuha)
"…Y-yes!!" (Rephilia)
She seems a little surprised and happy at the same time.
Right, following Mitchan, she"s my second friend in this country… no, in this continent. If I already involved them this far, I"ll have to protect them. …unless they betray me.