Chapter 115: I wake up late and various things start (1/2)

Chapter 115: I wake up late and various things start.

Mourning of a translator:

Konosuba, one of my favorite LNs, has received the “licensing sentence”. The Aqua and Eris from that world are now no more. I won’t be able to read about Megumin and my weeks won’t be the same. I have been catching up with this awesome LN and wish that the “company” publishes the book fast so I can purchase it one day and read future chapters of the only LN I actually read weekly.

Goodbye Konosuba (T_T)7

Noisy.

Someone is making noise. No, that’s not it.

What’s going on? In the end, I wasn’t able to sleep much because of the school festival that began yesterday. My important sleeping time before the store opening is…

!!!

Damn! What time is it?!

I hurriedly raise my upper half and look at the window. From the edge of the curtain, I could see a strong light leaking in. No matter how I see it, there’s no way that’s the light of early morning.

Oversleeping is quite mysterious! The strong drowsiness that I felt a while ago has completely disappeared, and in exchange, an intense agitation runs around my whole body. Seriously, it feels exactly like in my times at Japan. The worst kind of feeling!

I hurriedly finish changing and arrange myself in the full-length mirror. This is a new habit. If this was my past self, the most I would do is wash myself up and while at it, fix my bed hair.

I probably began this custom after the Rembrandt sisters coordinated my clothes and all of my self. My appearance is remarkably lower than the people around me, so I thought that whatever I do it would be useless, and without caring about the season, I wore the coat that the eldwas made. In winter it is warm and in summer it is not hot, a pretty outstanding product, so that may be one of the reasons why. ‘This is a way of repaying you, so please’ is what they said, and I was dragged around by the sisters for half a day. In that day, my hair, clothes, and even perfume were selected. Since then, the eyes around me changed quite a bit. My face and height can be considered an established fact, but the things I wear and the scent I put on, I can change it as many times as I want. And the impression my face gives, changes a lot just by switching hairstyles.

It may be obvious when one thinks about it, but it is due to my own negligence and the fact that I haven’t minded it in all the years I have lived. And after that, I was lectured by the sisters, saying that I should at least try to put at least a minimum effort in my personal appearance. This is a customer business, so it is good to have good health in body and mind.

After confirming once, I head downstairs.

I don’t want to suddenly show my face inside the store, so I first check the situation. In there, it was already filled with a large quantity of customers. Ah as expected, I did mess up… One normally oversleeps in the times when it is already a bit too late.

Shiki notices I have already woken up and comes to where I am by passing through the mass of customers.

“Good morning Raidou-sama” (Shiki)

“Shiki, good morning. I’m sorry! I totally overslept” (Makoto)

“Yesterday you were preparing things till dawn, so it can’t be helped. Also, as long as the preparations are done, it isn’t as different as the usual business” (Shiki)

Shiki’s kindness hurts. Changing the shelves, increasing the number of central merchandize, putting on and taking off posters for advertisement, and changing the contents of the black board at the outside of the store. Shiki and I did that till dawn. Since he is already up, it can’t be said that it can’t be helped.

And to say it isn’t that different from usual? The congestion inside the store is incredible. If there’s only one eldwa here, then maybe Lime and the remaining one is outside? In that case, there’s an outside line?! So that’s what woke me up. That makes me feel even worse.

“Lime and the eldwa are outside?” (Makoto)

“Yeah. They are regulating the customers. The Kuzunoha Company doesn’t have a stand outside, but counting the people that work close by, for the sake of not being in the way of the other stores, I ordered them to regulate the line” (Shiki)

“That’s a great help. Right now it is around noon right?” (Makoto)

“Yes. It is going to be noon very soon” (Shiki)

“How’s the sales?” (Makoto)

If it is already noon, even if we sell several times as much as normal, the inventory should still have enough to spare. This place is an ‘anything store’ so as the word says, we handle a variety of products. Well, medicine is the main though. Just that, even if people increase because of the festival, I don’t think this type of industry directly connects with drastically increasing sales in this kind of events. That’s why we just prepared in case there’s a need for personnel and then increase the inventory to tackle the sales. In base, that’s how I decided to go. The number one most dramatic increases are probably the inns and restaurants. At night, probably the entertainment stores too?

“It seems that today’s share will be over soon. There are many customers who are here just to check it out, and there are many who buy goods that normally don’t show much sales together with other stuff. And the ones selling can’t catch up” (Shiki)

“?! We just reduced the price a little bit, and yet, it has sold that much?” (Makoto)

“Yeah. When I saw the massive line outside at the time of opening the store, I was wondering what in the world was going on” (Shiki)

A massive line before opening?! Uwa, I really wanted to see that…

“What is attracting them so much?” (Makoto)

“It seems that the people who used our products have advertised about them being highly effective. And so, people that have come to Academy Town to see the festival, while at it, they check out the place. Also, it seems there are people that have been requested to do so as well. Adventurers don’t show at Academy town unless there’s pressing business, so we rarely see them here, but today I can see quite a few” (Shiki)

Word-of-mouth huh. In an area where people normally don’t come, there are some who have tested our medicines huh. It makes me a little happy. Making Tsige my starting point, I have been having the Forest Onis sell medicines as well, but that’s a place that is being constructed as it is being explored around, so there’s not much we can expect from word-of-mouth there. There aren’t many customers there that have come from distant places after all. In that case, the other merchants, and the people who have visited from other towns and are coming to the store by chance, have bought medicine and advertised about it huh. Thanks thanks.

“Should we… rearrange the inventory?” (Makoto)

“No. It is originally things made along with the Arkes, but now the Gorgons are helping out in the production as well. It seems they are fit in medicine production. And so, the production amount has increased quite a lot. That’s why there’s no problem in the inventory as long as we return to Asora” (Shiki)

“I see. Then…” (Makoto)

“However, if we sell too much, there’s the chance it will create doubts. I think that doubling the amount decided last night should be about fine” (Shiki)

Before I could say let’s sell as much as we can, he nailed me down.

It’s certainly true that there’s a lot of inventory, and it isn’t recommendable to have people doubt us. If we stand out too much, there may come a time when it affects the business. Learn prudence.

“Understood. Let’s do that. But with that amount, there will be people who won’t be able to buy” (Makoto)

I do want to sell to the customers that have gone through the trouble of coming all the way here though. Too bad.

“There’s definitely going to be. Just in case, I have made several methods to keep down the displeasure” (Shiki)

“What are you going to do?” (Makoto)

I didn’t think it would reach a situation where the stock isn’t enough, so of course I haven’t thought about what to do when that happens. We have checked the annual situation of stores with the same type of products as us in the merchant guild, so we should learn from how they work.

“I had Lime go to the rear of the line and make it so that there’s no more increase in people. And then, the people that are definitely not going to manage in the amount of merchandize for today, we will have an eldwa head to the people that won’t make it and have him tell them that we will be giving them a coupon valid for the next day. For the customers that are unable to come the next day, we will give them a tradable coupon from the merchant guild which allows them to eat in a restaurant around the areas, and apologize to them” (Shiki)

Tradable coupon. Now that he mentions it, I do remember receiving one of those once. It is fine for the owner to use it, or you can let your customers use it. But, I feel like there weren’t that many though.

“Tradable coupon huh” (Makoto)

“Yes. On top of that, from tomorrow on, we will be confirming the most demanded merchandize and along with the inventory, I plan on telling the customers that can’t purchase, to not line up and explain this to them. I moved by my own accord, but was it okay?” (Shiki)

“No, don’t worry, thanks. Did we receive that many tradable coupons?” (Makoto)

“Regarding that, this may be a report after the fact though. Since I thought it would be bad to give cash directly, I remembered the guild distributing this tradable coupons. If we use those, I thought it wouldn’t look strange. And so, I headed to the guild and bought the necessary amount” (Shiki)

“I see. If I remember correctly, they did say that if necessary, we could buy them anytime we want. It’s fine. I do think it was a necessary expense. At the very least, I who was stupidly sleeping in, can’t say much. Well, I don’t know if I would be able to make a decision of that level even if I were awake though” (Makoto)

“I am sorry. Several incident-like things happened, so I thought about waking you up, but when I went to your room, Mio-dono was looking at your sleeping face so…” (Shiki)

…

Scary!!

Mio is already here?

“I-I see… And?” (Makoto)

“I was asked the reason why I was trying to wake up Waka, so I answered her, but while at it, she also asked me why Waka was still sleeping” (Shiki)

He really can’t get to the point huh. Well, Shiki is kind after all, so he is probably carefully choosing his words. When talking about Mio, he doesn’t call me Raidou but Waka after all. How honest.

“Continue” (Makoto)