Helping with Adventurer Party Management - Chapter 202

As a preliminary negotiation, I have Gorgoro check, and it seems that both neighboring workshops are willing to sell their land. However, they mention that losing their residence in the city would be problematic.

“Well, I suppose it’s understandable that losing one’s home would be an issue. I can’t really say much about it, but artisans tend to be oblivious to worldly matters. They’re saying they’d be okay with selling if they didn’t have that anxiety.” 

Given that workshops in this area are close to residential spaces, it’s clear that measures need to be taken.

Since we’ll be paying for the land, I don’t want to adopt an approach that just leaves them to deal with it. It feels a bit like the actions of a greedy land developer.

To be a bit calculating, if I take proper care of the situation now, when we need more land later, other workshop owners will feel more secure about selling. Since we’re all residents of Leather Street, our business and personal relationships are closely tied. It wouldn’t be wise to behave carelessly within that context.

There’s another reason why the addresses of the workshop owners who sold their land are a concern.

In this city, there’s a birth registry, and residents with citizenship have their addresses tied to that citizenship. If they simply sell their land, they would legally become homeless according to the system.

To prevent that, it’s customary for the buyer’s side to allow the seller to continue living on their original land, or the buyer needs to provide a new residence.

However, that doesn’t have to happen immediately.

We also need to draw up the plans for the new factory, and during that process, we’ll decide how to handle housing.

Up until now, we’ve been employing people who have established their living bases in this city, so there have been many commuting artisans, and in a sense, we haven’t been involved in their private lives. But moving forward, we’ll likely be hiring people from rural areas who don’t have a living base in this city for factory work.

If that’s the case, it might become necessary for the company to take care of housing and such as well.

“Before long, we might even need a company cafeteria…” I mutter.

Sara perks up. “What’s a company cafeteria?”

“Well, it’s like the staff meals provided at the workshop.”

“Oh, right! I’ve heard that at profitable workshops, they serve bread for the meals!”

Having lived as an adventurer for a long time, we’ve mostly eaten at inns or had preserved food, but the residents of the city follow different eating habits from adventurers.

In this world, the working hours are from sunrise to sunset, so mornings are early, and nights are also early.

There’s less of a custom for lunch, and dinners are often cold. This is because, to save on firewood costs and to prevent fires in the city, cooking with fire at home is prohibited after sunset.

Therefore, people often eat warm meals in the morning and prepare enough for dinner at the same time. This helps save on firewood. If they want to eat something warm at night, they go to taverns or restaurants where cooking with fire is permitted after sunset.

However, the situation on Leather Street is a bit different.

The processing of leather involves various chemicals and the smell of adhesives, so there are no dining establishments nearby.

During the day, they don’t get customers, so it’s not profitable.

So how do the people on Leather Street have their meals?

Cooking requires a heat source like firewood, but due to their line of work, they have plenty of heat sources at their workplaces. Thus, they boldly bring iron pots to work and have warm dinners there.

This is one of the few points I’m glad about for setting up my residence on Leather Street.

“Since we can have a hot meal at night, we should offer the craftsmen something warm for dinner too.”

“That’s true.”

The craftsmen at our company go home at night, and since they’re young, they typically stay in their parents’ houses. They probably eat with their families when they get home, but I can’t help feeling a bit guilty thinking about them slurping down cold barley porridge.

Well, I pay them a decent salary, so if they want something hot, they can go to a bar, but the people I plan to hire in the future—who have just come from the countryside—likely won’t have the means to do that.

“It looks like we’re going to need a company cafeteria in earnest,” I mutter.

Sara agrees, saying, “Company cafeterias sound delicious!”