Helping with Adventurer Party Management - Chapter 245

“This makes the fourth one… They’re really making a statement,” I mutter.

I send inquiries to several workshops that handle luxury goods in town, each time dispatching someone from my company to deliver the message. The replies that come back are always condescending, essentially saying, “If you have business with us, come to us, and we may consider hearing you out,” clearly asserting their higher status.

I guess that’s the pride of a traditional craftsman. That’s why the town merchant rushes over.

It’s a tricky response to a letter offering a profitable deal.

“That’s pretty impressive. Kenji, do they hate you?” Sara asks, eyeing the pile of replies.

“Well, I can’t say they like me. Especially with this luxury goods sale, we’re directly competing for their customers. I only care about selling shoes, but from their perspective, they probably imagine all kinds of negative scenarios.”

“Like what?”

“For example, they might think I’ll start developing and selling other luxury items after using the Pioneers’ Shoes as a stepping stone. Or maybe they suspect I’ll use the church’s authority to crush workshops that get in the way.”

Sara lets out a surprised gasp at my suggestion.

“What?! Kenji, you’re not planning anything like that, are you?”

“I’m not, but depending on how things go, I can’t say it’s impossible. In this case, it doesn’t matter if I have the intention or not. What matters is that they see me as capable of doing it, and that’s a fact. So, the suspicion won’t just go away.”

Currently, my company has the backing of The Sword Fangs Legion as muscle, we’ve ousted meddlesome bureaucrat nobles, and we’ve teamed up with the church, with the added prestige of being an official supplier to the Cardinal. To the town’s traditional workshops, I probably look like someone they can’t handle alone.

Though Sara seems unable to fully accept my words, she straightens up and asks, “So, what will you do next?”

I fold my arms behind my head, lean back in my chair, and sigh.

“Yeah, that’s right. Even if we keep looking for other sellers, we need to think of another way.”

“Another way?” Sara echoes.

“Yes, another way.”

As Sara and I exchange glances, we both end up looking in the same direction—toward Kiriku and Anne, who are playfully bickering, complete with crude jokes and elbow jabs.

◇　◇　◇　◇　◇

In the end, I reach out to over a dozen workshops and merchants over several days, but none give me a favorable response.

As a newcomer, I don’t fully understand it, but it seems that the upper-tier workshops and merchants in town are all connected, operating under an unwritten cartel that dictates which workshop supplies what type of product to which noble family.

Our workshop, on the other hand, doesn’t adhere to these long-standing divisions of labor, freely choosing its clientele and products. As a result, they shut us out.

If our company’s growth had been a little slower, we might have been able to join them through marriage or capital alliance.

But they probably never imagined that a ragtag adventurer would be making some peculiar shoes, only for that same workshop to be producing goods for the Cardinal in just over a year since its founding.

Even I, at the center of all this, can barely keep up with the rapid changes, completely caught off guard.

Maybe the traditional workshop owners aren’t harboring malice toward me, but are simply unable to keep pace with the changes happening around them.

Either way, I won’t know what they’re really thinking unless I meet with them face to face and talk.

Though I’m not thrilled about it, I might have to brace myself for the risk and visit them personally.