Helping with Adventurer Party Management - Chapter 398

The training period is over, and the new officials have begun planning the territory’s development.

While there’s a lot I’d like to say, for now, I’m mostly waiting on reports.

I can track the progress of their plans by checking how many of the wooden plaques hanging on the wall have been flipped over.

Leaving the boards scattered on the floor would have looked unsightly, so I asked Gorgoro, who was busy improving the printing press, to “do something about it.” 

In just a few days, he produced a large wooden board with evenly spaced nails, along with a mountain of smaller wooden plaques to hang from it.

Essentially, it’s a wall-mounted task management board.

However, the new plaques Gorgoro made were much smaller than the original floorboards, so the officials groaned as they copied over the work details.

I instructed them to include task numbers for each job. Numbering them will make it easier when we start transcribing and compiling documents in the future.

The clergy were a little surprised when I explained the concept of serial numbering, but I’m sure the church has something similar.

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Now that I’ve let go of the initial stage of the territory development plan, I finally have time to return my focus to the main shoe business.

Currently, I produce two main types of shoes: The first is for adventurers, and the second is for priests and nobles.

As for the second category—the shoes for priests and nobles—there honestly isn’t much more we can do on our end. It’s a luxury market, so now that I’ve established a business structure, I simply take custom orders and leave it at that. Sales are handled by the church and Anne, who maintain control over numbers and pricing. 

It’s ironic, considering my original goal was to create simplified versions of adventurer shoes that even peasants could afford.

Meanwhile, shoes for adventurers are still being manufactured as protective gear—but the shortage hasn’t been resolved. As a result, prices remain just barely affordable even for mid-level adventurers.

I want to change this situation. Specifically, I want to produce ten times more shoes than I do now and steadily drive prices down.

To borrow Sara’s words, I want to make shoes the same way I make bread.

“We’re expanding the workshop, so we could probably double our production,” Gorgoro said. The purchase of the house next to his workshop was going smoothly.

If acquiring that land had proven too difficult, we’d considered relocating as a last resort—so this is a relief.

“What about the number of craftsmen?”

Simply making the building bigger won’t help if we don’t improve our craftsmen’s training. Our yield will just drop.

Even if profit margins shrink, I can accept it as an educational investment.

But releasing defective products into the market would be a serious problem—these are shoes for adventurers, used in life-threatening situations.

If a sole falls off mid-fight and someone slips while blocking a monster’s attack, they could die in agony.

“It might be hard to keep recruiting from the familiar shoe workshops soon,” Gorgoro said, expressing concern about the future of hiring shoemakers in town.

Until now, we’ve hired surplus workers—young people or siblings unlikely to start their own shops—but we’re hitting a limit.

Currently, the company employs almost 30 shoemakers. Including their family members who help in the early mornings, the total number comes close to 50.

By contrast, most family-run shoe workshops in town operate with only one to three craftsmen.

The difference in manpower is already over tenfold.

But the gap isn’t just about size.

There’s also a significant difference in skill, efficiency, and productivity.

At our company, shoe production is highly specialized. Each craftsman handles about two of the twenty or so processes involved.

And although sizes may vary slightly, the shoes are otherwise uniform, which naturally boosts efficiency.

What’s more, our modern techniques allow us to produce shoes with superior functionality, comfort, and durability—things traditional, general-purpose workshops can’t match.

In short, although our customer bases don’t currently overlap, further price reductions could completely wipe out the town’s existing shoe workshops.

This confrontation with the local shoe guild—something I’d been putting off—was now unavoidable.