Helping with Adventurer Party Management - Chapter 412

After the theft incident, several things changed.

First, for some reason, our contracts with repair workshops started going smoothly.

The third-class district masters, who had been hesitant before, suddenly warmed up to signing contracts. The number of affiliated workshops steadily increased.

At the very least, we were no longer being turned away at the door.

So far, so good.

On the downside, we stopped receiving applicants from other workshops who wanted to join us.

In short, outsourcing repair work progressed, but the burden on the manufacturing side didn’t decrease.

“Well, it’s not surprising that ordinary citizens are scared,” Kiriku said.

“Am I not an ordinary citizen?” I asked.

“But what will we do? If we can’t recruit craftsmen, we can’t expand the factory, right?” Sara said, looking concerned.

We were doing well enough with the current size, but we needed more people if we wanted to grow production.

“It might be a little early, but should we move our plans forward?”

“Plans?”

“Yeah. We’re going to hire former adventurers and farmers.”

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I’d always planned to hire farmers and retired adventurers once the factory was up and running.

Now that it’s become difficult to lure in experienced craftsmen from within the city, amateurs are the only option left.

So if we’re hiring amateurs, I want them to be ex-adventurers and farmers.

But hiring them in the city comes with a lot to consider.

“First, we need a recruitment channel. Should we do PR first? Should we go through the Adventurer’s Guild?”

Even when farmers come to the city, their farming skills are useless here. They either end up doing hard labor like building walls, or they risk their lives as adventurers.

So, most of them gather at the Adventurer’s Guild. That’s where we’ll try to reach them.

Still, most farmers don’t know how dangerous adventuring is, and no workshop has ever hired amateurs before, so they might be suspicious or even reject the offer outright.

““I’d prefer we hire children,” Sara added. “Like those three I mentioned before—they really were just kids. They can be adventurers if they want, but until their bodies mature, I want them doing safe jobs in the city.  Besides, kids learn faster, don’t they?”

Even if we do hire them, we can’t take everyone. We need clear hiring policies.

Sara’s idea of hiring children was worth considering.

The recent incident reminded me just how different our factory’s values are. It might be hard for craftsmen trained in traditional workshops to adjust here. We may sound like a company that only hires fresh grads, but children do learn skills quickly.

A boy like Toma proved that just recently.

Most of our artisans are still young. Maybe it’s better to keep the age group consistent. We can work on solving management issues through training and better systems.

“But that means we’ll need housing and caregivers. That won’t work, Sara—you’ve got other responsibilities.”

If we were to hire many children, we’d need something like dormitories and staff to take care of them.

“Hm… then how about asking the artisans’ wives? We could provide housing, and they already eat breakfast here, right? They’d just need to cook dinner.”

That could work.

In that case, our company would become a factory that hires struggling kids to make luxury products—and also excels at handling violent incidents.

What a black company we’re turning into.