Interspecies Trader

“Haaaah… Fuhhhh… Haaaah… Fuhhhh.”

I was inhaling and exhaling deeply, using a specific rhythm. Sitting with my legs crossed on my bed in the emergency shelter, my meditation was coming to an end. I had somehow remembered about the concept, something one of my instructors had advised me to use when I needed to settle my feelings.

My instructors liked giving me such pieces of advice, to the point that I received hundreds of them. There were so many that they usually went in one ear and out the other. I only remembered this one because of my current situation. Well, I didn’t know if the meditation had done anything good for me, but the self-hypnotizing helped a little.

Wico = enemy. Good enemy = dead enemy. Wico dead = good thing. People = dangerous. Tila = needs to become more skilled at reading people.

The last bit in particular was important. After a lot of thinking, there were indeed a few hints about Wico I could have picked. Small hesitations here and there, some specific word or turn or phrase she used, the fact that she separated from Selva right after coming back to Geola, and was nowhere to be found after that, and so on. These hints didn’t provide information about why she betrayed me, but they were clear indications that she was hiding something. The problem was, everyone had something they wanted to hide, including me.

“Haaaah… Fuhhhh… All right.”

Of course, all of this meditation didn’t completely remove my guilt and anger at the situation, even though my most turbulent feelings had calmed down by now. But what could I do? Life had to go on.

I opened my eyes and checked the time. It was now the morning of the day after. I hadn’t slept for a second, spending all the time clearing my mind. I thought I could at least try to fake looking normal by now.

I first teleported to Suuru’s place. The two women were already awake, Suuru looking at me worriedly when I arrived. I gave her a small smile, trying to reassure her.

“Good morning, Suuru. I’m sorry about yesterday. I was feeling upset.”

“Tila… You still don’t look that good. Please don’t escape when you’re hurting. You should share your pain with me, just like I did with you.”

All right, trying to appear normal completely failed. Well, that was fine. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

“You’re… right. Okay, let’s sit down. I’ll tell you what happened.”

She seemed glad about my answer, and I spent a few minutes explaining the situation to her, with Minsto listening on the side. Suuru knew about Wico from my stories of my travel to Makji, so there was no need for deep explanations since Minsto stayed quiet, for once.

“I see… I understand now. It’s not your fault, Tila. The outer world is really a dangerous place.”

“Yeah… More than I expected. I didn’t see anything coming. Phew…”

“Why don’t you take a break for a few days? I think you need it.”

I was grateful for her consideration, but still shook my head.

“I also want to stop everything for a while, but I can’t. Too many things rely on me.”

Minsto spoke next.

“I told you that would become a problem.”

“I know, but there’s no good solution to it.”

“There is. It’s just that you don’t want to do it. Why are you in such a hurry for everything? You should just move forward step by step instead of trying to grow so fast.”

“Yes, but does it make sense to stop myself from using my advantage? Should I stop investing money and let it rot in my storage?”

“See? You’re not listening.”

“Then, what do you suggest?”

“You need middle management.”

“I started working on it. I don’t have anyone I can trust yet. Plus, these sorts of people cost a lot of money, and I don’t make that much yet.”

“You’ll earn a lot from selling selnic items in Geola.”

“The shop isn’t even open yet!”

Minsto was still as calm as always, while I felt myself getting annoyed. Finding middle managers I could trust? Sure, that was my dream too. But did she think it was so easy? Who could I even trust after being poisoned by one of my close companions?

Suuru was alternating between looking at Minsto and me, her expression darkening as we continued to argue.

“Stop it, Tila, Minsto! Why are you arguing instead of trying to find a good solution?”

Minsto turned her attention to her.

“So you say. Are you aware of a good solution?”

“I… I don’t really know about these things.”

“Then you should stay quiet. I’ve worked in a lot of companies. I know how management works. One person can’t do everything like Tila’s trying to do.”

Suuru had no choice but to close her mouth after being rebuked. This allowed me to clear my mind. I let out a long sigh again.

“No, Suuru’s right. Sorry, you two. I don’t want to argue right now when I’m still feeling upset about what happened. I’ll think about it, okay?”

They both nodded, and we started our day as usual. Since I had already given the money to the siblings, I didn’t need to take care of them too closely. Well, if they decided to take the gold coin and escape, then that was it between us. Anyway, if they didn’t do that, I could just fetch them in the afternoon, and we could talk some more.

I was still waiting for a notification for the start of the mansion’s building project in the bunnies' village, so I only had one more task to focus on for now. It was time to recruit the employees for my store in Geola.

I had already thought about who I would need. Since the shop was three-storied, it would need three clerks acting as salespeople, and three guards to monitor the situation. I initially planned to stop there, but Minsto wasn’t wrong. I decided to add one more employee to the list.

A store manager.

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