Interspecies Trader

Recruiting the first three people was easy. I posted a recruitment notice on a board near the store. The criteria were relatively similar to those used when I searched for employees in Makji. I was a bit stricter this time since I wanted more experienced people. They would need to handle rich customers and shouldn’t be intimidated by large transactions.

The manager wasn’t too different. I also posted a recruitment notice in the same place. This time, though, I was very demanding on the criteria. I wanted the best of the best, someone who could take care of almost anything that could happen without direct input. There was no point if I still had to micro-manage that person.

I asked interested people for these two roles to come to the store every day in the early afternoon for interviews, starting from tomorrow, until I found suitable personnel.

The problem was the guards. The logical choice would be to go to the usual martial center and recruit them here… except I didn’t want to have anything to do with a place that late Wico was part of. Who knows if there were more traitors like her crawling there? Maybe they were all on the same side and knew what she had planned to do beforehand.

As for the kids, I would fetch them in the afternoon today and transfer them to another place, as simple as that. It wasn’t like there was only one or two martial centers in this huge city. They only would have had one lesson so far, meaning it didn’t matter much if they switched now. Better sooner than later. I could take care of both the children’s teachers and recruit mercenaries simultaneously.

Next, I made my way to the store to clean up the place a little for the interviews. However, as I unlocked the front door and came in, I noticed a letter on the ground. Someone must have inserted it through the space between the door and the floor. I cautiously opened it, revealing a piece of paper. The content was simple.

[“Come to the city hall. Vejas.”]

I sighed, crumbling the note in my hand. That woman didn’t give me a break. I didn’t want to go… but there was no point in delaying the inevitable. I pondered for a moment, but still decided to prepare the store for tomorrow first. I didn’t care whether I made the mother-daughter duo wait a bit more.

It was sent through a letter anyway. I didn’t have to rush. There were several ways to try contacting people in this place, where neither phone nor Rylnet existed. Sending letters was one of them, as long as one knew where to send them. Now that I owned a shop in the city, people would start contacting me via this place. Maybe before that, the best would have been to send a letter to the Muyal family since I visited them every day.

Another way was to hire a cheap messenger, one of the kids who were all over the city. It was a way for poor children to earn a few coppers and try not to starve. It was mostly used when someone had an urgent message. If my case had been time sensitive, for example, one such kid could have been looking throughout the city to try to find me, delivering the message as soon as contact was made.

Rich people could also directly send a subordinate as a sign of respect or use specifically trained animal birds for long-distance messaging. I might consider that last method in the future if there came a time I couldn’t teleport, or I had too many people to contact.

One hour later, I was done with the store and reluctantly headed toward the city hall. I was led to the usual meeting room, which also served as Crali’s office, with the two women greeting me. Angin was the same as always, but Crali looked at me accusingly, seeming even grumpier than normal. She scowled on my arrival.

“I know we promised you protection, but how could you suddenly teleport here without any prior notice?”

I wasn’t in the mood for games today.

“Prior notice? In that situation? Are you insane?”

“W-What? Insane? I’m still Geola’s ruler! You can’t insult me like this!”

“Be quiet, Crali.”

Her mother immediately shut her up before turning in my direction.

“Don’t pay her any attention. She’s prickly because I reeducated her yesterday since she reacted so terribly to yesterday’s events.”

“Mom! Why are you spilling our private life like it’s nothing!”

Angin didn’t pay her any further attention and continued.

“I’m impressed you managed to calm down so quickly. I expected you to visit in a few days.”

“Get to the point.”

“Still not completely fine, I see. All right. We called you here today because we need to resolve what happened yesterday.”

“What is it?”

“First, we investigated that eagle. Wico Blynt, right?”

I nodded, unsure how they managed to find her identity from whatever was left of her.

“We checked her house. There wasn’t anything indiscriminating there. It was a completely normal house, with only mundane items inside. Well, that in itself is relatively suspicious. It’s rare not to find even a speck of dust on someone who lived for so long. We also interrogated the people who knew her. Except for her… wild personality, and some minor things she did, here again, we didn’t find anything suspicious.”

“Do you mean to say I accused her wrongly?”

“Of course not. We only believe she was extremely good at her job.”

“…Job?”

“It’s hard to be certain, but she probably was a spy from another country. The most logical options are Thuk and Taende.”

“A spy… Why would such a spy try to poison me?”

“Don’t you know the answer to that yourself?”

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