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nChapter 269: The End is the Beginning (1

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nAfter the duke and his wife visited the town, the reconstruction of the town started to gather speed.

nSupplies gradually started arriving at Gimuru, and by the time the month was at its end, the harsh winter finally stopped, and the snow that have been piled up on an almost daily basis melted, enlivening the traffic that had begun to stagnate, restoring the distribution of goods.

nBy then, there was little need for me to help with the reconstruction, so I went ahead with the procedures to transfer ownership while accepting subjugation requests that I could complete near the town.

nAs originally planned, I gave up the security company, so that the duke’s family could take over its management. Almost half of the hired personnel would return to their hometown with their wages, while the remaining half would either be employed by the duke’s family or be introduced to a new job.

nThe hospital attached to the security company would also be entrusted to the duke, but its management would still be under us to provide a place of operation for the medical workers whose workplace was damaged. Since they will be interacting with Dr. Mafral and the four residents and will also be studying while they do their work, the hospital was well on its way to resembling a university hospital.

nAs for the Bamboo Forest laundromat, I still hold the rights to it, but I’ve given my old position of being a manager to Carm-san. The laundromat’s management will be fully entrusted to him, so from now on, I’m just the owner, though at the same time, I will also be the head of the newly established ‘Sales Department’.

nAs the Sales Department Head, my job is to travel to different cities and find new locations for branch stores, as well as to come up with ways on how to increase our customers.

n…Honestly, the job is really just me going around towns while doing my adventurer work, and then reporting to Carm-san when I get back about any places with potential or ideas I might have come up with. The change in my position is really just meant to give myself more freedom, so there’s no actual change in how I do things.

nWe’ve dabbled in other businesses, such as the Garbage Processing Plant, a construction-related business, a restaurant, and even a hotel, so we hired people to manage those as well. There were a lot of managers that lost their stores because of the recent incident, so we were able to have our pick. As the saying goes, ‘out of evil comes good…’ It’s not exactly appropriate to be quoting that, but I think all parties ended up benefiting from this arrangement.

nMy trustworthiness has gone up since becoming a specialist of the duke, and a lot of people applied. In fact, the people that applied were not limited to just the managers. The employees from their stores applied too, and the monster tamers affiliated with the security company and the tamer guild applied as well.

nThe interviews were a bigger hassle than the process, but thanks to all the applicants, we were able to find someone to take care of the stores that were barely just getting by; we were also able to increase the number of employees at the laundromat. Incidentally, we are also training new employees for the “Accounting Department”, the “Customer Service Department”, the “Security Department”, and the “Slime Management Department”. Many of the people we hired in this round of recruitment have experience in management and customer service, so some of them were skilled off the bat, and teaching them didn’t pose any difficulties.

nMoreover, the people we put in charge of teaching the new hires were the people from the head office at Gimuru and the three former slime researchers that were hired as branch manager candidates. The Renauph branch store called at just the right time to inform us that the manager candidates have completed their training and could be entrusted with a store, so we had them come back to manage a branch while also entrusting them with some of the new employees.

nUnder their supervision, the new employees would learn our stores’ ways, and once Carm-san has judged them trustworthy, those that could be entrusted with a branch will appear as well.

nBut of course, we won’t be forcing anything on them. If they just want to make enough to rebuild their lost store, or to maintain their livelihood, or to go independent, well, that’s up to them. As long as they don’t intentionally damage the store, or hurt the employees, or steal the cleaner slimes, they can do whatever they want.

nAs for the funding, I became the duke’s specialist, so we’ll be getting funds from my research budget, and there’s also the compensation from the ownership transfer. Though the funds won’t be given in one lump sum, it’ll still be bigger than all our expenses so far, so there’s plenty of money to go around. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can be complacent, but at the very least, we won’t have to worry about funding anytime soon.

n……After spending two months like that, it was time to start devoting myself to my adventurer work.

nBy relying on long-distance teleportation that utilized the Rimel Birds and my familiars as landmarks, I could take on whatever quest I wanted. Some subjugation quests required multiple people to be accepted, so I had to form a temporary party for those.

nI just picked whoever was free, but even then, the most common party members were Fei-san and Yurdum-san since they were both my employees and possessed adventurer qualifications. Next most common would be the delinquent adventurers that I’ve kept in touch with. Though for jobs near the town, I would sometimes party with Miya-san’s group.

nAnyhow, I spent my days like that, just single-mindedly working on my rank, and after three months, at long last…

n“We have confirmed the completion of the quest. With this, you have passed the promotion exam and have become a C Rank adventurer. Congratulations, Ryouma-sama.” Clerk

n“Thank you very much.” Ryouma

nDuring one of my travels, I met the conditions for a promotion exam, so I took the exam, passed, and finally became a C Rank adventurer.

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