Day 191-200/Day 191

Day 191
It's the second day of the opening sale. It looks like the visitors that came on the shop's opening day spread the word even more, as we had a fair number of customers this morning. However, the social class of the visitors seemed to lean towards one side. To be more specific, while they weren't the kind of wealthy merchants that might be richer than a poor noble, there were still many people with fairly high positions in the Royal Capital there, such as aristocratic military officers and city officials.
Although there were nobles who visited the shop and brought several servants with them, there were also those that ordered servants, such as their butlers and maids, to purchase goods while observing the store. Although the proportion of these types was roughly 50-50, I'm personally more grateful for the former than I am the latter.
When the latter comes by to run their master's errand, they frequently purchase goods for their own use as well. The servants have a very high salary for a commoner, and there's a number of items they're able to choose from and buy themselves.
However, in the former's case, the attendants become baggage carriers as the nobles whimsically buy a large quantity of various items. Either that, or the items being bought are too expensive for the money to be given to a commoner. Of course I'm happy when situations like this occur. Contrary to my expectations before the store opened, I'm quite pleased that the expensive products are selling better than I expected.
By the way, I think that the Tomboy Princess and the First Queen are the cause of this increase in business. Either that, or it may have been because of the information that the First Queen's attendants brought back with them. I can't deny the possibility that they spread it through an information network, which would probably be a network of the【5 Great Gods Religion】's hidden believers.
When I observed our customers, not all of the nobles and their servants were members, but I was able to identify quite a few people wearing accessories with carved patterns indicating that they're one of the 【Five Great Gods Religion】's believers. In addition, I've recently gotten used to receiving customers, so I think it's safe to say that I can notice the way they gaze in my direction without saying anything.
Well, having said that, since it's highly likely that I won't have a lack of customers for the foreseeable future, the weight on my shoulders has decreased a bit. Although the store just opened, I wouldn't be able to laugh if we had no business at all. However, while this may be true, I'm still not relieved.
I'm assuming that most of our customers came out of curiosity the first time, which is useless if they stop coming. On top of that, I don't think they'll come back if we don't continue to improve the products and services that other stores don't have on a regular basis.
Also, because communication technology is still underdeveloped in this world, word of mouth is very important when it comes to advertising. Since it's very difficult to recover once you get a bad image, I need to make an effort to create a good first impression. For that reason, I received our customers with the most basic of things; a smile. However, there was one problem with that.
Even though the rest of my group's members are fine with it, my smile appears to have had quite an impact on the customers that came by for the first time yesterday, to such an extent that they lost all strength in their hips. Of course, this excludes the people that have already gotten to know me, like the Tomboy Princess, our glorious first customer.
According to the people in question, they seemed to instinctively think that they were about to get eaten.
Since I was just being myself, their reactions hurt my feelings a little. My personal feelings aside, this is a matter I should reflect on. I went to Kanami-chan beforehand to get advice on how to uphold a good appearance, but because she was the only person who had become fully accustomed to being around me, there was a blind spot.
That's why I made use of my contemplation of this matter and tried various things to improve it. The solution I found was to use my negative status ability【Weak Intimidation】, when I go to take care of customers. The effect of【Weak Intimidation】is that it makes me weak to intimidation attacks I receive from an enemy. In other words, it's easier to scare me.
The ability is useless at a glance, but when I invoke it, it has a side effect that weakens the intimidating aura that I unconsciously release around me. Immediately after noticing this, I tested the ability and examined the area. The fear the customers had because of my unconscious intimidation was alleviated, and the likelihood of customers becoming frightened was greatly decreased.
In my case,【Weak Intimidation】has become an effective skill when dealing with customers. Honestly, I don't know where else it would really be usable. With this, their anxiety disappeared for the time being, and we continued working.
An old butler came by to run an errand for a Noble, and I attracted his interest by selling quality goods beyond what he requested for less than he anticipated. The many detailed demands that he made aside, when it came to paying, the fourth son of a Noble said, 『I’ll pay you back when I get promoted ＝ I want this on credit』, so I took him to the back office and taught him the rules of society.
Because they were dressed up in pretty clothes and accessories, we used skillful words to entice the party of one noble’s daughter into noticing the clothes that Kanami-chan and the others had designed and put out for sale.
As I had already anticipated, it didn't take long for a fair number of troublesome customers to come by, but we were able to smoothly deal with them for the most part. However, there was still one particularly troublesome person. The one who required the most attention today was a noble with a gentle smile, a well-trained body and a splendid, well-maintained handlebar mustache as his characteristics.
He holds the considerably high title of Marquis, and is one of the few influential people that was on the Tomboy Princess's side and didn't support the【Nobles Faction】during the recent coup d'état. At the moment, the amount of influence that he carries has increased because of his achievements, and it’s certain that he’ll become an important person for the Tomboy Princess in the future.
I met the Marquis several times when I was working on her requests; I'll simply refer to him as Marquis Kaiser from now on since his real name is too long. He brought three young attendants with him, as well.
As for his attendants, they consisted of 2【Knights】and 1【Secretary】. Although the 3 of them were still in their early twenties, since the Marquis raised and trained them from childhood, their levels were high for their age. Equipped with iron armor and a longsword, the two young knights were silently waiting behind him with an intense expression on their faces. Both of them had a good build and their muscular bodies appeared to be well-trained.
Their fighting prowess is probably only slightly lower than that of the Rusty Iron Knight. For private soldiers, they’re quite excellent. In front of the 2 knights was the secretary, who was standing diagonally behind Marquis Kaiser with a sharp glint in her eyes and a hard to please look on her face. She carries the atmosphere of a woman who does her job well, but is hard to approach.
Although she skillfully hid it, the slight movements of her body felt out of place, so I’m guessing that she probably has various dark devices hidden in her clothes. She’d probably lose if she fought the 2 young men behind her head on, but she might be able to beat them if she used back-alley tactics. Although I don't have any concrete evidence of this, it's what my intuition is telling me.
Either way, Marquis Kaiser’s guards are tough. It would be more difficult than usual to successfully assassinate him. Marquis Kaiser, along with the excellent servants that he brought with him, asked about the origins of the high class items that were on display on the wall. These items were a portion of the magic items that I had collected from the late Minister. After that, he proceeded to look at the clothes the Leprechauns had made one by one.
I'm grateful that he’s generously buying everything he's pleased with, without looking at the cost. As a result, the luggage that the knights have to carry home has continued to increase as time passes.
Before long, it had accumulated to such an extent that they couldn't see in front of themselves, but they continued to carry the luggage despite the fact that it continued to accumulate. Speaking of how much he was buying, one can imagine that even the arms of the two strong knights had started to tremble slightly, due to the weight increasing in proportion to the amount being bought.
It can be said that Marquis Kaiser is a good, lavish customer. However, the secretary that was behind him was sighing heavily, but I deliberately pretended that I didn't notice it. Since she's the one entrusted with her master's wallet, I'm sure that her worries will never end. By the way, the number of items he bought became too much, so I arranged for them to be transported to Marquis Kaiser’s residence. As a kind of service for his bulk purchase, I decided to do this for free.
Seeing as I caused some grief before, the 2 knights’ mood improved since they didn’t have to carry the large amount of baggage anymore. As for the secretary, she breathed a sigh of relief as she thought about the expenses they saved because I had waived the delivery fees.
At any rate, Marquis Kaiser is very good at socializing. It might be impolite of me to say this, but contrary to his appearance, he possesses a wealth of knowledge. While he mixed bits and pieces of his vast knowledge into our conversation so it was easy to understand, we drew the interest of others.
Our interactions weren't like those of a salesperson and a customer, but more like normal friends socializing, which was a lot more interesting. Still, I can't be careless around Marquis Kaiser, since his mind is brimming with thoughts that he wants to win us over to his side.
He was completely devoid of an atmosphere of disdain because we had eliminated the Strong Grandson and his allies. The fact is that he's doing everything he can to win us over for the sake of the Tomboy Princess, or rather, the Sternbild Kingdom. Some might call it fighting spirit, or maybe even zeal, but dealing with him directly wears me out. However, it’s not like I said that I dislike it. He's rather likeable, so he's not someone I can resent.
It’s just that he's troublesome because he's difficult to handle. Whenever I was about to say something untactful, there'd sometimes be a snake-like glint in his eyes. To make sure that our deal isn't broken, I must think carefully before I speak.
Nevertheless, since he was trained to keep the society of Nobles in check, Marquis Kaiser was superior in verbal warfare. As expected of someone who smoothly avoided the dangers of the recent coup d'etat and survived. Unfortunately, my experience was different.
Still, although I was mentally worn out by the end of it, I managed to pull through somehow. I guess it’s inevitable that I was relieved when we finished. After that, I served a small number of other customers before ending the day. From today, I once again understood that serving customers doesn't suit my personality, after all.
This back and forth is fine when a contract is being signed, but in this case, it causes too much mental fatigue. Rather, perhaps I should say that repeatedly being exposed to their excessively enthusiastic gazes makes my shoulders stiff, after all. Although it'd still be fine if it was a temporary thing, but it’s extremely unlikely that I’ll grow accustomed to it if it continues to occur.
Since I have other work that I have to take care of, I decided that I would entrust this job to those who are good at it starting tomorrow. One by one, I should assign management to each area.
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Category:Novel
Category:Re:Monster Volume 5