System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 304: New Beginnings
Downtown Novigrad.
The commercial district, separated from the common quarter by a canal.
Five Witchers, the Zerrikanian lady, and little Karl stood outside two empty shops, their mood as bright as today’s sun.
The two shops were one large and one small. The large one was about the size of an ordinary tavern, while the smaller one had more than enough space for a tailor’s shop.
...
“Lads, is this real? These two shops belong to us starting today?”
“Could it be fake? The deeds are right here, genuine as coin.” Kael flourished a stack of agreements before him as if showing off. The Zerrikanian lady and the boy also cast curious looks over.
Orin immediately beamed, circling the wooden doors of the two shops, knocking here, touching there, like a bumpkin first entering the city, clicking his tongue in wonder. “This is the busiest district in the Free City. If you bought it with coin, it would cost...”
“Twenty thousand crowns. Wipe your drool.” Kael’s mouth curved, and his tone carried excitement he could not suppress. “And there are basically no fools willing to sell.”
As the trade center of the North, the busiest commercial district was land worth its weight in gold. Any shop here, so long as it was not managed like a drunken fool’s purse, was guaranteed to make money. That income alone would be enough for a family to live without worrying over food or clothing.
“The three giants are truly generous. Ah...” Orin suddenly sighed. “Yesterday I should have gone with you to the arena and added a bit more persuasion. Maybe we could have wrung out more benefits ... a third shop, something like that ... Then filthy, dangerous, humiliating contracts can go to hell, and we become our own bosses.”
“You are not rebuilding the school anymore?” Roy kept a straight face and glanced at him with inward amusement.
“Does rebuilding the school conflict with being bosses?” Orin raised an eyebrow and asked back with great seriousness.
Everyone considered it. A fixed business did not hinder the Viper School’s rise. On the contrary, it could continuously provide financial support.
But very few of their kind had ever dug deeply into commerce.
After all, most Witchers had no talent for business. They only stiffly and inefficiently followed tradition, taking contracts and hunting monsters.
“This is fate. Destiny’s arrangement.” Orin strode through the door, opened his arms, and closed his eyes in comfort as he turned in place, as though breathing in the scent of “crowns” inside the room. “It just so happens we have a great sum of coin sitting idle. We should renovate the shops at once and open for business.”
His amber pupils turned toward the Cat School Witcher. Orin patted his chest with complete confidence.
“Brother Griffin, if you ask me, don’t split your coin for now. Invest it here, take shares by proportion. Guaranteed profit.”
Flavius’s eyelid twitched, and he hesitated for two seconds.
In the Cat School Witcher’s plain understanding, life ran along three lines: contracts, fighting, and survival.
It almost never touched other fields.
Investing coin into business, was that truly reliable?
Especially when the one saying it was the Viper School’s most fond of bragging.
His gray-green pupils swept over the apprentice’s innocent, bewildered little face.
Consider it for the apprentice?
He wavered.
“Open a shop? What kind of shop? Do any of you have experience?”
The Witchers collectively fell silent.
“Kantila, any suggestion?”
The Zerrikanian lady smoothed her black hair, her bright eyes full of distress. In the future she imagined, the word commerce did not exist. She knew nothing of it either.
“How about ... a clothing shop?”
The Witchers collectively rejected it.
“Actually, I have thought about it...” Roy tucked a small dried fish into the hood behind his head and suddenly spoke. “How about turning the small one into a potion shop? Brewing ordinary potions is much easier than brewing Witcher potions.”
Roy counted on his fingers.
“Buying herbs and materials, modifying an alchemical table, brewing, every step, the entire process, you have repeated it for decades. You could do it with your eyes closed ... no additional learning cost needed.”
Moreover, at Oxenfurt Academy, Roy had specially memorized quite a few potion formulas for treating common ailments. With the three giants helping smooth matters, there was no need to worry about patent disputes.
He also held a great weapon in his hand, the exclusive formula taught by the genius alchemist Kalkstein of Vizima, Virility Potion.
Roy and Griffin had once forced little Karl to drink that potion under the name of toxicity resistance training. Its effect had been remarkable, letting the boy taste the troubles of puberty early, and with no real side effects.
No matter the world, any medicine linked to strengthening function could earn a fortune.
High profit, easy work.
Old Mole and Susan could also handle some simple work, and no longer needed to rise before dawn and toil selling vegetables.
“Good idea. Brewing ordinary potions is not hard for us.”
“Low demand for manpower and materials. I think it is feasible.”
Everyone agreed.
Griffin was thoroughly moved. If there was a potion shop, would it not save time and effort in training the apprentice’s alchemy?
“No one objects? Then it is settled.” Bald Letho immediately made the decision. “The one on the left becomes a potion shop. Hire renovators this afternoon.”
“Once we calculate the total expenditure...” Kael suggested, “Brother Griffin can decide whether to buy shares, and how much. Of course, no more than twenty percent.”
“No problem. Then what will the potion shop be called?”
“How about Gvaed? In memory of the Viper School fortress in the South,” Orin suggested.
Griffin did not object, and Potion Shop Gvaed was put on the agenda.
As for the arrangement for the other shop, everyone argued endlessly.
“A tavern is best.” Kael could not help swallowing. “Novigrad is full of drunkards. There will be no lack of customers. Once the shop opens, coin will roll in.”
“Drunkards? You mean you want to drink for free.” Orin shook his head in disdain. “Running a tavern is trouble. The supply of wine is a problem, and the guests are a mixed crowd. Managing it takes time and effort. Being a hands-off owner is not realistic.”
He changed direction. “I think a brothel would be good. If we are going to play, play big. Put all that money in and build a place of pleasure no smaller than the Spear Cave. Monopolize all of Novigrad’s business.”
“A dog’s mouth never spits ivory. You think a brothel is not trouble?” Kael glanced at him sideways. “And do you think I do not know what filthy idea you have? You want to recite your clumsy, sickly love poems to every pretty ‘employee,’ don’t you?”
...
Roy’s face darkened at once.
“A Witcher opening a brothel? What in hell is that?”
A Witcher madam, specializing in killing freeloaders. Frightened yet?
That aside, it was not a respectable business.
He opposed it from the heart.
“You two shut up. Taverns and brothels are both unrealistic,” Letho said in a low voice. “If you ask me, a smithy. We may not be master smiths, and our skill is not as good as Berengar’s, but we have some understanding of forging. Making ordinary standard weapons, armor, and farming tools is no problem. Hire a few apprentices, and it can be managed.”
“Better to open a swordsmanship hall...” Griffin sang a different tune again. “A Witcher’s skill is known to all. That alone is a golden signboard.”
“And in the Free City, where gangs run wild, who does not want to learn a few sword moves for self-defense?”
If a swordsmanship hall opened, Karl’s training would also have a place.
“Come off it. You do not get enough fighting and killing in ordinary days?” Orin said unhappily. “I insist on a brothel.”
“We need to go to Kaer Morhen halfway through. A tavern is better...”
“Smithy...”
“Ah...”
Roy helplessly covered his forehead, then turned around and met Kantila’s and Karl’s six eyes.
All of them sighed heavily.
...
“Sunlight shines into the heart, like old friends meeting after long parting, like warm words of greeting. Good morning, five masters, Lady Kantila, little Karl.”
From the street corner emerged a handsome man wearing a purple iris hat, gaudy red trousers, and a floral shirt, with an elegant little mustache above his lip. He waved as he came toward them.
Beside him walked a full-bodied blond beauty with outstanding bearing.
“Dandelion, Priscilla, good morning. You two are...” Roy’s suspicious gaze swept over the two of them. Their body language showed that their relationship had been mended.
Priscilla’s heart was still soft. It had only been a few days, and she had already forgiven the philandering radish.
“The masters have surely heard.” Dandelion sighed, and a shade of melancholy appeared on his handsome face. “A few days ago, Alphonse Willie, one of the four giants, was besieged in his home by the three great gangs and wiped out with his whole household. I heard he violated some secret agreement. From now on, there will no longer be any deep-pocketed patron to sponsor poetry gatherings. Trying to earn a mouthful of food will be harder than ever.”
The Witchers’ argument paused, and they exchanged glances.
It seemed the three giants had taken the blame ... probably to give the Eternal Fire a way down the stairs.
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