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Good morning!

I was quite busy yesterday, wasn’t I? I’d never have expected that Miss Parasuna would come to visit, and even more, that Bacchus would contact me on our way back after ranking up, and that I’d spend the whole day talking with him about alcohol.
I accidentally ended up showing off Mika everywhere. I did something bad.

Maybe because she was exhausted from yesterday, Mika was unusually sound asleep.
Her face when she sleeps is also adorable.

For the time being, I checked whether I received any messages. I had been contacted by Arkin and Grape from the Medial Merchant Association.

Let me see… It says, “We need to talk about products”.
Come to think of it, yesterday, people on the street said stuff like “Thank you for the new entertainment products”, didn’t they…? Arkin probably made use of my established reputation.

I made breakfast for my beloved Mika, left her a note and was on my way.

I want my own house already~… It would be best, if I could build it myself, so let’s try discussing it with Mr. Arkin and the others, if there are any good plots. Since I’ll go there anyway.

When I arrived at the Medial Merchant Association, they, once more, let me through when they recognized my face, so I went inside. Strangely enough, both Grape and Arkin welcomed me and bid me to enter. Very unusual.
They immediately talked about my products.

“Hm~, these things, they sell like crazy, don’t they…”
“Manufacturing can’t catch up, you see.”
“More important than that, did you use my name?” I asked them.
“Hm~, just a bit…” Grape confessed apologetically. “We merely placed your name, as the one who devised the products, in tiny letters in the corner of the advertisement.”

They showed me the newspaper ad, which clearly had my name in quite small letters. In this case, I probably couldn’t complain that they made use of my reputation.

“It looks like a great many people discovered your name, Alim…” Arkin picked up where Grape had left off. “Perhaps because of that, there are almost no people in the royal capital, who don’t own our products already. We even got an order directly from the king. Furthermore, from next week on, we had planned to release it not only in the Mephilad Kingdom, but in all of Anazumu.”

Gotcha, so it’s super popular. That’s great.

“Hm~. Oh, that’s right. The reason we contacted you this time was to hand over the money. Also, we’d like to ask you to produce 5 more of the same machines you made previously, you see~.”

With that, a heap of large gold coins was piled up in front of me. It was roughly 20 million bells. Further, large gold coins equivalent to 15 million bells were stacked up next to it. This was likely the payment for the machines.

I guess there’s no other way, but to accept?

“Understood. I’m going to make the machines now, so please wait a moment.”
“Huh? You can make them that quickly?” Arkin asked.
“Yes, since I raised my S and C by a great amount,” I told them before putting down the magic room and secluding myself in there.

___________
________
_____

Ten minutes later, I’d finished building all the machines and left the magic room.
Making Machines like that is already nothing but child’s play to me, thanks to Item Master.

Nevertheless, for some reason, an elf woman was now present besides Grape and Arkin.
I wonder, is she a customer?

“Nice to meet you, Alim,” she said, when she saw me coming out of the magic room.
“N-Nice to meet you, too.”

Are all elves beautiful?
No, that’s not important, both Grape and Arkin treat her strangely respectfully… Could she be… No, that’s impossible.

“I’m Manet, the chairwoman of the Medial¹ Merchant Association. I learned a lot about you from these two and from the newspaper, Alim. We’re quite indebted to you.”

Eek! The merchant association’s chairwoman, the one at the very top, has come here! I wouldn’t have expected her to be an elf…
Nevertheless, I wonder, why is someone like her here?

“Well… You’re probably wondering, why someone like me would show up here, don’t you?” she asked me.
“Huh! …Yes. Is it because of me?”
“You’re a big business partner who could very well move billions of bells in the future. That’s why I showed my face.”

Oh no, did she read my mind? As I thought, she’s not an ordinary person.
More importantly, Jenga shouldn’t have led to such outrageous transactions. Will I really move billions at some point?

“Are the products I thought up really that amazing?”
“Yes, of course they are. If my eyes are right, at least. Besides, I heard that you have the skill Item Master, don’t you? Apparently, you can craft better weapons, than the legend grade ones you get from dungeons.”

Setting aside Item Master, none but a few people should know that I can create legend grade arms, right? Where did she hear about that?

“T-that’s true. I can make such weapons, but how do you know that?”
“You’re acquainted with the ‘God of Military Arts’, right?”
“Y-yes.”
“He recently obtained a new weapon, and to be honest, one of our merchants secretly appraised it, you see. Naturally, it was legend grade. Its abilities were incomparable to legend grade weapons coming from dungeons. Therefore, we assumed that it was crafted by someone. And once we investigated, bingo! We finally arrived at our regular customer, Alim.”

They went as far as to investigate? Wait, they are this country’s best merchant association, after all. In the future, they’ll probably unreservedly ask me for all kind of things, won’t they? What a bother.

“For that reason, might I make requests to you, every once in a while… please?”
“Y-yes. Understood, Ma’am.”
“We will also give the highest priority to business transactions with you.
“Y-Yes.”

Once she heard my reply, she gave us a “See you” and then went back into the building’s inner part.

“Hm~. Alim… we caused you trouble, but… she’s our chairwoman,” Grape apologized. “Thank you for your, well, future support, too.”
“Y-Yes. Well, it was nice to meet her.”

I gave them the machines. In turn, they handed me the money on the table. I was about to go home, but then I recalled, that I came here to look for a plot.

“Oh, Mr. Arkin.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“You see, I’d like to move to live in a single house soon. Is there any good real estate near the royal capital’s center?”
“What’s that? I see… In that case, I know a good place. Please wait for a moment.”

Arkin and Grape went somewhere and came back a few minutes later.

“I think this here would be good. That one should also be fine, I guess. And that one, too.”

They showed me some properties. Then, I zeroed in on one, that was a 5-minute walk from the castle and 12 minutes from the Medial Merchant Association. Furthermore, thanks to it being almost in the capital’s center, it’d be easy to leave through any of the city gates.

It costs 6.2 million bells, but that’s probably fine.

“I’m sorry, I’ll buy this one. I’ll pay immediately.”
“Ha-ha, as expected. Understood, this one it is. Are you sure you don’t want to inspect it in advance?”
“That’s fine. With my skills, I can do anything from decorating the plot to reconstructing the house.”
“I see, I’m puzzled, that you’d buy it this easily, but the plot is now yours.”

With this, I will build our own home, you know.

“That’s it, then. I already know the location of the plot.”
“Indeed, take care on your way home.”

I left the Medial Merchant Association’s headquarters. Thereupon, the person at the gate called out to me for some reason.

“Oh, Alim, take a look at this morning’s newspaper! There’s something written about you, you see!” he said, and showed me the newspaper, where an article about Mika and me was written in big letters.

How embarrassing.

Moreover, it said that since I had gone up to SS-Rank, I needed to be baptized by the king. I’d forgotten that. It was written in the newspaper, that the ceremony would be tomorrow, but that he’d contact me like that…

I just got here. That’s way too abrupt… Or rather, that the king would contact me directly, am I amazing or what? At any rate, the baptism shouldn’t be an issue, since I don’t have any errands tomorrow, right?

We’ll be bidding farewell to the inn today.

“Mr. Uruto, I’ve decided to build a house,” I told him at the reception.
“That’s sudden… Well, congratulations. Moreover, you’ve become an SS-Ranker, right?”
“Yes, it did. Erm… thank you very much for these one and a half months.”
“Nah, it’s all good. Come visit every now and then, when Gilmars and Parasuna are here, you know.³”
“Alright.”

I went back to our room and told Mika, that we’d move house.
Well, I’ve already notified her in advance via message.

“Mika, we’re moving!”
“That’s way too sudden! Don’t we need a bit more time?”
“It’s fine, I can build something like a house in a single day, and it’s in a good place.”
“No, you already told me several times in your message, that it’s a good place! There’s this thing called ‘preparation’!”
“Eh, we can just suck it all into the magic pouch, can’t we?”
“It’s a question of how it feels!”

Thus, we left the inn early and headed for the newly bought plot.

TL notes:
With this, we’re back to Alim PoV chapters and also at the end of volume 5.

I somewhat question, why in a world that apparently has the infrastructure to widely popularize and produce recreational products, there isn’t already a ton on board games and similar stuff on the market. Sure, Alim created machines, so they can keep up with demand, but they were ready to market them long before they knew such machines were an option, so production should have been at a certain level already.

1. I think this is where the whole Medial/Mediana mix-up started. The originals are メディアル (mediaru) and メディアナ (mediana) and there’s several instance of both in this chapter and later chapters, too.
2. I’m a bit confused by this part. Either the king left a message in the newspaper or he contacts Alim at the same moment he reads it.
3. Not sure about this sentence. He might also mean that he doesn’t mind Alim moving to his own house, since Gilmars and Parasuna visit him every once in a while.