Chapter 110
Chapter 110
Cassis was silent for a long time.
So a village has been annihilated.
Looking at him, I became lost in thought. What could I do? How…
I think the original story no longer has meaning now. The only things worth referencing are how people moved in certain directions and where incidents occurred.
So there’s probably no need to revere the original story like a holy text.
[……]
[……Irina, what are you thinking?]
‘Just thinking about what to do from here on.’
A village has been annihilated because of demonic beasts.
Cassis will be dispatched on the Emperor’s orders.
The flow was exactly the same in the original story. Back then, Cassis, who questioned the existence of demonic beasts, went voluntarily.
As always, Cassis will probably resolve all the problems well this time too.
However, larger and more powerful demonic beasts will continue to pour across the empire, and disasters will come with them.
Cassis won’t be able to solve all those problems.
In the original story, he formed an army… and steadily resolved issues with the empire’s full support.
‘The current Cassis has nothing, yet he’s going out to fight demonic beasts.’
But I can’t just leave it at that, so I have to think about what I need to do.
As I rack my brain about how to make money and help Cassis immediately, the person in front of me finally speaks.
“How did you know?”
“…”
“Yes, you’re right. A village in the east has been annihilated. Reports keep coming in that it was due to demonic beasts…”
“So Cassis must go?”
“I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. Going to the battlefield is a hero’s destiny. So Cassis leaving isn’t something he should apologize to me for.
“Will it take long?”
“It doesn’t seem like it will take too long.”
According to Cassis’s explanation, travel will only be done via teleport gates. So it seemed like he could return once the demonic beast problem was handled.
“When do you leave?”
“…I need to leave first thing in the morning. They said it’s urgent.”
He answered hesitantly with an apologetic face after a long silence.
There’s no choice.
Seeing Cassis watching my reaction, I finally made up my mind. I shook off the dark emotions that had been clinging to me and took a deep breath.
Since they have to leave anyway, I should at least give them peace of mind about what they’re leaving behind.
“Then don’t worry about me. I’ll take care of Lu & Cream.”
I said confidently, smiling playfully with my hands on my hips.
It’s upsetting, but what can you do? Eventually, a time will come when I’ll have to get involved too.
“Don’t worry about things here and be careful. If you’re a hero, you’ve got big things to do.”
“I’m not a hero.”
“But to someone, you definitely will be a hero.”
To someone trembling in front of a demonic beast, Cassis will be a hero. To someone waiting for someone to save them, Cassis will be a hero.
Just as Cassis was to me.
“…”
“What is it?”
Cassis had been staring at me for a long time.
“Hero suits you better.”
“Me? Why me?”
Cassis laughed softly and shook his head.
“Just something like that.”
And so, as soon as morning came, Cassis left for the Jenoria Mountains in the northeast.
“Alright! Let’s work!”
“Ahhh!”
“Go work right now! Orders are piling up!”
“Yes, yes.”
Thanks to Cassis passing on his decision-making authority to me, I managed ‘Lu & Cream’ by stamping approval seals left and right.
I wanted to be of help to Cassis on his journey, but unfortunately, I had no special abilities related to dealing with demonic beasts.
“So what can I do? I should at least run Lu & Cream well and make a lot of money.”
I need to make a lot of money to ease Cassis’s worries. With a lot of money, we could also create a good army.
[Yeah… and take a look at the quest too.]
“That’s for later.”
Since I didn’t want to completely abandon the demonic beast side, I decided to just continuously check within the information I could receive.
Work was busy again.
I pushed the quest related to store expansion far away since I had no plans for it.
Instead, I focused on building a foundation to put ‘Lu & Cream’s’ business in a stable position.
I concentrated on developing new recipes and selecting steady sellers.
“The imperial palace has issued a teleport travel ban because they can’t verify the contents.”
“Sigh… handle it as quickly as possible.”
“Yes. But you should keep in mind that we won’t be able to meet the quantity for the southern region on time.”
The imperial palace, which manages the teleport gates, was desperate to catch us with any excuse.
Just dealing with these issues took up a lot of time.
Whether or not the imperial palace found fault with us, we continuously conducted new promotions to ensure ‘Lu & Cream’ was firmly established in people’s memories.
“Like this, sis?”
“Yes. You look pretty.”
Seiren ate ice cream in the central hall of the Lemiere mansion. She sat on the stairs to eat, and she also casually sat in Isiel’s office to eat.
“Why my office, of all places?”
“Well, you two are known for having a good relationship.”
The combination of the heir to the thriving Lemiere duchy and his beloved younger sister, Seiren, was quite a popular subject. Everyone was interested in their daily lives.
So we deliberately set up an office that looked chaotically filled with documents, and placed Seiren there.
Seiren’s outfit resembled that of a carefree youngest daughter from a distinguished family.
Sitting at Isiel’s desk in such attire, she gave the impression of a cute younger sister visiting her brother’s workplace.
“I don’t like it, but I’m taking these pictures because you want them.”
“Thank you.”
“Next time, let’s take them in my research lab.”
“That would be great.”
Isiel also took one as well.
Isiel filmed a scene of him sitting on a couch, wearing glasses, enjoying a momentary dessert during work.
“Cut! Very good!”
“…”
Well, this is the kind of life I’m leading.
“Irina, are you okay?”
“About what?”
“About the demonic beast matters…”
Isiel trailed off uncharacteristically.
Knowing why he was speaking like that, I shrugged nonchalantly.
“It would be a lie to say I’m not upset, but what can I do? They said no. You also said no back then, Isiel.”
“Hmm.”
“I should do what I can now.”
“Lu & Cream?”
“That’s right.”
I need to earn money like crazy to at least provide good weapons and armor.
As always, promotion went well.
Scenes of Seiren and Isiel eating ice cream in their everyday places, without doing anything else, garnered a lot of interest and attention from people.
It was to the extent that people would come from distant regions to the capital and wait in front of the billboards to see them.
They would watch the photos for a long time and then enter a nearby Lu & Cream store to buy and eat the exact same ice cream.
As brand recognition built up among people, the next issue was distribution.
“We’ve received reports of insufficient quantities.”
“Teleport gate is ready!”
“The Hyzen store reports a shortage of chocolate ice cream!”
Thanks to tremendous recognition, people kept looking for ice cream, but the big problem was that we couldn’t keep up with the demand.
“We sent some to the Hyzen store yesterday?”
“What? They say nothing arrived!”
“What? Where did it go?”
Quantity was an issue, but distribution was an even bigger problem.
Stores in the capital had almost no problems.
Almost all quantity gaps could be resolved immediately. After all, even with the distance between Luwin and the capital, it could be overcome with teleport gates.
But the problem was with the provincial stores.
Some gates didn’t connect directly from Luwin to certain cities, and those gates weren’t always available.
Moreover, it was difficult to track ice cream in transit.
Just this morning, ice cream sent to Hyzen port city disappeared along the way, causing quite a commotion.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Lu & Cream, I think we need a solution.”
This is actually good timing.
During the time I was excluded from the demonic beast issue, I had aggressively expanded ‘Lu & Cream’ and worked to create stable revenue.
[You worked almost obsessively, didn’t you?]
[You said you’d get revenge every night.]
[I was a little surprised to hear such words from our angelic Irina…]
Back then, it was closer to desperate thrashing to overcome the immediate frustration that hit me.
‘But there are good points too. The original story events are occurring faster than expected.’
After all, if the demonic beast problem erupts significantly, I won’t be able to devote much time to Lu & Cream.
“As you all know, the empire is in turmoil. The imperial palace says they’ll stabilize the situation quickly, but personally… I’m not so sure.”
The eyes of my colleagues fixed on me.
“If the situation gets worse, it gets worse. I think we should abandon the expectation that it will improve anytime soon.”
So my goal is to elevate the business to a level where it can run smoothly on its own when truly serious issues arise later, when no one can stop me anymore.
When I let go and transition to demonic beast-related problems.
“So let’s first understand the current situation. Yen, present.”
* * *
The biggest problem Lu & Cream was concerned about was ice cream delivery.
It would be nice if ice cream could be made at each store, but unfortunately, ice cream is created using skills. That is, production was possible at only one place in the entire empire.
“We’re producing enough quantity to serve the entire empire. The problem is how to deliver it to the desired location, on time.”
Still, by well combining the skill with magic circles, sacred power, and other elements, mass production is ongoing.
Thanks to this, related skills were accumulating experience rapidly almost every day.
For this reason, enough ice cream to serve the entire empire is already being produced. Even if demand increases immediately, the magic circles can be adjusted, so there’s no need to worry.
“As you can see, our stores are located throughout the empire.”
Yen hung a map of the empire on the magic blackboard and marked the store locations with pins.
