Chapter 95 – Making Progress
Translator: Kell | Editor: Ryunakama
Making Progress
A week later.
Production has been going well.
「Here are today’s fertilizers. Please check them.」
A man pulling a cart full of monster carcasses arrived at the factory. His name was Weyl, one of the staff of “Meigis Company”, a firm that Count Meigis created to sell medicine. He was primarily in charge of delivering materials needed for cultivation.
「It’s perfect. It looks like the monster hunting is going well.」
「Yeah. The adventurers are fired up. You don’t have to worry about running out of fertilizers so use them all you want.」
Huge quantities of monster materials are needed to fully run the wide belladonna plantation – around ten times more than the amount that’s delivered to the guild.
To secure such an amount, we have to kill a lot of monsters, which means having to go a bit farther out. This poses another problem. Transportation. All in all, continuously procuring monster materials requires an extremely high amount of labor.
As such, I thought keeping the operation running would be difficult, but contrary to expectations, obtaining materials has been going great. Not once did we have to stop operations because of a shortage of supplies.
「I’m guessing the number of monsters has dwindled near the town?」
「Compared to when we started hunting, they’re down to about a fifth. But I don’t think it’ll go lower than that.」
Monsters reproduced fast. Even if they somehow killed them all, more would pop up somewhere. Right now they’re hunting every last one they could find. Monsters sure are a valuable resource.
「How far have the hunters gone?」
「About two towns over. Five hundred men are on it.」
「Wow… I believe we only had about three hundred before.」
「Word has spread over the Count’s domain that he needs monsters. Ex-adventurers are even helping out.」
The reason why we could collect monster carcasses all over the place was because of the adventurers going all out when asked by the Count. Meigis didn’t force them into it, and neither did he offer an outrageous reward. All he said was “I need you to hunt monsters” and five hundred people answered the call.
「That sounds great and all, but with that many people, wouldn’t there be a risk of leaking information?」
「We’re good. Actually the citizens don’t even know why we’re collecting monster carcass.」
「They don’t? And we got five hundred men?」
「Yup. Just a word from the Count and they will do it without even asking why. That’s how much they love the Count. Even the citizens are helping with the transport.」
I’ve been to the field to see how the hunt was going, and most of the adventurers were those with inferior job classes. Count Meigis is really popular with those guys.
If the Count gathered all the adventurers with inferior classes and declared war against Georgis, he could probably deal significant damage. Then again he’s popular precisely because he’s not the kind of person to do that.
I went back to work, helping out the people in the factory and bringing in the carcasses.
「Did you start selling already?」
The completed products were sent to the Meigis Company. At first, output wasn’t so stable because of the constant experimenting, but now, producing healing medicine using big pots has been progressing well. We can start sending them to the firm.
I still don’t know much about the status of the sales, since I’ve been stationed here to guard against monsters. The plan was to sell in huge numbers to make a political impact.
「Yes. We already started. For details, the Count would like to talk to you. The location is on this letter. Will you come?」
Weyl handed me a letter with Count Meigis’ seal on it.
We’re to meet at the Elias Guild’s conference room. There’s danger of the factory being attacked by monsters, so as much as possible I don’t want to leave. But Elias is close anyway. If it’s only for a short time, it should be fine.
Besides, I return to Elias every day to eat and buy stuff. Staying overnight at the factory would be exhausting so I rest when it’s time to rest. The Count probably took this into consideration when choosing the meeting place.
「Okay. Kindly tell him I’ll come. 」
「Thank you.」
In the meantime, they finished bringing in all the materials we needed. It looks like we can produce a lot today too.