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Translator: Kazumi
Editor: Silavin
Raul was visiting the Crown branch in the Airika Kingdom.
The branch leader, Tamara, was sitting in front of him.
The Crown branch of the Airika Kingdom was originally set up to only open an adventurers’ department that focused on raising the abilities of their adventurers. However, at some point, it was discovered that there were also problems with the way adventurers had been conducting their activities. More specifically, the incentive and rewards for the adventurers.
Because of this, Tamara checked various guilds within the country to verify the situation and eventually, she decided that it was necessary to set up a material purchasing counter within the branch.
When she made this decision, Raul was eventually sent by the headquarters to assist in its establishment.
Tamara had done a lot to help the kingdom, but since this was business related, various problems arose even with her fame and influence within the kingdom.
There were also many forces within and outside the kingdom that saw the expansion of Crown’s power as a danger, so the most they were able to set up in the branch was a simple purchase counter instead of a whole department that managed all the materials being purchased from the adventurers.
Its main purpose was to buy directly from adventurers and then sell them on the market, though it might create chaos in the market.
There were some people within Crown who thought that if that was the case, they should just set up their own counter, but they have decided not to create a spark for conflict, and have settled for the current system.
Up to now, Airika Kingdom had been purchasing materials through requests and clients were the ones dealing with the spoils of the request, which were only available when they needed something.
If a private company was allowed to start buying directly from the adventurers, only the big companies with sufficient financial resources would survive the processing of materials. Furthermore, even though the purchase counter was set up to encourage adventurers to be more active, the number of requests had consequently decreased.
Why?
Requests for monster extermination were issued by various parties and for various reasons… For towns and villages, these requests were issued with the aim of reducing the number of surrounding monsters. Thus, posts for these requests did not get affected by this change.
However, the requests for materials issued by the Craft Guild and Merchant Guild would be heavily affected by the new system.
After all, the price at which they were buying materials they could get from the purchase counter was much cheaper than what they paid when directly making a request.
It was more economical for those guilds to buy materials cheaply from Crown than to make a costly request.
In fact, for a while, after the purchase counter was set up, there was a decrease in the number of direct requests for material collection.
Soon enough, the flow of materials and money had returned to around 80% of the previous purchasing cycle, but it was still not at full recovery.
Thus, this was where Tamara had decided, since she was not good at business, to ask Crown headquarters for help to check and adjust the various conditions when purchasing materials.
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“Well, I didn’t expect you to come, Raul-dono.”
After exchanging initial greetings, Tamara said that.
When she asked for support from headquarters, she was thinking that someone with a slightly lower rank would come. However, the person who actually arrived was Raul, who oversees the purchase of materials related to Crown.
It was natural for Tamara to be surprised.
Raul laughed and told Tamara. “Hahaha. Normally, I would have let one of my subordinates do this, but I can’t seem to shake the habits I’ve developed when I was just a peddler.”
When he was a peddler, he did everything himself, from developing routes to purchasing products.
Normally, once one had a certain position in an organization, it was expected for them to solve problems by getting their subordinates to do it, but Raul still had the habits of his peddling days – of doing it himself.
It was as if the president were personally taking action to resolve the problem. Thus, the situation was made to seem more dire than it was.
However, there was a good reason why Raul took action this time.
“You know, I simply wanted to see for myself, but this time, I thought I’d try to train someone to become a direct subordinate of mine.”
“Really?” Tamara raised her eyebrows in interest at Raul’s words.
“I can’t move every time something happens. I would need to train someone who can do at least a certain number of things in my place.”
Currently, there were several people who could judge the quality of materials stationed at the branch. From among them, if there was someone that could be useful, he would entrust that person as to be the one in charge of this branch.
Of course, it was not that simple. After all, in some cases, they might have to deal with the government.
Of course, it was not possible to have someone without the authority to make the decisions to oversee this branch, not when they were dealing with a different country.
After all, this branch was still small. It had not reached Crown Headquarter’s minimum level of establishment yet. Too much responsibility would be placed on the person in charge of the purchase counter. After all, they would be the ones that had to negotiate with the government in place of Crown. They would be the ones that would decide the fate of Crown in this country.
But Raul did not really have that kind of authority as well.
From Raul’s point of view, he did not even want such authority.
“I see. I’m not good at business, so it would be a big help if you could do that for me.”
“If someone as accomplished as you, Tamara-dono, helps out, I don’t think we will have much of a problem. It probably won’t go as well as expected though.”
Raul laughed.
Tamara, who had smiled wryly in response, suddenly made a serious expression.
“So? How are things going with the purchasing?”
“To be frank, it’s not going smoothly. I can certainly see why a purchasing system to collect materials has not taken root on this continent. They were running a different system here compared to what we use in the central continent after all.” As he said this, Raul’s eyes fell on the documents that were handed over.
The document contained a list of the materials that had been brought to the purchase counter and the number of items.
The contents of the list were very one-sided.
In short, this was because the monsters that adventurers encounter were biased.
If this purchase system were to be run by a public guild in a single city, rather than by a huge organization like Crown, the figures would be too much for them to manage.
“So, even here, they were ignoring the purchasing system, I think I understand the reason why something as basic as a purchasing system has not taken root yet…” Raul continued. “There’s also a problem with the adventurers’ activities, you know?”
“What, please explain?”
“I think it’s partly because the system is still new and people aren’t used to it. It seems like they’re just killing any monster they encounter.”
Tamara tilted her head when she heard this.
“Is that a bad thing?”
For Tamara, she had thought that the purchase counter was set up to make more money.
Of course, she thought that it would be fine to buy the materials of monsters she encountered during a request.
Raul shook his head in response. “If they do that, the price of the materials they bring back outside of the requests will eventually drop. This is simply due to the lack of demand for these materials. Eventually, it would drop so low that they would be disincentivized from bringing in any more materials.”
Even if there was a purchase counter, it did not mean that they could continue to buy the same items at the same price forever.
To put it simply, even if they brought in a slime that even a child could knock over, it would only be worth a pittance.
The price changed depending on the market, this was the same for all products.
“Mmm…” Tamara frowned, having realized this.
They set up the purchase counter to increase the number of adventurers and raise their levels, but if problems with what was being purchased happened, it would all be meaningless.
“That’s why we need to encourage the adventurers themselves to actively go hunting for materials, rather than just doing it as a side job.”
“…Can you explain more about it?”
“We’ll regularly inform you of things like what materials are in high demand, or what prices we’re buying them for, depending on the level of the adventurer. Well, we’ll also be training our subordinates to do things like that from now on.”
“I see. I think it would be better to leave that to you, Raul.”
Tamara nodded, looking impressed.
“Normally, we would train people who work behind the counter for this kind of thing, but we’ve been so busy with the launch. Still, better late than never. It’s about time we start training them.”
“I’ll leave it to you. Or rather, I’d love to learn from you too.”
“Hahaha. If it’s you, Tamara, there’s no need to memorize each product. I think it’s enough if you understand what I’ve just said.”
Raul said this to Tamara, who was showing great enthusiasm, as if to drive the point home.
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