Netooku Otoko no Tanoshii Isekai Boueki (WN) Chapter 59

Translator: Mana
Editor: Anonymous_Neko
Proofreader: Rinkage

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Chapter 59 – The smell of a catgirl is a schoolgirl

"Good morning, Boss! Today I put in my all and got up at 5 in the morning to make lunch boxes. As your first disciple, I'll do my best to make sure I don't embarra.s.s you! Also, Papa said he'd drop by to greet Boss when he has time!"

"Oh… okay."

First thing in the morning and Etowa was very excited.

We had planned on meeting up outside the guild at 9am for the first day, but she had been waiting for an hour earlier. For someone who is good at numbers, she sure is wasteful.

Today Rebecca-san had things to do at home, so it was just me, Diana and Marina at the store. After what happened yesterday, things were a little awkward with Diana.

"By the way, Etowa, your clothes are really cute. Where did you buy them?"

Yesterday she wore a modest one piece dress with a leaf pattern, but today… to put it simply, she was wearing a 'sailor uniform'. She wore a short-sleeved white sailor shirt with geometry embroidered on the collar and cuffs in a dark navy blue. The tie was sky blue. The skirt was a pleated miniskirt, also in dark navy blue. No matter how you look at it, it was a sailor uniform. While I hadn't seen anyone wear something like this here before, maid uniforms existed, so I guess sailor uniforms were also possible… right…?

"Thank you very much. This is the ethnic clothing of the Canaan. Typically we would only wear it on special occasions, but Papa said to wear it because it's my grand debut today."

Ethnic clothing! Sailor uniforms! …What's with this other world?
No, stop. Don't think about it. A cat in a sailor uniform (school uniform) was like, you know, that. No matter how you looked at it, it was that.

"Etowa. Try saying 'Don't look down on me'."

"Don't look down on me?"

Hmm. The nuance was a little different. It had to be a more delinquent-like sailor uniform. First of all, the length of the skirt was different. She couldn't be a 'Na*neko' like this!

"Joking aside, it suits you. I'd love to have my girls wear the same."

However, since the design was nearly identical to a sailor uniform, I could ma.s.s produce these here and sell them in j.a.pan to make a fair profit. I could make duplicates of the famous j.a.panese uniform to sell too… No, that is too risky. In many ways.

…At any rate, it seemed much cheaper making it here than in j.a.pan, so it was a good idea to consider going in that direction. I had sold a few pieces of second-hand clothing through net auctions already, so it should be alright to create new clothes and put them up too.

The store was gradually gaining regular customers, and everything was going well in general.

I had been controlling my business so that I didn't make too much profit (mainly focusing on dealing in plain cotton and small trinkets), but now that Etowa was here I could start to move on the offensive. It was still a street stall for now, but I could rent a proper storefront and deal in high quality fabrics and wool items. I didn't have enough money for a storefront yet, though.

After putting Etowa to work, it was evident that she was quite handy as she quickly learned about the products and how to cut fabric. At this rate, I should be able to leave her to manage the store herself pretty soon. The only thing I was worried about is leaving a 13-year-old girl alone in a corner of this flea market… whether or not she is a wereperson.

The daily sales of this stall had reached roughly 1,500 el, after all. With one gold coin and five silver coins, converting it into j.a.panese yen amounted to around 220,000 yen. The products themselves were of quite value, and if something happened Etowa probably wouldn't be able to handle it herself. Hostage situations, kidnapping, abduction, torture… such risks should be taken into consideration… Since this place isn’t j.a.pan…

…That was what I initially thought, but in reality the safety in this town is rather good, so it was troubling. The furthest I had been abroad is Hong Kong for a school trip, so while I didn't know how bad the safety was in other places, Erishe itself isn’t much different from j.a.pan.

For the record, I made sure to keep the profits in the bank. Rather than a bank, it was more of a service offered at the guild by using the guild card at the window. It had always bothered me how the guild card was more technologically advanced than everything else. This was totally like a cash card. Though there weren't any ATMs.

"Etowa, what's the public safety actually like around here?　Erishe seems very safe from what I've heard, but I don't live in the middle of the town, so."

"Public safety? It's very good. My Papa is a member of the military police and he said that it's so much better compared to 20 years ago."

"So thieves, pickpockets, muggers and the like don't appear often?"

"They don't appear around here, at least. I don't know if that's the case once you leave the town and reach the more deserted areas, but at least here it's safe during the daytime."

It was one straight road from the market to the guild. There wasn't any deserted streets to pa.s.s through, and the stall closed before it got dark so there wouldn't be any walking involved at night.

Hmm… If that was the case, it might be okay to leave it to Etowa one day. Though that was my original intention.

In the afternoon, Etowa's father actually came to greet me.

Etowa introduced her father to me, who politely greeted me in a rougher voice than expected.

"My daughter may be a little rash at times, but please take care of her."

His appearance wasn't much different to Etowa, but he was apparently over 30 years old with a height of about 150cm and—more importantly—he was a cat. They say that cats don't age in appearance, but apparently that applied to Canaan too. It seemed like Canaans could tell each other's age by appearance, but it was impossible for humans. It might be inappropriate to say this, but they were just plain cute.

The sales on this day was 1,220 el. I was able to teach Etowa various things as we went, so it wasn't a bad number. I splurged quite a lot buying Marina's equipment the other day, so I had to save up little-by-little once more.

◇◆◆◆◇

I used a horse to get from the town to the mansion.
I tried to practice horse-riding as much as possible after buying them at the horse market, but I was still the worst one out of all of us. Marina was already quite skilled, as expected of a knight vocation. She could gallop at a fairly fast speed and seemed to have fun with horse-riding, her enthusiasm showing in her practice. Diana was timid at first, but now that she was used to it she had no problems moving regularly and galloping lightly. As for me… mounting and clip-clopping along at a walk was all I could handle, the most galloping I could do was at a leisurely trot… It seemed like I didn't have much talent for it.

The horse itself was cute, though. Caring for the horses was mainly Aurica's job as a maid, but feeding and brushing was important to maintaining good communication between us and the horses, so we were the ones who did that, and subsequently got attached.

After finishing work in the town at 4pm, Diana, Marina and I said goodbye to Etowa and rode our horses out of the town. I had to deal with the auctions once I returned to the mansion. As long as I was the only one who could do the work in j.a.pan, it was quite busy.

We went down the road leading to the mansion. The horses we were riding were three fine brothers that cost 20 gold coins in total. They had received training not to startle too easily. Even when there were other horses on the road, they wouldn't get excited and run away.

According to Hetty-san, they were horses of military quality that wouldn't freeze up even when surrounded by bandits, so whether it was running away or fighting on horseback, these horses could handle it… or something along that line. Hearing that, thoughts about how new mercenaries were rather disturbing and how just moving normally should be enough pa.s.sed through my mind, but—

Half of the road from Erishe to the mansion was a wide road with many people pa.s.sing through. This road was properly maintained with a paved stone floor (though the s.p.a.cing was rather haphazard). The other half was a beaten track that was only used by villagers, us, Sh.e.l.lo-san and Rebecca-san. The distance from the town to the mansion was about one and a half hours on foot. Right now, using a horse took about 50 minutes. Once we learn to gallop on the horses properly, it should take about half that time.

It happened shortly after leaving the road and entering the beaten track. Three unfamiliar men were loitering a small distance away from the track. All three were armed with swords and equipped in crude leather armour. There were two people in their 20s, one in his 30s, and they all looked like the embodiment of vulgarity.

Memories of the time I was surrounded by delinquents instinctively came to mind. There wasn't much difference in the way they glared this way with no reservation, whether it was this world or that world.
In my head, words such as 'rebels', 'bandits', 'thieves', 'muggers', and 'brigands' pa.s.sed through.

In theory, the best course of action would be to run away at this point. However, in reality, it wasn't so easy to act cleverly like that. I was only a civilian while Marina was a slave who used to admire knights in her home village. Similarly, Diana was also a princess who knew nothing about how the world worked. If Rebecca-san or Hetty-san were here it might have been different, and perhaps that was what they were aiming for, as they weren't present today, unfortunately.

The men suddenly stood up, and the one in his 30s who seemed to be the leader spoke up.

"Hey bro, got a minute? We're a group of travellers and we're troubled coz we don't have transport. Could ya lend us those horses?"

The men grinned shamelessly as they blocked the path with their bodies.

I replied while mounted on my horse.

"No, we can't lend you our horses. If you walk just a bit further you'll reach the town of Erishe. It's only around one yulka away."

Since I wasn't sure if they were actual bandits yet, I tried giving them a chance. It wasn't good to judge by appearances. They might seriously think they could borrow a horse.

"I see… If ya can't lend us those horses, then we dun need them. So how 'bout this instead?　Do ya feel like lending us now?"

After saying those words, the leader drew his sword and pointed the blade at the neck of my horse. So if we don't lend them our horses they'll kill them, huh?

As I thought… bandits.
A weak-looking boy was riding a nice-looking horse, so they thought they'd help themselves… that kind of fellow.

Of course, I couldn't afford to lose my horse.

"Ah, wait a second. I'll get down from my horse first…"

"Well, well. So ya can do as you're told after all. I dun mind guys like ya."

"Yes, since it'd be too difficult to fight on horseback. Ah, really, I'm so glad I practiced my sword fighting. It's just so peaceful around here, I thought my hard work would never be acknowledged."

"What are ya sayin'?"

"Alright, let's do this as planned. Pattern B this time. Marina, you understand, right?"

"Uhh… I still have my reservations about this."

"There's no other choice. Now go!"

On my signal, Marina nimbly evaded the men blocking the path and galloped off. She really was good on horseback.

"O-Oi! Where do ya think you're goin'!"

All that was left was to buy time.