Kays Translations

Chapter 79: Wow♪

Tauro’s proposal was as follows.

The inn would rent several nearby vacant houses and temporarily move its current guests into them without changing their lodging rates.

While they stayed there, the inn’s accommodations would be renovated, leaving only the dining room untouched.

The dining room was busy every day and would remain open throughout the work.

That way, the inn’s income wouldn’t suddenly collapse.

The walls of the Nameless Inn were extremely thin.

Guests who only needed a place to sleep could tolerate the small rooms because they were cheap. Even so, the inn presented many problems: people woke in the middle of the night because of noises from neighboring rooms, and the sounds of “work” being done indoors—wow♪—passed straight through the walls.

Tauro had lived there for a long time and always had to worry about the noise he made while producing potions or crafting special boards.

When he pointed these problems out, the proprietress made a face that showed she had no answer.

“All right. I knew I’d have to do it eventually. Business has been growing lately and I’ve managed to save some money, so I suppose now is the time.”

And so the Nameless Inn was scheduled for renovation as well.

Under Tauro’s direction, adventurers who had stayed at the inn joined forces with carpenters from the woodworking shop. The work proceeded smoothly and was completed quickly.

After consulting with the proprietress, Tauro rebuilt this inn as a two-story building too.

Its distinction from the Resting Pavilion was clear: its rooms were smaller, but they were cheaper.

The inn was also renamed from the Nameless Inn to the Dwarf Inn.

Three spacious rooms were included on the second floor.

Some families preferred staying at this inn, so those larger rooms were intended for them.

The rest remained as before, with many small rooms.

Guest numbers had been rising steadily and were expected to continue growing, so the inn needed the added capacity.

Most importantly, the thicker walls dramatically reduced sound leakage.

Tauro was delighted.

Now he wouldn’t need to worry quite so much about his “work noises”—wow♪.

For the record, those were strictly the sounds of making potions and similar items.

The renovated inn was generally well received by its guests, and the proprietress was relieved.

Had the building remained unchanged, some customers might have moved to the Resting Pavilion.

Some did, of course, but even more new guests arrived.

With more rooms, the inn’s capacity increased, and its sales climbed rapidly. The proprietress was grateful to Tauro.

As the village continued to develop, one man benefited from that momentum more than anyone else.

He was Marches, the young traveling merchant.

His exclusive contracts with the blacksmith and woodworking shops, along with his trade in valuable medicinal herbs, had allowed him to keep earning profits in a remarkably short time.

“Why, if it isn’t Tauro! How have you been?”

“Hello, Marches. You’re back early again this month.”

“Actually, I’ve decided to open a shop in this village, so I’ve come to look for a suitable property.”

Only a few months earlier he had been scraping by as a small-time merchant. Now he was already planning to open a permanent shop.

Tauro wondered whether it was too soon for him to take such a gamble.

“Heh heh. You were worried just now, weren’t you? The head of a merchant company in a large town has taken a liking to me. We were already doing business together, and he offered to provide part of the funding if I opened a shop in this village.”

“Someone made you an offer that good?”

Tauro was a little suspicious.

“The company head said that a traveling merchant and a shop-owning merchant have very different levels of credibility. If I want to continue doing business with his company, he advised me to establish a proper shop and put down roots.”

When Tauro considered it, he had to agree that someone with a permanent shop would be easier to trust and do business with than a traveling merchant.

Even so, offering to supply part of the capital was extraordinarily generous. Perhaps the company head simply liked Marches that much.

In any case, Marches was a merchant and had judged the man trustworthy with his own eyes. If he was willing to open a shop on the strength of that promise, Tauro had no reason to stop him.

Tauro introduced Marches to the village chief and asked him to recommend a suitable property.

The village chief was delighted by the prospect of a new shop opening in the village.

He immediately negotiated with the owner of a building a few doors down from the guild-run Resting Pavilion and arranged for Marches to purchase it.

Marches hadn’t yet established enough credibility to buy it on trust. They therefore agreed that ownership of the land would transfer only after he had paid the full price.

Marches paid his entire fortune as a deposit and promised to obtain the remaining funds from the merchant company and pay the balance by the deadline.

To win the owner’s trust, Marches himself proposed that if he missed the deadline, the deposit would be forfeited as a penalty.

That arrangement, too, had been recommended by the head of the merchant company.

Apparently it was a technique merchants used to win someone’s trust quickly. Just as in Tauro’s previous life, they knew how to slap the other party’s cheek with money.

Satisfied by the explanation, Tauro watched as the two parties finalized their agreement.

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