Chapter 54 (1/2)
Chapter 54
Chapter 54 – The smell of deceptive business talk
“I bought 10 metres of it on a whim, but… how do you put it… it’s gorgeous. Too gorgeous. It should be able to sell for quite a lot, but there’s no one to sell it to… The only rich person I’m acquaintances with is the mayor, and he doesn’t seem like the type who liked gorgeous things like this… Other than that, there’s Jephthah? It might be possible to do business through Hetty too… Hmm…”
The black fabric I had purchased targeted for the upper cla.s.s people flowed out of my hands. While there are many fabrics that are considered gorgeous out there, the first one that would come to anyone’s mind would be this. Fabric so glossy it glimmered like the surface of water – velvet. This was the product I had decided to take on the rich people.
It was a bit of an exaggeration to say that, since the choice itself was based on a rather simple thought. The first fabric we imagine royalty from the medieval ages was velvet after all. So surely it must be high cla.s.s and expensive here too! That was my thinking, anyway…
Well, there was also the fact that velvet was a fabric that had been around for a while, so there wasn’t as much danger of being investigated.
Since a lot of the latest fabrics would be difficult to sell in another world.
For example—
Patterned fabric.
The printing technology in this world was at best, woodblock printing. That in itself had a certain flavour to it, which made it somewhat popular as is, but there was still something different about it when compared to the perfectly uniform print of j.a.pan. That was why I didn’t sell them.
Breathable waterproof fabric.
The latest material that repels water while letting water vapour pa.s.s through. A famous brand of which would be Gore-Tex. Fabrics like that. While its functions drew a line with normal waterproof plastic, there was no need to sell such high-quality fabric. “It lets vapour through! You won’t feel stuffy!” couldn’t make much of a sales pitch in a place where plastic didn’t even exist. Plus, it was expensive. That was why I decided against it.
Enamel fabric.
Similar to plastic, and too early for other-worlders. Immediate rejection. Or rather, I didn’t even want to sell plastic.
Well, the fabric shop didn’t sell much waterproof breathable fabric and enamel fabric to begin with, so perhaps I could become a leader of non-patterned fabrics?
Speaking of fabrics I didn’t sell, that included leather and synthetic leather too.
To put it bluntly, the quality of leather in Erishe was as high as you would expect from another world and much cheaper than j.a.pan. There were many varieties too, to the point that I wanted to import them to j.a.pan instead.
Any other fabrics, I’ll gradually start selling them over time.
They say that winter will come once the “Monster Wave” period pa.s.ses, so the demand for warm clothes may increase. I could sell yarn or ready-made scarves, gloves, leg warmers or beanies.
The best option would be to bring heat packs over and just sell them as is.
For now, the matter at hand was this velvet.
In j.a.panese, it would be written as heavenly goose cloth. Read as tengajuu or biroudo or something. It was introduced to j.a.pan at the beginning of the Edo period, so there’s no doubt it was made from natural materials.
Well, it wasn’t as though the customers inspected each and every material used, so it didn’t really matter if there were any synthetic fibres such as polyester, nylon, acrylic, rayon and polyurethane.
For the record, the velvet in my hand was 100% Cupro. Yep, totally synthetic. It felt wonderful to touch.
“…
And so, I’d like you to look at this fibre. What do you think?”
“It’s really… beautiful…”
I showed it to Diana while shopkeeping at the stall. It seemed that Diana saw it as beautiful too. The cultural gap in values could be unexpected at times, so it was good to check.
…Though Diana’s aesthetic sense wasn’t entirely reliable either.
“Are you putting this in the store? A lot of people would want this.”
“This fabric… it’s called velvet, and it’s too gorgeous to sell like regular fabric. It’s not like I can price it the same as plain cotton either.”
Right now, the main product of the store was plain fabric purchased at 500 yen per metre and sold at 10 el—in other words, 1500 yen. The other products were also stocked at three times the cost, adjusted so that they didn’t make too much profit…
The velvet was purchased for 2,850 yen per metre (it was slightly more expensive than normal as it was bought from a specialist shop online rather than a bargain sale). Three times that would be 8,550 yen or 57 el.
57 el. In other words, five nickel coins and seven bronze coins. If paid for with a silver coin, four nickel coins and three bronze coins would be needed as change…
If all 10 metres were sold at the converted cost price it would be 570 el. Not even one gold coin.
I don’t really want to sell something this gorgeous at that price, to put it bluntly.
I’d like one gold coin at the very least, maybe two if I was being greedy.
“I’ll keep selling here for now, then try selling it once I’ve made some richer customers. It’s not like it’ll spoil or anything, so there’s no rush.”
However, the buyer appeared later that day.
Read the chapters at rinkagetranslation.com. The chapters for this series will NOT be posted anywhere else other than on that site itself. If you are reading this from somewhere else then this is chapter has been stolen.
Read the chapters at rinkagetranslation.com. The chapters for this series will NOT be posted anywhere else other than on that site itself. If you are reading this from somewhere else then this is chapter has been stolen.
In the afternoon, Rebecca-san and Hetty-san came to help.
Hetty-san was in Erishe doing backup work for Diana… or so the story goes, but there was no need for them to be together all the time, so she could move rather freely. I don’t know what she normally does, but sometimes Rebecca-san will say “I’m drinking with Hetty today~”, so she must be living a carefree life. Being the maid of the Solo family must be nice.
“Oh, you two are just in time. Have a look at this fabric. What do you think?”
“…Oh my. That’s some fabric.”
“…T-This s.h.i.+ne… it’s a wonderful item, Jirou-sama. An item like this can’t be found around the imperial capital. Is it from the mountains… or is it produced in Erishe? You can’t underestimate the craftsmen around here…”
“That’s right… can’t see this in the imperial capital… wait, I have seen it somewhere before though…?”
Thank goodness. Even to Rebecca-san and Hetty-san, it looks like a good item.
If it was like this, then I could price it as I liked. As long as I had someone to sell it to.
“Come to think of it, will Jephthah come visit here again soon?”
I asked Hetty-san.
“Eh? Ehm… master will be here soon, I think. Probably.”
“That seems kinda vague. Hasn’t anything been decided?”
“That’s right. He leaves everything to me.”
Is that so?
That day, we decided to round up everything and close shop at 2 to go drinking.
I sent Diana to make the bank deposit (without guards, but accompanied by Rebecca-san and Hetty-san) and was cleaning with Marina when someone familiar approached.
The usual jangly necklace and rings.
A vest decorated with gold embroidery.
Loose silk pants.
The overwhelmingly strong musky smell.
Dragging along brawny warrior slaves.
It was the chubby imperial city trader-kun I saw at the guild before.
I had already messed up his first impression of me… I didn’t really want to be seen doing cheap business in the corner of the market…
Thinking that, I turned my back to him so I wouldn’t be seen. But perhaps Marina’s Turk lineage made her purple hair stand out, or he had already decided on his path from the beginning, as he wandered closer while grinning anyway.
I’d never forget the Chubby that kept sending dirty glances at Marina.
“Oh my oh my oh my, what do we have here? If it isn’t the Turk tribe that merchant took some time ago. What’s wrong? Why is a Turk tribe on the roadside like this?”
What a fake guy. This is a street stall, of course we’d be on the roadside!
Were this guy’s parents killed by the Turk tribe? He was sure obsessed.
“We’re doing roadside sales, as you can see. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No? No no no, I have no complaints. Since people like you keep the economy circulating. Ah, do you know the word ‘economy’? It’s a word that used often in the imperial capital.”
“…No, I know the word economy.”
“Oh~ as expected of the esteemed merchant of Erishe. Earning petty change on the roadside—oh, excuse me. To think that young people like you would know the word ‘economy’.”
Chubby spoke while making grand gestures. All his movements were so unnatural, it was like watching a play… I guess other worlds are just like this. His clothes even looked like they had jumped out of a Shakespeare play.