Chapter 73 - #72 Business (1/2)

”So what about your planned marriage?” My father asked me when he finally calmed down while massaging the bridge of his nose.

”That will be only with Taeko, not with any Aria or whatever is her name.” I said with a small smile.

”Taeko...huh? Then do you already have any plan on how to get rid of this marriage? I must also inform you that if you will want to marry that Taeko girl then you won't be able to hold it publicly due to her identity which means that the other nobles will keep pressing you to marry someone since they will be unaware of it.” He replied with a wry smile.

”I know about that, I already gathered some filth on her family and they are definitely disgusting so I won't have any bad feeling by burying them all, however, there is still a lot of time before the marriage date so I will keep gathering more intel and then release it into the public, people will take care of the problem for me. As for other families, I will bother myself with it only once I will take care of the first problem.” I said with a confident smile.

”I see, that doesn't sound like a bad strategy to use a borrowed knife but you must be aware that common people can still get suppressed by that family even if they are smaller family. At most, they will face some difficulties.” He nodded his head with a smile at my strategy but still tried to convince me to use a different plan.

”Father...I am not only planning on using common people.” I said with a grin when I heard that he was a bit skeptical about my plan.

”What do you mean?” He raised his eyebrow in confusion.

”Do you really think that other noble families will let such a chance down? They will definitely try to bury them once they will get a good chance. Even though they are a small family, they still operate a few businesses and have some decent wealth. Who would refuse such a free meal?” I explained while shrugging my shoulders with a smile and closed eyes.

”?! I didn't think of that aspect but there would definitely be a few families who would like to eat such a free meal. Well, it's in your hands so do whatever you want, you can still ask me if you will need any help.” He had a slightly surprised expression before smiling with a defeated look.

”Well, if that's all, I am pretty sure that there is still a lot of people who would like to talk to me...” I said and approached the door, when my hand was on the handle...

”Wait...here you go!” He stopped me from leaving and opened his drawer, after fishing something out for a few seconds, he threw a small book at me.

I caught it without letting go of the handle and instead of looking at the book, I looked at him.

”I have heard that you started operating a few businesses and apparently you are doing very well, so here is the book containing the rights and information of around half of businesses owned by our family. You are free to manage them, by the way, the whole month you were away, I made Aiko learn everything about those businesses so if you want to find a manager and secretary, I would recommend her. She has a small amount of experience in this field but she is knowledgeable at least about those businesses and she is still learning.” He explained while looking at me with a big proud smile.

”I also asked Kurome and Ichika to teach her about your own businesses, although they were quite reluctant to do so without your permission, they still did it. I must say that you have really loyal people around you to even be wary around their ”master's” father, haha. Especially Ichika, at first, she was meant to inform me about everything you were doing in the past but with the passage of time, she remained at your side. That makes me slightly sad, haha” He continued and started even laughing.

I smiled at him when I heard the part about Ichika.

”Thanks for everything, don't worry, I won't let you down.” I waved with the book in my hand as a goodbye and exited his room.

”I know you won't” I heard his voice full of confidence right before I closed the door behind me.

When I returned to my room, my mother kept pestering me to reveal my ”secret” and in the end, I decided not to tell her. If she really wants to know it so much, she can always ask my father.

I spent a few more days only resting and checking on the progress of all the projects I started and it was going pretty well. I also hired a few blacksmiths, one of them was also Zak who taught me basics but he is still unaware of that fact. I started some production of weapons on a small scale since I didn't want to alert anyone and also because I hired only trustable blacksmiths.

I also employed some retired soldiers who either lost a limb or something essential to continue serving the army and gave them work of gathering all kinds of herbs in the forest near the Capital. Since they used to be soldiers they would be able to protect themselves from such animals as wolves, as for Danger beasts...after my constant killing there, the density of them thinned so much that it's very rare to meet any weaker or even stronger Danger Beasts.

Usually, it depends on what unit they were serving but most of the units don't care for their retired soldiers and the Empire simply discards them without any financial support. Of course, everyone is already accustomed to such a treatment so when they heard my offer for quite nice payment, most of them instantly agreed.

With this matter resolved, I started also doing some small pharmacy-herbalist businesses.

Aiko who was constantly around me since she is still learning about businesses and is also my maid.

”Young master, this document just recently came in and it looks like it's something important.” Aiko informed me while organizing a stack of documents, she handed me a specified document she was talking about and then refilled my empty teacup with a hot tea.

”I see, thank you, Aiko” I took the document into my hands to look at it but first I thanked her with a genuine smile.

”It's nothing, there is no need to thank me, this is only expected of me.” Aiko bowed her head with a calm smile and her hands joined together like a real professionalist.

I have never noticed it but she really became much more mȧturė and more refined like a real lady. Anyway, let's look at the problem in front of me.

I looked at the paper in my hands and when I was done reading the through it, my eyes became colder.

”What the hell? Some random street gang wants protection money from my shop?” I muttered with a completely dumbfounded expression. I had no idea if I should laugh or cry for them.

One of the main reasons is because I didn't register all businesses under my name or more like my family name. I was slowly starting to expand my shops even to other parts of the city where our influence was much lower but to think that some random gang would do this...

I hired some guards but I didn't want to hire anyone too experienced since it would be slightly suspicious for a newly founded shop to hire expensive guards.

As for some kind of protection from the regular city guards...there is none because they really like to take bribes and such a gang must also be just to deceive others, they must be backed by some noble family or they wouldn't let some random group of thugs to just take their money in form of taxes.

”Should I call Kurome or Ichika, young master?” Aiko asked me with a small smile while sitting across me, doing her own work.

”Hm? No...no need to bother those two with such a small thing.” I raised my head from the paper and then shook my head with a wry smile.