“One silver per day?”
The woman shook her head and corrected him.
“Pay him two silvers at the start. You can consider giving him more if he does a good job.”
I looked at the man again.
“Is that salary fine with you?”
“Yes.”
He looked pleased with it, making it a done deal.
“You can live and commute from here until you find a place of your own.”
“Thank you, mistress.”
“I’m not your mistress anymore. Good luck with your new job. Here, take him.”
She sent him my way with a movement of the hand, and he docilely put himself behind me.
“Thank you, ma’am. Since we’re on the topic, do you know where I could hire a guard for the shop?”
“You can just ask any martial center around. Go now, and stop coming to me for every single thing.”
“Yes, ma’am. Goodbye.”
I left with my new employee as we headed directly to the store.
“Do you want to start working right now, or do you want to start from tomorrow? I’ll pay with a full day of work if you start today.”
“Then I’ll start right now.”
“Good. What I need you to do is simple. For now, you need to prepare the place for its opening. It’s already in a good state, so you just need to clean it and replace the front sign with my own.”
“Should I make the front sign too?”
“Yes, please. No need for anything too fancy. You just need to write the company name, Urtek. Is everything clear?”
“Yes, master.”
“I’m not your master. Just call me Tila.”
“…Can I really?”
“Sure, it’s all good. No need to stress too much. As long as you do your job correctly, I won’t micro-manage you.”
“What does micro-manage mean?”
“It means I won’t be over your shoulder checking every single thing you do. Basically, I hope you’ll become the main shop manager because I’ll be busy doing other things in other places.”
“Me, the manager?”
“That’s right. I’ll still check if you don’t cheat with the numbers or try to steal some money, so be careful about that. I’ll hire you for two silvers a day at the start, and I’ll give you a raise if everything goes well. How does that sound?”
“It sounds too good to be true.”
“You’ll see for yourself if it’s true or not. Here.”
I gave him a gold coin, bemusing him even further.
“T-This is?”
“It’s your budget to use to prepare the store. Is it enough?”
“More than enough! It’s too much!”
“It’s fine. Buy what you have to, and any remaining money will serve as base cash to give change to customers when we open.”
“…I understand.”
His cautious stance made me laugh.
“Don’t run away with the money!”
“I-I’d never!”
“Hehe. Alright, I’ll try to recruit a guard. Good luck with your tasks.”
“I’ll work hard!”
It was good that he was enthusiastic. I always believed it was better to treat people well than to stress them uselessly. Hopefully, this approach will work too in the outer world.
I exited the building and looked for a martial center. I had seen many over time, without paying them too much attention. Since I didn’t know much about them, I just went to random ones, asking around if they had someone interested in the job.
As it happened, there were all sorts of martial centers. Some welcomed anyone and were a mixed bag, teaching a bit of everything. Others were more specialized, for example with a type of weapon, or only taking mages with a specific affinity. As such, their size was also very inconsistent, with some having hundreds of members and others less than ten.
I didn’t care about all of that, focusing mostly on their reputation. And maybe avoiding someone with a fire affinity. I didn’t want my guard to burn my newly bought shop. I soon reached a mid-sized martial center, which I heard many recommend during my tour. The only specialty they had was that they only allowed sorcerers to join.
I greeted the female receptionist, and she smiled back.
“Welcome, foreigner. What can I do for you?”
I showed my silver token, just like I had done all day.
“I’m starting a new business, and I need a guard for my store. Is there anyone here interested in this sort of job?”
“You came to the right place. We have a rotation system where we send a different person to guard our clients every day. Does that sound fine with you?”
“It’ll be a different person every day? Why?”
She smiled wryly.
“It’s because it’s a boring job. But since we can’t refuse work when it comes, we decided to do a rotation so that all our members can participate.”
“That’s interesting. Doesn’t that mean their ranks will vary too?”
“You can choose a lower and upper limit on the ranks.”
“What are your prices?”
“Since the job isn’t risky, the rate isn’t too expensive. 10 silvers per day for a rank 2, 20 for a rank 3, 30 for a rank 4, 40 for a rank 5, and 50 for a rank 6.”
It was still quite expensive, especially compared to a normal salary. It was no wonder there were so many martial centers around, even though they sometimes needed to risk their lives on the job.
After a bit of thinking, my decision was made.
“Then, rank 4 only should be fine.”
“Understood. We have six rank 4 here, it’ll alternate between them.”
“Great. We’ll be opening the shop in a few days, so the work can start at that time. I’ll come back to tell you when exactly.”
“Noted. I’ll pass the word around and we’ll prepare accordingly.”
“Thank you.”
I gave her the store’s address and left the center for now. Now that this was done, my next step was to fill the store with goods that would attract customers.