“But earning money doesn’t mean I can go to space, does it?”
“We can’t go to space either, you know.”
“But you’re way closer to space than any regular company, right? Please, please, please!”
“Tonbo, there’s no set hiring limit, is there? Why not introduce him to Abukuma-nee?”
Swayed by Mars’s exasperated gaze towards me, or not swayed but simply giving in to Kaneki-san’s pleading, I agreed to introduce him on one condition.
“If you do get hired, please make sure there’s no ill will about leaving your current party.”
“Of course, of course, that’ll be no problem.”
He said it lightly, but as a result of Kaneki-san’s hiring, his party did disband amicably. In fact, I have no idea how he convinced them, but Kaneki-san actually introduced the three female members of his former harem party to Kawashima General Trading as well.
Maybe they were already discussing disbanding? As I pondered that, I closed the messaging app with Princess’s continuous stream of messages on my smartphone. Then, fighting off the drowsiness brought on by the warmth of the heating and the idle chatter of my classmates, I turned my attention to the macro economics lecture that I couldn’t understand at all.
After the classes ended and the early winter darkness fell, as I left the school building, someone called out to me from the dusk, “Heyy!” Turning towards that familiar voice, there on a bench set up under a tree shedding dry leaves on the lawn…was the white wolf I had grown quite accustomed to seeing recently, swinging her legs idly.
“Ah, Sierra.”
“I’ve been waiting for you, Tonbo.”
She said so while waving her small, fluffy hands holding what looked like an empty snack bag, but…how long had she been waiting? There were a few dried leaves on her head.
“How did you end up all the way here?”
“I was worried, so I came to pick you up.”
Snorting, she handed me the snack bag and hopped off the bench.
“Who told you where I was?”
“Hime! She said I couldn’t go inside, so I waited here!”
As if saying “Good girl?”, I patted Sierra’s tilted head, her tail wagging, and removed the leaves that had gotten stuck.
“It’s dangerous to be outside after dark. If you’re going to stay out this late, get a lantern.”
She made her point by holding up her tiny finger, but I suppose that’s the perspective from another world?
“We don’t need lanterns, there are streetlights.”
“What if they go out?”
Well, in that case, classes would probably be canceled too.
“Ah…Sierra, were you planning to come every day?”
“If Tonbo goes every day, Sierra will come pick you up.”
“I’m only here until noon tomorrow, so you don’t need to come get me.”
“Then I’ll come at noon.”
It seemed Sierra fully intended to look after me. But if she came every day, rumors might start at the university…
“Sierra, this town is safe.”
“Tonbo is careless. It’s okay, Sierra is strong.”
She patted my butt with her tiny hands, seeming in a good mood. Well, she had just arrived here too…maybe I should let her get used to things gradually.
“Aren’t you hungry, Tonbo? Sierra can eat something too.”
“Hime will have food ready when we get back.”
“Sierra eat Hime’s food too! Tonbo have gold coins? Sierra show you where to buy bread.”
“Gold coins…do you mean 500 yen coins?”
Looking closely, she seemed to have a small drawstring bag hanging from her neck. She must have been snacking on bread while waiting, maybe Hime gave her an allowance?
“Sweet fluffy bread!”
“…Just one, okay?”
In the end, unable to resist Sierra’s snorting and tugging at my pantleg, I was led by the warm glow of the convenience store in the evening darkness.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT GADGETIZEDPANDA.COM
Manufacturing and maintaining spaceships, as well as mining resources from space – these were the highly specialized tasks required of the Asteroid Division. However, accompanying those plans, there was work that the old Kawashima General Trading Company also had to take on.
That said, it wasn’t like we were starting some special new job. We just had to do the same thing we did when making the combat robot Third Eye…that is, purchasing monster materials.
It all started a while after we began considering the space development plan, around the time before the presentation to stakeholders. One night in the living room, lounging on a balance ball with her belly on it and rocking back and forth, Hime said with a pensive look:
“Ah…if we only use the materials currently on the market, I’m really worried about the strength and size…this might not work.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“Designing the resource gathering spaceship. It’s an obsolete technology whose patents have long expired, but…even so, using just ordinary materials found on Earth would make it difficult to build without issues.”
Saying that, she displayed the spaceship’s design on the TV. Like I would understand any of that, but I could at least tell the outer hull was highlighted in red. Hime was probably talking about the material for that part.
“I guess we’ll have to use iron-based monster materials…”
“Ah, that magatama steel that might be used for the bullet train?”
“Exactly, the strength and weight would work with that, I think…”
Rocking on the ball, Hime played with the tips of her milky tea-colored hair.
“The problem is, like you said, they’re going to use up the magatama supply for the bullet train plan. There’s barely any material on the market, and even if we gathered it all up it wouldn’t be nearly enough for a whole spaceship…”
“Can’t you convert magic stone like you did for the Third Eye?”
“Technically we could, but that won’t work this time since we’re not the only ones making it. We still can’t release the magic stone tech.”
“Is there no stock overseas?”
Mars, licking a soda ice pop with her tiny tongue, asked that, and Hime skillfully rolled over on the balance ball, twirling her finger pointed at the ceiling.
“Japan is the most advanced when it comes to researching magatama steel materials. In fact, Japan exports them.”
“I see.”
“So does that mean we can’t order and have them made for us?”
“There’s an issue there too – the monster materials used for magatama steel aren’t really used for much else, so there’s already a shortage of the raw materials.”
Saying that, Hime pushed off the ball and slid under the kotatsu table.
“So, I had an idea…”
“Yeah?”
“What is it?”
Mars prompted, and Hime opened her mouth looking a bit awkward.
“We’re currently buying magic stone, but in addition to that, what if we started buying monster materials too?”
“Sure, that makes sense if it’s for making magatama steel, right?”
“But…unlike the Third Eye combat robot that was kind of a hobby for Tonbo, this is pretty urgent, isn’t it?”
“That’s true. But I do have a rough plan to deal with that.”
Well, Hime probably thought about the added burden it would place on us as the purchasing window. But her “rough plan” to alleviate our burden ended up completely eliminating it – though that meant preparations took quite some time, and restarting monster material purchasing ended up getting delayed until after the Asteroid Division was established.
That said, having a system in place to purchase was really just our company’s side of things.
“We’ll buy it.”
“Okay, here you go.”
…It’s not that simple when it comes to purchasing monster materials. Even when buying magic stone, a material with plentiful market supply since it drops from pretty much any defeated monster, we still had quite a struggle.
On top of that, the materials we plan to purchase this time aren’t the kind that can be obtained from any monster. We need adventurers to specifically target certain monsters and preserve the necessary parts when hunting them. A well-established major company could probably get a good turnout by putting out a request to adventurers based on their credibility…but as an up-and-coming company, we’re a bit lacking in that department.
So to differentiate ourselves, we created the Kawashima Point system that allows trading for exclusive items we offer. And for this round, we’ve further evolved the Kawashima Points and associated services to make them even more user-friendly.
In the dungeon plaza of Tokyo’s Fourth Dungeon in winter, where the wind whips through fiercely despite the sun not shining, I opened up shop in a company-branded fur-lined flight jacket. I pitched our newly launched services to any adventurers who came shopping.
“An app? And drone delivery? You guys were actually serious about that?”
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