I walked back home on the road that had already become dark. When I finally got to the lodging, Elia was there waiting for me. She was not happy, no. She was clearly pissed off and was releasing a horrifying aura to go with it.
“Elia…?”
“Ryouma-san, what were you doing up till now? I was worried, you know?”
As Elia put away her anger, she burst crying. Looks like she was really worried. Even though it was against a bunch of small fries, I still did take a request to subjugate monsters… my bad. Because of that I quietly received Elia’s scolding. After that, she got tired of crying and being angry, and then just said that she’s going to bed already. I was taken along by the maid as I sent Elia off.
“Excuse me. My apologies for having caused you to worry.” –Ryouma
“It’s fine, since from the looks of things it would appear that you’ve already been scolded plenty by Elia.” – Madam
“It’s true though that you made us worry.” – Rheinhart
“Be careful next time, ok?” – Rheinbach
“Yes, I’ve taken it to heart.” – Ryouma
“And? Where did Ryouma-kun run off to, to be home this late?” – Madam
“The carriage had an accident and was broken. Because of that, I walked from somewhere near the northern gate, and as I passed by Serge-san’s store, I decided to stop by. Thanks to the magic recovery potion that Serge-san gave me, we were able to keep healing the injured. So I went over to thank him for that. Along with that, I thought of buying some things, but before I knew it, it turned into a long discussion.” - Ryouma
“You were over at Serge-san’s? What did you talk about?” – Rheinhart
“We talked about the ways on how to make money for me to be able to support myself, as well as the use of cleaner slimes in my laundromat. Ah! By the way, I’ll be coming home a little late tomorrow. I know I was scolded just now, but…” – Ryouma
“It’s fine as long as you let us know, Ryouma-kun. Anyway, what’s going on tomorrow?” – Madam
“I’m going with Serge-san to the merchant guild to register. While we were discussing my plans, for some reason it ended up becoming something big.” - Ryouma
“What? Weren’t you just planning on making enough for your living expenses by doing chores?” – Rheinhart
“That’s also what I’d thought of at the start. But as I was talking with Serge-san, before I knew it, we ended up talking about setting up a store.”
“A store? Your discussion actually progressed to that point?” – Rheinbach
“Serge-san’s reason was apparently because he can see a prosperous future. And so it seems that the personnel who will be taking care of the store will be coming from Serge-san’s store.” – Ryouma
“Serge-san actually said that much, huh? So, when is the opening?”
Eh!? He actually went to ask about the opening naturally. And here I thought he was going to be surprised.