8 - Cooking

"Part-timers?"

Kana looked unimpressed at the idea I'd spent all afternoon workshopping.

"Well, yes and no. We can come up with a better name for it than that, but the general idea is that people will come to us with various jobs, and we'll do them!"

"Like... at the guild?"

I was losing my audience.

"No, think about it. If you needed someone to mend a dress would you request that at a guild?"

Kana participated in a back and forth with me while Maja had gotten us some fresh tea and was quietly sipping at the table. Toast had gone back to sleep on the bed, which Maja had reassured me earlier might be normal for a couple days.

"I guess not... It would be too expensive to make a request like that at the guild. You'd be better off buying a new dress."

"Exactly, so who would you take it to instead?"

"A seamstress?"

"Yes! And what if you also needed someone to fix a chair?"

"A woodworker?"

"Yes! And if you needed a Healer?"

"The church... I still don't think I understand."

"Okay, that's okay. Let me try again. What if any job you needed doing could be done by going to one place? If you needed a seamstress, a woodworker, a healer, a blacksmith, whatever! What if all those people worked in one shop, and did the things that would normally be too expensive to ask the guild for?"

"Couldn't people just go to those shops separately?"

Trying to explain how a tasking app from my world works in a world where things aren't conveniently on your phone is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated.

"Yes, they could, but what will make us special is that we'll do anything. Any task!"

"Why?"

"Because we're -desperate-"

I winked and did a finger gun at her, but it was clear that she wasn't on board. She also misunderstood my gesture and copied my finger gun, touching our fingertips together. Her smile shot a bullet right through my heart.

Maja, who had been listening in silence, summarized my pitch;

"We will be like adventurers that take on F rank requests that the guild wouldn't bother taking. We can use our talents to offer a wider variety of services than a tradesperson could, and we operate out of a single shop for the convenience of the requesters."

"I see! What a splendid idea Maja!"

It was my idea! She just said it with more RPG words!

Okay, so technically my idea is just another version of the many apps in my world that offer tasking services, but this world is at least 500 years away from smart phones so I'm taking advantage of my previous world memories, just like in any other isekai! 

"Kana, Maja, how much is the place next to... the place I won't mention?"

Maja turned her head to the wall, and Kana looked at her knees and gave me a barely audible answer.

"50 gold a month..."

I have no frame of reference for that, I don't know what I was expecting.

"Okay, and if you mended clothes, how many would you have to fix to make that much? Maja, how many healing spells would you have to cast?"

They both thought about their respective answers with serious faces.

"I'd have to mend 200 garments."

Not a great start.

"If I charge half of what the Church does, I'd need to heal 100 minor injuries, or maybe 15 major ones."

What a scummy church!

I contemplated their answers for a while, and decided I needed to do more research on my own.

Maja yawned and took a stride towards the door. She began to say she would retire back to the church, but froze as she reached for the door, realizing she had no home to return to.

I insisted the girls take the bed as it was big enough for two, and I had already agreed to sleep on the floor when it was just me and Kana. We would figure things out tomorrow, and for now try to turn in early like Toast. I picked him up gently from the bed and he opened his eye drowsily, but he closed it again right away. I placed him on a pillow on the floor, next to where I would sleep. 

Back home his sleeping spot changed as easily as the weather, literally. In winter he'd snuggle up under my blanket as close to my stomach as he could get, in summer he'd keep a respectable distance and preferred the cool floor. Regardless of the temperature though, he'd always want to sleep right next to me when he was sick. Not my favourite thing to wake up next to a pool of dog vom but I'll always be there to emotionally support him if that's what he wants. Dog vom be damned!

We said our goodnights and got some much needed rest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up with the sun which was likely becoming my new routine in this world. Today I was going to investigate the guild and flesh out some of the finer details of my plan.

We knew how much gold we needed to get started, and I had my own ideas about how to procure our startup fund. I was also keeping in mind expenses for Toast's well-being, along with our current living expenses if we were going to spend much longer at the inn.

Kana told me the guild opened "after breakfast", and I began to wonder if this world even operated on a 24 hour clock. I assumed I had a bit of time to kill if the sun was just rising, so I woke my sleepy fuzz-buddy and coaxed him to come for a walk with me. No matter what my plans were I needed to get him back on a routine for his own good. Dogs thrive on routine, and Toast could use some thriving.

I stepped out of the inn and paced myself on a light jog, Toast running just ahead of me but constantly looking back to make sure I was still there. He liked to lead. We headed out the gates of the city, and stopped in a field a ways away.

Toast started his wandering, looking for places to pee and things to sniff, and I got started on step 1 of my plan; see if I can get Toast to use skills on command.

To make any money and not be the dead weight on our team, I was going to need to use Toast as an asset until we could establish ourselves as a business. Once we got the shop up and running I could let my talents as a self-proclaimed all-rounder shine through. I didn't like the idea of putting Toast in danger, but if we could take out some small fry like the Sagi for the sake of materials, that would be optimal. Once the shops opened I could check the value of the Moroza items too. I had so much on my mind and was aching to start min-maxing the way I always did in RPGs.

"Toast!"

He came frolicking over, happy as can be. I opened his status window to double check what his skills were.

>Acid Shot
>Boost Jump
>Barrier Breaker
>Sonic Bark
>Heal

"I guess I can assume Acid Shot and Sonic Bark are the only offensive skills."

Based on our limited battle experience Toast's strength stat was high enough that even just biting or... headbutting... could do serious damage to weak monsters. We just needed to practice some new commands. Luckily I'd brought a pillow from the inn, hopeful it would work for Toasts big training arc.

I placed the pillow on the grass and stepped back, pointed at it, and yelled.

"Toast! Go!"

Toast walked over to the pillow and sat on it, and looked to me for praise.

My fault. I used to tell him to go to his bed at home the same way.

We spent an hour or two like this, with me trying various commands to entice Toast to attack the pillow in some way. When the sun had finally made it's way well above the horizon... we had nothing to show for it.

I conceded defeat and took the pristine pillow back to the inn to meet with the girls. Toast was hot on my heels expecting treats for all his hard work he didn't do. I walked in on the girls happily chatting and drinking more tea, something that had become a bit of a ritual in our room. 

I had Kana take me to a nearby shop where we could sell some of the Sagi meat and materials that had just been sitting in a pile in our room. I was happy Toast had given me so much, but having meat stinking up the room wasn't going to do anyone any favours. Maja stayed behind with Toast so we could walk around town freely and also so they could "get to know each other" at Kana's insistence. My lovestruck side was hoping she wanted our outing to be a date.

When we entered the shop my childhood dreams came to life. Behind the counter I saw various basic weapons like arrows and bombs, the only things missing were a giant heart and an oversized pistachio-looking flash grenade.

I greeted the shopkeeper and we placed the Sagi meat and items on the counter. We only got 2 gold for the lot.

Makes sense for weak monsters to not give much.

Next up were the Moroza items. The 3 horns and 2 wings fetched us another 1 gold. It was nice that Moroza items got you a bit extra, but it was clear that copy or not, low level monsters aren't worth much.

Lastly, I placed the antler down. The shopkeeper told us he didn't get Jika parts in often, let alone a Moroza version, so we would need to come back later in the afternoon for his appraisal. We thanked him, took our 3 gold, and left for the time being.

To my understanding, 1 gold is 10 silver, but roughly 186 copper.

Who picked such an arbitrary number?!

I'm not bad at math, but I didn't care for mucking about with that copper conversion and let Kana handle our funds. Our room at the inn cost 5 silver a night, so we had bought ourselves less than a week more to stay there.

Things were progressing a little less optimally than I'd hoped, so it was time for Kana to take me to every isekai main character's jump off point; the guild.