Rejection

The euphoria of our impromptu business launch lasted exactly eighteen hours.

I woke up the next morning on what passed for a bed in the cheapest inn we could find—basically a straw mattress that had seen better decades—with the kind of optimistic energy that comes from believing you've just solved all your problems in a single evening. Mr. Tanaka was already up, dressed, and organizing papers at the room's single wobbly table with the methodical precision of someone preparing for corporate warfare.

"Ready for our first official day as business owners?" I asked, stretching muscles that were still protesting our interdimensional journey.

"I've been ready since four AM," he replied without looking up from his ledger. "I've drafted service packages, pricing structures, and preliminary marketing strategies. We're going to revolutionize this economy, Yamamoto."

His confidence was infectious. After years of watching him stress about other people's accounting problems, seeing him this energized about his own business was genuinely inspiring. We made our way back to the Adventurers Guild with the swagger of entrepreneurs who were about to corner an entire market.

That confidence lasted approximately fifteen minutes.

"You want to do what to our finances?" The [Human Warrior, Level 22] we were speaking with looked at us like we'd just offered to perform surgery on his sword.

"Optimize your operational efficiency through systematic expense tracking and profit maximization strategies," Mr. Tanaka repeated patiently. "Based on your party's quest history, we estimate we could increase your net earnings by thirty to forty percent."

The warrior's expression grew even more skeptical. "And how exactly would you do that?"

"Well, for starters, you're not properly categorizing your equipment maintenance costs, which means you're missing significant tax deductions. You're also not accounting for depreciation recovery on magical item sales, and your potion inventory management system is creating unnecessary carrying costs..."

"Stop." The warrior held up a hand. "You're talking about paperwork."

"Well, yes, but-”

"Paperwork." He said it like it was a curse word. "You want me to pay you to do paperwork. Instead of fighting monsters and earning glory."

"The paperwork would help you earn more money from fighting monsters," I interjected hopefully.

"Real warriors don't need tricks to make money," the warrior declared with the kind of absolute certainty that could only come from someone whose worldview had never been challenged by a quarterly tax filing. "Real warriors earn gold through strength, courage, and skill. Not through... through... accounting manipulation."

He walked away, leaving us standing there with our carefully prepared sales pitch and the dawning realization that maybe this was going to be harder than we'd thought.

"That was... unexpected," Mr. Tanaka said, consulting his notes as if they might contain an explanation for what had just happened.

"Maybe he was just having a bad day?"

But our next potential client, a [Human Crusader, Level 19], had an even more emphatic rejection.

"You're paper pushers," she said flatly. "I've heard about your type. People who hide behind desks while real adventurers risk their lives in actual combat."

"But we're trying to help you make more money from your actual combat," I protested.

"Money earned through clever accounting isn't earned money," she replied with the kind of moral certainty that made further argument seem pointless. "It's just exploitation of bureaucratic loopholes. True strength comes from facing danger head-on, not from manipulating numbers in a ledger book."

As she stalked away, I noticed that several other high-level warriors and crusaders were nodding in agreement. There seemed to be a cultural attitude here that I hadn't fully appreciated: these people genuinely believed that anything involving paperwork was inherently cowardly.

"This is a problem," Mr. Tanaka muttered, watching our third potential client of the day—a [Human Paladin, Level 20]—literally turn his back on us when we approached.

"They think we're scammers?"

"Worse. They think we're weak." He consulted his notes again, as if proper organization could solve a cultural bias problem. "Look at their behavior patterns. Every rejection has followed the same theme: real strength comes from direct action, not intellectual analysis."

I observed the general atmosphere of the guild with fresh eyes. The high-level adventurers, the ones with the most money and therefore the most potential benefit from our services, all carried themselves with a particular kind of pride. They wore their scars like badges of honor, discussed their battles like war stories, and seemed to measure their worth primarily through their ability to solve problems with violence.

"It's like trying to sell diet plans to people who think exercise is cheating," I said.

"Exactly. And the irony is that they're all struggling with the same financial management problems, but they'd rather lose money than admit they need help with something they perceive as unmanly."

A [Human Berserker, Level 24] overheard our conversation and laughed—a sound like rocks grinding together. "You boys still trying to convince people that counting coins is a real skill?"

"Financial management is a highly specialized field requiring-” Mr. Tanaka began.

"Highly specialized?" The berserker's laugh got louder. "My axe is specialized. My battle fury is specialized. Sitting at a desk adding numbers? That's what people do when they're too scared for real work."

"But surely you can see the value in maximizing your quest earnings?" I tried.

"I maximize my earnings by killing bigger monsters," he replied simply. "More danger, more reward. That's how the world works. You want more money? Get stronger, fight harder, take bigger risks. Don't try to trick the system with clever math."

After he walked away, Mr. Tanaka and I sat down heavily at an empty table, surrounded by the evidence of our failure. We'd approached maybe a dozen high-level adventurers, and every single one had rejected our services with varying degrees of disdain.

"Maybe we misjudged the market," I said.

"Maybe we misjudged the culture," Mr. Tanaka corrected. "Look around. This isn't just an economy—it's a warrior culture. Status comes from combat prowess, respect comes from battlefield achievements, and anything that suggests you can't handle your own problems is seen as weakness."

I watched a group of [Human Warriors, Level 18-21] at a nearby table regaling each other with stories of their latest dungeon crawl. The way they talked about facing monsters, overcoming traps, and earning their rewards through personal risk—it was clear that the struggle itself was part of the value proposition.

"They don't want their lives to be easier," I realized. "They want their lives to be heroic."

"Exactly. And we're offering to remove the challenge from their financial management. To them, that's like offering to remove the monsters from their dungeons."

It was a sobering realization. We'd been so focused on the obvious inefficiencies in their system that we'd completely missed the cultural reasons why those inefficiencies might be tolerated—or even preferred.

"So what do we do?" I asked. "Give up and go back to trying to find a portal home?"

Mr. Tanaka was quiet for a long moment, staring at his carefully organized business plan like it had personally betrayed him. Then his expression shifted, and I could see him working through the problem with the same methodical approach he applied to tax code analysis.

"We adapt our market strategy," he said finally. "The high-level adventurers don't want our help because they see financial management as beneath them. But what about the people who need our help more than they need to maintain their warrior pride?"

"You mean...?"

"I mean we target the adventurers who are struggling enough that practical results matter more than cultural posturing." He pulled out his notebook and started making fresh observations. "Look around. Not everyone here is a Level 20+ warrior with an ego the size of a castle."

I followed his gaze and realized he was right. While the high-level adventurers were the most visible and vocal members of the guild, they weren't the majority. There were plenty of [Level 8-15] adventurers who looked less confident, less successful, and significantly more willing to consider unconventional solutions to their problems.

"The mid-level market," I said, understanding his logic.

"The smart market," he corrected. "People who've been adventuring long enough to understand the challenges, but not so long that they've developed inflexible attitudes about how things should be done."

As if to prove his point, a [Human Mage, Level 12] at a nearby table was having what appeared to be a financial crisis over spell component costs. Her voice was getting louder as she explained to her party that she literally couldn't afford the reagents needed for tomorrow's quest.

"And there," Mr. Tanaka said, pointing discreetly toward the distressed mage, "is someone who cares more about solving her problem than maintaining her pride."

"So we start smaller?"

"We start smarter." He closed his notebook with renewed determination. "We prove our value to people who actually need us, build a client base that can serve as references, and let success speak for itself."

"And the high-level warriors who think we're weak?"

Mr. Tanaka's smile was sharp. "Give us six months, and they'll be coming to us asking why their earnings are lower than our clients' despite taking bigger risks."

I had to admit, there was something satisfying about that prospect. "Revenge through superior accounting practices?"

"Yamamoto," he said, standing up and straightening his tie, "there's no revenge quite like demonstrating that your supposedly inferior methods produce consistently superior results."

The [Human Mage, Level 12] was still arguing with her party about spell component budgets, and her frustration was becoming increasingly obvious to everyone within earshot.

"Our first real client?" I asked.

"Our first real client," Mr. Tanaka agreed, picking up his briefcase and approaching the struggling mage with the confident stride of someone who had just figured out exactly how to build an empire.

Starting with people who actually wanted help instead of people who thought needing help was a character flaw.

It wasn't the dramatic market domination we'd envisioned, but it was definitely more realistic.

And honestly? Watching Mr. Tanaka transform from corporate drone to entrepreneurial strategist was worth the temporary blow to our egos.

Even if it meant starting our revolution one financially desperate mage at a time.