"I see. So you attended as the Reaper Group?"
Rey and his three business partners—or rather, underlings—were speaking outside the hall—in the garden downstairs.
They had exchanged a few words on their way there, so some of his questions were answered very quickly.
'Ater did tell me about how he took temporary charge of the Reaper Group and used their resources to help rebuild the Capital.' Rey thought to himself as he analyzed their presence and its significance in the grand scheme of things.
Thanks to the Reaper Group's aid, the Royal Council officially recognized them as their supplier for Enchanted Items.
Rebal was to be granted a Noble Title once the Capital was fully constructed, and the Reaper Group's name was going to become inconceivably big in no time at all.
"Indeed. We've also had talks with some Nobles around, and it looks like we're going to be expanding very soon."
The areas in the South were a profitable area for business, but Enchanted Items weren't particularly needed there since the people there were relatively safer than other regions.
But… all of those things were slowly changing.
"With our Group being officially recognized by the Royal Council, the Nobles will not want to be left behind, so they'll do their best to arm themselves with the best we can offer. Since our products are the trend at the moment, they'll patronize us for the heck of it."
Rebal was right! The behavior of the rich wasn't particularly complex when it came to purchasing luxury items.
'But, that isn't all…' Rey narrowed his eye as he analyzed all Rebal was saying.
'Since they've been gathering Otherworlders, it's possible that they also have plans for the Enchanted Items that they want to purchase from the Reaper Group.'
Perhaps the Nobles were planning some sort of scheme to overthrow the Royal Council or something of the sort.
'No. That's not possible thanks to the curse.'
The Council could not betray the Nobles, but the latter also couldn't betray the former.
'I might be overthinking this. Let's focus on other things first…'
"I still can't believe Sir Ralyks was actually an Otherworlder who was summoned to save this world." Asher, still disguised as his Aldred alias, beamed as he spoke to Rey.
"It truly is a pleasure."
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})"Haha! It's all good." Rey then turned to Kara, who had been silent throughout the exchange.
"And how are you, Kara? Ater tells me you're the one keeping the Group afloat."
"Haha… Sir Ater overestimates my abilities…" She shyly responded, shifting her glasses as she nervously looked away.
Rey didn't remember her being this bashful, but he reckoned it was due to his change in status and perspective.
"So this is what you look like under the mask. Not what I expected."
'Ahh… I almost forgot about that!' Rey's eyes slightly widened once he had this thought.
With his emotions suppressed, his anxiety and complex had been so drastically reduced that it was very difficult for him to be so self conscious of his appearance.
It actually took effort to think along those lines.
"That's rude, Asher!" Rebal reprimanded, glaring deeply at the boy beside him.
"A-ah, I apologize. I just meant… you look a lot younger than I… sorry…"
'Now that I think about it, isn't his real age close to mine?' Rey smiled to himself as he shrugged the whole thing off.
He even chuckled slightly.
"It's fine, really."
Asher heaved a sigh of relief, Rebal maintained an apologetic smile, while Kara fidgeted as she stood. The three had a lot to discuss, but thanks to Asher's supposed blunder, everything took a slight halt.
Rey figured he had to keep the conversation going, so he started off with something casual.
"By the way, where's Yuri?"
"Ah, she's currently patrolling the area. I believe she should be in the hall at this moment—perhaps searching for us, or looking around."
As a Group officially recognized by the Council, the Reaper Group's security detail was allowed that freedom.
'Of course, I already knew where she was. I even know her exact location at the moment.' Rey smiled.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})The moment he saw Rebal, Asher, and Kara, he began to scan around for trances of Yuri.
'That girl still makes me uneasy.' It was one of the reasons he made them walk to the garden to talk.
He knew she was heading for the hall through another entrance and he wanted to avoid her at all costs.
Thankfully, his plan worked!
'She's inside the hall talking to Trisha right now. I always pictured those two getting along—as warriors, of course.'
In this world, female warriors were extremely rare.
Since Martial Arts were presumed to be suited for men, and Magic geared towards women, this was the status quo for most of the people in the Alliance.
The only female warriors he knew to be decently strong were Trisha, Britta, Yuri, and Lucy.
No other female came close.
'In any case, now that we've broken the ice, let's continue talking about business.' He thought to himself as Rebal took the cue and shifted to the recent activities of the Reaper Group and their future plans.
Rey smiled as he listened to their discussion.
'Keep going! This is a good chance to catch up on all I've missed.'
Ater had only given Rey a brief summary of the whole thing, since there were a lot of things going on at the time.
Even now, Rey was yet to fully unpack all the business he had with Ater.
All of that could wait, after all.
'Speaking of Ater, though, where is he?' Rey had previously thought he was busy directing the Gala's preparation, so he didn't think too much about his absence.
However, Ater wasn't present at the Gala either.
~Master, what if I told you I know where he is?~
Rey rolled his eyes as he heard the voice of the Symbiote Slime in his head.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})'Are you just saying that to get me to speak to you?'
~Yayyyy! You finally responded! I mean… No~
Rey had been ignoring Emil all night due to her constant talk inside his head. She was especially loud during his dance with Lucielle, though he silenced her out of his mind.
It seemed she was looking for every opportunity to make him talk to her, so she tried to gain his interest by telling him about her knowledge of Ater's whereabouts.
Unfortunately for her, he was bound to her—so he could tell that she was lying.
'Nice try.'
~W-wait Master! Okay, I'm sorry! Sor—!~
Once again, Rey zoned Emil from his thoughts and continued to focus on his business talk with Rebal and the rest.
There were a few things that were initially difficult for him to understand, after all this was all about business, but he figured them out once he thought about them deeply.
'Good news is that the Reaper Group is about to get very rich. Bad news is that resources are running low, and there isn't enough supply for the demand that is to come.'
Money was no longer the issue.
The problem was getting very lucrative resources that could serve as raw materials—enough to deliver items of the best quality at a mass rate.
"If only we had that Elf deal again…" Rebal said in passing, which made Rey remember something.
Something he previously thought could wait.
'I guess I'll have to talk to Ater about it later…'
*
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Thanks for reading!
I'm sure some of you can already see where this is going.
… Or can you? Pfft!
