Frontiers ~Chronicles of Bucket-san’s Detailed Pioneering~

Chapter 22 – As Expected, Ideals Are Different From Reality After All

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While I was already making bronze gear regularly, I still couldn’t make items with Options in them.

There was a large demand for bronze equipment, so it’s not like it would be hard for me to keep raising my skill level by crafting, as I would be able to easily sell it soon after the production is done… Nonetheless, it will still take some time to reach the level where getting Options becomes a regular occurrence because the crafting process takes a while.

And according to Mika, most people would get really bored if they tried crafting all day, so they wouldn’t be able to keep at it for long… I think it’s pretty fun though.
It’s really nice to be able to craft a variety of things just by using the game’s systems.

That said, even I get tired eventually, so I need to take breaks… Like how right now I was working on some Magical Formations to rest.
Mika would probably tell me something along the lines of ‘How is crafting Magical Formations a way of resting!?’, but it’s wonderfully rejuvenating for me.

Also, Mika had requested me to make a Magical Formation for the ‘Magic Party’ skill, so I could heal my spirit while also fulfilling her request… It was a win-win!

… It was still mostly a hobby to make Magical Formations right now though.
I eventually want to be able to make just those, but right now I’ll keep on working on the other less fun types of crafting in order to reach that goal!

******

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After a while I ended up needing to take the usual break from the game, so I took care of my usual offline things, ate dinner, bathed, and then logged in again.
It was already evening in-game by now, so the library should be closed soon… That’s no good!

I hurriedly left the Rental Production Facility and went to the library.
I won’t be able to leisurely read the books there today, so I’m gonna pay the fee to rent them instead.
1000 Nil per rented book felt like a lot when I had just started, but now I can easily rent 3 books with the profit I get from selling a single bronze equipment, so there should be no issues in renting a few of them.

It’s also convenient that the game automatically delivers the books back to the library once the renting period is over, so I don’t even need to stress over that.
Moreover, the deadline is a whole week from the moment the book was rented, so there should be no issues in reading it whole before the time it will be automatically sent back.

… I do wonder why the Language skill exists though.
It’s important because I can’t read the books without it, but you level it just by reading, so the skill is already at a high level now… Also, it for some reason affects how many books you can rent at a time, it’s such a strange skill.

Either way, I borrowed three books before going back to the Rental Production Facility.

On the way there, I started thinking a bit more on how to reply to the girl that tried to recruit me to a crafter clan… Mmm… She is a bit short and also pretty cute, so let’s refer to her as Lolita.

At first I was just planning on refusing her invitation, but after Mika and Hime’s advice, I started reconsidering it a bit.
I still don’t think there is much point in joining her clan just for the sake of it though, but perhaps I could try setting some conditions that would make it beneficial for me to join?

Right now, according to Mika, I should be one of the top crafters of the game… Also, I have quite a bit of information that was obtained by browsing the forums, some unique recipes of my own as well as some mostly unknown recipes that I got from reading books… There’s no way I’d get any benefit from the information exchange on the clan.

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I mean, I of course don’t know everything, but I’m sure I’m well informed at the very least.

Moreover, I’d be bothered if Lolita or the other people of the clan started making specific requests to me when I’d rather sell them to the general public instead… Being in a clan would mean I’d need to deal with all those things, and I’m not sure that would be very beneficial…

Mika did tell me I should just jump into things without thinking much, but entering a clan isn’t as simple as accepting friend requests! I can’t do this half-heartedly!

While thinking of those things, I spent as much time as I could crafting, until I had to stop in order to sleep… There were still more materials to use, but it couldn’t be helped.

******

On the next day, I finished my usual morning routine before logging in to the game again.
It was already late night within the game, so most stores were already closed… Well, that doesn’t matter much for Pioneers though, so there were still quite a few stalls open with people buying and selling goods.

I figured it was a time as good as any other, so I set up a stall to sell the gear I produced yesterday… Which sold out in no time.
Probably because it was announced in the forums that I was already able to produce bronze gear reliably, so people came after me to buy it as soon as I set up my stall.

I made even more this time around, but all the equipment disappeared almost instantly… I suppose it can’t be helped.
Even if I produce large amounts of bronze gear, it can’t even compare to the demand of all the pioneers in Sabrina, I’m only one person after all.

That said, information about me being posted on the forums make it bothersome to open a stall, it becomes too easy for a troublemaker to come… Having a store at a time like this would be really beneficial.
I could just let a clerk handle those customers, and guards could more easily come to our aid if a troublesome person came.

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Moreover, I’d also be able to bar specific people from entering by using the game’s systems, and even the clerk could too, so it would be quite handy… Well, I’d need to make sure to hire a good clerk that would use this function only when necessary and that would deal well with customers though.

The nice part is that I could hire people directly from the Guild, so I’d probably be able to find someone nice to help me, but I’d still like to get some practice and information on how to hire people better.

******

While thinking of those things, I kept on doing business, mostly buying materials from other players, who were eager to sell them to me as they knew I’d want more in order to make more bronze gear, which they might want for themselves.

I wasn’t the only person selling 3* bronze gear on the market, but most people sold only in very small quantities… And when you add the fact that there are only a few players that work with crafting, you end up having me being the most reliable option to go to if you want new bronze equipment made.

Well, this much was enough though.
I could still afford to buy more materials, but I decided to stop for the day in order to save this money to rent a store.
It’s for the best that I go for this now, so I shouldn’t overspend.

Coming to this conclusion, I closed my stall and headed to… The guild.
I’d need to go to the Real Estate Agent to rent a store, but they’re closed right now since it’s late night, so let’s go to the guild instead in order to get more information on what I need to do to hire a clerk.

Once I got inside the guild and told the receptionist about what I wanted, I was guided to a separate room.
Seems like they prefer handling this kind of thing in private locations.

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That was probably for the best, since I could ask things more freely like this.
I didn’t know what store I was going to rent just yet, but I think that regardless of the building, I’d probably want to keep it open 24/7, but I’m not sure how many people I’d need for this, nor how much would I need to pay for them, so… Better ask the people that understand those things directly! It’s not like I need to hire someone right away anyways.

******

… I guess I should give up on the 24/7 plan.
I was convinced of that by the middle-aged man from the guild that explained me the details of how to hire a clerk.

I’d need to hire more people than I expected to cover this many shifts, and I’d also need to pay extra for the ones on night shift, so it would be hard on my finances.

Moreover, my current main product is bronze equipment, which happens to be sold almost immediately, so staying open 24/7 would be utterly pointless since I’d have very little to offer during most of the day, renting a store that runs on standard business hours would be a lot more reasonable.

It really felt like it was total overkill to try going for a 24h model with the current state of my sales… This was quite informative.
I was able to get a better notion of what I’d need when hiring and could also get some basic information on the clerks available so that I could think it over to decide on who to hire later.

As expected, my ideals of a store were quite far from what reality provided me… Still, even if it’s probably a bad idea on the finances end, I’d like to rent a big store that ran during business hours, and then consider hiring more people and increasing the hours that the store is open if I felt like there was enough demand for it.
Only if it would offset the cost of hiring more people to manage the store though.

Regardless of that… It’s still in the middle of the night in-game.
I thanked the guild staff for all his help.
He was visibly tired and seemed to be about to lose some hair from stress, so I shouldn’t bother him any further.

Well, I can’t go to the Real Estate Agent right now though, so let’s just find a quiet place and read the books that I borrowed from the library while I wait, maybe with some breaks here and there to craft more gear.