005. Those who made the wrong choice (1)
After that, I was able to obtain various information from Ayla.
Although he was wary of me, he’s a really easygoing kid, so if you gently tease him with your 8th grader mentality, he’ll just give you the information.
[Huh. Ayla. How well do you understand the flow of this school?]
[Hey, are you ignoring me?]
[Tell me. Hehe. Can you do it?]
[Huh. Let me explain. First of all, Zephrin···.]
[Wow. Not bad, but still not enough. Below are the prices of items in this school. Good items deserve their price. So why is this item priced like this?]
[It’s so easy I yawn. That’s it···.]
In this way, the gap between ‘Zeprin as reality’ and ‘Zeprin as a game’ began to gradually narrow.
And the thing I felt most was the difference in distribution network. This was a completely different flow from the game Zephrine.
Let’s think about it. Shop A is in the snowfield, and Shop B is in the desert. But both shops sell basic equipment and potions.
Isn’t that strange? How is that possible? Are there railroads built all over the world? Can items with exactly the same efficacy be supplied like that?
Are the giant manufacturing companies monopolizing retail because the standardization of products and the stabilization of logistics distribution have been achieved? Then why is that medieval and steampunk? Let them rule the world.
So I asked Ayla one last question.
[Then, can you show me the indicators of items that sell well and items that don’t sell well?]
[That’s our company’s vision, so it won’t work. Especially not for free.]
[Ha. Can you give me some candy?]
[······Candy. Maybe. If you can get it.]
Saying that, Ayla smiled and left.
And in those words, I got the biggest hint.
“Candy is expensive. … I guess that’s true.”
Sugar is a very labor-intensive process, whether it’s growing sugarcane or boiling down fruit to concentrate it.
And even if you farm, you don’t grow the most basic things like wheat or barley, you grow fruits, pick them, boil them, put them in a mold and harden them?
What about the monsters that appear in the meantime, and what about the beasts and demons that are after the fruit?
Fruit is expensive, and candy is even more expensive.
“Yeah. I see.”
I smiled and wrote down the order form.
The first thing to sell was decided.
***
And four days after taking over.
“Is this true?”
There are 0 customers in the store.
“Is this true?”
My grocery store was surprisingly uninteresting.
He covered his face with both hands and bowed deeply.
I covered my mouth and giggled without realizing it.
“Oh honestly, how did someone open a convenience store here?”
Phil, you really shouldn’t do business.
But what’s the point of just smiling?
“If this continues for a few more days, Ayla will come find me and say she’s disappointed in you! and put a knife in my mouth.”
Just as Wolfram is a vain royal villain, his fiancée, Ayla, is an ‘ambitious villainess’.
His ambition is so excessive that his eyes light up whenever he hears an ambitious story, as if his ambition has taken the place of his brain.
The fact that I survived last time was all because of my ‘ambitious acting’.
If she’s like that, it wouldn’t be a big deal for her to stab me in the back the moment I start to hesitate.
Even without mentioning Ayla, I have to somehow secure my place from now on.
And it doesn’t matter whether guests come or not.
“I placed an order, so it should arrive today.”
As scary as it was to say, I felt a presence outside the door.
There’s no way he’s a guest, he’s probably someone who came according to my order.
“The item you ordered has arrived.”
“You’ve worked hard.”
“······.”
The petite girl narrowed her eyes at me, sighed, and handed me a piece of paper.
“The total amount of items is 3,524,800 lin. After confirming receipt of the items, please sign here.”
“yes.”
I checked each and every item I ordered.
“All correct.”
“······A hot water bottle. A cart. ···And a collection of simple dining tools that can be made at home···? Why do I need these?”
“Is it your job to wonder who’s buying what?”
“···No. Maestro’s delivery man just delivers. Thank you for your order.”
As I took the items and signed for them, she nodded dully and left, and I shrugged.
I am strictly her customer, and that attitude is a poor example of customer service, but it doesn’t really matter. She is a saleswoman for the Golden Dwarfs’ organization Maestro, and what matters is that Maestro sold me something right now.
This is Zephrine’s weakness and advantage.
Maestro neither buys nor sells anything belonging to ‘Personal Wolfram’.
However, in accordance with the anti-monopoly law and fair trade law among Zephrine’s school rules, he has no choice but to accept the order from ‘Convenience store owner Wolfram’.
There used to be such a thing. The Ministry of Magic monopolized magic, the Knights monopolized mercenaries, the Maestro monopolized all tools and equipment, and Yggdrasil monopolized magical costumes, making each other angry. The student council lived there as they pleased.
That’s really a crazy party.
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Anyway, as a result, the academy was on the verge of bankruptcy, and it is said that the emperor, in a rare case, stepped in to punish those involved and make it a school rule.
At least be polite between groups.
So, since I have a grocery store according to the school regulations, I can place orders at Maestro.
And, Yggdrasil too. Even the Five-Colored Magic Tower cannot refuse my order.
“···Delivery from Yggdrasil.”
“···Delivery from the Five-Colored Tower.”
I greeted them with a smile, and they brought me their items with a chewed-out look on their face. They also brought me pamphlets of the items they were selling and recommended items to order.
Of course, the factory price was written inside.
“As expected. It’s very twisted. No, it’s completely different.”
I glanced at it and shrugged. The lowest level healing potion was 10,000 rin. In the game, it was 100 rin.
Even a stupid country is starting to understand why the prices are like this.
Anyway, this is also useful.
“If you boil fruit juice, add edible slime, and let it harden, you get Zephrine’s traditional candy.”
This is the basic candy combination recipe.
But here, when you add a few game-like elements, the profitability increases ridiculously.
For example.
“If you mix healing potion and water and grow them, the fruit will grow incredibly fast. And there’s… dried fish jerky and radish. And there are vegetables left. I can use those too.”
The healing potion that Phil left behind when he took over was a whopping 100 bottles. And the dried fish and vegetables that were left in stock.
With this, I’m thinking of pretending to be an alchemist.
***
In the Lohengrin Empire, magic is a great science.
A profession where one hundred geniuses lead one hundred thousand ordinary people, and where innate talent literally determines everything.
In the past, the nobles monopolized magic, but after the first emperor overthrew the empire, it became a subject only for geniuses, and those with magical talent could easily aim for a noble title.
Even common parents with some money send their children to academies for magical gifted education from a young age, and among them, the best are selected and sent to Zephrin, where the jewels that are worthy of shining are polished.
In theory, this is the most certain path for a commoner to ascend to the rank of noble. The odds are as high as a red dragon flying from the backyard, but it is not completely impossible, so even today, many talented people entrust themselves to Zephrin’s laboratory.
Magic is a long and arduous study.
Magic students complete four years of basic training. By that time, they have learned up to Tier 7 of the nine tiers of magic.
Starting from the most basic 9th tier light magic, learning the 4 major elemental magics of 7th tier over 4 years, Stone, Fire, Water, and Wind Ball is considered as completing a major and a diploma is awarded.
Usually, untalented nobles or commoners receive a diploma here and use their knowledge to become barons or wizards of yeomen in the outskirts of the provinces.
But those with talent knock on the door of academia once again.
Some decide to devote their lives to the study of magic, while others are so talented that they are persuaded by the professor and begin to help him with his research. These students go beyond the department and make magic their home.
Those who never give up until they have achieved their learning from the fifth grade, those who stay up all night to help the professor with his experiments or write a new magic paper. This is what the world calls them.
Bigger – greater meaning
Student – Trying to learn
Won – A home for learning
Life – One who has given his life.
Magic graduate student.
Those who graduate will either join the Central Counts of the Duchy at the very least, or the Magical Order directly under the Imperial Family at the very most, or be appointed as assistant professors to Zephrin, and they will continue to hone their magic in the Magic Cave day and night.
“Ugh······.”
“Ugh······. Ugh······.”
Today, too, endlessly.
Polish yourself.
***
Birds have been chirping since dawn.
But graduate students have been chirping since before dawn.
“Ugh···.”
“Professor···your name···.”
A smile came to my face as I listened to the cries of graduate students crawling out of hell to get to work.
This world, which is both a ‘class system’ and ‘academic achievement is a legitimate opportunity for social advancement’, has written all over how great this academy-based Zephrin is from the official settings, and within it, Zephrin’s first half of undergraduate education is 4 years, and the second half of academy education is 3 years.
Well, actually, the 3-year period is not always observed, and there are many cases where it lasts 5 or 7 years, but anyway, most of the people who come to work at this time at Zephrine are ‘magic graduate students’.
The future of the Lohengrin Empire, where he could not fall asleep on time, could not wake up on time, became one with his lab, risked his life for a single study suggested by his professor, and had to submit a thesis with academic significance, was walking darker than the dawn.
“You guys are having a hard time”
“······eww?”
“·········Huh?”
Two graduate students confronted me.
The eyes that had been dead just a moment ago moved unfocused.
Oh, look at that rotten thing. The eyes of a mackerel left outside for a week in the summer are even brighter.
“It’s chilly in the morning. Are you going to work?”
“······uh.”
“you are···.”
“Wolfram. This is Wolfram von Lohengrin.”
“···Yes. I know.”
“But why are you here···?”
The graduate students’ expressions were filled with wonder. I smiled at that sight and so did I.
Undergraduate students between the first and fourth years. Especially when they were younger, they would have been wary and rejected me when they saw me, but I think that students who are old enough to be academy students are more curious about me than they are rejecting me.
I’m not sure if it was the curiosity that was characteristic of graduate students who had decided to pursue academia, but my plan worked just because they didn’t reject me outright.
In fact, whatever happens among the undergraduate students, the students of the academy are too busy taking care of themselves to know. Even the last-year sergeant is distracted by the work of the barracks, but in a way, they are reservists who have been discharged.
“It’s a bit chilly, so why don’t you have a glass of soup and go inside?”
“Uh······. Huh?”
“Soup···?”
Soup.
It’s called soup with dried pollack, as the name suggests.
I put some vegetables and dried fish that looked like they would taste good in the hot water bottle I ordered last night and boiled it, seasoned it with salt, and it tasted like dried fish soup.
Early morning. A tangled stomach from all the brain work the day before. A morning when you think of hot soup, whether it’s from the lab or from the dormitory.
A bowl of warm dried pollack soup for those people.
Ah, I can’t stand this.
“I cooked it myself for you who have been working for the empire since morning. It’s not too hot, I made it warm.”
“Ugh, ugh, ···ugh ugh ugh.”
“One cup is enough.”
“That, that’s a bit expensive…”
“There’s a refill.”
“·········eww.”
“Up to three times. In fact, one bowl costs 3000 rin.”
We talked with our eyes at that moment.
They took out ten thousand-lin notes from their pockets, and I handed them a paper cup and a ladle.
“Ugh… It’s melting….”
“Keuu …
At first, I thought it would be hot because it was blowing, but I set it very precisely to ‘the temperature that you can drink in one sip.’
The two graduate students poured Wolfram’s special dried pollack soup into paper cups one after another, and with each drink, their bodies felt more alive.
“Whew. That was a good drink.”
“···Wow. I’ll live. Really.”
“It’s good to see you, the ones who will become the pillars of this country, happy. Do your best in your studies.”
“Yes, yes···.”
“It’s really delicious. Did you hear anything special…?”
“hmm?”
After drinking, they looked at my face, feeling a bit shaky.
I’m the evil student council president, so I guess I took some bad medicine or something.
“Why. It looks like something is burning. These are ingredients that can be used for food investigation in Yggdrasil right now. I swear it on the imperial family.”
“Oh, I see. Yes.”
They nodded as the prince walked to the palace.
“Then we’ll leave now···”
“It was really delicious and I enjoyed the drink.”
“It’s good to go.”
“Yes? Is there anything else you would like to say···.”
“No, doesn’t research in a lab take up quite a lot of energy?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Look at that.”
“Huh?······Ah.”
I glanced at the stand next to the hot water tank.
Inside were a bunch of candies that were almost rotten, like those found in a convenience store, and a paper cup.
And the luxurious handwriting on the sign.
[50,000 Lin per cup of candy. No matter how much you put in, it’s always 50,000 Lin per cup. Let’s put in as much as you can! One cup per person per day!]
“Would you like to try?”
“···under.”
“This is really···!”
As I said this, the graduate students fell for my provocation and soon began carefully placing individually wrapped candies into the cups one by one.
Their passion and effort were the driving force behind Lohengrin, and I smiled at the sight of them using their magical engineering design and intelligence to put candies in cups. And I smiled at the sight of them handing me a lot of bills.
“Your Majesty, I will take the candy with me.”
“Hehehe. You saw the graduate students as water.”
As they said that, they looked at me with a lot of candy in their pockets, and I shrugged my shoulders as if I was defeated.
They headed towards the rap with great pride, and I clicked my tongue pitifully as I watched their backs.
But isn’t it because they are happy?
I shrugged and calculated the profit from the candy and codfish soup just now.
good.
It remains.
No, there’s a lot left.
“Heh, heh heh.”
I smiled without realizing it, and at the same time the birds started chirping.
Tweet. Tweet.
After dealing with those two, it seems like dawn has come.
Soon, one by one, graduate students began to walk toward the magic village from here and there.
These people are out of focus, reminiscent of zombies.
I looked at them and chuckled.
“You’ve worked hard for the country day and night again today. Here’s some warm soup and unlimited candy!”
At my loud voice, the graduate students all stopped in their tracks and slowly approached me.
Oh, it’s not like it’s a zombie movie or anything…
An hour later like that.
“···Ugh. Heh, heh heh, thank you. Thank you··· This warm soup···. This is the first time since I came to the academy···. Heh, heh heh······sob.”
“Oh my… thank you… really… thank you….”
“Go in carefully”
As the last graduate student entered the lab, I realized the truth when I saw the empty water coolers and candy stands.
“Even if I set my mind to my studies, I will never become a graduate student.”
I was sincere.
