As soon as everyone spotted old man Gato, they started to greet him and then froze when they spotted Ryuji behind him. One of the young children seemed a bit scared and was the first to speak. “Uhm, grandpa?” after that she just pointed.

The old cat was about to speak when one of the men stood and smiled a questioning smile before demanding an explanation. “Gato, who is that? Why are you bringing people home with you when we already can’t feed the people here?”

Ryuji felt fairly embarrassed about the whole thing but a couple things solidified in his mind. First, there was no way to go wrong in getting the building. This house was barely any bigger than a studio apartment and there were nine of them in there. This was terrible, but he was careful not to let pity show on his face, he definitely didn’t want to look as though he were looking down on them. Then he noticed that there was even a portion of the living space taken up with work materials in progress, even if they had been pushed aside.

The old cat, Gato, looked a little annoyed with the younger but he didn’t let it color his voice. He was trying so hard to make this work. “This young elf lord is the repeat customer I’ve been speaking about. He came here to look at the house and show us the type of bag he wants. He also made a grand proposal that I think we should take him up on.”

As the old guy said the last words, he turned to look at Ryuji who stepped forward fully into the room and closed the door behind him. “My name is Ryuji, nice to meet you all. I came, as Mr. Gato said, to explain the make of the satchel I was hoping that you could make for me. Also, as Mr. Gato said, I have a proposition for you all to think on a bit.”

Ryuji looked over the room full of cat beastfolk and couldn’t help but marvel again at how very fantastic this world really was. Still, even as he enjoyed the scene of a family of cat-folk their scruffiness struck home and he realized that they were truly impoverished. “I want to open a storefront. I was telling Mr. Gato, I would like to open a leatherworking shop to sell your products. I also hope to find a place big enough for sale to have the store in part of it and be able to move the workers into the other part. I was hoping I could hire all of you to work there as well.”

As he said his spiel the occupants of the room all looked at one another in apparent bewilderment. Their ears and whiskers flickered and the ears of the one young man sat almost flat against his head. Ryuji didn’t take that to be a good sign. He didn’t reach for his sword but he tensed his arm momentarily. The young man simply looked at the older as if for confirmation. All of a sudden, the room erupted with talking as everyone began voicing their questions and concerns all at once.

Ryuji was bombarded by questions but the ones that he could pick out were; are you sure, why us, and do you mean all of us? Since he caught those three, he decided to answer those first. He held up his hand and they all fell silent after a moment. “I assure you that this isn’t a joke or something. I have an interest in opening a few businesses and your work has caught my attention. I want to sell your leatherwork and I can see that this place is clearly not suited to keeping up with the demands of a full storefront. I want you all to stay in the store and become my employees.”

Ryuji noticed a discrepancy; his speech had suddenly reverted to Japanese on the last word. He also noticed that the last word had left them all confused so he tried again. “Employee?” the word still came out in clear Japanese so he tried differently. “Workers?” this time everyone seemed to get it.

The response shocked him a tad but he tried to hide it as best possible to hurry things along. “Your Lordship? Why would you want us as your servants? You may lose customers because we’re beastfolk. We… it… are you sure?”

The young woman looked terrified but Ryuji smiled at her disarmingly. “That was my plan but are you saying there is something wrong with you? I see two eyes, two ears, two hands, two legs, one nose, and one mouth. You all seem to have the right number of things where they should be and you all look capable enough. You speak the same language for the most part.”

“I guess that maybe you’re saying that you couldn’t sell stuff because of what people might say to you? If that’s the case I guess I could hire a guard at the mercenary’s guild. Actually, that’s probably a good idea anyway.”

The look of shock and realization was priceless but he wasn’t done yet. “Oh good, I see you haven’t started cooking. I would rather not waste time in our meeting so why don’t you all come with me and I’ll get you all fed while we talk.” The looks on their faces were just great but he felt a sense of urgency because it was a bit later than he was expecting.

He turned and was about to open the door when one of the women spoke up. “What about the children, my lord. We haven’t fed them yet?”

Ryuji gave her a puzzled look. “I meant for you to bring them with you.”

“Are you certain my lord?”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“I’ll be hiring all of you so why wouldn’t I include them?”

The young woman that he assumed was the mother of some of the children looked relieved. They left in a group with old man Gato in the lead since he was the slowest. The men carried the children as they bustled along drawing a few gazes. For the most part, they seemed unconcerned because they were all too excited.

When they arrived at the inn Teresa was in the lobby and looked up from the table she was serving. A look of bewilderment washed across her face for a moment before she recognized Ryuji in the group. “Oh, well I’ll be. Made a few friends I see. Well, I guess you’ll have to wait a few minutes for some of the other guests to clear out of some of the seats at the larger tables.”

She pointed to a couple of the larger tables near the rear of the dining area and Ryuji saw a few people there. The guests in question all seemed to be looking at them and almost as one they grabbed their food and moved to other tables. Ryuji was a tad puzzled before realizing that people generally had a dim view of beastfolk here.

Ryuji shrugged and waved the group over to the seats and made a point of giving a friendly thanks to the people that had vacated their seats. The family settled in and a moment later Teresa bustled over to take their order. “Well lad, you certainly don’t do things by half measures, do you? So, what’ll it be? I can get everyone the regular supper or I could start a roast for the table? Oh, but the roast will take a while to cook.”

“We’ll save ordering the roast for celebrating at a later date. For now, can you bring us nine of the supper meals with some sweet bread after the meal?” Teresa nodded and a few minutes later both she and Karen came out of the kitchen bearing trays of a wonderful-smelling stew along with some kind of meat strips on another plate. They also had a pile of regular and sweet bread on plates. Karen winked at him as she set all the plates from her tray onto the table.

The family of cat beastfolk seemed hesitant till Ryuji gestured for them to eat. They all began to hesitantly try the food while Ryuji thanked Teresa and Karen. He paid for the meal with a couple silver and told Teresa to just keep the extra. The older members of the family looked like their eyes were going to pop out.

After everyone had had a chance to get some food in them Ryuji moved on to the topic he wanted to discuss. “I was a bit curious, What are the reasons that you and everyone else have those stands instead of stores? Is it just money?”

Several of them looked at one another before the young woman from earlier spoke up. “The money needed to buy a license for a stall is only five small copper every eightday but for a store, it’s two small silver per year. We might be able to get that much money but the amount needed to buy the building is way too much. I’ve heard that some people, on the square get really lucky and are able to eventually move into stores in the city somewhere. That was never an option for us because the stall doesn’t make that much. That is, if they would give a license to beastfolk.”

Ryuji was puzzled. “Why do people here seem to hate beastfolk?”

Gato answered. “We beastfolk have always been looked down on.”

When he showed no intention of continuing, Ryuji smiled at them disarmingly. “Well, Why don’t we see if we can change that then. I need people to work in my store. I have nothing against anyone who doesn’t have bad intentions. I’ll get the license but I would like to stay out of the day-to-day business as much as possible, I’ll just handle the bookkeeping behind the scenes and make sure that you have enough money to keep the store running smoothly. I suspect that at first, the store will need more money than it will make but that’s okay with me as long as it makes money in the long run. As a bonus, you’ll be improving the way people look at beastfolk.”

They all looked leery of a trap as if he had some hidden intentions, which he did of course, so he went on in a conspiratorial tone while leaning forward. “Okay, let me level with you all. *At these words the adults all looked at one another as if they knew this was too good to be true* The truth is I came here with a lot of money in a bag. I don’t remember who I was but I do remember a few details about my past. One of the things I remember is that nobles will always sniff out a pile of money and try to find a reason to make it their own. I need to spend a bunch of my money on a way to make money a little at a time. That’s why I’ve been staying here instead of in the richer parts of town. I don’t want to lose what I have any more than anybody else.”

The look of understanding and relief was blatantly visible on all their faces. He hated lying to them but if a little white lie would put them all at ease it was better than them not trusting him. “All right, so now you know the truth. I need something from you. I need scouts and informants in the city. I need you all to listen to any gossip about anything that seems remotely important and tell me about it. I need you all to keep me informed so I don’t trip into a situation that could have been avoided if I had only known because I can’t remember much of anything. Aside from that, I need you all to go find a place that would work for the store and get me the information on who owns it or who I need to talk to about buying it.”

The younger-looking of the women raised her tabby-colored paw-like hand so he directed all his attention to her. “To buy any property inside the walls of the city you have to talk to the baron’s tax officer in the south nobles district. Now that I think about it, we’re almost right there now. When you go to the end of the street and turn right, it’s just past the stables, on the right.”

“Thank you. So, what do you say? Will you help me? I’ll make it worth your efforts, I promise.”

After looking at each other they all began to nod one after the other. Then the younger of the men spoke up. “If you’re hiring them for the store, will you need a guard or two?”

He looked so desperate Ryuji could practically read his mind. “Yes, I will hire all of you. But it would probably be best if you kept your current jobs going until I have the new storefront bought and everything is settled for opening the store.”

They all cheered and he bought mugs of ale for them and anyone else who asked. It was a great night. He had several ales too. His body was grown so why not, right? He vaguely remembered being helped to his room by Karen and he could almost swear that she kissed him, but he probably dreamed that.