Teresa was so overwhelmed by the news of her old friend’s good fortune that she didn’t even charge her patrons for the bread Lizbet had brought. There was a lot of it so Ryuji grabbed a couple of the sweet bread twists before they left again. The next destination was the market plaza just across the bridge. The older daughter, Sennet, had a stand full of bread there.

After explaining the situation to her for several minutes they quickly packed up the remaining bread and the stand. The next destination was the market plaza near the North-West gate. Ryuji had never been to that one. There were a lot of places in the city that he hadn’t been to yet. On the way, they talked a bit about the plaza that the younger daughter worked in. Ryuji was astonished to find out that there were market plazas dotted all through the city and you could even get illegal items from them if you knew who to look for.

He was equally astonished that anybody would have the stomach to buy food when they were that close to the North-West gate stables. This was a terrible location to sell bread from but it looked like people were still going there despite the smell.

The conversation came to a pause in front of the last of the bread stalls. The younger sister looked at the three of them for just a moment then she got a big grin on her face. It was apparent from her expression that she already knew what was up. Once it was explained she was left stunned. It turns out that she had guessed that they had gotten a building but she had thought that they were getting a much smaller one that she had heard had also just sold. When she found out that they were getting the old bakery she just about started to cry.

Ryuji was intrigued because he had yet to even set his sights on the new building he had purchased. The ladies packed the stand up and each of the sisters carried a large sack of bread over their shoulder. From what Ryuji could see, the other stands had a focus on the cheaper types of bread while Lizbet’s had a lot more of the more expensive types of bread. With their bread stowed away, the younger sister took the lead and showed them the way to the new storefront.

The four of them hadn’t gone very far when Janet, the younger sister, yelled to them that it was in the plaza just ahead. Ryuji looked to the side and was astounded to see Dorn’s shop, Potions and Such, was just up the street from where they were currently. That would be all too convenient. Ryuji would be able to get his lunch so much quicker once the bakery was operational.

When they entered the market plaza there wasn’t much question of which building it was. Off to the right was a rather large building with a huge chimney on the front. There were around a dozen people going in and out of the building at a frantic pace. Most of them carried cleaning supplies but a couple looked like they might be apprentice carpenters or something similar. There was also a crowd of people looking on and speculating about the work going on. Ryuji walked up to the crowd of spectators to listen in.

“you see that? They got two carpenter crews and a mason in there. Who do you suppose bought it?”

“How should I know? I bet it was one of the barons. Probably can’t get rid of a daughter and is going to make her take on a trade.”

“No. You two don’t know anything. It would take years to get good enough at baking to make it worth buying a place like this. Probably some trader from down south, maybe even the capital.”

“Oh yeah? And how would you know?”

“oh, I… well. I’ve kind of got a crush on the younger daughter of this baker lady who’s been selling bread here for years. I just don’t think she’s noticed me.”

At this Ryuji turned to see Janet turning red and her mother and sister grinning ear to ear.

One of the other men grinned and clapped him on the shoulder before turning him around. “Oh, I think she just did.”

There was a chorus of chuckles and catcalls as the two stared embarrassedly at one another. Ryuji smiled at them but he had other business so he walked on past. There was a large gruff looking woman shouting orders to several of the people running about the place. he took her to be the foreman… forewoman? Anyway, he went up to her and she spared a quick glance shouting a couple quick orders before turning to face him fully. “Can I help you, sir?”

Ryuji was quick with the compliment to try putting her at ease. “Oh, you’re helping me plenty. This looks splendid! Ah, yes. Let me introduce myself. My name is Ryuji and I just purchased this building and was hoping that you could give me and my tenants a quick tour of the property. I promise we won’t keep you long. I just wanted the ladies to get an idea of the place they’ll be running for me. Would you be so kind? I promise it’ll be worth your trouble”

After Ryuji pulled out a large copper her eyes widened and she smirked. “Really wish I could. Really, really wish I could. But if I don’t stay on these lot, they’ll just sit on their hands. *She turned, put her hands together, stuck both pinkies in her mouth, and gave a shrill whistle before yelling.* Mullie, shake your tail!”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

At the foreperson’s bellow, a thickly muscled fox beastfolk girl came running over with a bandana wrapped around her head and her red hair and fox ears poking out the top she was adorable, despite being taller and much broader than Ryuji. Her sizable cleavage might have helped in that regard.

The foreperson introduced her. “this is Mullie. If you’d allow, I’d like you to hire her for the tour instead. She’s been all through the place by now. She’d be much better as a guide. Besides, she has a big family to feed and I’ve only got little old me. I’d just spend it on booze after work!”

After this bit of honesty, she and Ryuji had a laugh. he handed the large copper to the fox girl and just for good measure, he flipped a small copper to the foreperson. “We’ll be in your care.” He had actually been a bit astonished when he reached into his coin purse and found a large copper there instead of the small copper coins he was expecting.

After a quick nod to the baker trio, who for some reason seemed to have picked up a very happy looking fourth, they all came walking over. The guy and the younger daughter, Janet, seemed to be in kind of a daze and were holding hands so he wasn’t sure how much they would get out of this tour. Just like that the surprisingly shrill-voiced Mullie began a tour of the building.

The place was huge! Ryuji was amazed that such a huge building could be bought for just twelve small gold. he had to quickly reel himself in, twelve small gold was more money than most people in this world would ever see.

Figuring the exchange rate based on something common to both worlds Ryuji remembered buying meat skewers from street vendors back in Japan. A common one was around one hundred yen while a big one or a really good one might be about double. Thinking about portion sizes he figured that the ones here would probably be on the upper end. If a skewer was two small coppers, then that would make the exchange rate a simple hundred yen per small copper.

There was some muddling from the progression being in eights instead of tens but that aside that would make the amount he paid for this property right at about five million yen. It was extraordinarily cheap by his estimation. But then he was used to the kind of property costs you might expect in Japan. His parents lived in a cheap older place that was almost an hour from their work in Nara and the price was still seventy thousand yen a month.

This place was a fixer-upper but nowhere near bad enough condition to warrant the kind of price difference between what he was used to and this. Mullie pointed out several weak spots in the floor for them to avoid but overall, the place didn’t look that bad at all. The ladies were in awe far more than Ryuji was.

The building was two stories where the store was on the bottom and the living area was on top. The bottom had four large rooms. The one they walked into first was a mostly open area with wooden shelves and a counter. This was obviously the sales area. It opened onto the plaza and also onto the street on the other side of the building. In the rear of the room behind the counter were the stair leading up and a door leading deeper into the building.

The next room back was the kitchen. It had a huge kiln-like oven that took up one whole wall of the room. He figured with an oven that size they could bake enough bread every day to sell to the whole city. The ladies were mesmerized by the sight until the mason walked in front of them and broke the trance. There were shelves and tables and in one corner he even spotted a well. Lizbet didn’t miss that either and she just smirked at him.

Next was a room full of shelves and racks. He didn’t get this one and Sennet explained that this was the rising room where the bread was left to rise before baking. The last of the four rooms was a storage room and there were several people in there with shovels getting the old grains and flower out by the wheelbarrow load. There was also a guy there with a sword stabbing rats that ran from the workers. There was a fifth room but a privy isn’t something you would want to talk about.

The upper floor was divided into eight rooms. There was a living room or study since it had a bookshelf with a couple books on it. There was a dining room next to the kitchen. The oven in the kitchen seemed to use the same chimney as the lower one but it wasn’t a fraction of the size. There was a privy right above the one downstairs. Then there were three bedrooms. Each was fairly big and there were a few people bustling about up here but not many. There was linen on the old beds but it was all decayed. There was a lot of furniture here though.

After the tour, the three women looked as dazed as Janet had before the tour, and the guy did too. They all started talking and crying and thanking Ryuji all at once. He just held up a hand and when they quieted down, he smiled before speaking. “This is a business deal. There is no need to thank me because you’re going to be paying me back, remember? The workers have to finish the repairs and cleaning but once that’s done, I suggest you be ready to move your stuff in. you’ll also need to secure enough supplies to run the store for a while, and don’t forget that it’ll use more of everything than you’re used to.”

“While we’re on the subject of things you’ll need, you might as well hire people to work in the store and to run the stalls. You could even get a few more stalls started in some of the other market plazas you told me about. Better go home and get to figuring out how much you need to get started. Also, I’m just curious, what are you going to do with all that bread?”

After looking at each other they decided to give some of the bread out to all the workers. There was still a lot of bread left so Ryuji suggested they give it to the local orphanage. The women all looked overjoyed at the idea and they dragged the guy along as they headed off toward the northern slums. Just as they were about to run off Ryuji mentioned to them that, since they were going to the slums, it might be a good time for them to fish around for workers for their bread stands and the new ones they would be opening.

When Ryuji arrived back at the inn Karen was waiting and practically jumped in his arms. She asked all about it so he told her all the details over supper. Somehow there was a conspicuous lack of dishes that didn’t involve some kind of bread.