Reincarnated as the Only Human

”Well... there are many ways to make money in the world, and many different people you could talk to to get started making said money. It depends on what exactly you want to do and how you want to do it. Do you want to sell goods through someone else’s shop so that a portion of the profits is taken, but you have an established location that has customers selling your goods, or do you want to set up your own store to sell things from?

Either way you do things, Astra, there will be a target of some kind on your back, I just have to warn you. Money makes people do crazy things sometimes, and when you start selling some of your goods on any market, someone, somewhere, apart of some organization or family is going to feel threatened or annoyed by your actions. Of course, competition doesn’t always lead to violence, but...”

Standing up, Renna began to clean herself off with a flourish of her wand, the red head smiling softly as she admired the beautiful flower that she had told me was considered a ’legendary’ item in the world, something that people would wage wars over.

I joined her, curbing my lust and deactivating my skill as I returned to being a ’pure’ woman, and after a few moments I looked back at the forge before asking ”How many skilled blacksmiths are within Birchan? How many wineries that you consider to be worth a damn to the common people?”

”There are a few independent smiths established around here, and a few that are apart of organizations like the Auction House, the Guard, the Military and more. You would need to offer something special at a good price to get any attention though, and people don’t really take too new smiths all that easily; this is someone you usually are trusting with your life, after all. Trusting that person is needed for comfort of mind.

As for any wineries that sell to the average person, no, not many. People either ferment and make aged wines that are worth their weight in gold, or they churn out something disgusting that they parade around as ’wine’ for a couple coppers. But remember, if people start finding out someone is producing good quality wine for ’cheap’ and selling it to just about everyone...”

That made me sigh as I nodded, my general understanding of how people functioned letting me know that almost all of the people in that field would feel threatened and therefor take some sort of action against me for cutting into their profits, even if it was just a little.

Every field had risks, and I knew that, but I stared at the Duchess for a little while before asking ”But isn’t the Domus Stella a winery? And aren’t we going to be selling all sorts of wines to all sorts of people? So won’t that put a target on your head as well as mine?”

That just made her snort as she shook her head, saying ”A target yes, but a target that no one would dare to take action against. The Queen and I might have separated, but I am still one of her two closest advisors, and on top of that I have quite a lot of influence and power of my own. Only to illustrate a point, if I were to secede from the Queendom, I could set up my own state without much worry at all, but um... obviously I won’t.”

She blushed slightly at that, but I just nodded and brushed over her words, though I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a sign of the influence I might have over her already, but still, I just stopped thinking about it and instead went onto the next thing, which was yet another way to make money.

”And what if I did get myself a myriad of powerful backers? Do you think I would still have an ’easy’ or ’accessible’ target on my head?”

”Like who?”

The Duchess stared at me closely and narrowed her eyes, which made me chuckle as I replied ”Like Magistrate Fenkar, perhaps? Or the other Magistrates? Or perhaps I can chat with Duchess Leonisa?”, instantly making Renna pout at me as she crossed her arms over her abundant chest.

”Or I could just work with my lovely, amazing, incredible lover~! We could open a few stores around the area after Domus Stella sets off and makes money~! Since we both~ know that it will do wonders amongst the common people, no? Good wine for a good price... flavors galore and various marketing models set up to sell for more!”

Renna continued to stare at me before she sighed and nodded, her mind switching over towards business mode as she said ”There are still quite a few other things we have to smooth out before we open the store up, like what flavors we want stocked year round, which flavors should be exclusive to seasons or other things, how we want to sell things, and who we should hire for staff. There’s a lot to discuss.”

”Would you be angry at me if I suggested getting a small contingent of scantily clad women to sell the wine to people?”

She sighed again before shaking her head, the Duchess resting her head in her hands for a moment before she replied ”Personally yes, I would be angry, but from a business standpoint... it makes too much damn sense to not do it. Wine and pretty women pair together far better than anything else in this world has any right to do.”

I gave her a smile and looked her up and down, which made her purse her lips before she sighed yet again from the unspoken words between us, which only made it more amusing to me as I grinned.

”Oh hush you. We’ll go over it some more upstairs, with the others. We should discuss this as a group and not just between you and I, right?”