Reincarnated into a Game As the Hero’s Friend

This chapter was originally splitted into two parts. We have decided to merge these parts. If you want to read from part two, please click HERE to jump to it.

I am more or less exhausted after finishing my long explanation with the Adventurer Guild but I still moved my legs to the Mercenaries Guilds next door. It’s just walking from one side of the building to the other not moving between two buildings though. Is it just I or The stench of alcohol in the Mercenaries Guild is stronger than in Adventurer Guilds? Maybe it’s my nose playing tricks on me because of the image of drunkard mercenaries in my head.

“Welcome to the Mercenaries Guild. How may I be of service?”

“I’m here to commission several mercenaries to escort a merchant corps.”

“Please proceed inside.”

Different than the Adventurer Guild, the receptionist here is a fairly old man. I suppose there’s no need to offer the hospitality of a beautiful woman to the client who came here to commission the rough mercenaries.

This old man is probably a former mercenary who retired due to old age or injury. To support the retired mercenary is one of the reasons why a guild exists after all. Though the support the guild offered isn’t on the same level as the retirement support in modern times.

It’s hard to define the exact difference between a mercenary and an adventurer. A very rough answer is adventurers are people who venture into dungeons while mercenaries are people who engaged in battle in an open field.

The most significant difference between the two is their versatility. Adventurers are a jack-of-all-trades. They can venture into dungeons or accept investigation requests like mine. On the other hand, most adventurers moved in small groups.

That’s why an adventurer needs knowledge and experience to adapt to various situations. It’s not even a stretch to say adventurers who lack both are the one that dies first.

While mercenaries are commissioned for a situation in which combat will be expected. Mercenaries rarely accept a commission for things like investigation, gathering magical herps, or labyrinth exploration. Of course, they won’t accept commissions like exploring historical ruins. If it’s guarding an archeologist on a historical ruins’ exploration there’s a slim chance they might accept it though.

Also, some adventurers dislike combat and won’t accept commission related to it, like exterminating bandits, but mercenaries generally will accept. Simply put, mercenaries are combat specialists.

Then, long-term jobs like becoming a city guard or maintaining public order in certain places are generally mercenary jobs, while adventurers tend to perform short-term jobs. The variety of jobs accepted by adventurers is also more compared to mercenaries.

Let’s take my commission as an example. For a short-term escort job that goes from town A to town B that’s an adventurer’s job while for a long-term escort job that goes from town A to town B, C, D, then back to town A that’s a mercenary’s job.

It’s not exactly a rule though. It’s more of what kind of job most merchants and adventurers usually accept. If an adventurer already knows and is close to a client that adventurer can accept a long-term escort mission.

Mercenaries are also often commissioned as one large mercenary group. Among these mercenary groups, there’s a proper division role like an accountant, etc and in many cases, the group operated as a single organization.

Because many mercenaries move as one big organization it takes less time for an employer to explain the division of roles for jobs like escort missions and protection missions. This is different compared to adventurers as many adventurers are bad at operating as a large group.

Nevertheless, when it comes to mercenary groups it’s important to carefully select them since depending on their leaders,  their ability and work ethics can be vastly different from one another. Some mercenary groups have good work ethics, while some groups are no different than bandits.

Well, mercenaries that are no different than bandits are useful to be hired during disputes between countries since their fighting ability is rather high, but they are often despised.

“So you wish to put an escort commission?”

“Ah, yes, the specifics are…”

I told him the name of towns the merchant corps are going to go to, the scale of the merchant corps, the schedule adjustment based on the appearance rate of demons, and the necessary time needed for conducting business in the various towns the merchant corps are going to visit.

The reason why the opposite party show a surprised expression while he was listening to my explanation must be because he thought I came here not for an official business but for playing like a typical debauchery young nobles. 

I guess it makes sense that he won’t take a child that looked like he’s still a student seriously.

“Then, how many people will be protected?”

“About 7-8 cart. Including the porters, the number of people that need to be protected is around 40 people. Well, this is excluding the cart horses.”

“Hmm… Then since the guards need to work in shifts, the number of mercenaries you need to hire is going to be 40 or more.”

“I suppose so. I think the total number of people that will go, including the mercenaries are around 150 people or slightly less.”

For a merchant corps that’s going to travel to a dangerous area this amount isn’t that big. At least for me, who is a count’s heir. If Mazell is here though, he will probably say something like ‘That’s big enough, Welner’.

Part 2

The reason I need 40 people for the merchants’ corps is that they are going to have many things to bring. For example, clothes.

[Info dump warning! Click here to skip.

Info summary: Most people use second-hand clothes and they are quite expensive in rural towns, so the merchants are going to purchase these second-hand clothes from the capital and sell them in rural towns.]

The mass production of clothes began to develop after the Industrial Revolution. That’s why new clothes in this world, which has yet to reach the Industrial Revolution are all custom-made. Even if it’s just clothes made using an old design, it’s still expensive. After all, to even creating fabric needed for clothes need time and considerable manpower.

As for ordinary citizens, their clothing is typically old clothes that are no longer worn by people who ordered custom-made clothes or everyday clothes worn by servants and attendants of the palace that ended up in the town’s second-hand clothing stores.

Even those second-hand clothes are pretty expensive so selling them is quite a profitable business. Commoners will wear this kind of second-hand clothes after repairing them. Then, if a town had many people who are rich enough to afford custom-made clothes, there are going to be plenty of second-hand clothes circulated in the market.

As a side note, old uniforms of nobles’ or royal’ servants and attendants are made into scrap and sold to various stores. This is because if the uniforms are sold intact there’s a risk that criminals might use the uniforms as a disguise to infiltrate the mansions or the palace. As for why the scraps need to be in various stores,  if the scraps are sold in just one store there’s also a risk that the uniform being reproduced.

Ah, I’m getting off-topic. Anyway, in towns where there are only a few people who are rich enough to buy custom-made clothes, then there are only a few second-hand clothes that circulated in the market. In that case, people will create their clothes from scratch or they will travel to a town that has second-hand clothing stores and purchase the clothes they needed from the stores.

Because of that if second-hand clothes are of good quality, then they can be sold for quite handsome prices in rural towns. While completing my commission, Mr. Bierstedt must be planning to also sell second-hand clothes from the capital to the towns he’s going to visit.

Sometimes there are people among really rich nobles that will throw away clothes after wearing them only once. It’s not my problem but still, aren’t they too wasteful? Are those evils noblemen and noble ladies feel inferior without showing that level of extravagance?

Incidentally, it’s rare for second-hand clothes to only be used as something to be worn. Sometimes they are also recycled into cushions for a ceramic and much other stuff. It’s an eco-friendly usage of space.

[Info Ends.]

Then, stuff like second-hand clothes is usually put in the carts while spices like salt and salt are tied to the horses that pull the cart. So in case of any emergency, the merchants will abandon the carts and run with only horses.

By doing that, the merchants will at least have sufficient funds to carry out their next trade. After all, as long as you don’t fuss about the selling prices salt can be sold in most towns.

Well, I have prepared guard for the merchant corps so this kind of thing won’t happen…I hope.

“What’s left is just selecting the right people.”

“I’ve already asked Luguentz Lazer and Oliver Gekke to do the preliminary selection.”

“I see. To have a connection with those two, you’re truly impressive.”

I don’t understand what’s impressive about it. I’m just going to pass it off as flattery to me.

“That’s everything about my commission.”

“Understood. I will see how many people are available, then”

“I’ll be counting on you.”

Ah, busy busy. As I was about to leave the Mercenaries Guild chanting that in my head, a cheerful and familiar voice called me out from the side.

“Hey, hey, Viscount-sama, I heard you’re looking for people to complete a commission?”

…What a surprise. So it’s not only Laura who is in the capital but this guy too?

“I’m Feri. Can you also let me hear about the job?”

T/L: Hi, everyone. We have decided not to split chapters from now on so that readers can experiance that story is actually progressing. We will also use anchor so that readers can directly skip irrelevant info dumps by clicking on them. We will announce it in more detaills in next chapter (Chapter 24). We hope that this will help you better enjoy this story.