Chapter 32: I Need Your Help

“Meow~ Can I really have such beautiful fabric?” Liuli nuzzled her face against the silk with eyes gleaming in excitement.

“Absolutely. Choose whatever catches your eye,” Wu Qingsong declared with a generous flourish.

Two minotaur servants held up racks brimming with fabric samples, inviting the ladies to make their selection. Nearby, a mink-like beastwoman enthusiastically pitched various options to them, her face radiant with a welcoming smile. Though puzzled why the half-elf before her was keen to provide such luxurious silk attire to beastwomen who seemed of lower status, she maintained her warm and friendly demeanor. After all, business was business.

“Ling, you should select something as well,” Wu Qingsong encouraged.

After fulfilling three sizable orders, Wu Qingsong found himself in a much more comfortable financial position. While not fabulously wealthy, he could now afford to indulge in a few luxuries, especially in the city of Umber.

To divert attention away from his sudden affluence, and with the guidance of Harold, he had acquired another failing furniture workshop adjacent to his existing leather workshop. He hired a manager and a few craftsmen to keep both operations running smoothly. Though the workshops were merely breaking even, their true financial health remained unknown to the employees, and even more so to the public. As long as no one scrutinized the books too closely, everything seemed in order.

Ram was in the process of securing legal documents that would connect him to a prestigious noble family. Despite the obligation to pay an annual fee to the facilitator and fork over a share of the theoretical profits to the noble involved, this arrangement would shield him from the exorbitant fees and harassment from Umber’s three dominant guilds. According to Ram, it was a trade-off well worth making.

What stunned Wu Qingsong was that Ram’s Herb Shop was actually endorsed by none other than the Grand Duke Sentalus, thereby circumventing harassment from the major guilds and enjoying significantly reduced taxation compared to other similar businesses.

“Isn’t that the Duke the one who–” Wu Qingsong had once incredulously asked Ram this question.

“The one who posted a bounty for Nina?” Ram responded as if it were the most natural thing to say. “Yes, precisely. That’s why I went to considerable lengths to secure the necessary documents from one of his stewards. It’s quite amusing, isn’t it? A shop technically under the Grand Duke Sentalus actually belongs to a criminal he’s been chasing for a long time.”

“Do they not realize this?” Wu Qingsong couldn’t help but ask. “What’s stopping them from simply claiming the shop? Technically, they already own it.”

“As long as you don’t scale up your operation too much, the stewards are unlikely to get involved. They have no reason to reclaim the shop as long as they receive a satisfactory annual percentage from you. Reclaiming the shop would only add to the Duke’s fortune, while letting it be generates a continuous stream of income for them. In fact, my shop doesn’t even appear on the Duke’s list of assets, and the three major guilds in Umber would never trouble the Duke over something so trivial.”

“What about my two workshops?”

“The same principles apply. Theoretically, your workshops aren’t going to be highly profitable, so it would make more sense to get an endorsement from a lower noble, like a baron. But since you’re a half-elf, navigating these matters should be far easier and more credible for you. As long as you don’t attract too much attention, people will eventually forget your initial circumstances when you first arrived in Umber.”

Wu Qingsong pondered the intricacies of the situation. In a city like Umber, which had fewer than 30,000 residents yet was considered a major commercial hub, it was improbable that a high-ranking noble would allocate resources to monitor every newcomer. The kind of omnipresent surveillance that would involve tracking each individual’s every move could only exist in a world governed by an all-seeing supercomputer network.

“So, when are you going to share your next groundbreaking idea? Don’t you want a reward?” She began to seduce Wu Qingsong with her alluring gaze, forcing him to make an awkward exit.

New ideas? He had plenty. Many concepts from his previous world could be revolutionary here. For example, during his downtime, he’d sketched out designs of furniture from his old world. When he had his workshop produce a few, they sold out almost immediately.

However, his satisfaction was short-lived. Workshops overseen by the heads of the Craftsman Guild soon produced furniture that surpassed his in craftsmanship, materials, and even pricing. They even expanded the range of similar furniture designs, all thanks to his original work. He eventually realized that they had been the ones to buy, study, and then surpass his earlier creations.

Consequently, the second batch of his furniture remained unsold for a long time, only moving when he drastically cut the prices.

This setback deeply discouraged Wu Qingsong.

In this world, meddling with others’ work could result in dire consequences, even death. Yet, anything innovative you create could be unabashedly copied by others. No wonder this world felt so stagnant and uninspiring.

The experience entirely sapped his enthusiasm for further inventions or innovations.

He was content enough with his current income for a comfortable lifestyle. Yet, the bitter reality pushed his desire for personal combat skills to new heights.

“I’ve made some inquiries, but no one seems to know of a situation like yours,” Harold informed him. “Your options are either to travel to the Imperial City to learn magic or to focus on honing your skills with weapons. Foldable crossbows, poisoned arrows, envenomed needles, and daggers, along with assassination techniques favored by female assassins might give you an advantage when your opponent is off guard. For direct confrontations, though, it might be more realistic to consider hiring specialized help.”

Wu Qingsong found himself in complete agreement with Harold’s perspective, yet he had another avenue to explore.

Explosives!

Black powder wasn’t even on his radar, its potency was too negligible. It was not like he could wander around carrying a large bag of it, could he?

Moreover, as an adventurous world traveler endowed with an invincible body, he naturally yearned for something more ambitious.

Regrettably, his knowledge of most explosives was limited to their names. While he could make an educated guess at the composition of nitroglycerin, the rest were an enigma based solely on their name.

Picric acid? Clueless. TNT? What did those letters even signify? Hexogen? Completely mystifying. C4? His knowledge was limited to pressing ‘5’ to switch and then ‘e’ to deactivate it.

“So, nitroglycerin it is then,” he pondered.

In such a technologically deficient world, it should suffice.

Glycerin could be derived from soap-making, so now all he needed were the remaining components and a method to combine them effectively.

“Nitration’ likely referred to nitric acid, right?”

But what next? Mix the two straightforwardly? Or would a catalyst or additional substance be required? What would the ideal ratio be between the two? Would the final product be a solid or a liquid? Should he employ a fuse or a blasting cap for detonation? If it’s the latter, how should he go about making one?

Suddenly, he felt a pang of regret for not taking high school chemistry more seriously.

“Oh well, who cares?” he mused.

He was invulnerable to explosions anyway. As long as he kept the quantities small, avoided drawing attention, and took precautions not to injure Ling and Liuli, he could afford to proceed by trial and error. Success should be achievable, eventually. Right?