“Lu?”
“Lu… Loose ends! We managed to set a few ground rules and tie up any loose ends, that’s all. Everything’s peachy keen now!”
“Ahhh, I see! And here I thought the Western Holy Church was a much more intimidating group to work with. Glad to see they’re more reasonable than that. Maybe I was too worried for my own good!”
Mjöllmile gave me a relieved smile. I politely smiled back, sweating on the inside about the mistake I just barely avoided making. If I had followed through there and said Luminus’s name, there’d be hell to pay—which I could deal with, but what if she decided to rub out Mjöllmile as well? I was inviting both Luminus and Hinata and her Crusaders to the Founder’s Festival, so I’d better not shoot my mouth off before then—not that I knew whether the demon lord would deign to grace my little event with her presence. She’d probably be like “Why would I ever let myself be seen among the rabble?” or something. I’m sure she’d be an incredibly demanding visitor if she showed, so I honestly didn’t mind if she declined. Though, maybe I ought to encourage her to attend…? I don’t know.
“In that case,” Mjöllmile happily exclaimed as I thought about this, “let me show you the results of our training so far!”
There was no point wondering about whether she’d come. I needed to consider my own program for now.
“Oh, has it been going well?”
“Nothing less than perfect! We’ve trained them to the point that everyone can perform their tasks on the same level.”
“Ah, I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Mjöllmile!”
We grinned at each other. It sounded like making our debut at the fest wouldn’t be an issue.
“So can we put up a storefront offering burgers, hot dogs, fries, and the drink lineup we talked about?”
“That we can. And I think we can attract customers with those beef skewers dipped in the ‘secret sauce’ you talked about. Pairing them with a rice bowl will definitely improve our bottom line.”
“It’s been getting good reviews?”
Mjöllmile briskly nodded. “It’s become a low-key staff favorite, that’s for sure.”
Making yakitori skewers out of cowdeer and chiducken seemed to satisfy people.
“Great! Let’s add that to the menu, too. Do we have enough employees to work with?”
“Well, for the moment, I’m thinking we could launch with upward of twenty locations. But starting that big would take a fair amount of money. We’d need backup personnel, which I’m training right now—that’s a necessary expense, the way I see it. So along those lines, if we can deploy more gradually, say five locations at a time, that’ll put us well within budget.”
That’s Mjöllmile for you. He fully understood my proposal, and already he was working out any staff issues involved. In that case:
“All right. Well, sorry to trouble you for this, but can you bring over around five of your best employees?”
“Five? What did you want from them?”
“Well, I’ve got this friend of mine. His name’s Veldora.”
“V-Veldora?!”
“Yeah, and he’s, like, super–worked up about opening a hibachi booth at the fest.”
“Er, is he…?”
Mjöllmile seemed to be growing visibly paler as I explained. It worried me, but I soldiered on.
“So you know, it’d be way too dangerous to leave him running that by himself, right?”
“I—I would say so, yes…”
I beamed at him. “So that’s why I want five of your best staffers to help him!”
Mjöllmile, watching me gleefully dump all the responsibility on him, turned his eyes toward the ceiling. “Would you be able to guarantee the…er, safety of this staff?”
“Of course! Whenever they have any problems, they can come right to me. If Veldora starts getting all uppity, I’ll put ’im in his place.”
“I trust you will, yes, but… Um, we are talking about the Veldora, yes? The Storm Dragon?”
I suppose we were. Guess Mjöllmile knew the name, didn’t he?
“Is that bad?”
“Ahhh… Bad may not be the correct term. I just wonder if the crew will be, too, well, petrified to get any work done…”
Hmm. I should’ve known. Yeah, if you haven’t met Veldora, you must think he’s crazy scary, huh? Catastrophe-class, and all that.
“Well…maybe that’s not a good idea, huh?”
“No, perhaps not… If he could at least assume another name for himself, temporarily, our staff could work for him unawares…”
Aha!
“Yes! Brilliant, Mollie! Let’s give him another name so nobody knows who he is!”
“Huh? You—you can do that?!”
“Sure. If he whines about it, I’ll just tell him he can’t do the hibachi thing at all. Right, let’s do that. And I’ll pay a special bonus to the five people you pick for me, so let them know I’m counting on ’em, okay?”
Whether Mjöllmile was keeping up with me or not, I considered this problem as good as solved. Veldora was being as selfish as always, but we were entertaining world celebrities here. Embarrassment would be the least of our worries if he gave all our guests food poisoning or whatever, so I couldn’t rest easy until I knew there were people who could watch over and direct him. I didn’t want to dismiss him out of hand, but I was too nervous to let him off the leash completely, so it’s a lucky thing Mjöllmile had the staff trained like I asked him.
He looked like he wanted to tell me something, but probably nothing important. The ball was in his court now.
Rimuru looked supremely happy with himself at resolving this issue. Mjöllmile, meanwhile, felt like someone had just thrown a lit bomb into his lap.
L-Lord Veldora?! I knew the seal had been undone, but he wants me to deal with him?!
This was a major headache in the making, for sure.
Rimuru was talking sense at first. Building a stand for the festival would be a good training opportunity. But if they were babysitting Veldora as well, that was another story. Mjöllmile wondered what the hell he had just gotten himself into, but as he observed the smiling, carefree Rimuru in front of him, he decided to take the “Ah
