After calming down a bit, Ramiris swallowed nervously. “Um… And you’ll give me an allowance as well?” she carefully asked. “Do you really mean that?”
She must’ve been afraid I’d take it back. I’d never do that. I’m not that much of a sadist. Although, I couldn’t give her an exact figure on her allowance yet, since that depended on sales proceeds. Better put her mind at ease for now.
“I really mean it. But I don’t know how much profit we’ll make until we get things going. How about we say you get twenty percent of the profits after I deduct advertising expenses, rent, and other needed expenses?”
“How, er, how much do you think that would add up to?”
“Well, if we can attract, say, a thousand adventurers in a day, that could net you as much as two gold coins, maybe?”
“Gahhh!! That much?!”
“That’s just an estimate, keep in mind. There’s no guarantee it’ll work out that way. None of what I say means anything until we see some real, paying customers. But if you’re planning to live here anyway, it’s not a bad deal for you, is it?”
Ramiris bobbed her head. If she was going to squat on my property either way, she’d be maintaining her labyrinth no matter what I told her to do. It’d be smarter for her to listen to my offer, for sure—it’d grant her permission to stay and be a way to make money. Really, she only had one choice.
Thus, she latched on to my head and did a little dance of joy. I took that as a yes, and I was sure Beretta and Treyni wouldn’t complain. In fact, they were smiling at Ramiris, who was currently busy tripping off to her own little world.
“Eh-heh-heh… I’m gonna be filthy rich now! No more ungrateful bums calling me a deadbeat and a destitute demon lord!”
Ah well. No harm in that. It’d certainly do nothing to damage the faith her two servants had in her. Her sheer enthusiasm for the offer made me wonder just how often she had been picked on in the past. She was more excited than I was about it, so I doubt I had to worry about compliance.
What’s with her obsession over money, though? I didn’t think a lust for riches was a common trait for a demon lord, myself excluded. Was her lack of a decent job the main issue? Her labyrinth wasn’t exactly teeming with visitors. She must have been lonely, with way too much free time on her hands. It’d be great if we could attract crowds of adventurers to this dungeon—for my sake, as well as hers.
We better work out a plan of action fast.
Calling Ramiris back from her mental head trip, I decided to have her help rework our arena plans with Gobkyuu.
The way I saw it, we should expand the open area outside the western gate, where the highway ended, and build the arena there. There was ample pasture space for travelers’ horses, as well as a vast tract of empty land to work with.
Sometime in the future, I’d like to lay rails on top of the highway and run trains up and down it. Ever since I decided to target noble customers for this, I had been considering what to do about our transportation issues. If I could guarantee safe passage for them, I thought it’d be much easier to attract richer tourists. But that wasn’t the only goal. A rail system would make it possible to transport vast amounts of goods in one go, improving convenience and greatly contributing to town development.
That was what I had in mind for the town’s future expansion, so I wanted a spot for the arena that wouldn’t get in the way later on. I could establish a rail station near the spot, hopefully within an hour’s walk of the gate—any farther would be asking a lot from our tourists. Having the arena within walking distance of town also made it possible to offer more hotel options in a smaller area. Unlike my old world, people here did a lot of their traveling by foot. If a journey was up to around six miles round trip, most folks wouldn’t hesitate to hoof it, so a little distance wasn’t a daunting obstacle.
Those were my thoughts behind my proposal for a location, but Ramiris had other ideas.
“Why, though? Didn’t you have empty space within town limits?”
“Yes, but it’s occupied by beastman refugees right now. We have streets of temporary housing laid out for them. I can’t build an arena over that.”
“No,” added Gobkyuu, “we can’t throw the beastmen out of town. I think development will have to wait until after Sir Geld completes work on the new Eurazanian capital.”
“Okay, well, how about we just move them into my labyrinth? I could transplant the entire layout of that area inside it, so it wouldn’t be too much of a burden on them.”
That sounded, to be frank, absolutely bonkers. Gobkyuu and I exchanged glances, unsure we were hearing correctly.
“Er, you mean we’d move the inhabitants in there as well?”
“Um, I can’t move living things around without permission, no. They’d need to willingly go in there for me. But anything inanimate or unconscious? I can whisk it all right over, no prob!”
“Are you serious? So you can move all the beastmen’s houses and belongings inside your labyrinth anytime you want?”
“Yep! You got it!”
She sounded proud of it, as she should. That’s the kind of skill anyone deserved to brag about.
Pressing her for more detail, I learned that this was Mazecraft, one of Ramiris’s intrinsic skills. As the name suggested, it basically made Ramiris the supreme god of any labyrinth she created. It worked over astonishing distances, too, even affecting people and things near the maze entrance. She could even take the weapons and armor off people close by.
It was a crazy power to think of, but it did have its limits. If the target’s equipment had
