Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty: New Product
“Actually, I’ve been experimentally making a product and selling it to some of my regular customers, and the reception has been very good. Starting today, I’d like everyone to help me make this new product.”
It was work time.
With those words, Karen placed something on the table, and the children’s eyes went wide.
“A stuffed animal…?”
“That’s right! I’ll give each of you a sample, so take a look and see what it’s like.”
“A sample?”
As the children tilted their heads in confusion, Harald and Lily went around handing out the stuffed animals from baskets. And then the children noticed almost immediately.
“Oh! It smells sweet!”
“Is this the scent of a calming sachet?”
“Exactly. This is a stuffed animal—and also a sachet.”
“It’s so cute…”
The first to clutch them tightly were the youngest children and the girls. This wasn’t an ordinary orphanage, so they couldn’t go outside freely, and most of them had almost no personal belongings. Even the boys, after a moment of hesitation, began slowly hugging the stuffed animals to their chests.
“I’ll give one to each of you as a model to work from, so take it back to your room and write your name on the tag.”
“Answer Lady Karen when she speaks to you.”
“Yes!”
Karen glanced sideways, thinking Harald was at it again with his peculiar training, and held up a stuffed animal shaped after a rabbit-type monster.
“Actually, the one who gave me this idea is Lena.”
“Lena did?”
“!?”
Every child turned to look at Lena at once. The girl herself was the most stunned of all, freezing up on the spot. Finding herself the target of every gaze in the room, Lena looked around frantically like a cornered small animal, then bolted behind Lily.
“I saw Lena tucking a sachet inside a stuffed animal, and I thought it was a wonderful idea.”
“…Oh, that time.”
When Karen’s explanation finally brought the memory back, Lena’s face showed recognition—and the children erupted.
“That’s amazing, Lena!”
“Lucky you, Lena. I want my idea turned into a product too!”
“How did you come up with it!?”
“Eh? Um…”
Lena, who had shown almost no emotion during all the times the children had glared at her or whispered behind her back, was now flustered beyond anything Karen had ever seen, sweating from every pore, trembling all over. She looked just like the stuffed rabbit she’d been clutching.
Karen smiled fondly as she thought that, despite how mature Lena could be, she was still a child after all, then announced to the group:
“I intend to pay Lena a creator’s fee for this idea.”
“A creator’s fee?”
“Does that mean she gets money?”
“Yes. Though I won’t be handing over cash directly—I’ll hold onto it here until she comes of age, and, as a general rule, give it to her then.”
Karen had once had her soap idea taken from her. So having received an idea from someone, she wanted to make sure they were compensated for it.
The issue was that these were children with no experience of the world, and it was easy to see that handing them a large sum of money directly would, in nine cases out of ten, not end well.
Karen had been around the same age as these children when it happened to her. So she had tried to interpret it charitably, thinking that perhaps the Gubert Trading Company had simply been unable to give her the money because of her age… but Karen already knew perfectly well that no such consideration had been behind any of it.
“I want everyone else to remember this too. If you bring me an idea that can be turned into a product, I’m prepared to pay a creator’s fee. And if you learn to make potions, I’ll pay you individually for that as well. If any of you want to become an alchemist, I’ll help with that too.”
Among the children who had initially been innocently excited about the idea being turned into a product, the older ones now grew serious and began to listen intently. Every one of them had surely thought at least once about what lay ahead after coming of age—and had felt, to varying degrees, disappointed and hopeless about it.
“Becoming an alchemist may be out of reach for most of us, but… it means we can have money and become independent regardless.”
Karen tilted her head at Mark’s words.
“I wouldn’t push anyone out with nothing to their name regardless. Think of it as—the wages you’ve earned through your work here, minus living expenses and such, and then some added on top.”
“Wait, you’re actually paying us?”
One of the children’s eyes went wide. Apparently, they had been expecting to be turned out with nothing. An ordinary orphanage wouldn’t be that cruel—but children with so little magical power might well have been treated differently.
Karen had grown up in the adventurers’ district, where the orphanage was full of adventurers’ children. Perhaps she had not truly understood, on an emotional level, the futures these children might have faced in a territory far from the royal capital.
“Of course—you work every day, after all. Oh, but I will be taking my cut, just so you know!”
Karen said it in a deliberately blunt way, and the children, entirely unfazed, looked up at her with clear eyes and asked:
“Sure. But—aren’t we working in exchange for being allowed to stay here?”
“Choosing not to study is an option. So is choosing not to work. You could go that route… though I wouldn’t recommend it.”
The children swallowed.
Karen intended to take responsibility for them as their guardian until they came of age. But she couldn’t extend that indefinitely beyond that point.
“I’m simply recommending that you use the time while you’re still young to prepare for the life you’ll have as adults—for your own sakes. Right now, if you stumble, there are adults here—me, and Lily, and Harald—who will help you.”
“Teacher Harald too?”
The children looked dubious. Harald cleared his throat and spoke:
“I am someone who was helped. And so—even if you cannot become an alchemist, even if you produce no results, even if no ideas come to you—I will not abandon those who do not give up, who keep trying and keep holding on.”
Harald’s declaration settled into the children, sinking in.
“—Just as Lady Karen helped me.”
As though that were the best possible guarantee, the children’s faces broke into expressions of genuine, heartfelt relief.
It was a mysterious relationship of trust, but perhaps they actually made a surprisingly good teacher and students. Karen watched their bond with a somewhat puzzled expression.
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