Frontiers ~Chronicles of Bucket-san’s Detailed Pioneering~ - Chapter 104 – And the result was…

I went to the Teleportation Gate and used the Magic Stones to go to Dotril… The Gate is a truly convenient way of transportation, isn’t it?

Well, it’s not very relevant to me, who rarely goes out… Or at least it wasn’t. I’ll use it quite often after establishing the store in Dotril, after all.

It can’t be helped because I can’t let the clerks manage the warehouse for me. This is not really an issue of trust though, but more of an issue with the system.

Like, while the clerks can take flexible actions within the store, there is still a limit to what they can and can’t do. Even if the NPCs have an incredibly advanced AI that makes them look alive, they are still tied to Frontiers’ system, so they can’t do everything one may ask of them.

Of course, this does not apply to player Pioneers though, so if I co-owned a store with someone, it would be possible to set up a shared store warehouse that let each person retrieve items from different locations if we paid the appropriate amount for it in advance.

Well, my store is purely mine though, so that’s not relevant to me.

In any case, I went to Dotril’s real estate agent and saw that there were some people who seemed to have the same idea as me, so the narrow real estate agent office was actually quite crowded.

Still, it’s not like there were many people inside, it’s just that the building itself was small. In fact, there was still a free clerk available, so I could go to talk to the real estate agent right away.

After asking for some details on the properties, I found out that the land here in Dotril is much cheaper than in Capital Sabrina… Though Capital Sabrina is still a lot more convenient, as I wouldn’t even come here if the Dotril Silver Mine wasn’t found.

Nonetheless, I’m sure Dotril will grow now that the mine exists, so the land price will probably raise with time… But right now it’s still cheap, so let’s make a decision right away.

I can actually buy a store that stands out in the main street at this price… But I don’t need a store that is as big as the ones I was shown. I want a store just to purchase materials, after all.

Still, I’d like to get one that is conveniently located. Right in front of the main street while also being close to Dotril Silver Mine… Let’s pick the best among the candidates available that fulfills those conditions!

The other player Pioneers seem to be worrying about whether or not they should make this investment, but this is not a problem to me.

So far I only got verbal information about the store, but I don’t think I need anything more than that, so let’s buy the store right away!

The Dotril Silver Mine may have just been opened, but I want to start buying the materials as soon as possible.

Though I still need to go to the Guild and hire clerks for my store.

On a side note, the player Pioneer who was troubled about making an investment or not seemed to be quite surprised to see me buy the store promptly.

However, a quick glance at me cleared his doubts on the situation… I do have my trademark Bucket Helm on my head, after all.

I guess something about this will be written on the forums, but let’s not mind that and go to the Guild!

******

“There are quite a few people to choose from…” I muttered.

“Yes. Plenty of people are looking for a job here in Dotril, so you if you put conditions as good as yours, then it’s not surprising that quite a few clerks will want to work with you.” The Guild receptionist replied.

“I see… But shouldn’t they just go to the capital to look for work then?” I asked.

“The capital is already saturated…” The receptionist replied.

There really are a lot of potential clerks to choose from… I guess Dotril was a really empty city until now, so the people didn’t have many places to work at.

Even though Capital Sabrina is nearby, it’s still pretty tough to get a job there due to how fierce the competition is in that city.

I guess it makes sense, since most people would have evacuated there out of fear back when the Demon Tree invasion started.

On a side note, my store seems to have a better than average contract. The veteran clerks of Bucket Shop – Lily earn as much as the employees of large stores, and newcomers still receive above average wages.

Of course, that’s because I’m very satisfied with the work that they have shown so far.

As for Dotril, I was using the same conditions, but… Apparently this is a lot higher than the average at Dotril. The Capital’s average salary is already a high one here.

The situation here seems rough, but it will probably start improving now due to the silver mine.

Also, with this mine being found here, I’d say that there is a pretty good chance of more people who are not participating on the event to come to Dotril in order to do more woodcutting to open up new areas.

After all, it’s becoming harder and harder to unlock new areas on the surroundings of Capital Sabrina. Mainly because the ‘surroundings’ are being farther and farther from the actual city, which makes the back-and-forth travel time become longer and longer.

On the other hand, there are plenty of areas that can be unlocked near Dotril, so it would be easier to do woodcutting here.

Not to mention that it will also be easier to do maintenance woodcutting on areas near Dotril when compared to the areas that are fairly far from Capital Sabrina.

It would be nice if more locations like the Mizuri Village, were found, as those can be used as a relay point for teleporting, but the results of unlocking a new area are random, so that can’t be helped.

It really would be convenient to have more Gates to move around, but the best we can use are carriages, as Gates can’t be installed by individuals.

That’s why I’m sure Dotril will be booming from now on… It will probably take a while for some visible growth to appear though.

In any case, after a while of thinking and some consultation with the person in charge of the hiring process, I ended up signing a contract with six clerks.

As for my store, it will be, of course, open twenty-four hours a day.

Also, even if it’s going to be a purchase-only store, I’m still going to get two people to stay on each shift.

After all, if a clerk was alone, they’d need to close the shop in case something happened.

I know from browsing the forums that it’s possible for such occurrences to happen to NPCs. Like, they can catch a cold, for example.

On the other hand, players seem to be immune to this kind of thing due to the blessing of the goddess.

******

Alright! I can open the store tomorrow! I did it!

I bought the store and hired the clerks, so I am currently at my newly bought store.

There is no need for something like a pre-opening cleaning on Frontiers, but I do need to do stuff like arranging the furniture and setting up the store’s warehouse.

As for the warehouse contract, I signed it while hiring the clerks. And since I’m just using this store to purchase goods, I went with a fairly cheap warehouse.

On a side note, this store is much larger than Bucket Shop – Lily, which is totally unnecessary to me, but the location was good and the price was cheap… Or well, it’s cheap by the standards of Capital Sabrina.

That said, Bucket Shop – Lily already came with furniture, but no such thing was provided here… However, since this store is meant to just do purchasing, furniture is basically unnecessary due to not having any items that need to be put on display.

What this store does have is a counter, which is basically all it needs. As long as I put a board that lets people visibly see how much I’m paying for each material, the system will handle the rest.

I also made a signboard for the store… This is Bucket Shop – Lily, Dotril’s branch!

I giggled to myself… To think I got a branch store opened up.

Once more cities are unlocked, I can make even more stores!

For the time being though, everything is set. The rest depends on the difficulty of the Dotril Silver Mine, and on how easy it is to get the silver drops.

I’m really looking forward to this!

******

It’s been one day in real time, or three in-game days, since I opened my Dotril branch store.

And the result was that… I wasn’t able to buy many materials.

It seems like the difficulty level of Dotril Silver Mine is pretty high. And most of the top combat-focused player Pioneers are currently focused on doing event raids, so they aren’t helping out here.

There does seem to be some top combat-focused player Pioneers who weren’t interested on the event though, and some of them did come to the Dotril Silver Mine in their spare time, but they are the minority.

That said, the mine seems to get tougher the deeper you go. Hunting on the earlier parts of the mine seems to not be too hard, but it’s really hard to get silver ore when you’re that far from the center.

… Which is kinda strange when considering this is a silver mine.

Nonetheless, this led to a very scarce amount of silver ore and a pretty tough competition to obtain it, which results in a fairly high price.

Or well, relatively high. It’s still a 3* material in the end, so it’s not like I can’t afford it.

So, I bought some and made various things with them. And the result was…

——

Silver Short Sword

Sword/5*/ATK +79; HP +160; MP +135/Medium Health Enhancement/Medium Magic Power Enhancement/Durability 80

——

Its base attack power is higher than iron, but lower than steel. It also seems to have no special Options or attributes attached to it.

The difficulty level seems appropriate for its performance, so I was able to make 5* items right away, which is when one can start getting two Options in their items.

Those Options are quite good even, but still, this item’s market price is far from what I can get from steel equipment.

It’s just the tier above iron in the end.

The current situation is that there isn’t anyone other than me who can reliably make steel gear, and I did wonder why there was such a huge difficulty jump between iron and steel, but there is an explanation for it now. There was silver in-between iron and steel.

In fact, quite a few top-level producers were celebrating on the forums about this finding, as they can now produce silver gear, which is something of an appropriate difficulty for them.

They said something along the lines of, ‘this timing is a bit late, but still within permissible range.’

As for me, I’m a bit dissatisfied, but this development is probably in accordance to the expectations of the game’s management team. It will improve the livelihood of Dotril while also making it easier for crafters, that are too good for iron but too weak for steel, to create items that are of an appropriate difficulty for them.

Moreover, it also provides an area to be explored by player Pioneers who aren’t very interested in the event, so this was definitely a prepared development.

Especially because Dotril is now able to sell the basic silver recipes.

They don’t have the recipes I obtained on the second floor of the library for sale, but the basic ones are available.

This sudden appearance of silver recipes has to be something planned by the development team.

So, it seems to be an overall good thing, but it’s a bit disappointing to me who am already beyond the level of silver.

I guess I’m in no rush to buy silver materials with their currently soaring high price then.

Let’s just devote my time to making steel gear and getting event points.