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Chapter 96
The next day, Jaeyllin followed Adrian to the place Stefan was leading them.
Today was the day Stefan had promised to introduce Jaeyllin to a job where she could earn some money during the vacation.
But the place Stefan brought Jaeyllin and Adrian to was none other than the basement of the annex they were staying in.
“Alright, are you ready?”
Standing before the basement door, Stefan spoke in a solemn voice.
“What, you even give dramatic speeches at a door? Move.”
Adrian swung the basement door open and stepped inside.
When Jaeyllin followed him in, a musty smell washed over her.
The basement was pitch-dark, nothing visible at all. But when Stefan, who had followed behind them, turned on the lights, the interior brightened and the basement revealed itself.
Jaeyllin’s mouth dropped slightly open at the sight of all the things packed into the room.
“Wh-what is all this?”
“Let’s call it the masterpiece I’ve built up with my sweat and blood.”
The basement was even messier than Stefan’s workbench back at the academy.
“Well? What do you think of my masterpiece?”
Adrian frowned deeply.
“Masterpiece? Where do you see a masterpiece here?”
“Everything you see here is my masterpiece.”
“Masterpiece, my foot. This is just a heap of scrap metal.”
Jaeyllin thought Adrian’s words were harsh, but not entirely wrong. Stefan really had gone overboard this time.
The basement was spacious, yet cluttered with so many things that there was barely room to step.
In one corner, an unidentified mountain of scrap metal piled up as high as Jaeyllin’s waist, making the place look more like a junkyard.
“S-Stefan, the job you mentioned… is it cleaning this place up?”
“No!” Stefan snapped.
“O-oh, it’s not… but still, you should clean this place.”
“No, no! That’s not the point. Look more carefully. Each and every item here is amazing.”
At Stefan’s insistence, Jaeyllin examined the clutter more carefully. After a while, a few objects caught her eye.
She pointed at a huge contraption tangled among other scraps. It was so large that it took up a third of the basement.
“Wh-what’s this for?”
“That’s a crane. A magic tool that lets you lift heavy things easily. Even loads that would normally take half a dozen workers can be carried effortlessly with this!”
Excited by his explanation, Jaeyllin stepped closer and touched the crane.
“W-wow… Stefan, you made this?”
“Of course! Pretty amazing, right?”
“Yeah, amazing! Then, what about this one?”
“That box keeps food fresh for a long time if you store it inside.”
“Wow! And this?”
“That one cleans dirty clothes for you—just put them in, and they come out spotless.”
“A-amazing.”
Jaeyllin squatted down on the floor, eagerly examining the box-shaped magic tools.
“See? Don’t you want them? With this, you’ll never have to wash clothes by hand again.”
“Y-yeah. I’d love to have one. It’d be so useful.”
For a while, Jaeyllin and Adrian browsed through the basement—though it looked more like a trash dump than a workshop.
Once he’d given them plenty of time, Stefan called them over to a desk in the middle of the room.
“My inventions are no joke, right? If magic tools like these were widely distributed, people could live much more comfortably.”
With that, he suddenly pulled out a fat bundle of money and set it on the desk.
It was the money they had earned from the astronomy club during the last rose festival.
“So, I want you to invest this money in me. I’ll give you the chance to become investors in Stefan Company. The shares will be split evenly, 3.3 to 1. Stefan Company will be a business that makes life better for everyone!”
No sooner had he finished than Adrian flatly refused.
“No.”
“Wh-what? Why?! Doesn’t this look like a sure success?”
“You’ll go bankrupt in a year. No, that’s too generous. Three months.”
“That’s impossible! Do you know how hard I’ve worked? Look—I’ve even invested this much in magic stones!”
Stefan pulled out a familiar pouch and poured its contents onto the desk with a clatter.
It was the very same pouch that had once gotten him accused of theft during the auction incident.
Jaeyllin picked up a few of the magic stones piled on the desk and sighed gloomily.
“W-what a waste of stones…”
Most of them bore incomplete or faulty inscriptions, making them useless.
When Jaeyllin pointed that out, Stefan’s face flushed red like a ripe tomato.
“D-don’t focus on the failures—look at the potential! Look how hard I’ve worked!”
At that, Adrian gave him a skeptical look.
“Potential, my ass. Do those things even work properly?”
“…Maybe not yet, but Puppy! If you help me refine the blueprints, they’ll be fine. So I’ll hire you!”
“Effort doesn’t matter. What matters is whether it works. Anyway, I’m out. If you’re going to waste money, hand it over.”
“No way! My parents and siblings already refused to invest because they said there was no potential. If not you guys, I’ve got no one else…”
Stefan’s shoulders drooped.
“Your family clearly has good judgment. No wonder they run the Panteago Trading Company so well.”
Since Adrian gave him no room at all, Stefan turned desperately to Jaeyllin.
“Puppy! You promised to help me, didn’t you? Huh?”
“W-well, yeah, but…”
“Come on, look. This is guaranteed to sell like hotcakes once it’s out!”
“Then how much would you sell it for?”
Adrian, with a heavy sigh, jerked his chin at the crane.
Caught off guard by the money question, Stefan hesitated. Until now, he had only thought about making things, never how much to sell them for.
“Uh… I dunno?”
Adrian’s voice instantly turned sharp.
“You’re planning to run a company without even thinking about prices? You’re doomed from the start.”
Flustered, Stefan quickly calculated the crane’s selling price—adding up the cost of the stones, the materials, plus his own profit.
“S-sixty thousand gold…?”
Jaeyllin’s eyes widened. That was an enormous sum—more than most people would ever see in their lifetime.
“Peanut, would you pay sixty thousand gold for this?”
“M-me? No way… I don’t even have money…”
Jaeyllin waved her hands frantically, retreating a step.
“See? Zero price competitiveness. Hiring a strong laborer costs 15 gold a day. For that money, I’d hire ten men instead of buying your crane, and still have plenty left over.”
“But my crane can be used continuously until it breaks!”
“And the magic stones? You think they last forever? You’d have to replace them. If it’s used daily, how often do you need to swap in a new stone, and what kind?”
“With optimal efficiency… a 30,000-gold stone every month…”
Before Stefan even finished, Adrian snorted.
“See? It’s a money pit.”
“….”
“And that food storage box—it already exists on the market. What’s different about yours?”
“It’s smaller and easier to distribute! Families could use it at home. And it’s cheaper than the crane—I could sell it for 5,000 gold and still make a profit!”
Seeing a glimmer of possibility, Stefan explained eagerly, but Adrian shook his head.
“5,000 gold? Peanut, could you buy one for your house at that price?”
“N-no…”
“Why not? Without ice, this keeps food fresh for ages. You’d never have to throw spoiled food away!”
Ignoring Stefan’s protest, Adrian pressed Jaeyllin.
“Reason?”
“It’s… too expensive. At 5,000 gold, most people wouldn’t be able to afford it. And since it runs on stones, you’d have to keep buying replacements. That’s costly… I-I don’t have money.”
“See? Nobody’s going to buy it. Not if they have to keep replacing stones.”
“Then I’ll just sell to the rich!”
“What did you say was the purpose of this company again?”
“To benefit people widely…”
“Does that mean only the rich count as ‘people’?”
“No, of course not…”
“Some of these things could help people, sure. But they have no market viability. If nobody can buy them, what’s the point?”
Adrian delivered the finishing blow.
In an instant, the tower Stefan had built crumbled.
“Do you think the inventors who came before you were idiots? They studied and worked hard too. The reason nobody’s made these things isn’t because they couldn’t—it’s because demand and supply don’t match.”
“Then what should I do? Do I have to just give up…?”
Stefan’s face crumpled into despair.
