Allen the Reincarnated Merchant: A Plan to Get Rich in Another World

“My name is Raine. I’m 18 years old, bronze rank, and I specialize in spears! I’m still very inexperienced, but please take care of me!!”

“Welcome, Raine-chan (san)!”

Holding a light brown wooden cup in both hands, Raine introduced herself with a somewhat nervous expression. She was one of the three new members joining *Akatsuki’s Brigade*. Raine had short, bob-cut brown hair and wore leather armor typical of an adventurer, with a metal breastplate on top.

As she stumbled through her introduction, the other members responded in unison, welcoming her. After a brief round of polite applause, it didn’t take long for the woman standing next to Raine to begin her introduction.

“…I’m Sena. I’ve come to work in administration.”

“Ohhh~!”

In stark contrast to Raine’s cheerful and lively personality, Sena seemed more reserved and introverted. With dark hair that was almost black and a face that gave her the appearance of a Japanese woman, Sena was 20 years old—my age. She had been helping out at her family’s home near the capital, and a member of the brigade had recruited her directly during a visit to her village after an adventure. With the room I had been using now vacant, she’d be joining the team house as a live-in member.

Unlike Raine’s introduction, Sena’s brought more of a thoughtful reaction from the members rather than excitement.

“Finally… finally, we have a second person handling admin work.”

While the other members voiced their surprise, Aina, who was in charge of administration and supply, stood beside me, quietly clenching her fist in delight.

“…Finally, a formal admin staff member.”

Although I also helped with administrative work, my role was more akin to that of a part-time employee compared to Aina’s full-time duties, as I was also involved in merchant activities. Aina was like a regular employee, while I was more like a temporary or part-time worker.

Usually, Aina could handle the work on her own without much difficulty, but when larger contracts or sudden expenses within the brigade came up, the workload spiked dramatically. At those times, it became hard for her to manage everything alone.

Even if she tried to delegate the work to others, most of them either couldn’t handle the calculations or simply weren’t suited for it. They were quite a unique bunch.

Rafine, the vice-captain, could manage the paperwork, but she was often too busy with her duties as vice-captain, even if she wasn’t as swamped as Saioji. So, even though I could handle the documents, the culture in the world of Asphial required people to meet face-to-face for contracts and important negotiations. In such cases, unless Aina could clone herself, there were always going to be situations she simply couldn’t handle on her own.

(…The real issue is that, as a man, people tend to distrust me when I show up as a brigade representative.)

In the royal capital, *Akatsuki’s Brigade* had begun to gain a fair bit of recognition. Since the adventurer business restarted in earnest last month, and Rafine’s party recently defeated a powerful monster, our name was spreading even further.

Not to mention, in this kingdom, *Akatsuki’s Brigade* is an all-women’s team (except me), which is quite rare. Most of the members are exceptionally beautiful even by the standards of otherworldly people, and word on the street is that they’re becoming somewhat idolized.

Because of this reputation as an all-women’s team, my presence as a man often led to immediate suspicion whenever I attended business meetings. There had already been several incidents where I was doubted right from the start, and Aina had given up on sending me to represent the brigade in negotiations. Even when we invited people to the team house for meetings, if it was the first time I appeared, I was almost always met with suspicion. Aina had resigned herself to the fact that I couldn’t take on that role.

“But ideally, we need one more person. Another woman interested in admin work would be perfect.”

“That might be tough. Anyone who can do calculations usually wants to become a merchant.”

While simple addition and subtraction were manageable, fewer people in this world could handle multiplication and division.

More accurately, anyone with those skills didn’t remain unclaimed for long. Merchant guilds or businesses would quickly snatch them up and employ them.

Even slaves with those abilities would be sold within a day.

Most people who could handle calculations aspired to become merchants and had a strong sense of independence.

Finding someone who could calculate and still wanted to do admin work was, for Aina, probably more valuable than having a magic-user join the team.