“Sorry for all you had to go through.”

“No worries.”

They were all just empty apologies, anyway. If I were to now cause a problem instead, there’s no doubt they would all be screaming, “So you were the Shield Demon, after all!” I didn’t go for the whole “customer is god” thing that Japanese people liked to push. The phrase originally came from something some Japanese folk singer said and wasn’t even supposed to mean what people think it does.

“I was given a territory, so I decided to peddle medicines and other goods more extensively to help with the country’s reconstruction and prepare for the coming waves. Your business is appreciated. Just look for the shield sign hanging from the carriage.”

That’s right. There was a sign shaped like a shield hanging on the outside of our carriage right now.

“So you’re doing it for the country and our people, I see!”

Making an impression like this would lead to more customers. It might have been a good idea to have Filo’s underling pull a carriage in filolial queen form, too. Then again, I didn’t want to deal with the racket that would come with it. It might be fine if there was someone else willing to look after the thing, but I’m sure that would never work out.

“You hear that?! Let’s give our business to the Shield Hero!”

“Yeah!”

Word of mouth sure was handy at times like these. Even good rumors spread before you knew it. I had no idea how they knew, but customers were showing up to meet us the moment we arrived at the next town.

“Hey bubba, did I do okay?”

After we finished selling our wares, Keel, looking ridiculously embarrassed, asked for my verdict.

“Yeah. Your smile can’t sell quite like Raphtalia’s can, but several of the customers were grinning because they thought your clumsiness was cute.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

It was the same no matter what world you were in. Seeing that kind of innocence just made people feel good inside. Raphtalia’s support role worked well, too. This setup should allow us to make a bundle. Even cheap, poor-quality medicinal herbs would end up being average quality if I used my shield to make the materials. Then, if I used those average-quality materials to make more advanced medicines by hand, the end product would turn out to be above average. We could expect to make a nice profit.

After vending for three days, we’d made pretty respectable earnings. We also bought up medicinal herbs along the way and I used my shield to make medicines out of them. Keel and several of the other slaves had observed our work and seemed to have the basics down, so things were going well. I’d delegate more carriages to peddling soon.

And that’s when it happened.