Everyone was pressing their faces to the ground before me.
My face was painted with bewilderment.
"Why are you all suddenly shoving your faces into the dirt floor out of nowhere? You're already malnourished, so your immune systems must be shot."
I would have loved to hook them up to nutrient IVs or something, but there was no chance in hell this damn medieval Empire had anything like that.
I'd planned to lay them down and feed them porridge until they got their strength back, but here they were, already exhausted and now acting strange.
I was flustered, but Rang and Ren were smiling.
"......B-Boss has an awkward side too, it seems."
"After hearing words like those, how could anyone not bow their head? And on top of it all, you're worrying about the children even in a situation like this. It's impossible not to want to follow you with all our hearts."
This was the medieval era, after all.
My words must have sounded pretty radical, I supposed. The dramatic reactions made some sense.
"This country really isn't to my liking."
"What part of it, Boss?"
"I want to let kids live like kids. It's such an obvious thing to say, and yet the fact that it's received like something special -- that kind of society is just too bleak."
Well, it wasn't like I was some resistance leader or anything.
I didn't have the guts to declare war in the name of changing the world. But disliking what I disliked was a separate matter.
"As expected of you, Boss. While I was simply being happy that our ranks had grown, you were already worrying about the Empire's future. This must be what they mean by having a different caliber of character."
"......I think you overrate me way too much."
Worrying about the Empire's future, she says.
I was just a startup founder worried about whether my soap business would take off. I'd only said a few words because I felt bad for the kids.
"Please, allow us to walk alongside you."
I looked at the slaves, still bowing their heads.
Children telling me they wanted to join me.
Of course, more allies were always welcome. On top of that, they were craftsmen with exactly the skills we needed.
Having worked as apprentices in an alchemy workshop for years, talent this perfectly suited for soap production would be hard to find anywhere else.
But there was one thing I had to say.
"You've been worked to the bone."
Children should live like children.
This wasn't some personal creed.
It was common sense.
The Empire's Imperial Family and its nobles. The bastards in power seemed to think children's lives were none of their concern.
But it was common sense that any modern person would know and agree with.
"At an age where you should have been laughing and playing to your heart's content, you couldn't. At an age where your biggest worry should have been what to play tomorrow, you were forced to worry about how to survive."
And so I spoke in a serious voice.
"You don't owe me anything."
Slaves saying 'You freed us, so we want to repay you.' 'We'll work under you to pay back the debt.'
The sentiment was truly warm.
But the children's happiness mattered more than the soap business.
Kids didn't need to think about repaying debts. An adult helping a child who was still fragile was just the obvious thing to do.
"You've suffered enough, so be happy from now on."
How could I demand payment for doing the obvious?
How could I shamelessly tell them to serve me in return for helping them?
I wasn't that shameless.
So I told the kids to go.
I'd support them with everything they needed. I told them to just enjoy the happy life of an unemployed person with a full bank account.
But.......
"No."
What came back was a refusal.
This was, honestly, quite surprising.
Turning down the life of a well-funded freeloader? I'm offering to deposit a salary into your account even if you lounge around all day, and someone's actually saying no?
By any common sense, that shouldn't happen.
But the children's resolve was firm.
"We were dead. For months -- no, for years -- we had already been no different from rotten, decaying corpses."
What I heard made no sense to me.
"Completing the tasks assigned to us without even sleeping, then completing more, then completing more again. And when a slave collapsed, they were replaced. How is that a human life?"
There was strength in that voice.
The slaves' eyes were shining brighter than ever.
"But right now, I can feel it -- that I'm alive. That after living my entire life like a corpse, my heart is pounding because I want to do something for the first time."
A slave approached me.
Approached me, those eyes shining.
"For the first time in our lives, we are alive right now. We want to see with our own two eyes the world you envision, and for the first time in our lives, we're experiencing what it feels like to have a dream."
A body so gaunt from not eating properly.
But the will behind it was not to be underestimated.
"Please, let us dream the same dream as you. Please allow our hearts, which had long since stopped, to keep beating while dreaming the same dream as yours."
In the child's eyes, there was a dream.
Eyes sparkling with hope for the future.
What kind of person could say no in a situation like this? Could crush that dream with a flat refusal?
"......Please."
Everyone bowed their heads to me once more.
This situation, right here.
There was only one thing I could do.
What I tossed toward Rang was a pouch of silver coins.
"This was money I'd brought for contract negotiations, but hey, works out perfectly. Think you could go buy a bunch of meat from somewhere nearby?"
Rang caught the silver coins and looked at me.
"You mean......"
"We've got this many new hires, so we should at least celebrate, shouldn't we? We still haven't had a welcome party for you two either."
I said with a grin.
"I'm counting on all of you from here on out, kids. It won't be easy, but let's cleanse this Empire together."
At my words, the children smiled.
No matter what era you're in, nothing is as gratifying to see as the pure smiles of children.
Eight employees in my company already.
What a great start this was.
***
Something I'd learned recently.
Employees lacking motivation was a problem, sure, but employees with too much motivation was also something to consider.
Just looking at the kids in front of me made that abundantly clear.
"Rest a bit more. Making a kid who was so starved you could see their bones do labor -- what kind of person are you trying to make me look like?"
I'd only said something perfectly reasonable.
They'd been through hell, so they needed time to recover.
But the problem was that our employees had far too much company loyalty. Even after hearing me out, they refused to back down.
"Our health has already recovered sufficiently. And besides, we don't want to delay the great work any longer."
A boss offering paid leave, and the employees turning it down because they wanted to work. A truly unbelievable sight.
The children spoke, burning with motivation.
"We want to cleanse this world right this instant. We can't stand it any longer -- we want to exterminate every last filthy thing as fast as we possibly can!"
"Yeah, I'd like to shove the stinking lot of them into the water right now too, but let's not rush things."
"Ah, of course. Throwing the filthy ones wholesale into the water would certainly be an efficient method of purification!"
It was good that the kids were energetic, but they were too energetic.
Shouldn't they rest a little, at least?
I'd be fine with them focusing on nothing but recovery for about a month before slowly getting into the business. I tried persuading them several times, but.
"......We know that Boss cares about us. But our eyes have been opened. We didn't realize how full of stench this world was until we met you, Boss."
The children's willpower exceeded anything I'd imagined.
'Well, I guess after seeing someone as clean as me and then looking at people who bathe once a year, the contrast would be impossible to miss.'
These were children who should have thought it was normal for people to smell like food waste that had been left out for months.
But having lived cleanly alongside me, they'd realized in reverse just how filthy everyone else had been.
And the result had come back as an explosion of motivation.
After a long deliberation, I...... spoke.
"This...... can't be helped, I suppose. But if your health ever takes a bad turn, you have to tell me right away. Don't hide it."
"You mean......!"
"Yeah, it's time to get to work for real."
At my words, everyone gulped.
The monumental first mass production of soap.
It might look like a small step on the surface, but it would be a giant leap for the history of human hygiene.
I spoke in a serious voice.
"From this point forward, we will be mass-producing soap."
"......Huh? Soap?"
The former workshop apprentices looked bewildered.
But Rang and Ren smirked at the sight. What came out in a slightly smug voice was a supplementary explanation.
"Don't take it at face value. The 'soap' Boss is talking about can't be just ordinary soap."
"Well said, Rang. As Rang explained, the soap I want to make isn't just any ordinary soap."
I smiled proudly and said.
"Everyone, want to take a look at this recipe?"
All eyes turned to my recipe.
The soap-making formula that was practically my bread and butter.
Soap, which was treated as a luxury item here.
But with the cheat of modern knowledge, I could mass-produce soap of far superior quality using cheap materials.
This was the secret to infinite money duplication.
"What do you think? Even with materials this cheap, we can mass-produce soap that's considered a luxury. It'd be harder to fail with this than to succeed. Our product will spread to every corner of the world."
Success was all but guaranteed, so I declared with more confidence than ever.
But the reactions that came back were a bit odd.
Rang's and Ren's eyes were trembling with bewilderment. And the former workshop apprentices couldn't keep up with the situation at all.
After deliberating for a long while, Rang cautiously opened her mouth.
"Um...... Boss."
"Why the face? Is something bothering you?"
An excessively cautious demeanor.
A strangely lukewarm reaction.
Why was the kid suddenly acting like this?
"This just looks like a soap recipe to me......"
The response that came back while I was still bewildered was a baffling one.
Well, of course a soap recipe looks like a soap recipe. Rang was saying she didn't understand something that was perfectly obvious.
But I wasn't fazed. I smiled.
"Obviously that's not all there is to it."
Appearances aside, I was a 21st-century modern person.
An era overflowing with marketing and sales tactics. Having lived through such an era, there was no way I'd sell soap in some boring, conventional way.
If I had future knowledge, of course I was going to use it.
"......We should at least put a surprise element inside the soap, don't you think? Selling it as-is would be too boring."
I needed to make people buy soap in droves.
So what was needed?
Good quality? A fair price? Forget all that.
What mattered was dopamine.
Let's unleash random gacha in the medieval world.
"Let's drop a bomb across the entire Empire. With enough force to set the whole country ablaze."
I grinned broadly and observed my employees' reactions.