Normally, it would be time for me to head to headquarters, but Balor had given me the go-ahead to focus on preparing the new store.
　I took him up on his word and today I'm going to focus on developing new products.
　I was at home, relying on my memory to create a cosmetic product that was out of this world.

Even though the recipe itself was hazy, with my knowledge of science, I could work backwards to some extent from the efficacy and chemical formula, and in fact, I've already made it.
　My mother was in pain a long time ago, and I made it to do something about it.
　I'll improve the recipe as I can get a variety of ingredients than I once made in the Touahade territory.

''Is this what you want?''

I could make a list of the materials needed for the prototype.
　If I ask the procurement department of the Balor Chamber of Commerce, the materials will arrive tomorrow evening.

◇

'I'll have it tomorrow evening, I thought...'

By early afternoon that day, the materials needed for the prototype had been delivered to my room. Most of the stuff was readily available, but some of the materials were rare.

'We should consider this a message from Balor to hurry up.

It's about Balor. If he finds out you've asked for materials for a prototype, he'll decide he already has a blueprint for what kind of store he wants to make, and he'll call you up tomorrow and try to talk to you.
　That guy is just so quick to act and make decisions. He would rather create something, even if it's just a formality, and tell me to listen to him even if it's only verbal, even if it's only a second sooner than to make an elaborate preparation and presentation after it's perfect.
　That way, if it's a bad idea, we can quickly drop it and move on to the next one, and if it looks promising, Balor will have a backup system in place while we develop the product.

''Well a do-gooder merchant is a scary thing,''

Let's get to work.
　The ingredients we prepared are the finest olive oil we have just received, ground water of soft quality, fragrant essential oils extracted from various herbs, and a variety of herbs.
　And a wide variety of medicinal herbs.
　The cosmetic products I make are the result of processing and mixing these ingredients.
　Naturally, olive oil and water would not normally mix with each other.
　In order to mix them together, I have to use a little bit of chemistry and some other ingredients.
　Now, let's make it. It doesn't take long to make a base, but the combination of herbs and medicinal herbs can be varied in countless ways. Balancing the scent and medicinal properties is difficult. We can't make the best one today, but we can at least make a relatively good one by tomorrow.

◇

The next day, he went to the Chamber of Commerce Chairman's office to the headquarters at the time specified by Balor.
　I had contacted Balor yesterday to tell him that I had made a prototype of the new store's main product and wanted to talk to him, and asked him to make sure to bring his wife with him.
　As soon as I walked into the room, Balor smiled and bailed, and his wife narrowed her eyes at me with a sour look.
　She thinks I'm the child Balor gave birth to by a whore, too.

'Thank you for making time for me, Mistress. 'Father, mother,'
'I thought Ilg worked fast, but I didn't realize he'd have a major product ready two days after we talked about the new store.
I won't agree to it if you have taken the trouble to call me, and have brought me something trivial. Otherwise, I don't like you.

His wife is understandably hostile, but it's the other way around. It's much better than someone who smiles on the surface and is hostile in the belly.
　She covered her face with a scarf.
　Because she came without makeup, as I asked her to. She's a vain woman, and she can't show her face in public without makeup.

'We've prepared enough to meet your expectations. The main product in the new store will be cosmetics.
'But I'm not too keen on it. In cosmetics, the brand, not the quality, is the most important factor. It's tough to be a latecomer to the market. Even if you could make a hit product, the fads of cosmetics go out of style so quickly that you can't expect long-term profits.

It's all correct. That's Balor, indeed.

'Yes, I'm sure you are. ...if it's an existing cosmetic. I'll ask your wife. Makeup can make a woman beautiful. But it costs you money and damages your skin. Especially before bedtime and the morning after you've laboriously removed it with soap, isn't your skin badly damaged by the damage of the makeup and the damage of the soap?
........Well, I won't deny that. Still, it's what women use to become beautiful.

Lipstick, foundation, and blush are already available in this world, but there is no culture of using lotion or emulsion.

After all, the idea of decorating, but not protecting and moisturizing the skin.
　If you don't protect your skin with lotion or emulsion, it will hurt your skin and you will use a lot of soap when you take off your makeup, which will deprive your skin of more oil than necessary along with dirt.
　Without oil, moisture would escape and the skin would become dry and damaged.
　The air on this continent itself is dry, and the more women who use a lot of makeup, the more they suffer from skin problems.
　For women like your wife, who wears make-up on a regular basis, the problem is more serious.

I admire women's enthusiasm for beauty," she says, "but it's a vicious cycle. But it's also true that it's a vicious circle. They have to wear thicker make-up to hide their damaged skin, which damages it further. It frees women from such problems. This is such a cosmetic.

As he said this, his wife leaned forward slightly.
　There was no way she wasn't interested.
　This vain person suffers the most from the harmful effects of makeup.
　She took out a neat bottle of latex.
　Mistress takes it, opens the bottle and lightly scoops up the latex with her hand.

I created the milky lotion.
　I should have made a lotion as part of the set, but after much thought, I decided to use only the milky lotion.
　In Japan, we usually use lotion to hydrate our skin and then moisturize with milky lotion. But in Europe and America, it's common to not use lotion, only milky lotion.
　The culture here is more similar to that of the West than Japan. Therefore, I made a Western-style milky lotion and adjusted the amount of water and medicinal ingredients so that the lotion alone would be sufficient to make the product complete.

It is a white, cloudy and sticky liquid. What is this?
It's makeup that moisturizes dry skin and keeps it hydrated. Makeup is something to decorate and create false beauty, but this is different. It is not to decorate but to heal the skin, protect the skin and make it beautiful from the beginning. You'll know it when you use it. Try it on your face.

Suspicious, but unable to resist the temptation to be beautiful, Mistress takes the scarf off.
　There was the daily makeup, the soap to force it off, and the skin, damaged and cracked by the dry air.
　Taking the milky lotion in her hand, Mistress applies it to her face.

'It's like a lie. This is a milky lotion that soaks into my skin and moisturizes it. My skin is so smooth. I haven't had skin like this for decades.

Seeing his wife's face and actually holding the latex in his hand, Balor opens his mouth.

'Oil ... but it's too lush for that.
As expected of you. Fresh oil is what this cosmetic is all about. If you apply just oil, it will only make you look unattractive, but it contains a lot of water and medicinal ingredients that are good for the skin, so it moisturizes and heals the skin, and the oil keeps the moisture in.
'This is wonderful. 'This is wonderful, I can see my skin is happy. And it smells great.

That's probably true.
　If that's how dry the skin is and that much oil has been shed.

'The emulsion can be your armour. Apply makeup on top of the emulsion. The oil film protects your skin, so it won't hurt as much when you wear conventional cosmetics...

Before I can finish, Mistress has already taken out a set of makeup sets from her bag and painted her skin white with foundation and blush to give her cheeks a blush.

'Well, it goes on so well,'
Yes, it coats the skin and eliminates bumps and bruises, so your makeup goes on better. Do you like it?
'I don't like you, but I'll admit that this is a good one. I'll take this one. And three more bottles. No, five more in a hurry.

Then he puts the lid on the bottle I gave him and puts it away in his bag. I can see the attitude of not returning it, no matter what he says.
　Balor looked me straight in the face.

'It turns out to be a very good product. My wife is happy with it, so it must be the real thing. Tell me in Ilg's own words what the odds are for this cosmetic product.
Yes, this is a revolution in makeup. Every woman who wears makeup needs this milky lotion. To heal and protect the skin.

There is a pause there. By doing so, it reinforces the impression of the next word.

'We're not going to replace your existing cosmetics. From now on, it will be the norm for every woman to apply this emulsion.

This is the reason why I chose to use an emulsion.
　It will revolutionize the makeup industry itself. It doesn't take away the existing customers of the industry, it adds a new habit. The customer is a lady who wears all the makeup.

How could I not make money?

'I don't really understand this thing called makeup. 'Mira, do you think my friends will want this thing called an emulsion?'
'I can't imagine a woman who wouldn't want this. I was going to mock and demean whatever Ilg was making. But now that I have this, I've blown that idea out of the water. I will tell you that this whore's child is my son, too, if I have to get my hands on some latex.
Well, not so much...

Balor closed his eyes and pondered. He exhales slowly and begins to speak.

'Then let the Valor Chamber of Commerce devote all of its resources to playing the game. Mira, distribute the latex to your friends and spread the word.
You have a lot of friends of mine, don't you?
'As long as the product lasts, let me use it and spread the word. However, only one bottle per person will be given. If you want a second bottle, prod me that it will be available in my trade association. Ilg, how many can we have in a week?
I'll be on my own until we're ready for production, so I'm limited to about 200 a week.
You can hire someone, you know?
"If you don't mind if I find out how it's made, I'll comply. I'm afraid that if you put a latex on the market, other merchants will try to sell it to you instantly.
''Well what you did with me was too hasty. At least, we must have a monopoly until the brand is established. I'll have two assistants who I can trust to never divulge information. I'll make as much as I can with that, and then once a week for a while, as much as I can make, to me. And then Mira will distribute it to the nobility, mainly the wives of wealthy people.
Spread the word and spread the rumor among the upper classes. This is probably why Ilg called his wife. It's shrewd.
'Exactly. No matter how great you make something, it doesn't mean anything on its own. If it's something as easy to understand as a milky lotion, it's word of mouth through your wife's network. Because there's no more effective way to advertise your product than this.

I'm going to be honest with you because there's no way to hide it.
　You need your wife's help to get people to recognize the value of your product and to spread the word about it.
　It's hard to accept something new. Even more so if it's something you use directly on your skin, you have a sense of resistance to it.
　But if someone you trust is using it, you will want to use it too. And if the effect is dramatic, they will want to tell someone else about it, and the word will spread.
　If you get to that point, it's as good as winning.
　You can't sell just by making a great product.
　Especially when you are dealing with ladies, it is essential to spread the word.

''How long will it take you to set up a production system?''
Give me a month. ........And another problem is that to make a fresh oil, you have to mix water and oil. You need a special potion to make such a contradictory thing. That is the secret medicine of Touahade and you have to get it from there. Yes, it costs about this much to make one emulsion.

I present the documents.
　On it are the ingredients for the latex and the assumed purchase price of each.

''Well the price is low considering the assumed selling price of the latex, but Touahade is a long way off.

Balor looks me in the eye as if searching my innermost thoughts.

'That's why it's hard for the secret to get out. We can't make latex without that potion. We might be able to get a medicine man from Touahade to work on it here, but that would increase the risk of leakage. As long as we continue to make the secret potion in Tauahade, we can keep it secret and make Tauahade promise not to sell the potion to any other chamber of commerce.
I'll allow it. I'll leave it to Irg to negotiate the purchase with Touahade.
I'm sorry, sir.

This is a measure to prevent people from stealing the way the emulsion is made.
　It's called lecithin, which is used to mix olive oil and water.
　It is made from soybeans. The soybeans are squeezed to extract the oil.
　The oil is filtered to remove impurities, and water is added and stirred to separate the oil. Then the oil is separated and a paste-like lecithin is produced.
　This is the natural emulsifier of plant origin that binds the water and oil together.
　Without the emulsifier, water and oil will not mix and the emulsion will not be complete.
　Touahade can produce lecithin in an environment where information is never leaked, and the presence of lecithin prevents the emulsion from being copied by other merchants.

........of course, it's in the best interest of Tauaharde, but also because I can't throw it away as useless myself. I won't tell the Balor Chamber of Commerce how to make lecithin, either. Lecithin is a lifeline.
　I'll have to talk to my father and set up a lecithin extraction line with extra soybeans and manpower.

'Irg, as I said earlier, this latex is worth all the resources of the Balor Chamber of Commerce. So I'm backing you with everything I've got. If you succeed, you will be the new brand representative of the Valor brand and your reputation will be felt around the world. But you know what will happen if you fail?
Of course. I will make it happen. Now, let's get to work.

The main product has been decided.
　We have the full backing of the Valor Chamber of Commerce.
　It's a guarantee of success. If this continues, Irg Balor's name will be honored as the man who launched the Balor cosmetics brand.
　With that much stature, it's easy to get into the pocket of an assassination target. He could go out on the market as the representative of a supernova cosmetic brand to a wife who was in search of beauty.
　In addition, as the representative of the Valor Trading Association's new brand, he could use all the information and distribution channels at his disposal. A huge amount of money would be available in his pocket.
　Success is just around the corner. Let's brace ourselves for this.
　...At first I said I was joking about being on the receiving end of an assassination attempt, but now I think I might actually be the target of an assassination attempt.
　The rest of the Chamber of Commerce will try to eliminate me, jealousy of my people, or kidnap me to find out how to make latex.
　I hope that happens. Tart and Maha, I can give you both just the right amount of hands-on experience.