CH 18

Episode 3-8 It’s OTJ! On-the-job training for otherworlders is too much to ask for!

Business hours at the Aion Mall Otherworldly Store are short.

It opens at 8:00 a.m., which is earlier than the 10:00 a.m. opening of the Aion Mall Kasugano store where I was working.

However, the closing time was also early.

The Aion Mall Otherworld Store closes at 6:00 pm.

Which means business hours are from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

“The gates close when the sun goes down! No one can enter the city, and almost no one uses the streets after that!”

“I see. You are right, I didn’t see anyone passing through the street at night.”

I asked Chloe, and she told me that even in the city, only a limited number of stores are no longer open around 6:00 p.m.

“The only shops that are open at night are the inn, some eateries, the adventurers’ guild, the guard station, and the brothel where they have indecent things with women. …… don’t tell me! Naoya lives here because there are no places to stay for the night! The manager has ordered me to live here, too! He going to say, [It can’t be helped that you can’t find anything here, can it?] And so on and so forth, demanding me! Kh-Kill me!”

“Even in developing countries, there are countries where the night time is the real deal. Not in a erotic sense, but in the normal retail and catering business.”

Chloe’s fantasy passes through.

You won’t see anyone passing by the street in front of the Aion Mall Otherworld Store at night.

Merchants and adventurers heading to town pass through in the late afternoon and early evening, and then they are just gone.

I’m not sure if it changes from time to time, but nightfall is after 5pm.

The closing time of 6:00 p.m. would be reasonable.

“Also, Chloe doesn’t have to live here. I mean, I’m the one who lives in the tenant’s house, and I’m an exception.”

“But Naoya, both Barbera and Anna live here, right?”

“Eh? …… is that so?”

“Yeah. Barbera lives on the rooftop and Anna lives in the basement! As I thought, you’re going to force me to stay here too!”

“No need to. I didn’t see the rooftop or the basement beyond the boiler room.”

Both places I didn’t go to when I looked around the Aion Mall’s Otherworldly Store.

I didn’t know that the dragon on the rooftop was an employee. Dragon as an employee huh.

The basement was dark and I had no business going beyond the boiler room. It was a wise decision. I don’t know what would have happened if I had found the ghost and the skeleton at that moment.

“Really, I’ve been overlooking things all the time. Oh, that’s right. How many customers did we have today?”

“What’s the matter, Naoya? And what’s that? Why are you messing with the cash register? Are you aroused from…that…?”

“No, just listen to me, Chloe. Today we had 40 customers and 64,000 yen in sales. The number of customers is not so different from the last two days, but sales are down from yesterday. Yesterday, most of the farmers got their gardening supplies.”

“Na, naoya? How can you know that so quickly! You barely served any customers today! What is that paper?! Is it some kind of magic artifact!”

The Aion Mall Otherworld Store is still only partially open for business in the supermarket.

The number of customers coming in is low and there is only one cash register in operation.

Chloe was somewhat surprised when she checked today’s sales on the POS data printed out from the cash register.

I have a bad feeling about this.

“Chloe. No, former manager. Are you by any chance using the …… cash register only for checkouts?”

“Yeah? What else do you use it for?”

“…… Hey, do you know why you have to scan this barcode on the hand when you’re selling vegetables? I mean, do you know what this is for and why we put it here?”

“It’s to reduce mistakes, right? It’s a wonderful tool that automatically calculates the price once you’ve decided on a price! The only drawback is that you can’t discount it, and it takes a bit of work to convert it!”

“Aaaaah! I thought Chloe and Anna-san both know what they’re doing because you’re a natural cashier and you’ve got barcodes for vegetables!”

Just before closing, my screams echo through the no-guest store.

I can see the ghosts that have been wandering around the ceiling quickly leaving. What happened to my request to keep it away from me if at all possible, Anna-san?

“- noticed, I thought you noticed it. Chloe, you were looking at the paper when you were telling me the number of customers and sales.”

“Naoya, I told you I could do the math, didn’t I? I wrote down the number of customers and sales on a piece of paper and calculated it every day!”

“Yes, the cash register is useless! That’s right, it’s in Japanese on the cash register screen! I can get through with a translation ring, but you can’t read Japanese!”

The cash register was used every time they paid their bill.

But the display is in Japanese, and the unit of money is Japanese yen.

Of course, the customer is told the amount converted into local currency.

I thought it would be a hassle to tell the customer verbally, and wondered if it was possible to change the configuration.

However, it’s not that simple.

“In other words, the POS data is still there because it goes through the …… register, but Chloe didn’t know how to use it? Both the number of visitors and sales are calculated manually? Err, where’s the data on the number of customers and sales per hour? What about customer spend?”

“I left it all on paper, you know? Oh, sorry, Naoya, I should have given it to you since you’re now the manager!”

“Aaaaaaah! I was stupid to think that our employees were so competent! But this is not the fault of the locally hired Chloe and the others, it’s Aion’s training problem! What happened to the training plan! What were you doing, Iori!”

Chloe tilts her head with a puzzled look on her face.

I curse at Iori-san from the human resources department who is not here.

The modern cash register does more than just make it easy to pay your bill without making a mistake.

It keeps the time of accounting, the number of visitors – the number of visitors who have paid their bill, sales, sales by time of day and by product, by gender and age, and various other data that you have entered.

If operated properly, it also produces aggregate data.

Although the Aion Mall Otherworld Store is not connected, in Japan, the data can be viewed in real time from the headquarters.

It is what is called POS data.

“What’s wrong, Naoya? I know I haven’t been very good as a store manager, but… did I do something wrong?”

Chloe looked at me in agony and began to panic.

She looked at me in anguish, her beautiful face colored with anxiety, and she looked unsure of herself.

“Ah, I’m sorry, Chloe. It’s Aion’s fault that Chloe didn’t know how to use it. I think Chloe is very talented, she reports the number of customers and sales to me every day and answers my questions properly.”

It was Aion who didn’t tell her what she needed to do and what she should do.

But Chloe was able to keep track of the number of customers and sales, as well as the number of customers coming in at different times of the day, without using an automatic accounting system.

Chloe even reported to me the first two days after I became manager.

She could even answer questions about past sales.

“I-is that so?　I’ve been called a disgraced elf and a clumsy knight by many people, but this is the first time I’ve been called talented,……. I’m sure you’re not trying to play with me by forcing compliments on me to get me in the mood for it!”

“I’m not. Seriously, I think you’re really good at what you do.”

Chloe stopped when I praised her straight away.

Her white skin turned red in a second.

“W-w-w-what are you talking about, Naoya? Oh, it’s closing time already! Then I’ll go lock up every part of the building!”

“Ah, wait, Chloe, I just want to say something. I’m sorry about Aion until now.”

This is a shopping mall that you can’t find anywhere else in the world.

Chloe, who was the former store manager, must have been fumbling around and doing her best.

However, both Chloe and Anna-san were using the cash register properly.

They didn’t even look at the data, which was meaningless.

Before I came along, they were using the cash registers.

“Eh? No, I’m being treated well by Aion. They even sent the manager to us!”

“I feel so sorry for you. I’m really sorry, Chloe. As an manager of Aion, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind, Naoya! I’m going to go lock the door!”

Her face still red, Chloe left at a tremendous speed.

I was left alone in the empty mall.

Ah yes, there’s that ghost floating on the ceiling again.

“I’m still in awe of Aion, though. Aion who makes you do it even though they don’t teach you how to do it. I’m sure this is that, it’s a pattern that they tried to do to me, saying that it’s an OJT that I’ll learn while I’m doing it.”

And as usual, this made me think.

“OJT? On-the-job training for people from another world is too much to ask for! I’m a first-time manager and a first-time visitor to another world, so it was like I was on-the-job training, too!”