Omake Week 2021, Day 5: Really, the Greater Yharnam Metropolitan Area simply can't be considered a productive territory for many franchisees. Though I suppose there might be good business to be had selling eyedrops...

~X X X~

"You sicken me!"

The cleaver came sailing at Balyn's face. He flung himself back, barely missing out on having a little impromptu cosmetic surgery. He was actually quite fond of his nose, and would have preferred it to stay the way it was.

"Now, ma'am…" be began, holding up his hands.

"You lousy rat! Go and die!"

Balyn didn't have good memories of Hemwick from the night of the Hunt. His experiences with the place had largely been along the lines of attempted murder, with an inventive array of implements such as sickles, cleavers, red-hot irons, huge bone-breaking mallets, and Molotov cocktails. Then, of course, there had been the giant cloaked men with their especially giant axes perfect for lopping limbs off any convenient corpses or stray hunters. Even the dogs had been fitted up with leather straps studded with foot-long rusty spikes and muzzles that equipped their mouths with sickle-like blades so they didn't have to worry about breaking a fang on a pocket watch or something while tearing into someone's innards.

(Ordinarily Balyn would have appreciated responsible dog ownership of this nature, but since Yharnam dogs appeared to be a cross between a wolfhound and an automated threshing machine, he didn't think there was anything responsible about owning them.)

But, he had a job to do, and if he was going to avoid every place in the Yharnam area where he had bad memories he'd have been on the first carriage straight out of town.

Which he might have considered as an option, were it not that the Iosefka's Clinic debt collectors were definitely not temp workers from the Yharnam Employment Agency. He'd signed a contract with the clinic and they insisted on collecting every last coin that he owed. And ever since that attempted hostile takeover of the institution during the Red Moon, they'd adopted ever more arcane methods to enforce payment obligations.

An old woman with a kitchen cleaver just wasn't in it, by comparison.

"Now see here, madam! I certainly appreciate the appeal of an old favorite—"

"Quiet you, you scum!"

He ducked another swipe of the cleaver.

"—but just look at that edge. Chipped and pitted from years of use. Why, I bet if you tried to chop through some interfering hunter's neck with that it'd just get hung up in the spine instead of making a neat, clean cut. Whereas my employer offers a full selection of the finest quality flesh-rending instruments, and if you'd give me just a few minutes of your time to show you some samples, I'm sure that we can find the Central Yharnam Knives and Sundries product that'll be perfect for all your graveyard and home uses!"