Volume 2 Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4.1

Editor: Weasalopes

「The soil’s OK, the Man Eater stem is OK, we’ve plenty of seeds and fertilizer ready.」

The next day, seemingly without damage, Hiroshi was standing in front of the flower pot with a manic grin on his face. He had hardly eaten any breakfast in his excitement. They were in an empty building that had been cleared of any inhabitants. A few vacant houses just like this one could be seen around the village, they functioned as temporary lodging for any visiting outside races.

「Are you feeling alright?」

「As A’ight as I’ll ever be.」

「I certainly hope so…」

Haruna hesitantly nods, unable to conceal her concern for Hiroshi whose excitement had been getting out of hand. She was worried about his well-being, despite it being the umpteen gazillionth time something similar had happened. There haven’t been any negative effects so far but that doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future…

However, what really concerned Haruna at the moment, was how thoroughly had she been exposed yesterday? Asking would be like walking through a minefield, so she was reluctant to do so. As it is, it was an accident, and nothing could make it less.

「Try ta keep clear of the vicinity while the experiments are underway. Pay extra close attention to Artiem, lord knows what might go down if she got too close, keep ‘er out of ‘ere at all costs.」

「You can count on us.」

Haruna nods gravely realizing the stakes at hand. If Artiem was to so much as get anywhere near a Man Eater some off-color sequence of events would inevitably unfold.

「Are you sure you can handle this all by yourself?」

「If I wasn’t sure about it I wouldn’t be standin’ ‘ere right now, now would I?」

「Fair enough.」

When it comes to making things Hiroshi’s calls can be reasonably trusted, which can’t really be said for any of his other knowledge. While he does occasionally make one or two blunders like with the gargantuan Pomey incident, unlike the mad scientists of fiction, he’s yet to cause any real damage and that seemed like reasonable grounds to trust him on.

「I’m dealin’ with a carnivorous plant ‘ere, ain’t no way I’m lettin’ my guard down around it.」

Haruna nods back and exits the room. Her being there would only complicate things.

「How ’bout we get this show on the road starting with the Man Eater.」

There can be no experimentation without a target to bring down. Hiroshi places the potted plant close to the middle of a magical barrier and, as standard procedure would dictate, adds in the dirt, sticks in the Man Eater stem, waters it with nutrient infused water and leaves it to sit for a while.

「Should be done in about an hour.」

He begins working on the Man Eater killer, following the exact same standard procedure, while spouting some crazy-sounding stuff.

「Let’s see how well the scientific method works out.」

Hiroshi cross-pollinates same family plants, which had grown to absurd extents in the blink of an eye and had already began blooming, and plants their seed in the same flower pot as the Man Eater.

「Well, what did I expect?」

As expected, the moment it began sprouting it got immediately overpowered by the Man Eater. It’s not like weeds lack in power or anything it’s just that it’s difficult to put up a good fight against something that falls under the monster category.

「If the scientific method doesn’t pan out within the next few tries, alchemy it is then.」

Through trial and error he was able to invent a type of weed that managed to put up somewhat of a fight without the need of alchemy coming into the picture. And as such, the first day of selective breeding had come to a close.

「Do you think they’ve made it there already?」

While Hiroshi was busy assuming the mad scientist role, Fum, Teres and Nora were idly chit-chatting while partaking in a later than usual lunch. Lime had her share of lunch earlier in the day and was taking a nap, Layla, having finished lunch alongside Lime, was out shopping and delivering goodies to Merizza’s place while she was at it. Just to be clear, there was a one hour time difference between Wulls and Teres’ village.

「They should have already made it there a while back, considering the speed of that golem-drawn carriage.」

「Don’t know how I feel about saying this but they could have gotten lost on the way, that village’s in such a remote spot with virtually no proper roads leading up to it after all.」

The remaining members fall into thought upon hearing Teres’ point which implied that the area hadn’t been mapped.

「That’s odd, no matter what angle I peak at it from, I can’t imagine them being set back by something like that even if it was the case.」

Teres and Nora nod in agreement. It’s them we’re talking about, even if they were to get lost there was no doubt they’d make the most out of it. No matter their circumstances, they’d find a way to survive.

「He’d be all up in smiles making another one of their crazy thingamajigs with some peculiar material he happened to come across.」

「Either that or he’d be squandering all their spirit yarn working on something that he’d try to pass of as ‘makeshift’ while it’s actually needlessly high-effort because they totally needed it at the time.」

Fum shakes her head in agreement to every single one of the hypothetical Hiroshi-esque situations Teres and Nora had brought up. Hiroshi’s crafting addiction was a thing of legends, as long as he could get his hands on the right tools and materials, you’d be sure he’d be crafting something regardless of context.

「They’ve downed wyverns and rock boars before, so as long as something absurdly strong or something in absurd numbers doesn’t pick a fight they’ll weather it through just fine.」

「Although if he doesn’t return every once in a while I have a feeling that we’re going to plateau sooner or later.」

They crack a self-deprecating smile in response. While they have managed to get a hang over potion making and can whip up perfectly passable seasoning that’s not curry powder by the gallon, they’re still not quite consistent enough to comfortably tackle anything class eight. Not to mention that they’re alchemy and enchanting skills still need some serious polishing.

They didn’t necessarily need Hiroshi to hold their hand through everything, since they could use their currently possessed knowledge as a base for self-learning, but there was this inexplicable feeling that they’d hit a dead-end right after cleaning their hands of class eight. They could attempt to delve further through experimenting with unknown materials, but for that they’d need experience, which they didn’t have in spades.

There’s also the fact that ever since Hiroshi and Mio set off their learning pace had dropped very noticeably. They weren’t yet at a level where they could dive into the unknown with just their intuition, they still needed a mentor. Upon becoming aware of this it’s not hard to see why they’d be concerned about their future endeavors.

「Don’t lose faith, there’s still room for us to grow by ourselves, it hasn’t even been a full month since they’ve made it out.」

「You’re right, how silly it was of me to fret over some imaginary brick wall in the way when I’ve not even made it to that point in the road yet.

Teres, inspired by Fum’s words of encouragement, gets up from her chair and gets right to work. There have been countless orders for miso, soy and various other sauces ever since word of their existence spread through the royal palace, so she had her hands full. It’s not like the recipe was kept a secret or anything but, by virtue of being the trailblazers in this regard, Azuma’s brand was widely considered the best out there. The amount they were capable of putting out, in relation to their rivals, was also incomparable. That being said, everyone was careful not to sleep on their laurels because all of that could change in a heartbeat.

That, however, does not mean that they’ll be catching up any time soon, seeing as how even the girls were advancing at a snail’s pace every time they made seasoning. In fact they’ve only recently managed to get the recipe down, so it’ll take a long while till they are able to say the same when it comes to taste. Furthermore, due to being able to pump the spices out at a comfortably fast pace, the workshop’s produce could be sold for a cheaper than average market price, edging out the competition. There was room for competitors to make their move since, at the workshop’s current production rate, the goods could only get in the hands of the affluent, so there was untapped market potential there. That wouldn’t prove to be as simple as it sounds, however, considering the head start the workshop has in terms of both equipment and employee number.

「Is anyone there?」

Just as they had gotten in the perfect mood for cracking down on the most numerously ordered item – soy sauce, a familiar voice makes its way into the room.

「Alive and well, as you can see, Elle.」

Fum picks up on the voice and gets up to greet their guest

「Greetings.」

「Greetings. What brings you to our humble abode?」

「Could I get five hundred grams of niboshi, three kombu slices and lastly two katsuoboshi pieces.」

Aeris nonchalantly lists off the goods, all of which would be astounding to hear from the lips of any other princess, but this one did all of her own cooking in the temple’s kitchen.

「They’ll be ready in just a moment.」

Teres begins gathering the goods. Azuma Workshop only ever does in-shop dealings with either the royal family or members of the Adventurer’s Association, occasionally with a select few, personally close individuals, but that’s a rare sight. This has been the case ever since Hiroshi became head of the workshop but, more importantly, it resulted in the workshop building up a questionable reputation of sorts, especially considering the quality and scarcity of their products.

「Don’t be shy, come on in.」

「Aren’t you busy with work?」

「We usually tend to finish our daily quota by noon, anything we make afterwards is for the sake of honing our craft, that and building up a stockpile for a day or two off, and wages.」

Nora responds along with all the juicy behind the scenes details. Their basic living expenses are covered by taking a cut off of the sales of the products they had a hand in making. Their actual wage, however, wasn’t set in stone and they could technically take all the profits for themselves with a little business know-how, but considering their impoverished background there was no way any of them would ever even think of doing so.

As such they take the incoming orders and organize them in order of due date, calculate the predicted earnings of each one and put them up against their living expenses to determine the minimum amount of work needed to be done for the day. At present every one of their products go for a lot and the due dates are, for the most part, incredibly generous and as such their work can easily be done by noon.

And so that’s exactly what the three choose to do, they finish up all their work by noon and either do tomorrow’s batch in advance or deal with abrupt special requests such as the one right now later on in the day.

「We’ve been testing out a bunch of possible new additions to add to our repertoire, such as tea or teacakes. They’re still in the testing phase though, so it’s not like they’ll be available for purchase any time soon.」

Teres says as she returns with the requested items and tea with biscuits to go alongside it at hand. Said biscuits were rusks – thinly cut pieces of bread fried in oil with some sugar sprinkled on top.

「These are delicious. Teres, did you make these all by yourself?」

「Elle, I was under the impression that you were perfectly aware of my cooking ability…」

「I-I’m so sorry!!!」

Aeris hastily apologizes to Teres, who had a dark cloud looming above her. It’s not like she was completely incompetent when it came to cooking, it’s just that her ability was inferior when put up against that of Fum’s or Nora’s, and so much as mentioning her name alongside Aeris and Leyla would be sacrilegious.

「Well it’s not like everyone here is a master cook or anything…」

「Makoto’s a shining example of this, she’s completely clueless when it comes to cooking.」

「Makoto’s a full time party member, it’s only natural she wouldn’t bother wasting time on a secondary skill like that, It’s everyone else who’s actually odd for dabbling in it for no real reason.」

Fum and Teres crack a strained smile at Nora’s remark. Under most circumstances adventurers don’t bother learning to make anything by themselves. At most they’ll maybe be capable enough to mock-up a makeshift trap on the spot with what they have lying around, but that’s about as far their expertise goes. That makes sense since they’d much rather be spending that precious time honing all of their combat related abilities instead of skills that are only really good for saving money, like potion making or blacksmithing.

Naturally there exist exceptions to this rule, none of them quite on the level of Hiroshi but exceptions nonetheless. It’s not a rare sight to see practitioners of professions like potion making or blacksmithing, where independently procuring materials is a necessity, train themselves up to the ninth, possibly eight, level of adventurer. However not every profession requires this and, strictly in the context of adventurers, that is the case as well.

「No real point in singling out Teres’, from boss man’s and Haruna’s perspective we’re all equally as rookie as the rest anyways.」

「Their threshold is something as comically high as being able to prepare a rock boar dish after all.」

「That doesn’t really make me feel any better…」

Nora’s and Fum’s words only made matters worse. Teres’ pointy elf ears were drooping, indicative of her demoralized mental state. To her it wasn’t so much a problem of societal expectations forcing her into feeling bad for not being able to cook, as can be seen in human society, it was more a matter of craftsman pride, even though she was still an apprentice by all accounts.