Volume 4 Chapter 9.3

Volume 4 Chapter 9.3

Editor: Weasalopes

『So from how you said it, I take it that it’s pretty much confirmed？』

「Nearly. People trying to get to the main temple, several of them have gone missing. Also, people who should be arriving there have yet to show up. They say things started feeling suspicious around Stiren Temple right around when I reported to you last time. They were busy with the search around town and preparations and were only able to send out search parties yesterday early morning. And then things got hectic this morning when they realized the search party had yet to return the periodic contact.」

『I see. It sounds like a troublesome situation.』

「Yeah. I will, just in case, be checking out a route tomorrow, but honestly, it will be difficult for me to search much further than that. It’s Aearis’ realm of expertise now, I say.」

『Yeah, it sure is. I’ll take care of this particular matter. Depending on the situation, Aries herself may very well head over there.』

「Understood」

The earth mother goddess, Elza, one of the three great goddess pillars. Not being able to contact her in her own temple was a very bad sign. For this particular case, Forre couldn’t really fuss about “interfering in domestic affairs”.

「So next is Earl Dident, marked for forging documents and arrested by the Forre house.」

『At last, I see』

「Mm. The opportunity directly came about when the delinquents tried to get in Deary’s way with a worthless certificate. The hoodlums got arrested and they got a lot of info out of them bit by bit. Until about yesterday they were making these really cringey excuses and yapping, but I think they will have fully surrendered by afternoon today.」

『I see. Rather specific there. Where’d that info come from？』

「From one of the dwarves near the country’s center. We became chummy in exchange for weight, one of woman’s greatest hurdles.」

Layotte quickly knew what she meant.

『Were you actually that close with Marquis David？』

「Yeah, close enough to where we drink twice a week since I got wrapped up in the banquet at the tavern I was inspecting？」

『Oh, he really must like you.』

「So now as of recent, I’ve been obsessive about my liver and my weight.」

『Yeah, we’re talking dwarves after all. Sorry, but I’d like you to quit that, temper your liver and work at losing weight.』

While surprised to hear what a bigshot Rainy had found, Layotte had to be a bit cold to get Rainy back on track, even if it wasn’t her fault.

「Yeah, it’s really difficult to hang with dwarves two times a week. Your Highness, would it be alright for me to consult Deary about my liquor/diet plan？」

『……Well, I’ll allow it as long as you’re okay with exposing your lazy body.』

「Ugh……」

Pinpointing it where it hurt the most, Layotte made up for it by giving Rainy permission. She had certainly appeared to have made many important connections by giving up on various things while Hiroshi’s group was ravaging Crest Cave.

『So that’s all for the report？』

「Nothing else all that special. At most, maybe the fact that they’re starting to receive magic steel goods made from Crest Cave’s new furnaces and that the price of steel products has begun to stabilize.」

『I see. They are involved after all, so I should expect as much, but that was rather quick.』

「Also, in the words of the mining guildmaster over here, they should be able to bring the exported amount of steel products back to normal not long from now.」

『That’s great to hear.』

Layotte’s face loosened up on the other end when he heard Rainy’s good news. Unlike Darl, in Farlane you could excavate enough ore with enough demand as long as you didn’t care too much about quality. But with the quality of iron ore being the quality it was, Farlane was about two steps behind Forre in terms of both iron manufacturing and processing, so the limitations on exports from Forre were a serious pain of a problem.

Farlane had suppressed a large amount of its cuts in food supply, as it did, to an extent, procure its own food. Darl and Loren also procured a certain amount of iron for themselves, so they might have been fine, but for any other country, this would be a sucky situation.

After all, Forre was second in iron tech, with Farlane and Markto two steps behind. The other countries were even more steps behind, so you could easily see which countries might not take it well.

「And that’s about it for what I have to report.」

『Got it. And thank you for your work. I sent some extra budget, so make sure to go pick it up sometime tomorrow at the embassy.』

Hearing the rest of Rainy’s report, Layotte complimented her efforts and conveyed the monetary info before ending the transmission. Once that was over, Rainy gave a small sigh. As she had been laying off on the usual food intake, Rainy actually had quite a bit more freedom with money. Then again, she didn’t know what she should do with that freedom, so she just went along with accepting the amount.

「Guess I should work out a bit more before bed……」

Layotte didn’t have to tell her she was packing on the pounds. Though she was intently putting effort into reshaping her body every day, Rainy still ended up consuming more than a week’s worth of calories twice a week out of coercion. Without Mio’s level of fuel consumption, there would be no end to how many times she had to keep exercising.

「 I really should consult Deary tomorrow……」

Honestly, she didn’t want to show her current physique to Hiroshi, but constantly putting it off might make things too late for her when the time actually came. So before things became too late for her both as a woman and as a spy, Rainy was determined to expose her everything in front of the man she loved.

The same night that Rainy gave her periodic report, the workshop members had finished their job for the day, with Hiroshi constantly by a tired Haruna’s side to instruct her and with Mio and the other two assisting the operation, discussing advance arrangements for the finished products.

「Guess this is it for the lineup, y’all？」

「……Mm～、yeah, I think this is about it……」

Haruna concurred with Hiroshi after he made his conclusion based on the inspected products, her stamina and mana on the verge of being drained. The lineup in front of them consisted of ten longswords, eight large swords, five spears, three axes/hammers- quite the assortment. All of these were Haruna’s products over the last few days. Half of the longswords/large swords were items she had put a thorough amount of effort into at Crest Cave, while the remaining ones were remakes of the versions she had worked on at Crest Cave.

「……I sort of lost track in the process, but what do you think of their overall function……？」

「Other than your longswords, which are the best, the pure performance is quite a bit greater than what they sell in Farlane, but not quite up to dwarf standards.」

「Okaaay then. But I sorta expected that……」

Shoulders drooping at Mio’s precise evaluation, Haruna reached for the stamina potion. Without drinking it, Haruna did not feel she could recover from her fatigue today.

「So what I’m thinkin right now is we make em look juuust a lil bit defective n exaggerate the price to match the feel. Whatcha think?」

「Why exactly are we doing that？」

「old back the price so that we don’t get too much cash on hand, and then see if anyone can see through the disguise. Also, I plan to mix in some actual defects that Haruna made.」

Hiroshi answered Mio’s question with two reasons; one fairly sound, and the other clearly biased toward his own hobbies. While a bit put off at the reasoning, Haruna and Mio decided not to complain.

「So I think the real good ones will give some of the lower end magic steel products a run for their money, ‘n I plan to put this ‘n that into the final products」

「That’s all well and good, but how do you intend to tweak them？」

「Well, first ya gotta know that the bare requirements have all been met for functionality. I’m thinkin’ we gotta make some thorough enchantments.」

「Such as？」

「Harden it up with some real tough defense enchantments, maybe make it to the point where someone of Elle’s skill level can take on Wyverns」

Haruna and Mio interjected immediately into what Hiroshi said (he was clearly intending to play around too much). As scary as it sounded, attack enchantments were already in play during the forging process, so at this point the weapons had enough power to get the minimum necessary damage on the weaker wyverns.

「Now then, first we use behemoth oil to up all defense by 200%. Then we get an alligator tailbone for Passive Barrier 70% generation success rate, garbarensia poison sac for strengthening resistance against status effects (all) by 75%, ‘n then to top it all off, strengthen parry by 75% as well as lil status up adjustments, somethin’ like that, ‘n then……Ah, right. Gotta stick in some hidden functions that activate when the user’s in a pinch with their attack ‘n all that……」

「Sensei, that’s way too much……」

「The frick you talkin’ bout gurl? This is only the beginnin’!」