chapter 7

It’s morning . I’m sleepy because of making acetate yesterday . But a maid’s morning starts early . After [Cleaning] myself, I immediately started on making breakfast . Today will be a salad made from young salad leaves and tomato (salt seasoning), and the leftover pot-au-feu from yesterday . It had felt like we were lacking vegetables but now the menu is just full of it . And then after pofu pofing everyone as they woke up, breakfast . And suddenly, Suzumoto dropped a bomb . yhw “Ah, we don’t need lunch today . ” “Whaaat?”

nande

When I asked, apparently they had been returning at noon, but since they became able to recover MP, they decided to try going a little further . Tha, that’s true . They need to find the other club members as quickly as possible, there is a large chance they might be in the same situation as Kadomi-kun was in a while ago . But, you guys……what are you going to do about lunch? “We’ll cook some bird on the spot and eat it . ” “Birds aren’t so easy gut, don’t look down on them . ” “Then we can eat fruits or something . ” “The herbs for MP recovery? You’re gonna eat them as they are?” “Eh, isn’t that fine?” “Hagasaki-kun, you’re fine with that?” “Not really, but can’t be helped . ” ……they were like that . “You guys……do you know of, bentos?” “……those things, existed……”

yes they did

I quickly boiled some water while steaming potatoes and carrots that I had cut into bite-sized pieces, and wrapped smoked meat that didn’t have much salt in paper while waiting . I stuffed the cooked potatoes and carrots into plastic jars and handed them out with the meat . I soaked the mint, rosemary and bay laurels in the boiled water, extracting the components and making them into tea, poured them into plastic bottles and handed those out . For fruits, please find what you can and eat those, have a nice trip . I reminded them ve—ry well to be careful to tell me in advance before sleeping if they wanted bentos for lunch again .

yes mom

I made that as a bento, but no matter how you think about it, today’s menu is bad for carrying around . If we had wheat flour I could make bread, or onigiri if we had rice, but with tubers as the staple food right now, making portable rations is difficult . ……nothing can be done about those, so let’s try experimenting with tubers . fries? There is quite a large stock of potatoes . I’ve also planted some in the brand new garden, so there’s no need to worry about running out . I grated the potatoes……there was no tools, so with no other choice, I carefully washed a file from the toolbox and used that . Grating a soccer ball-sized potato took 1 hour . Damn i—t . I wrapped the grated tubers in a towel and wringed it to squeeze out the starch . Wring and wring . Wring it to death . I got water with starch, so I added a bit of water and left it . Once it settled, I will pour away the top later, add water again, let it settle again and repeated that a few times, then the last thing to do is just to dry the starch left behind in the sun . I can make starch like this, which I can mix it with potato to make potato cakes . It should be easier to carry around than normal potatoes . If I mix in starch, it should increase the carbohydrates too .

… . . innovative…?

While waiting for the starch to settle, I pulled out the deerskin from the alum salt solution, wrapped it in plastic and left it in a cool,dark area . I will leave this for 1 day . I’ll dry it tomorrow . Then it’s time to water the garden . For water, I got Hagasaki-kun to fill 8 plastic tanks with water before sleeping everyday, so I’m using that . 2 plastic tanks is enough for cooking anyway . I poured the water from the plastic tank into a tub and used that to sprinkle the water around . Repeating that a few dozen times . ……gardening is a maids job too right? Then can’t I make this a skill? No, it hasn’t become a skill yet, so is this the wrong tool? Come to think of it, I didn’t use it because it’s small, but there’s a watering can . When I tried watering with it to see if it became a skill when I used it, as usual, an amount of water that ignores the law of conservation of mass flowed out and I easily finished the watering . Since it’s a small watering can, it’s not heavy and with water coming out of nowhere, there’s no need to go back and forth to refill . When I confirmed my skills, [Textile Alchemy] and [Watering] skills were added on . Mhm . Mhm……that thing yesterday night, was alchemy……

… . . what else would it be

For now I decided to spin the fibers to make thread . I had thought it wouldn’t work because I don’t have a spinning wheel, but that wasn’t true . A skill did it for me . I somehow understood how to move my hands and when I moved them that way, the thread formed smoothly . Wo—w, fast . And the amazing thing about this skill is not just its speed . It’s key feature is the stable quality of the thread . The unbelievably consistent thickness of hand-spun thread! And it’s thin! A skill that would put machine-spun thread to shame .

cheat

Okay, next I need to weave this into cloth, but I don’t feel like I can make a loom . After thinking for a while, I feel like a skill would somehow make it work if I had a board to hang the warp and shuttles to pass the weft through, so I’m making those 2 first . (T/N: warp=vertical threads, weft=horizontal, shuttles=thing used to pass weft through warp) For the warp……eeeh, it should be fine if I had a long wooden board with rows of a lot of small holes on either end, for the shuttle, it’s fine if I can wind the weft around it . I made a wooden board with [Cleaning] and was going to open up holes in it with [Cleaning] too, but, well, it failed as expected, so I moved on to opening holes with a needle one by one . ……hmmm, like this, the cloth will definitely become something that has large gaps like gauze…… Will it be okay if I make the weft tighter? For now I somehow made it, so I passed the warp through . This is the most troublesome part, but thanks to the power of skills, it was unexpectedly easy . And then after winding the weft around the shuttle, on to weaving .

fast!

Conclusion . The gaps are large, but it’s cloth . But the gaps are too big, it can’t be used . Should I just keep using [Cleaning] until I can produce a loom from 1 piece of wood?

don’t think you can go that far

And as I was doing that, the starch settled, so I poured away the top layer of liquid and added water and stirred . Then leave it again . Since they didn’t come back, my sense of time has became slightly off, it’s already 2 in the afternoon . Aah, time passes fast . And so, lunch that also serves as an experiment . I soaked smoked meat that had extra salt with bay leaves in water and tried the salty soup . Mhm, well, this should be fine . I thought it would be too salty if I didn’t remove the salt, but if we ate it like this, then its fine even if I don’t remove the salt . I had been wondering about it for a while, so it was a good chance to experiment . I can’t experiment with meals when others are eating it too .

you could, use them as subjects

In the afternoon, I just kept smoking the deer meat and endeavoured on raising the precision of [Cleaning] . Of course I also took care of the starch! The result was that I somehow became able to make simple three dimensional shapes, so I tried making plates and bowls . As I made more, it improved visibly so that’s something to be happy about good job Just that, this method of using [Cleaning] drains away a scary amount of concentration . When I was done, I felt drained so I tried chewing on mint and my energy recovered . I see—, this is MP . Since I have the chance, I also brewed herb teas made from rosemary and mint and tested which one recovered more MP . The results was that there wasn’t much difference . Just something like mint might have a slightly more instantaneous effect .

eeeh… . disappointing

Evening approached, so I began preparing dinner . Today let’s have deer meat and onions on skewers . Since it’s deer meat, it becomes something like light beef skewers . For sauce, we will have salted onion sauce and soy sauce . For the soy sauce, in place of sugar, I tried adding the juice of that green orange . I taste-tested it and it was quite good . And then using stock made from herbs including onion, deer meat and carrots, I made potage with potatoes . It was quite tiring without a mixer . Yes . And with a salad made from young salad leaves, it’s done for now . After this, I just need to wait for their return .

always waiting

“We’re ba—ck . ” “Welcome back masters . You increased . ” Yes . They increased . Standing in front of the door……were 6 people! “Wa—, Maito-san, you really are a maid-san . ” “Hi— . Excuse me— . Uwah, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the lab, I’ve missed it . ” The one with the atmosphere which makes you feel like flowers are blooming around him is Katori-kun and the one being moved by the lab is Hariu-kun . “We found them so we picked them up . ” Kadomi-kun seems slightly proud so he might be the one that found the 2 of them . For now I praised him, good boy . No response! ……but since Kadomi has a bow and Hariu has 2 short swords……they are also normal combat professions, sad . Damn i—t, I want maid comrades .

you mean butler?

I ran about a little to supply food for the suddenly increased number of people, and then we started on dinner . Kind of as expected, both Katori and Hariu haven’t eaten properly for a while and their appetite was amazing . “It’s been so long since we’ve eaten something warm . ” “It’s been just fruits and raw meat for us all this time . Ahahahahaha . ” Seems like the two of them had been planning an experiment in the chemistry lecture hall . Incidentally, the chemistry lecture hall is the classroom opposite the chemistry lab . It seems like there wasn’t any other students, is this good or bad luck? And as expected, they found weapons in the cleaning cabinet, equipped them accordingly and went out . They didn’t know that they could carry the classroom itself so they were late because they went back to get it . Katori is a [Sniper] and Hariu is a [Thief] . Since Hariu got a skill called [Discerning Eye], they didn’t have trouble with choosing food, but they couldn’t use fire so were not able to heat it up . ……that’s fatal! Furthermore it’s not like they could do [Cleaning], so they were very filthy . This could not be overlooked, so I quickly did [Cleaning] on them at the entrance . ……thinking about it like that, we really are blessed……

with a maid

And the two of them had truly wonderful skills . Katori had [Mechanical Construction] and Hariu had obtained [Carpentry], Katori’s bow had become a compound bow . And so I mobilised them to make me a loom at once . Make it myself? Na—h, leave it to the specialists . A book in the chemistry lab had the structure of a loom, after I showed it to them, apparently they could make it if they had the materials . I’m sorry for doing this just after a meal, but I mobilised Suzumoto and Kadomi-kun to secure lumber and the loom was done within that night . ……hyahoooooooo! With this, I can start weaving tomorrow!

calm down

Also they will need bento for tomorrow as well, so I’m sleeping earlier today to wake up early . Good night~ .

Hecate just remembered in the middle of this chapter that deer meat=venison………too lazy to change it by this point, just gonna keep it as deer meat for consistency . gomennasai