by Kiri Komori
The book was titled On the Two Suns, Moons, and the Stars. It didn’t look like a romance novel, so I assumed it was what I was looking for. I opened the book, and as soon as I flipped past the table of contents, I found myself looking at a two-page illustration of constellations.
This is it!
“So this is what they look like…”
Apparently, this world had constellations too. It was kind of exciting to discover that. It was another world altogether, but between this and how similar vegetables were, I had to wonder if this world and Earth were somehow distantly related.
That said, the constellations weren’t even remotely similar to the ones I knew.
What are these names…? The Horolinz Berz Constellation? Ugh…
Apparently, its name could be traced back to the Kingdom of Beti-Zena, a country that existed long ago… Whatever that meant. I supposed the simple explanation was that the constellations were named after great historical figures. I didn’t know what these people actually did, but it seemed important people were inclined to leave their names down in history no matter the world.
This wasn’t what I was looking for, though!
“Oh, there it is!”
At least, it looked right. One line in the table contents was titled “Twin Lunar Eclipse.” Flipping over to the page it listed, I started reading.
Apparently, there were two moons because someone called “The Elf of the Sun” deflected a falling meteor back into the sky. The meteor became the second moon, and the fire magic the elf used to fling it back became the second sun…or so the legend went.
“Huh.”
I checked the book’s front cover and the tables of contents again.
Is this a romance novel, after all…? All it’s got is illustrations and commentary… Is this seriously an astrology book? Because if it is, I’m in trouble here. Maybe astrology just isn’t as developed here. Well…I just need to figure out when the Twin Lunar Eclipse takes place.
“Hmm. ‘The Twin Lunar Eclipse happens in eighteen-year cycles. It takes place at night, during the Dodon migration period… It’s preceded by the distance between the two moons beginning to shrink during daytime…’ Daytime?!”
So there was no real way of finding out!
I knew it…
Dodons were essentially buffaloes. They were as large as Rucks (cows), as fat as pigs, let out bird-like squeaks, and were as strong as a boar. A strange animal, all told. Some animals out there were pretty savage, but Dodons were especially ferocious. They had sharp horns and, when faced with vivid colors, would break into an enraged sprint to ram it. Every year, I heard rumors of travelers being attacked or killed during their migration periods…
Their meat was very soft and supple, though.
Makes sense, I guess. They’re like cows…
Since they were wild animals, their meat was pungent, but male Dodon horns were used as an alchemical ingredient and sold for high prices. To that end, adventurers actively hunted them… And as one might expect, each year, there were stories of adventurers killed while trying to do so.
“…I guess we’ll know it’s time when the moons grow closer during the day. I guess it’s better than knowing nothing at all. Yeah, better than nothing…”
I picked up the book and walked down the stairs. Dad and Roin were sitting at the coffee corner, discussing work that needed doing around the inn. It was probably necessary, since they didn’t know exactly how many days it would take. I carried the book over to them and read out the explanation.
“So we’ll know it’s time when we see the moons getting closer during the day, huh?” Dad said, sipping his tea. “That’s clear enough!”
“But it doesn’t say the exact date…” Roin dropped his shoulders in disappointment.
Yeeep. What are you gonna do, though? Just give it up~
“Oh, no use complaining about it,” Dad said with a shrug. “Why not rest for today? I’m sure you’re tired from your trip. Why not take the missis out fishing?”
“Fishing?”
“Yes, there’s Lake Rhiode behind us. We can rent you a fishing rod for two hundred colts. And we’ll cook any fish you catch for free.”
“But renting the fishing rod costs money…”
“Well, we are running a business here.”
I thought I saw sparks flying between Dad and Roin!
“How about this, owner? I make my living as a minstrel. If any guests show up, I’ll entertain them with my songs for free.”
This was his attempt at haggling for a discount. But didn’t Dad say he’ll cut down on their fees if they help around the inn…?
“C’mon now, Roin… Put yourself in my shoes, will ya?” Dad regarded him with exasperated eyes. “I dunno how long you’re gonna be staying here. Just give up and help me out with cleaning and working the fields. Keep complaining, and I’ll have to ask your fiancée for help.”
“Ugh!”
Dad easily took the upper hand! But I didn’t like the idea of Roin working the fields.
“Dad, if you let someone who isn’t used to farming work the fields, it could drop the crops’ quality,” I told Dad. “And that could affect how our meals taste. Maybe you could just let him handle cleaning, laundry, and chopping wood?”
“Guh! Chopping wood?!” Roin exclaimed in clear displeasure.
“Hm, chopping wood…” Dad considered my suggestion. “Yeah, I guess that’s probably the safest option.”
Chopping wood was the most taxing task for Dad. He was missing an arm, so he had to do it almost entirely with his left hand. And when he had to do the laundry, handling some of the big sheets made his wooden prosthetic wet, and it took a long time for it to dry out.
Soap wasn’t common in this world, so one had to rub things by hand to wash them. It was so hard for Dad that he often offered guests discounts for handling the laundry on their own. He also provided a wood chopping discount and offered to cook any game guests brought back from fishing or hunting for free.
Can our inn really grow with all these discounts…? And instead of relaxing here, it feels like Dad’s working the guests to the bone instead… I’m not sure if this is something an inn should do. It’s not like we’re advertising outdoor camping as a part of the stay package or anything…
“Chopping wood and handling the laundry’s already part of your lodging fee discount.”
“Right… Are you that short on hands here?” Roin asked seriously.
“Ugh…” Dad frowned and then sighed before explaining. “See, the former owner passed away last month. My daughter’s turning five, and I only have one arm. Can’t handle all the work, so I have to ask the guests for help.”
“Ah! That’s a prosthetic arm…” Roin’s eyes widened in realization. “Right, that does sound rough… I’m no good at manual labor, but I’ll try to help out…for a discount, yes?”
“Right.”
This was how our inn was operating right now—by relying on the goodwill of our guests. I looked forward to getting older and shouldering half that burden, especially when it came to the laundry. Those big sheets will be no match for me…
…Wait. Can’t I just use alchemy to make soap?
“Dad!”
“You startled me, Tina. What is it?”
“I want to try making soap with alchemy, so can I have some time off from the chores?”
“Soap?” Dad repeated the word.
“Isn’t that what nobles and royalty use to wash themselves…?” Roin asked.
“Yes!” I nodded. “With soap, laundry and washing the dishes will be easy! And I could probably make it with alchemy!”
“O-Oh…” the two of them uttered at once.
Back to the study it is, then!
Like I suspected, the alchemy recipe book did have instructions for making soap. If I recalled correctly, it required chemicals…like sodium hydroxide and glycerin. Back when I was unemployed, I was overcome by this odd sense of having to do something wit
h myself and ordered a “Make-Your-Own Soap Kit” online, so I remembered the ingredients.
But in this world…or rather, when it came to making soap with alchemy, apparently it required two transmutations. The first one was to create the ingredients for the soap and the second was to mix them together.
It was considered a medium-difficulty item to create. I was already used to making tonics, so I wanted to branch out to more difficult creations next! Let’s get to it!
“But gathering the ingredients is the real problem…”
But if I did collect them all, I’d be good. I checked the ingredients. It listed a spider web… Apparently, any spider’s threads would work, so that was easily obtainable. Oil…again, any kind of oil would do, so that was fine too. Nunuja Ivy extract… There are Nunujas growing in the mountains. Caseopus digestive fluid…that was a type of carnivorous plant.
Spring water… Water from Lake Rhiode should be good enough. And moderately powdered Amans bark… Creating the powder was a bit difficult. The wording was strange too. What did “moderately powdered” mean? Was it like “according to your preference?”
“Anyway, I should get started on gathering the ingredients!”
Let’s get going!
“Gathering ingredients? That sounds interesting. I’ll join in.” Enofa, who seemed bored, decided to join me.
“Thank you!”
So with that settled, up the mountain we went!
Dad didn’t let me hike the mountain on my own. His exact words were, “Going there without an adult is dangerous. What if you get lost?!” I felt he was a bit overprotective… But then again, I was five years old. A five-year-old girl going up a mountain on her own seemed like a bad idea if there ever was one.
But that said, most of the ingredients could be found near the foot of the mountain.
If the ingredients are easy to find, I could mass-produce and sell them alongside my medicine! I could put one in the bathroom as a sample and have guests try it. And if they like how it feels, they could buy some for their journeys!
But that said, the question of if they’d like it remained to be seen. Still, even without selling it, having soap handy would mean we wouldn’t have to spend hours washing sheets by hand. One issue, though, was that soap meant Dad was even less reliable when it came to laundry. He wouldn’t be able to use it with his wooden hand. And this world had nothing in the way of rubber gloves…
“There are a lot of plants here. What do we take?” Enofa asked me.
“This and this,” I pointed at the ingredients I’d need. “The vine on this tree is a Nunuja Ivy. We squeeze it and collect the extract. And then we need the Caseopus digestive fluid. They grow in the underbrush here and have a unique scent that draws in insects. Then they eat them.”
“Huh? This plant eats bugs?”
“Yes, it does.”
This world had carnivorous plants too. I was surprised the first time I saw it. Enofa didn’t think a plant could eat bugs, either, and was apparently quite disgusted.
“Ugh… That’s nasty…”
“We need to collect its digestive juices.”
“What?! You’re taking this stuff?!”
“Yes.”
It was for the sake of making soap, after all. But I had to wonder whether it would wilt without its digestive juices or if it’d just produce more. I decided to check the next time I came. It’d be nice if it was the latter. I wouldn’t want the plants to wilt because of me, and it’d be a waste if I couldn’t use them repeatedly too… Hehehehe.
“That’s all the things we need from the mountain… We need to get spider webs next.”
“I-Is there any other gross stuff we’re going to collect that I need to know about?” Enofa asked with a grimace.
“We don’t need much. Two or three webs should do.”
“You call that ‘not much’…?”
I was sure I’d find a spider web somewhere. After looking around for a while, I heard Enofa chuckle. I looked up at her, and she waved her hands in a flustered manner.
“Oh, sorry. It’s just that Roin’s bad with spiders. A spider got on his shoulder during a performance and I found it. I didn’t know he was afraid of spiders at the time, so I just told him. What do you think happened next?”
“…I think it’s, um, easy to imagine…”
“That’s right!”
Well, for how bad he was at hiding things, and considering he was in the middle of a performance where he couldn’t start screaming or running… His expression must have been priceless.
I couldn’t blame Enofa for laughing so hard she had to hold onto her sides. I kind of wished I could have seen his reaction myself… Though it probably was no laughing matter for Roin!
“He went pale and red at the same time! It was hilarious!”
“Hehehe…” I giggled.
“But he didn’t stop playing. He’s a pro that way. And he managed to introduce himself to the audience too… See, until then, I always thought he was this unreliable, suspicious-looking, creepy narcissist. That all he was really good for was his facial expressions…”
You’re basically insulting him there…
“But ever since that incident, I realized he was kind of cute.”
It was his reaction that made her see his charm!
“And once that happened, well, you know how transparent he is! Hehehehe…!”
“So that’s how you fell in love…?”
“Yep. I was the one who asked him out.”
“Really?! That’s surprising!”
“He’s transparent but slow. He just wouldn’t move things along.”
“O-Oh.”
His idea for the marriage proposal was transparent too, given that he came all the way to Rofola to do it. But looking at Enofa made me feel like she’d just say, “That’s what’s cute about him!”
“But, um…Tinaris, was it?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you want to go visit a large country too? I can’t imagine you’ll meet anyone at an inn that hardly has any guests.”
“Huh? Ah, no, I-I’m still too little, so I don’t really…”
“That’s a waste. You’re better off experiencing love as much as you can. Otherwise, you might end up being a late bloomer who can’t bring herself to do anything, like Roin.”
“…I-I’ll, uh, I’ll try not to be like that…”
I definitely didn’t want to end up like Roin. But given my age, love felt like the furthest thing imaginable to me… Or, well, mentally speaking, I was in my mid-twenties now, but my five-year-old body wasn’t exactly wired for infatuation yet.
But that aside, Enofa’s story struck a chord with me. When I’m her age, will I fall in love like that too…?
“Ah, there’s a spider web,” Enofa said.
“Where?! Can I reach it?”
“It’s a bit high up. I’ll get it for you.”
“Thank you!”
And with that, I had everything I needed from here! Next, I needed to get Amans bark, so I went to the lumber pile. A bit north of the guests’ cottages, near the forest, was our lumber pile, and near it was a post for splitting lumber. There was also a shed nearby that contained work tools like hoes and axes, as well as Judie’s stable.
Right now, I needed some Amans bark, so I looked for some wood from an Amans tree in the lumber pile. It was a white, birch-like tree that gave off a pleasant aroma that was a bit like a cypress tree. Now wasn’t the time to focus on the scent, though.
I looked around for a moment for wood with white bark… And soon, I found some! Like I thought, there were some pieces of Amans wood in the lumber pile.
“All that’s left is water from the lake…” I said after collecting some bark.
“That’s a lot of different ingredients,” Enofa commented.
“Yes. But I can make soap with this!”
“Soap made with spider webs and bug-eating plants, huh… I know royalty and nobles use it for bathing, b
ut I’m not sure I’d want to use something like that…”
“Aw… Don’t say that… Once I transmute all these things together, the soap will only have the best parts of each ingredient!”
“Reaaaaaally?”
“O-Once it’s done, I’ll have Dad Appraise it!”
The transmutation I’d be performing this time was supposed to extract all the good traits from the ingredients and expel the negative ones. I didn’t know enough to guess what good traits spider webs had, but I think the person who wrote this recipe put a lot of work into researching the right ingredients.
I mean, if he went as far as spider webs and a carnivorous plant’s digestive fluids, he had to have been thorough! Alchemists who come up with recipes must be amazing. You probably have to be really smart!
That just left the spring water and oil. I could take some oil from the kitchen and water from the lake. I’d gathered the ingredients pretty quickly!
“Say, can I watch you do it?” Enofa asked me.
“Sure, I don’t mind,” I replied. “But I don’t think it’ll be all that interesting.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. It’s not often you get to see an alchemist at work. It’s pretty incredible you can do it when you’re so young.”
“Aah… I-I guess…”
She was pretty sincere.
“I read that alchemy was developed by people a long time ago to make life easier,” I said. “So a lot of the simpler recipes use things that are easy to come by.”
“Really?”
“Healing tonics, antidotes, and fever potions use water and herbs that grow everywhere, like Lilith, Duana, and Solan flowers.”
“They do?!”
People didn’t seem to know that. Medium and high-grade medicine required all sorts of ingredients, so their prices and effects were that much higher. I hoped I could make them someday. That way, I’d make a whole lot of money!
“I’ll get started, then!”
“Good luck, Tinaris!”
“Thank you!”
The tools I needed were a pot and an alchemy spoon. I’d need to prepare the ingredients first. Some of them were fine as is, but since I’d be breaking them down into their components, the order I did things was important.