by Hiro Ainana
“I’m going downstairs for a minute. Take care of Mia for me.”
“Okeydoke.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Gotchaaa!”
“Mrr…”
My kids were happy to comply, but Mia grumbled reluctantly. Her hand shot out from under the blanket and grabbed my sleeve, releasing me only when I insisted I would be right back.
Why was she so attached to me?
Downstairs, Nadi was shoveling food into her mouth at an alarming rate.
“Thanks so much. All I’ve eaten today is a tiny bit of porridge in the morning.”
Finishing her simple meal of rye bread and soup, Nadi sat back contentedly and took a deep breath, enjoying the scent of the light herbal tea Lulu had poured for her.
“Herbal tea” made it sound fancy, but it was really just hot water with some aromatic leaves floating in it. It wasn’t as strong as mint, but the aftertaste was quite refreshing. It was apparently very cheap, too, with a full bag of leaves selling for a single penny coin.
“Mr. Satou, you’re a merchant, right?”
Taking a sip of her tea, Nadi casually started a conversation.
Oh yeah, I guess that is what I’ve been telling people. It was getting a little awkward, since I hadn’t done a single merchant-like thing since arriving in the city, but I stuck with it anyway.
“Then you have a horse-drawn carriage?”
“No… I did have a pack horse, but it ran off on me after the starfall a while back.” I was pretty sure that was what I’d told Iona, too.
“Oh, that’s terrible. Well, if you happen to have the funds, why not buy yourself a carriage now?”
She made a sudden proposal with a look of concern.
According to her, an acquaintance of the store manager’s was a merchant who was retiring, so he was looking to sell his carriage and the two horses that came with it.
Once I was done sightseeing in this area, I was planning to bring the beastfolk girls somewhere that they could easily live in peace, so this was a perfect opportunity…but there was one problem.
“That would be excellent, but I don’t have any experience driving a carriage…” I had a normal license, but I’d obviously never driven anything horse-drawn. I fell silent for a moment, unsure whether to decline the offer or ask if she could introduce me to someone who could teach me the basics.
At that moment, I noticed that Lulu looked like she wanted to say something, so I changed the subject. “Lulu, if you have something to say, feel free to do so.”
“U-um, well, I’ve actually driven a one-horse carriage before…” She trailed off and bit her lip a few times, but finally Lulu managed to force out the words to say that she had some experience.
“Well, then, I suppose you can teach me. In that case, Nadi, I think I’ll buy it after all, if I may.”
“What a quick decision. But don’t you want to know how much it costs, Mr. Satou?”
Crap, I’d gotten carried away because of all the gold coins I had in Storage.
I glanced outside and found a horse-drawn carriage passing through the plaza, using my “Estimation” skill to check the price. A pretty neat trick, if I do say so myself.
“I trust you on that, Nadi. As long as we can keep it within this budget, it’s not a problem. You can keep whatever’s left over for yourself.”
I handed Nadi a bag full of gold coins, trying to model my expression after a trader in an old movie with ulterior motives.
The bag contained the market value plus an extra two gold coins, so it should be plenty as long as we weren’t being duped.
If the negotiation broke down here, my “Negotiation” and “Haggling” skills would have to come into play.
“When did you…”
Nadi looked perplexed, but she dutifully counted the coins and issued me a temporary receipt.
I guess my performance was a little too good. It would’ve been more natural if I had proposed an amount and provided it to her later rather than putting the coins in a pouch in Storage and offering it right away.
All right, enough regrets. I’ll just be more careful next time.
“Let’s practice camping before we go on a journey!”
At Arisa’s suggestion, we decided to set up a practice campsite in a vacant lot in the west quarter.
Nadi had gotten permission from a person in power for us to use it. Normally it would be fine to just use it without permission, but since we’d be using fire in this case, it was better to ask beforehand.
The lot was full of grass and other weeds, so I used a sickle I’d bought from a nearby hardware store to start making a place for us to practice.
I had sent Arisa, Lulu, and Liza to buy more necessary tools and supplies that we’d use for camping.
“Cutting weeeeds?”
“Leave it to us, sir!”
Pochi and Tama happily started cutting the grass.
I worked along with them, making a heap of all the clippings in one spot. In the area where we’d be making our impromptu kitchen, I pulled the weeds up by the roots instead of cutting them.
Next, I stacked some stones Pochi and Tama had gathered to create a makeshift stove. I was relying on my memories of camping as a student, but I think I managed to do a pretty good job.
Since we had time to kill before the shopping group came back, the three of us lay back on the bed of clippings to look up at the clouds.
I’d noticed movement in the skill acquisition log while I was working, so I checked it then. I had gotten even more skills than I’d expected. There were six in total: “Weeding,” “Farming,” “Cultivation,” “Collecting,” “Masonry,” and “Camping.”
“Camping” seemed like a skill that I should’ve gotten a long time ago. But I guess all I’d really done in the labyrinth was hang a tent over some rocks and take a nap, so maybe that didn’t count. The requirements were still very unclear.
“We’re back, and we brought supplies!”
Arisa returned, with Liza and Lulu close behind.
Liza fine-tuned the temporary stove, then put a pot on the fire. It looked like she’d already drawn water beforehand.
“Eh-heh-heh, look, look!”
The item Arisa was holding up to me proudly was a kettle, complete with a whistle.
I wasn’t sure if it was for outdoor use or just because there were no gas stoves in this world, but it looked like it was meant to be hung on a pole and heated over a fire, just like the pot.
Lulu put some tea leaves in the kettle and hung it up next to the pot.
The menu for today apparently featured a stew made with dried meat and three kinds of chopped root vegetables, with a side of rye bread.
It turned out that white bread could only be bought on the other side of the inner wall. I had no problem with rye bread for now, so I figured there was no need to go out of my way unless I got sick of it.
Liza had put aside her spear for a kitchen knife today, serving as our cook. Lulu helped out with smaller roles like peeling vegetables, and Arisa cheered them on. Pochi and Tama had been put on kettle-watching duty.
I headed over to a corner of the vacant lot to retrieve a tree stump. We could use it as a table.
Nobody was watching, so I pulled up the stump with brute force. This normally would’ve been impossible without heavy machinery, but the help of my abnormally high STR stat made it an easy feat.
I lopped off the thick roots of the stump with the magic hatchet that I’d “borrowed” from the red-helmeted ratman.
Before long, I heard the kettle start to whistle. But for some reason, instead of taking it off the fire, Pochi and Tama came running over to me.
“The kettle’s maaad!”
“Help us, sir! The kettle man is angry, sir!”
…The “kettle man”?
Pochi and Tama had apparently never seen a kettle with a whistle before, and they were startled by the keening noise that the steam made.
“That’s just the
sound of the whistle telling us that the water is boiling.”
“It’s not maaad?”
“Why does it whistle when the water boils, sir?”
I tried to explain the mechanics of steam to them, but they didn’t quite understand.
“Of course they wouldn’t. They’re children, not science majors. How are they supposed to understand that water’s volume multiplies by one thousand when it vaporizes?”
That’s wrong, Arisa. It multiplies by 1,699.
Of course, I didn’t actually voice that objection to Arisa; instead, I opened the lid of the kettle and lifted it up lightly.
“Look at this.”
The kettle’s lid was rattling in the steam.
“When water gets hot, it turns into this white smokelike stuff. The smoke is very strong, so it can easily move something light like this lid.”
Arisa tore up a nearby piece of grass and made a waterwheel. Or in this case, a pinwheel.
She held it up to the kettle and let the steam spin it, then pulled it away and blew on it to spin it herself.
“Just like when a person blows out air, the steam blowing through the whistle makes a noise.”
“Arisa’s amaziiing!”
“You’re so smart, ma’am!”
To my chagrin, Arisa’s explanation seemed to get through to Pochi and Tama easily.
If I learned to use Water Magic, I’d like to try developing a spell that blew enemies away with steam or turned into a wall or something. Although, I supposed that might exist already.
Once we had finished the meal and were relaxing contentedly, I noticed a light on my radar and turned my head.
Locking eyes with me, three cat-people and dog-people kids froze in their tracks. I recognized their stuffed animal–like appearance right away.
“Forrr the chick’n, sirrr.”
“Thank’oo, sirrr.”
“It was rrreally tasty.”
The beastfolk kids thanked me repeatedly, and each one placed a little leaf full of nuts and berries on the stump I was sitting on.
“What are these?”
“Trrreats, sirrr.”
Were these thank-you gifts?
At once, Pochi and Tama came running over.
Arisa and Lulu had gone with Liza as their escort to buy some fruit for dessert, so they weren’t around.
“No fightiiing!”
“You musn’t bully our master, sirs!”
Apparently, they thought these kids were attacking me and were clearly ready for all-out war.
“It’s all right. These kids brought me nuts as thanks for the grilled chicken I gave them.”
At this, Pochi and Tama relaxed their fighting stances.
“These are chinquapin nuts, sir! They’re very tasty, sir!”
“And these are wolfberriiies. They’re good, toooo!”
Picking up the treats on the little leaf plates, the girls told me their names.
“They’rrre forrr him!”
The children didn’t seem to like that Pochi and Tama had picked up some of the treats without permission, and they raised their voices in protest.
I certainly wanted to accept their gifts with gratitude, but considering what I’d heard from Pochi and Tama before, I was concerned that they needed this food far more than I did.
…I know, I’ll give them a thank-you gift for their thank-you gift.
If they’d come a little earlier, I could have given them some stew and bread…
But I still had almost five pounds of dried meat, so I figured I could give them that.
“Thank you very much.”
I wrapped the nuts and berries in a handkerchief and tucked them away in my Garage Bag.
The children seemed satisfied at this and started to leave, so I called out to them.
“I have a favor to ask.”
“Whazzit, sirrr?”
“We have so much of this that we couldn’t eat all of it. Do you think you could take some for me?”
Pochi and Tama looked like they were about to speak up, so I hastily covered their mouths.
I was sure they were going to tell me that they could eat any amount of meat just fine.
“Arrre you surrre?”
“Yes, you’d be helping me a great deal.”
Pochi and Tama stared at me with protest in their eyes, but I pretended not to notice.
I waved at the beastfolk kids as they left, carrying the wrapped parcel of dried meat like a precious object.
At some point, Pochi and Tama had discovered the fun of rubbing their heads against my stomach, so I let them carry on until Arisa and the others returned.
On the way back from our “camping practice” (which was really just pretext for a picnic), I stopped by the general store to fill out the necessary paperwork for purchasing the horse-drawn carriage.
We arranged for Nadi to complete the purchase that day, with delivery scheduled for noon two days later.
It was a surprisingly speedy process.
While we worked on the paperwork, Arisa suggested that we should bring Mia back to her home.
Nadi said the elves lived just south of the old capital, so it should be easy enough to go there after sightseeing in the city.
When we brought it up, Mia seemed quite enthusiastic, and I was certainly interested in seeing an elf village, so it was decided that we would talk to the store manager about it when he returned to Seiryuu City. I guess we do need to get her guardian’s permission.
But even after we made our decision, the manager still didn’t return.
Still, Nadi didn’t seem too worried about her beloved boss, so it was probably fine.
As for the horse-drawn carriage, when it was time for the long-awaited introduction and test drive, Lulu and I headed outside the city so that she could help me practice driving it.
“The weather’s very nice again today.”
“…Yes, sir. It is, sir.”
I tried innocuously chatting about the weather, but Lulu’s expression was as stiff as ever.
Lulu seemed anxious about being alone with me; her shoulders were tense. The horses seemed to sense her nerves, too, as they were snorting roughly and couldn’t seem to calm down.
“You don’t need to be so tense. I’m not expecting you to start behaving like Arisa—in fact, I’d rather you didn’t—but I hope you can be more comfortable with me like Pochi and Tama.”
“But…I’m a slave. That seems so strange…”
Lulu’s voice was so faint it was practically inaudible. It seems like it’ll take a while to change her mind.
For now, maybe I should start by getting her to take deep breaths and relax.
“Lulu, breathe in slowly…”
I took the reins from her while I gave her instructions. Thinking it’d be best to relieve the tension from her body as well as her mind, I showed her how to do some seated stretches that I sometimes used in the workplace.
Maybe because I’d gotten a youthful new body when I came here, I hadn’t had any stiff shoulders or anything, so I hadn’t done them at all recently.
“Do you feel a little better? As long as we’re here, would you like to chat a little?”
I deliberately looked away from Lulu and up at the clouds, speaking in a laid-back tone.
Her tension seemed to have abated a little, but she still gave only short responses like “yes” and “indeed.”
That’s right…isn’t Lulu uncomfortable with men?
According to Arisa, her male cousins and and neighborhood kids had bullied her sometimes, so it wouldn’t be that surprising.
She didn’t seem to be too comfortable with talking, either. In cases like this, it was best to let them talk about what they do want to talk about instead. If it was about something she liked or could brag about, she should loosen up a bit. That was how it was for my nerdy friends and me, after all.
Now then, what topic would be best?
I thought for a moment, then settled on the topi
c of Arisa.
“…It’s true! Arisa’s just so amazing!”
Apparently, my decision had been the right one.
Lulu seemed to be enjoying herself as she talked about Arisa.
Her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks were a little flushed. She was always a beautiful girl, but this only made her even more so.
Oh, yikes. My thoughts had veered into dangerous territory for a second there. Scary.
“You really love your little sister, don’t you?”
“Yes! Although sometimes it’s hard to tell which one of us is really the older one.”
“She certainly doesn’t act like an eleven-year-old.”
“Well, Arisa has always been a genius, ever since we were little.”
I wasn’t sure if she was a genius so much as she just had a lot of knowledge from her previous life. I wondered if she’d actually talked to Lulu about that?
Well, whatever. As long as we’re on the subject, we might as well delve into it a little.
“What was she like back then?”
“Well, for example…”
Her high opinion of Arisa seemed to blind her to certain flaws, but I let her talk as much as she liked, not offering any boorish corrections or objections.
Eventually, Lulu started to cough and hold her throat from the unfamiliar overexertion, so I handed her some water.
We continued on this way until close to noon, with Lulu happily bragging about Arisa to her heart’s content.
Hearing the echo of distant thunder, I looked up to see dark clouds stretching out over the mountains.
I think we still have a few hours, but we’d better take care of our main objective here before we get rained on.
“Shall we get started on the driving practice?”
“Yes! I’m sorry, I’ve just been going on and on about Arisa…”
Once I reassured Lulu that there was no need to be embarrassed for talking so much, we began the lesson.
Of course, as soon as I started to steer the horse-drawn carriage as Lulu had shown me…
> Skill Acquired: “Driving”
> Title Acquired: Coachman
…I immediately gained the necessary skill, so with each part of our lesson, I put more skill points into it.