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Chapter 2 – 2 (part 1)
The First Job
Waking up today felt refres.h.i.+ng. I"m glad I went to bed a little early, it feels like it did my body some good, and I"m in very good condition today. I got dressed right away and packed my few belongings into my bag.
Going downstairs, I headed toward the garden and brought s.h.i.+romaru and Slalin out of the bag. As usual I gave them some food and washed my face with water from the well. After that I went to the dining area, where the other patrons of the inn were being quite lively.
“Good morning, ma"am. What"s for breakfast today?” I greeted the innkeep"s wife.
“Good morning Tenma, today you can choose between bread or okayu. 1 Which would you like?” she asked.
Around these parts, rice (the indica strain) is grown and I"m really glad I can still eat it regularly.
“Okayu, please.”
“Okay! The side dish is dried fish. I"ll be back in just a second.” She replied and went to the kitchen.
While I waited, I took out my home-made umebos.h.i.+2 from my Magic Bag. I made them because I had found a plant with fruit that really resembled plums before I came to the city. The name of the plant was apparently 『Komai』 and similar to plums, their blue pits also contained poison inside.
“Sorry for the wait. Oh, you"re eating those again? You always have 『Pickled Komai』 along with your okayu, hm~?” she said while placing the okayu down before me.
“Yeah, I really like them and they"re healthy too.”
I replied, but in truth they were hard to eat. These umebos.h.i.+ were not very popular here.
“Oh right, Tenma, you"re leaving the city today for a few days to take on a quest, right?”
“Yeah, I"m going to exterminate some Dash Boars.”
“Good luck. But don"t do anything too reckless and get yourself hurt!”
She tried to gently encourage me. Even though I"ve been out hunting many times, this is the first time I"m doing it as a pro, so I hope to avoid even minor injuries.
I left the Full Belly Inn and headed toward the city gate. On the way I pa.s.sed some food carts and bought some small meals for later and snacks and such. I stored them away in my Magic Bag, but suddenly, drool starting dribbling down from s.h.i.+romaru"s snout. It seems he had caught the aroma of the meat skewers that wafted by.
s.h.i.+romaru stared at me with adorable, round eyes. It would be cute if he wasn"t drooling so much.
I had no choice but to buy three more meat skewers and eat some of them myself, right there on the spot. I gave one to Slalin, and held the other two in each of my hands. I bit into one just as it was and chewed it really slowly. The other one I waved around gently so it would cool down.
Slalin extended his body outward like a tentacle to hold onto the meat skewer, and little by little he absorbed parts of the meat into his body, digesting it. It was always interesting to watch how he ate.
On the other side, s.h.i.+romaru had his eyes glued to the meat that was being waved around, his head going up and down.
“Yeah, I guess this meat is a little bit on the tough side, but it has a good chew to it. It"s reeeally delicious.”
s.h.i.+romaru continued waving his head up and down alongside the slowly cooling meat.
“Nom nom nom nom”
s.h.i.+romaru"s eyes became watery as his head continued to wave.
“Nom nom, gulp. Yaa, so tasty~”
“KYUUUN~!”
As I opened my mouth to take another bite, s.h.i.+romaru let out a sad sounding cry. Sorry s.h.i.+romaru! Forgive me, I"ve been doing it on purpose. s.h.i.+romaru"s reaction was so funny I had inadvertently been pretty mean just now. I mentally apologized to s.h.i.+romaru and held out the skewer for him.
With an ecstatic expression s.h.i.+romaru bit the skewer from the top down, putting all of the meat into his mouth at once. I gently pulled the skewer downwards, and not a single bit of meat was left on the stick. s.h.i.+romaru chomped only a few times before he swallowed. He then promptly coaxed me, with a look that said “just one more”. In place of an apology for earlier, I bought several more skewers and divided them up among s.h.i.+romaru and Slalin. Just as before, s.h.i.+romaru only chewed the meat a few times before swallowing.
I arrived at the gate at almost the same time as Lilly and the others got there. I waved to them and called out and the three of them, like puppies (even though they"re cats) rushed up to me.
“Good morning Tenma! Did we make you wait very long?”
“Sorry Tenma~”
“We slept in a little, sorry.”
“Good morning Lilly, Nelly, Milly. I also just got here so it was perfect timing, actually.” I greeted the three of them.
” ” ” That"s a relief~ Honestly, last night the other two were way too hyper and we went to bed really late!” ” ”
All three of them gave the same excuse in perfect harmony.
“The ones who were goofing around having fun were Nelly and Milly!”
“No, that"s wrong! It was Lilly and Milly!”
“Whaaat~ It was Lilly and Melly!”
All three blamed the other two for being too excited. I let out a sigh.
“Because all three of you were excited, all three of you slept in, right?”
” ” ” Sorry… ” ” “
Right after I pointed it out, all three apologized.
“Anyways, we"re all here so lets get going.”
“Yeah, if we leave now we should get to the village that made the request before evening.”
“That"d be good. Lets go as fast as we can, so we can collect info too!”
“I agree~! Quick, lets go!”
We approached the gate keeper and greeted them. After talking with them for a bit, we continued on the road toward the village, where I said to the three catgirls,
“Ah, wait a sec, I have something cool to show you.”
I took something out from my Magic Bag, a large box shaped thing, and put it down on the edge of the road.
“A carriage?”
“But what about the horse, Tenma?”
“Will s.h.i.+romaru pull it?”
Above their heads, question marks hovered in the air. They were astonished at the thing I had pulled from the Dimensional Bag, and they all shared their confusion.
―~――~―――~―――~――~― This chapter was translated by Refulgent for [ FourSlimes . com ―~――~―――~―――~――~―
“No, this guy will pull it.”
I said as I pulled something else out from the bag, a large black lump of metal. I held my hand out and channeled magical power through it into the lump, and said,
“Awaken!”
The lump glowed and a bunch of red and black beams of light shot out from it. Although it had previously been just a lump, it grew four legs and it stood up.
It resembled a horse, standing 2 meters tall and about 3 meters in body length.
“Wah! That scared me!”
“Can that thing pull us?”
“It"s so big~”
“Not yet, I still have to give it the finis.h.i.+ng touch. Slalin, GO~!”
I gave the order to Slalin and he climbed up onto the horse"s back. He then opened a hatch at the base of the horse"s neck and slid inside. As Slalin closed the hatch, the horse"s eyes started to glow with a brilliant red light. As the eyes lit up, the horse began to walk, as if it was a real horse. I hooked up the horse to the carriage.
The three catgirls had been surprised by the horse, and even more so by Slalin climbing in.
“Wah, it moved!”
“Amazing~ It"s like a real horse.”
“Hey Tenma~, what happened to Slalin?”
They said excitedly. These three girls combined can be quite boisterous at times.
“This is the artificial-life form horse-type golem, Tanikaze! Inside, Slalin helps by using his magic power to activate it, and then is able to control it!” I explained.
Tanikaze operates using a Magic Core and can be said to be a type of artificial monster. I aim to have it moving on its own in the near future, without needing Slalin at all.
The Magic Core that it uses was dropped by the Dragon Zombie from before, which Slalin had very cleverly collected before we left.
Hi, Refulgent, your translator here, if you like my translations, you can show your support by leaving a comment or constructive feedback at Four slimes . com I"d love to hear from you directly~
Because the magic core was from a creature that was formerly an Ancient Dragon, it would originally have been 1 about meter in diameter. Unfortunately it had split apart due to numerous cracks, with one third mostly intact, another third cracked into small-ish pieces, and the last third into dozens of tiny pieces. Among those pieces, I had used the biggest as well as the one broken into small pieces and successfully created Tanikaze"s core.
I formed its outer sh.e.l.l by infusing magical power into high purity steel, making a large quant.i.ty of 『Magic Steel』. Since the outer sh.e.l.l"s material can be swapped out, I hope to eventually try to remake it with fantasy materials such as mithril or orichalc.u.m etc.
“If Slalin is inside, then what should we call it?”
“Maybe Tanilin? Or no, Slakaze?”
“Which one?”
“Tanikaze! The name of the artificial life form"s core is Tanikaze, so the body is also Tanikaze. Slalin is only helping the magical power circulate inside of it"s body.”
As Tenma explained, the three of them tilted their heads to one side in confusion. He decided to stop thinking about just what kind of thing Tanikaze was and just call it that.
“Anyways, this horse can get us to the village?”
“It"ll be way faster than we planned!”
“Lucky~” they said as they got into the carriage.
Tenma got into the carriage driver"s seat and conveyed his orders to Tanikaze, and at once the carriage set off toward the village.
[Translator"s Note]
I"ve finally decided which side project to work on: Middle-Aged Adventurer Kein"s Good Deed, as it seemed to have the most interest (as of writing this) from a poll I held on the Four Slimes Discord ( at discord dot gg / DrhxrVK if you"d like to join )
As a personal side project, I will be translating Yakusouden de Kissaten wo Akimasu! (Opening a Teashop in the Herbal Gardens!) as well, just because I think it"s really cute.
If you"d like to know more about them, I"ve put up info on both the discord and on the Translations page on the site.
Both of these series will receive slower, more sporadic updates of course, as the main focus is still Isekai Tensei no Boukensha.
Additionally, I"ve split this chapter into two parts in order to keep up with the twice a week update schedule. I apologize, but in trying to pull off the same effort as last time (translating close to 9,000 characters in a few days) I"ve realized that pace just isn"t sustainable in the long term for how much time I can spare for translations right now (I"m not a professional translator, still fairly slow at all this ^^;). I feel like putting out one bigger chapter once a week is sort of the same difference as two smaller updates twice a week too.
Hi, Refulgent, your translator here, if you like my translations, you can show your support by leaving a comment or constructive feedback at Four slimes . com I"d love to hear from you directly~
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Translator"s NotesOkayu (also known as congee or jook) is a savory rice dish made by boiling rice in a great deal of water until it breaks down into a thick, pudding-like consistency, similar to porridge.Umebos.h.i.+ are pickled plums, extremely sour and salty. They are usually served as side dishes for rice or eaten in rice b.a.l.l.s for breakfast and lunch.