(278) Double Hara.s.sment Village
Translator: Tseirp
“Is Ichinojo acquainted with Daijiro?”
“I"m not close enough to be considered an acquaintance but I need to meet her. Do you know where she is at the moment?”
” … Umu, why are we standing here? Let"s talk at my place. Ichinojo, do you have the Blacksmithing skill?”
“Eh, yeah I do.”
“In that case, follow me.”
Doxco said and returned the smartphone to me before inviting me into the village.
I heard it was a dwarf village but there were others living there other than dwarves. I saw hume and beastmen.
Of course, it was a fact that the majority were dwarves. There was a large number of dwarves that were not seen in the other towns.
The female dwarves did not have beards just as Ririana said. They just appeared to be short women so it was no wonder that there would be some who mistake them as half-hume.
Although half-hume were probably even smaller in stature.
“Erm, Doxco-san.”
“Doxco is fine. What is it?”
“Have there been halflings between dwarves and hume?”
“There are not many but they do exist. Also, polite forms are unnecessary. There aren"t any in the village who speak like that.”
It seemed to be quite a direct village.
“There are so few halflings even though there are this many humans?”
“Yup. Regardless of female or male dwarves, they only like those who are good with liquor. If a hume is able to drink an entire barrel dry then they will be welcomed as a son-in-law or bride though.”
“Well, that"s expected. Drinking a barrel dry is almost impossible.”
When we pa.s.sed through a nearby cafeteria, it already smelled like alcohol. It was still noon.
I couldn"t drink an entire barrel too.
“What kind of alcohols are there in this village?”
“They are mostly absinthe spirits made from wormwood.”
Absinthe? That was sold in j.a.pan too. But I had never tried it before.
I only have a memory of a baseball manga with the same name.
“The absinthe from this village is amazing. It will burn if exposed to fire and drinking it will give you a sense of happiness to the point that your dead wife will appear in front of you.”
“Doesn"t that mean it is hallucinogenic?”
“Well, I have not been married from the day I was born though.”
“Then that means it causes delusions?”
Incidentally, due to that hallucinogenic side effect, distribution and sales of the absinthe outside this village were banned and it was produced, sold and consumed in this village only.
By the way, the absinthe sold in j.a.pan did not have such hallucinogenic side effect — I heard that the sale of absinthe was banned in the past in Western Europe because of the same reason.
These guys were making such a ridiculous thing.
“By the way, it was Daijiro who taught us the method to create absinthe, you know?”
That woman has such a wide range of knowledge. Wait a minute, wasn"t she just a child when she came to this world?
Why did she know the way to make alcohol?
There were so many things I wanted to retort.
“Well, I still recommend ale or wine to hume. How about it? Should we go have a drink?”
“No, I want to have a talk first.”
“Is that so? That"s a shame.”
Doxco replied and walked ahead.
Previously at the gate, I commented that I felt it was a shame that Haru wasn"t here but now I was glad that Haru wasn"t here.
If she was here, she would probably be drunk the entire day from the smell of alcohol.
“We"re here, this is my home.”
“That"s huge.”
The home I was led to was probably the largest brick building in the village. It was even larger than the dock we made in My World to house the sailboat and I saw the same building before I entered the village. It was probably not only a residence but also a workshop. There was a large chimney on the roof and black smoke was rising from it.
“Oya, welcome back.”
A female dwarf came to greet us when we arrived.
His wife? I thought to myself but Doxco mentioned just now that he was not married.
“Who is this hume child?”
“Ichinojo. He"s a guest so let him use the second reception room at the back.”
“Okay, this way please, village chief-san.”
Doxco nodded and moved toward the back of the room.
When I saw the house and even before that, when I noticed the job and level of the other dwarves were far lower than Doxco, I imagined that he was not an ordinary person.
“So Doxco is the village chief?”
“Well, it"s just a decoration. After all, in this village, the village chief is the man with the highest blacksmithing level.”
Doxco said it indifferently, not boasting in the slightest.
Then, I was guided to the reception room … or so I thought.
“Reception room?”
“Yeah, reception room.”
Ok, let"s recap. I will list the things needed for a reception room.
Number one, in order to wait for the master of the house, there must be a chair.
Number two, there must be a table to place the desserts and drinks.
In other words, there must be a place where the guest can relax comfortably.
End of recap.
Now then, what was in front of my eyes?
” … It"s burning.”
“Yeah it"s burning. The fuel are magic stones.”
The furnace was burning fiercely.
It was burning so hot that if you put a barbecue skewer in, the meat would burn and disintegrate into charcoal in an instant and even the metal skewer would melt.
“This is a workshop though?”
“It is a workshop. The best furnace in this village.”
“Weren"t we headed to the reception room?”
“This is the reception room. You can"t tell just by looking?”
I looked around the room once more.
There were no chairs.
There were tables but on it were blacksmith tools such as hammers, pincers, and anvils.
“You can"t tell by looking?”
“I can"t!”
Doxco asked once again and I shouted back.
What is this, the reception room was the workshop?
It was an inconceivable development just like if you order the chef"s special and was served with the Umaibo shrimp mayo flavor. Wait, what kind of nonsense am I thinking?
“To be seen as a guest, you must first wield the hammer. That is the dwarves" hospitality, part 2! Well, it"s seldom practiced though.”
“If it is seldom practiced then don"t do it! Please do it normally!”
“Then, would you like to drink alcohol until you are drunk? The other first reception room is a sake brewery.”
” … This place is fine.”
I heard of the dwarves" love for alcohol but don"t ask the same of your guests.
What the heck, this village isn"t just an alcohol hara.s.sment village, it is also a blacksmithing hara.s.sment village.