That"s it for now though. Next chapter in 3-6 hours.
Year 7445, Month 5, Day 4
It was when I was eating a meal of ginger pork, soup, and bread at the restaurant "Saroku". When I had my back to the entrance a new group of customers sat down behind me and started talking.
It seems they"re adventurers.
"Ribi, would you come with us to the dungeon tomorrow? Machi and I, and another four others we"ve already made plans with."
"That"s right, Ribi, you should come too. You and that, what was it again? Ah, Pino. If she comes along as well then we"ll have 8 people, we can even go to the 2nd floor."
Judging from the voices they don"t seem all that far from me in age. They"re still young, some of the lower cla.s.ses of adventurers. I dip my bread into the soup and carrying it to my mouth while listening and they continued talking.
"Eh? Tomorrow huh...Who are the other four? If Zekkusu is together then I won"t go. That guy is unpleasant."
"Relax, this time Zekkusu isn"t with us. Recently he was called out to by {Blue.Lightning} and seems to have entered their party."
"Missu, is that true? If you mention {Blue.Lightning} then they"re a first-rate party that"s even been appearing on the 4th floor lately right! That fellow Zekkusu, he seems to have done well for himself.."
"Huh, what are you saying? If they"re willing to let someone like Zekkusu in their party then that {Blue.Lightning} shouldn"t be anything special right? Rather than that perverted b.a.s.t.a.r.d Machi, you"re far more reliable."
"Thanks, Ribi. But, it"s true that Zekkusu is pretty skilled. Though I won"t deny he"s a pervert his skill with the spear is real. {Blue.Lightning} huh~ I"m envious."
A cool name like {Blue.Lightning}, I"ve never heard of them before~ Well a party that"s just now appearing on the 4th floor is out of my range of interest so it doesn"t matter at all but the name of a color plus lightning sure is a powerful sounding name.
In the past, there was a party named Lighting Speed{Gale.Thunderclap} but I think it was last year? or the year before that? It seems they were wiped out in the dungeon. A brawny Laios man was the leader but one day they entered the dungeon and never came back out again. They were a party skilled enough that they were considered one step away from being in the top teams but I remembered thinking, when you"re wiped out it really takes no time at all.
However, this restaurants pork ginger isn"t very good. I threw the rest of the remaining pork into my mouth all at once, chewed and swallowed it.
"I want to enter the {Slaughterers} or {Verdure.Brotherhood} as well...I wonder if they"ll call out to me.."
"Machi, that"s a bit unreasonable. I"ve heard they"re all first-rate. Since the {Slaughterers} are going to the 7th floor it seems...Even if you can brag about your strength, it"s the 7th floor you know, the 7th floor. It"s only obvious it"s impossible."
"I already know that it"s impossible. I just wanted to try saying it.."
"But you know, putting aside {Verdure.Brotherhood} and {Black.Topaz} isn"t {Slaughterers} just made up of brats. I"ve seen them a number of times but the leader is just a brat as well..I wonder what"s different between them and us?"
"Yeah, that leader brat..Greed was it...I saw him from nearby when he was eating at "Murowa" about a month ago but he sure had a s.h.i.tty cheeky face...All of the other ones seemed pretty similar in that they were cheeky brats. After all it seems that Firefreed-san is the essential leader~"
"That"s only obvious right. Don"t they say that the {Slaughterers} core combat force is the leader"s combat slaves and Firefreed-san and they"re all outrageously strong? I"m sure Greed is just the leader because he has that Laios named Zulu and the Dog-person named Maruso."
"Well, I"m sure that"s true. I don"t know about that n.o.ble named Greed but he must have been quite rich. Since he was able to buy two of those sorts of amazing~ combat slaves..It"s completely different from someone like me who comes from a remote Viscount family."
Well, I"m sure the public opinion is something like that. There"s no way they"d easily be able to figure out our combat abilities and the only parties in Baldukk right now that have seen our combat are the top 10 or 20 parties or so I"m sure.
Though I say that, we never use magic when we"re being seen so the only results they know are just those sorts of unrefined fist fights so there"s no one out there who"s seen the {Slaughterers} true combat potential in that true meaning.
I tear off a piece of bread and use it to wipe my soup bowl then wiped some of the ginger pork plate before eating it.
Even though the soup is decently good.
"Then that would mean that essentially the {Slaughterers} are going to the 7th floor with only three people who can fight.."
"No, as expected that"s not the case right. It seems that leader and the other brats can fight decently as well. After all they can make it to the 7th floor and back alive, there"s no way they"re just baggage right."
"Ah..I guess~ that"s true...I"ve seen them getting into a fight in a bar before. Two or three years back, no, I guess it was even further back...It was before Kalstalan and that Akdam dwarf woman joined. It"s only obvious but they were even more of brats than now. They were fighting against the guys from {Twin.Gold}."
"Ah, I"ve heard about that before. They beat both of the twin Tiger-man from {Twin.Gold} half to death right?"
"Right, that"s it. That woman named Ral was crazy..That woman, she uses an axe that doesn"t suit that face of hers. One of them had their noses smashed and the other one had the edge of the axe shoved into their mouth and all of their teeth broke. Also, that Rabbit-people woman named Koloil was just laughing as she watched that. I got the chills."
"No, Ribi, didn"t you just kick in and crush Mrioggu"s b.a.l.l.s last week..There"s no difference.."
It"s certainly true that Ralpha did some outrageous things but Bel has never laughed while watching over it. Don"t dramatize it. And then, Ralpha"s never used her axe while fighting..She hasn"t right..She shouldn"t have, probably.
Since fights between adventurers is a daily thing there"s no chance of them complaining about it. The one who makes a complaint just gets made fun of and even though there should really be a lot of witnesses who saw it, since they"re too afraid of retribution from the allies of the one the complaint was made against they generally won"t come forward. It"s different if someone dies but depending on the case even then they"re sometimes ignored.
Just the bean tea is of a quality good enough that I have no complaints. This place isn"t suited for coming to eat.
It would be best to make use of it as a cafe.
"Come to think of it while were talking about that Ral from the {Slaughterers}. Doesn"t it seem like recently she"s been fighting a lot with the Dark Elf in their party."
"Yeah, that seems to be the case. It"s completely a rumor that one of them is going to end up leaving."
"Oh, Machi. Then, isn"t that a chance for you. You might be able to enter the opened spot?"
"Oh~ as a matter of fact I was aiming for that. If one of them ends up leaving I intend on going to ask them to let me join."
"But you know, if Ral ends up being the one to leave then wouldn"t Firefreed-san leave together with her? In that case the combat ability of the {Slaughterers} would largely drop."
"That"s the problem isn"t it~ If it comes to that then the choice will come up whether to either join Firefreed-san or the {Slaughterers} with the combat slaves, it"s quite the difficult choice."
"Hmn, if you think about it overall, after all the {Slaughterers} side with the higher number might be better."
Oh, so they"re aiming for an open seat? Certainly there"s that way of thinking about it as well. Though we"ll reject them all. No, if there was a considerably skilled person who didn"t have any strings attached then it might be different though. I call over the waiter and pay 420 Z before heading towards the exit of the restaurant.
"H,Hey!"
"Eh? Ah, th..the {Slaughterers}.."
"After all since he"s eating alone at a place like this then that means.."
"No, even if he"s the leader in name only, there"s no way he"d be eating alone at a place like this ignoring the discord between members right. After all isn"t it just a rumor that someone will leave the party?"
"But you know, in the end he"s just a brat right, couldn"t it be he"s just gotten sick of being together with a party that does nothing but fight?"
"I see, that might be true."
So it"s even reached the stage where it"s talked about between this level of trash adventurer huh? Hmm, after all it seems there"s no need to group up again in a hurry. For the time being I"ll buy some random things at the general good"s store to camouflage the curse removal before returning to the inn.
.................
After finishing my shopping, returning to the inn, and relaxing for a while and the members of the {Slaughterers} returned in small groups.
"Yo, welcome back. Were you having lunch?"
I call out to the first ones to return Toris and Bel.
"A, Al-san."
"Did you eat lunch?"
"Yeah, I just ate at "Saroku"."
"The stew there is delicious right."
"Yeah, they use good stock for their soup. Their baked foods aren"t very good though."
..I just found that out.
"What about everyone else?"
"I think they should be returning pretty soon."
"Though probably just Miduchi-san will come back late."
While they were saying that I could hear the voices of Zenom, Ralpha, Gwine, and Basutoral. It quickly changed to the sounds of them climbing the stairs and they entered my room.
"Al. Everything is going smoothly on our end. Was everything fine in the capital?"
Zenom said.
"Yeah, Zenom. Though things might get a bit difficult for the company. If things continue like this then we"ll completely run out of stock in mid-August. I had them bring along quite a bit more than usual but..it"s pleasant screams because the demand for rubber products seems to have increased."
"If business is booming, isn"t that a good thing. Do you not intend to deal in any other goods?"
Gwine is saying it might be fine to deal in other goods than rubber products but it"s difficult. The biggest problem is that I have no routes to stock up on things.
"..Different products huh...Al-san, I have an idea but..Would you mind listening?"
Basutoral was quietly listening to the conversation when he timidly came forward with something.
"Saji, you really..Though I have to wonder about that. Well, if Al says it"s fine wouldn"t it be fine? How about just trying to mention it? Though I like the original way more."
It seems there"s already been some sort of conversation between Ralpha and Basutoral. Rather~ what original?
"Hn? If you have some sort of idea then let me hear it. If it"s good then I want to try it out."
"Umm..It"s a bit difficult to say but Al-san, that is..yo..you"re making "condoms" with rubber right?"
It"s not particularly difficult to say right? Everyone already knows after all.
"Yes, the Saya. It seems to have become a popular product and I think it"s quite useful for the prevention of diseases."
The one who is probably receiving the greatest benefit from them in the {Slaughterers} with ears longer than an Elf said. Look, everyone is calm. Ralpha and Gwine already long since have known and while these two are former high school girls, since their life experience is quite long it"s nothing to get embarra.s.sed over at this point.
"..Yes. It seems that the price is reasonable and they"re quite popular..Well that"s fine. The problem is that thanks to those it"s easy to predict that the bowel"s of livestock are in a situation where they don"t sell as much anymore."
"Hn? Do you intend to make "Sausage"? That"s fine though since it"s a food product the individual sale price is quite cheap and since things like preservatives and food additives are difficult to make it"s not really suited for ma.s.s production. I don"t think it will be very profitable?"
Well if it"s a person who reincarnated from j.a.pan in all likelihood they"ve probably thought of it? Since the bowel"s of pigs and sheep are mostly used as a replacement for condoms so once they know the price I think in most cases they"d give up though.
"N~ It"s true I thought of "Sausages" as well. Since we don"t have a meat grinder we"d have to start from making one of those but in the worst case it"s possible to buy some slaves and just have them keep chopping it up with knives as well. Since they"re delicious, I wasn"t able to think as far as food additives but if we smoke them before we sell them and make sure they definitely either boil or grill them before eating them then I think they"ll be fine from food poisoning for a short while."
Come to think of it the representative of minced foods that is hamburger originated from a nomad race in the form of taretare steak and I"ve heard it originally dates back to around the 12-13th centuries. It seems that it was conveyed to Europe and turned into hamburger a lot later. However, judging from the way Basutoral said it there"s something other than sausage as well.
"It"s string. Originally stringed instruments made use of string made from gra.s.ses but on {Earth} they also tore up the bowel"s of livestock, let them dry out, then picked out the good quality ones and made them into strings. Even on Orth there"s instruments like the {Zither}, {Lute}, {Harp, and {Violin} but the strings of all of those are made from plants called makku or mizekku. Though that sound isn"t too bad but.."
Come to think of it, Basutoral was a {guitarist}. I guess he"s knowledgeable about things like that. There"s probably an instrument shop in the capital. I"ll try searching for it next time and bring him along.
"He~ string huh? I didn"t know it was made from the bowel"s of sheep. But, would that be profitable?"
Toris said. Yeah, if it doesn"t make money there"s no meaning. Though raising the level of civilization is a good thing but it"s fine once I eventually make my own country and have enough leeway and money to pay for the arts.
If he wants to have a musical performance~ then couldn"t he wait until then? Ah, I guess he"s not saying he wants to perform.
"I wonder about that..I"ve never played an instrument on Orth so I don"t know but I think it would be better than strings made from plants but..Of course, I"m sure that alone wouldn"t be very profitable. That"s the reason for the {sausage}."
I just said that sausage isn"t suitable for ma.s.s production. If we"re just making them in small numbers there"s not much profit to it right?
"Just a moment ago Al-san said that ma.s.s production is difficult because we can"t store them for long periods but I have an idea."
He~? Ma.s.s production itself can somewhat be taken care of by reducing the amount of labor required if we can somehow make a meat grinder and streamline the process. Everyday around a stable 250,000 Z (1 gold Shu), no, I guess that"s aiming too high. If it can earn profits of around 100,000 Z per day then it"s worth investing in exclusive slaves and facilities.
However, it"s a food product. And no matter how I think about it, it won"t become a high cla.s.s food product. What will end up being used is the garbage meat and internal organs I"m sure. If you"re making it with pig"s bowels then it depends on the length but each one will come out to around 50-100 grams, so wouldn"t the sale price be at best 100 Z or so? Since there"s stocking up as well you would need to sell more than 1,000 of those every day. Oh~ I forgot about the cost of buying the ingredients. If you think about the cost price ratio then you would need to sell something like 1,500 or depending on the case even 2,000 of them. The population of the capital is roughly 200,000 people. I wonder if they"d sell that much?
"As a matter of fact I had the chance to talk with Miduchi-san about various things the other day and I thought this might work. It seems that in Miduchi-san"s country they"re artificially cultivating a wide variety of mushrooms for food purposes but among those it seems there"s quite a few varieties that didn"t exist on "Earth"."
"Well, I"m sure there are. This isn"t "Earth" after all."
"Among those there"s a mushroom called Soruhoggu and it seems it"s normally purified into poison but it seems that one of the sc.r.a.p byproducts made during the purification of that poison prevents the color of dead flesh from fading for a long period. Wouldn"t that made it a preserving agent?"
..I can"t deny that possibility but if we"re mentioning a disposal byproduct produced during the making of poison then that"s industrial waste right? Emotionally I can"t really support using something like that..No, I just think it"s a boring sentiment? But, the foodstuff company that I worked at used foodstuff that used as few additives as possible as their main line. Of course, zero is impossible. But I thought that it was necessary to eternally put effort towards making it as close to zero as possible. The moment yo think, this is fine, or this plenty then you stop trying to put anymore effort in after that. I think it"s no good if you"re not always trying to put more work into it.
However, preservatives huh? The representative of that is sodium sulphite. It"s easy to make with ion exchange but it"s not like we have something like ion exchange resin or film(electricity can be made with magic)...I guess it"s not as if it can"t be done. I already knew zeolite was rolling around all over the place. There"s no active volcano on the Jindal peninsula where Bakuddo is but there was a mountain of high quality sulfur as well and even carbonated water was springing up.
If I put some work into the operation then it"s possible to sort out just a specified element as well. If I just select the necessary elements and pickle it with a zeolite then while I"m sure it would be inefficient but it"s technically possible. Even when it comes to sorbic acid or sodium acetate I can technically make them. It might be possible to sell things that make use of those sorts of preservatives or additives as luxury goods in small amounts.
Ah, food additives being carcinogenic? It"s fine as long as you don"t eat a bucket full. It"s not like you"ll die right away. In the first place before using something like that it"s fine if you just eat the sausage. Rather than that the large amounts of salt overused in the food of Orth is even more frightening. But, even if we could do an ion exchange, I feel like using it for something like preservatives is a waste.
It seems like it would be much more useful in making the source of nitroglycerin. It would be better to have TNT after all.
"That, Sorubitoru something or other I don"t really get but if we can get our hands on the poison mushroom then it"s fine to start off with testing it out. Since I"ve seen glimpses of dark elves in the capital if Miduchi asks then while it might take some time but shouldn"t it be possible to at least get our hands on some? If it seems like it"ll work then I"ll invest some money into it. I want to eat some delicious "sausage" as well. In regards to the strings..if the "sausage" is profitable then you can do as you please."
"By the way, what is that "sausage"? It seems to be some kind of food but is it good?"
While Zenom is left out, Toris, Bel, Ralpha, and Gwine the reincarnated people are pleased hearing about "sausage". It seems it was unexpected to Ralpha for me to accept the idea and after making a slightly surprised face she licked her lips with a complacent smile. Really, she"s such a glutton.
"Ah, everyone already returned I see. I heard dark elf but is there something?"
Miduchi came back later than everyone else. When we summarized the explanation and since it seems she had already talked it over with Basutoral, she understood quickly.
"During the process of purifying soruhoggu with sorira a white powder really comes out but it"s not guaranteed that"s really a preservative. But, I think it"s worth testing. In our country of Lail Kingdom it"s strongly recognized as a powerful poison so no one thought of anything like that and I didn"t pay any attention to ti either. It"s said that when they go and throw it away a goblin tried eating it and writhed around in pain before dying after all..But, if sorira is still mixed in with it then it"s only obvious that it died. It might be worth trying to feed it to a stray dog wandering around somewhere."
She says while smiling and looking at me. I guess that means use Identify.
"Nn, that"s right. Then if you have some kind of connection write a letter or something and we"ll leave buying that mushroom to you. Also, tonight I"m heading to "Missuri" where {Black.Topaz} is waiting. You come along as well."