Chapter 22 - Handle with Care! Part 2 (1)
Chapter 22: Handle with Care! Part 2 (1)
The number of types of herbs I’m raising in the field I’m borrowing from Jiral has increased.
Thanks to the convenient skill, Cultivation Ace, no matter if they were perennials or not, all of the herbs all the herbs grew quickly – and it’s finally time to harvest them today.
Phew-; wiping my sweat, I looked at the basket the picked herbs were in.
If things continue like this, I can be self-sufficient without having to enter the forest full of dangerous monsters and beasts.
Of course, if I need herbs I’m not cultivating, then that wouldn’t be the case.
I will be able to sell the herbs themselves to other pharmacists.
No matter how I try to invite her, Noela decidedly refuses to come here due to the repellent.
It can’t be helped that she can’t help it, but working silently all by myself is, honestly, a little lonely.
At a place a little removed from me, the granny and grandpa sweating away while working the fields were tapping their backs.
“It really is no good using tools you aren’t used to.”
“Even though we sent them out to be repaired two weeks ago ... they’re still not repaired.”
I wonder what’s going on.
“Hello-”
“Aah, Pharmacist-san, hello.”
Gramps lifted his hat a little and gave me a nod.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“Aah. You see, we sent our hoe to be repaired at the toolshop, but it hasn’t been returned yet. Well, it ain’t like we can’t use this one, but.”
The toolshop is a little different from a general store; it handles bladed items and protective wear.
And just like Gramps said, it also repairs tools.
If you head to a large city, it might be split up as a weapon shop and an armor shop, but in a rural town it’s handled together.
I don’t understand what makes a hoe good or bad, but it seems he’s used it for so long that he can tell the differences right away.
“It’s easier to handle the guy I’m always using, since I can dig up the dirt like swish, and it helped that even if I don’t put that much strength in here it’s still fine...”
Hm, he’s really troubled.
Fieldwork is extremely ... rather, it’s suitably tiring, so it would be better if the repairs were done quickly and his tools returned.
After that, we talked a little bit about the state of the world, and then I returned to the store.
Bang! A loud sound like the firing of a gun came from the kitchen.
Wh,what was that?
When I went to peek into the kitchen, where the sound came from, Mina and Noela were cooking.
“Noela-san! It’s dangerous to put all your strength into it-!”
“Mina, wrong, not all. This, ten percent of my strength.”
Noela proudly said, holding a kitchen knife.
“Why are you looking so smug?”
“Werewolf, strength, amazing.”
Saying so while making a “I’m so cool” face (kimegao), she swung the kitchen knife at the cutting board once again.
Bang – snap-!
The kitchen knife snapped right in two around the middle.
“Ah-! Look, it’s just like I said, right Noela? You broke another kitchen knife. Reiji-san will get mad if he finds out, you know?”
“........... Mina, secret. This, is a secret. Secret from Master. S,spare. There’s a spare kitchen knife. So Master won’t know it broke.”
“That spare is the kitchen knife you just broke.”
“Ru-!?”
“What are you going to do? I won’t be able to cook today, you know?”
“Ruuu....”
The depressed Noela looks so pitiful, I called out to them.
“I’m back. What’s wrong?”
The two of them turned to look at me.
“Reiji-san, welcome back. Listen to this; Noela-san -”
“Master-”
Noela scampered over and clung to me with her eyes full of tears.
“Mina, got mad ...”
“That’s not it, Noela-san broke-”
“I know. I know. I saw it, after all. Noela snapped the kitchen knife, right?”
Flinch; Noela’s shoulders trembled.
“Master, mad...?”
“I won’t get mad for one or two kitchen knives.”
“Ru-?”
Wag, wag, wag.
Wagwagwag. Wagwagwag.
Noela’s tail wagged at high speed.
Geez; Mina heaved a sigh, like she had given up.
“Reiji-san, I can’t cook with things like this, so can I have you buy a kitchen knife?”
Making the meals is something Mina considers as her job, so she’s probably troubled that she can’t do so.
Also, I will be troubled if I can’t eat dinner.
“Then I’ll go out for a bit.”
So saying I left the store for the second time, and Noela also came with.
Despite everything that was said and done, if seems like Noela feels responsible.
The general store does have kitchen knives, but if I want to buy something that will last, I suppose it’s better to go to the tool shop.
When we arrived at the tool shop, there wasn’t anyone around within the store’s cramped interior.
There weren’t many types, but swords and spears were lined up against the wall, and helms, gauntlets, and breastplates were placed on different shelves.
“Master, this is nice.”
With sparkling eyes, Noela picked up the store’s most expensive long sword.
“Why are you going for a sword? We’re not going on an adventure. Look for a kitchen knife, or else a handy knife if they have one ...”
I spotted some reasonably priced kitchen knives that seemed easy to handle; I’ll buy two of these.
But man, the shopkeeper isn’t appearing at all.
“Excuse me-! Hello-? I want to buy some kitchen knives-?”
Pat.
A hand appeared, placing itself on top of the counter.
Hee-!?
H,horror!?
“Sh,shut up ... don’t yell...”
The head that peeked out at us was a blue-haired glasses girl.
She seems extremely sleepy, and she slipped her glasses down to rub her eyes.
“I was flooded with repair work ... when I came to, I was sleeping on the floor...”
Yaaawn; the glasses girl stretched.
So this is what the gramps in the fields was talking about.
“Ah. You’re the rumored alchemist, right? I’m Paula. As you can see, I’m this store’s owner.”
“Well, I’m a pharmacist, not an alchemist, though.”
We shook hands lightly. I handed her the payment for the two kitchen knives.
“Are the repairs hectic?”
“Really hectic, like for real. Ah. The EnePo you made, I drink it every night. That’s helped so much, thank you-”
EnePo? Aah, she means the energy potion.
If she works all night in the store, then I guess it’s expected that she would have fainted onto the story.
“There’s the repairs of the Red Cat Group’s armor, and the townspeople have all sorts of finicky requests ... yaaaawn ... sleepy...”
Anabel-san and the others are the town’s guards, so I guess it can’t be helped that they get priority.
“How do you fix things?”
“Well, it’s all about joining leather together and maintaining the metal. The most annoying bit is when I’m supposed to repair metal that’s snapped; the ones where nothing can be done about it, see? I’d be happy if they bought a replacement, but they tell me to fix it. That is the most time consuming of them all.”
“The Red Cat Group are broke mercenaries, after all... “
The amount of repairs is too much for Paula to handle alone, and without any helping hands, things got delayed, it seems.
“Rei-kun, you know, can’t you make something amazing, like a fluid that sticks things together and, bang, it’s fixed?”
“I can’t make a magical tool like that. ...Hm? ‘Sticks things together’ ...?”
Stick. Stick...
...Ah. I can make it!
“Wait a bit! I might be able to!”
“Eh? Really!? I’ll wait, I’ll wait!”
Noela was...
Trying on armor and playing around by pretending to be an adventurer.
... Oh well. I’ll just let her do as she pleases.
I leapt out of the tool shop, holed myself up in the medicine room, and made a certain liquid agent.
[Super-strength glue: an extremely adhesive liquid that joins two objects together and solidifies.]