Management of a Novice Alchemist: Volume 2 E-Book

Mizuho Itsuki

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Management of a Novice Alchemist
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 342

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Freshly recovered from the hellflame grizzly attack, Sarasa, along with new team members Iris and Kate, gets to work reopening her shop just in time for summer. She develops a cooling hat as a product to sell to the villagers...but it’s a bit too pricey for the town’s barter economy! Just as she’s about to crack the economic code and generate her most popular product yet, another alchemist shows up, one who gets in the way of her buying one of the hat’s main ingredients, icefang bat fangs. She who controls the ice controls the summer! The battle for commerce in South Strag is on!

Leseprobe

Prologue

“Well, what can I say... The view sure has gotten better, huh!”

It had been a few days since the hellflame grizzly attack.

Finally free from the muscle pain that had afflicted my entire body, I was heading out to survey the damage for myself.

Hearing this desperate attempt to remain cheerful, Lorea-chan and the others, who were tagging along with me out of concern, forced themselves to smile.

Hey, could you really blame me, though?

Without even opening my back door, I had a clear view all the way from my backyard to the forest.

There wasn’t a door to open—or ever a wall, for that matter!

The wall around my backyard, the gate that had been built into it, and the garden of herbs I’d gone to so much effort to care for had all been ravaged! Ha ha ha!

“Hahhh...”

I’d already known about it, but I still sighed at the disaster that was every bit as bad as I thought it would be.

The newly built walls and herb garden were a blow to the psyche, but the real blow to my pocketbook was the destroyed crests inside the wall.

How much is that going to set me back...?

Just the thought of how much the materials to repair them were going to cost was enough to make me want to clutch my head.

“Shopkeeper-dono, we’ve taken care of some of the cleanup for you, but we were unsure how to handle the herbs...” offered Iris-san, concerned about the gloomy look on my face.

“No, no,” I hurriedly shook my head. “It’s fine. Thank you.”

The kitchen had been a mess with debris scattered all over. I was grateful enough that they had tidied that up.

Besides, this is my house. Maintaining and repairing it is my job.

But where do I start...? Should I patch the holes in the walls, at least for the time being?

Since I wasn’t the only one in the village with damage, if I asked Geberk-san for help, he might not be able to get to it right away.

“This is a good opportunity, Sarasa-san. Let’s make a kitchen!” Lorea-chan said, thrusting her fist in the air.

“A kitchen? You want to work on the kitchen before we’ve fixed the walls?”

“No, I mean a proper kitchen. One where we can cook things. We didn’t have one before now, remember?”

Well, the magic stove had been removed, and we didn’t have an oven, so it was like having a kitchen/dining room combo that we couldn’t cook in.

I guess the lack of walls does make it a lot easier to do major construction...

“But I, uh, don’t cook all that much...”

I usually made do with the preserves and sundries available at the general store, or ordered takeout at Delal-san’s restaurant. Neither required a kitchen.

Plus, any time I spent on cooking was time I wasn’t spending on alchemy. Moreover, the price of ordering takeout was quite reasonable, and the food was delicious besides, so I would be going to great time and expense just to eat much more mediocre meals if I made them myself.

I kinda don’t need a kitchen, huh?

“But once the gatherers come back, the restaurant will get crowded again. Weren’t you just saying that was a problem a little while ago, Sarasa-san?”

“Urkh...”

She had me there.

When I first came to the village, it was easy to get a seat without waiting, but shortly before the whole incident with the bears, not only was it hard to get a seat but even ordering takeout was starting to take a while.

So long as I avoided the busy meal hours, it wasn’t so bad, but...

“Do you think the guys who ran away because of the hellflame grizzlies are really going to come back?” I wondered aloud.

I didn’t think there was anything wrong with a gatherer considering their strength relative to the enemy’s, and then deciding not to fight. But in a village like this, where everyone knows everyone, being branded as someone who up and ran when things got dicey would be pretty rough.

If me, Darna-san at the general store, and Delal-san at the restaurant were to refuse them service, then they’d be left with no source of income, no roof over their heads, and nowhere to buy food.

Now, setting aside the question of whether any of us would do that, they’d definitely still feel like they were being judged.

“Shopkeeper-dono, while they themselves may not return, won’t there be others who come in their place?”

“Hrmm, once word gets out that it’s safe now, I suppose they might.”

The number of gatherers in this village had initially started increasing because once I opened my shop here, they were able to turn a profit.

That hadn’t changed, so maybe it was a given that the gatherers would start coming here again once it was safe to do so.

“Actually, maybe even the ones who took off will come back too? I’m sure a lot of gatherers don’t even care what people think of them.”

“You have a point there. Honestly, it’s deplorable,” Iris-san said indignantly, her nose flaring. “How dare they show their faces after fleeing when the village needed them.”

“Iris, you can’t blame them like that,” Kate-san countered, putting a hand on her partner’s shoulder as she tried to calm her down. “Gatherers aren’t knights, you know?”

“But they ran when they could have defended people. Is that any way for a person to act?”

It’s not that I don’t see where Iris-san is coming from, but I think I’m more on Kate-san’s side here.

There were not that many people out there willing to risk their lives for people they weren’t even that close to.

I mean, if I weren’t so close to Lorea-chan, and the enemy had been too strong for me to handle, then I think I’d have considered running away too.

“They’re grown men, and they ran away!” Iris-san continued loudly. “Why, even a little girl like Shopkeeper-dono stayed to...!” Glancing at me, she lowered her tone. “No, I suppose you’re something of an exception, Shopkeeper-dono. Yeah.”

“I’d like to remind you, I’m an adult, okay? I’m just a little on the petite side!”

“I-I’m well aware of that! By no means do I think of you as a child!”

She was stuttering, and looking away as she said that, though...

“You definitely were thinking of me as one!”

Otherwise you wouldn’t have said that like that!

I’m sensitive about it, okay?!

My development’s just delayed a little!

“Now, now. Let’s set that aside for now and talk about the kitchen, Sarasa-san. We can’t leave the area around the door broken like this, so let’s take the opportunity to do everything properly.”

Lorea-chan took hold of my arm, trying to calm me as I started angrily flaring my nose the same way Iris-san had been before.

Listen, that soft sensation I feel is just adding fuel to the fire, okay?

Things could get heated at this rate.

“Even if you won’t use it, I will.”

I paused for a moment. “You will, Lorea-chan?”

“Yes. I’ll make lunches. It pains me a little, accepting the kind of wage you pay me when all I’m doing is watching the shop for you. I’ll cook breakfast and dinner for you too.”

“I’d...be incredibly grateful for that, sure.”

This news helped cool my temper a little.

I dunno how good of a cook Lorea-chan is, but if she’s offering, then...she’s gotta be confident in her skills, right?

Heck, even if she’s kind of bad at it, if it saves us a trip to the busy restaurant, that still makes things easier.

“I’m sure Iris-san and Kate-san would like that too, right? You’ve been having trouble eating, haven’t you?”

“U-Us? N-No, we’ve been eating properly. Yeah.”

“R-Right. A gatherer’s body is her most important asset, after all.”

The two of them had both insisted to Lorea-chan that they were fine, but the way they were acting was clearly suspicious.

Their eyes were wandering all over the place.

“Oh, really? What have you been doing for food while I’ve been stuck in bed?”

I had just been sending Lorea-chan out to buy food and then eating it in bed, so I had no idea what the two of them were doing for their meals.

Now that I asked, there was a brief silence, and then Iris-san slowly opened her mouth and ventured, “Bread...?”

“Bread? And what else?”

“Erm...”

“Well...”

The two of them were clearly being evasive, but Lorea-chan didn’t hesitate to reveal the truth.

“I don’t think I’ve seen anything but bread.”

“W-Well, we haven’t been out gathering these past few days! Yeah.”

The two of them had stayed around the house out of concern for me.

They didn’t work, or even go out all that much.

On top of that, because they owed me money, they were trying to be frugal, but...no, this just wouldn’t do.

“Okay! I’ll make you a kitchen! And we’re all going to eat together!”

“No, but—” Iris-san hesitantly tried to object, but I cut her off sternly.

“Let me state the obvious! I’m charging both of you for your meals. But if Lorea-chan cooks for all of us, it should be cheaper than dining out. Like Kate-san just said, your bodies are your most important asset. If you ruin your health, you’ll ultimately fall behind on your payments. Have I made myself clear?”

“It’s a good deal for us, certainly...”

“It is. But are you sure, Shopkeeper-san?”

“I don’t mind. I’d been planning to make a kitchen at some point anyway. Oh, Lorea-chan, you don’t have to pay. The work you do cooking cancels it out.”

“I’m fine with the amount you already pay me...”

“Stop right there. This is extra work, not in your initial contract. I’m strict about observing that kind of thing.”

Pushing her to do more than she agreed to is not okay. I’m not running a sweatshop here.

I’d honestly have been fine with paying her extra to cook, but I doubted that Lorea-chan would be willing to accept the money.

“Okay, from now on, we all eat together. That’s what I’ve decided! By my authority as landlord!”

Episode 1: Leaving a Legacy (and Some Meat)

Now then, we’d decided to fix the kitchen, but there was actually something else that needed to take priority: the hellflame grizzlies that had caused this whole mess.

Working until I collapsed, I had managed to handle all of the preprocessing work somehow, but the stuff had all just been lying around while I was down.

Naturally, it hadn’t turned into cash.

Yeah, that’s right, money.

Andre-san and the other gatherers had stayed despite the danger, and some villagers’ houses had been destroyed. I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t get them their share promptly.

That was why I’d come to see the mayor, to discuss how the money ought to be distributed, but...I was surprised by his response.

“Huh? What do you mean there’s no need?” I asked.

“Just what I said. You can do as you like with the materials you collected, Sarasa-chan. You killed more than half of the bears yourself, didn’t you? Nobody will complain. In exchange, we took care of the rest...”

“Oh, well, I don’t have any problem with that, obviously.”

I had only left the bits that either couldn’t be used as alchemic materials or just weren’t that valuable. The meat and pelts, for example.

There were ways that I could have still gotten some use out of them, but I was in no state to do so at the time.

“All right. Well, there you have it. If we sell those things, we can more than afford to pay the rewards.”

“I see...”

How many were there again? Over twenty, right?

If they sold all of the meat and pelts... Okay, yeah, that might be worth a fair chunk of change.

But can they handle all of that?

“Um, is it going to be all right? I can take on some of the work, if needed.”

“Hrmm... Well, the villagers are all working together to salt the meat right now, but Darna doesn’t really have the connections to sell everything...”

Darna-san from the general store handled basically all of the village’s trade with the outside world. He would go to South Strag to sell the village’s crops, and then return after buying goods to sell at the general store.

That accounted for the majority of his deals, so while he might be fine selling the meat since it was also a food product, he was going to struggle to find a buyer for the hellflame grizzly pelts, which were in another category altogether.

If he took valuable goods to a merchant he didn’t have any past dealings with, he was guaranteed to be taken advantage of.

The mayor knew that too, which was precisely why he was so unsure what to do about it.

“In that case, let me handle the pelts. The villagers may be in no hurry, but you need the cash right away so you can pay the gatherers who helped out, right?”

“Is that okay?”

“Yes, I can process them myself, after all.”

Normally, hide needed to be boiled to make leather, but alchemy could turn it into tanned leather—actually, something better than that. It might cost a little more, but alchemy could apply special effects to the leather as well. Even if I paid them a little extra for the materials, I could still make more than enough money back on the transaction.

“Then I’ll ask you to do that for us. I’ll have them delivered later, so look them over, and then you can pay us whatever amount you deem fair.”

“Got it.”

Once I had finished talking business with the mayor, I walked around the village to take stock of the situation.

I was incapacitated so soon after what happened, I’d only really heard other people talking about it, but...yeah, looks like Andre-san and his team managed to save the villagers’ houses.

There had been a lot of damage to the houses that were rented out to gatherers, but those were the communal property of the village.

The village could pay for the repairs, and no one was going to be immediately bothered by it if they were left in their current state.

Lots of gatherers had left, so it wasn’t like anyone was staying in them now.

The fences we had built hastily for the defense were dismantled, and new ones went up to replace them at the border between the forest and the village.

Maybe this incident made them more aware of the danger?

It’s a really rare occurrence, though... Probably.

I don’t know this village that well, so I can’t say for sure.

As I walked around the village, there was one thing that I noticed had really changed.

“Thank you, Sarasa-chan!”

“Oh, don’t thank me, we all worked together.”

“Sarasa-chan, thanks to you, my husband came home safe! Here, take this with you!”

“Th-Thank you.”

“You alchemists sure are incredible. Oh, what’s that? That’s not enough for a meal. Here, eat this too.”

“R-Right. Thanks...”

I’d always made a point of greeting the villagers before this, but now they called out to me on their own. And it wasn’t just the ones I passed on the road either. People would stop their work in the field to come over to talk to me. They even gave me stuff, like the crops they were growing.

Is this because of my hard work too?

Well, I’m just glad the village has accepted me.

This place isn’t like the capital, so I don’t know what to do sometimes, but that’s not a bad thing, right?

Still... What am I going to do with this armful of produce?

“Welcome ho— What’s all that you have there?”

“Okay, Lorea-chan! You handle these!”

Lorea-chan found me stuck, unable to open the door to my house. I promptly pushed half my burden into her surprised arms.

“Oh, I see... Everyone’s really grateful to you. I think anyone who was there knows we couldn’t have handled it without you.”

“I’m grateful to hear it, but it’s still embarrassing, being thanked that way.”

I wasn’t used to it. I’d never gotten involved with other people before.

“But we still can’t cook here yet... Will you take them, Lorea-chan?”

“Okay. In that case, I’ll cook these up, and bring them back. They’re gifts people wanted you to have, after all.”

“Thank you so much! I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the ones that can’t just be eaten as is.”

While I could bake a potato in the furnace I have in the workshop if I really had to... I’d rather not.

“But do try to make a kitchen soon, okay? Then I’ll be able to cook here,” Lorea-chan said emphatically.

“Yes, ma’am!” I answered with a salute.

“But I think processing the pelts has to come first. It’ll rot if I just let it sit. This is going to keep me busy.”

“You’re processing pelts?”

“Yeah. Yeah, the mayor didn’t know what to do with the hellflame grizzly pelts, so I decided to buy them off of him. They should be here any—”

Just as I was explaining the situation to Lorea-chan, Andre-san showed up carrying a big leather sack.

“Sarasa-chan, congrats on your recovery. I brought you the pelts.”

“Thank you, Andre-san. I’m all better now, as you can see.”

“Looks like it. I’d heard you weren’t injured, and it didn’t seem right for me to be visiting a girl’s house, so I refrained from coming to see you until now.”

“Oh, Andre-san. I wouldn’t have known you could be so considerate based on how you look.”

“Nice one, Sarasa-chan.” Andre-san grinned at my quip. “But while you might not think it to look at me, I’ve been around long enough to learn at least that much.”

“Is that right? Now, if you’d just learn to send along a get-well present through Kate-san or someone else, you’d be even more of a man.”

“Whoa! You’ve got me there! Ha ha ha ha! But there’s not really anything to give as a get-well present in this village, is there? I can’t just send you bread from the inn.”

“True, that’s not really a get-well present. It is tasty, though.”

Even if he’d wanted to send flowers, or nutritious food, Darna-san’s general store was the only other shop in town. It wasn’t easy to get your hands on those kinds of things.

Besides, if he were to ask for “nutritious food” right now, he’d probably be offered hellflame grizzly meat.

“So, are the hellflame grizzly pelts in that sack?”

“Yeah. Only some of them, though.”

With that, Andre set the bulging sack on the ground.

“Yuck.” Lorea-chan winced at the stench that wafted into the air. “The smell is pretty strong, huh? It’s like raw meat...”

“Sorry ’bout that,” Andre-san said apologetically. “Some of them were done by people who don’t know what they’re doing, so there’s no helping the smell.”

“No, it’s fine,” I assured him. “That processing is also part of my job as an alchemist.”

“Being an alchemist...can be pretty rough, huh?”

“We do have to work with a lot of things that smell strongly. You get used to it soon enough.”

Alchemists didn’t just deal with minerals; many of our materials came from plants and animals, and some of those materials were intensely stinky.

Like, to the point where we had to wear specialized masks or we’d pass out.

Next to that, this was no big deal.

It didn’t change the fact that they stank, though.

“Anyway, you really saved us. If you weren’t around, Sarasa-chan, we’d have been done for. I wasn’t expecting there to be so many of them.”

“I’ve heard enough thanks already. From the villagers too.”

“You’re the woman of the hour! It was really incredible, hearing the stories when things had just ended.”

“Was it that bad...?”

“Yeah! Your name was on everyone’s lips! They were all amazed you were able to kill those bears like that,” Andre-san said with a smirk.

I involuntarily slapped my forehead.

“It’s true,” Lorea-chan chimed in. “Things have settled down now that it’s been four days, but the size of those bears really left an impact.”

“I’m starting to think I’m glad I spent three days stuck in bed.”

Even after things settled down, they were still like that.

I was happy to know they were grateful, but it was exhausting to have them make such a big deal out of me.

“I’m sure they’ll calm down once everyone’s said their thanks,” Andre-san reassured me. “By the way, when are you opening the shop again? You know, your potions make a real difference to how safe our jobs are.”

“If it’s just potions you need, I can help you today. Would you like to buy some before you go?”

“Oh, are you sure?”

“Yes. Lorea-chan, could you handle it?”

“Sure thing! Let’s head inside the shop, Andre-san.”

“Sure. Sorry to put you out like this.”

I watched the two of them head into the shop, then carried the sack of pelts around back, into the workshop.

When I headed to the front, Andre-san had finished paying and was about to head home.

“Thank you for your purchase.”

“No, thank you. I’ll let the rest of the guys know you’re open again.”

“Sure. And I hope I’ll be seeing you again.”

Lorea-chan and I both offered our thanks as Andre-san headed out the door.

◇ ◇ ◇

More and more villagers dropped by after Andre-san left, and I ultimately ended up with a total of five leather bags.

The total number of pelts inside them came to twenty-eight.

“The quality of the processing on these...varies, yeah.”

The ones that had been cleanly skinned were probably the work of Jasper-san, who was a hunter.

Are the poorer-quality ones the villagers’ or the gatherers’?

The one surprising thing was that, aside from injuries they’d received in battle, there weren’t any strange cuts in them.

Maybe they were cautious about that because it would affect the price?

The trade-off was that there was an excessive amount of fat left, but I could handle the processing for that.

“Okay, first I’ll handle the preprocessing. Because even if I’m used to it, they’re still smelly.”

I stuffed the twenty-eight pelts into my massive alchemic cauldron, then added one more.

That one belonged to the first hellflame grizzly, the one that had kicked off this whole thing.

I’d done just the preprocessing and then left it to sit, so now was a good time to finish it.

“Put in the water, put in the chemicals, put on the fire,” I sang to myself as I worked.

I then put the cauldron on top of the furnace and brought it to a boil.

As I stirred the pot, the unpleasant odor that had been hanging in the air all this time gradually faded away.

“Well, that should do it.”

Tanning was a really time-consuming process when it was done through ordinary means, but with alchemy it took less than a day.

I took the pelts out and washed them, checking the quality and sorting them as I did.

Only the very first was completely intact, with the head and everything.

But maybe they weren’t so bad, on the whole?

There were some in here that I’d decapitated personally, after all.

“I’d say seven of these are ‘excellent,’ ten are ‘good,’ and the rest are ‘fair,’ I guess?”

The “excellent” ones looked good and would sell for a high price. With a little repair, the “good” ones were just as usable as the “excellent” ones.

As for the “fair” ones, the quality was a little lower, even from the standpoint of usability.

It all depends on what you were using them for, though. Not everything uses the entire pelt.

Even after this sort of light processing, the fur would still be all fluffy once they dried, but they would make sturdy leather too. That already made them a desirable product, but since I was working on them anyway, I wanted to apply an effect of some sort too.

“They’re most suited to having the fire element applied to them, but...that’s not really the best thing in this season.”

It was only going to get hotter from here.

Nobody was going to be in the market for “superwarm fur.”

That said, it’d be a real waste if I were to ignore the unique traits of the material completely when deciding how to process it.

“Maybe I should stick it in the warehouse until winter? Oh, but before that, I think I’ll try contacting Master.”

I jotted down a quick missive about recent events, and sent it to Master via the transporter.

I then waited for a reply while the pelts were drying. It didn’t take long.

“Let’s see... ‘I’ll buy up to eight immediately with cash. Send them,’ huh? That’s my master for you! So dependable!”

If I paid the mayor market rate for these, the cash I have on hand would be enough, but it’s not good to use it all up, and I’d like to pay a bit of a premium.

I’ll sell her the first one I hunted myself, then the seven other ‘excellent’ ones. Then I’ll add in another ‘good’ one for an exchange...and a letter to explain it all.

“Let’s see, ‘Please send cash for the eight, and enough warmgrass seeds to pay for the other.”

She wrote a number of pelts, but she never said anything about the quality!

Heh heh heh. It’ll be fine. Master won’t have a problem with it! I know I can’t sell those “excellent” quality pelts at my shop anyway!

As I worked on mending leather while waiting for a response, the transporter brought me a leather pouch stuffed with cash, warmgrass seeds, and a letter.

“It says... ‘Not bad.’ She didn’t even bat an eye!”

That’s Master for you.

I thought, just maybe, she’d send a note saying, “Don’t just send me the expensive ones,” but she didn’t do anything of the sort!

As for the cash... Hey, there’s a lot in here. Was the warmgrass less expensive than I thought, and she did half cash, half seeds for that last one? Or maybe it’s a tip? Well, either way, now I’ll be able to pay the mayor just fine.

“Lorea-chaaan!”

“Comiiing... Did you need something?”

“Could you deliver this to the mayor? It’s a bit heavy.”

After calling in Lorea-chan, who had been watching the shop, I handed her a sack with the money for the pelts. She lifted it with one hand and then nodded.

“I should be fine. All right, I’ll be right back.”

“Sure. Take care.”

I switched the sign in the shop to say “taking a break” and waved to Lorea-chan as she was leaving, then carried on processing the pelts.

“Put the remaining pelts back in the alchemic cauldron. Along with a handful of warmgrass seeds, and...about this much magic stone. Put in one flame sac and an eyeball... No, that would be a waste, forget that.”

Putting them in would improve the effect, but it would also increase the market price, making it that much harder to sell.

“Oh, hey, I know. I’ll have Master buy the eyeballs and flame sacs.”

If it was just any eyeball, I could go out and get more if I went out hunting, but eyeballs in this frenzy state weren’t so easy to come by.

We couldn’t go around artificially inducing them to frenzy, so they were a very rare material. Which, of course, meant that they were expensive too.

Setting aside the issue of whether I could find a buyer, there were only a limited number of uses for them, so even if I put them out on the shelves here, nobody would touch them.

Well, I guess that went for any alchemic material. I didn’t have other alchemists coming to shop here, after all.

I guess I’ll wholesale some of them to Leonora-san, and then just hoard the rest for the time being.

If I was in too much of a rush to get rid of them, she’d haggle down the price, and I might need them myself in the future.

There’s no guarantee they’ll be available at that point, so I should hold on to rare materials when I can afford to.

“Now just pour in magic energy as I stir, and... Voilà!”

The trick was to add the energy gently, without pushing it too hard.

Once materials in the alchemic cauldron melted together, leaving only the pelts, that showed that I was all done.

Now I just needed to wash them and dry them off again.

“Sarasa-san, I’m back.” Lorea-chan returned as I was washing the pelts.

“Oh, welcome back. Were you able to hand it over?”

“Yes. It must have been more than the mayor expected. He was pretty surprised. Actually, I was too. I never imagined there was all that money in there... Say something next time! I was just walking around, holding it in one hand, you know!”

Yeah, it was a bit much for a kid to be carrying around, but...

“If I told you, then that’d have just made you more uneasy, right? For the whole time you were walking to the mayor’s house.”

“That’s true...” Thinking back to it, Lorea-chan went a little pale. “I probably would’ve started acting pretty shifty.”

“Right? I kept quiet for your sake, Lorea-chan!”

Actually, it had just never occurred to me.

Yeah. Next time, I’ll have Iris-san or Kate-san go along to protect her.

It was safe now, but once more gatherers we didn’t know came to the village, it could get dangerous.

“Really now...” she huffed.

I’m just imagining that slightly cold look Lorea-chan gave me, right?

“Well, I guess it’s fine. So, those are the bear pelts, right?”

“Yeah, they are. Want to take a look?”

I handed her one that had finished drying and Lorea-chan’s eyes widened as she touched it.

“It feels really nice. The smell’s gone too...and it’s slightly warm?”

“There’s an effect that does that. If you wear a fur coat made of that in the winter, it’ll keep you nice and snug.”

“That’s convenient. But...I’ll bet it’s expensive.”

“True, it won’t be cheap. The money you were carrying earlier was to buy these pelts, after all.”

“Yikes! And then you’ve performed alchemy on them on top of that, right...?”

As the price began to vaguely dawn on her, her hand stopped stroking the fur, and then she gently returned the pelt to me.

I chuckled. “Gloves and a hat made from the scraps wouldn’t cost that much, though.”

“Urgh, I think it’s still too much for my salary... Still, you’re starting work on them now, huh? When it’s only going to get hotter.”

Lorea-chan seemed a little mystified by this, but all I could do was shrug and smile. “I’ve already got them. And they’ll sell faster as materials for clothes.”

Fur coats wouldn’t start selling until fall, but the tailors who made those clothes would, obviously, start buying material before then.

They usually did that in summer, but the really popular places needed material in quantity, so I’d heard they might even start in spring, but...unfortunately, I didn’t have contacts at any place like that.

Maybe Master wholesales to those shops?

I mean, the stuff that I sent her was all high quality, so ordinary shops would probably have a hard time handling it.

“There, we’re all set.”

Having finished with all the washing and drying, I started folding the pelts up one at a time.

“Oh, let me help you with that.”

“Thanks... Now we just have to put them away in the warehouse.”

I put them in a specialized wooden box so that they wouldn’t degrade, and then stored them in a corner of the warehouse.

I’ll have to think of a way to deal with them by fall, but... Oh, well. It can wait. I’ve got enough cash on hand for now.

“Now then, Lorea-chan, let’s think about what we want to do with the kitchen.”

“Oh, sure! I’m looking forward to it!”

Lorea-chan broke into a grin, looking every bit as delighted as she said she was.

The kitchen still bore the traces of destruction.

The first place we inspected was the back door. The backyard was clearly visible, and a breeze was blowing in through it.

It was warm this time of year, so I had been brushing it off as “enjoying our meals in the presence of nature,” but once winter rolled around that would be an exercise in austerity.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to reuse the door...”

“Right. It was completely destroyed, so we put it over there.”

Lorea-chan pointed to a pile of debris in the backyard. The door lay there, splintered to pieces.

“Yeah... Let’s give up on that one. As for the walls... They sure went to town on them, huh?”

One effect of the seals inside the walls was that they were sturdier than normal, on top of them being stonework to begin with. Even if an ordinary person had gone at the walls with a hammer, they wouldn’t have been able to break them.

“Normally, even those bears wouldn’t be able to break through, but that’s just what their frenzied state does to them, I guess.”

“They really forced their way inside, huh?”

“Sigh... I guess all I can do is work with Geberk-san and do the best I can to repair this.”

Because the destroyed walls had seals inside them, I couldn’t just leave all the work to a carpenter.

And as for the cost of the materials to repair said seals... I don’t want to think about it!

“Now then, getting back on track. Lorea-chan, what are you looking for in a kitchen? You can just say whatever you want at this point! I’ll show you what an alchemist can really do!”

Sensing the desperation in the way I thumped my chest with one hand as I said this, Lorea-chan answered somewhat hesitantly, and with restraint.

“Oh, well, so long as I have a stove... I’d like to try using a magical one.”

“A magic stove. Got it, got it. Of course I can handle that much. How about water? Don’t you want a system that automatically pumps water from the well?”

“It would be convenient to have, but are you sure? I think it’s already a luxury having a well.”

“I’m an alchemist, after all! I planned to make one eventually anyway.”

If I’m doing this, I’m gonna make it as convenient as possible!

“W-Well... I’d like that, then.”

“Next up... How about an oven? It’d make baking bread easy.”

“Really?! You’d put in something so expensive?!”

“It’s fine! Just leave it to big sis! I’m gonna make a magic oven! Ha ha ha!”

I leaned back and laughed as Lorea-chan’s eyes widened with surprise.

Most houses don’t have an oven, after all.

Unlike the magic oven, which operated in a manner similar to the magic stove, an ordinary oven required burning lots of firewood to get it up to heat. Most people couldn’t afford to use that much firewood just to bake bread for their family, so normally ovens were only found at bakeries, inns, and other places that needed to bake a lot.

In some places, they had a village oven, used to bake a whole lot all at once...but not in this village. Because of that, having an oven that we could use casually for our own personal baking would be highly valuable.

Although, for all those reasons, there aren’t many occasions to use an oven, so whether we’ll be able to use it to the fullest is another question.

“Also... How about a refrigerator and a freezer? Those would be convenient to have too, right?”

“Th-They certainly would, but...Sarasa-san, isn’t this all way too much luxury?”

There probably weren’t many places that had a fridge, let alone a freezer.

They were pretty pricey after all, and while convenient to have, it wasn’t really a problem getting by without them.

“But Lorea-chan, you said we should make a good kitchen, right?” I cocked my head to the side.

Flustered, Lorea-chan waved her hands in the air. “I-I did, yes! But this is just too much...!”

“I’m just kidding with you.”

“O-Of course. You wouldn’t actually put in all of that stuff.”

Just as she breathed a sigh of relief, I struck again:

“No, I’ll still be putting all of that stuff in.”

“You will?!”

“I will. And don’t you worry about it. I’m doing it to practice my alchemy as well. You might not think it, but I’m still in training.”

“Oh, is that right? Well, that’s fine then... I guess?”

“Yep. Don’t sweat it.”

The refrigerator was in volume 4 of the Complete Alchemy Works, so I couldn’t move on to volume 5 without building one, and the odds of anyone ordering one in this village seemed really low.

Thinking about it that way, installing one in my kitchen wasn’t a bad move by any means.

“Now that we know more or less what we’re doing with the kitchen... The first thing to do is order the materials and repair the walls. Lorea-chan, could you mind the shop? I’m headed out for a bit.”

“Got it. Take care.”

◇ ◇ ◇

I’d need a number of metal plates for the magic stove and magic oven.

I ordered them from Jizdo-san the blacksmith, then headed over to Geberk-san the carpenter’s place.

At first glance, Geberk-san might have seemed like a crotchety old man who was hard to approach, but he was a really good guy once you got to know him. I’d gotten to the point where I could just open the door and cheerfully call out, “Hello. It’s Sarasa.”

“Hey, little missie. You’re finally here. Let’s go.”

“Huh? Whuhhh?”

I still couldn’t get used to how impatient he was, though.

The moment I’d greeted him, Geberk-san was already trying to push me out the door, giving me a slap on the back for good measure as I blinked in confusion.

“Your house needs fixing. My pride as the village carpenter won’t let me leave your home in that state when you did more than anyone to help. But I couldn’t very well force my way in there when you were still recovering!”

“Um, don’t you have other repairs in your schedule...?”

I thought we’d just be talking about what needed to be done today.

“You dolt! Of course your place goes straight to the top of the list! Now hurry along!”

“Y-Yessir!”

With another slap on the back, Geberk-san then began walking with a vigor that belied his age. I ran after him as he headed to my house.

He hurried me along, and we went around to the ruined back of the house.

“Gah! Look at what they’ve done to the place! Can I fix up the fence to how it was before?”

“Yes. I’ll let you handle that.”

While it wasn’t urgent, I had gone to the trouble of asking him to build a fence around the backyard before. It protected my herb garden, and more importantly my laundry, so it did need to be fixed.

But really, the house mattered more.

“There’s no rush with the fence, but the house...”

Much as I enjoy experiencing nature, I’ll be in trouble if it rains like this.

“Hmm, it’s not just the door. They wrecked your walls too, huh? I don’t know what’s up with these walls, but they’re more sturdy than normal, right?”

“You know about that?”

“I was involved in building this house, after all.”

“Ohh, that makes sense.”

Now that I think about it, of course he would have been.

Considering his age and the fact that he was the village carpenter, it might be harder to find a building around here he wasn’t involved in building.

“I remember something about seals, and it being a real pain.”

“Ah...”

Well, when you’re putting seals inside, that means the carpenter can’t just build it however he likes, after all.

It put restrictions on the shape, and there was alchemy that needed to be done at various stages in the construction, so it was probably frustrating for an impatient person to work with.

“I, um, think...I’ll be causing you a hassle during the repair process too...”

“I know. A carpenter’s job is to respond to his customer’s requests, not just make things however he likes. That’s what hobbies are for.”

“Right...”

That’s a wonderful answer. He has my respect.

Even if you’re a pro, you can’t just ignore your customer’s requests completely and say something like, “It’s better this way, so that’s how we’re doing it.”

If there need to be changes, you’ve got to explain why, and convince them of it. Because this is a business that caters to the customer.

When he saw how I was looking at him, Geberk-san looked away, as if embarrassed.

“Hmph. So, can we get to work right away? What’s your schedule like?”

“I should be fine. Lorea-chan is watching the shop, and it’s important that we get this fixed.”

“Then let’s get right to it. You girls aren’t going to feel right as long as it’s left like this.”

“Right.”

We got to work sealing up the holes in the wall. Geberk-san laid blocks and applied mortar while I was doing alchemist things, but...

“You’re pretty used to this, huh, Geberk-san?”

“I’ve been working many times longer than you’ve been alive, little missie.”

“Of course.”

He did say he was involved in building this house too.

Repairing the seals proved harder than I’d have expected. Unlike a new design where I could have done things as I pleased, repairing existing seals meant working with what was already there and being careful not to deviate.

It exhausted my spirit and my expensive materials.

Urgh, it hurts. It hurts so much.

My wallet is in pain.

And by extension, my heart.

Honestly, I don’t even want to think what the total cost will be.

After several hours of suffering, the walls were finally repaired.