Chapter 3.1
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Translator: Einbedo
Editor: Weasalopes
「You there young lass, what song were you hummin’ just now?」
「Hmm? Oh, it’s a lumberjack song from back in my homeland.」
It was at the logging spot shared between three villages that Haruna, who was there at the request of Hiroshi, found herself surrounded by forest giants who were dying to find out more about the tune she was humming.
「That tune great I tells ya.」
「I’ve still gottem shivers runnin’ down mi spine.」
「Mi too.」
The forest giants were merrily chattering while effortlessly one-handing axes that would fall under the great category by any other race’s standard.
「Lass, may I ask ya a question?」
「Would ya mind teachin’ us that song?」
「No problemo. I’ll sing out the lyrics and you all follow along.」
Haruna gladly took up the forest giants’ request and taught them the song phrase by phrase accompanied by the correct melody. Thirty minutes later, just as the forest giants began singing the most memorable part of the song in one big unison.
「Haru…why that one?」
Mio, who had shown up for some other business, put Haruna on the spot while exuding disbelief from every inch of her body and yet managing to maintain a vacant expression.
「When you think lumberjacking you think of this song, right?」
「Well, you’re not wrong…」
She’s not wrong and Haruna doesn’t have any objections, it’s just that…
「Haru, your actions are at times more dumbfounding than sensei’s.」
「Are they?」
「Very much so.」
Mio looked on in pity as Haruna tilted her head to the side.
Haruna Toudou. The perfect lady at first sight, be it her looks, her personality, her academic achievements, her physical prowess or her home econ mastery. However, as fate would have it, nobody is perfect and Haruna’s imperfection lies in her complete musical illiteracy which causes her to have some questionable song choices at times. A real fly in the ointment.
「Anyways, what brings you here?」
「I brought saplings.」
「So you did.」
Haruna got the message after being shown the tens of saplings from Mio’s backpack. The forest giants, who had just found a good place to put down work, gather about.
「Our job’s to plant ’em but only once we get done eatin’」
As he says that he washes his hands with water from some thermos shaped magic item and reveals a massive rice ball bento. The rice balls inside were as big as a baby’s head, but in their hands they only looked somewhat on the larger side.
「There are fewer young trees than I would’ve expected but the forest doesn’t appear to be dying out as fast as you’ve made it sound. Do you get firewood from elsewhere or?」
「Our heatin’ ‘n cookin’ devices are powered by magical devices so we can provide for our daily needs with whatever thinned wood we’ve got on hand.」
「That would make sense.」
As she finished processing the giants’ explanation Haruna brought out her lunch, which seemed way too jam packed to ever be cleaned out by a lady. Ever since coming here she’d been burning through a lot more calories than she used to back in Japan so her intake proportionally increased to compensate. Having said that, her portions are still the most meager amongst her team since Makoto and Mio go even harder than her in that regard.
「I kind of feel like my self-restraint has started spiraling out of control.」
「In what way?」
「Eating this amount of food in one go isn’t normal.」
「Haru, yours is on the lighter side.」
Said Mio while comfortably going through her own bento which was twice the size of Haruna’s, casually ignoring the fact that the comparison was drawn between the average person’s food intake and not Mio’s own personal monstrous eating habits.
「For humans that’s aboot the standard amount.」
「Aye-aye.」
「Whereas we’re massive so we need a lot more.」
「Actually don’t that little rascal stuff a bit too much?」
The giants were luckily a lot more sensible than Mio. Haruna cracked a faint smile at the remark and began approaching her meal starting from the tamagoyaki. Meal time ended just as it had started – in good spirits.
「I think that should just about do it.」
After retrieving whatever usable dirt he was able to find Hiroshi wound up in the workshop which housed the updraft kiln and, as had been agreed upon, dedicated his entire being to molding flower pots.
The aforementioned updraft kiln is used not just for elven craft but the craft of all other remaining races as well. Its high quality clay serves as one of the villages main exported goods but although it can be made quickly it takes a while to properly process, so the operating ratio isn’t ideal by any means.
「Oooh.」
「Hmmm.」
Artiem and the workshop head watched in awe as Hiroshi pumped out an inconceivable amount of magical energy just to mold the flower pots. Compared to something like the dwarves the elves magical capabilities and overall potential are one of their key defining traits, yet in spite of this Hiroshi’s unprecedented ability easily edged them out, not to mention any other race as well.
Not only was his magic potent but the grace with which he wove it was unimaginable even by elf standards. To make it even more demoralizing he applied his abilities with such tactile precision on something as trivial as a flower pot without even really pouring in any conscious thought, as was evident by the light-hearted humming.
「This is absolutely breathtaking but pray tell, do you always use up this amount of magical energy in other tasks as well?」
「Well, I don’t really get to make stuff all that often but when dealin’ with raw materials I do use about this much.」
The workshop head felt a bit faint after hearing those words.
「What other types o’ magic can ya use?」
「Asides from the usual enhancement magic I can light fires, conjure up water and cast various other quality of life spells. I’ve recently been tryin’ my hand at support magic, so I guess that’s the highest level ones I can pull off.」
For a magic-based race it was only natural to think that this was a complete waste of talent. In practice however, spells, especially the high end ones, take a long time to cast and that’s not something ideal for Hiroshi who has to fight in the front lines. Since it wouldn’t be an effective use of his time learning spells Hiroshi never really was interested in putting his MP to good use.
Having said that he had recently opened up to the idea of learning it and, as such, was now practicing all sorts of support magic so as to not completely waste a valuable combat resource. In the near future, he was also planning on learning an attack spell with no cast time, that would be used for diverting the enemy’s attention and a minor healing spell to boot. However, at the moment, crafting and physical skills took priority.
「That’s quite the simple looking flower pot isn’t it?」
「We’re gonn’ be growin’ a Man Eater an’ anti Man Eater so there’s no need to dwell on the design of all things.」
「What’s a Man Eater?」
「They be the vine plants blockin’ out the front path to the temple.」
「Oh alrighty then. Wait, whaaa-」
Artiem screams in surprise at Hiroshi’s casually dropped bombshell.
「A-are you sure it’s okay to be growing something as unstable as that!?」
「Don’t worry, all the safety measures are in place… more or less.」
「That’s doesn’t sound too reassuring…」
Considering that what’s being grown is a carnivorous plant Hiroshi’s attitude is much too laid back to the point of uneasiness.
「Well how ’bout we get to firin’ this baby up? The magical energy should’ve seeped in by now and we’ve got some perfectly fine firewood here which we’ll be borrowing for now. Don’t worry, Haruna will bring over a new batch to replace it later.」
「That’s completely fine by me it’s just that…」
「Now time to meddle with these a bit.」
All of this commotion for a single flower pot. The high level craftsmen of this world are truly beyond saving.
「I could’ve easily whipped up a pot or two if you had just asked.」
「Thing is we need more than just a regular ol’ pot because of, various circumstances.」
「That be so?」
「Indeedy.」
Sais Hiroshi as he worked some of his ‘magic’ on the firewood and kiln before adding it in and finally firing up the kiln.
「Now then, under regular circumstances it’d take a while for it to finish but thanks to some tamperin’ I did it’ll get done earlier.」
「Why the rush?」
「Well’ be takin’ the most time figurin’ out the perfect plant type to exterminate those pests so it would make sense to shave off as much time as possible from somethin’ as basic as getting’ all the right tools for the job.」
「Makes sense.」
「We’ll be puttin’ everythin’ else in order once that’s over with so for now we’ve got nothing better to do.」
Once the merchandise is in the kiln there was nothing else to do, at most one could adjust the heat if it got too smoky, and since it was well past noon it would be awkward to try and make any new plans.
「So how ’bout ya get a bit more familiar with the village after finishing dinner?」
「Sounds great, but first we got some cleanin’ up to do.」
「I’ll lend a hand.」
Artiem moved over to the workbench to help Hiroshi clean up the residual clay. It was at this time that another one of Artiem’s parlor tricks, which hadn’t reared their ugly head ever since their first run in, occurred
「Woah!」
Artiem tripped on a cluttered set of tools on the ground as she tried to walk over the other workbench and launched herself right at Hiroshi.
Hiroshi, meanwhile, was peacefully crouched over a bucket, doing some wash up work before receiving a devastating flying body slam and making a further mess of the place.
「It’s freezing cold!?」
「Eek.」
Artiem toppled the dirty water filled bucket over in such a spectacular fashion that it somehow ended up landing over her head, at which point she begins to struggle violently in an attempt to get it off. In the meantime Hiroshi looked as though he was going through an out of body experience from being smudged under her rack.
Artiem was the fan service character if we were to be Meta for a second. It’s not like she’s particularly ditzy or anything, in fact she’s just as composed and down to earth as any other elf her age in most circumstances, except for when the opportunity to be a vehicle for fan service arose, that is. In that case it was as though she’d been granted temporary divine powers that took over the wheel and crashed the car straight into the fan service ravine.
Be it a relatively run of the mill little accident that could be avoided by just moving out of the way, something somewhere is going to go wrong and it was going to conclude in the most comedicly erotic way possible. Like how even in this situation her clothes had become transparent from all the water or how they got torn in an oddly suggestive manner. Whenever she tripped over something someone’s going to inevitably either have their face crushed under the weight of her breasts or have their hands cup them in the perfect groping position.
Conversely, whenever a guy fell over in her vicinity it was going to play out in one of three equally probable ways: He was either A) going to topple her over and bury his face deep in her bosom, B) topple her over and have his hands perfectly situated for some breast groping action or C), topple her over and somehow manage to land face-first onto her crotch. On rare occasions a mixture of the three.
But worst of all, the guy in question, without exception, wasn’t going to appreciate this happening to him. With all the women around silently judging him there was no taking one’s sweet time in thoroughly enjoying the moment as it happened and not to even mention all of the envious glares from the other guys. When you think of it like that did the guy really hit the jackpot or did he actually hit the deep end?
「Owie.」
Artiem groans lifting her aching body off the ground as various knickknacks fall to the ground and beads of water gently trickle down her clothes.
Even on the rare occasion that one gets to sink their face right in some lady’s fine breasts, assuming the impact is large enough, pain would precede any enjoyment derivable from the event.
As fate would have it, that’s exactly what ended up happening here. Although in the case of Hiroshi in particular, regardless of the specifics, his gynophobia would make quick work of any possible enjoyment he could be getting from occurrences of such nature. Even as we speak his complexion was growing worse by the second and he appeared to be on the verge of spilling out the contents of his stomach.
「Artiem you’re crushin’ our guest, get off of him already.」
「Eh? Oh, S-sorry about that!」
Artiem sprang to her feet upon hearing from the workshop head.
「I’m so terribly sorry!」
Upon making enough room for Hiroshi to get back on his feet, Artiem begins intensely bowing in a manner reminiscent of a dippy bird. Hiroshi’s shivers subsided and he was finally able to get up just around the time Artiem had finished her fifth bow.
「You ‘ere groanin’ rather painfully back there, did you injure yourself anywhere?」
「I’m all good, the groanin’ is a product of somethin’ else.」
「Somethin’ else?」
「I’d rather not talk about it.」
Hiroshi took a good look at himself after finishing the sentence. Having been doused with muddied water his clothes were in complete shambles. Thanks to the anti-stain enhancement he had put on the clothes they’d be spotless after just a single quick wash, although without a change of clothes he’d be forced to wait around naked ‘til they dry out. Thankfully enough he had a spare in his backpack, but before that.
「The season’s still chilly, ya should warm yerselves up in the hot spring.」
「Aye, besides the spare clothes would get dirty if we don’t get the dirt off.」
「Oh and Artiem, ※◆■▼＠＃％＆＋￥…」
「Eh? Oh, ok understood.」
Artiem responded back to the abrupt Elvish speak with Farlanish out of force of habit. It was all hastily spat out so he couldn’t make out what was said exactly, but judging from Artiem’s reaction, the workshop head must be up to something no good. Hiroshi looked over in his direction and, as expected, his sinister smile told the whole story. However Artiem would end up not taking notice of this.
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