Volume 3 Chapter 4.3
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Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes
「This is kinda calming……」
Hiroshi, who could finally spent time somewhere women were not hanging around, slowly breathed a sigh of relief after he finished supplying about a thousand curry bread. It hadn’t even been two hours since Haruna and the others had left, but he had always been stocking up on curry bread, so it didn’t even take two hours to make it.
Although he had grown quite accustomed to several women being in the same room as him, it wasn’t like his gynophobia had healed. He still felt pressure, not to mention lately he had been feeling a strange aura emanating from Haruna, who he had always thought to be his safe zone. It was unpleasant, to be more blunt.
「And it ain’t like I got anythin’ against Haruna-san……」
Not thinking of anything else that needed stocking, he decided to begin disassembling rock worms outside while he grumbled. No, he did not dislike Haruna. They had shared a long coexistence of survival together, and he quite trusted her and thought fondly of her. Still, that was only as a person.
As a woman, unfortunately, he had not loosened his caution around her on an instinctive level. Even though he doubted she would do such a thing, simply being a female made her an object of caution. Even if he were heterosexual, Hiroshi had the amount of trauma that would move his consciousness away from such thoughts, even just by looking at a picture of one. It would be cruel to tell him to not be cautious.
Besides, he couldn’t fully fathom the opposite sex, no matter how much he tried. The composition of their bodies was different, so there were plenty of experiences that one or the other could not partake in, plus there were many ways that thinking differed on an instinctual level. Not to mention that regardless of gender, when it came to romance, even the most upright of people occasionally played around. As a result of taking on societal sanctions, he really wanted no part in romantic feelings toward those around him, regardless of whether they liked him or not.
To Hiroshi, women were still unfathamable beings whose train of thought still posed a threat to him. That was his definition.
「Seriously, what did I do wrong……」
He recalled to memory everything that had occurred up until now as he diligently disassembled and split the rock worm into raw materials, food, and trash. Honestly, Aearis and Artiem did seem to remotely have the suspension bridge effect, but he couldn’t think of a single reason as to how Haruna had begun to like him that way.
The only thing he could maybe think of was that something had happened to her when they split up in a dungeon, but without a really good reason, there was no reason for Haruna to mistakenly think that she loved him. And he could not for the better of him think of any such reason. And if by any chance the reason for this was built from the days they spent together, then Haruna had seriously bad taste in men.
Normally, anyone would say that Hiroshi was simply overthinking things, but unfortunately, there was no other way to describe the feelings she had, plus the fact that not only Tatsuya, but Makoto, the residents of Ortem Village, and even the craftspeople at the workshop or Douga or Merizza had tipped him off about this. On top of that, the majority of time spent together, she tended to look his way, eyes meeting frequently, face turning red each time this happened, staring fixedly in his direction, etc. Hiroshi would rather not deal with such a problem, but there was no other conclusion that could be made. Haruna at the very least thought mistakenly that she had feelings for him.
As he was contemplating this, he changed the three rockworms into raw material. Practically everything other than the outer skin, innards, and teeth were edible, and the sheer size of the worms made for a very adequate amount of food. If your run-of-the-mill cook attempted to work with such monster ingredients, they would become inedible, but the cooking difficulty of rock worms was about as much as troll birds. With a little practice, even a housewife could eventually cook these things.
「Let’s just leave the question of whether it’s her misunderstandin’ or not aside for now.」
Hiroshi had no intention of changing his view that it was her own misunderstanding. He was seriously ready to cry if the person in question were to ask him.
「I wonder how you eat rock worms？」
He was more concerned with gourmet than glamour. It was much better to worry about that area of things rather than anything related to romance.
He decided to try thinking about everything related to the word “earthworm”. A common way to eat it was putting it through the flame and eating it like udon, but with its massive size and the fact he had already taken it apart made it not viable. It was normal to roast, boil, or stew it, but those methods felt like they lacked creativity.
As he mumbled on and on about earthworms, Hiroshi thought of something he probably shouldn’t have.
「Yup. Earthworms, eh? Reminds me of that urban legend ‘bout hamburgers.」
Urban legends revolve around universal hamburger chains, such as rumors about the shops using ingredients other than just beef or pork for patties, ingredients people normally never ate. Among these rumored ingredients included earthworm, a common example. If you think about it normally, it would be impossible for large-scale chains to gather that many rats or earthworms for their meat, but for some reason these rumors just never stopped.
You could after all use real earthworm meat for hamburgers this time around. At least the Japanese members would see it that way. As he thought about such a silly thing, Hiroshi stocked up on hamburger bread. In order to shorten the fermentation process, he was using an accelerator, a very innovative invention for this. Perhaps it could be expected of someone from Osaka, the land of memes.
「Guess this’ll do for the patty. Then there’s the cheese and lettuce, tomato and sauce, and I better git around to heatin’ up the onions a mite.」
Finishing the rest of the stocking as the bread fermented, Hiroshi gave it a little taste test. Ripping off part of the corner, he put it in his mouth and nodded satisfactorily at the workmanship.
「It’s even tastier than yer average burger shop.」
Hiroshi didn’t know this, but rock worms were classified as the highest valued meat goods in the region. Yes, they were using beef without a doubt, but fast food chains were always so vague in what parts of the patties were processed, so in a sense, Hiroshi’s patties were bound to be superior. As long as the cooking methods were the same, the prices would generally be directly reflected.
Then again, it can’t be denied that the cheap flavor of those dubious patties was still good, as some would say.
「Now then, the earthworm burger’s complete, but I guess Haruna-san and the other’s ain’t back yet？」
Having completed the burger and been satisfied with the late lunch from all the taste-testing, Hiroshi realized he had a lot of time on his hands. Stalls were generally vague in what times they closed, but this time they had very suddenly raced to the market, so he hadn’t stocked too much anyway. On one hand, he thought it would be about over unless they were having difficulty selling, but on the other hand, maybe their food just wasn’t the most popular just because it was a little rare.
In actuality, everything on the menu at their stand was sold out, with Haruna performing a surprise recital, but there was no way Hiroshi would have anticipated that. If they weren’t back yet, then why not play around a bit more? That was the direction his thoughts drifted to. Hiroshi’s target was now the stone golem fragments.
「……Wait, I’d need a smeltin’ furnace dependin’ on what I’m tryna do.」
Thinking of the process, he recognized the issue. It wasn’t like he could just set up a transportation circle in the middle of the rental workshop, but the prospect of going all the way back to Wulls wasn’t fun either. Only one thing to do, then.
「Bricks, gotta get them bricks…」
Smelting furnaces needed to be able to withstand higher temperatures than what normal metals/glass could. As there was an absolute need to fulfill that quota with the right ingredients or process them the right way, there was much equipment needed to make such a thing. Therefore, the method he chose this time around was…
「Somethin’ like this？」
It was his intention to make the hearth needed for making the bricks for the smelting furnace. Thankfully, the garden in this workshop contained soil unique to Darl. The combination of alchemy and magic tool building with some enchantments could make an improvised brick hearth within a matter of seconds, easy.
Further, this time around, the ingredients for the smelting furnace didn’t necessarily have to be brick. It could just as well be accomplished by gathering heat-resistant stones and combining them together. Hwoever, the soil and sand in Darl were especially good for making super heat-resistant bricks, easy to acquire as well. It was easy to see why bricks were the way to go.
「Alright, I’ma burn ya！」
Once the improvised hearth had been completed, Hiroshi began making the bricks. Using an insane amount of mud and piling several layers to heat them up, he began raising the heat resistance and durability. Immediately heating all that up with a fairly high temperature, Hiroshi had made a heat-resistant brick that pros would not be ashamed of.
Hiroshi then got carried away with using up all of the mud to make more bricks. Once he had heated enough to make the smelt furnace, Hiroshi figured he might as well take on mass-producing high-rank glass bottles while he was still in Darl–yet another excessive move on his part. So now he wanted glass material. And glass material meant quartz, which meant large amounts of sand and stone within, which were found a dime a dozen in Darl’s deserts. Only one way to go with this.
「Once things calm down a mite, I gotta go diggin’ in the desert.」
Hiroshi decided without even consulting anyone. It was a truly terrifying thing to not have anyone call him out on his shenanigans.
「Come to think of it, magic steel ‘n ore of that sort were pretty plentiful in our storage, innit.」
As he built up the smelt furnace, Hiroshi’s thought process led him from the word “desert” to various other ingredients to make other equipment. If all he were trying to do was gather sand in the desert, no one would have complained about that. But without anyone there to object to his association game that was on par with the octo-gals, Hiroshi’s thought process became more and more unhinged until it flew off into the day after the next day in craziness, with Hiroshi deciding to leave aside anything he had to do at the moment and simply make rush plans to head straight into the unknown. Unfortunately, everyone else was currently at the stalls, so Hiroshi had far too much time to himself in preparing for such a reckless venture.
「What are you doing？」
「Ah, welcome back. Yer pretty late today mate.」
「Good to get back. The work at the stand was pretty quick, actually. So what are you doing?」
「I had some time, so I made a smelt furnace. It’s good to have some for processin’ stone golem fragments, plus we’ll be going to the desert eventually anyway so I also wanna take some sand ‘n make high-rank potion bottles while I can. It’s cool, right?」
「Well, it isn’t like I particularly mind.」
While a bit put-off at Hiroshi’s wild creativity of making a smelting furnace just because he had time on his hands, it was customary for Hiroshi to use free time to make machinery, tools, expendables, etc. Thinking that way, Tatsuya didn’t feel the need to object to that, so he just let it go through. If Tatsuya had thought to question the fact that there was an awful lot of ore next to him, they probably could have averted the crazy detour that awaited them. Unfortunately, however, Tatsuya wasn’t knowledgeable in relation to those materials. As a result, he made no comment and lost any opportunity to correct Hiroshi’s rampage into the point of no return.
「But wow, I’m hungry……」
「After a bit more work I’ll work on dinner, but if ya can’t wait much longer I got some hamburgers for ya mate.」
「Ooo, I can go with that. Today’s been oddly busy and I didn’t have time to eat lunch, you see.」
「That right. Then I’ll work on that, so do me a favor ‘n get everyone else.」
「Heck yeah！」
He must have been quite famished. As Tatsuya found the other members with a light and happy stride in his feet, they glittered their eyes at the hamburgers prepared by Hiroshi in the dining hall and wolfed them down. Even Haruna, who didn’t seem the type to eat fast food very often, was more delighted than expected as she ate, probably not just because she was hungry.
「This burger is frickin’ good！」
「A rather high-class taste for a hamburger, I’d say？」
「Wait, there’s no way this patty is beef.」
「One vote for Makoto-san’s opinion. Hiroshi-kun, what meat is this?」
「Rock worm, mate. One of those earthworm burgers ya hear about.」
Hiroshi had grinned as he answered that, but everyone who was eating immediately stopped what they were doing.
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