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Volume 4 Snippet 2.1

Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes

Forre Snippets/Tidbits

Snippet 2

１．One day in Azuma Workshop

「Hello」

「Oh, Kurt-san. Welcome, welcome.」

　One day, slightly past ten o’clock. Having fulfilled her quota of curry powder and potions for the day, Nora was wondering what to do when Kurt showed up.

「Is Randy-san not with you today？」

「He had another errand to run, so no.」

「Right.」

　Nora didn’t find this to be particularly odd, promptly cutting off the small talk in place of a greeting. While they were fairly close, she didn’t want to stoop so low as to pry into an adventurer’s personal life.

「So I want the usual.」

「Ah～、yes yes. Do you have containers？」

「This one, please. Also, here’s a gift. A jack lizard’s innards and skin. I think the innards were usable for class 7 potions, right？」

「Not an official recipe, but yes they are. Thank you so much. I will give extra special service.」

　Nora, who took the bag with the containers, money, and gift, put a little more soy sauce, miso, and curry powder in than what the money was worth. Quie honestly, this was skimming the line of the cost of materials.

　Randy and Kurt had connections with the workshop on account of helping Hiroshi and friends in numerous ways upon their arrival in Wulls and cooperating with the cleanup after saving Aearis, so once the workshop was opened they directly sold them many things. Other than potions, which had to be legally passed through Meriza’s company,  the two of them were at an extreme advantage with favorable treatment when it came to the leading products such as condiments, able to purchase the most expensive items below wholesale price.

　Needless to say, Randy and Kurt had no intention of keeping all the benefits for themselves, procuring materials here and there during missions that were usable and diligently contributing them to the workshop as gifts. The workshop certainly preferred this trade rather than cash, so you could say they had a bit of a give-and-take relationship.

　The workshop was especially grateful in this case, because just like the jack lizard materials right now, there were many of these items that were unobtainable without going past the city perimeter of each workshop in Wulls, Ortem, etc. The materials that Hiroshi and friends shoved into the storage were often things beyond the control of the craftsmen in Nora/other’s shops.

「Is there anything else you need？」

「I would greatly appreciate it if I could get more of those speed amplifiers you sold me last time. Whether it’s for escape or for safekeeping, I value them very much.」

「Yes, please wait a moment.」

　Nora withdrew to the storage to check on the item Kurt had indicated. While she was at it, she also recorded the condiment she had sold to Kurt on her notepad. As Nora did not have Haruna’s inhuman memory, she couldn’t perfectly memorize how much of which item was in storage.

　Thankfully, as they had used remaining resources to make lots of speed amplifiers, there were plenty of class 7 items in storage. Taking ten of them out from storage, Nora went back to Kurt.

「Thank you for waiting. We have a few class 7 versions. I took ten out of storage. Will that be enough？」

「Well they are essentially last resort items after all. But how much？」

「Fifty chrones apiece.」

「Roger that.」

　These amplifiers were doping items, usually selling for ten times the amount, but Azuma Workshop’s material fees were basically nonexistent, making direct sales staggeringly cheap. You could say that 50 chrones was purely a technical fee.

　In comparison to the other alchemists, it was easier for Azuma Workshop to supply with class 6 and below. After all, Ortem’s perimeter was surrounded by materials that were all above class 6 and ones you could drop the rank on purpose to class 7 and so on. Also, the parts of crops cultivated in the village that were not used often were viable to become ingredients for class 7 items. This vast amount of resources was not something only three craftspeople (five including Lime who had barely begun touching safe elementary objects and the elf coming from Ortem to study) could use up on their own.

　Consequently, since the five could continue expending resources without worrying about failure, Nora and the others’ skills were growing much faster compared to the pupils of other workshops, enabling them to make more and more so as to naturally lead to a decrease in technical fees, and this was the virtuous cycle that had emerged.

　They could actually lower the price some more for friends, but Meriza, Randy, and other adventurers who were in direct trade with the workshop warned them to keep the discounts at 10% of the market price (technically the adventurer association’s selling price), so that was how it stayed. 

　These items at a ten percent discount already had a wide variety of prices and quality, making buying them a bit of a gamble. This price was generally what most dealers had for adventurers they were friends with. Then again, in the case of those dealers, more than half the price was on material fees.

「Okay, I’ll get going now. Thanks as always.」

「That’s what we should be saying. Thank you.」

　Chatting a bit after that and exchanging valuable information, Kurt ended the conversation. This was a bit early for the afternoon, but apparently Randy’s errand was clearing up faster than anticipated, therefore he had decided to meet up right away and search for work to do tomorrow.

「I might need to check the account book.」

　Once Kurt had gone off, Nora decided she may as well take another look at the storage chck book as she recalled the temporary tightening from last month involving a certain balance sheet.

「Oh？ That you, Kurt？」

「Ah, Hansome-san, what’s up?」

「……Wow, I guess that nickname is beginning to make its home here, huh……」

　Soon after they got back from the workshop, Kurt ran into a fairly famous adventurer.

　Haan Sandrom, one of the key adventurer figures from a fairly successful team that had gone up to class 5 two months ago. Hiroshi and friends had gotten to know him when they took on the job of escorting and practicing for long distance travel. After that they had worked together with him several times on various missions, and before long he was close enough with them to maintain direct trade.

　Everyone began calling him Handsome because of Hiroshi saying unnecessary things at their first meeting, and so whenever they worked together henceforth Hiroshi had continued to refer to him as such, spreading and solidifying these nicknames like wildfire.

「You guys going shopping too？」

「Yes. Just some condiments and boost items.」

「Okay then. Curry powder is always good to have around.」

「Yes, really. With long-term missions like what I have right now, I’m practically treated like a hero just by having curry powder and soy sauce.」

「Yeah, normal ones are super high priced after all……」

　Kurt nodded keenly at Handsome’s words. After all, demand for curry powder had begun skyrocketing, and buying it through official means via the city only meant you got enough to fit into a hand cream container at an astounding price of 5 chrome. As for soy sauce and miso, Azuma Workshop’s varieties fetched 20 chrones for both amounts, enough to last you ten days at some inns without meals. The items the forest giants were coming to sell were remarkably higher, but it was practically luck if you could buy those.

　Honestly, you didn’t need to know much in order to get your hands on cheap versions of Azuma Workshop’s widespread condiments. With some human wave tactics, you could easily mass produce mayonnaise. The other condiments were heavily involved with fermentation, so a portion of the culinary shops were doing all they could to offset the cost.

　Soy sauce and miso were the extreme examples, so for the soba shop that Aearis went to, they had barely managed to offset costs and stabilize before opening business. The quality could compete with that of the forest giants, and they hadn’t even made enough to sell to other places. The other places were much the same, selling products that other shops here and there couldn’t even imitate, only to scald themselves in the process.

　As for curry powder, only a handful of dealers who had solidified a means of quickly measuring and mixing it were there. Azuma Workshop had already been mass producing and circulating the powder, but it was only so much cheaper than soy sauce and miso, and this continued to hold true. This was an unpleasant situation regardless of how quickly anyone snatched up the powder, so it would be some time before this world become like Japan where you could easily get your hands on some regardless of status

「Handsome-san, you are also looking into curry powder？」

「In addition to boost items and instant ramen for the long stretch.」

「Ah～、so you can also get into that field.」

「Yeah, figured we’d splurge this time around.」

　Currently, the palace was buying up every instant ramen possible. As a result, storage space was always at risk, with instant ramen at a higher price than anything else. Specifically it was worth about two containers’ worth of market-sold curry powder.

「Oh yeah, Nora said something about instant ramen getting a specialized factory in the near future.」

「Oho, I’ll be happy to have that.」

「Yes, really…」