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Chapter 353 part 2

(Fruit trees!)

Explosive Onee-san is shocked as if struck by a lightning strike hearing his answer.

(Is it Ambrosia? Is he going to bring an Ambrosia tree here? ….Calm down, me. It’s not guaranteed yet whether it’d be the Ambrosia.)

『This is bad』, the woman in a hooded coat crouched beside the carriage said as she desperately stopped her feet.

(But then what kind of tree is it? And where is he going to get it from?)

But once she fell into the sea of thoughts, it was hard for her to emerge from it.
That’s why she did not realize that Tauro had returned to the carriage after the discussion ended.

「…Um, what are you doing here?」

She looks up at the sound of a not-so-hot male voice.
She must also have realized it was him. There was the face of Dr. Slime, with a surprised and then puzzled look on his face.

(I’m going to melt!)

She didn’t mean her consciousness, but Explosive onee-san’s body reaction. The sensation, which she has been made to remember through many battles with him, makes her spine go numb with a sweet sensation all the way to her tailbone.

「Y-You got it wrong. I-I was just taking a little walk and looking at the flowers here.」

But Explosive Onee-san suppresses it with her sheer reason, and when she gets up, she explains herself in a panicking manner. She herself does not know what he 『got wrong』.
Feeling a suspicious look from a middle-aged woman standing behind her, she hurriedly took off her hood to reveal herself.

「It has been a while. Now that I think of it, you did live around here, didn’t you?」

The real estate staff’s expression changes from one directed at a suspicious person to one shown to a client, and the petite middle-aged woman bows her head with a greeting.
Explosive Onee-san is relieved, but wonders at Tauro’s gaze which was as if he were admiring a painting.

(…Ah!)

After a short pause, she finally understood the appearance she was currently in.
What she was wearing is a coat that he just grabbed in a hurry. She had not even brushed her hair, let alone put on makeup as she had just woken up.
When she timidly put her hand on my head, she found that she had a splendid sleeping habit.

「Well then, good day to you all!」

After a quick blush, she puts her hood back on and starts running in her slippers. The real estate auntie is taken aback by the sight of her back, and the 30-year-old man nods his head repeatedly with his arms folded.
Let’s hear what Tauro has in mind.

(A no make-up Explosive onee-san with ber hair huh…)

The white shirt under her coat and the delicious fragrance rising from her open bosom.
She always wears the aura of a 『capable woman』 flawlessly, but her 『sloppy and careless daily life』 style is refreshing and truly wonderful.

(I saw something good.)

That was the reason he nodded repeatedly.

***

The red-light district of the royal capital is enveloped in a light brighter than daylight in the late autumn night.
I was walking south from the main street running east to west in the center of the red-light district, climbing the exterior stairs of a partially three-story building by myself.

「I’m home.」

When I opened the front door on the top floor, I saw a fifth instar larva of the swallowtail butterfly and a dung beetle in front of me. They must have sensed my presence and were waiting for me.

「All right, let’s do a quick debrief.」

I pick them up and move them to the living room. Then I put them next to the turtle there and we start talking about the real estate properties I saw today.

「The first one is a wine farm in the hills to the north of here. It looks pretty good, but I don’t think it’s a place suited for us.」

The sunlight is good there, but there was very little water. There is enough from rain and so that might be why there’s no reservoir.

「Even if I were to build a new pond, it would be difficult to do so on a hillside with good drainage.」

Those words gave Zaratan, the manager of the pond, an air of reluctance.
The reason why the guild master said that was the best place for me, is probably because I call myself a pharmacist.

『Potion making and brewing alcohol.』

He must have seen that both of these were using the same technology and thought that I could use the brewing facilities for potion-making. Or he might just try to get me to make good wine.

「I don’t have the skill and knowledge to do that, though.」

I am able to create potions thanks to the Akashic Magic lent to me by a mysterious stone statue.
If I activate it, I can create potions with the bottles out of thin air.

「What do you guys think?」

Imosuke and Dangorou shake their bodies from side to side and Zaratan pulls his head back a little when I ask if it is possible to make wine.
If we continue to hire workers from the vineyard, we will be able to do it. But that would not allow us to move the garden forest there.

(It would have been different if it was the magician who lived on Zaratan’s back.)

I think as I look at the ruins on the back of the long-lived and knowledgeable turtle.
It was written in a black-covered book given to me by Zaratan that the magician was, like me, had been lent the Akashic Magic.

(The upper limit was D-rank, but he can use every type of magic.)

And the number of times he can use the magic was D-rank once a day, E-rank three times a day, and F-rank six times a day.
In my case, I can use S, A, and B-rank the same number of times, but in this world, they are too extraordinary to be of any use. If I do something like 『using S-rank magic to make a wine』, a wine that emits light enough to burn the eyes would have come out as a result.

(I feel like people would die if they drink it.)

Not only their body, but also their souls would not be able to endure it, and they would probably disappear completely. I shrug my shoulders at the thought.

(Though I’m not sure if such magic exists.)

The number of magic he can use aside, there’s no doubt that he’s an excellent all-rounder magician. Even the Elves, who excelled in magic, would not be able to match him.
It’s something that happened hundreds of years ago, but that’s why he was given the title of 『Honorary Elf』 by the Elves.

(The person himself seems pretty happy about it though.)

I heard it from Zaratan. But I, who am completely distrustful of elves, have no such pure heart.

『You are an inferior human race, but I will make a special exception for you and treat you a little lower than the elves.』

It’s them we’re talking about here, I bet it goes like this. The word 『honor』 they gave them meant that he should feel 『honored』 and doesn’t mean that he’s 『superior to the elves』.
Incidentally, Zaratan was not bothered much by the Elves at that time, so he did not interfere in his friend’s social relations.

「The next place I went to was the garden on the west of here. It’s unkempt and fuzzy like body hair, but it’s not too sunny, and best of all, it had a big pond!」

I put the thoughts in the back of my mind and talked about the next property.
I had checked out the site, but this is all I can tell. I ask Imosuke, who knows all about plants, and Dangorou, who understands everything about soil if there is anything they want to know.

『What about the bean?』

『Did you bury it?』

The two of them say,『When the bean sprouts, Imosuke would be able to tell the environment around the property』.

「I made sure to sow them in all properties I visited today.」

I woke up early and picked them up in the morning myself. How could I forget?
Since there seemed to be nothing else they want to know, I told them about the property in the royal capital where I was headed after that.

「It’s not bad, but it’s small.」

Of course, it is many times bigger than the current garden forest. Still, once I saw the spacious landscape on the outskirts, I feel that it was not big enough.

(And the rent is high, even though it’s small.)

Big and cheap land on the outskirts of the city. The downside is, as I thought, would be the time it took to commute will be longer.
I am still relying on street food stalls for dinner, so it’s fine because I can eat in the royal capital before I go home.
While thinking about such things, I tell them about the vacant lot that has been turned into a flower garden and the house with a garden.

「That’s all that was on the flyer, but there was one other odd property. The location is southwest of here. It’s on the far corner of the downtown area, facing the city walls.」

A rundown vacant lot surrounded by a high board fence. As I passed by in my golem carriage, I noticed a sign that read 『No Trespassing — The Merchant Guild』 and asked the real estate auntie about it.

「It used to be a big house, but it exploded a while ago and then caught fire. After it burned down, there was a big hole in the ground.」

I continue to speak to the three animals that became more curious.

「The one who lived there at the time was the tenant, an elf, and the two humans who lived with her.」

Two of the humans were away on a business trip and were safe, but the elf woman was badly injured and had to be taken in by her friends in the royal capital.

(Still, how unusual for an elf to live with humans.)

And while the other elves live in expensive residential areas, she is the only one who lives in the downtown area. There may have been a reason for this.
Incidentally, the incident occurred shortly before I went to hit the elf brothel. It was around the time when I was attending pilot school or was hired by the merchant guild.

「The cause is still unknown. Maybe that’s why the house looks so eerie and no one wants to rent it. So if I choose to live there, they’re willing to give me an extremely low rent.」

Apparently, the hole that has been created by the explosion is filled with rainwater and is a source of mosquito infestation in the summer, which is a problem.
If just living there would help the merchant guild, they would probably be more than glad to let anyone live there for free.

『Hmm』

『That’s a bit…』

Unenthusiastic waves are coming from Imosuke and Dangorou, perhaps because of the word “elf”.

「Don’t worry. I have no intention of renting that place.」

There were no advantages other than being cheap, and since there’s no longer a house in there, we would have to start building one from scratch.
In the end, the conclusion we arrived for the day was to 『wait for the information from the beans』 as planned.