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Chapter 13: Smokescreen House

Translator: Haruchin; Editor: Marky

Helping out some carpenters seemed like a good idea, so I teleported to a country with a forest, or should I say country in a forest. At first, the carpenters were wary of me when I told them I’d be working for free, but they started to teach me properly halfway through. They would even slow down while showing the important points to me, and they’d call me to get lunch with them from the huge cauldron. We got along just fine, I think.

It was also the first time I drank alcohol other than the New Year’s spiced sake, and they teased and laughed at me when I told them so. Honestly, I thought that alcohol was a luxury item, but it seemed that it was treated as preserved food that could provide energy, so they frequently drank it. Distilled liquor, on the other hand, was expensive, while the price of wines were extremely varied.

I also checked the place out while helping the carpenters. I earnestly bought some of the wood here, then put them inside the 【Storage】and also got some cork, too. The sight of the differently colored trees surprised me — the upper part of the trunk was colored differently from the reddish lower part where the bark had been peeled off.. That bark was used as lids for bottles, so the tree was named cork oak, they said, so I bought some since they’re interesting.

It was really comfortable being there. The carpenters would greet me with ‘Good to see you, dude’ and they still treated me well despite the fact that I was obviously a nobody, with no money and political power. Plus, they never stepped out of the line.

That was all nice, but the weather has been changing recently, and it’s been raining on and off, getting colder every time there’s a downpour. Riche and I would walk up the autumn mountains, searching for mushrooms. We even found stiff, lumpy mushrooms called penny buns, and they’re very tasty.

Riche finally opened his eyes and the tear stains also disappeared. He turned into a roly-poly ball of a puppy. He’d trip on his own feet when he’s speeding past me, tumbling round and round before picking himself up and returning to my side. Then he’d run again, repeating the same thing over again. He still sleeps a lot, but he’s getting better, and that’s a relief.

There were other mushrooms too, such as the scarlet umbrella type I saw back at the island.
It’s absolutely poisonous, see, let’s check the【 Appraisal 】ー WHAT!! It’s edible and SUPER delicious!? Ugh, I don’t even know what to feel now, wish I could’ve known that back then..

I also spend some of my time helping the farming family I’d become acquainted with as they prepare for winter. We butchered a pig, then made some pickled meat, ham, bacon, cheese, and bottled some fruits and veggies, too.

Speaking of winter preps, I was already done with mine. It didn’t have anything to do with the food for the winter, though ー it’s for building the house.

I tried experimenting first by remodeling the drab servants’ quarters on the second floor of the shed by designing it the way I wanted. The results were satisfying enough, so
I decided to build an extension-like cabin at the north-east side of the kitchen after that.
It’d be inconvenient if I needed to go out of my way to someplace far just to fetch water when making medicine, and I didn’t want to get drenched if I wanted to go to the lab when it’s raining, so there’s no choice but to make it in that spot.

I covered the place with stones first before assembling the pillars in the wide blacksmith’s room. Helping out with the carpentry proved its merits, and the memories of a certain TV show I watched in Japan really helped me a lot here, too.

The exterior was finally completed, and it looked like the grapevine trellis was surrounded in both directions. The room was approximately 10 meters* wide, and I chose to divide it into two with a sliding door ー the shaded side for the medicine and ingredient storage, and the bright side for the actual laboratory. Yep, there’s the 【 Storage 】 , but setting the mood was also important, you know. I also installed a shutter window in the laboratory so I could darken the room anytime. It was something like a louver made with movable planks of wood. Wind could still pass through so that the room won’t be too stuffy with the smells.

Alright. The laboratory’s done, so it’s time to restock the medicinal plants.

Should I rent a house in Canum? It’ll be less troublesome then, since there’s no need to go through the alibi of opening a room in an inn. There’s a rule that newbies can’t buy a house in that fortress city, so the option is to rent. If my memory serves me right, one must spend 5 years ー or was it 10? ー not making trouble and doing some meritorious deed before he or she can buy one. Somebody explained to me that donations to the city are also considered as deeds.

Living in Canum will mean being able to use other gates aside from the main one ー that’s huge for me. The gatekeeper already knows my face, but maybe it’s because I’ve been frequenting the Commerce Guild to bring the bears and potions, so it can’t be helped that I stand out. There’s that creepy feeling of being watched by that Pink Head from the Adventurer’s Guild, too, though she didn’t do anything yet. She’d stare at me whenever I saw her in the city, even following me around sometimes, though she never said a word. I’m supposed to be staying at the inn, so it’s difficult to buy some good plates, saplings or tools that I can use for manufacturing if somebody’s stalking me.

So, I went ahead and consulted the Commerce Guild, and it was decided that they’d introduce me to a middle-man so I could buy or rent a house here. My conditions were simple: no cohabitants, and people won’t enter as they please. They stared at me dubiously when I gave that last condition, but using that Pink Head as an example was enough to make them understand. Though, I got comments like ‘It’s tough to be handsome, eh’.

And so, the middleman recommended a newly built, isolated house at the end of an alley. The frontage didn’t even reach 4 meters, and it seemed narrower than the other houses. There were two gates, a small one for people and a larger one for bringing things in. In short, the first floor’s frontage was mainly gates. Opening the larger gate would lead directly to the workshop, and there’s the kitchen with a kiln. A courtyard with a well was sandwiched between the two. The smaller gate for people’s use led directly to the staircase at the edge of the workshop, which in turn led to the second floor’s living room and bedroom. The third floor was similar to the second one, and there’s a cellar underground.

People here like old houses, the older, the better. Why? That’s because of the homey feeling they get from it, plus the residents already renovated the house while they’re still living there. This one did not have any shelves, and there were gaps in the floor and walls, quite unimaginable in Japan.

I also considered renting a room instead of a house at first, but was told that landlords usually lived in the same house because it’s big. Some meddlesome landlords would also wake you up in the morning, so I rejected that outright.

Well, this is fine already, it’s only a smokescreen house for making some potions. Bonus part is I can renovate the place however I like and the rent’s only two potions per month.

Shops run along the city walls that are adjacent to the western main gate and the eastern back gate of the city, and because they are stuck to the wall, the resulting fusion of buildings and barriers created a pathway overhead where the guards patrolled. On the other hand, the northern and southern walls are made of simple stone walls, thick but pretty much useless, although they also have their own gates with towers flanking them. *

The city wall is about to collapse, so it must be repaired. The house was apparently built to support the wall, which continued downtown with a road running alongside it. They blocked one of the paths intersecting that road to build the house. That’s why the house’s first floor was only the width of the path, and because they had to leave the road alongside the city wall open and accessible, the second and third floors were kinda stuck to the wall. The interior of the first floor was long and narrow, looking like something an eel would sleep in.**

The left and right walls weren’t co-shared unlike the other houses, and the interior beside the right side of the wall was very narrow. Monsters assaulted the city a few years ago, and this wall managed to endure their attacks, but then, there’s the wind and rain ~ ー that’s their vague explanation. Seems like the memory of the attack is still fresh here.

Houses cheaper than this one had security issues, to the point that drunkards and thieves would break in. Well, whether it’s habitable or not didn’t really matter as long as nobody came in. Alright, this one’s the final choice, then.

I had nothing to lose, so I tried asking the size ー but they gave me a rough sketch, instead. Rough’s an understatement, so maybe I should drop by to see if the discrepancy isn’t that drastic, and maybe renovate it too, without standing out too much from the neighborhood.

….The gates are replaceable by fixing the walls and floors somehow. Maybe I can also put some shelves to make it more like a workplace. Yep, making my den should be really fun.

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T/N: Hi folks, I finally have an editor! 🙂 Thanks Marky for helping me out on this 😀 Also, JackofallTrades also helped me with the first few chaps until 4.2,, thank you so much! 😀

*E/N:  The idea behind the talk about the gates, city walls and house is; the North and South walls are what would be considered subpar for a fortified city wall; the East and West walls are narrow and unsturdy from attacks and weather, they need the support from the shops/houses built along them; East/West wall walks are on top of said shops/houses; there is no organization to the layout; the house has thick reinforcing walls unlike a “normal” house.

**T/N: Original phrase was eel bed, usually used to describe houses that had narrow entrances and long interiors. Examples would be the traditional townhouses found in Kyoto.
10 meters wide – the approximately length of 6 tatami mats.