Chapter 354: I’ll Try My Hand at Collecting Info
「Thanks for the hardwork, it turned out even more amazing than I expected! Thanks a lot, really. 」
We’re celebrating the completion of the tower today.
「Ou! Soleil of the Island! We Earthkins are also glad because of all those materials that you gathered! 」
「It’s been our pleasure to handle all of them! 」
It’s quite boisterous yet harmonious at the same time as their voices rang out.
We’re currently in the storage room of the tower. The shelves had been put away, and low tables made by the Earthkins in a blink of an eye lined the floor. Alcohol, bam! Meat, bam! Grilled root crops, bam! Good food and good wine overflow!!
I also prepared tough, heavy bread aside from those food, mainly for refreshing their palate in between plates of meat. Earthkins prefer their meat tough too, and they guzzle their wine like there’s no tomorrow.
Earthkin do eat other foods on normal days. However, they normally go all out during banquets, and that applies to meat and wine only. They don’t get as much meat in the North as in the Magic Forest.
I was surprised when they brought their own distiller when I asked them what sort of alcohol they preferred. It’s far more splendid and highly efficient than the one I used back when I made medicine. Earthkin tools may be limited to normal ones that don’t use mana, but even so, they are very sophisticated. These people prefer sturdy and durable designs, so they’re usually mistaken to be simple fellows.
The Earthkins are craftsmen, who, when stumbling upon something that piqued their interest, won’t be satisfied in simply studying how it works. If they happen to visit my 『House』, I’m pretty sure they won’t be get tired of observing the whole thing, from the chairs and tables to the entire building.
Things that are made of plastic, which are made from crude oil and aluminum, which are made through electrolysis don’t exist in this world, so I don’t have them in my house, either. Making stuff like that would use a huge chunk of lifespan, so I stopped after having my toilet and bath. I don’t regret having those made at all.
My 『House』resembled a manor but with a twist — rather than looking like those buildings from the Middle Ages, it has a more modern feel in it, so I’m sure they’d be completely smitten with it. Oh well, I don’t have any plans on letting anyone go there, and besides, I don’t have any spares at all, so I won’t be taking my furniture out of there, either.
I made the bed mattresses, so I guess it’s okay even if the original one gets damaged. Still, there are lots of other things that I can’t afford to break since there won’t be any replacement, so I also sometimes consider making the spares myself.
All these thoughts ran through my mind as I accepted the drinking challenge of the Earthkin. I already told them I won’t ever get drunk, but they still insisted. Ah, no, maybe they wanted to win?
The Earthkin laughed boisterously as they tore the meat off with their teeth, gobbled the vegetables and washed all that food down with wine. It does look vulgar and crude, but how do I say this, except for wine, they ate their food without spilling anything at all, so it didn’t look dirty.
They poured wine until it almost overflowed and they kept on toasting everyone with no regards to whoever it was with their wooden mugs, so yeah, they kept on spilling wine, as expected. Well, I gave up thinking too deeply and decided that this was their custom. Ah, don’t throw your bones on the floor, please.
Oh well, that’s the reason why the Earthkin went out of their way to spread those thin sheets here in the first place, I guess. Two fallen challengers were already lying down on those sheets as the third contestant competed with me. Everyone around us were all fired up, but I already knew I was going to win so I couldn’t feel the same level of excitement as them.
『Heal』sobers me up before I could fall, you know!
By the way, Nalluahdid’s wind spirit dropped by earlier before I started preparing for this banquet. It returned, but this time, it’s accompanied by another spirit that looked like a seabird.
I’ve been collecting information about Lady Roza from the spirits in Nalluahdid the entire morning today and I asked them to inform me if there’s anything new when we meet next time, and I also requested that they keep this a secret.
According to the spirits — Lady Roza is blessed with an ample chest. She’s a woman. She’s a pirate in the Western Seas. She’s contracted to the seabird spirit, and she relentlessly makes it work for her nonstop. It’s blatant overwork, but she only allows it to fly freely once or twice a month. She borrows communication spirits from the Merchant’s Guild from time to time.
I also tried borrowing a spirit from the Merchant’s Guild. It’s the type to multiply and scatter to other places. The client would first send a word to the other party through the Merchant’s Guild, then if that’s not enough, they would meet up to further discuss the details.
If the client can’t See, they will be made to face and speak to a magic circle that is placed on top of the table, although the spirit is also sitting on top of that circle.
Most of the multiplying type of spirits can’t verbally speak, and even the one in the Merchant’s Guild can’t. I asked the other spirits in the room about what they were talking about, and it turned out to be ordinary business negotiations. Their speech is probably mixed with jargon, but the spirits won’t know about that.
At any rate, I found through that experience that the fee for Merchant Guild’s spirit communication includes the usage of manastone, so client’s nearly don’t have to use mana at all, and that it’s very expensive.
I also picked up some rumors about the Ripua region, but it’s mostly how the feudal lord is the type to use his own funds for the betterment of his territory. These are information gathered through the lens of the spirits, so there may be some discrepancies, but the general picture quite aligns with what Soleil and the others said about him.
He managed to deal with the famine this time, but he would probably have to give up his ship if the crops fail yet again. Well, he’s not good-natured through and through; he was also a bit calculating.
『What’s up? 』
The third one was completely drunk. I spoke to the spirit as I watched the fourth contender pour alcohol into my mug.
Hey, don’t tell me that seabird is Lady Roza’s?
Notes
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T/N: Here’s the manga artist’s interpretation of Jean’s 『House』 from the deities 🙂
NEXT CHAPTER
RELEASE RATE
I Got Transferred in the Middle of a Mountain
Speed up schedule by 10 hours
Current schedule: Every 80 hours
Thanks for the treat.