Chapter 3: I Made a Stone Oven

The morning after my reunion with Phoenix, I was taking it easy at home. And at Thereza’s request, I was building a stone oven near the servant’s houses.

Thereza had been really hesitant to ask, qualifying the request with, “If you can......”

She was apparently good at baking bread and would do so from time to time back in her own home. I kinda wanted to try out a stone oven myself, and I wanted to taste Thereza’s bread, so I quickly agreed.

Thus, I wanted to construct a stone oven, but according to Thereza, the stone oven they’d had at the Alban family house was something that had been there for generations. I tried asking Alban, but he said that he didn’t know how to make one.

I could just ask a professional to do it, but I feel like I could manage somehow with Earth magic.

So I decided to try and make a stone oven myself. I ended up going through a process of trial and error with Alban and Thereza’s input. It was pretty easy to shape the bottom platform for the firewood, but the upper part that was needed to bake the bread was dome shaped and pretty hard to get right.

I’d make it, destroy it, and have to make it again only to destroy it once more.

“Hmm, it’s not going well... I’m imagining it as a dome, but......”

The upper part always ended up warped and just didn’t want to turn into a nice smooth dome. I had used up a lot of MP already, and it was about time for my familiars to make a fuss about food.

Let’s take a lunch break before coming back to this.

I called out to my three familiars, who were laying around or playing in the grounds as they pleased.

“Heeeyy, it’s about time for food!”

Heeding my call for food, they all ran over.

We had lunch in the main house’s living room.

Today’s menu was beef bowls (pre-made with wyvern meat) with eggs on top. Everyone looked like they were enjoying the food as they chowed down. I was asked for more helpings several times before Fel and Sui were finally sated. Dora-chan was already out by that point, and he was lying face up on the carpet.

What a weird sight, seeing a dragon lying face up...... Oh crap, I need to get working on the stone oven. But I just can’t get that dome right... dome-dome-dome............ Hm?

I caught sight of Sui’s jiggly body, which was perfectly round.

Hmmm? Wait, maybe it would work if I had Sui to help?

“Hey, Sui. I’m trying to make something right now; will you help me?”

《Yeah, okay.》

I brought Sui along to where I had been trying to construct the stone oven; for some reason, Fel and Dora-chan tagged along too.

Well, they’re probably just bored.

For now, I just used Earth magic to create the base before moving on to the upper dome shape.

“Just what have you been trying to make since this morning?”

《Yeah. You’ve been making stuff and breaking it over and over again with Earth magic. What the hell are you doing?》

“I’m not playing or anything, just so you know. I’m trying to make a stone oven, got it? A stone oven. It’s for baking bread and can be used to cook a bunch of other stuff too.”

“Oh? So if you use that, you will be able to make good food?”

“If I do it right.”

I got to work making the stone oven as I talked to Fel and Dora-chan. I managed the base just fine. Picturing the dome shaped oven that would go on top, I made it slightly large and roughly shaped.

“All right. This should do it for now. Sui, could you get inside and make the inside about this big? And be careful not to break through the rock.”

《Got it. Sui will try.》

I gestured to Sui, showing how big the inside should be compared to the platform, and Sui entered the rough structure I’d made. Once inside, Sui enlarged and used acid to shape the inside surface.

《Master — is this good~?》 Sui, who was back to its original size, emerged from the inside.

Let’s see...

I peeked inside, and the empty inner dome was smooth to the touch.

“Yep, it’s looking good. It’s perfect!”

《Eheheh...》

I petted Sui, and it jiggled in happiness.

“One more thing, Sui. Can you make the outside round like this too?” I gestured in the shape of a smooth half-sphere as I asked Sui.

《Okay~.》

Sui stuck itself onto the rough, slightly warped outer surface of the dome and started to shape the outside while also making it smooth.

《Like this?》

Ohh, amazing. It took so long for me, and I couldn’t even get it right, but Sui managed it so fast.

“Yeah, it’s good. You’re amazing, Sui~. You can do anything.”

《Eheheh~. Is Sui awesome?》

“Yep. Totally awesome,” I complimented Sui, causing the slime to start bouncing happily.

Seriously, Sui really is good at everything. It’s so skilled and reliable.

“All right, is it done? Use it to make us something good right now.”

No, no, don’t just “make us something” me. Thereza needs to look at it first since she’s the one that asked for one.

◇　◇　◇　◇　◇

“Thereza,” I called out to her. She was doing repackaging work for the soaps and shampoos in the main house. The mansion had an underground storage room, and that was where I decided to keep my stock of soaps and shampoos, as well as where the repackaging work took place.

“What is it, Mukohda?”

“I’ve finished the stone oven you asked for, so I wanted you to take a look at it.”

“Huh? Already?”

Once their work reached a good stopping point, I took all the women whom I had asked to do the housework to see the finished stone oven.

“This is it. What do you think?” I asked.

Thereza took a look at it. Her eyes went wide and she stiffened.

“Huh? No good?”

“Nonono, anything but! I was just surprised that you made something so fine! Can I really use this?”

“Of course. You’re the one that asked for it, weren’t you? Ah, but I’ll probably be using it sometimes too.”

“This is yours, Mukohda, so feel free to use it whenever. I’m happy enough just being able to use it whenever it’s free!”

“Hahaha... Then, can I have you make some bread now? I want to try some.”

“Uhh, bake some now? That would be......”

According to Thereza, she would have to make a “bread base” first.

“‘Bread base’? What the heck is that?” I thought, but apparently she was referring to a yeast starter.

“When you let dried fruits soak in water for a few days, some bubbles will appear. That’s bread base, and you mix that with flour to make bread,” Thereza explained.

Oh yeah, I have heard that soaking raisins in water is one of the methods of making natural yeast, haven’t I?

From what Thereza said, bread base would need three or four days until it reached a point where it could be used to make bread, even if she started today.

Too bad.

“Let me have some when you do make bread then, Thereza.”

“Of course. I’ll let you eat as much of my bread as you like. I’m quite proud of it,” Thereza said with a smile.

Lotte was happy too, saying, “I can eat mom’s bread!”

I’m really looking forward to some fresh bread. Still, I did just make a stone oven, not using it would be......

I wanted to use it once to see how well it worked, too.

A stone oven, huh? Stone oven............ Ah! There is something I can make with a stone oven!

“All right! Then I’ll make food today with this. I’ll get ready now, so can you all heat it up?” The branches that the men, who were taking care of the grounds, had pruned would work fine for firewood.

I hurried back to the main house to prepare.

Oh man, I feel like the real deal, using a stone oven and everything. I’m so looking forward to it.

◇　◇　◇　◇　◇

“Now then, time to prepare a pizza.”

I knew how to make one, since I’d done it once before. But it was a lot of time and work. You had to knead it until the dough was smooth, and you had to let it proof and stuff, too.

If I was going to make pizza, the biggest issue was that I’d have to make a huge amount — enough for Fel and the others to have their fill too. So it would be a time sink. I could also have used baking powder instead of dry yeast to make a non-rising pizza dough, but even then, with the amount I’d need to knead and prepare, it would still be a big time sink.

“But for times like these, frozen pizza dough is just perfect. It’s served me well back home, too.”

Frozen pizza dough was just as it was named. Dough that was already frozen in the required shape so all you had to do was put on your sauce and toppings. It allowed anybody to enjoy super easy but still delicious home-made pizza.

The best part about making it yourself was customization. Even when making the standard margherita, you could freely adjust the amount of tomato sauce and cheese.

“All right, it’s decided that I’ll be using the frozen dough. As for the kind of pizza... Well, I have to make the standard margherita, right? Then, maybe I should also do a teriyaki chicken pizza for the kids. Then what else would be good? ......Oh, right.”

I looked around in my Item Box.

“Good, good. There’s still some left.”

I was referring to the familiar yellow scallop and tiger prawn-esque vermillion shrimp that I’d bought in Berléand.

Let’s use these for seafood pizza.

With that decided, I needed to buy some stuff from my Online Supermarket: the frozen dough, of course, and canned whole tomatoes for the sauce; then, some fresh basil and mini tomatoes, as well as mozzarella and a bag of mixed cheese.

Once I checked out, it all appeared in the usual cardboard box.

Now that I have all the ingredients, let’s start with making the tomato sauce. Meanwhile, if I let the dough thaw out while still in the bag, I could get to work on other stuff.

I was planning on preparing the pizza dough, tomato sauce, and ingredients so I could just let everyone choose the toppings as they liked.

But first, the tomato sauce.

~◇~◇~◇~

Put the whole tomatoes in a bowl and crush them by hand (some people would keep at it until there was no trace of the tomato itself left; I actually liked having little chunky bits in the sauce, so that was why I was doing it by hand).

Then, coat a frying pan in olive oil and put some minced garlic into the pan (I add a little extra to suit my tastes). Start cooking the garlic on low heat.

Once the contents of the pan have become fragrant, add in the crushed whole tomato to the pan and cook it down. When a decent amount of water has been cooked out, season with salt and pepper to taste to finish the tomato sauce.

~◇~◇~◇~

The tomato sauce would be used for both the margherita and the seafood pizza, so I prepared a lot of it.

After that, parboil the yellow scallops and vermillion shrimp for the seafood pizza. Once they’re parboiled, cut them down into pizza-sized bits...

Then halve the mini tomatoes...

Then, for the teriyaki chicken pizza, take some onions and cut them into thin slices...

Then it was time to move on to the main topping for this one, the teriyaki chicken (or rather, teriyaki cockatrice meat).

Take cockatrice meat that’s been cut into large bite-sized pieces and start cooking them on an oiled frying pan. While cooking, baste the meat with a teriyaki sauce made from mixing together soy sauce, sake, mirin, and sugar...

Given all the meat lovers I had around, I made sure to prepare a lot of this too.

“All right, this should be good.” I stored everything I made in my Item Box.

“Oh yeah, I’ll need a pizza cutter, too. I wonder if the Online Supermarket has one?”

I checked my Online Supermarket, and they did.

I’m so lucky that they have basically all the cooking utensils anyone would need.

Still, predictably, they were missing something else, so I’d have to make it myself.

“Sui, come here for a second?”

《What is it~?》

“I’d like you to make something like this.”

I explained what I wanted to Sui and had it make the item.

《Is this good?》

“Yep. It’s perfect.”

As expected, Sui made it exactly as I described.

All right. Now, on to the stone oven.

◇　◇　◇　◇　◇

When I returned to the stone oven, the men were gathered too since they’d finished their work for the day. I had asked Thereza to heat up the oven, and she did not disappoint.

“Ah, can you call the security team over too?” I asked the kids, so they all scattered to summon Tabatha and the others, who were on watch.

After a little while, the kids returned with Tabatha’s group of five.

“All right, is everyone here? I made a stone oven, so I was thinking tonight’s dinner would be pizza.”

Everyone looked confused when I said, “pizza.”

Makes sense, it doesn’t exist in this world after all. For now, I guess it’d be fastest to just show them one and have them try it.

I used Earth magic to make a stone worktable and put a chopping board on it.

“All right then, I’ll start making one.”

First in line was the margherita. After spreading lots of tomato sauce on the thawed pizza dough, I tore off pieces of mozzarella and placed them on top before sprinkling the pizza with basil leaves.

Next was the seafood pizza. I spread tomato sauce on the dough before topping it with the parboiled yellow scallops and vermilion shrimp, as well as the halved mini tomatoes. After those were on the pizza, I added in a lot of mixed cheese.

Last was the teriyaki chicken pizza. I spread a thin layer of mayonnaise, then formed a thorough layer of thinly sliced onions on top of that, before adding the teriyaki cockatrice meat. Then, I added more mixed cheese and mayonnaise.

“...They’re like this. For now, I’m going to bake these and everyone can try some. Then you can make more to your tastes.”

Now was the time for the pizza peel that I had Sui make. Pizza peels were like huge spatulas you used to put in and take out pizzas from an oven. I had Sui make one out of mithril.

I picked up one of the pizzas with the pizza peel......

“Oh, make sure to wash your hands, everyone — using soap.”

Pizzas were meant to be eaten by hand, and they’d be making their own after this as well. It’d be terrible if their hands were still dirty.

After everyone went back to their homes, washed their hands with soap, and came back, I put the pizza into the stone oven.

The stone oven baked the pizza nicely. Once the cheese melted and the pizza dough was well done, I took it out.

Then, I put the pizza on the cutting board and used a pizza cutter to separate it into individual slices.

Lured in by the smell of the cooked pizza, I heard everyone gulp.

“Here you go, everyone just grab them as you like. For this meal, you hold the slices like so to eat. Ow, hot! ......But it’s good.”

I gave them an example using one of the slices of margherita pizza, and everyone gathered around, picking up whatever slice struck their fancy.

“Hawhh hawwh, so delicious!”

“So hot! But it’s amazingly good!”

“Whowhh, delicious!”

“I love this melty stuff~!”

It looked like everyone loved the pizza, and they were eating it even while trying to cool it down in their mouths. For the adults, the margherita was the most popular, followed by the seafood. For the children, it was far and away the teriyaki chicken.

“Hey, hurry up and give some to us.”

《Yeah!》

《Sui wants to eat too—.》

Whoops, I need to get on my familiars’ share.

“What do you want?”

“Meat, of course.”

《Meat for me.》

《Sui wants meat~.》

I shouldn’t have bothered asking.

I baked teriyaki chicken pizza for the three of them — with extra meat and cheese, of course.

And after a few minutes...

“Here, it’s done.”

...I put the pizza on a plate and served it to them.

Fel and Dora-chan dug in after cooling the food with Wind magic. Sui didn’t care about the heat, so it just kept absorbing more and more.

“Hm, this is pretty good. More.”

《I love this crispy part! I want more too!》

《Sui likes that the meat and the white melty stuff is together! Sui loves this~!》

It looked like they all loved the teriyaki chicken pizza, and they all quickly asked for more. I hurriedly made another batch and put it in the stone oven.

“Ah, there’s more ingredients there, everyone, so make more as you like. I’ll bake them,” I called out to the slaves, who all started to make their own.

The adults sure are making a lot of margheritas.

Even so, they still had distinctive tastes, so they were doing things like extra tomato sauce on one, extra mozzarella on the other, or no basil on yet another.

It seemed like Tabatha and Barthel went for seafood pizza. Tabatha had extra tomato sauce, extra seafood, and extra mini tomato toppings, but less cheese. Barthel had extra tomato sauce, seafood toppings, and cheese, but no mini tomatoes.

The children — Kosti, Selja, Oliver, Erik, and Lotte — all made teriyaki chicken pizzas. Every one of them. Kosti had extra meat and cheese, Selja had extra cheese, Oliver and Erik went with extra meat and mayonnaise, and Lotte had extra mayonnaise and cheese. Each one of them customized their own pizzas to their liking.

The idiot twins managed to wrap their heads around this easily, to my surprise, as they went half and half on a teriyaki chicken and seafood pizza. They were even bragging about it, saying, “We’re totally geniuses!” The children seemed impressed after seeing what the twins did.

I’m glad to see them all having fun.

With an eye on that scene, I kept on making extra pizzas for Fel and the other familiars. The pizza peel that Sui made was getting a huge workout.

After baking everyone’s pizzas, I finally made one for myself. I went with a margherita pizza, my favorite kind.

Oh yeah, it’s so much better fresh out of the oven.

The three factors of the crisp dough, the garlic-y tomato sauce, and mozzarella combined to elevate the deliciousness of the whole thing.

This is the best!

Everyone appeared to be enjoying the pizzas they made themselves immensely.

The pizza’s a huge success. I used frozen dough this time, but next time I should actually make the dough myself. Oh right, I should teach Aija and Thereza the recipe. It might be a good idea to hand them some dry yeast and have them actually try making one themselves, too.

The only flour here is whole wheat flour, so maybe I should get them to make pizza with that. There’s so much we can do with this, isn’t there? I’m glad I made this stone oven.

◇　◇　◇　◇　◇

“Whew, I feel so refreshed.”

I was enjoying a bath with Dora-chan and Sui.

《I really do love baths.》

《It feels good~!》

Dora-chan and Sui do love their baths. We’ve been taking daily baths lately; it’s been great.

I had bought a whole bunch of different bath additives, too. For example, today I was using a yuzu-scented bubbly type that would make the water fizzy with carbon dioxide.

Not only can you enjoy the nice scent of yuzu with this, but it also helps the body warm up and relieves fatigue.

Dora-chan and Sui were also affected by the citrusy scent, as they floated around in the water.

《Well then, we’ll be going to sleep now.》

“Sure.”

《Master — good night~.》

“Goodnight.”

Dora-chan and Sui went up to the 2nd floor.

They’ll be headed for the master bedroom. Fel’s probably already lying down on his personal futons that I laid out over the fluffy carpet in there.

Dora-chan and Sui slept in the same bed as me. The first night here, when we all slept in the same room, I thought it was fine for that one night, so I just fell asleep. I figured we could just divide the rooms later.

But somehow, we’re still all sleeping together.

Whenever it was time to sleep, they all just gathered in the master bedroom like it was normal, and when Sui would say, “Master — let’s sleep together~,” well...

Since Sui spouted such a cute line, I couldn’t bring myself to suggest that we all sleep in separate rooms.

It would just be the usual if we all slept together, so I kinda just gave in and thought: Well, whatever. It’s fine as it is already.

I felt like it was a waste since we had all these rooms to use, but I decided to just ignore that.

So, now we all slept together in the master bedroom.

I wanted to hurry up and sleep too, but I had a job to do before that —namely, offerings for Demiurge.

“Now then, what sake should I pick out today?”

I opened up my Online Supermarket, paging over to my Tenant, Liquor Shop Tanaka.

◇　◇　◇　◇　◇

“Oh~? So they’re doing something like this now.”

This time, Liquor Shop Tanaka was selling drinking comparison sets of Japanese sake. The sets consisted of famous bottles from each region, or sets of Junmai Daiginjo, Junmai, or special Honjozo sake from famous brands. It was meant for trying each bottle and comparing them.

I see. Sounds like fun. These seem like the types of alcohol Demiurge would like, so let’s pick from these today.

After browsing the list, I decided on a three-bottle set of Junmai Daiginjo sake from Yamagata. The high customer reviews were the deciding factor.

One bottle had apparently won first place in the world in the sake category at a global alcohol competition, and new bottles were only shipped out three times a year.

The next bottle was from a brewer that only made Junmai Daiginjo sake; it was made from a Yamagata original sake brewing rice, “Dewasansan.” The sake itself was supposed to have a light mouthfeel.

The last bottle was one that was stocked by a certain airline company for serving to first-class passengers.

The set seemed to be wildly popular, with reviews like, “They’re all so tasty and easy to drink,” and, “They were so good we finished them immediately,” or, “This is one luxurious set that allows you to compare Yamagata’s amazing sakes to one another.”

Demiurge seems like he would enjoy this.

Then, for future reference, I decided to look at the “Owner’s daily recommendation.” When I did......

“Oh~, rum huh?”

His recommendation for the day was rum — Japanese at that. I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

“So there’s Japanese rum......”

I read on, deeply interested, and found that Japanese rum was first brewed and sold in 1979, in Tokunoshima in Kagoshima prefecture.

Rum was brewed from sugar cane, so apparently it was more commonly brewed in southern areas like Okinawa or Kagoshima.

Certainly, when I think of rum I think of southern countries.

It seemed that Japan’s domestic rums had recently won prizes at an international show. And among those rums, the one that the owner recommended was made in Okinawa, in Minamidaitoujima. The description also explained that the rum was both coloring and additive-free, and that it was made using sugar cane grown in Minamidaitoujima.

Rum was known for its high alcohol content, but the owner recommended the one that was only made to be 25% alcohol. It was easier for those who weren’t used to rum to drink it, so he wanted people new to rum to try it. The owner suggested trying it with water or on the rocks, which gave it a great taste and bouquet with a faint sweetness.

“This looks good too. I sent him wine last time, so let’s try sending him rum this time. And I need to get that, of course......”

“That” was a premium Kantsuma set. This time I picked out a set that had a good balance of western and eastern foods.

After I checked out the cart and placed the items on a cardboard altar......

“Please accept these, Demiurge.”

＜Ohh, you came through. I’ve been having a lot of fun with these recently.＞ Demiurge sounded happy.

I’m glad he liked it.

“Like last time, I’m sending more than just Japanese sake. This time, I’m giving you rum as well. It’s strong, so please enjoy it with ice or after cutting it with water.”

＜Oh~? That’s something to look forward to. That ‘wine’ you sent last time was pretty tasty. It went well with meat and cheese.＞

It seemed like he had enjoyed the wine last time.

＜Oh yes, I need to tell you something. Their house arrests will be over soon. They’ve already experienced your products from the other world, so I bet they’ll contact you immediately. I have told them not to coerce you into anything, so if they get to be too demanding, feel free to tell me.＞

“I’ll do that, thank you.”

＜The divine realm has precious little in the way of entertainment — nothing fun really happens, you see. Even gods need to have fun. They’re not bad at heart. They might cause you some trouble, but I’m counting on you to treat them well.＞

To Demiurge, the other gods and goddesses are all like his children, so I kind of get why he said that. Though I’m not entirely moved by that......

“It’s fine. If they ask for too much I might refuse, but I don’t dislike them or anything.”

Not to mention I already received their blessings. Also, my own affection was probably the reason why I kept up with them every week after all that. I mean, if I really hated it, I would have just returned my blessings and ignored them.

＜Hearing you say that makes me really grateful. But, as I’ve said, if they get too selfish with their requests, make sure to tell me. I’ll scold them reeeallll thoroughly. Ho! Ho! Ho!＞

“Hahaha, sure. If that ever happens, I’ll report to you and have you scold them.”

The offerings that I had placed on the cardboard altar disappeared in a faint light.

“I see, so they’re going to be freed...... It’s been a while, so they’ll probably want a lot. But they did do well in enduring their punishments, all things considered.”

After all, they had gone as far as to send oracles if I was late in my offerings, before.

Now that I think about it, we’ve been together a long time. And it’ll have been a while since I last spoke to them, so maybe I’ll be a bit more lenient.

◇　◇　◇　◇　◇

I had nothing to do for the last few days, so I just lazed around at home. Fel and the others were making a fuss about going hunting, though.

“The guildmaster said he wanted to go see Earl Langridge, so when he comes back, I have to ask him how it went. I don’t know when he’ll be back, so we can’t go far.”

Using that as a convenient excuse, I planted myself at home.

Being able to laze around the house is always a good thing.

Fel was sulking, though. He left me with an ominous proclamation, saying, “We are definitely going to a dungeon after this, got it?” But I pretended not to hear it.

Today as well, I was relaxing in the living room drinking some coffee when......

“Big bro Mukohda, you have a guest!” Lotte, entering the living room, informed me.

“Who is it?”

“Ummm, ‘the guild... master’? Is what he said.”

The guildmaster, huh? So he came all this way.

“All right then, can you show him in?”

“Okay!” Lotte said before leaving the room. After a little while, she came back with the guildmaster in tow.

“Welcome, guildmaster.”

“Yo, I’ll be making myself comfortable.”

I showed him to a seat, and the guildmaster plopped right down.

“Lotte, can you go tell your mom and the others to bring some tea?”

“Okay, got it.”

I figured coffee was a little too bitter for the people of this world, so I asked for tea.

The tea for guests was a high-quality tin of tea I had bought with my skill. I had tried drinking some before and it wasn’t very astringent, so I thought it should be fine.

“Still, this is a mighty luxurious place you bought.”

“Well, I didn’t expect to buy something like this either, but things just kind of ended up this way......”

“I heard you bought some slaves too, but I was surprised to see Tabatha of ‘Tiger Fang’ at the gates. Man, I heard that she became a slave after failing a quest, but I never expected you to buy her.”

Why do I feel like I’m being made out to be completely heartless from the way he said things......? Wait, more importantly, Tabatha’s party’s name was “Tiger Fang?” And by the fact that the guildmaster remembered that name, they must have been pretty strong.

“You really splurged, didn’t you? Buying an ex B-ranked adventurer. I heard about the Staas trading company, but I don’t think even they’d attack an active S-ranked adventurer’s house so easily.”

“That’s probably true for while we’re here, but I don’t know what will happen if we’re out traveling. I have other slaves here who can’t fight as well, you see.”

You can find idiots in any place, after all.

There’d also be the type that would be all-too-willing to do things other people would never consider. Since I was in a position where I couldn’t rule out Staas attacking us in a way that couldn’t be traced back to them, security really was important.

As it was now, Fel was here, and he was a fighting force that could defeat an entire army, so we could afford to relax.

“Well, you’ve gone and conquered two dungeons, so it probably won’t hurt your wallet at all. GAHAHA!”

“Hahaha, it’s all thanks to Fel that I’ve gotten some money.”

For now, we’ve earned enough to not have to worry about money.

“When I talked to Tabatha, she said she was thankful. Her exact words were, ‘I’m living better than I was back when I was an adventurer.’”

“No, well, we’re not some kind of sweatshop here or anything.”

“Hm? ‘Sweatshop’?”

“Never mind, don’t worry about it. You wouldn’t get it.”

While we were talking, Aija came carrying tea. It seemed there was some for me too, and as it so happened that my coffee had gone cold, so I happily took the tea.

“Enjoy.” Aija handed the guildmaster some of the tea she brewed. Giving his thanks, the guildmaster took it and drank some.

“What good tea.”

Yeah, it really was. I taught her how to brew good tea since I knew how to do so myself, and it seemed she’d been practicing.

“Well, you can probably guess, but I went to see Earl Langridge......”

The guildmaster recounted what had happened when he’d gone to see the earl. Apparently, when the earl saw the guildmaster, his eyes popped wide open. And he immediately asked, “What happened?!! What did you do?!”

Well of course. I mean, he showed up with a really thick mane of hair like he had back when he was young. And he was all the more shocked because of his own hair worries.

“So, I told him about the shampoo and hair tonic I got from you, and he bit into that subject hard.”

The guildmaster told me that he was grilled about it a lot. He was asked stuff like, “Will it work immediately?” and, “So is your hair color thanks to the hair tonic too?”

“When I told him that I got this way after three days and nights of use, he told me to hand it over immediately. Gahahaha!”

“Oh yeah, have you kept using the hair tonic every day since you got your hair back?”

“No, that stuff is really effective. If I kept using it every day, my hair would grow too long, and I’d end up having to cut it every day.”

Ohh, so it’s too effective. Yeah, having to cut your hair every day would be awful.

“So, I’ve been applying the hair tonic after properly shampooing my hair first every three days when I start having to worry about my hair falling out. That’s how I’m maintaining this current state.”

It seemed that after three days, while the hair wouldn’t start to fall out and thin, the roots would turn white again. That meant that in the guildmaster’s case, using it every three days was perfect in order to maintain his healthy hair. I gathered from what he said that the effect might differ from one person to another.

“Whoops, let’s leave me aside for now. We need to talk about the earl. So you see, the earl decided to come here.”

“......What?”

“Well, you see......”

The earl, who saw how effective the shampoo and hair tonic was, had tried to leave with the guildmaster. As you would expect, he had been stopped by his servants, but it was decided that he would be stopping by soon.

Apparently, the excuse that was created on the spot was to observe the Adventurer’s guild.

“It looks like he’s coming to observe the Adventurer’s guild that’s become the base for an S-ranked adventurer —that excuse makes it easier to talk to you.”

Hey, wait, then that means the earl is gonna come here?! I totally thought I was going to be visiting him though.

“So, the earl will probably arrive in town the day after tomorrow.”

“Huh? That’s fast.”

“Don’t say that. After seeing the effects, of course he’d be in a hurry. So that’s how it is. Please drop by the guild early in the morning the day after tomorrow.”

“All right, got it.”

I said my farewells to the guildmaster after our conversation.

The day after tomorrow, huh?

I’d already decided what to give the earl, but I hadn’t yet gotten it ready.

I can’t just repackage the stuff into a different bottle, so I’ll have to spend some time tomorrow thinking about what to do, won’t I?