Chapter 5—A Strange Sauce and Our Own Home

Our boar hunting went smoother than I had expected it to go, so we were able to finish hunting and return to Aera-san’s café before it was time for lunch. The biggest factor in that was definitely Aera-san’s presence. Yesterday, she had told us that she didn’t think she would be useful in combat, but that was just her being modest. I only needed to help with locating the tusk boars with my Scout skill, and she took care of the rest. She easily slew the boars with her bow and mastered the art of gutting them in a short period of time.

“Let’s put the meat in the magical cooling device first.”

Aera-san led us to the kitchen, where a large magical cooling device was located. It appeared to have the same functions as a fridge back on Earth, and “fridge” also happened to be a simpler term for this device.

“This thing is very convenient to have! Well, it’d be somewhat useless if I was going to have to create a lot of dishes for a high-volume and low-margin business model, but yeah...”

At first, she sounded quite happy as she talked about the fridge, but she turned away from us at the end and looked slightly depressed as the thought of her original plans flashed across her mind. The fridge’s height and width were both about two meters, and its depth appeared to be one and a half meters. It was definitely an expensive magical device, and the fact that it was so large also meant that it came with significant maintenance costs. What that meant was that if you couldn’t put the device to full use, then there would just be extra costs for no good reason. That’s what I think, but...

Natsuki and Yuki tried to cheer her up. “Nah, it’s not useless at all, Aera-san!” Yuki exclaimed. “If you’re going to add sweets to the menu as well, then you’ll definitely need this fridge!”

“You can probably make fresh Japanese sweets with this fridge, so it’ll give you an edge over your competition,” said Natsuki.

Aera-san unexpectedly showed some interest. “I-Is that so? Wait, what are fresh Japanese sweets?! I’ve never heard of them before, but they sound delicious based on their name alone!”

“O-Oh, you haven’t heard of them before?”

“Yeah. It appears I have much more to learn! Would you be willing to teach me how to make them?” Aera-san sounded quite excited to learn.

Now that I think about it, the sweets I ordered at the café that I went to the other day were just baked sweets that were simple in flavor and easy to make. They were definitely a bit different from the kind of desserts I expect a café to serve.

“O-Okay, I can teach you how to make them when we have some free time,” said Natsuki.

“Really? Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise. Can we get back to the inspiel sauce for now?”

“Oh, right! The first thing we’ll need is a jar to hold the sauce, so let’s go out and buy some jars!”

“Didn’t you have to go get the display board that you ordered today, Aera-san?” Yuki asked.

“Oh, I forgot about that! What should I do...?”

The display board that she and Yuki had gone to order yesterday was ready for pickup today, apparently.

“Hmm, well, I can go get the display board by myself. Can I also ask our other party members to come over while I’m at it?”

“Oh, if you don’t mind, then that would be great, Yuki-san!” said Aera-san. “I’m looking forward to meeting another elf!”

★★★★★★★★★

The store where Aera-san took Natsuki and me was located at an out-of-the-way place far from the main road.

“This is the store that I bought my tableware and utensils from.”

“I didn’t know there was a store here...” I said.

This store would be almost impossible to find if you didn’t know where it was, and it only dealt in pottery and porcelain of different kinds. Tableware and utensils made out of wood were the most commonly used type in this world, so it made sense that this store wasn’t located along the main road.

Right after we entered the store, Aera-san said to the clerk, “Hello. I’d like to purchase some jars, preferably sturdy ones for practical use.”

“In that case, these jars here would probably be the ones that you’re looking for.”

The clerk then guided us to an area where many jars were lined up on display. The biggest jar looked like it was about fifty centimeters in diameter, while the smallest ones looked like they could fit in the palm of my hand.

“I think I’m going to need at least two of the biggest jars here if I’m going to use inspiel sauce for dishes at my café. Can you help me carry the jars back, Nao-san?”

“Sure, I don’t mind. We’ll buy a jar for ourselves as well—wait.” I stopped myself. “Natsuki, do you have money on you right now?” I whispered.

“Huh? Yes, but not that much,” she whispered back. “I only have the money that I earned back at Sarstedt.”

“Ugh. Haruka’s been in charge of managing our money up until now, so I only have a small amount of allowance on me right now.” I hope we can afford the jar that we need for our own use. It shouldn’t be that much for a household use jar, right?

“Hmm, a jar of this size should do, shouldn’t it?” Natsuki pointed at a jar that looked similar in size to a bottle that could hold about three to four liters of liquid. If it was completely full of sauce, it would probably be enough to fill ten regular-size sauce bottles.

“Excuse me, what’s the cheapest jar available in this size?” I asked.

“Oh, that would be this jar. The shape is a bit distorted, but it shouldn’t cause any problems for actual use.”

I looked at the jar that the clerk was pointing at and compared it to the other ones available, and it was definitely a bit distorted in shape. However, it wasn’t like the other jars had refined shapes either. They all looked like simple products that weren’t made with a ceramic mold or on a wheel.

Natsuki picked up the jar and lightly tapped it before she nodded with satisfaction. “What is the price of this jar?”

“This jar costs six hundred Rea.”

Hm? That’s cheaper than I thought it would be, given that the products here all seem handmade. The price of the jar happened to be something that I could afford, since Haruka had replenished my allowance yesterday.

However, before I could buy the jar, Aera-san stopped me and asked the clerk, “Um, we’ll be buying that jar together with these other large ones, so would it be possible for us to get a discount?”

“Hmm, sure. How does a total of three thousand Rea sound?”

Aera-san nodded right away and swiftly paid that amount. “That sounds fine. Here’s the money.” She hefted one of the jars and turned to us. “All right, let’s return to my café. Can you carry the other large jar for me, Nao-san?”

“S-Sure.”

We heard the clerk’s words of thanks as we left the store. “Thank you for your purchase!”

Aera-san walked ahead of us, and Natsuki and I followed; each of us was carrying one jar.

“Um, Aera-san, how much should we reimburse you?” Natsuki asked. “I don’t know what a fair price is, but would six hundred Rea be enough?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Consider that jar a gift from me. Three thousand Rea is cheaper than the market price for these two large jars combined, so the clerk must have tacked on that smaller jar for free. It’s probably because I spent a lot of money at that store the other day.”

She had mentioned earlier that all of the tableware and utensils she used at her café were from that store, so she had probably spent a large amount of money at that time.

Natsuki looked at me with a perplexed expression on her face after she heard what Aera-san had said. “Is it really okay...?”

If I recall correctly, Aera-san’s in deep financial trouble right now, so we should pay for our own jar, but I’m not sure if she’ll accept our money...

“Besides, you took me to gather dindels today. The price of that jar is nothing compared to how much dindels would cost if I had to buy them myself, so I’d feel better if you would accept my gift.”

We both thanked Aera-san for the gift after she had explained her reasoning.

“In that case, thank you very much for the gift,” said Natsuki.

“Thanks for the gift, Aera-san,” I said.

In the end, we’d obtained a jar for free.

★★★★★★★★★

Haruka and Touya were already at the café when we returned. Yuki was there too, and there was a display board next to her that looked like the ones you’d commonly see back on Earth along with a menu board to use inside of the café for customers. Both of the boards looked quite well made and didn’t seem at all out of keeping with the café’s atmosphere, so they would definitely fulfill their purpose well.

“Nice to meet you, Aera-san. My name is Haruka.”

“Hey, I’m Touya! Let’s get along!”

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you both. I want to express my thanks for the help I’ve received from your party members so far.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry that Touya and I weren’t able to help out since we were busy with other things. The inspiel sauce will be of great use to us as well.”

“I’m glad to hear that. In that case, let’s start with making the inspiel sauce base.”

We lined up the jars that we had bought and brought back with us, and then Haruka used her Purification spell to clean them. After that, Aera-san went to the kitchen and brought back a jar larger than the ones that we had bought. It looked like the jar was eight-tenths full of inspiel sauce, and Aera-san divided about one third of that between the two large jars that she had bought. She then poured half of the remaining sauce into the jar that we were going to use.

“Will this really be enough sauce for your own use, Aera-san?” Yuki asked. “It looks like there’s only a little bit of sauce in your two jars.”

Aera-san nodded with a smile on her face as she answered Yuki’s questions. “Yeah, this is enough. You can still make more inspiel sauce with a small amount remaining; it’ll just take a bit longer. If you do that, then I would suggest slicing the ingredients as thin as you can get them before you throw them in.”

This really seems like a fantasy phenomenon to me, but I guess it kind of makes sense if I compare it to the amount of koji mold required to make koji rice.

“The next thing to do is to add in fruits, which will be dindels this time. It’s really a luxury to be able to throw in the entire fruit instead of just the skin!”

“Yeah, they’d be expensive if you had to buy them,” I said. “Are we going to use all of the dindels that we gathered today?”

We had filled three backpacks full of dindels. It was quite a lot in total, but the jars were probably large enough to fit them all.

“Oh no, that would be an absolute waste—I mean, the taste of dindels will overwhelm the sauce, so about two thirds, or rather one half of what we gathered should be enough!”

“Is that so? Is it really not because you think it’s a waste, Aera-san...?”

“Yes, of course! It’s to balance out the taste of the sauce!”

“Yeah, definitely!” exclaimed Yuki.

“Mm, that sounds right to me as well,” said Natsuki.

Whew, they both went along with what Aera-san said. You two just want to eat more dindels, right?

“Well, you helped gather at least half of the dindels, Aera-san, so I don’t really mind, I guess...” I said.

“Yeah, that’s right! We’ll also need some desserts to go with fried pork cutlets!” exclaimed Yuki.

“Mm. Do we just have to chop up the dindels and throw them in, Aera-san?” Natsuki asked.

“Yeah. Wash the dindels first and remove the stems before you start to chop them up, and then throw it all in along with the skins.”

Natsuki swiftly took some dindels out of our backpacks and started to work on them right away, as if she wanted to do so before I could possibly change my mind. The girls ended up being in charge of chopping up the dindels, while Touya and I were in charge of washing the dindels and carrying them over to the girls. Aera-san was the fastest one among them, which was to be expected due to her general experience with cooking. Her handling of a kitchen knife was so skillful and so fast that I couldn’t follow it with my eyes. Haruka and then Yuki were next in terms of speed, which was probably because they both had the Cooking skill. Natsuki was last, but she was only a bit slower than Haruka and Yuki. However, I heard Natsuki mutter the words “I can’t believe I’m slower than Yuki of all people. This actually feels a bit humiliating...” which was probably because Natsuki had originally been way better than Yuki at cooking back on Earth.

“All right, this should be enough. The next thing to do is to thoroughly mix the dindels into the sauce.”

Aera-san started to mix the sauce at the bottom of her jars with the chopped up dindels, and the juicy fruit was crushed, resulting in a liquid that looked a bit like ketchup. It didn’t resemble the initial inspiel sauce at all. The two large jars were basically full of dindel juice combined with the skins of the dindels.

“You can skip this step if you don’t have time, but the inspiel sauce will be ready sooner if you thoroughly mix it like this. Most households just slowly add ingredients over time, though, so it’s not relevant in that case.”

We were using a small amount of sauce this time in order to make much more inspiel sauce, but Aera-san had told us that you would normally just let vegetables and fruits sit and soak up the sauce, so it would be okay to just leave it alone and wait for the sauce to finish on its own.

“The next thing to do is add any vegetables of your choice. We can just use the vegetables that I have in stock. There are a lot left on the verge of going bad since no customers came to my café, ha ha...”

Aera-san looked a bit depressed as she delved into self-deprecation again. It’s a bit scary hearing you like this, Aera-san. There were a lot of wooden boxes of vegetables in the kitchen when we went to fetch them, and we all helped carry them over. As Aera-san had said, the vegetables were on the verge of withering, which was definitely a result of her initial high-volume and low-margin business model.

“Chop up the vegetables and make sure you balance them so that you don’t add a lot more of one vegetable compared to others. I don’t think any of these vegetables have gone bad, but pay attention just in case.”

“Is it really okay to use up all of these vegetables?” Natsuki asked. “Shouldn’t we measure ratios first?”

“Nah, you don’t need to. It’ll work out even if you just add them based on a rough estimate of what feels right. However, it would be a good idea to be more careful if you’re going to add vegetables that have a strong smell.”

We performed the washing and chopping process together once again. There was no such thing as a food processor in this world, so everything had to be done by hand, and Haruka was starting to show signs of fatigue. On the other hand, Aera-san looked like she was still perfectly fine and hadn’t slowed down at all despite having chopped up the most vegetables of anyone. I guess that’s to be expected from a professional cook.

“I’m amazed that you’re able to maintain that speed, Aera-san,” I said.

“Well, it’s just a result of how harsh training was when I was practicing as a cook. I would often have to do tasks such as peeling potatoes for half a day. Chopping things into small pieces is way easier compared to that.”

I had heard stories about how harsh culinary training was even back on modern-day Earth, but it appeared that training was even harsher here in this world. Back on Earth, there were all sorts of machines and cooking equipment that cooks could use to help themselves out, but most of those tools didn’t have an equivalent here in this world.

“But you still wanted to become a cook despite how harsh training was, right?” Natsuki asked.

“Yeah. I would sometimes cook for my friends back when I was in my hometown, but I wanted many more people to try out my cooking one day. It was my dream to eventually start my own café. I worked hard to improve my cooking abilities and achieve that dream and slowly saved up money. The very thought of achieving my dream one day enabled me to put up with how harsh my training was. It took me quite a long time before I was finally able to start my own café, but...”

We all fell silent once we had heard Aera-san’s backstory. Who the hell deceived this nice and hardworking person?! I can’t believe there was someone that shameless among my classmates! We looked at each other and nodded. We were all on the same page. It would trouble our conscience forever if we didn’t succeed in helping Aera-san get her eating establishment business back on track.

“I had no idea what I should or could do until a few days ago, so I’m really glad that you happened to come across my café, Nao-san.”

I lost my composure when Aera-san turned around and smiled at me with traces of tears in her eyes. “O-Oh, yeah, we’re glad that we got to know you as well. Right, guys?”

“Yeah. The food that you serve here tastes delicious as well, Aera-san,” said Yuki.

“You’ve taught us how to make inspiel sauce too,” said Natsuki.

“Oh, I’m really glad to hear that.”

We continued to work on making the inspiel sauce even after we had heard about Aera-san’s struggles up until now, and all of the jars appeared to be about eight-tenths full once we had used up all of the vegetables that had been in the wooden boxes.

“Good work. We’re almost done. The next thing to do is to add some potatoes.”

We went to the kitchen once again to get some wooden boxes of potatoes and carry them over. The potatoes looked like the type that were used to create mashed potatoes. They were quite cheap and easy to obtain, so they would often be eaten as a staple food in place of bread.

“Slice and chop up these potatoes as well. Also, the sauce will get sweeter as you add more and more potatoes into the mix. If you want to get the same taste as my sauce, I would suggest using a total of about five potatoes.”

It was apparently okay to just decide the amount of potatoes based on your own preferences and the amount of fruit that you had added earlier in the process. We didn’t yet have a preferred flavor for inspiel sauce, so we just followed Aera-san’s advice and went with five potatoes. Her jars were much larger than our jar, so she had to slice and chop up tens of potatoes for hers.

“The next thing to add is some herbs. We can just add the herbs that we gathered earlier today in the forest. Once again, you can add as much as you like, but depending on your preference, it would be a good idea to hold back on the ones with strong smells.”

We randomly ripped apart the herbs with our hands this time instead of using knives, and then we threw the herbs into the jars. As before, we had no idea what the right balance was, so we just followed Aera-san’s example. Our goal was to create some inspiel sauce that matched the taste of Aera-san’s, so it was fine this way.

“The last thing to add is some spices and condiments. Add just a little bit of salt, and don’t add too much of the other ones either. The inspiel sauce will be ruined if you add too many strong flavors.”

“What happens if you accidentally add too much?” Yuki asked.

“If that happens, then you’ll have no choice but to create even more inspiel sauce to dilute it. I accidentally dropped a condiment bottle into a jar full of inspiel sauce once, and my mom scolded me very harshly for that, ha ha.”

Aera-san had a bitter smile on her face as she recalled that memory, but she also had a nostalgic tone to her voice. Most dishes could just be thrown away if you messed up while making them, but making more inspiel sauce required the sauce base itself, so it wasn’t something that you could throw away even if you messed up. With that in mind, it would probably be a good idea to divide up our own inspiel sauce and store some away in case we messed up with the base sauce.

“All you need to do after adding some spices and condiments is to mix it thoroughly and then leave it alone afterwards. The sauce will be done and ready for use after about a week. You can speed up the process if you want by mixing it from time to time during the wait.”

Aera-san took out a wooden spatula and attempted to mix the sauce inside the large jars, but it appeared to be difficult for her.

“Ugh, it’s quite thick at this point...”

When Touya saw that Aera-san was having a difficult time with mixing the sauce, he said, “Oh, Aera-san, I can help you do it.”

Aera-san looked between Touya and her own jars, and it seemed like she had come to the conclusion that it would be very difficult for her to mix the sauce for both jars. “Um, well, if you don’t mind, then that would be great, Touya-san.” She handed over the wooden spatula to Touya.

Touya took the spatula and lightly mixed the sauce from the bottom of the jar. It didn’t really look like a sauce yet, though. It looked more like a chopped salad at this point.

“Aera-san, is this really the right way to make inspiel sauce?” I asked. “It doesn’t look anywhere near a sauce at the moment.”

“Yeah, this is the right way. It looks like this now, but it’ll start to draw moisture out of the fruits and vegetables once you leave it for a night. It’ll look more like a sauce after about three days. For a very smooth sauce, it’ll take about a week if you mix it from time to time.”

“It’ll really only take one week for this to become a proper sauce...?”

Preserving food in salt would draw out a lot of water overnight, so it made sense to me that moisture was part of the process of making inspiel sauce. However, I was still baffled by the fact that it would only take one week to create the tasty sauce that I had tried out yesterday. Just how powerful are the fungi at work here? Perhaps the black inspiel sauce base was the bacteria, or something like a slime—never mind, that’s enough guessing. I’ll probably lose my appetite for this sauce if I pursue this thought.

“You can finish making this inspiel sauce within a few days if you mix it more often. This is all you need to do to make inspiel sauce. You all did a great job!”

“We should be the ones saying that to you,” said Haruka. “All right, I guess now it’s my turn to teach you.”

“Oh, it’s finally time for the cutlet sandwiches!” Aera-san had a look of excitement in her eyes as she leaned forward towards Haruka.

“I hope the cutlet sandwiches meet your expectations. Let’s go work in the kitchen, since we can’t make them out here.”

“Okay, I’m looking forward to it!”

Haruka forced out a laugh when she saw how excited Aera-san was, and then they went together to the kitchen. The kitchen wasn’t wide enough for everyone to stand together, so the rest of us watched from a corner.

“All right, the first thing we’ll need is fat for frying, so let’s extract some from the meat,” said Haruka.

“Right, we can just extract the lard from the fatty parts of the meat.”

Aera-san and Haruka prepared a large pot and started to put in fatty cuts of boar meat. Tusk boar meat contained a lot of subcutaneous fat, so the pot filled up very quickly. Aera-san was especially proficient at this process, as was obvious from how cleanly she managed to separate just the fat from the meat.

“Oh, wait, aren’t pork cutlets fried in lard really bad for your body?” Touya asked.

“Yeah, for me, vegetable oil is what comes to mind when I think of fried food,” I said.

“Some people use lard instead. I remember reading about how it’s because it’s not as sticky due to being solid at room temperature,” said Natsuki. “I’m not sure whether it’s good or bad for your body, though.”

“I mean, it contains a lot of cholesterol, so...”

“Well, I personally wouldn’t believe someone who uses a lot of vegetable oil and claims that it has no cholesterol to imply that it’s healthy,” said Yuki.

“That zero cholesterol statement would be technically true for certain types of oils, but I can’t say the same for the other claims,” said Haruka.

In the end, whether or not something was good or bad for your body depended on the amount that you ate. In a lot of cases, even food that was good for your body could have negative effects if you ate too much of it, especially food that got advertised as diet food. The worst case scenario would be if someone ate only that diet food and nothing else. It would result in severe damage to their health, but most people would probably stop before they got to that point.

“You seem to be quite used to this, Aera-san,” said Haruka. “All right, this should be enough.”

“Yeah, I’ve had a lot of experience with cutting meat. Are we going to use all of this? It’s quite a large amount.”

“Mm, we are. Heat up the pot to start melting the fat.”

“Okay.”

Aera-san lifted up the pot and placed it on something that looked like a stove, then she started it up. Is that a magical device? I had thought that wood-burning stoves were the most common type of stoves in this world, but it appeared that Aera-san had spent a lot of money on her cooking equipment as well. It was either that or just a result of her being swayed by that self-proclaimed consultant’s talk.

“The next thing to do is to cut some thick slices of meat,” said Haruka. “What part of the boar would you guys prefer?”

“The tenderloin!” Touya exclaimed.

“I’d prefer spare ribs, I guess,” said Yuki.

“You also preferred the loin, right, Nao?”

“Well, I don’t really have a specific preference, but that would be it if I had to pick one cut.”

Bite-size spare rib cutlets were good as well, but it was the thick slices that would truly feel like proper pork cutlets to me. Hmm, the very idea sounds like a luxury to me now. Is it because I’ve gotten used to wanting to save money?

“I guess we can prioritize using meat from the loin along with other parts of the boar. Can you cut the loin to about this size and thickness, Aera-san?”

“Okay.”

Once the two of them had sliced a couple cuts of meat, they tenderized and salted them.

“Let’s use some batter since it’s quick and easy. Do you have any eggs in stock, Aera-san?”

“Well, I do, but this’ll make it more expensive to make if I’m going to serve it as a dish on the menu.”

“You can use flour and water instead if you want, but using eggs will make it more delicious. It’s up to you.”

Eggs in this different world were quite expensive compared to how cheap they were back on modern-day Earth. On a side note, the eggs at hand here were jabbs eggs. I had told Touya about those jabbs after I’d found out the truth about the eggs myself. It had been the kind thing to do, after all. I’d been quite happy to see his reaction; his mouth had been wide open from shock. He’d gotten over it quite quickly, though, so that joy hadn’t lasted too long. Yuki probably knows because she has the General Knowledge skill. Oh, I can probably surprise Natsuki with this information when I get an opportunity, though. Ha ha!

“Oh yeah, what are they talking about in regards to batter, Natsuki?” I asked. “This sounds different from what I know about making fried pork cutlets.”

“It’s a liquid made from mixing eggs and flour. If I recall correctly, your household started with panko bread crumbs along with flour soaked in an egg mixture, right, Nao-kun? There are households out there that start with a mix of flour and milk or a mix of egg and panko bread crumbs as well.”

“Yeah, that’s right. So what you’re saying is that batter serves the same purpose as panko bread crumbs for frying food?”

“Mm. I don’t use batter myself, but I’ve heard about how beginners often mess up when using it.”

Based on her choice of words, it sounded like Natsuki didn’t really like batter. I personally didn’t have any specific preference as long as the final product tasted good.

“Aera-san, do you also happen to have some bread in stock? Bread that’s a bit hard would be preferable.”

“Yeah, I do. In fact, I have plenty left over since no customers have come to my café...”

Haruka fell silent for a moment after she had heard Aera-san’s self-deprecating joke, but it appeared that she decided to ignore it, since she simply handed over some bread to Natsuki. “...Can you crumble the bread, Natsuki?”

Natsuki nodded back and started to make panko bread crumbs in silence, and Haruka sprinkled those crumbs all over the meat after Natsuki was done.

“Interesting. Now do you just put this into a pan of hot oil?”

“Yeah. It’s not that difficult to cook as long as you pay attention to the temperature of the oil. I’ll start and show you, Aera-san.”

Haruka placed the panko bread crumbs into the oil and checked the temperature before she added the fat as well, which resulted in the delicious smell of the lard permeating the air along with a sizzling sound.

“It should be ready for frying once the sound changes to more of a crackling sound. Do you want to try frying the meat yourself, Aera-san?”

“Sure!”

Haruka stepped aside to make space for Aera-san and watched as she started to fry the pork cutlets. Aera-san seemed to be a bit cautious at first, but after she finished frying a few pieces, it looked like she’d gotten the hang of it.

“Okay, the pork cutlets are ready. You can just pour sauce over them, or you can place them between slices of bread to create cutlet sandwiches,” said Haruka. “It would be nice to have something else to go with this, though.”

I wanted to eat the freshly fried pork cutlets right away, but it would probably be bad in terms of nutritional balance. We had dindels to eat as dessert, but it would be great if we had some salad to go with the meat.

“In that case, I’ll make some more dishes. We happen to have some fresh internal organs we can use, after all.”

Did you really have to bring up internal organs when I was thinking of salad, Aera-san? I mean, you’re not at fault or anything, but a vivid image of some salad made of internal organs came to mind when you said that because of how powerful those words were.

“Fresh internal organs...?”

Yep, I figured Haruka would feel the same way I did. Haruka had an expression on her face that showed slight hints of disgust due to how scary those two words were by themselves, so I brought up more details to alleviate those feelings.

“Aera-san collected some offal during our hunting session today,” I said.

“Oh, I see. Can I watch as you prepare your dish, Aera-san? I don’t really know how to properly prepare offal, so it would be a great learning experience.”

Offal basically meant the same thing as internal organs, but offal would give off a much different impression; it sounded more like something edible.

“Sure, I don’t mind. It would be a good idea to learn how to prepare offal if you’re going to go out hunting for meat quite often. Most people avoid offal due to how fast it goes bad, but that doesn’t matter if you just eat it fresh.”

Aera-san went over to the fridge and took out the hearts, livers, kidneys, and tongues of the boars we had hunted earlier. She then lined them all up on a cutting board, and it was quite a grotesque sight to see. A different choice of words wouldn’t change how they looked, after all.

“All right, let’s begin.”

At first glance, the scene in front of me looks like a child with a smile on her face slicing through a heart, and I’m pretty sure anyone would scream “Yikes!” if they heard that description. Yeah, I’m going to stay right here, far away from the butchering show.

★★★★★★★★★

“Okay, the dishes are ready!”

In the end, Touya was the only one who stayed with me in the corner of the kitchen while Natsuki and Yuki went over next to Haruka to watch how Aera-san prepared the offal. Aera-san’s experience as a professional cook definitely proved itself, since we didn’t have to wait long at all until she was done. The dishes that Aera-san had made were a vegetable soup and some stir-fried offal along with grilled meat.

“Whoa, they all look delicious!” Touya exclaimed. “I’m going to try out the fried pork cutlets first!”

Aera-san handed over a jar of inspiel sauce to Touya, and he poured some of the sauce onto the pork cutlets before he took a bite.

“Whew, tashty!”

Don’t speak with your mouth full, Touya. I get what you’re saying, but still. I was looking forward to trying out the food as much as Touya was, however, so I followed his example and tried out the pork cutlets first.

“Mm!”

The pork cutlets were crispy and chewy, and they also had a sweet taste from the inspiel sauce that mixed together with the juices from the meat as I bit into them. It was a heavenly combination of deliciousness. The meat itself was also delicious and way better in quality than the ordinary pork that I’d had back during my time on Earth. I felt like these cutlets would end up even more delicious if, instead of batter, Aera-san had used coarse panko bread crumbs to make them crispier, but that wasn’t really a complaint. Haruka had used leftover dry bread this time instead of panko bread crumbs, so they’d ended up being quite soft. However, it looked like both Haruka and Aera-san enjoyed the taste of these pork cutlets, so the average person in this world would probably enjoy them as well.

“You place these fried pork cutlets between slices of bread to create cutlet sandwiches, right?” Aera-san sandwiched a pork cutlet between two slices of bread, took a bite, and then voiced her opinion. “Mm, I think it’ll go quite well with some slightly soft bread and something additional to give it a mix of flavors.”

What else was included in cutlet sandwiches? Cabbage and lettuce, right? I think there were some variations with mustard in them as well.

“I’m sure this will sell well! I’ll try serving some of these cutlet sandwiches myself once the upcoming batch of inspiel sauce is ready. I’m not sure what to price them at, though...”

“What will the cost of the ingredients end up at, Aera-san?” I asked.

“Hmm. It depends on what part of a boar I use, but if I use the cheapest parts of a boar for cutlets of this size, I think I can lower the cost to about 150 Rea.”

Fifty grams was probably the right amount of meat for the size that Aera-san was talking about. Meat in this world seemed like it was more expensive than meat back on Earth. Tusk boar meat would be cheap if you could get it at five Rea per gram, but that was for meat that still had the fat and bones. The amount of meat that you could actually use after removing the other parts would be much smaller.

“I think cutlets would end up delicious no matter what part of the boar you use, though,” said Yuki.

“Yeah, definitely!” Touya exclaimed. “This is the first time I’ve had pork cutlets made from the ribs, but I love how they just melt in my mouth!”

“I can’t say I agree about that,” said Natsuki. “I enjoyed the other ones, though.”

Aera-san and Haruka had made cutlets from various parts of the tusk boar. Touya seemed to enjoy the pork cutlets made from the ribs, which had a lot of fat on them, but it was apparently too much fat for Natsuki. Yuki and Haruka both nodded after Natsuki had voiced her opinion, so they probably agreed with her. As for me, I wouldn’t mind having a rib cutlet once in a while, but it wasn’t something I would want on a regular basis. Hmm, actually, what if you boil the ribs first and remove the fat before frying them? That might end up delicious if it’s cooked to be soft and tender.

“I think it would be best to just buy a whole tusk boar’s worth of meat and use the good parts for more expensive dishes on the menu,” said Haruka. “You need a decent amount of fat to fry pork cutlets, after all. What do you think about this as a professional cook, Aera-san?”

“Unfortunately, that’s not a realistic option. Hoarding meat will give you a bad reputation, and butcher shops won’t sell whole animals either.”

There were very few regions in this world that raised livestock, and Laffan wasn’t located in one of them. What that meant was that butcher shops in this town would get their meat from game slain by hunters and adventurers like us. As a result, supply would fluctuate all the time, so if a butcher shop sold a whole animal to a single person, they would quickly run out of meat to sell to other customers. It was only possible to order a whole animal with ease back on Earth due to the existence of supply chains, and because more people raised livestock.

“Well, we hunt tusk boars quite often, so we could supply you with a whole boar if needed, Aera-san,” I said.

“Really?! That’d be great! I’m willing to pay more for the meat than a butcher shop would! I’ll pay for the internal organs too!”

Oh, right, she can serve fresh offal as well if we supply her with boar parts. The offal dishes that Aera-san had cooked were all delicious, so I was fairly sure that she would be able to profit off of a whole boar.

“What do you guys think about this idea?”

“Sure, I don’t mind,” said Touya.

Touya agreed with my idea right away, and so did Yuki and Natsuki; they both nodded in response. Haruka nodded as well, but she also voiced doubts about whether or not we could keep up a stable supply. “I don’t mind either, but you know we’re not going to hunt tusk boars forever, right, Nao?” she asked. “Do you have any backup ideas for when that happens?”

“Don’t worry, I can manage! Cutlet sandwiches will be one of the main attractions on the menu, but if customers stop coming because I don’t have any meat in stock, it’ll just mean I didn’t work hard enough!” Aera-san confidently declared that and clenched her fists to pump herself up. It seemed like she was confident that her cooking abilities would be more than enough to retain customers after people started coming and tried out her food at least once.

“I see. In that case, this should be enough help from us, right, Aera-san?”

“U-Um, actually, I still feel a bit uneasy, so...”

Please don’t look at me with imploring eyes, Aera-san. I can feel Haruka’s judging gaze on me when you do this.

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to help her out for a few days, right?” I asked. “We can get back to adventurer work after the chain mail for Yuki and Natsuki is done, I think.”

We had planned on placing an order for Yuki and Natsuki’s chain mail either today or tomorrow, and we would have to wait at least a day even if there was some chain mail in stock that was close to the right size for them. It would take even longer if there wasn’t any. With that in mind, I felt like we had the time to help out Aera-san for a few more days. It wasn’t like our financial situation was so dire that we couldn’t even afford to stay at an inn. After I had brought up that idea, I was quite surprised to see that Natsuki and Yuki seemed to be leaning towards agreement. Touya didn’t seem to really care, and Haruka looked like she was considering the costs and benefits of my idea.

“Hmm. Well, I’m willing to say yes if you’re willing to continue teaching us how to cook other sorts of dishes in the future, Aera-san,” said Haruka.

Aera-san agreed with Haruka’s proposal right away. “Really?! I’d be more than willing! Thank you very much!”

It sounded like a good deal for both parties in this case. Aera-san had knowledge that we lacked, like how to prepare offal, and the reverse was also true. I was more than happy with this deal as well since it would mean that I would get to eat more types of delicious food. However, there was just one problem.

“Won’t it take a while before the inspiel sauce is ready—”

“I’ll do my best to mix the sauce as much as I can! It can be ready in two days if I use the remaining sauce that I have in stock!”

Aera-san told us that it would be possible if she just took the sauce she had left over from today’s pork cutlets, added it to the large jars, and mixed them often. However, it would be quite a hard task for Aera-san to mix that large volume of sauce with her physique. In the end, we had Touya do his best to mix the sauce before we left Aera-san’s café. Thanks to Touya’s efforts, the sauce looked like it was getting quite close to liquid form by the time we had to leave.

★★★★★★★★★

We visited Aera-san’s café together once again three days later, but Touya wasn’t with us this time. Earlier this morning, he had suddenly told the rest of us that he was going to help Tomi and had gone his own way. I didn’t have any complaints about that, but Touya had been just rolling around in our room doing nothing for the past few days, so I felt like he had intentionally run away for the day. Oh well, I’ll find out the reason eventually.

“Now then, check this out!” Yuki exclaimed. “I decided to make some things for the occasion, since this is our first day helping Aera-san out with her café!”

Today was going to be the first day that Aera-san was open for business after all the changes, so the morning takeout meals weren’t going to be available right away, but we had helped finish all the other necessary preparations. It was around that time that Yuki placed a bag on a table to show us something. It looked like Aera-san was the only other person who was surprised at this aside from myself. Haruka was her usual calm self while Natsuki reacted with a resigned look and sighed.

“What exactly did you make, Yuki...?” I had a bad feeling about this, but I ended up asking Yuki anyway.

She had a big smile on her face as she reached into the bag and pulled something out of it. It was a cute white apron with frills on it. “The first thing I made is this apron! I made one for each of us, including Aera-san!”

“Wait, don’t tell me there’s one for—”

“Oh, nah, there isn’t one for you, Nao. Sorry! Did you want to wear one?”

Yuki had a teasing look on her face as she smiled at me, but I firmly shook my head in response. “Of course not. There’s no way I would want to wear one.”

I had thought at first that this was the reason why Touya had abandoned us today, but it seemed like I was wrong.

“Don’t worry, Nao. I said no to that idea.”

“Oh, I’m really grateful, Haruka!” Whew, that was a close call! I firmly grabbed Haruka’s hands and shook them to express my thanks.

“I personally thought you would’ve looked quite good in this, but Natsuki said no as well, so I abandoned the idea,” said Yuki.

“I’m really grateful to you too, Natsuki!”

“Don’t worry about it,” she replied to me with an elegant smile.

I shook Natsuki’s hands as well. Yuki was technically right that there was a chance I would look good in the cute apron since I was an elf now, but that was a sight that I didn’t want anyone to see.

“Aprons by themselves felt a bit too tame to me, so I decided to throw this into the mix! Check out this maid outfit!”

The next object that Yuki took out of the bag was, as promised, a black maid outfit. I wasn’t a connoisseur of maid outfits by any means, but it looked like a dress with a long skirt and sleeves. It was quite different from the type of maid outfit that I would have expected to see at a place like a maid café. Is the apron meant to go with it to complete the maid look?

“I barely managed to stop her from going with a mini-skirt design...” Natsuki sounded very exhausted when she mentioned that. Oh, I guess this is the reason for her resigned look earlier.

“All right, let’s try them on!” Yuki exclaimed. “You come with us too, Aera-san!”

“What? Huh?”

Aera-san didn’t seem to fully understand what was going on, but Yuki gave her a push on the back to urge her to follow along as they headed towards the stairs that led to the second floor. Natsuki and Haruka both had exasperated looks on their faces as they followed behind Yuki.

“Stay where you are and wait for us, okay, Nao? Don’t peep!”

“What makes you think I would do that?!”

Yuki brushed off my complaint with a laugh and went up to the second floor with the other girls. They came back shortly afterwards, and I was greeted by the sight of their maid outfits.

“Whew.”

The girls definitely looked like maids now with the aprons on top of the black dresses. Natsuki and Yuki were both quite good-looking, and so were Haruka and Aera-san due to being elves, so they were all truly a sight for sore eyes. Yuki looked quite confident in herself, while Haruka looked calm as usual. On the other hand, Natsuki looked like she felt a bit embarrassed due to what the word maid would make people think back in Japan. Aera-san had no knowledge of that subculture, so she just looked like she was interested in the clothes themselves; she was pinching different parts of the outfit.

“Hmm, these clothes seem to be quite well made. The stitching seems to be of good quality as well.”

“Oh, I made these clothes myself,” said Yuki. “I’m good at sewing, so I gave it a try.”

“Really?! You made these clothes in just two days?! That’s amazing!”

“Natsuki and I helped as well,” said Haruka. “These clothes are quite cute, don’t you think?”

Haruka smiled and sounded quite proud after Aera-san expressed her surprise, and she spun around on the spot to show off the outfit that she had helped sew. I had thought she was just her usual calm self, but it appeared that she was actually proud of her work. I kind of wished the girls had made regular clothes first instead of these maid outfits, but they told me that they had made these as practice. I had made aprons before as part of home economics lessons back in school, so what they said about practice made some sense to me, but I felt like the maid dresses that they were wearing underneath the aprons were evidence that they were already proficient enough at sewing clothes.

“Were these maid outfits really necessary, though?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s part of the differentiation strategy for Aera-san’s café,” said Yuki. “None of the dining halls in this area have uniforms for their staff, right?”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

If that was the type of strategy they were going for, then uniforms sounded like they would be necessary.

“So yeah, put this on.”

“Huh?”

I was very confused when Yuki handed me a bag, but she ignored my confusion and continued, “Your uniform is inside.”

“I have to wear a uniform too...?”

“Think about the main target customer base for this café. Between men and women, which demographic do you think it is?”

“Well, I guess this café is aimed more towards women...?”

“Right? That means there’s no reason not to have you work as a waiter. I wanted Touya to work as a waiter too, but he went off to go help Tomi today.”

Ugh, so this is why he ran away today! I knew there was something strange about his sudden change of plans!

“W-Wait, don’t tell me...”

“Oh, don’t worry. I was thinking of having you wear the same maid outfit as us, but Haruka and Natsuki didn’t approve, so I ditched the idea.”

Haruka and Natsuki both nodded deeply when I turned around to face them. My saviors! Thank you so much for showing me mercy!

“All right, go put this uniform on!” She gave me a push on the back.

“O-Okay...”

I had no choice but to go along with Yuki’s idea at this point, so I went to go change clothes. Once I returned, I saw that Yuki was drawing pictures of the dishes on the display board menu. She had somehow managed to draw pictures with realistic shading despite just using a piece of white chalk. It looked somewhat like three-dimensional chalk lettering. The illustrations all looked quite amazing to the point that I felt like just having this display board outside would be more than enough to attract customers.

“Oh, you’re done? Not bad! You look quite good,” said Yuki.

“Yeah, the uniform suits you, Nao-kun.”

“You look cool, Nao-san!”

“Mm, it looks like we went with the right design for you, Nao.”

“I-Is that so?”

I felt a bit flattered by the praise from all of the girls. The clothes inside the bag that Yuki had handed to me were a white shirt, slacks, and a vest. There was no tie, but these clothes had a dark color palette that sort of resembled a bartender’s outfit.

“All right, it’s time to open for business,” said Haruka. “Go attract some customers, Nao.”

“Only me...?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll watch over you from behind.”

“P-Please, Nao-san!”

I wasn’t asking Aera-san to come with me, since she needed to do the cooking, but I would have felt quite relieved if Haruka had helped me out. I looked at Haruka in the hopes that she would save me, but she just responded with a wave and a smile. I sighed when I saw that, and then I picked up the display board that Yuki had drawn pictures on and took it outside with me. It was just about noon, so there were plenty of people walking by. I set up the display board in a place that was easy to see, then stepped out into the street and attempted to talk to the women who were walking by. I took note of the young women who fit Aera-san’s target demographic and did my best to persuade them to visit the café.

“My lady, would you happen to have decided on what kind of delicacy you will be having for lunch? If not, I would highly recommend exploring the items on the menu of this café right here.”

“O-Oh, okay...”

I repeated that line with a smile to every young woman who passed by the café, and it resulted in a lot of customers. This is easier than I thought it would be. Is it because I’m wearing this new uniform that’s not common at other eating establishments in this area? Or is it because I’m an elf? It definitely isn’t my words, since I’m not the type of person who can confidently hit on girls. I can feel my brain short circuiting right now. There were some people who hesitated to enter due to the fancy exterior of the café, but that hesitation seemed to disappear as soon as they saw the pictures that Yuki had drawn on the display board. Wait, doesn’t that mean I wasn’t needed...?

I had my doubts about whether I was actually contributing anything, but I continued to do my best to attract customers. I went back into the café after I had managed to attract a decent number of people. Aera-san’s café wasn’t a place that was going to earn a profit from table turnover, and there weren’t that many seats available either, so there was no point in trying to attract too many customers. It was more important to serve the customers with care, and in fact, that was the motto that the girls had come up with for the café.

However, Aera-san had originally planned to operate this café by herself, and the girls were helping her out as well, so there wasn’t really anything for me to do. The most I could do was to chat periodically with the customers who were enjoying their meals and their time here and attempt to persuade them to order the more expensive items on the menu such as the sweets. I wasn’t forcing them to do so, though. I simply followed Yuki’s instructions and repeated the lines that she had told me to say in situations like this, so I was quite surprised at the number of customers who actually ordered those expensive sweets. It was probably because of the extraordinary atmosphere that this café had. It was like how people would be more willing to buy expensive goods at amusement parks or how people would pay for food at festivals that didn’t really taste that good and wasn’t worth the expensive price. I think everything’s worth the price here, though, especially compared to the café that I went to the other day.

On the next day, Aera-san started to sell poste and cutlet sandwiches as takeout food, and business was soon booming. A lot of people probably tried them out due to the cheap prices and the fact that the food was a new and unusual delicacy, but there were plenty of people who appeared to have heard from the customers yesterday about how good this café was, so the takeout food ended up selling out in a short amount of time. I didn’t need to attract any customers during lunch hours either, as there were plenty of people who entered the café on their own initiative. In fact, I ended up having to go tell customers that the café was full instead. It would probably be better from a profit perspective to increase the number of seats in the café, but that would ruin the atmosphere that the café was going for. It needed to be a place where Aera-san could serve customers with care and not in a rush. All we had to do was to help provide her with an opportunity to prove herself to customers, and the rest was up to her.

Three days later, it appeared as though Aera-san had gotten used to the new business model for her café and was able to handle things by herself, so our assistance ended at that point.

★★★★★★★★★

“So, is Aera-san’s café doing well?”

We had all gathered in my room after our last day of helping Aera-san out with her café. Touya had returned at the same time we did, so we’d started to chat with each other about what had happened during these past few days.

“Yeah, probably. We basically didn’t have to do anything during this last day,” I said. “How did things go for you, Touya? You abandoned us and went to ‘help out’ Tomi, right?”

“O-Oh, y-yeah, things went quite well! I helped produce some concrete results!”

There were hints of panic in Touya’s voice as he replied to my pointed words and took out an object to show us. Hm? A metal plate and a separate handle?

“Is that a shield? Actually, no, hmm...”

“Oh, is it a shovel?” Yuki asked.

Touya grinned in response and snapped his fingers. “Yep, it is! It’s a portable shovel!” He attached the handle to the metal plate.

“Oh, yeah, it does look like a shovel now, though it’s a bit small,” I said.

The metal portions were similar in size to a single paperback book, but there was space to press your feet down on it, so it did seem like it would be useful for digging holes.

“I initially wanted the type of folding shovel that they use in the Self-Defense Forces back in Japan, but the technology to make it isn’t available in this world, so I went with a prefab design instead. This type of shovel was used in the Imperial Japanese Army, apparently.”

It looked useful, but it didn’t seem to be any different from a normal shovel, aside from the fact that you could detach the handle.

“Is this the result of the idea that you said you had ready the other day?” I asked. “You said you were going to try to recommend Tomi as an apprentice to Gantz-san, didn’t you?”

Touya had said he would be willing to recommend Tomi due to the fact that he had been working hard these past few days and because of the fact that he knew what Tomi’s personality was like. However, from Gantz-san’s perspective, Tomi would just be someone who one of his customers brought to him out of nowhere.

“Do you really think this mere shovel will be enough to convince Gantz-san?”

“It’s not just a shovel, Nao. Shovels are actually quite amazing. Haven’t you heard stories about how shovels have a history of being used to kill people?”

“Oh, interesting. Wait, that’s not relevant to the topic at hand, though.”

It was true that Gantz-san’s shop sold all sorts of weapons and armor, but I was fairly sure that he didn’t sell shovels as weapons.

“Well, yeah, I’m going to talk about how good this is for digging.”

“Aren’t there other similar tools out there that can perform the same tasks as a shovel, though?”

“You might think that, but that’s actually not true. Tools like plows have existed for a very long time, but shovels in their current form only came into existence recently.”

Touya explained that the point he was trying to make was that the pointed end of a shovel was the key here, since it allowed its user to exert their weight on it with their feet and scoop up earth to carry around.

“I guess this type of shovel could sell quite well if tools with a similar shape don’t already exist in this world.”

The shovel that Touya had helped create could be used for construction work, and it seemed like it would also be handy to have as an adventurer. Tools for digging holes were important for things like going to the bathroom, setting up camps, and getting rid of waste after gutting an animal carcass. It was possible to get the job done with a hoe as well, but hoes weren’t exactly easy to use by any means.

“Well, whether or not this shovel sells is important, but the most important thing was to show Gantz-san how hard Tomi worked at making it. I think Gantz-san recognized that, since he took Tomi on as his apprentice.”

“Oh, Tomi actually became Gantz-san’s apprentice?”

“Yeah. Tomi was quite happy about it. I got some experience with blacksmithing myself along with this shovel, so things worked out quite well, right?”

Touya had produced results beyond what I would have expected from him. It was really surprising to me, given that he had mentioned he was aiming for the all brawn and no brain life. I was almost certain that he had just dodged us because he hadn’t wanted to be forced to attract customers for Aera-san’s café in that uniform like I’d had to, but apparently, I was wrong. The girls looked at the shovel and nodded; it seemed like they were also impressed by the results that Touya had produced. Touya had always been the type of person who didn’t mind looking out for others, so it made sense that he would take this problem seriously.

Natsuki had some kind words about Tomi’s good fortune. “Well, I’m glad to hear that Wakabayashi-kun managed to get a stable job,” she said. “Oh, right, he goes by Tomi now.”

Haruka nodded and agreed with her. “Yeah, I’m glad as well.” However, she brought up the other factor that we needed to take into account. “I don’t mind helping classmates out if possible, as long as they’re not our enemies.”

“Mm, mutual support can only happen as long as the classmate doesn’t have a land mine skill,” said Natsuki.

“Yeah, land mine skills are a big reason why we should be cautious about searching for our other classmates,” said Yuki.

“There’s a good chance they’ll cause trouble for us even if we just bump into them,” said Haruka.

We all looked at each other and sighed at the realization we had to be on our guard against our classmates. So far, we’d had one positive and one negative experience with classmates, with Umezono and Wakabayashi, respectively. Well, there were probably at least eight other classmates we had encountered so far, and there were Tanaka and Takahashi as well, although we hadn’t encountered them in person. If we included all of them, then over ninety percent of our encounters with classmates had been negative so far. That meant the risk of searching for anyone else was way too high. On the other hand, there was also a chance that everyone who had land mine skills was already dead by now, which would leave only people who were safe to interact with, but that was not a risk worth taking.

“Oh yeah, Diola-san mentioned that she had managed to find a few houses that we might want to rent,” said Touya. “She told me that we could come over to check with her once we all had time.”

Touya brought up that message from Diola-san as if he had just remembered it out of nowhere. It seemed that Diola-san hadn’t forgotten to help us look for real estate while we had been busy helping out Aera-san with her café.

“Oh, nice, I’m looking forward to having our own home,” said Yuki. “I’ve dreamed about this before.”

“It’d be great if we could have our own house built and designed to our liking instead of renting one, but we can look forward to that in the future instead,” said Haruka.

“Nah, there’s no way people at our age could possibly afford to pay for a newly built house,” I said. “Right...?”

“There might be someone out there who can afford one since we’re in the countryside,” said Haruka. “At our age, we’re considered adults in this world, after all.”

Seriously? Anyone like that must be really successful, then. The fact that we ourselves had had the equivalent of ten million yen just a week ago meant that such a goal actually didn’t seem impossible to me. That amount of money had been gone in no time after we’d bought new weapons and armor, though. We would have to continue to purchase new weapons and armor throughout our lives as adventurers, so the goal of purchasing our own home would remain unrealistic for quite a while.

“All right, in that case, let’s all go to the Adventurers’ Guild tomorrow,” said Haruka.

We all agreed to Haruka’s suggestion. “Sure!”

The next day, we waited until Diola-san had some free time, and then we all went together to check out the property that she had found for us. She had three plots for us to check out, so we followed her as she guided us around and explained the features that stood out for each plot.

The first plot that Diola-san showed us was a spacious chunk of land that was at least five or six times larger than the land that The Slumbering Bear was on. The plot itself was almost completely overgrown with grass and weeds, but it was otherwise basically empty. Well, there was a building located in the corner of the lot, but it looked like a mere warehouse.

“This house here has a large yard, so there’s plenty of space available for swinging around swords and spears whether by yourself or during sparring.”

“Um, Diola-san, it’s true that this yard is large, but I don’t see anything else here...” I said.

“Hm? There’s a building on this plot as well. You can see it, right?”

“I mean, yeah, but that building looks more like a warehouse to me than a place for someone to live in.”

“There used to be a large mansion on this plot, but without any inhabitants, it gradually fell into ruin, so it ended up being demolished. Abandoned houses can become gathering places for outlaws and ruffians, after all.”

Abandoned houses were a serious problem back in Japan as well, but the nature of that problem was different. They were a problem because, given how small individual plots were, it would cause trouble for nearby houses if an abandoned house collapsed. I had heard stories about how delinquents would gather at places like abandoned hotels, but I hadn’t heard any stories about thugs living in abandoned houses. I wasn’t sure if it was because homeless people in Japan were concentrated in the cities or if it was because of the police being diligent, though.

“Diola-san, this yard definitely does fit the conditions that we brought up, but the ‘building’ here doesn’t come anywhere close...”

Diola-san nodded in response and went into further detail about why she had chosen this plot as a candidate for us. “Mm, the building over there isn’t included in the rent cost. The owner of this plot said that you can have that building demolished if you want.”

“So you’re saying we can pay for our own house to be built on this plot?”

“Yes. That way you can have a house custom built to fulfill all of the conditions that you wanted. On top of that, the rent for this large plot is a mere two gold coins per month!”

One gold coin was worth one thousand Rea, so that meant the monthly rent for this large plot was two thousand Rea. That seemed cheap to me, but I had no idea what the average rent was in this area.

“However, the owner said that if you decide to build a house and then move out at some later point, you’ll have to agree to leave the house as is.”

“I mean, if that does happen, it’s not like we would go out of our way to demolish a house just because we were leaving, so...”

It would be a waste of money to pay for demolition fees, and the owner of this plot would probably be happy to obtain an asset in the form of a house. However, Natsuki shook her head once I had voiced that opinion, so it seemed like she had a different understanding of how housing worked.

“That’s not how it works, Nao-kun,” Natsuki whispered. “Back in Japan, if you rent a plot, then you normally have the obligation to restore it to its original state if you’re going to end the rent contract, which includes demolishing buildings if they weren’t on the plot originally.”

“Is that how it works back in Japan?” I whispered back.

“Yes. There are some cases where such houses are left behind as furnished property, but most of the time it tends to be a nuisance for the plot owner. An occupant would normally only move out if a problem came up, after all.”

There would be no reason for the occupant to move out if the house was comfortable to live in and had nothing wrong with it. If it was a building that was used to run a successful business, then there would be no reason to close shop either. If the occupant moved out because the house had deteriorated with age, then it would be better to demolish it. If it was used to run a business that didn’t make a profit and went bankrupt, then it would be hard to find new occupants, especially with other furnished property out there in the market. Then there were property taxes for buildings along with maintenance fees, and it would be an expense for the owner of the plot if they had to pay for demolition fees as well. What that meant was that such buildings tended to be a nuisance for landowners.

“However, if the plot is located in a residential area, then a reduced tax rate gets applied as long as there’s a building on the plot,” Natsuki whispered. “In those cases, it’s not always worth demolishing the building if there is one.”

“It sounds like things are quite different in this world, though,” I whispered back.

I had no idea what the standard type of taxation system was in this different world, but I was fairly sure it wasn’t as complex as the ones in modern countries like Japan back on Earth. The only fee we had paid so far that could really be called a tax was just the entry toll of one large silver coin at the city gate. On the other hand, perhaps tax was already taken out of the money we were paid at the Adventurers’ Guild or included in lodging fees at inns.

“Hmm, it’s true that we can have a house built and customized to our liking here, but I’m not sure if we can afford to pay for a newly built house,” said Haruka.

“Yeah, exactly. Diola-san, how much would it cost us for a newly built house that fits the conditions that we brought up?” Yuki asked.

Diola-san covered her mouth with the back of one hand and paused in thought for a moment before she responded. “Hmm, well, if you cut down on unnecessary expenses, then the cost will probably end up at around one hundred large gold coins.”

“There’s no way we can afford that!” Yuki exclaimed.

“Mm, that’s not a realistic amount for us,” said Natsuki.

Although Yuki and Natsuki immediately shot down the idea of paying for a newly built house, I paused in thought, as did Touya and Haruka. One hundred large gold coins was the equivalent of one thousand gold coins, and we’d happened to have that exact amount of money recently before we had spent it on purchasing new weapons and armor. It was partly thanks to the fact that we had managed to cash in on the demand for dindels at a good time, but it wasn’t an amount of money that was impossible for us to earn and save up. Diola-san knew about this since we had been exchanging most of our goods for money through her, so that was probably part of the reason that she had shown us this plot. I looked at Touya and Haruka after we were done thinking to ourselves and we all sighed in unison.

“Diola-san, can we hold off on a decision for now?” I asked. “We’d like to see the other plots first.”

“Mm, that amount of money isn’t something we can agree on right away,” said Haruka. “Let’s go to the second plot.”

“Huh?! Wait, you’re putting this on hold instead of rejecting the idea, Haruka?!” Yuki exclaimed. “There’s no way we can afford it!”

“That’s not necessarily the case. Either way, it’s still close to a no. Come on, let’s get going.”

“U-Uh, okay...”

Yuki had a very perplexed look on her face, but Haruka urged her to put her concerns aside as we followed Diola-san to the second plot.

★★★★★★★★★

“This plot here is a place where the mistress of a noble once lived. It’s a smaller plot compared to the first one, but it has a nice-looking two-story mansion along with a beautiful yard. Well, the garden used to be beautiful.”

“Huh, really? This yard looks like it’s in a way worse state than the one on the first plot,” said Touya.

“Yes. You’ll have to clean up and take care of this overgrown yard if you want to see how it was in its original state. It’s in an especially bad state due to the fact that trees had been planted here before.”

Left alone for a long time, a regular yard would only have overgrown grass, but in a yard with trees, fallen leaves would result in leaf mold, which would accelerate the growth of weeds even further. In fact, the trees here were so large and overgrown that I couldn’t even see the mansion from where I was standing. The view in front of me was a yard that had basically transformed into a forest.

“Diola-san, can we go inside to check the mansion?” Haruka asked.

“Are you sure you want to go inside?”

“Huh? We can’t tell what it’s like without going inside, right? It’s true that I don’t really want to have to make a path through this forest to get there, but we can just cut our way through, right?”

Touya had a sword on him, so we could just have him lead the way.

“Are you sure you want to go inside?” She repeated the same words; she didn’t seem to be willing to open the gate.

“Uhm, is there a reason why you don’t seem to want to go inside, Diola-san?” Haruka asked. “Is this plot haunted or something?”

“The rent for this plot is five gold coins per month.”

“Okay, I think I know what you’re talking about based on the rent alone, but what exactly happened on this plot...?”

“As I mentioned earlier, the mistress of a noble once lived here, and it’s a long story, but all that you need to know is that it’s currently a vacant plot.”

“No, I mean, can you tell us the details—”

“It’s a long story.”

“What happened—”

“It’s a long story! That’s all you need to know, okay?”

“Okay...”

Diola-san was still smiling as she told us not to inquire further, but she had a very scary look in her eyes at the same time. There are probably some nasty secrets here if a noble was involved, so it sounds like a bad idea to pry further.

“So, Diola-san, I get that this plot has a, uh, history, but have any of the previous occupants suffered serious harm from living here?” Haruka asked.

“No, not really. Occupants of this plot tend to get sick often, but that’s about it.”

“That’s a pretty big problem, isn’t it?!”

“Rest assured, no one has proven a correlation between living here and getting sick.”

“That’s not reassuring at all! Would you be willing to live here, Diola-san?”

“Well, uh, I believe in the supernatural, so...” She shook her head.

She believes in the supernatural, huh? I guess that makes sense, since magic does exist in this world. It wouldn’t be strange at all if things like lingering malice and ghosts exist too.

“If that’s the case, then please don’t show us haunted plots, Diola-san. This is a no from us.”

“Mm, I figured. I’m glad I don’t have to go inside the mansion myself. Let’s go to the third plot.”

Diola-san swiftly walked ahead of us. It seemed like she hadn’t been serious about recommending this plot to us. Was it just part of something like a quota that she had to fulfill?

★★★★★★★★★

“Compared to the first and second plots, the amount of space available here is somewhere in the middle. The house located on this plot is a one-story house, but it’s decently large. It might require some repairs since it’s a bit old, though.”

Haruka stared at Diola-san. “Would this plot happen to be haunted as well?”

Diola-san just shook her head with a forced smile. “No, this is a normal plot. The house on this plot belongs to a man who lived here from when this town was still a village, so there’s a field here too, as you can see. However, the owner is elderly now, so he moved to a smaller house located closer to the center of the town.”

According to Diola-san, the plot here was quite spacious due to the fact that it used to be on the outskirts of the village before it was incorporated into Laffan as the village became a town. In the past, there had been similar plots in the vicinity, but as Laffan had continued to grow, those spacious plots had gotten split into smaller ones to build houses on, so plots as large as this one were quite rare nowadays.

“The rent for this plot is twelve gold coins per month, but I think it meets most of the conditions that you all requested.”

Haruka grimaced and said, “That’s quite expensive...”

I had no idea what the market rates for rent were like, but it still seemed expensive to me compared to the cost of staying at The Slumbering Bear for a month. Even places in the countryside back in Japan would tend to be cheaper than the equivalent of this cost.

“Let’s take a look inside the house first, Haruka,” said Yuki.

“Mm. We’re here to check out property, after all,” said Natsuki.

“True. All right, can we go inside to have a look, Diola-san?”

“Of course. Let me open the doors.”

Diola-san opened the doors for us and we entered the house together. We split up and went our own ways as we looked around. It looked like there weren’t any parts of the house that had rotted away, which made sense considering that it was less humid here in this different world than in Japan. However, I noticed areas that looked like they had been damaged by leaks, and it probably wouldn’t be possible to set up a bath unit in the laundry area since it wasn’t spacious at all. As for individual rooms, there were four, along with a fifth room that was larger than the others. There was also a large shed that we could store things in. The biggest problem I had with this house was the fact that the kitchen was small and in bad condition. It probably looked worse than it normally would to me because I had recently seen how Aera-san’s kitchen looked, but I still had my doubts about whether or not it was possible to cook a decent meal here.

We all took our time to look around the plot and gathered in front of the house once we were done. Once everyone had arrived, we all looked at each other. None of us was wearing a positive expression.

“What did you guys think?” Haruka asked.

At first, I hesitated to answer, but I ended up giving my honest opinion. “Not good, I guess...?” I wouldn’t mind living here if I had to, but if someone asked me if I actually wanted to, I’d have to say no.

“Nah, there’s no way I’d want to live here,” said Touya.

“If possible, I wouldn’t really want to either...” said Natsuki.

Touya had voiced his thoughts frankly despite the fact that Diola-san was here with us, and Natsuki had agreed with Touya, although she wasn’t as blunt as he was. Yuki remained silent with a bitter smile on her face, but that smile itself was enough to tell me that she didn’t want to live here either.

“I feel the same way Natsuki does,” said Haruka. “The rent’s a bit too expensive. Don’t you agree, Diola-san?”

“Hmm, well, it’s probably due to the owner’s nostalgia. He probably thinks this property is worth a lot more since for him it’s a place full of good memories.”

That made sense. Real estate agents would give a fair and realistic evaluation of a property, but the actual owner of the property would value it more because they’d concentrate on its positive qualities and ignore its negative qualities.

“Are there no other plots available, Diola-san?” Haruka asked.

“Well, in the first place, there aren’t that many spacious plots in this area. This isn’t an area where rich people live, so most of the plots and houses here are small. This plot right here would be valued at less if there was a similar plot located nearby, but...”

It seemed like the rent for this plot was expensive because of the fact that there was no competition on the housing market from similar plots in the vicinity. I felt like the value of the plot would still drop over time if it remained unoccupied, but the fact that the rent was this high probably meant the owner of this plot was in good shape financially.

“Hmm. Can I discuss this with my party members for a bit longer, Diola-san?” Haruka asked.

“Of course. It’s not an easy decision, after all. Also, you don’t have to rent this plot. If needed, I can show you a regular-sized plot as well.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind while we discuss things.”

We all walked a bit away from Diola-san and huddled together to decide what to do.

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Haruka. “The first plot that Diola-san showed us didn’t have a house on it, and the house here on this third plot isn’t in good condition, so...”

Out of the three plots, the house on this third plot was our only realistic choice in terms of a house we could live in, however.

“We didn’t get to check the inside of the mansion in the second plot, but what if we do our best to fix it up?”

“What do you mean by that, Yuki?” I asked.

“Exorcism, I guess...?” She rested her chin on one of her fingers as she brought up that ridiculous idea.

“Would you happen to actually be a shrine maiden or a nun, Yuki...?” Haruka asked.

“Well, no. None of my relatives are affiliated with religion either. I think Natsuki would look good dressed as a shrine maiden, though.”

Oh, that’s true. Haruka’s hair color has changed since she became an elf, but Natsuki still has the same black hair as before, so traditional clothes like a shrine maiden’s would look quite good on a Japanese beauty like her.

“Me? I don’t have any ancestors who were priests or shrine maidens either. Well, I have some relatives from a branch family who have Shinto connections, but I’m not directly related to them.”

“That’s still better than me, isn’t it? I’m not sure it’ll have any effect on ghosts or spirits in this world, but I can try making a shrine maiden outfit if you want to give this a try.”

I feel like Yuki would fit better as the fantasy kind of shrine maidens who show up in anime. Like the kind of shrine maidens who use onusa wands to smack things.

“Come on, Yuki, are you forgetting about Haruka?” Touya asked.

“Haruka? I’m not sure if a shrine maiden outfit would look good on an elf. Actually, it might...?”

Japanese clothes might actually look quite good on Haruka. In a way, they’d be perfect for her, since her chest is flatter now.

“No, that’s not what I mean! I’m talking about Light Magic! She can use the Purification spell for its proper purpose!”

“Oh! Wait, that’s what the Purification spell is intended for?” said Yuki. “It’s not a spell for cleaning things?”

“Mm, I forgot about that too,” said Natsuki. “It didn’t cross my mind due to how useful that spell’s been for other purposes.”

I can’t believe Touya of all people was the one who reminded us. It’s true that Purification was originally meant for purifying evil creatures like the undead.

“What are your thoughts, Haruka?” I asked.

Haruka answered with a no when I asked her if she could perform an exorcism with the Purification spell. “The spell works for that purpose, but I probably can’t pull it off with my current abilities. If it was that easy for someone of my caliber to exorcise whatever might be haunting that mansion, do you think it would have been left alone until now? It used to be the mansion of a noble, and surely a noble could hire someone who can use the Purification spell.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” said Yuki. “I was hoping we could live in a noble’s mansion, but oh well.”

That seemed to be the reason that Yuki had suggested this idea in the first place, and it was a dream that I could relate to.

“All right, let’s summarize our options,” said Haruka. “We can give up on a large yard and just rent a different house, we can look in a different area that has higher rent on average, we can just continue to live at an inn, or we can save up money to pay for a newly built house at the first plot that was shown to us. These are the options that come to mind. What do you guys think?”

“Mm, that sounds about right,” said Natsuki.

We all nodded in response to the options that Haruka had brought up.

“I still want to live in a place that has a yard,” said Touya. “We’ll have to go outside of town for training every day if we can’t do it in a yard, right?”

“Yeah, it’s not like we can just do training on the road either.”

“Mm. Do you all agree with Touya’s opinion?”

The rest of us all nodded to indicate that we agreed. Daily training was an absolute must for all of us, so this was something that we couldn’t compromise on.

“Our original reason for wanting to rent a house instead of living at an inn was so we could do things like alchemy that we can’t do at an inn, right?” Yuki asked.

We had discussed our options and agreed on the idea of renting a house in order to have space for alchemical tools, books on magic, and a kitchen of our own to cook our meals. All of that would be impossible if we continue to live at an inn.

“Mm. The desire to eat delicious homemade meals and to practice our skills is a good source of motivation, so it would be ideal to have our own home,” said Haruka.

“In that case, our remaining options are all ones that’ll cost a hefty amount of money,” said Natsuki. “How much money do we actually have on hand at the moment?”

We would have to spend a lot of money regardless of whether we settled on renting a large house in a high-class residential area or paying for the construction of a new house, so Natsuki’s question was a good one. However...

“We don’t have much left on us since we just placed an order for chain mail for you and Yuki,” said Haruka.

“S-Sorry...”

“We couldn’t pay for it since we didn’t have much money ourselves...”

Yuki and Natsuki looked like they felt bad about the fact that we’d basically paid for their chain mail, but they didn’t have to.

“Nah, don’t worry, it was a necessary expense,” I said. “I’d rather not risk you two getting injured due to not having chain mail.”

“Yep, Nao’s completely right,” said Touya. “Besides, it’s still cheaper than my chain mail was.”

Natsuki’s physique was about the same as mine, while Yuki was smaller than me, so that meant the cost of their chain mail had ended up being cheaper. Chain mail was made by joining small metal rings together, so the cost of materials and the amount of time required to make a mail shirt would scale with the size of the wearer, which meant that the price would also scale with the size of the shirt. In fact, the difference in price between different sizes was big enough that the cost of Touya’s chain mail had been greater than the combined cost of Yuki’s and Natsuki’s.

“Wait, doesn’t that eliminate all of our current options...?” I asked.

“Yes, for now,” said Haruka.

“Does that mean all we can do for the time being is just save up money, Haruka?”

“That’s the only choice we have. I’d recommend that we save up to pay for our own house, though.”

“The idea of having a house built and customized to our liking sounds very attractive to me as well, but wouldn’t it be a slight waste of money?” Natsuki asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind going with the rent option if there was a good property available, but...”

I wasn’t sure if this was the right way to phrase it, but the “evil” god had probably chosen Laffan as our starting town because it was a town in the countryside that was peaceful most of the time. What that meant was that there weren’t that many adventurers in this town. Most of the people who lived here were ordinary citizens who had settled down. There were a lot of immigrants who had moved to Laffan throughout its development, which meant most of the citizens owned their own property. There wasn’t really a large market or demand for rental property that had a yard and a house. Property that was aimed at nobles and rich people would sometimes open up due to all sorts of circumstances, but that kind of real estate wasn’t realistically affordable for us.

“So yeah, if we want a house that meets all of our conditions, then we’ll have to pay for one to be built,” said Haruka. “If possible, I’d like to buy the first plot that was shown to us for that purpose instead of renting it.”

“You want to buy the land, Haruka?” Natsuki asked. “Isn’t real estate low in liquidity? I feel like it would be better to have cash assets on us instead. It’s not like we’re going to settle down in this town, right?”

“Cash assets would only be the right choice if there were a banking system in this world. Also, we’re still low-rank adventurers, remember?”

Natsuki paused in thought for a moment before she nodded back. “Oh, I get what you mean. The low liquidity of real assets will actually be good for us in that case.”

“Real estate can’t be physically stolen, so if we purchase the plot itself, then we can still sell it as a plot of land with a house even if we decide to move out of Laffan,” said Haruka. “If we build a house on rented land, then we would lose out on the entire value of the house.”

“Yeah, since we would have to pay for demolition ourselves under most rental contracts,” said Natsuki.

“In addition, purchasing land will be a way to show that we’ve spent a lot of money.”

“Oh yeah, there’s a high chance that we look like we have a lot of money on us,” I said.

Each time we had gone out to gather dindels, we had brought a lot back to the Adventurers’ Guild, so people who knew the value of dindels could easily guess how much profit we had made. The truth was that we’d sunk most of our money into purchasing weapons and armor, but we wore our chain mail under our clothes, so the only piece of equipment we had that stood out was my spear.

“Uh, what do you mean exactly, Haruka?” Touya asked.

Touya didn’t seem like he fully understood what we were talking about, so Haruka explained things to him. “To put it in simple terms, we might get attacked and robbed if we seem like we have money on us, so we should spend our money on something that’s obviously expensive. If possible, I’d like to purchase the land first, even if we have to continue living at an inn for a while.”

“Well, the rent for that first plot we were shown today was only two gold coins per month, so wouldn’t it be better to pay for a house to be built first?” I asked.

“The owner of the plot probably won’t sell the land after we have a house built on it. After all, the owner will get a house for free once we stop renting the plot.”

“Oh, right.”

“Let’s go ask Diola-san about this before we discuss it further.”

We went and approached Diola-san, who was walking around a bit away from us. Haruka stepped forward and asked, “Diola-san, is the first plot that you showed to us today up for sale instead of rent?”

“Sale? The owner only mentioned wanting to rent it, so...”

“For reference, can you tell us what the market rates are for purchasing property?”

“Well, if you want to purchase property in that area, then four hundred gold coins should be enough, but it depends on whether you can find someone who’s willing to sell their land.”

That price seemed fairly cheap to me, but that was partly because I was used to the high cost of land back in Japan, so it wasn’t a good comparison. In any case, the value of a fairly large house would probably end up being greater than the value of the land itself. That meant the owner of the first plot had nothing to lose by renting out the land for cheap if it would result in them eventually getting a house for free.

“Diola-san, can you help us negotiate with the owner of the first plot that you showed us today?” I asked.

“Negotiate? Well...” Diola-san frowned in response; she didn’t seem very excited about that idea. Acting as a middleman wasn’t her primary responsibility at the Adventurers’ Guild, so it made sense that she wasn’t eager to take on the job, but...

“Oh yeah, Nao, we’ve made quite a lot of dried dindels recently, haven’t we?”

Diola-san’s eyebrows twitched and perked up when she heard those sudden words from Haruka.

“Yeah, we made a lot, all for ourselves. Dindels are an expensive fruit, so they would be well suited as gifts.”

“Mm. I suppose we could give them to people who have helped us out—you know, as an expression of our gratitude.”

It was very obvious bait, but it seemed like Diola-san was willing to bite. She forced a smile on and brought up another suggestion. “U-Um, Haruka-san, I can’t guarantee any results, but I could try my best to negotiate with the owner of that plot!”

When she saw Diola-san’s obvious change of heart, Haruka grinned—and then toyed with Diola-san further. “Oh, you don’t have to force yourself, Diola-san. We can try to look for real estate that might be up for sale in other areas on our own, so...”

“Well, that is true, but it’s cheaper in this area compared to the average market rates! Purchasing a plot of land in this area would be a great choice, I think!”

“Is that so? In that case, would you be willing to help negotiate a good deal for us?”

“Sure, of course! Leave it to me!”

“We’ll need a while to raise the money to purchase that plot, so feel free to take your time with the negotiations. A final deal for a price cheaper than market rates would be satisfactory, but the amount of gifts I’ll be willing to shower you with will depend on how far you can haggle down the price, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ll do my absolute best!” Diola-san smiled and slapped her own chest in response to express how confident and earnest she was about this.