Chapter 22
Handle with Care! Part 2 (1)
The number of types of herbs I’m raising in the field I’m borrowing from Jiral has increased .
Thanks to the convenient skill, Cultivation Ace, no matter if they were perennials or not, all of the herbs all the herbs grew quickly – and it’s finally time to harvest them today .
Phew-; wiping my sweat, I looked at the basket the picked herbs were in .
If things continue like this, I can be self-sufficient without having to enter the forest full of dangerous monsters and beasts .
Of course, if I need herbs I’m not cultivating, then that wouldn’t be the case .
I will be able to sell the herbs themselves to other pharmacists .
No matter how I try to invite her, Noela decidedly refuses to come here due to the repellent .
It can’t be helped that she can’t help it, but working silently all by myself is, honestly, a little lonely .
At a place a little removed from me, the granny and grandpa sweating away while working the fields were tapping their backs .
“It really is no good using tools you aren’t used to . ”
“Even though we sent them out to be repaired two weeks ago … they’re still not repaired . ”
I wonder what’s going on .
“Hello-”
“Aah, Pharmacist-san, hello . ”
Gramps lifted his hat a little and gave me a nod .
“What seems to be the problem?”
“Aah . You see, we sent our hoe to be repaired at the toolshop, but it hasn’t been returned yet . Well, it ain’t like we can’t use this one, but . ”
The toolshop is a little different from a general store; it handles bladed items and protective wear .
And just like Gramps said, it also repairs tools .
If you head to a large city, it might be split up as a weapon shop and an armor shop, but in a rural town it’s handled together .
I don’t understand what makes a hoe good or bad, but it seems he’s used it for so long that he can tell the differences right away .
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“It’s easier to handle the guy I’m always using, since I can dig up the dirt like swish, and it helped that even if I don’t put that much strength in here it’s still fine…”
Hm, he’s really troubled .
Fieldwork is extremely … rather, it’s suitably tiring, so it would be better if the repairs were done quickly and his tools returned .
After that, we talked a little bit about the state of the world, and then I returned to the store .
Bang! A loud sound like the firing of a gun came from the kitchen .
Wh,what was that?
When I went to peek into the kitchen, where the sound came from, Mina and Noela were cooking .
“Noelsan! It’s dangerous to put all your strength into it-!”
“Mina, wrong, not all . This, ten percent of my strength . ”
Noela proudly said, holding a kitchen knife .
“Why are you looking so smug?”
“Werewolf, strength, amazing . ”
Saying so while making a “I’m so cool” face (kimegao), she swung the kitchen knife at the cutting board once again .
Bang – snap-!
The kitchen knife snapped right in two around the middle .
“Ah-! Look, it’s just like I said, right Noela? You broke another kitchen knife . Reiji-san will get mad if he finds out, you know?”
“……… . . Mina, secret . This, is a secret . Secret from Master . S,spare . There’s a spare kitchen knife . So Master won’t know it broke . ”
“That spare is the kitchen knife you just broke . ”
“Ru-!?”
“What are you going to do? I won’t be able to cook today, you know?”
“Ruuu… . ”
The depressed Noela looks so pitiful, I called out to them .
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“I’m back . What’s wrong?”
The two of them turned to look at me .
“Reiji-san, welcome back . Listen to this; Noelsan -”
“Master-”
Noela scampered over and clung to me with her eyes full of tears .
“Mina, got mad …”
“That’s not it, Noelsan broke-”
“I know . I know . I saw it, after all . Noela snapped the kitchen knife, right?”
Flinch; Noela’s shoulders trembled .
“Master, mad…?”
“I won’t get mad for one or two kitchen knives . ”
“Ru-♪”
Wag, wag, wag .
Wagwagwag . Wagwagwag .
Noela’s tail wagged at high speed .
Geez; Mina heaved a sigh, like she had given up .
“Reiji-san, I can’t cook with things like this, so can I have you buy a kitchen knife?”
Making the meals is something Mina considers as her job, so she’s probably troubled that she can’t do so .
Also, I will be troubled if I can’t eat dinner .
“Then I’ll go out for a bit . ”
So saying I left the store for the second time, and Noela also came with .
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Despite everything that was said and done, if seems like Noela feels responsible .
The general store does have kitchen knives, but if I want to buy something that will last, I suppose it’s better to go to the tool shop .
When we arrived at the tool shop, there wasn’t anyone around within the store’s cramped interior .
There weren’t many types, but swords and spears were lined up against the wall, and helms, gauntlets, and breastplates were placed on different shelves .
“Master, this is nice . ”
With sparkling eyes, Noela picked up the store’s most expensive long sword .
“Why are you going for a sword? We’re not going on an adventure . Look for a kitchen knife, or else a handy knife if they have one …”
I spotted some reasonably priced kitchen knives that seemed easy to handle; I’ll buy two of these .
But man, the shopkeeper isn’t appearing at all .
“Excuse me-! Hello-? I want to buy some kitchen knives-?”
Pat .
A hand appeared, placing itself on top of the counter .
Hee-!?
H,horror!?
“Sh,shut up … don’t yell…”
The head that peeked out at us was a blue-haired glasses girl .
She seems extremely sleepy, and she slipped her glasses down to rub her eyes .
“I was flooded with repair work … when I came to, I was sleeping on the floor…”
Yaaawn; the glasses girl stretched .
So this is what the gramps in the fields was talking about .
“Ah . You’re the rumored alchemist, right? I’m Paula . As you can see, I’m this store’s owner . ”
“Well, I’m a pharmacist, not an alchemist, though . ”
We shook hands lightly . I handed her the payment for the two kitchen knives .
“Are the repairs hectic?”
“Really hectic, like for real . Ah . The EnePo you made, I drink it every night . That’s helped so much, thank you-”
EnePo? Aah, she means the energy potion .
If she works all night in the store, then I guess it’s expected that she would have fainted onto the story .
“There’s the repairs of the Red Cat Group’s armor, and the townspeople have all sorts of finicky requests … yaaaawn … sleepy…”
Anabel-san and the others are the town’s guards, so I guess it can’t be helped that they get priority .
“How do you fix things?”
“Well, it’s all about joining leather together and maintaining the metal . The most annoying bit is when I’m supposed to repair metal that’s snapped; the ones where nothing can be done about it, see? I’d be happy if they bought a replacement, but they tell me to fix it . That is the most time consuming of them all . ”
“The Red Cat Group are broke mercenaries, after all… “
The amount of repairs is too much for Paula to handle alone, and without any helping hands, things got delayed, it seems .
“Rei-kun, you know, can’t you make something amazing, like a fluid that sticks things together and, bang, it’s fixed?”
“I can’t make a magical tool like that . …Hm? ‘Sticks things together’ …?”
Stick . Stick…
…Ah . I can make it!
“Wait a bit! I might be able to!”
“Eh? Really!? I’ll wait, I’ll wait!”
Noela was…
Trying on armor and playing around by pretending to be an adventurer .
… Oh well . I’ll just let her do as she pleases .
I leapt out of the tool shop, holed myself up in the medicine room, and made a certain liquid agent .
[Super-strength glue: an extremely adhesive liquid that joins two objects together and solidifies . ]