Chapter 46 – The smell of a memorable day from the other world’s marketplace
Even when I asked Marina if she had any place that she wanted to go, all she said was, “Marina is just a slave. So wherever that my liege wishes to go is fine with me.”
Eventually, I ended up bringing her to the weapons shops and the second-hand shops. It was certainly not a sweet date one might have in mind, but seeing that Marina seemed to be happy regardless, I just let it be.
As I thought, a smile really is the best makeup a girl can wear. It would be satisfying enough just to see an elf-chan, or to be more precise, a dark elf-chan, smiling. Just looking at her smile would literally make my food taste good. Even 5 cups would be of no problem to me!
In the afternoon, we went to a food stall opened by a known eatery at the corner of the market to have their yakiniku-like speciality dish. It was kind of salty, but the beef ribs look alike, and the meat was thick and soft, so it was tasty. Not to mention, being able to see Marina’s smile also added to the flavouring, further enhancing the taste to me. After the meal, I brought up the question from earlier as we had tea while we relaxed.
“This morning Diana had mentioned something about ‘today being a special day’. Does Marina know what she meant by that?” [Jirou]
“Eh!? Y-Yes. …..I knew what she meant.” [Marina]
I guess she hadn’t expected me to ask her that. She looked surprised at my question initially, but she replied in a seemingly serious manner.
Erm, is it a super important special day that mustn’t be forgotten? I had first thought that it might be the other world’s national day, but that couldn’t be it since they should know that I don’t know anything about this world. To begin with, I had already told them that I am not from this world, so they should understand that my ignorance about this world is something that couldn’t be helped.
In other words, it must be something else. What is it…?
“Hmm. If Marina also knows it then…. Ah….is it your birthday or something? Come to think of it, I haven’t enquired you two about it before. This won’t do. Alright, I’ll buy you a present immediately.” [Jirou]
“Ah, no, it’s not my birthday.” [Marina]
“Is that so?….Then, what is it?” [Jirou]
Umm? If it is not birthday then…nothing else came to mind at all.
Come to think of it, I did recall them saying that those from the Turk tribe are not loved by the spirits.
“So how is this memorable day related to the Great Spirit then?” [Jirou]
“Sniff, I…. I-I received two guidance at once for the first time~~!” [Marina]
Marina suddenly burst into tears, although it seemed that they were tears of joy. It was the first time I had seen someone crying joyously.
Even Shello-san was literally dancing for joy when he accomplished his guidance the last time. It would seem that the spirit guidance is something that is really important for the people in this world. This was especially true for Marina. Considering that it was her very first guidance, her heart must have been filled with even deeper emotion than most people.
I don’t know when Marina received her blessing, but for her to have not acquired even a single guidance till now just shows how rare the guidance is. Well, taking the spirit stone’s unusual price into account, I guess it’s a given; The cheapest spirit stone would cost 20 gold coins, so a single one should be approximately 3 million yen. The fact that I have been receiving guidance frequently was probably an abnormality here.
“I see. So it’s like that. Congratulations. I’m happy for you, Marina. But, I don’t really have anything to do with it though.” [Jirou]
“No, it’s thanks to my liege for finding me. It’s due to my liege that I acquired these guidance, so receiving these guidance is no difference than receiving them from my liege as well.” [Marina]
Marina looked me in the face with her pure eyes.
“Uhhiyo~! Dark Elf-chan discovered! There’s no other choice than to take care of her. Hahahaha!”
This was the one of the feelings I had when I chose Marina the last time. I simply couldn’t say it out loud now…
If you are reading this on a place other than rinkagetranslation.com, this chapter has been stolen and is neither the most recent or complete chapter.
If you are reading this on a place other than rinkagetranslation.com, this chapter has been stolen and is neither the most recent or complete chapter.
I had initially thought of taking a look at all the shops—that being said, they were actually mostly stalls— but it might be hard to go through the whole place in just one day. That was how wide Erishe’s market was. If you were to use the area of the Tokyo Dome as an estimate, it might even be equivalent to two Tokyo Domes put together.
At the area where many of the eateries were located, there were many variations even among shops that specialized in meat, from places that specialized in processed meat to places that only dealt with poultry. There were even shops that specialized in demon beast meat (expensive too). Since they were selling the beast as a whole, other types of meat were naturally sold the same way, too. Needless to say, there is no refrigerator here, so the products were lined-up as is, at normal temperature. In contrast, there were not as many fish stalls around as compared to meat stalls, and there were fewer varieties as well. As I expected, fish isn’t sold that much here. Although, I was occasionally surprised by the size of the fish that were spread out on the table, since they were as big as tuna.
There were many vegetable stalls as well, with an assortment of selections, ranging from those that look like the vegetables seen before in Japan (in truth, they are totally different kinds of vegetables), to unknown plants, resembling corns and tomatoes. There were also specialty stalls that sold nuts, potatoes, cheese, as well as fruits.
Aside from that, there was a rice shop, bakery, dried goods shop, herbs shop, delicacy shop (some thingy that looked like preserved food boiled in soy were inserted into pots and sold), teahouse, and so forth could also be seen there.
Nonetheless, what interested me the most was the fruit stall. The sweet scent that drifted from the stall, and the sight of the strange, never-seen-before fruits, lined up in the narrow space on that cart. Well, it really tickled my curiosity.
…..How should I say it, I like it very much.
And above all, the goods being sold were the best.
At a flea market, people would usually bring the items from their own house to be sold… that is how it was, generally. Thus, at times, even if there were any ‘bargains’, there would fundamentally only be one of each item, and the items would be of different grades. However, the people who run this market are professionals, or rather, they had made it their profession and are specialized in selling the merchandise.
In other words, a huge selection of the same type of the pre-owned item is available for customer’s selection. As such, the price is higher than the ones at the flea market; but even so, there is also something to be glad about.
For instance, all the items that I had put up for auction until now are easily obtainable here.
“I have decided to open up a shop here. This frustrating wait-and-see kind of approach I have, like the time at the flea market…..I’ll put an end to it!” [Jirou]