By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 3 - Chapter 35

Chapter 2 Episode 35: Food Preparation

I relaxed my breathing, then unleashed magic energy toward three of my slimes. The slimes quivered and leaped at the energy. I sensed their joy. At first glance, it only looked like they were trembling, but my Magic Detection skill allowed me to see that the slimes were slowly taking in the energy, confirming my suspicions.

When I saw an evolving slime releasing and absorbing magic energy yesterday, I had an idea regarding magic energy and slimes. Firstly, healing slimes could use recovery magic, so there was no doubt that they possessed magic energy. The cause of their evolution into healing slimes was also recovery magic, I believed. I recalled that at the time I thought maybe slimes could also use fire and water magic, and I experimented with that too. That only resulted in harming slimes with offensive magic, so I ended the experiment early, but I wondered if it would be different now.

Slimes capable of using other types of magic must have been possible, considering the existence of healing slimes. After what I heard from Maylene the other day, I was confident in this assertion. There was plenty of reason to believe these slimes could be obtained through evolution in the same fashion as I had done so far, by feeding them. Maybe feeding slimes magic energy would do the trick.

I released more magic energy. This time I did what I would when using fire magic, imagining the energy as a fiery explosion. Different people imagined different things when casting spells, from what I had heard, but this was a way to turn the non-elemental magic energy contained within the human body into fire energy for use in fire magic. All elemental magic required this conversion technique, but the conversion process usually also caused the magic to be unleashed at the same time. This was my first time stopping short of casting the spell itself and simply releasing the transformed energy. It demanded more precision than using magic normally, but that may have been because I wasn’t accustomed to this.

Curious as to whether they would like non-elemental energy, I released it as-is. The slimes didn’t seem to absorb as much as before. I tested other elements and discovered that two of the three slimes took in a greater quantity of earth energy, while one of them preferred dark energy. Individual slimes appeared to have preferences when it came to elements. Maybe different magic energy had different flavors. In any case, the slimes were enjoying it, so I continued.

By the time the cloths dried, I had given them almost all of my magic energy. I took some time to rest before I collected the dried waterproof cloths, then returned to town and headed to Sieg’s butcher shop.

■ ■ ■

“Hey there! Here for some meat?” a boy in his teens asked me when I got to the butcher. From the look of it, he was around fourteen or fifteen.

“Excuse me, but I wanted to talk to Sieg. Is he available?”

“Oh, huh. Boss! Customer wants to see you!” the boy shouted. Sieg walked over from the work space in the back of the store, his clothes messy with blood. His skin was pale and he was so thin as to look sickly as well. He looked as frightening as Worgan, albeit in a different way.

“If it isn’t Ryoma? Need something?”

“Yes, actually,” I said and explained the situation, then made my request.

“I see, didn’t know there were slimes like that. Sure, need some blood right away? Some young adventurers did a ton of hunting today, so I’ve got plenty on hand.”

“Thank you, I’ll take it.”

Sieg let me into his work space where five men were working. Everything from the walls to the ceiling was covered in hooks and strings from which bloody beasts dangled.

“Over here,” Sieg said and led me right below the animals. There were two large containers full of blood that were each about the length of the room itself.

“Thank you. Would you mind if it drinks right from these containers?”

“That’s fine.”

With Sieg’s permission, I put the bloody slime in a container. It rapidly drained the blood until nothing was left.

“Wow, that thing’s convenient.”

“You think so too, Sieg?”

“We have to pump all the blood out of those tubs and thoroughly clean them out. You can see how big they are, so it’s a lot of work.”

“Especially when we get a big animal, or tons of small animals to drain like today, it’s a lot of work and a huge pain.”

“I see.”

Even the nearby workers began to complain about how much effort it involved. I also asked if blood was used in any cooking.

“Blood as food? Not that I’ve ever heard of.”

“Everyone throws blood away, that’s just common sense.”

“If it’s edible, I feel like that’s a waste, though.”

“I’ve heard that the magic energy in blood goes away if it’s left alone long enough. But by then it’d be dry or rotten, so you can’t eat it anyway.”

Blood with magic energy wasn’t much more than a toxin, apparently. After that, Sieg and the other workers said I could come back any time I needed blood, and I could even have their bones and any meat that went bad before they could sell it. They were generous enough to give me anything that would have been trash anyway. Now I could get food for my scavenger and acid slimes too.

“Thank you!” I said, glad I got more than I was expecting. I left the butcher and saw some rowdy men being taken away from my store by city guards.

“Get walking!”

“Ouch!”

“Hey, the hell are you looking at?!”

“Nothing to see here!”

“Shut up and walk!”

Wondering what happened, I dashed to my store and found all my employees gathered together.

“Is everyone all right?!”

“Oh, Boss!”

“I saw some guards dragging some men out of the store. Anyway, is anyone hurt?”

“We’re fine! Nobody’s been injured!”

“Fay stopped them all by himself!”

“Really? Thank you, Fay.”

“It was nothing. Just part of the job.”

“Fay and Lilyn really helped today. Of course, you’re the one who hired them, Master Ryoma. You’re partially to thank for the safety of the store and our staff.”

“No, no, I didn’t do anything,” I admitted. I didn’t even get there until after it happened.

“Boss, I want to talk to you for a bit,” Lilyn said. “We need to put countermeasures in place in case this happens again.”

I left Fay and the three village girls in charge of the store, then the reliable twins and I went to the office.

“Although for now, we don’t have any problems. Not as long as I or my father are at the store. Either of us can handle any number of hoodlums on our own. But there is one thing I want to ask you, Boss. Is there anyone who’d hold a grudge against you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Seems like someone hired those thugs. We used a truth serum on them before the guards showed up, so this has to be correct.”

“They were hired? Well, there were these criminal adventurers trying to steal from kids. I beat them up, so I guess it could be them.”

I hid away in the forest until I came here, and I lived in another world entirely before that. I had only met good people for the most part since I arrived in town, and never got on anyone’s bad side that I could recall. The only real strife that happened involved those adventurers.

“The hoodlums said they were paid handsomely for a relatively minor job.”

“What was their job, exactly?”

“They were supposed to intimidate customers around here, but that was all.”

“Fay noticed this and restrained them, however.”

Their goal wasn’t to destroy the store or harm employees, but simply to obstruct business, it seemed.

“I have no idea who might have hired them, then.”

“Maybe someone envies you. You did come out of nowhere and become an instant success, after all.”

“There are people like that everywhere. At any rate, let’s be cautious.”

“It would have been nice if the hoodlums knew anything, but whoever hired them was careful not to reveal their identity.”

“This tends to happen when there’s profit to be made. All we can do is prepare for such an eventuality.”

Carla and Carme informed Serge and the guildmaster of the Merchant’s Guild about this incident, while I relayed this information to the duke’s family. After that, I decided to have Fay and Lilyn watch the store during the day, while the slimes would be left to stand guard at night. Then I returned to the inn and talked to Reinhart. He suggested that the duke’s family could hire guards for the store, taking the matter very seriously.

The only ones that could be hired right away were ex-soldiers or ex-knights. He said he would introduce me to some who retired or left their positions after sustaining injuries, but still had some combat talent. But they all seemed too overqualified to work at my store. The strongest of everyone he introduced me to, by the way was a retired knight captain that fought alongside Reinbach. The idea of hiring him sounded ludicrous.

After taking the time to talk it out with him, we decided to wait and see what happens for the time being. So much had happened that I didn’t even think about this truth serum that Lilyn and Fay had on them. I had no idea about those, but it helped to have them. At any rate, it was time for bed.