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By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 1




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Chapter 3 Episode 1: The Melancholy of Separation

After I saw the duke’s family off, I decided to do some training and ran back home. On the way to the abandoned mine, I spotted tons of adventurers and assumed they were after the grell frogs. As long as I was nearby, I figured I could go catch a few too. I took my waders out of my Item Box and changed my destination to the swamp.

The swamp was once again packed with adventurers. There were at least a hundred of them from what I could see. Some went to other swamps, so this wasn’t even everyone. Some of them were also wearing jumpsuits or waders. They must have been selling nicely.

I noticed a group of five who were all wearing jumpsuits and waders. Not only that, but I recognized them. It was Sikum’s Pier, the group that sold me the bloody slime. I went over to greet them, but it looked like something had happened. Kai was a bit disgruntled, and the others were patting him on the back, trying to cheer him up.

“Hello.”

“Hm? You’re that Ryoma kid, right? Thanks for the help the other day.”

“No problem, I got a nice slime out of it,” I said. The man who was drunk last time walked up to me.

“You that guy who bought the slime?”

“Yes, indeed I am.”

“Yeah? Sorry about before. I’m Thane. Apparently I went at you when I was drunk, but I was too drunk to remember. Thanks for buying the slime, though. And what’s more, you tipped us off to how we could make a profit here,” he said. Thane was behaving nothing like last time. He acted like an average drunk before, but now he seemed to have his act together.

“It was nothing. Anyway, did something happen? It looks like something’s bugging Kai.”

“Nothing I’d consider a problem, but there was a little something. Before that, though, let me introduce these guys,” Kai said and looked to the two men who dragged Thane away before. First, he put his hand on the shoulder of the slightly short one. “This is Kei, my little brother.”

“I’m Kei. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“And this is—”

“Peyron. Nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Peyron.”

“The five of us make up a party called Sikum’s Pier. You know about it?”

“Yes.”

“Actually, we used to be fishermen,” he said, but I had no idea why he brought that up.

“Sorry, Kai’s bad at explaining things,” Shin said, taking over for Kai. “I’ll tell you the rest.”

From what he told me, Sikum was a village by the biggest lake in the country. They were born there and raised as fishermen, so they were used to handling nets. While it was somewhat different wading through mud than through water, they were quicker than the other adventurers and able to catch many grell frogs. They made a killing on this over the last few days, and they had already captured over twenty frogs today alone, but when they took their eyes off their basket of frogs for a moment, someone swapped it with their own basket. These baskets were lent out by the guild, and many of the adventurers had identical ones, so there was no telling who committed the crime.

“I see. So someone stole your catches?”

“I guess, maybe.”

His response was oddly ambiguous. While I was wondering about that, Kei showed me their basket.

“As far as the number of frogs go, this basket actually has more than ours did,” he said. This basket had a few more than twenty grell frogs, but they all looked weak. A couple of them in particular were injured and hardly breathing.

“Some idiot was catching their frogs wrong. They won’t be worth as much like this, and they’ll be even more worthless if they die. If we try to take them back to town like this, they’ll all die on the way there.”

“So they swapped with our healthy frogs.”

“We could just catch some more, but it still sucks. That’s all.”

“Do you know how much you’d make selling these?” I asked.

“Two hundred sute if they’re alive but weak when we get to the guild. Fifty if they’re dead. Probably something in between if they’re on the verge of death. After getting screwed over with that slime, we made sure to look all this up in advance.”

“And if they’re in good condition, you’d get a thousand sute per frog?”

“Right, what about it?”

“Will you sell me these grell frogs for three hundred sute each?” I requested.

“Yeah, I can do that, but are you sure about this?” Shin asked and cocked his head.

“It’s more than we’d get selling them to the guild, so no reason to say no.”

“He’ll be taking a hit, though.”

“If I were planning to sell them to the guild, maybe, but I’m taking them for personal use.”


“Like what? Can you make medicine?”

“Yes. I can use them to make antidotes and the like, so I figured I would come get some frogs to stock up on medicine.”

“Yeah? Well, if you’ll pay more than the guild, we appreciate it.”

“We can just catch some more for the guild. Go ahead and buy all of these.”

“Thank you.”

I bought twenty-five grell frogs from Sikum’s Pier for five hundred sute.

“You’re something else.”

“I wondered about this when you bought that slime for a small gold coin. You’ve got a lot of money to shell out.”

“Considering all the business his store gets, it’s no wonder.”

“You’ve been to my store?”

“Yeah, we were just planning to try it out at first, but it was so cheap, quick, and great for our clothes, so we’ve been frequenting the place a ton.”

“Especially in the last few days, just to clean this sludge off.”

“I was surprised to see how useful those slimes could be. At least they’re good for something.”

“It’ll be tough not having that laundromat around when we go back home, though. Could you open a branch in our town? I could talk the fishing guild into giving you a good location.”

“We discuss opening new branches sometimes, but it’s too early for that.”

“I guess you can’t just open new stores on a whim. But if you do want a branch in Sikum, get in contact with us. We could at least help you find a location.”

“We don’t typically leave the village, unless it’s to visit a village nearby. Should be easy enough to get in contact with us.”

“If we use our connections in the fishing guild, maybe we could get you a better place than the merchant’s guild could.”

“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind.”

We came to a nice mutual agreement, thankfully. I parted ways with them to finally go to the mine.

■ ■ ■

I arrived at the mine. The first order of business was to let my slimes and limour birds outside and let them play around. With that done, I dug a hole in the side of a random tunnel to set up some living space, as well as a medicine mixing room. My shelves and furniture were made of stone, but that was good enough for now.

I called my bloody slime and cleaners over to process the grell frogs. The weak ones had to be taken care of quickly, and I still had grell frogs from a couple days ago sitting in water tanks in my Dimension Home. They were healthy when I caught them, so they could survive for at least a week. The average medicine man would take advantage of that time to process the frogs as cautiously as possible, but thanks to my slimes, I didn’t need to take it slow.

First, I drew a separation magic circle off to the side of the room, then set up as many stone containers as I would need for all the parts I was cutting the frogs into. I took the grell frogs out of my Dimension Home and left them in a stone cage in the corner of the room, concluding my preparations. I decided to start with the frogs I bought that day.

When I picked up a random frog, it struggled in my hands. I held onto it firmly so it wouldn’t get away, then killed it with a knife. I sent the bloody slime into the gash and let it absorb all the blood. Next, I needed to cut the frog into pieces. Following the knowledge from my Medicine skill, I divided it into the necessary parts. Not a single drop of blood oozed out as I did. The bloody slime seemed to do a perfect job. After that, I washed all the parts with water to get rid of the frog mucus, as well as any filth that got on while I cut them apart. The mucus lowered the quality of these parts, but it was extremely difficult to remove. Not only that but handling the parts too roughly could damage the organs, also reducing their quality. That was why you had to be cautious. It was a job that demanded a lot of attention. If I were taking the normal approach, that is.

When I gave my cleaner slimes their orders, they consumed the frog parts and the entirety of the containers that held them, then began to remove the mucus. The work was done in a matter of seconds. I checked the parts, but despite how fast they went about it, no damage was done.

There was one last job to do. The processed components needed to be dried. This would normally involve the use of wind and fire magic, but the time it took and the heat of the fire reduced the effectiveness of the medicine in the process. In my case, though, I could use alchemy to separate the moisture from the actual material. This method wouldn’t affect their composition, and it was quick enough that it wouldn’t do any physical damage. I appraised each part of the grell frogs, and it said that they were all processed perfectly. Naturally, I produced the best possible products. My slimes were helpful here as well.

I silently processed the grell frogs for a while until all those frogs I caught before and six of the frogs I bought today were made into perfect products. That left nineteen frogs from today’s purchase, but they had been violently caught, wounding their internal organs and causing bleeding that inevitably lowered the quality. Even so, I handled them swiftly enough that they were of a high enough quality to be usable. I fed the leftover skin and flesh to my limour birds. From what I heard, they enjoyed eating everything from meat and fish to fruit, vegetables, and grains. Limour birds were omnivores, but it seemed like meat made up the core of their diet. I decided to ask the Tamer’s Guild about it later.

■ ■ ■

I kept working until it grew dark outside. Just to be safe, I had all my slimes and limour birds gather in the mine. The slimes had grown fairly strong, but it was still dangerous at night. I blocked the entrance with stone and only left gaps for air to flow through.

This was my first night alone for some time. I thought back to when I first came to this world. I read that letter from the gods, found a cliff where I made my house and learned earth magic to create a cave. At first, the best I could manage was using Break Rock to slowly dig my way through, but when I managed to make a hole big enough to fit in, I cast Rock to create a stone wall at the entrance and block myself in. It was a simple home. Over time, I fixed it up and got used to the forest, then began to train and hunt at night.

I didn’t feel motivated to do any of that at the moment, but as long as I had the materials available, I decided to make medicine. I entered the medicine room, took some herbs I saved from the Forest of Gana out of my Item Box, and placed them all on the shelf. I wanted to make a wooden shelf for those at some point. In any case, now I had all the ingredients I needed to make antidotes. They required a grell frog liver, a poisonous plant called kasuri, a kunashi fruit to weaken the poison and make it usable as medicine, a joshu flower to make it somewhat healthier, and five types of uful grass that acted as a diuretic.

I started by using earth magic to make a pot and a spatula to stir with, then I made a mortar and pestle as well. I could buy less crude versions of these tools later. I managed to get by with magic so far, but it would be better to have proper tools on hand. I used water magic to fill the pot, inserted the diced up kasuri and kunashi, and used the Squall spell to rapidly heat the water as I stirred. Some of the ingredients were sensitive to heat, but the medicinal components of the kasuri and kunashi were not. Once the pot began to simmer, the ingredients changed the color of the water to a poisonous purple. That was the signal to turn off the heat and wait for the concoction to cool down naturally. In the meantime, I carefully mashed up the grell frog livers.

I held my hand over the pot and found that it was an ideal temperature, so I tossed the mashed livers inside. I stirred some more, and when the liquid had cooled down, I added the joshu flowers and uful grass. I tore them into pieces of appropriate size before I added them, then slowly mixed them in as they sank to the bottom. Now I only had to wait until their medicinal properties seeped out.

Wondering what to do until then, I left the medicine room and spotted my limour birds. I took my guitar out of my Item Box and played a couple renowned anime end credits songs. I could happen to see the moon through the ventilation hole, so I picked songs about the moon.

When I was done, a cacophonous sound echoed throughout the cave. It came from the limour birds. They were singing like when I formed contracts with them, but all the echoing in the mine made it hard to tell. It was far too loud. I suffered unexpected damage, but the limour birds seemed to be fine, making me wonder what kind of ears they had. The slimes had no sense of hearing, so I wasn’t worried about them.

The limour birds quieted down after that. I listened to them sing as I ate dinner, then returned to the medicine room. The medicinal components of joshu flowers and uful grass could be quickly extracted, so they were just about done. I appraised the liquid in the pot and found that the antidote was incomplete, but was expected to be of high quality. The antidote decomposed poison and increased metabolism to eliminate dangerous substances from the body. There were many kinds of poison with a wide variety of effects, but this was especially effective on paralysis-inducing poison. After usage, it was best to make sure to rehydrate.

It was all a success so far. Next, I took a big cloth out of my Item Box and had it cleaned by my cleaner slimes. This was one of the items I obtained after beating thieves in the forest, but it was perfect for sifting the dregs of the herbs from the medicine. The cloth did seem like it’d be worth a lot of money, but I wasn’t concerned about that. I placed the cloth on top of an empty pot and used strands from a sticky slime to set it in place, then I poured the fluid into the pot. The medicine flowed into the pot, while the cloth caught the dregs. Once all the medicine was inside, I took the cloth off and wrung every last drop of the fluid from the dregs. I stirred the medicine with the spatula and appraised it again. Now the spell said that it was finished, and of the highest quality.

It was a job well done, but I didn’t know what to do with the medicine now. If I wanted to preserve it, I would have been better off making pills. I didn’t have the ingredients necessary for that, however. When I thought about it further, I remembered that I had the Poison Resistance skill and wouldn’t be affected by most poisons, so I had little use for this antidote. I figured I should make some just in case, but I certainly didn’t need a pot full of it. This was enough to fill twenty bottles. I used earth magic to make a funnel, a ladle, and tons of bottles, then filled them with medicine one at a time. I put nineteen of them away in my Item Box and toyed around with the twentieth one as I left the medicine room and went to my living space.

I considered whether to sell the medicine to Serge or give it to Jeff, but I was so lost in thought that I accidentally dropped the bottle. The lid popped off and all the medicine flowed out. Something was distracting me. I didn’t know if it was because of the age regression Kufo mentioned or what, but I had trouble controlling my feelings. I shouldn’t have felt this way at this age. Well, technically I was eleven, but mentally I was over forty, and yet parting with the duke’s family made me so lonely. Back on Earth, my colleagues quit and left the company all the time. Work was so brutal that I passed out sometimes. I thought I was used to pain. This wasn’t bad enough to make me cry, but it was making me melancholic.

I thought about it for ten seconds, then decided to go to sleep. But before that, I wanted to clean up the spilled medicine. I looked at the bottle and noticed that the medicine was gone. A few slimes were hanging around the room, including cleaners, so maybe they cleaned it up on their own. That saved me the trouble, so I wasn’t bothered by it. I headed to the bedroom.



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