By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 2

Chapter 3 Episode 2: Emergency

When I woke up and went outside the next day, it was still a bit dark. Maybe it was because I went to bed early. There would be no point in heading to town at this hour, so I decided to set up a kitchen and a storage room in the mine, as well as organize my Item Box.

Almost all my herbs were now stored in the medicine room, but I still had unsold furs in the Item Box. I dug through piles of fur and found tea to put in the kitchen. Another six furs later, I noticed some money. It took me a second to remember that I got it from the thieves. Then there were some weapons and armor, including a spear I’d forgotten I got from a thief named Melzen. I wanted to test that out at some point. Then there was even more fur. This was entirely my fault for holding on to all of it. I could have at least fed it to my slimes and gotten some use out of it.

After organizing for a while longer, I found something strange. It was a goblet made of silver, but all of my kitchenware was either made of stone using earth magic, or carved out of wood. Not only that, but it was adorned with gold and jewels. I didn’t know what this extravagant cup was doing in my Item Box. I was fairly certain it didn’t come from the thieves. I checked my items before I left the forest, and there was nothing so opulent. But I did remember seeing it somewhere before. I appraised the goblet.

Divine Item: Tekun’s Goblet

A divine item created by the God of Wine, containing the same power as its creator. If offered enough magical energy, it can generate an endless supply of wine.

Owner: Ryoma Takebayashi

I thought it was nuts that I had a divine item, but then I remembered that he gave it to me when I met him. I was so frantic at the time that I just shoved it in my Item Box. I needed to get this back to Tekun. I put the goblet back in my Item Box, sent the slimes to my Dimension Home, and hurried to the church in town at full speed.

■ ■ ■

I arrived in town and headed straight to the church. When I got there, the door was conveniently open.

“Oh, are you here to pray?”

“Yes, may I?”

“Go ahead. But hardly anyone comes to church this early in the morning.”

“I’ve been busy lately. This is the only time I have available.”

“Is that so?”

I was led into the chapel. I already knew the way there, so I wished I could have just run as quickly as possible. But I needed to keep up appearances, so I thanked the girl who guided me, then sat in a chair in the chapel and prayed for Tekun to take me to the Divine Realm. Seconds later, my vision went white. As soon as the light faded, I looked around and saw Tekun. I sighed with relief.

“Ryoma, you called? Dunno how you did that, though. I heard your voice pretty clearly, but why?”

“I prayed at church.”

“Look, if it were that easy to summon a god, we’d visit a million people a day.”

“I guess. Anyway, I need to tell you something.”

“What, did something happen?”

I took Tekun’s goblet out of my Item Box. When he saw it, he opened his eyes wide, staring at the Item Box portal, then the goblet, then back at the portal again.

“Last time we met, you left this with me and ran off, remember?”

“Right, right.”

“At the time, I was looking through my Item Box for something to eat with the wine, but then I got sent back to the church. When I rushed to clean up, I accidentally put the goblet in there. I noticed it when I was organizing my Item Box this morning. Sorry about that. You can take it.”

“All right, great, but you were able to take it with you?”

“It was in the Item Box, but I was able to take it back out in the other world, yes.”

“You could take it out? Hey now, magic is—Well, magic takes spirit and magical energy. Guess there’s no reason you couldn’t use it,” Tekun said and scratched his head. “Show me that for a second.” He pointed to the goblet. When I handed it over, he looked it over and rubbed it a few times.

“Ryoma, you can keep this if you want. Humans call these things divine items and worship them, but we can make infinite copies of this junk. Besides, looks like you’re its owner now anyway.”

“What do you mean? That reminds me, it did say I was the owner when I appraised it.”

“Might be because I left while it was in your possession, so it was like I made it an offering to you. It’s entirely yours now. Whatever, drink up,” Tekun said and pulled a bottle of wine out of nowhere, filled up the goblet, and handed it back to me.

“Are you sure you don’t want to think about it more? Also, it’s too early to drink.”

“Don’t worry about it, you’re just a soul right now. Your body won’t get drunk. Anyway, if you want to chat, first you’ve gotta drink. And as far as the goblet goes, I just told you that I could make as many as I wanted. No skin off my back. Besides, we’ve offered divine items to humans in the past. Travelers from other worlds wish for all sorts of things, but most of the time, it’s divine items. Never been a problem giving this stuff to humans. Anyway, the wine’s more important right now.”

“This hardly seems like something you should just be handing out.”

“Well, it’d probably cause a ruckus if people found out you had it, so hide it somewhere. You can use it when you’re drinking by yourself.”

“All right, then. Anyway, I’m glad to hear that it’s fine. I didn’t take it on purpose, but I still felt bad.”

I drank the wine from the goblet. It was good, but I felt like the alcohol wasn’t as strong as what I got last time. Maybe Tekun was looking out for me.

“Gahaha, there are things that’d cause some trouble if you took them from the Divine Realm, but those are strictly regulated. You should never even get the chance to see those. Don’t worry about it. I mean, this is just a goblet that generates wine. Doesn’t make you strong enough to cut through the wall of a fortress like it was paper, the way some divine items do. If anything, what I’m most curious about is how you were able to take a divine item with you in the first place, but it’s not a big deal.”

“Are you sure? Am I not supposed to do that?”

“Of course you’re not! You can’t just take things from the Divine Realm that easily. It’s crazy that you’re even able to come here.”

“I’ve been here so many times that I forgot about it.”

“Must have something to do with how Gain and friends summoned you to this world.”

“That’s what it sounds like. Will this cause any issues, though?”

“No clue, I’m just the God of Wine and Craftsmen. If you want answers to questions like that, maybe Fernobelia would know.”

“Who’s Fernobelia?”

“Oh, you don’t know? He’s the God of Magic. Spends most of his time in his own territory doing who knows what, but he knows the most about magic and all that crap. But even I barely ever run into him, and I’m a god, so who knows if you’ll ever meet him.”

“I see. I was told that this shouldn’t have any negative effects, so I’m not too concerned about it, but I’d still like to learn how I’m able to do these things, if possible.”

“Weird stuff’s happening with you, so I see why you’d feel that way,” Tekun said, then the surrounding area began to shine. This seemed to be starting sooner than usual. I gulped down the rest of the wine and put the goblet in my Item Box.

“Neat, so this is what it’s like when you go back?”

“Oh right, you weren’t there when I returned last time. Did you ever find Gain and the others?”

“Yeah, caught them right when they got back. Turns out they really did go to your world. I made them agree to take me along to drink Earth booze next time!” Tekun said and guffawed.

“I see. Well, don’t drink too much. Actually, I guess the God of Wine probably can’t drink too much.”

“You got that right! I’m gonna drown myself in the stuff!”

“Speaking of which, what would happen to the Earth drinks when you get back? Would it disappear?”

“Nah, regardless of the world we’re in, we can create copies of their food and drinks using divine power. That’s what your goblet’s for; it can create wine from magical energy. You can drink all you want and don’t have to take any wine from anyone.”

“I see. Then there’s no reason for me not to use it.”

“You got it,” Tekun said with a grin. “Enjoy your wine!”

I was about to respond to Tekun, but my vision went white again, and the next thing I saw was the chapel.

“Couldn’t say it in time. Maybe if I pray now, he’ll hear it. Thanks, I’ll enjoy the wine. Have fun on your trip,” I said in prayer, then gave a donation to the church and left. Now it was time to go to my store. I was a bit late today. The store had already opened.

■ ■ ■

I was walking to the store when I heard several people laughing nearby. It sounded like they were having fun, and the voices were coming from my store. For some reason, the people outside my store were laughing loudly. I peered inside and saw that Lilyn had knocked out two men.

“Good morning, Lilyn.”

“Oh, Boss. Good morning. I just need to tie these people up. Wait a moment.”

Lilyn swiftly tied up the two men. In the meantime, I asked Carme to explain the situation.

“Did something happen?”

“It’s been a while since last time, but we got more hoodlums.”

“Oh, then what were those customers laughing about? I’d understand screams, but why laughs?”

“You see, the hoodlums complained about our services and tried to harm our reputation by deliberately getting their clothes dirty with stains that would normally be hard to remove. But the cleaner slimes had no trouble with it, and when the hoodlums unfolded the clothes to try and prove they were still filthy, they were perfectly clean. One customer began to laugh, then another, and then another until the whole crowd was laughing. The hoodlums were about to get violent after that, but Lilyn was quick to capture them, and that’s when you came in,” Carme explained, during which time a guard happened to pass by the store. A customer told him about the situation, so he took the hoodlums away for obstructing a business.

“I don’t know if I should consider myself lucky or not,” I said. I called Carla and Fay over from the back of the store to talk to them too, but for now, everything was under control. We decided to wait until the guards finished investigating, then went about our jobs. That’s when I remembered the antidote I made yesterday.

“So I made this antidote. Keep it around the store in case of some sort of emergency.”

“Understood,” Carla said. She and Fay walked off with several bottles of the medicine. Now I wondered what I should do. Maybe I could do something to improve the store’s security. Now that I thought about it, the store’s windows weren’t especially sturdy. I could probably do something about that.

■ ■ ■

To test my idea, I went back to the mine and set up three magic circles. I asked my sticky slimes to spit up hardening fluid in a box I had set up. One of the magic circles extracted the water from the fluid, leaving room to add more of the hardening fluid. Next, I combined them with a mixing magic circle, then separated the fluid to extract the water again. I did this repeatedly, thickening the hardening fluid.

When I was still in the forest, I used alchemy to see what would happen if a sticky slime’s fluid was condensed. The results made the fluid harden much more than normal. It would normally crack under a little pressure, but I could only break this condensed version by using enhancement magic.

I drew an alchemy circle with two squares in it, one turned forty-five degrees compared to the other. This was a transformation circle. I also had a baseball-sized orb of condensed hardening fluid that not even my full strength could break. All I needed to do was transform this into a flat board to be used as a window. I didn’t know why I never thought of it before.

The hardening fluid was highly transparent. Not entirely, but it was a faint enough yellow that you wouldn’t notice it without being told. It would be plenty usable as a window. At the very least, it would be sturdier than the wooden windows that were standard in this country, and they could let light in while keeping cold wind out.

Glass did exist, and the blown glass used for bottles could be made by ordinary craftsmen, so it was cheap and commonplace. Sheets of glass that would work for windows, however, could only be produced with magic, so it was expensive. You could make sheets of glass out of blown glass, but due to quality standards, only highly experienced craftsmen could make them for sale, and few were produced.

According to my construction knowledge, a sheet of glass would cost one medium gold coin at the cheapest, so I had wooden windows installed when I made the store. But if I could make sheets out of this condensed hardening fluid, it would work as a replacement. In addition, this seemed hard enough to be good for security purposes, and it was resistant to fire and heat as well.

As an aside, condensed adhesive fluid does harden too, but it becomes brittle. It also becomes murky and opaque, as well as highly flammable. Ordinary, dried adhesive fluid is somewhat harder to burn than cloth, but once condensed, it burns brightly. I was surprised to find that it had the opposite properties of hardening fluid. The condensed hardening fluid was too hard, while the condensed adhesive fluid was too brittle, and since I had fire magic, I didn’t need it as fuel, either.

I didn’t think they were worth anything, but somehow, I found some uses for one of them. Earth magic and barriers were enough to endure the cold, so this never occurred to me. I continued to work until night, by which time I had created fifty sheets of condensed hardening fluid.