By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 21

Chapter 3 Episode 21: Experiment

Two days later, Serge stayed in town for some unfinished business while I headed back to Gimul. I arrived late at night, so I went straight home. After I took care of my familiars, I just wanted to go to sleep, but something stopped me. I was in a room in the mine with a cleaner slime that I had taken from the store the other day, and its evolution was beginning sooner than expected. There was no way I could sleep through that. Each time the cleaner released and absorbed magical energy, its transparent body darkened bit by bit. I couldn’t wait to see it fully evolved.

Eventually, the magical energy settled down and the slime started to crawl around the room. Its body was pure black without the least bit of luster, like it was made of crushed charcoal condensed into a ball. But upon closer inspection, it had the same gelatinous consistency as any other slime. I used Monster Appraisal to check its species.

Deodorant Slime

Skills: Absorb Odor (8), Displace Odor (6), Deodorize (8), Resist Odor (5), Stench Release (2), Irritant Odor Release (2), Odor-Absorbing Solution (7), Odor-Displacing Solution (5), Deodorant Solution (4), Stench Solution (1), Irritant Odor Solution (1), Disease Resistance (5), Poison Resistance (5), Physical Attack Resistance (1), Cleanse (4), Cleanliness (4), Sanitation Work (1), Jump (3), Split (1)

I thought I would be getting a carbon slime or something, but this wasn’t bad. Its abilities seemed very specifically centered around smells. I wanted to test what it could do, but if it was going to involve a lot of odors, I decided that it would be best to take it outside.

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After some research, I discovered how a few of its skills worked. Absorb Odor made it suck up any smells in the air. Displace Odor sucked up the smell of any object it came in contact with. These two were similar, but the range of their effects differed. Deodorize eliminated odors entirely, and Resist Odor put a restraint on smells to prevent them from being transferred between objects. Stench Release worked the same as it did with scavengers, unleashing a terrible odor. Irritant Odor Release was the same except that the odor was now an irritant. It wasn’t toxic, but even a little whiff of it was enough to make my eyes water, so I had to be careful with that. If this skill leveled up enough, it might be effective as tear gas. All of the skills with ‘solution’ in the name just produced fluids with the same effects as the related skills. All of these fluids were as dark as the slime and highly sticky, so it might be more accurate to call them mud. Its other skills were shared with cleaner slimes and worked the same way. Lastly, it seemed to consume both charcoal and filth, and wasn’t picky about which. That might have been why it wasn’t specifically a carbon-based slime.

I collected its solutions to study more thoroughly, aside from the smelly ones. I also got some deodorant solution from a cleaner slime for comparison’s sake, then used chemicals and the Appraisal skill to check them out. The deodorant slime’s version of the fluid was a little different. Caulkin’s team and I had researched the cleaner’s deodorant solution and ultimately put it up for sale at the store. We sold a few varieties based on strength, with the weakest being Normal, the next strongest being Super, and the strongest being Hyper, which was the undiluted solution. They were all used by splashing or spreading them on a surface, but if you did that with the deodorant slime’s solution, it made the surface all black and grimy. It would be hard to use this on clothes, but unlike the cleaner slime’s version, this could be mixed with other solutions. I didn’t know why, but the cleaner slime’s deodorant solution became far less deodorizing when mixed with water or other fluids. That was why I had to ask the cleaner slimes to dilute the three different solutions we had on sale within their own bodies. Maybe the charcoal made the solution more stable, but appraising it didn’t give me an answer. It remained a mystery, but new possibilities showed themselves.

Next, I wanted to check the odor-absorbing and displacing solutions. The cleaner slime’s deodorant solution had another problem too. While it was extremely effective, I did get a complaint about it from a cat beastwoman who bought a ton. She said it helped to deodorize the garbage dump, but the next time garbage piled up, it was smelly again. It was also useful for eliminating the stench from shoes, but that odor built up again after wearing them for long enough. The cleaner slime solution could deodorize only what it touched and the area around it. It didn’t last that long either, so it could be difficult to use in large environments that frequently received new odorous material. The deodorant solution was big with beastkin who had a strong sense of smell, and if I could release a product that handled the stenches that this one failed to, it would mean even greater profit.

There was still the question of how long the odor-absorbing and displacing solutions lasted and how effective they were. I could check their effectiveness soon enough, but their duration would take some time to test. I also had to check if they would work in a regular home, rather than just the mine, but I had done enough testing for one day. I went to wash myself up, and by the time I was done, it was time to go to work.

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“So there you have it,” I said after reporting everything I’d done that morning.

“And that’s why you came to work without getting a minute of sleep?” Carme asked, appalled.

“I just couldn’t stop myself. So, would you mind if I perform this experiment at the store?”

“Does this bag contain that odor-absorbing solution? As long as it isn’t dangerous, I don’t see why not.”

“I want to see if the odor-absorbing solution will be effective in this state, and if it’ll last long enough in an environment where people are often up and about, so I’ll just need to leave it sitting out for a while. I’ve confirmed that it keeps the odors that it absorbs, but there seems to be a limit to how much it can contain. A scavenger slime’s stench can instantly push it to the limit.”

“And it stops working when that happens?”

“Yes. The scavenger slime stench may just be too powerful, so I’m going to try leaving this in a few places to collect data. It’s not poisonous, so it won’t be dangerous.”

“Then I have no reason to object. If all goes well, it could give us a new product to sell. I hope you find positive results.”

“Then I’ll be going for the day. I need to go around seeing who else will help with my experiment. Oh, I almost forgot. Here’s a souvenir. I heard in Keleban that these pastries have been popular there lately. I tried some, and they’ve got a nice, mildly sweet taste.”

“Thank you, I’m sure the women will love them.”

I asked Carme to hand out the pastries, then went to the florist next door.

“Hello, Pauline.”

“Oh, if it isn’t Ryoma. I haven’t seen you around lately. How have you been?”

“I was in Lenaf and Keleban for a while, but I’m fine, of course. I got a souvenir for you. They’re pastries and they won’t last too long, so eat them while they’re still fresh.”

“My, these look great. Thank you. The kids will be delighted. Are you here just to give me these?”

I asked her if I could test the odor-absorbing fluid here.

“Sounds good,” she said, giving me a second affirmative response. “I use your services all the time, so it’s the least I can do. This new product sounds like something to look forward to, too. If you just want to leave a little bag sitting out here, that’s fine by me.”

“Thank you. If there are any problems, please tell me. I can use that information to make an even better product in the end.”

“Well, if anything happens, I’m more than happy to complain,” Pauline said with a hearty laugh.

“Oh, there’s one more thing I wanted to ask about. Do you have any dante flowers?”

“We just got some this morning.”

Pauline headed over to the flowers, grabbed a container, and came back. It held a bouquet of a few dozen yellow flowers. Both the stems and flowers were big, and they had petals, but the color made them look like dandelions. I found the flowers I was looking for, but when I looked closer, it turned out that all the roots were cut off, and that was what I actually wanted.

“Where are the roots?” I asked.

“I cut them off and threw them out after we got the flowers. What, do you need the roots?”

“Yes, there’s a drink you can make by boiling dante roots, and it tastes similar to something from my homeland.”

“Sorry, but the roots from today’s flowers were already tossed out. It’ll be a while till the next shipment gets here. Wait, didn’t you make grass grow before? Meaning you can use wood magic?”

“I can, why do you ask?”

“How about doing the same with these dante seeds? If not that, it’ll be about a week before more flowers arrive at the store.”

“The seeds will be plenty. How much do they cost?”

“Fifty sute for a bag.”

Pauline showed me the inside of the bag. It contained dozens of seeds that resembled sunflower seeds. That may not have been enough to make coffee with, however.

“It might take more than one bag,” I said.

“These are just for people who want to grow them as a hobby, really, so they’re not sold in bulk. I think we’ve got thirty bags’ worth of those seeds in storage.”

“Well, I’d like to experiment with them first. Ten bags for now, please.”

“Gotcha, I’ll get those ready right away.”

If I had ten bags of seeds to grow, then even assuming some inevitable failures, I would still come out with a decent amount. I could try to mass-produce dante flowers after I knew for sure what I could do.

Pauline took five-hundred sute for the bags. “Thanks. If you’ll be using wood magic, make sure they don’t get magicified.”

“What does that mean?”

“When you make plants grow with wood magic, sometimes it does weird things to them. There’s a great scholar who has some more complicated name for this, but anyway, it can make the shape or color different than it’s supposed to be, make it poisonous, or even cause the plant to move on its own like it was a monster. The magical energy seems to cause it. Some plants are more prone to being magicified than others, but you’d need to ask an expert for the specifics.”

“Interesting, that’s the first I’ve heard of this.”

Pauline chuckled. “Well, you’d either need to have a bunch of people cast the spell, or to use a ton of magical energy for that to happen, apparently. It doesn’t happen too often, so I wouldn’t worry about it. Anyway, if these drinks you’re making turn out good, tell me about them. I’ll order more dante flowers and seeds as long as you keep buying them.”

“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Magification sounded like it could result in a number of different transformations, and I was a little curious as to what could be done with that. It would be worth experimenting with eventually, but for now, the dandelion coffee came first. I put the seeds away in my Item Box and left the florist.

Next, I went to the butcher and asked them to let me test the odor-absorbing solution, then received some blood from them as well. After that, I went to Miya’s house, then Leipin’s, and everyone else who might conceivably welcome my experiment.