By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 23

Chapter 3 Episode 23: In Town

When I went to the store the next morning, Carme told me that I had a visitor. It was Miya, and she wanted to tell me about the experiment. I headed to the reception room to speak with her.

“Ryoma! There you are!” Miya cried as I arrived.

“Good morning, Miya. I’m sorry about the wait.”

“Sorry I just showed up with no prior notice. I’d really love more of that odor-absorbing solution, though.”

“Did the solution I gave you wear off already?”

Miya told me more about it, It sounded like it lasted from when I gave it to her in the afternoon two days ago up until last night, approximately one day.

“But it was working yesterday morning?” I asked.

“Definitely, this stuff’s purrfect. It totally got rid of the stench at the dump. The air was so refreshing that I even took deep breaths. All the neighbors who came to throw out their trash were looking at me funny.”

“Uh-huh.” I could imagine why.

“But when they got closer to the dump and noticed there was no stench, they got what I was doing. And since they didn’t smell garbage then, the solution had to be working in the morning.”

“I see. It’s only effective for a day, though? I knew it wouldn’t last long.”

“Meow? You did?”

“To an extent, yes.”

In my experiments immediately after I got the deodorant slime, I learned that the effects of its solutions were limited. One example could be seen by appraising the bag of odor-absorbing solution.

Odor-Absorbing Solution Bag

A bag full of odor-absorbing solution from a deodorant slime. The solution has taken in as much odor as possible, so it’s no longer effective.

The amount that this fluid could absorb was relatively small. While it lasted longer than a cleaner slime’s deodorant solution, I only expected it to work for maybe a week at the longest.

“I experimented with a scavenger slime’s powerful stench, though, so I didn’t know how long it might last in other circumstances. That was why I wanted you to help me collect data,” I said.

“I see. So you don’t have anything that’ll last longer.”

“Do you want to test this odor-displacing solution?”

In an experiment where a placed the same amount of solution in the scavenger slime’s stench, the odor-displacing solution lasted close to an hour while the odor-absorbing solution only lasted a few minutes. But at the same time, the odor-displacing solution wasn’t as effective at taking in odors from the surrounding air. It persisted for longer, but had a lower range of effect. That was what defined this solution.

“Sure thing,” Miya said. “Should I put it in the same place as the last one?”

“Please do.”

“You can count on me. I personally hope you finish making this stuff soon, so I’ll help however I can!”

Miya took a bag of odor-displacing solution and went home. I was actually already starting to imagine what this product would look like in its finished form. The answer was right in front of me. I looked to that answer, the deodorant slime, and it quivered. I don’t need to explain everything about the deodorant slime again, but it was capable of mixing its solutions together inside its own body, and they had the same effects as the solutions it could spit up. The solutions that it did spit up also different from that of the cleaner slimes in that they could be combined and diluted without diminishing the effects. In that case, I wondered what would happen if I mixed them together. The odor-absorbing solution was highly effective at gathering odorous materials from the surrounding air. The odor-displacing solution could accumulate tons of odorous material, as well as take it from other objects. If I combined these two solutions, it seemed like they could cancel out each other’s weaknesses. Maybe I could also use these for some other materials. My one deodorant slime wasn’t enough to turn this idea into a product for now, though, so that would be a while off.

The deodorant slime started trying to consume the used bag of odor-absorbing solution from off the desk. It seemed like it wanted to eat the absorbed stench. Maybe this solution was meant to act as a trap for capturing deodorant slime food. I passed the time thinking about the deodorant slime.

■ ■ ■

After I finished work and had lunch, I went around town visiting everyone helping with my experiment to ask how it was going. The solution was still effective for everyone except Miya. Her house was in a uniquely bad location, so that must have been it. Even the solution at the butcher was still working, so Miya’s house had to absolutely reek. Not to be rude or anything. Anyway, as I was thinking about that, I got to my destination.

As soon as I entered the store, someone to my right called out to welcome me. I turned and saw a young man sitting at a counter, resting his head on his arm. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic.

“Wait, are you the kid from Bamboo Forest?” he asked.

“Yes, my name is Ryoma Takebayashi. You know about my store?”

“Nice to meet you, Ryoma. I’m Dancebell, and as you can see, I work at this bookstore. Only because my dad’s making me, though. And we’ve been using your store lately, actually. If there’s a particular book you want, I can try to find it for you.”

The surprisingly talkative man looked to the cramped shelves further back in the dark store. They were packed with books. This didn’t look like an easy place to find a specific book.

“Please do, if you don’t mind,” I said. “I don’t have any one book in mind, but I’m looking for anything about medicine that I can find.”

Whether I wanted to make medicine or poison, I needed the knowledge and the skills first. I did already have knowledge of the study of medicine itself, but that was given to me. Taking this chance to learn starting from the basics didn’t sound like a bad idea, but I didn’t have the time to become somebody’s disciple. If not that, I at least wanted reference material to work from.

“Then come with me, please,” the man said and led me to the shelf in the corner opposite the counter. “This shelf has books about medicine, but I’m not sure you’ll be able to read them. They’re pretty complicated.”

“My grandmother taught me what I needed to know, so I’ll probably be fine. But I wanted to make sure I knew the basics.”

“Well, in that case, these will probably be a safe choice,” he said and took out three books. Two of them were dense encyclopedias about medicinal and poisonous herbs. The third contained basic lessons for mixing your own medicine. Their covers all stated that they were edited by the medical guild, so they seemed trustworthy.

“How much for all three?”

“What, you want them all?”

“It depends on how much they cost, but yes, ideally. Is that a problem?”

The man shook his head. “Now that I think about it, your store seems pretty profitable. If you’ll buy them, we’ll sell them. Books aren’t cheap, so not a lot of people purchase them casually.”

“They’re that expensive?”

“Well, if you want paper that’ll last, it costs about ten sute a sheet at the cheapest. And books can be hundreds of pages. That alone can make them a few thousand sute, to say nothing of the cost of ink and the author’s cut of the money.” In total, these books cost fifteen-thousand sute. That was no problem for me, but it was certainly a high price. For most people, this was by no means light spending. “How about these too?” the man asked, suggesting other books assuming I had the money. These weren’t overseen by the guild, so they were probably self-published by individuals.

“I’ll just take these three.”

“Yeah? Oh well,” he said, not bothering to push too hard. He swiftly took my cash and gave me the books. “Come back if you ever need more books. If you want one that’s not selling, we can give you a special deal. Feel free to stop by any time.” The man sluggishly returned to the counter and saw me off as I left the store. He didn’t seem like a bad guy. If I was satisfied by these books, maybe I would use this store again.

Suddenly, a smelly gust of wind blew past me. I turned to see where it came from and saw some children dragging a cart full of garbage. Not only that, but there was a familiar face among them.

“Hello, aren’t you Wist?” I asked.

“Oh, you’re Ryoma, right?” the large boy leading the kids said. He seemed to remember me.

“Hey, what are you stopping for?! Ryoma?” another boy asked, coming up from behind the cart. He was small for his age.

“Sorry!” Wist apologized.

“I’m sorry I got in the way,” I said. Wist was an ape beastkin, while the smaller boy, Beck, was a monkey beastkin. I met them during the monster-slaying job at the mine. “I shouldn’t have stopped you.”

“Not like I’m mad, really,” Beck said. “Not mad at you or at Wist. He gets tripped up too easy, though.”

“I see. Same as ever, then.”

“So what do you want? I’ll listen if you don’t mind walking along with us.”

“I just happened to see you and wanted to say hello. Are you working?”

“We’re supervising them,” he said. It did seem like all these kids were pretty young aside from Wist.

“Is this the city’s garbage?”

“Right. They’re collecting trash from around the city and taking it to the processing plant in the slums. The slum kids do this job most of the time.”

“Huh, what happens to the garbage?”

“Either adults burn it at the processing plant, or it’s taken outside the city and buried. We did this job too before we became adventurers, but burning the trash or taking it outside town was a job for the adults, so I don’t know much about that.” The kids probably weren’t allowed to for fear of monsters. “Even in town, you have to watch out for carriages and stuff. The adults do it early in the morning or late at night. It’s easier to transport these things in the middle of the day, but these kids aren’t old enough to do that yet, so we oversee them when we have the time. And Ruth and other folks take them to other places.”

“So you’re not doing this for a job? You chose to do it yourselves?”

“Back when we were doing this job, some older slum kids who became adventurers looked after us too. Seems pretty normal to me.”

“I don’t know whether it’s normal, but it’s a great thing that you’re doing.”

They may not have even had anything to gain from this, but they were paying back the kindness they received by doing the same for the younger children. They lived like a unified collective that all supported each other. While they were financially poor, maybe they were spiritually rich.

“What’s so great about it? What’s with the warm look?”

“Nothing, I just think it’s great.”

“You’re kind of weirding me out.”

“Sorry. I’ll be going, then.”

A lot happened when we first met, but I was sure they would turn out fine. They looked healthier than before, and not as tense. I prayed that they would continue to improve, then decided to go home by myself.