By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 13

Chapter 4 Episode 13: Jobs and Reputation

“Did you get it?”

“Of course!”

“Oh?”

The students seemed to be returning, so the whole campground got noisier. I looked out my window and saw a crowd gathered next to the carriages, presumably so the students’ food could be checked. We did talk about checking their food more closely, but since they all came back at once, it appeared to be taking a while. It was still a bit before my time in the schedule, but I decided to go out and get to work.

“Hello, everyone! I’ll help!”

“Thanks!”

“Help check on the food!”

“Got it! Next person in line, I can check your food over here!”

The next student in line walked up to me.

“Take a look, please.”

“Right, understood. You sure got a lot of food.”

I set the student’s bag on the luggage rack on the carriage and looked inside. This student seemed to know a fair bit about plants. He mostly took tree sprouts and edible wild grass. But there was one problem.

“Most of this is fine, but not these mushrooms.”

“What?!”

“They look like red parasol mushrooms, which are edible, but compare the underside of the cap to the real thing. I have an example right here.”

“Oh, it looks different.”

“Right. When the underside of the cap is the same clean shade of red, that’s a red parasol mushroom, which you can eat. When it’s a darker, almost brown color, that’s a crimson parasol mushroom, which is poisonous. First, this would give you a stomachache, then it would induce diarrhea, vomiting, and dizziness. You have to be careful.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Anyway, I’ll be taking this. But it looks like the rest of what you collected is perfectly edible, so I think you did well.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Next!”

“Yo.”

This next student also seemed to know which plants were edible and which weren’t, but he did a poor job picking those plants. His tree sprouts could be eaten, but he should only have picked the terminal bud, the part at the end of the stem. Picking the other buds next to it meant more food for him for now, but it would leave less food to collect next year.

The trees these buds came from were also weak and easily broken unless they were handled with care. His bag actually contained axillary buds with the branches still attached. Some rural villages, depending on their location, would sometimes expand into forests out of a need for food. When such places harvested food like this, it could lead to trouble down the line.

I explained these problems to the student and warned him for next time. The next student who approached me brought something other than plants.

“Excuse me, but can you teach me how to prepare this?”

“I think you should talk to him when it comes to animals.”

I told the student about an adventurer behind the carriage and had him go over there. I was only in charge of plants and fungus.

“First thing you need to do with animals is drain the blood. Got that?”

“Yes!”

“But make sure to do this in as safe a place as possible. The smell of blood could attract monsters. Don’t worry about it too much right now, but in general you should drain the blood away from the campsite.”

“What if that’s the only place I can do it?”

“Then dig a hole and bury the blood and any unnecessary parts of the animal. Better than nothing. If it wouldn’t weigh you down too much, I’d recommend buying some of this to bring with you. It’s Bamboo Forest’s deodorizing fluid.” I wasn’t expecting to hear one of my products being advertised out in the wild, but there it was.

“Deodorizing fluid?”

“Haven’t heard of it? There’s this store called Bamboo Forest that opened this year, where you can get laundry done for cheap. They sell it there. The stronger stuff can even wash the stench of goblin blood out of your armor, so it’s pretty handy. I hear there are some beastkin that can’t get enough of the stuff. You can only get it in Gimul or Lenaf right now, though.”

I had no idea it was even being used for camping, and I was the one selling the stuff.

“Next! Wait, huh?”

That was apparently the last person, because there was nobody left in line.

“Ryoma, are you done over there?”

“I think so, Mimir.”

“Then can you gather together all the inedible stuff you took? I’d like to dispose of it.”

“Got it. Actually, can I keep the poison mushrooms?”

“I was just going to throw them out, so I don’t mind, but what for? Oh, you feeding them to your slimes?”

“Right. They might be poisonous to humans, but they’re perfect for poison slimes.”

“Well, be my guest. Just don’t eat them by mistake.”

“Thank you!”

With her permission, I cleaned up after myself and collected the inedible goods from the other teachers as well. I also spoke with the man who taught about draining blood and got him to give me some. Then I returned to my shelter, placed the poisonous mushrooms in my Dimension Home, grabbed the bottles containing my bloody slimes, and returned to the animal dissection site. Animal carcasses were being dangled above wooden tubs to let the blood out.

“So we don’t really have to do anything, right?” the man asked.

“Right. I’ll put my slimes in the tubs, so just allow the blood to be drained like you normally would,” I explained, pouring three bloody slimes into each of the three big tubs. I had been slowly gaining more bloody slimes, but had yet to reach the double digits; I hoped that I could make them multiply faster. But once they were in the tubs, it was hard to tell them apart from the pool of blood.

“Ryoma!”

“Yes?! What could that be? I’m sorry, I’ll be back soon.”

Someone seemed to be calling for me, so I hurried to the other side of the carriages.

“Oh, there you are!”

“Sorry I kept you waiting.”

A female teacher and a young boy were there, waiting for me.

“Is something wrong?”

“The medicine I bought doesn’t work,” the boy said.

“I think he might’ve been duped into buying fake medicine, but I don’t know enough to say for sure. You said you know a lot about medicine, right?” the woman asked.

“I know a decent amount, but can you show me the medicine?”

If he’d bought the medicine at a regular store, there’s no reason it would be fake. Making fake medicine was legal in this country, but selling it was not. And if it would do harm to the user, that was an even more serious crime. That meant the cause was probably something else.

“Here you go. It was a little expensive, but the drug store said it works well, so I blew a lot of money on it.”

“Let me take a look.”

As the boy scratched himself through his clothes, he handed me a bottle. Taking a look inside, I had a good idea as to what happened.

“When did you first use this, and how many times did you use it?”

“I started using it this morning, but it didn’t work, so I put more on. About five times, I think.”

“I see. This medicine isn’t fake, it’s just gone bad.”

“It’s gone bad?”

“Did you leave the bottle out in the sun? This is definitely insect repellent made with somewhat expensive ingredients, but it doesn’t last in sunlight. You have to store it somewhere away from the sun for it to keep well. And if you have sensitive skin or use it too much, it can damage your skin, so that itching may not just be caused by bugs. Did they tell you any of this when you bought it?”

“No, they didn’t!”

Either they really didn’t explain how it worked, or he just wasn’t listening. I didn’t know, but the medicine was the real McCoy, at least.

“Thanks for explaining,” the woman said. “I can handle the rest here.”

“Thank you, please do.”

“Excuse me!” someone else cried.

“I’ll be right there!”

A lot of people had questions for me.

■ ■ ■

I didn’t expect to be needed much, based on my experience on the first day, but I was surprisingly busy. I spent an hour answering questions to the extent I was able and trying to offer some guidance. Winter was getting closer, so the sun was setting early lately. Most of the students seemed to have returned to camp, so the barrage of questions was dying down.

“Ryoma, have a moment?”

“What is it, Roche?”

“Some students aren’t back yet. The four kids who raised a ruckus on the first day, to be exact. You seen them?”

“Those four? I saw them in the woods a while ago. They were hunting for a monster for their job, but I haven’t seen them since then. I don’t think they’ve been here, at least.”

“Huh, guess I’ll take a look around there then. The woods, right?”

“That’s where I saw them, yes. But can I tell you something else?”

“Hm?”

“It sounded like the job they took was a trap. They were talking about how they couldn’t find a rock lizard in the woods, so they were going to search the plains instead. They might not be in the woods anymore.”

“Yeah? Then I can send someone there too. Wait, never mind. Looks like that won’t be necessary.”

Before I could ask why Roche had taken back what he said, his thick finger pointed to something behind me.

“I see.”

There I saw the four boys walking toward us. They looked a bit worn out, but not hurt. Either they were tired, or they were weighed down by their prey.

“You’re late!”

“Sorry!”

“Hunting took a while.”

“But we got a big haul!”

“Take a look at this!”

Each of the four boys presented their kills to Roche.

“Grass rats? Eight of them?”

“Yep.”

“Hunting’s our specialty.”

“Soon as we found their nest, it was simple!”

“Hey, stupid! Sorry.”

When they saw me, they got as docile as a cat staying at someone else’s house for some reason.

“Uh, did I do something?” I asked.

“You’re the boss of Bamboo Forest, aren’t you?” the most carefree of the boys said.

“Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Your store’s been good to people from the slums like us, so we’ve been told not to bug anyone associated with the place.”

“Told by who?”

“The adults from the slums. We’re poor, y’know. Even if we don’t do anything wrong, there are stores that don’t want us around. Not that they show it, but they act nasty to us. When that happens, we all find out real quick. Not like we want to cause trouble or anything either, but it’d suck if anything happened, so they tell the kids to stay away. And for stores that are nice to us like yours, they tell us not to bug you, like I said.” Their reputation was shared between all of them, apparently.

“We heard a while ago about how you’re a kid, and how you beat up bad adventurers and criminals and turned them over to the guards. But we never knew what you looked like. After what happened yesterday, we found out that you were that boss, which kinda freaked these guys out. They thought the adults would get mad at them, or that you’d beat them up yourself.”

“I wasn’t freaked out!”

“We just wanted to explain ourselves.”

“Yeah, that.”

The boy’s allies argued with him as he explained the situation. He was grinning.

“I understand now, but I wasn’t really bothered by what happened yesterday. And even if I didn’t like you that much, it’d be no reason to beat you up or anything. Unless you were here to kill me, that’d be another story.”

“See? That’s what I told them. If you were that bad, they’d tell the adults to stay away from you too. Oh, my name’s Gazelle, by the way. Nice to meet you!”

“It’s nice to meet you too.”

He seemed like a nice boy. I heard that these boys often fought with Beck’s party, but they didn’t come across as that malicious. They were kind of charming, if anything. I thought it was nice to see kids with that much energy, personally.

“Oh, right. We wanna dissect our kills. Is there somewhere we’re supposed to do that?”

“Behind that carriage over there.”

“Thanks! We’ll go take care of these, then. Let’s go, guys!”

Gazelle and his allies went behind the carriage.

“He sure was lively.”

“Right? Brightens up any party to have a member like that. Well, too much energy can be a liability, though. You were there yesterday when things went down, right? I talked to them, and they weren’t bad kids, but they’re just too rowdy. I’m sure that when you were young—” Roche said, then cut himself off.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, you’re still around ten or so, so what am I saying? Just doesn’t feel like I’m talking to a kid unless I’m looking right at you. You act like you’re a lot older.”

“I hear that a lot.” There was a middle-aged man inside of me, after all. Mentally, we were probably about the same age. “By the way, Roche, those kids said they’d heard about me before.”

“You’re the youngest teacher here; younger than some of the students. When you’re that young, and you’re out there building what’s almost a house to camp in, of course you’re going to stand out. Makes sense that they would’ve heard about you from somebody. Most of the students only just registered, but a lot of the teachers participated in the goblin-slaying job. You took down groups of unruly adventurers and goblins, and you own a store where you fight off robbers yourself... With all that you’ve done, even the newbies might’ve heard at least one story about you.”

“True, I’ve been pretty prolific. And word’s gotten around that I’m the person from those rumors?”

“Guess so. At least that means you’re being taken seriously, eh?”

“Maybe.” I didn’t quite know if it was good or bad, but they acknowledged I was pretty powerful, apparently.

In any case, now we knew that all the students were safe. Under the starry sky, the students’ bonfires flickered in the campsite as they cooked dinner or tried to keep warm in the chilly wind. I looked at their smiles as they sat around the fires and felt my mood lighten.

“Whoa!”

“What?!”

But then, there just had to be trouble. The silence of the campground was suddenly broken by a scream.