By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 16

Chapter 4 Episode 16: The Private Viewing and the Tea Break

“So this is what it looks like inside?”

“The ceiling’s covered in slimes. Are they catching bugs?”

“This little room here is a bathroom.”

“Seriously? Even a bathroom? That’s pretty complicated to set up.”

“What’s this tube?”

“That’s a water filter. You pour water through that to clean it.”

I was letting the students look at my base. Soon after my guard duty began on the second day, a boy asked if he could see it. I gave him permission to look inside, but then other students heard about that and started to gather around. There were still only six of them, but it wasn’t that big of a place, so we were pretty tightly packed together.

“Ryoma, you there?”

“Hm? Yeah, over here!” I said. I heard Gazelle’s voice outside and wondered what he needed.

“There you are. Look at this!”

When I peeked outside, he was showing me some prey with both hands. I was standing high above him, so he had to hold it straight up from below.

“Looks like you got a bird today. A pretty big one, too.”

“Yeah! Set the trap up yesterday.”

“Is that why you were late yesterday?”

“Pretty much. Anyway, the trap worked, so you can have this blood for your slimes. They eat blood, right?” he said. That was much appreciated. I was also amazed by his party’s hunting talent. “But this is all we’ve caught so far today, so let us keep the meat. I’d like to be more generous, but you know how it is.”

“The blood will be plenty. I’ll get ready to drain the blood right away. I don’t know if this is enough to repay you, but would you like to come drink tea with me inside sometime? I can make herbal tea with river water and some herbs that are lying about.”

“I’ll take what I can get. Also, can I have a look inside too?”

I knew he was a nice boy. And he was easy to understand too, which was great. “Of course. Oh, would the rest of you like tea too? I can make it with ingredients found in the area.”

“I’m good.”

“Same, I need to prepare for tonight.”

“Yeah, I’ll be heading out now.”

“Thanks for letting us see your place.”

“I’ll try and follow your example.”

“See ya!”

I saw the six of them off, then got the tea ready.

“Shake any bugs off you before you come in,” I told Gazelle. He followed my instructions, and as soon as he came inside, he stared at the walls. “Curious about something?”

“I was just thinking how these look like real nice walls. The walls at my house are old and full of holes, so they don’t even keep the wind out. This place is only temporary, but it’s put together way better than that.”

“I see.”

“I wish I could use earth magic too.”

“Are you bad with earth magic?”

“I can’t use magic at all. But seeing this makes me think I could fix up the walls at home if I did know magic.”

“Are they that old?” I asked.

As I handed him some tea, he smiled and nodded. “Ack, that’s hot... Yeah, but our house is one of the better ones. Adults come to take care of it, and they give us advice when we need it. If we could just get some repairs, it’d be fine. It looks dirty, but you can live in it. If you want to see a really awful house, you could look at the old lady’s place next door, y’know?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen it.” I heard the other day about buildings in the slums that were basically ruins, so maybe her house was like that.

“Well, I won’t have to put up with it for too much longer.”

“You won’t?”

“Yeah! That’s why I became an adventurer. I’m still a low rank right now, but I’m gonna get better and start raking in the dough one day. Then I won’t just repair the walls, I’ll get a whole new house built. A huge one where everyone can live comfortably.”

“That’s awesome.” He seemed to have a lot of ambition. “How big, exactly?”

“How big? Haven’t thought about it.”

That was kind of disappointing. “Well, you have time to think about it.”

“I’ve got it!”

“That was fast!” He probably should have taken more than a second to come to a decision, at the very least, but I listened to what he came up with anyway.

“Around the size of your store would be good.”

“Why?” I couldn’t understand why my store was coming up.

“I just remembered that your store’s got two floors. That’s why.”

“That’s it?!”

“I mean, if it’s got two floors, that means it’s pretty spacious.”

“True. That does give you more living space, I guess.”

“Right? And two-story buildings are pretty rare, so they stand out.”

Maybe that was true, but it would take a lot of time and money to build one, so that wasn’t going to be easy. I felt like he should have spent more time thinking about it, but he needed to actually save up the money first anyway. A vague goal was good enough for now. Rather than criticize him too much, I decided to offer my support.

“Right. So you said ‘our’ house, but is it just kids who live there?” I asked. He also mentioned that adults come to take care of it, which seemed to imply that adults weren’t a regular part of the household.

“Yeah, we’re not like the church or orphanage, but there are a bunch of houses in the slums full of kids without parents. They just sleep there at night, then go to work in the morning.”

“Do you have rules for living together?”

“The older kids are supposed to look after the younger ones, I guess. The adults in the neighborhood also help us out and teach us stuff. The old ex-adventurers taught us to hunt too. Oh, it’s around the time of year that we need to gather firewood from outside town. We do it to make it through the winter, but going out to pick up branches when you’ve got free time is another rule. That kind of stuff. We don’t have money, but we manage to survive together somehow. So we’re all like siblings to each other, and the other three guys that are attending with me are from my house.”

“Huh.”

Children without parents got by on their own labor and assistance from those around them, which presumably gave them a stronger sense of camaraderie than average. Around when I heard this new detail about the slums, his cup seemed to be empty.

“Thanks, that was good.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“Well, time for me to go. Still haven’t hunted down the creature we need to find for our job.”

“Oh, uh, yeah.”

“Huh? Oh, I get it. Teachers can’t tell us how to complete our jobs. I’m putting you in a tough spot by bringing it up, I’ll bet.”

“Well, kind of.”

“Then I’ll just have to find it on my own. See you later!”

Beck left my base with a hearty shout, unaware that his target didn’t live anywhere around here. As for me, I decided to return to the standby area for guard duty.