Chapter 5 Episode 13: The Second Day’s Conversation
After dinner I went to the same parlor as last night, where again Reinhart, Elise, Serge, and Pioro had gathered.
“Sorry I took so long.”
“It’s understandable; you were feeding your slimes.”
“You have so many slimes of so many types that it must be difficult.”
“Speaking of which, how many types do you have now?”
“Nineteen, with about four waiting to evolve.”
“I hear you have tens of thousands in total. It must be hard to take care of them all.”
“I feed all those of a given type at the same time, so it’s actually not that bad. Reinhart, thank you for the slime food. It helped a lot.”
“Honestly, many of our departments are grateful that you took their garbage off their hands. Feel free to ask for more whenever you’re staying here.”
I answered everyone’s questions as I sat next to Elise.
“Now that Ryoma’s here, let’s continue from where we left off yesterday. Well, normally I would say as much, but first, there are two things I want to ask. We got some messages, you see.”
I wondered if there was some sort of problem. Reinhart suddenly went somber, and Elise handed us some documents. I flipped through them and saw portraits, criminal charges, and reward listings.
“Wanted posters, and...”
“Half of this is information about damage known to have been done by bandits in our territory. I happened to get a report about it during work today. You three travel between towns a lot, so I thought you might like to know.”
“Much appreciated.”
Information on the safety of roads could mean life or death for a merchant. Serge and Pioro thanked them as well and read through the documents with zeal. But I was more curious about the wanted posters.
“Now that I take a closer look, the reward money differs a lot by person.”
The pay could be anywhere from ten small gold coins to hundreds for the same criminal offense, and there were even bounties as high as two platinum coins. When I asked why, Reinhart kindly explained.
“The reward money is decided based on the damage done and the danger involved, but sometimes the nobles or merchants who were harmed will raise the bounty themselves. The ones with platinum coins as rewards are a band of burglars who steal jewels. They’re pretty famous.”
Since they only stole jewels, the cost of the harm they did was immensely high. They not only incurred the wrath of the jewel merchants, but also the nobles who served as their clients. So that was why the reward money on their heads was so inflated.
“They don’t commit crimes often, but when they do, they’re well-prepared and very cautious. They also seem to have a number of skilled users of space magic, so they escape fast and they’re hard to track down. Their targets have guards, of course, but they’ve succeeded in their crimes many times, so they must have a fair bit of talent. I haven’t heard of them targeting anyone who was on their own, but be careful, Ryoma.”
“Understood; thank you for the warning.”
He was probably talking about the diamond I was wearing on my suit yesterday. He didn’t say anything about it, but he must have known what it was.
“Now, next up, I wanted to talk about the scavenger slime fertilizer you offered us yesterday. We’ve gotten a report about that.”
“Oh, really? That was pretty fast,” Elise said.
“I agree. Was one day enough to determine whether it’s safe?” I asked.
“Yeah, about that, Ryoma. Do you know about the Earth Goddess Forest?”
The Earth Goddess part made me think of Wilieris, but I hadn’t heard of the forest.
“So you haven’t heard of it? There’s a country in the east called Altura that our head gardener is from. The Earth Goddess Forest is a holy land that their people worship, and he says that the soil there is similar to that fertilizer.”
“Huh?” I wasn’t expecting that.
“It contains tons of magical energy, and it’s highly compatible with wood magic. Using too much turns plants into monsters. The effects are exactly the same, but the scavenger slime fertilizer isn’t nearly as powerful.”
Altura collected some soil from Earth Goddess Forest every few years, mixed it with ordinary soil to reduce the effects, and used it as special fertilizer. It seemed to be a ritual where they shared the blessings of the holy forest.
“Then by doing the same thing as that ritual, the scavenger slime fertilizer could safely be used?”
“That’s what the head gardener says. I’ll have him use the fertilizer and see what happens, but it seems to be perfectly usable. But he had some concerns about how it was like something people worship.”
“One is soil from holy land and one was produced inside a slime. I personally can’t see them as being alike at all, but I suppose they might sound that way to some.”
“He might say it’s unacceptable and all, too. People get pretty extreme when it comes to their faith sometimes.”
“I think he can be convinced that it’s a separate thing, but if it were to be put on sale in the future, that’s probably something to think about.”
These were unexpected concerns with the fertilizer, but it was good to know that now instead of later.
“That’s all from me,” said Reinhart.
“Then may I go next?” said Elise in a much better mood than Reinhart, probably because of this afternoon.
“Elise, I notice you’ve been strangely giddy since dinner.”
“Yes! You see, Ryoma made bath bombs and sugar scrub for me! That perked me right up!”
Elise started to talk about how she felt using both.
“Is this about yesterday’s beauty product discussion? Medicine that can turn a bath into a spa is fascinating.”
“Ryoma, is your skin-cleaning medicine that effective?”
“It depends on the person.”
“I want more of both! All you have to do for the bath bombs is put them in the bath, and it warms the body way more than regular bathwater. And just rubbing the sugar scrub on your skin changes how moist it is!”
Seeing Elise talk about this reminded me of something. Both products felt like everyday items after continued use, but they were certainly impressive on the first use. The first time I used a sugar scrub back on Earth, I was surprised myself. I honestly had no interest in beauty products, but I didn’t want to waste something I was given. Even then, I thought it was pretty nice the first time I used it. When I talked about it at work, I got laughed at for how out of character it was coming from me.
“What I made at noon was produced in the most simple way possible. If I used different types of oil and aromas, I think I could make it even better.”
By adjusting the amount of baking soda and citric acid in the bath bombs, I could also make the bath slightly acidic or alkalized to make it easier to remove dead skin and clean out pores. Alkali water is effective at neutralizing sweat and odors, so it’s a great ally of middle-aged men. The slight acidity of the citric acid has rejuvenating effects, treats inflammation, and kills odors in a different way. Human skin is slightly acidic, so it’s more gentle on the skin than alkali water. Which to use depends on one’s constitution, skin, and mood. There were many other ways to improve it too by use of medicinal herbs and seasonal plants.
“That sounds wonderful!”
“It even works on that old people smell, eh? Maybe I should try it out.”
“Pioro, that’s something you’re worried about?”
“Imbecile! I’m not that old yet! But, you know, I feel like the wife sort of implied something about that the other day.”
“Hahaha, well, with Elise so enthusiastically singing its praises, I’m sure it’s wonderful.”
“Indeed. Master Ryoma, may we try those bath bombs and sugar scrubs as well?”
“You’re more than welcome to. I still have materials left from this afternoon, so I’ll make some and have it sent to your rooms later.”
Thus, Elise’s discussion of beauty products concluded. Now it was time for me to talk about what I couldn’t get to yesterday, but everyone suddenly started to adjust their posture.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting ready for another bombshell, like what you said about running mushes yesterday.”
“I can’t wait to hear what’s coming. I’m almost afraid to hear it.”
“We’ve all been steeling ourselves for this.”
“I’m ready, Ryoma. Tell us everything.”
With all the pressure now on me, I felt as though I had to deliver.
“Then I’ll talk about another use for slimes.”
I overcame the strange tension and described the bloody slime serums. I started with a simple explanation on what serums and antibodies were, and about when I was instructing new adventurers and a bloody slime accidentally consumed poison. Then I talked about how it was cured, its Poison Resistance skill leveled up, and its blood and antibodies were combined. I even told them about how I extracted the antibodies and tested them on animals. The four of them looked at me seriously.
“Sounds like I was right to mentally prepare myself,” Reinhart said, setting the other three off too.
“So these things you call antibodies are related to the Poison Resistance and Disease Resistance skills, and you can use bloody slimes to make antidotes from them? I’m no expert on medicine, but I can tell that’s extremely valuable.”
“For sure. Even if it came from snake poison, it sounds like this could work for other poisons down the line too. As for whether this is all true, I guess there’s no reason to doubt you at this point.”
“Ryoma has nothing to gain from lying to us about this. Maybe it’d be funny if he were lying after all this, though.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what to do with all this information myself.”
I discovered the antibodies in bloody slimes, extracted serums, and investigated the effects. It was fun experimenting meticulously with them by myself, but that wasn’t an effective use of them. But if I introduced them to the world, it would be too much for one child to handle.
“I actually still have more to say.”
“There’s more?”
“I became aware of the antibodies and serums after the Poison Resistance skill leveled up.”
“I see! So they didn’t learn it, but rather, they leveled up. In other words, that bloody slime already had antibodies for poisons other than bush snake poison.”
“Reinhart is right. It wasn’t me who evolved the first bloody slime in the first place, since I bought it from an adventurer, and it had the Poison and Disease Resistance skills from the start.”
After I noticed the antibodies, I used the Appraisal spell to check for other antibodies.
“I found a number of antibodies, one of which was for cursed wounds.”
The four of them sighed or looked up at the ceiling, each expressing their exhaustion in a different way. It was to be expected. Cursed wounds were an illness that appeared suddenly after injuries. It didn’t matter how big the wound was or where it was inflicted. It caused curse-like symptoms to abruptly start showing up. Nothing happened for the first few days after the wound was inflicted, but eventually, the limbs and face would start to feel numb. It would cause one to lose control of their body, as if possessed by a demon. They would violently spasm, and sometimes bend their backs to the point that they broke their spines. The victim could do nothing to stop it of their own will, but they were still conscious the whole time, so they had to endure the pain as they thrashed until they died. The death rate from the illness was extremely high.
In other words, it was what we called tetanus on Earth. It killed people even in modern Japan where we had serums, but this country had no effective treatment at all. As such, tetanus was seen as an incurable curse and feared by everyone regardless of their wealth. Now the chance to cure it was right in front of them. The value of that was immeasurable.
“Was it really cursed wound antibodies? Not to doubt your word, but all the same.”
“I used Appraisal, so there’s no question. Cursed wounds can occur anywhere, so naturally the cause of it could be found anywhere too.”
Tetanus bacteria is known for being commonly found in soil. The bloody slime probably picked it up from some soil somewhere.
“But Ryoma, wouldn’t it have to take in the poison and survive to produce the antibodies? Cursed wounds have a high death rate, so how was the bloody slime fine?”
“One possibility is that it didn’t take in too much of the disease, and it couldn’t reproduce inside the slime like it could in the human body, so little poison was produced and the slime could ultimately endure it. Another possibility is that it’s because the main symptom of cursed wounds is muscle spasms, and bloody slimes have no muscles or nervous system. They’re made of blood, so maybe it wouldn’t do much to them. Anyway, humans and bloody slimes have very different body structures, so I think it took advantage of that. But unfortunately, I can’t say anything for sure.”
“Right, that makes sense.”
“I already saw a lot of value in a new method of medicine production, but if this means you can even create a cure for cursed wounds, well...that’s wonderful, but also dangerous.”
“It’s a big find, to say the least. If some unscrupulous character learns about it, you could be targeted. In fact, for sure you’ll be targeted. Medical guilds and research institutes will never let up.”
“Probably. You can’t trust research institutes too much, either.”
We were stumped on how to handle the serums. For a while, there was no sound except the sipping of tea and chewing of tea cakes.
“Ryoma,” Reinhart said to break the silence.
“Yes?”
He looked at me with more sincerity than he ever had before, and sat up straight. “How would you like to be our family’s technician?”
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