How To Use Snails
“Hey, what are we supposed to do about this?” I grumbled, referring to a small village near Maalt. Tons of disgusting creatures were crawling about, but thanks to Lorriane and myself, they were all on the verge of death.
Yesterday, we took a job at this village. Their farms were swarmed by gigantic monsters every night, and they wanted these pests exterminated. While Lorraine might occasionally take jobs to exterminate large monsters, I generally didn’t. That’s not because I didn’t care for them. I just knew I wasn’t strong enough. Becoming a monster myself had given me a fair bit of power, but it was nothing compared to better adventurers. I was well aware of that. Rather than push myself too far, I wanted to go at a steady pace. I wasn’t fit to kill big monsters, so I avoided those jobs as much as possible.
But for some reason, Lorraine wanted to take this job before anyone else did. And she said she needed me for it. I didn’t know why I was necessary, but I owed her for a lot. Any request short of a massive risk to my life was something I’d accept from her. That’s what led to this job.
Once we actually got started, it turned out to be trivial enough. For me, at least. Ordinary humans might have found it difficult. The reason was all these monsters now lying on the ground.
“Mega cochleases, eh? I’m surprised they were thriving so much. They won’t be causing any further harm to the crops, at least. But why did you want to take this job so badly?” I asked Lorraine.
The monsters were a group of giant snails. Every night, they ate all of the village’s crops and did immense damage, but they didn’t attack humans. All they did was eat leaves and vegetables, making them relatively peaceful monsters. Still, the snails were a nuisance. And when villagers tried to do away with them, the monsters went berserk and attacked. Regular citizens couldn’t do anything about them.
To make matters worse, they often had parasites attached to their bodies, so touching them was dangerous. That wasn’t a problem for me, however, since I was already dead. The parasites seemed to realize this as well because they let go moments after trying to leech off me. Lorraine demonstrated this phenomenon through an experiment, but I still didn’t understand why she wanted to take this job.
“Why, you ask?” Lorraine said, finally answering my question. “For my favorite clients, obviously. Anyway, Rentt, collect the slime from those mega cochleases! And watch out for the parasites. You can exterminate them with this magic item. I don’t particularly want them, just the slime.”
Then she demanded I gather up materials for her. Given no opportunity to refuse, I did as told and scooped up liters of gunk.
“This is that new moisturizing cream I heard so much about! I finally got some!”
“It’s so smooth! It’s like it’s rejuvenating my skin!”
Lorraine used her alchemy to create an ointment and put it on sale. The store was full of ladies speaking of it favorably. All of them were holding moisturizing cream and facial lotion. They were absurdly overpriced, but the women didn’t complain. In fact, they were overjoyed when they bought it. I was awestruck. It felt like I was seeing women’s obsessions firsthand. The ingredients for these cosmetics, of course, came from those snails.
“I knew those materials would be worth something,” Lorraine said contentedly.
“For cosmetics?” I asked. “I don’t know how you came up with this. Using snail gunk for lotion? Really?”
“Well, did you look at those villagers’ hands?”
“Not really. I guess they were smoother than you’d expect from peasants. Normally working in the water and dirt roughs you up.”
Lorraine nodded like I had said what she was thinking. “Indeed. I tried to find out what caused that and discovered that when the mega cochleases appeared in the village, the villagers picked up the damaged crops to dispose of them and got tons of the slime on their hands. Then I confirmed its effects and realized alchemy could make it even more effective. The problem was the parasites on the snails, but I concluded it would be easy as long as I asked you. That’s why I took this job.”
At least now I knew why she asked me. Lorraine could have killed the monsters easily enough on her own, but she wanted me to capture them alive if at all feasible. That would assure she could get as much slime as possible.
“I always felt you could be rich if you opened a cosmetics store,” I said.
“I know, but I’m a scholar. This is a side gig,” she replied. That sounded like a terrible waste, but then Lorraine continued. “What about you? If you quit being an adventurer, you could get plenty of business elsewhere. But you have your reasons for staying an adventurer.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Lorraine was apparently the same way, so we were in the same boat. When we noticed we had reached that same conclusion, we looked at each other and laughed.
Lorraine promised to use the revenue from the cosmetic sales to go to a bar and celebrate later.
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