Volume 5 Chapter 8-2 Big Cleaning
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
But well, if I worry about everything, I’ll never finish, so I ignore Ms. Mahal’s screams and make my heart cold to clean. Just in case, I store any seemingly important documents with my editor skill.
”Honestly, humans are terrifying. Throwing away things with history so easily.”
”If you keep saying that but don’t actually throw anything out, it won’t get cleaned up. Do you want to live in a dump?”
”That’s true, but I just can’t stand to watch it anymore.”
At first, Ms. Mahal was complaining, but she seemed happy that the mansion was getting so tidy. She cooked us a dwarf-style full-course dinner, a hearty onion stew with something beefy inside──pretty tasty.
* * *
After 3 days of heavy cleaning, we found over 2 thousand old magic stones. About 8 hundred of them were in new condition, just tossed in a box and stacked in the corner. Ms. Mahal was stunned when she saw them. That alone is a fortune.
The rest were either lying on the floor or left inside malfunctioning machines. Some were broken, but most seem usable after charging them with mana.
Charging so many is tough, but Mr. Zenom made a charger that even Pii-Pii can use, so it should be manageable.
Pii-Pii, the pixie, loves simple tasks like just constantly charging, so she’ll happily do it all day without getting bored. Well, I don’t mind simple work either──I’ll prepare another charger for myself and work alongside her.
A brand-new magic crystal holds over ten thousand times the capacity of a magic stone, so if you need mana for 5 magic crystals, you’d have to charge at least 50 thousand times. With each charge taking 30 minutes, that’s 50 thousand times 30 minutes──25 thousand hours──more than a year of non-stop work. I’ll ask Mr. Zenom to build a device that can charge about ten at once; it shouldn’t be too hard in principle.
We’ve found over a hundred magic crystals, but unfortunately most of them had no mana left. The inner magic crystals had vanished, so technically, only the exterior parts of the crystals remained.
I want to tell her to throw them away after use, but some still have a little mana left, and I guess I understand not wanting to just toss those. At least, I wish they could be organized and kept in a box.
There were also quite a few usable items like precious metals, gems, and medicines. The medicines were found still in their original boxes, looking brand new, but they’re probably too old to be effective.
The problem is the large quantity of glassware, mostly stained with some chemicals. They need cleaning to be usable, but they’re incredibly fragile──tracking carefully is crucial or they’ll break easily. We also found some new glassware in wooden boxes; the dirt on them is so thick I just want to toss them out as-is.
Unfortunately, almost all the herbal medicines are useless now. Even something like myrrh, used for Egyptian mummies, was once thought to last thousands of years, but moisture apparently ruins their effectiveness. As Ms. Mahal says, displaying them as specimens might be more useful than in a book, but that would require proper sorting and labeling. For now, I’ll just toss them into an empty box, leaving the detailed work to Ms. Mahal.
”We can probably get by with the medicines we have now, but we’ll need to gather all the herbs again. The only one we use a lot is yomogi-mogoki, after all.”
Yomogi-mogoki isn’t bad! It’s used for potions and is always part of delivery quests, too. The buyback price is so low it’s basically pocket change for kids, though.
It’s a hardy plant with strong (life)power, growing naturally without being wiped out by wall barley. Even in deep winter, if you find sunny spots, it stays attached to the ground and grows in groups, like dandelions.
Luckily, I’ve stockpiled plenty of yomogi-mogoki. Recently, I’ve held back from collecting it for quests, so I don’t steal the villagers’ income. But if I find some far from the village, I gather it just in case.
Is this enough?
She then piles up a bunch of yomogi-moddoki on the table, clearly proud of herself.
”A magic bag, huh? Keep it sealed until you need it, or it’ll lose its freshness.”
She scolded me. I see──the freshness really matters. I’ve seen a few recipes for potions using yomogi-moddoki, but none mention freshness. Maybe it’s obvious and not written, or maybe it’s kept secret.
”I’ll write down the herbs you need. Aside from Mandarage, you can gather most nearby. Some are seasonal, though.”
Ms. Mahal glances at scraps of paper, groaning as she writes the list. Turning her handwriting into words looks hard for her, but I shouldn’t complain since I can barely read what she writes.
Even common herbs become pricey when out of season──that’s natural. Wild carrots, only harvestable in winter, are in their prime now. Mushrooms harvested in fall can also be gathered a little in spring.
Most herbs are best in spring, so by cherry blossom time, I should have all I need. Many herbs aren’t expensive, but some tricky-to-gather ones might be better bought.
The toughest herb, Mandarage, is a legendary plant deep in the border forest. Gathering it is dangerous and expensive. To get it, you’d need to pay tens of thousands of gold coins.
Mandarage grows in the Royal Botanical Garden, right? I’ve even added a bit to curry once. It had a sharp, spicy ginger flavor. I think Ms. Hóa could easily get some if I asked.
* * *
I’ve probably listed all the herbs now. The last thing is… pure honey. It’s only sold at the alchemy guild, so it’s quite pricey.
”Yes, I remember. That’s probably the one.”
Ms. Erin once told me she’d give me some. I don’t know if she still has it, but as long as she hasn’t given it away to the village kids, it should be fine.
”And then, eggs. I’ll need a large amount of fresh chicken eggs, but only undyed ones.”
Chicken eggs are sold in the royal capital, but they’re a luxury item, about 200 gold per egg. That’s only about 50 eggs for one gold coin. Commoners can’t afford them, but the kids in Toyata village used to eat quail eggs as snacks in the summer.
”We used about 2 thousand last time, so a thousand probably won’t be enough. Since we can use a magic bag, we should prepare 2 thousand again.”
Two thousand eggs would cost 400,000 gold, or 40 gold coins. It’s not an impossible amount, but it’s still quite a bit.
”Finding unfertilized eggs is a real pain. If we buy too many openly, the Alchemy Guild will notice, and that’s a hassle.”
Homunculus creation isn’t forbidden, but there seem to be industrial spies trying to steal the manufacturing methods lurking around the Alchemy Guild. Getting noticed by them would be troublesome.
Wouldn’t it be faster to just raise chickens? But 2 thousand eggs would be a lot of work too.
What about opening an omelet shop in the royal capital? If we only use the unfertilized eggs from the ingredients, the Alchemy Guild wouldn’t suspect anything.
However, there’s the problem of whether an omelet shop would even succeed as a business. Only nobles and the very wealthy can afford expensive egg dishes, and we can’t just sell them from a food stall. An upscale restaurant specializing in omelets might do well, but opening a shop would cost a lot of money. It could backfire.
”This is a problem, isn’t it? Isn’t collecting eggs the hardest part?”
”The hardest ingredient is dragon milt.”
Ms. Mahal casually drops that bombshell, dragon materials at last.
”Milt… you mean, like, dragon testicles?”
”We use the dragon’s essence, said to impregnate all races, to treat the chicken eggs.”
A dragon-chicken hybrid… the strongest chick ever would be born.
”We just lightly expose the eggs, so no chicks will hatch. The problem is that dragon materials have become increasingly expensive lately.”
Obviously, to get the milt, you need to defeat a mature male dragon. Even though males are weaker than females, they’re still top-tier monsters.
There are many hero stories about slaying dragons, but Uno says most of them are all made up or human misunderstandings.
Immortal dragons usually die right after leaving the nest, often by failing to fly and dying, and humans happen to find these young dragons and elevate them as dragon-slaying heroes.
Most of the dragon materials in the market are from fledgling, a young dragon like that, but they still sell for a huge price.
By the way, if a young fledgling dies in an accident, it’s not considered a problem for the dragon. Weak ones are meant to die in nature’s tough law of survival. But if humans hunt fledgling for parts, it can even upset adult dragons.
Countries destroyed by dragon attacks are usually this way. Dragons are way smarter than humans but quick-tempered, simple-minded, and bad at communicating. If they get annoyed enough, they just burn the whole nation down.
Humans aren’t stupid, either. Recently, they try to punish those greedy fools before dragons start rampaging. That wisdom probably came from a Summoned Hero──sounds very Japanese.
Fighting a mature dragon is tougher than going to war. High-level Heroes can organize big raids and stand a chance, but if victory looks impossible, dragons aren’t fools──they run away.
When things get serious, dragons team up and attack together. That’s like the end-of-the-world mythic battle ── whole countries could be wiped out. So wise humans avoid provoking dragons and don’t start wars.
Only when a dragon is clearly at fault and shunned even by other dragons is it okay to fight. These bad dragons have become rare, and damage from them has almost vanished ── a good thing. But because of that, dragon materials are nearly impossible to find now.
Many humans want special dragon’s milt with unique powers, but since supply is so low, it’s extremely expensive.
According to Ms. Mahal, you need 200,000 common gold coins to get a bottle of what’s called a dragon’s milt. It’s said to come from a young male dragon that was vanquished about 3 years ago after causing trouble, and it’s now a rare and precious item.
”Since there’s no supply, the price keeps rising. If we don’t buy now, it will get even more expensive and we won’t be able to afford it.”
I can’t afford 200,000 gold coins. But, in the end, what’s needed is this so-called dragon milt, and some chicken eggs exposed to it.
I can’t fight a dragon myself, but maybe I can just ask a living dragon ── that might do the trick.
Even though I was married to a dragon named Uno, I know a lot about dragons in this world.
There are some mature male dragons I could probably talk to.
Even without money, I might be starting to see how I could gather the materials after all.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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