Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included. S005

Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included.

ACT 2: UNION
S005: Tomii’s Life Story Part 1

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After separating from Azuma-san and the others… I guess I should start calling her Haruka-san now… I walked on alone towards the city of Rafan.

It had been about two weeks since the guys I came to this world with had died. To be honest, we weren’t exactly close friends back in the previous life, but we did spend several days living together, so it was still a big shock to know they are dead.

However, after several days, I came to realize that most of my emotions stemmed, not from grief that my friends were dead, but more from losing people I could rely on. At that point, the guilt hit me and I fell into a depression.

Not that the depression lasted more than a day.

I mean, if I had really been depressed, I could easily have starved myself to death. There was nothing much to eat in the forest, and I couldn’t even start a fire, so I could only eat things that could be consumed raw. Of course, I had the ability to craft tools, but there was nothing much I could make out of fallen branches and stuff.

Thus my body grew weaker each day, and I finally lost consciousness and collapsed. I’d closed my eyes back then thinking that that was it for me, and when I next opened my eyes, I truly thought I’d died and was waking up in the next world. I mean, the sight that greeted me was true beauty.

Of course, reality hit me the moment I caught sight of Nagai-kun nearby.

Back then, I felt so relieved that people had come to help me, but they turned out to be crueler than I ever imagined. Especially when Haruka-san basically told me to leave and survive on my own.

I was upset at first, wondering why they bothered saving me if they weren’t going to help me, but after I calmed down and thought about it, it all made sense.

They had been thrown into this world just like me, and had worked hard to survive up until now. While it was a big risk to leave me by myself, Nagai-kun was right to say that the relationship between us was that of mere classmates. They were not obligated in any way to look after me.

For example, if a classmate had barged into my home in our previous world and demanded to live there, I would have called the police. Now that we were in a much more dangerous situation, it was probably foolish of me to even ask them to save me when I couldn’t offer anything in return.

And though they spoke some mean words when I sounded my protests, they still gave me good advice in the end, and even lent me some money.

30 big silvers; three times the amount I was initially given. According to Haruka-san, that amounted to about 30,000 yen.

And I was given this money out of goodwill, despite there being no guarantee that I could ever pay it back. And since I was lonely, it was a comfort to at least have some cash on hand.

It may be difficult to become what Haruka-san called a ‘useful person’, but I’ll definitely try my best to earn enough money to repay the amount they lent me, interest included.

~

About an hour after I left Haruka-san and the guys, I reached the city of Rafan. Handing one big silver to the guard at the gate, I asked for directions to the Adventurers Guild and headed over there.

Along the way, I peeked into some stores, trying to get a sense of how much things cost in this world.

“It doesn’t make any sense…”

Using the simple conversion of 1 Rea to 10 yen, I found that there seemed to be no correlation between the prices of items here compared to the previous world. Some things were more expensive, while some were much cheaper. Yet one thing I noticed was that labor cost seemed super cheap?

In the previous world, it was normal to view people as valuable assets, but that didn’t seem to be the case here.

To give an extreme example, take an artisan who crafts sculptures out of sugar. In the previous world, the cost of the sculpture would depend on the skill of the artisan, but here, the cost would depend much more on the price of sugar. In fact, the two values were almost the same, meaning that almost no value was placed on the labor required to craft the sculpture. It was the same thing in most eateries as well, where we could buy a large amount of food at relatively cheap prices.

The exception was fruits and spices, which seemed to be rare, and were thus priced high, so much so that I couldn’t even dream of buying any with the amount of money I had now.

“Oh, that’s the fruit Nao-kun gave me just now… What? One piece for 600 Reas!? That’s so expensive!!”

Each big silver was equivalent to 100 Reas or about 1,000 yen, which meant that one fruit cost around 6,000 yen.

“And to think I ate three of those so quickly…”

The guys hadn’t complained about that, but I wondered if they were secretly mad at me…?

They did have a lot of the fruit, so they might have harvested it from somewhere instead of buying it, but they could have sold it and earned good money instead of feeding it to me for free.

“Argh… And they treated my wounds too… I shouldn’t have been so rude to them.”

I remembered a program I watched on TV, where someone did a social experiment by pretending to collapse in public, and found out that most people just chose to ignore the man instead of helping him.

Compare those people to Haruka-san and the guys, who decided to save a strange person (I guess a guy with an overgrown beard could be considered strange) collapsed in the woods. Back then, they didn’t yet know that I was their classmate, but they helped me anyway out of the kindness of their hearts.

“If we meet again, I gotta thank them properly.”

But first, I needed to survive.

I continued my walk towards the Guild with determination. It seemed to be located near the South Gate, while I had entered through the East Gate, so it was quite a distance, but I finally managed to reach the place.

“Alright…!”

With a little trepidation, I pushed open the door and entered. So this was the Adventurers Guild… But before I could even look around, I heard someone shouting.

“Why can’t you recommend me!?”

“Because you ditched your previous job yesterday without a good reason, Yasue-san. The owner even came over here to complain about you.”

“Well, that’s because…”

“You may have your reasons, but you just ran off, and didn’t even return to give a proper explanation. That is just unacceptable.”

Yasue?

I glanced over to see a somewhat familiar figure arguing with the counter staff. Recalling Haruka-san’s advice, I quickly looked around, then retreated to an inconspicuous spot.

I knew I didn’t need to worry, since Nao-kun and the others weren’t able to recognize me with my current appearance. The only similarity between my previous and current appearance was my short stature. In fact, I was even shorter now due to my race.

“Either way, I won’t be able to get you any jobs at the moment. I’d advise you to return to your previous employer and apologize. If you don’t do that, I won’t be recommending you for any more jobs in the future.”

“Whatever, I get it already!”

The girl turned and stormed towards the exit, while I hurriedly turned towards the noticeboard next to the door, pretending to read the announcements posted there. I didn’t want to get recognized as a classmate and get into unnecessary trouble.

“Dammit! I can’t use any of the Skills I copied, and now I lose my job! Just my luck!” Yasue-san muttered angrily to herself, pulling the door open forcefully and marching out, taking zero notice of me.

…Who was this Yasue-san, anyway? I knew the first names of just a handful of girls in my class, so I couldn’t place her.

Which handful of girls, you ask? Of course it’s the cute ones. Aren’t all guys the same? Every dude in class knew the names of Haruka-san and the two cute girls who always hung out with her, Shidou-san and Furumiya-san.

None of them were called Yasue, though… Yet she’d looked so familiar.

…Wait, she mentioned something about ‘Copy’, right?

Yep, that was a land mine right there. Even if I didn’t know she had the Skill, just her attitude alone was a land mine. It seemed that she’d copied Skills from someone without their permission, and she’d screamed at the Guild staff too, despite it being her own fault for running away from work and getting fired. Even I knew that trust and reliability was more important in this world than our previous one. Without things like resumes and character references, most places would not take on workers if they couldn’t trust them.

That said, it would probably be hard for me to become a blacksmith’s apprentice, since there was always a chance that I signed on as an apprentice just to steal from my master. Even back in our previous world, people wouldn’t hire someone to live and work in their homes unless they knew the person to be trustworthy.

Wait, I’d come here to be registered. I still needed to find a place to stay, so I’d better get my business here done quickly.

I walked over to the lady at the counter, who looked a little weary after the encounter with the nasty Yasue-san.

“Hello, Miss.”

“Hello. How can I help you today?”

“I’d like to register, please.”

“Sure. That’ll be 300 Reas.”

“Here you go.”

I handed three big silvers over. If Haruka-san hadn’t given me more money, I’d be left with a measly six pieces by now. How tough would that be!

“Thank you. Would you like an introduction to everything?”

“Yes, please.”

The lady proceeded to talk about how the Adventurers Guild worked while I filled in the registration form. Aside from my name and race, I’d never written anything to promote my skills before. In the end, I settled for ‘strong and resilient’.

I’d wanted to add my Aptitude with Smithing Skill to the list as well, but there didn’t seem to be any way for people to judge Skills here, so I decided not to include it, in case I came across as overconfident.

The Guild card I received was a plain item, and didn’t seem to serve any special function.

It was slightly disappointing. Shouldn’t transitioning to a fantasy world come with some amazing technology?

“That’s all. Do you have any questions?”

“No, I’m good. Oh, can you recommend some jobs for me today?”

“Oh, you’d like to get a job instead of Adventurer missions?”

“Yes.”

To be honest, I’d love to go harvesting and defeating enemies outside the city with Nagai-kun and the others, but I knew I wasn’t ready for that just yet.

In novels, a teenage protagonist who gets transported to another world always manages to become an adventurer on his own and become successful. Just how courageous must one be to make that a reality?

Some people might have the courage to camp out in the mountains by themselves in a safe place like Japan, but to do that in a dangerous new world…? Impossible!

And for those who don’t think it’s a big deal, try spending the night alone in the mountains out in the countryside. And I don’t mean at one of those camping grounds with convenient facilities nearby.

“I can recommend some jobs to Tomii-san. I’m guessing most people will want to hire you for manual labor. But to be totally honest, it’ll be a struggle to find good jobs now.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Everyone who wants this type of work comes here very early to queue, so what I have left now are the bad jobs which nobody wants to do…”

“Will I be able to get a better job if I come tomorrow?”

“It’s not a promise, but you’ll have a better chance.”

Was there really that much competition? Luckily, I still had 3,600 Reas left, so I didn’t need to start working immediately…

“Erm, so I have to queue here everyday to get jobs?”

“No. Once you get a job as a day laborer, you can continue with it until the work is complete or you quit. That’s why everyone is desperate to get a job with good benefits.”

I see. So the type of job you landed would determine your future prospects.

Of course, if I couldn’t get a job with good benefits, I could just work first and change employers whenever the opportunity arises, but it meant I had to first establish myself as a trustworthy worker.

“By the way, is there a process for people interested to become blacksmith apprentices? I hope to become a blacksmith in the future.”

“An apprentice…? Hmm…” The lady paused, a frown on her face. “To be honest, it can be quite tough. Most people get an apprenticeship through introductions and recommendations by friends. In fact, some people start off by working for their relatives. So it’s a little hard for us to help you.”

“I see.”

But I had no relatives in this world. As for friends, I only had Kamiya-kun, Nagai-kun, and Haruka-san. Well, I guess I could count that Yasue-san too, if she’s also a classmate.

“Well, another way will be to sign on as a day laborer and work for some time, gaining friends and earning credibility. Then, maybe someone will recommend you to a blacksmith they know. Either way, you won’t get far unless people know you can be trusted,” the lady advised.

Hmm, so I could work and try to make friends along the way, though I didn’t think it would be easy to convince someone to become my guarantor.

Even in the previous world, people rarely asked their work colleagues to vouch for them. In fact, some people couldn’t even get their own family members to help them.

“There’s also a third method, which is to achieve a higher rank as an adventurer. Since you’ve just registered, you’re still at Rank 0, but once you’re at Rank 5 or 6, people will know that you’re someone they can trust, and there may be blacksmiths willing to take you on as an apprentice. No promises though.”

“Really…? OK, thank you.”

I guess there really was no easy way to do this.

I thought having Aptitude with Smithing and Smithing Lv.3 Skills would make it easy for me to become an apprentice or get jobs, but the initial hurdle of getting started was still so high.

I bet becoming a swordsmith in Japan was easier than this, even if the profession was dying out these days.

Either way, coming from a family where both my parents were hardworking people with stable jobs, I knew the value of having steady employment.

“Alright, I’ll come again tomorrow to look for a job. In the meantime, can you recommend some suitable lodgings for me?”

“Lodgings? What are you looking for? Somewhere with good food, or good security, or nice amenities?”

“Somewhere cheap will do. I don’t mind room-sharing too, if it’s safe.”

“There’s a place nearby, then. You can stay there for 100 Reas per night, breakfast and dinner included. It’s one of the cheapest places around that is still safe.”

The lady then showed me a map of the city and pointed out the location of the inn. It was situated in an alley away from the city center, and was quite a distance from the Guild. I tried my best to memorize the inn’s location and name. The ‘Wooden Pillow’… What a strange name. But it would have to do.

“Thank you. I’ll come by again tomorrow.”

“Sure. Be careful.”

With a smile, the lady saw me out of the Adventurers Guild.

——

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