Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included. S007

Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included.

ACT 2: UNION
S007: Tomii’s Life Story Part 3

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——

The inn Tohya-kun led me to was located nearer to the city center, but along a small enough road so it was almost impossible to find.

It didn’t seem like the sort of place that would be teeming with customers, but the dining area was lively and packed with people. Were there lots of guests staying at the inn, or were all these regulars?

“Take a seat. Innkeeper, an ale for this guy and water for me, plus some snacks too.”

Tohya-kun had taken a seat at the counter, and I sat down beside him. Soon, a mug of ale appeared before me. So this was it. Tohya-kun had said that it wasn’t delicious, but the excitement of trying it still made me break out in a grin.

“Itadakimasu!”

“Yep. Try your best to finish it.”

I brought the mug to my lips and took a sip.

…Hmm? I guess it wasn’t super delicious, but it wasn’t that bad?

It didn’t really taste like alcohol either. Maybe that was an effect of my Drinker Skill?

“What do you think?” Tohya-kun asked with a wry grin.

“Well, it’s not good, but it’s not too bad?” I answered honestly, head tilted.

“Seriously? Lemme have a taste… Argh, it’s bad! What is this? Some sort of racial characteristic? Or are your taste buds not working, Tomii?”

“How rude. And what’s a racial characteristic?”

“Nothing special. For example, elves can balance really well on trees, and beast-hybrids like me are physically strong with a heightened sense of smell. Maybe alcohol just tastes good to all dwarves.”

“Sounds plausible.”

If this ale contained more alcohol, I was sure I’d enjoy it more.

“Well, you can finish it if you like. It’s not that expensive, and if you work hard, you can drink it as often as you want, though I think you’d better set a limit for yourself, since you won’t know when to stop, you know?”

“You’re right. Guess the Drinker Skill really brings more harm than good.”

“It is a land mine of sorts, so you just have to be careful.”

“Yes, I will.”

I knew drinking and dwarves go perfectly together, but alcohol poisoning isn’t a joke. I wondered if one of dwarves’ racial characteristics is to have a higher tolerance of alcohol anyway, but I was too afraid to experiment.

Our bodies have built-in signals to let us know when we’ve had too much to drink. Without that, I’d be able to consume alcohol until I reached my body’s limit, and if I went past that, I could even die. From this perspective, the Drinker Skill was a true land mine.

“By the way, why were you at my job site, Tohya-kun? Were you looking for me? And weren’t you headed to another city?”

“Yeah, but we’re back now. We rushed back here once our business there was finished. Well, I guess you can say that we’ve made this city our base camp.”

“I see… By the way, do you know if any of our classmates is called Yasue-san?”

“Yasue? Who would that be…? Why are you asking?”

“Oh, I sort of ran into her, and it seems that she has Skill Copy.”

Tohya-kun seemed deep in thought for a moment, before hitting his palm with a fist.

“Can it be Umezono? But I don’t know her first name.”

“Umezono-san? …Now that you mention it, I think you’re right. Have you met her yet?”

“Yeah. She copied our Skills, then taunted us and ran away.”

“She copied Haruka-san’s Skills? That’s brave of her.”

If it was me, I’d be too scared to even pull something like that, especially after that day when she’d smiled and hinted that she had no qualms destroying her enemies.

“Wait, but I thought you can’t use Skill Copy unless you knew the Skill name and level of the other person?”

“Yeah, so she did ask us nicely to tell her what our Skills are.”

“And you guys told her? Didn’t you already guess that she has Skill Copy?”

“Exactly. Haruka has the Intuition Skill, so she knew right away.”

“And she still told Umezono-san all her Skills? Without giving her any ample warning?”

“Well, I guess she did leave out some Skills that had no levels.”

“Makes sense. If Haruka-san had told Umezono-san that she has Intuition, Umezono-san would have known that she was busted.”

But Umezono-san hadn’t thought about any of that, and had blindly copied all the Skills. It should have been obvious when Haruka-san listed out all her Skills so readily. Or did Umezono-san just assume that Haruka-san was just too naive and friendly?

“I guess Haruka was trying to test her. I mean, she knew that Umezono was hiding the fact that she has Skill Copy, so she didn’t tell her that she has Intuition. She wanted to see if Umezono would be truthful with us.”

“But Umezono-san just copied all your Skills without permission, then taunted you guys and left?”

If she had been honest and apologized, Haruka-san might have forgiven her, and maybe even helped her out.

Hmm, maybe Umezono-san was just an idiot?

Did she not realize that Haruka-san knew exactly what she was doing? Or did she think that everything would turn out okay as long as she managed to copy the Skills…?

“If she’d just copied our Skills, Haruka won’t have minded so much, but Umezono went ahead and insulted us after that, then ran away… To be honest, though, I felt more annoyed than angry.”

“I bet she’ll feel like a fool once she learns how Skill Copy actually works.”

Especially now that the Guild was also upset with her…

“I saw her at the Adventurers Guild, but since you guys are based here, you may bump into her again. It’ll be trouble if that happens, so just be careful,” I advised.

“Sure, thanks. We need to visit the Guild sometimes, though. How troublesome.”

“Is there anything I can do? I mean, you guys helped me out so much. Besides, nobody will recognize me now.”

“I appreciate the offer, but we still have to attend to business personally.”

“I see. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Nah, I’m grateful for your offer. Besides, I’m sure even Umezono isn’t brave enough to confront us directly about being unable to use the Skills she copied without permission.”

“Agreed. In fact, she probably won’t understand why if no one bothers to tell her.”

I wonder if Umezono-san would ever be humble enough to ask for help from a classmate who got Help. That is, if she manages to recognize any classmates in the first place.

“Anyway, forget about Umezono. Let’s come back to the topic.”

“That’s right. If you’re here to ask for your money back, could you please give me a litt-”

I mean, I had enough money now to repay the loan, but doing so would leave me penniless and in a pinch.

“That’s not important… I mean, it is important, but not right now. Actually, I went to your job site to watch you at work. In fact, I was there yesterday too.”

“What!? Really? I didn’t see you at all.”

Maybe because I was really busy yesterday.

“Well, I made sure I wasn’t easy to spot. Anyway, you were working really hard.”

“Yeah. I just did my best.”

I might be a beginner, but I wasn’t going to slack off or try to cut corners. In fact, because I was a beginner, I tried to put in twice the amount of effort. Thanks to that, I was now able to complete the work on my own, and with praise from the site manager, I knew that things were going well.

“If I’d seen you slacking off with work, I would have left already, but since you were so hardworking, I’ve decided to help you!”

“Help me…? How?”

“You wanna make a shovel, Tomii?”

I tilted my head in confusion, not understanding his meaning.

“Shovel? Huh, a shovel? You mean, like a hand-held tool? Or like an excavator?”

“It’ll be awesome if you can build an excavator, but that’s impossible, right?”

“Yes, impossible.”

I could never build something like an excavator without constructing a hydraulic system. While I had a rough idea of how hydraulics worked, I still needed working pistons and hoses, which I didn’t think were easy to make at all.

“Exactly. So an ordinary hand-held shovel. Didn’t you realize that nobody at your job site was using any shovels?”

“…Now that you mention it, yeah.”

At the site, we’d used hoes to dig holes. To move the dirt around, we used small spades to scoop the dirt into bamboo baskets, which we then carried away. It was all very crude and inefficient.

By the way, according to the rules set by the JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards), tools used to dig holes were called shovels, while tools used for shoveling snow and scooping up soil were known as spades. However, these names were used interchangeably in different regions and industries, so it was all very confusing.

“If we introduce shovels to this world, do you think they’ll sell well?”

“Probably. It’ll really make work so much more efficient, so they should be in demand. But how can we make one? I know I have the Smithing Skill, but I imagine it won’t be that easy.”

In RPGs, all we had to do was collect iron ore, process them in a furnace to make ingots, then hammer them into tools. It seemed really simple, but reality was surely different.

We’d need a furnace and coal to process ore into metal, then other tools to shape that metal into the end product. Besides, it probably wasn’t easy to get our hands on iron ore in the first place.

Even if we somehow managed to craft a shovel, where would we sell it? Did we have to set up a roadside stall and try to peddle our wares?

“No need to worry so much. I’ve already discussed this with a blacksmith friend of mine, so we can use his metal and facilities.”

“What!? You managed to convince a real blacksmith to help us!?”

Didn’t these guys tell me that it was extremely difficult to try to even rent a smithy?

“It wasn’t easy! It’s only because we know each other well, and I had to agree to some of his conditions too.”

Tohya-kun hadn’t supplied any exact details, but I could guess that this particular blacksmith was probably the one who’d supplied him with all his weapons and armor.

According to Tohya-kun, if we managed to successfully craft a shovel, the blacksmith would have the exclusive rights to sell the item in his store. But that would mean he was banking on this as-yet-unknown tool to be a bestseller item. I felt like a craftsman who’d received an important order from a valued client.

“Besides, don’t you wanna become a blacksmith? Diola-san, the lady at the Guild, told me about that.”

So the counter staff at the Guild was called Diola-san. Was she also friends with Tohya-kun, and was keeping him updated on my situation? That would explain how Tohya-kun managed to locate me at my job site.

“Well, that’s true… I guess personal information privacy is not a thing here.”

“Nope. If you want privacy, you’d have to become someone important and worthy of protection. And Diola-san trusts me more than she trusts you… I mean, just based on the length of time she’s known me. Besides, it wasn’t any super confidential information, so she just told me when I asked. That’s all there is to it.”

“What a cruel world this is.”

“I’m sure Diola-san won’t divulge any confidential information… Probably…”

“Hmm… Anyway, what about it? Diola-san told me that it’s nearly impossible for me to become an apprentice.”

Not impossible, but I’d have to put in several years of hard work. Ranking up as an adventurer would probably take forever, so I was hoping to gain someone’s trust enough for them to recommend me to a master.

“Yeah, but depending on your work ethic and the success of the shovel, I may be able to get you an apprenticeship.”

“—Whaaat!!!? R-Really!?”

“Yep. He did say that he needed to think about it, but if you can show him your serious attitude and just a little talent, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“T-Thank you!”

“But if you become incompetent or lazy after you become his apprentice, I won’t hesitate to ask you to leave.”

“You don’t have to worry. I just need a chance to prove myself!”

While nothing was decided yet, Tohya-kun had given me an opportunity I never imagined was possible, so I was already extremely grateful. In this world, recommending someone was as good as signing on financially to be their guarantor. Thus, it was not a stretch to call Tohya-kun my benefactor.

“But it all depends on how well you can craft the shovel. Either way, we’ll get an early start tomorrow morning, so just eat and drink your fill tonight. The food here is really good!”

Tohya-kun offered me the snacks that the innkeeper had brought over, and I took a bite.

“Sure, itadakimasu! …Whoa, it’s so good!?”

The food I’d had at eateries and my own inn were basically quite tasteless, so I’d expected the food here to be similar, but these snacks tasted so delicious, especially when paired with ale.

“I know! This place serves the best food in this city. And it’s cheap too, so it’s just great!”

That’s right. Tohya-kun had mentioned that he was staying here with the others. Were the rates expensive? My current inn was definitely cheap, but it wasn’t a place I’d like to live in long-term.

“Hey, how much is it to rent a room here?”

“Here? Innkeeper, you have any single rooms? …Yeah? How much is that? …I see. He says it’s 300 Reas for the room, 80 for breakfast and dinner, and 15 for a bucket of hot water, so a total of about 400 Reas per night.”

“Huh? But the innkeeper didn’t say anything?”

It was true. All I saw was Tohya-kun speaking. The innkeeper, who was working behind the counter, hadn’t responded with a single word.

“Our innkeeper isn’t too chatty, but you saw him nod and hold up three fingers, right?”

I see. Since Tohya-kun already knew how much the meals and hot water cost, the innkeeper only had to indicate the cost of a single room.

So a night here would cost as much as four nights at my current inn… It wasn’t a crazy amount of money, and after three days of work, I did have enough cash. So, would I be willing to pay for a good night’s sleep here?

“I know you’re thinking of staying here, Tomii, but I’d suggest you wait, at least until we know if you can get an apprenticeship at the smithy. If you’re successful, then your situation will be very different.”

“You’re right… Besides, if I become an apprentice, I’ll have to live with my master in the smithy, right?”

“Hmm… You may be my friend, but to Gantz-san, the blacksmith, you’ll be a total stranger, so he probably won’t want you to live with him yet?”

“I see. I’ll have to gain his trust first, then. Oh, if I become an apprentice, will I get a salary?”

“Well, you should earn enough to rent a room at this inn. Either way, if things goes well tomorrow, everything else should just fall into place. Otherwise, you’ll be back at square one. There’s no other way about it.”

“…I’ll do my best!”

“Be sure you do! Let’s get you another drink, just for luck. Innkeeper, another ale please!”

It had been a while since I’d had such delicious food, and with a belly full of fairly tasty ale, I bid Tohya-kun goodbye and headed back before the sun set.

——

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