episode_0026

As the villagers’ gazes focused on her, Killua proudly shrugged her shoulders and raised her hand towards the jar.

“Jazel! Will you bring the jar?”

As the villagers’ eyes followed her fingertips and focused on the jar, Killua asked me to bring the jar.

At her request, receiving everyone’s expectant gazes, I slowly untied the ropes securing the large jar and dragged it to the center of the square where everyone could see it.

“From now on, this will be the new specialty product of our Eaton Village!”

“Specialty product?”

At the word “specialty product” that Killua uttered, the villagers’ eyes widened.

Originally, Eaton Village was able to secure the capital to maintain and prosper by selling high-quality wood from Lime Forest as a specialty product.

However, as Lime Forest became desolate, it became impossible to obtain the high-quality wood that was their specialty, and Eaton Village, which had relied on a single specialty product, quickly collapsed.

The villagers couldn’t help but be greatly surprised at Killua’s words that she had created a specialty product that could replace high-quality wood in the Lime Forest, which was incredibly devastated by slimes.

“Now! Jazel! Open the lid!”

Killua, who could only move her left arm, asked me to open the jar in front of everyone on her behalf.

The moment the villagers’ gazes simultaneously focused on me. I removed the heavy press stone in front of everyone and slowly opened the lid of the jar.

“What is this?”

What was inside the jar was a sticky, black, glossy liquid with a musty smell.

Even I, who had traveled the entire continent and handled all sorts of goods, saw this bizarre liquid for the first time, and the villagers also frowned and tilted their heads.

“What is this… for?”

This black, sticky liquid, which was the result of mixing and compressing slime mucus, sawdust, and juice extracted from an unknown herb’s fruit, its purpose was unimaginable.

Killua restrained a villager who was trying to carefully smell or touch the liquid inside the jar, and brought a small ladle from one side of the square.

“The ingredients are slime mucus, sawdust, and the juice of oil berries.”

As if it wasn’t a big secret, Killua explained the ingredients of the liquid and scooped out the sticky black liquid with the small ladle.

And receiving everyone’s gaze, she carried the small ladle and approached the lit brazier in the middle of the square.

“Its purpose is fuel! And it’s high-quality fuel that burns for a very long time!”

She poured the black liquid from the ladle into the gently burning brazier.

As soon as the black liquid entered, the fire in the brazier began to blaze fiercely, as if five pieces of dry firewood had been added.

“Oh… oh?”

What was most surprising about the black liquid’s heat were the women who frequently used fire.

With just one small ladle, they burst into exclamations of awe at the black liquid’s power, which produced the heat of five pieces of firewood.

“How long will this burn?”

An elderly woman, who appeared to be the oldest among them, calmed her surprised emotions and calmly asked about the heat’s duration.

No matter how strong the heat was, if it only lasted a few minutes, it would be useless for cooking.

“Roughly half a day?”

Killua, who was estimating the amount of liquid in the ladle, revealed the incredible duration of the heat.

As she said, the sticky black liquid clinging to the firewood in the brazier showed no signs of easily disappearing, but bubbled and continuously emitted brilliant bright yellow flames.

Good heavens.

I could tell at a glance the value of the black liquid Killua had created.

Just one ladleful provided the heat of five dry logs, and it lasted longer than typical firewood.

One jar of what she made would be enough for this small village to live without worrying about firewood until a season passed.

“Oh my… Oh my!! This child is a complete treasure trove!!!”

The elderly women who first recognized the value of the black liquid she made, disregarding the gazes of everyone present, hugged Killua tightly, as if she were their own granddaughter.

“If one ladleful provides that much heat and lasts that long… then one jar of this means no worries for this season, doesn’t it?”

Following suit, the women who frequently used fire also easily recognized the value of the black liquid filling the jar.

“But how much can we sell this for?”

A middle-aged man, squeezing between the women who were marveling at the black liquid’s efficiency and value, carefully touched the jar as if it were a treasure, and asked.

“Uh… hmm…”

“Indeed… We’ve never sold anything like this before…”

At that, the joyous villagers all fell silent.

They were mere villagers, not merchants.

Although they knew the black liquid in this jar was incredibly valuable, they had no idea how much to sell it to merchants for.

“Now. This is where my friend, Jazel, needs to step forward!”

Killua, who had created an amazing specialty product, shifted the focus of the conversation to me.

At her confident introduction, the villagers all looked at me with surprised eyes.

Ahem…

“Jazel once led a merchant caravan! He’ll surely be able to accurately appraise the value of this item!”

At the villagers’ expectant gazes, which were focused on me to an overwhelming degree, Killua confidently introduced me, speaking for me as I was speechless and clearing my throat.

“Yes, yes. Young man. How much should we sell this item for to the merchant caravan that will come to our village?”

The village chief looked at me with eyes sparkling with unconcealed anticipation, and carefully touched the jar as if it were a treasure.

To avoid the overwhelming gazes of the expectant villagers, I closed my eyes for a moment, recalled my memories as a merchant, and began to appraise the value of the black liquid Killua had made.

One small ladle of the black liquid was said to provide the heat of five logs and last for about half a day.

In other words, one ladle could be assumed to have the efficiency of about 50 logs.

But because its volume and weight were much smaller than 50 logs, its value had to be set at five times higher or more.

And with a whole jar full of such black liquid…

“Even if we sell it cheaply, it should fetch 1 gold. And because of the special circumstances of the war with the demon race right now, firewood will sell at a high price. If it were me, I’m confident I could sell one jar for 5 gold or more.”

“…Huh?”

At my answer, the village chief, as if he couldn’t believe it, raised his finger and began to dig into his ear.

“I apologize. It seems my hearing is getting dull with age. So… it can be sold for 1 silver, and if we’re lucky, 5 silver…”

“The unit is gold, not silver.”

At my answer, which corrected the village chief’s words, the village chief froze solid in the very pose he was digging in his ear.

Then a woman next to him quietly approached the frozen village chief and removed the badge pinned to his chest, which depicted an axe struck into wood, symbolizing his position as the village chief of Eaton Village.

And without a word, she carefully pinned the badge to the chest of the silent Killua.

“Please take good care of our village from now on, Killua.”

As the influential women of the village directly removed the badge worn by the village chief and pinned it to Killua, and patted her on the shoulder as if cheering her on, the village was instantly engulfed in a festive atmosphere.

“Take all the ingredients out of the storage! All the cheese and dried meat!”

As the immense value of the black liquid in the jar that Killua had made was proven, the women shouted to take all the ingredients out of the village storage.

Since they would be able to buy plenty of fresh ingredients from the merchant caravan arriving tomorrow anyway, it meant they would consume all the old ingredients.

“We’ve gotten unexpectedly busy?!”

“But it’s truly been a long time since we had such fragrant, oily dishes!”

The women, who usually tried to save ingredients as much as possible for dinner preparations, as if to repay the festive and cheerful village atmosphere, began to prepare a feast of diverse ingredients from the storage.

From meat roasted whole, generously coated with all sorts of spices and butter that had been kept like treasures, taken out from smoked meat hidden deep in the storage for important occasions, to thick soup incomparable to their usual watery broth, made with plenty of cheese and cream.

“Alright! Let’s prepare such a feast for dinner tonight that the table legs will bend!!”

Although the badge pinned to his chest had been transferred to Killua, the village chief, as if delighted by the village atmosphere brimming with vitality and joy after a long time, led the way with his aged body and began to move the large banquet table that had been unused for a long time and accumulated dust.