episode_0093

When I woke up, Jules was nowhere to be found. Did you go out to enjoy the hunting festival? It’s dark too. Since it was their first hunt, the three children would be enjoying a meal with their parents.

I roughly tied my hair back.

I used to like women with ponytails so much, but now I find myself wearing a ponytail.

The oak barrel on the shelf is empty.

…I went out again with unripened fruit wine.

Many people say that drinking sugared fruit wine causes severe hangovers, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with Juul.

The rate at which that person consumes alcohol would be similar to the rate at which a person drinks water. I quenched my thirst with water from the river and quietly headed towards Deberg at the counter.

Holding a skewer in one hand and a drink in the other makes him look gangly.

“Hello?”

“Ah~ Hello.”

Deberg suddenly held out the drink he was holding.

“Drink.”

“I can’t drink alcohol.”

“Unless you are blessed, no one is good at something from the beginning. Even if it means eating.”

No, can you clean it up for me?

Do I just hate alcohol?

······I couldn’t let go of it, so I had no choice but to accept it. One sip───

“Wow!”

Your tongue is hot?!

“Puhahaha!!!!”

Deberg laughs like a crazy person, puts the whole skewer in one mouth, and mumbles. Then he takes the alcohol from me and drinks it like water. ···Isn’t this crazy? Are you drinking that?

“Wow! What are you thinking when you drink distilled alcohol like that?! And then I’m hooked!”

“You get better when you eat it? Would you like some water?”

This guy won’t be able to do it. He is a drunkard by nature.

“I found out today while talking to an elf standing outside. I didn’t even speak to you.”

“Heinrich Schweinsteiger.”

“Yes?”

what? What’s that cool name?

Deverg glances at me, and the corners of his mouth turn up.

“Is it long? Just call me uncle.”

“I’m Sihyeon Lee.”

I think there are quite a few people besides me who are confused by the name.

“Can I call you uncle?”

“Okay. Is there anything you need?”

I wanted to ask this.

Why do people who cut up other people’s corpses to make furniture hate elves who refuse to do so? Of course, I can’t say that because I would hate it if I said it directly.

“Why is the relationship between Dverg and the elf so bad?”

“Because they won’t let me cut down the grave tree.”

“The grave tree is the corpse of an elf.”

“I found out about that too when I came here. After hearing that, I can understand why elves are sensitive to grave trees.”

Schwein scratches his head.

“Dumheim, Deverg’s hometown, is hiding this fact. To elves, we are babies who made chairs out of our mother and father’s bones and sold them. It’s our fault.”

It fit perfectly as I expected.

Absolutely perfect.

“I know that elves aren’t bad, but if you live your life cursing someone for 50 years, just looking at them makes your eyes bleed. Who would have imagined it in the first place? Trees grow from corpses.”

“When I first heard it, I didn’t understand it for a long time.”

Schwein buried himself in the backrest and took another drink.

No matter how much you like money, it is related to morality and humanity. If the truth were known, it would mean that other devergs could change their minds like Schwein did.

“How to make raw sugar or sugar? Do you know?”

“I know. If nobles eat honey, commoners eat sugar. No, is it difficult for common people to touch it?”

Schwein yawns.

“Sugar beets are grown in the north-central or central regions. The remainder of the refined raw sugar is ground to make alcohol or animal feed. Well, sugar isn’t that sweet compared to honey.”

“If there is something similar to beets here, could you make sugar for me?”

“It should be possible. All you have to do is cut it, boil it, and distill it.”

…Was it that simple?

“Well, I did need sugar. Smugglers crossing the sea don’t bring sugar.”

“Because it’s heavy?”

Schwein shook his head and laughed to himself as if he found something funny.

“No. If Blue Ocean’s Mermaid were sugar or honey, it would seem to rush at her like a moon. Arms draped across the smuggler’s boat, ‘I want something sweet.’ I heard you repeat this?”

“So?”

“If you crowd around like that, eventually the ship will start to stop going. When the boat stops, the mermaids start to climb onto the boat. Using a harpoon to catch a fish on a boat. He then holds a harpoon and stares intently at the smuggler. So who would be nervous and bring something like sugar?”

Crazy guys. That’s a total hard sell, right?

“Anyway… Since we drink so much alcohol, we add sugar to it to speed up fermentation. I know how to make it better than anyone else.”

“Thank you. I will get the ingredients as quickly as possible.”

Schwein nods.

“I’ll have it ready by tomorrow.”

Now the business is over.

Let’s have a little chat and then go see Dennis.

“Now that you think about it, how did people react when the kids caught a bear, a stag, and a cow?”

Schwein’s eyes draw an arc.

“It wasn’t all that crazy. At first, I was skeptical because I thought I had caught it somewhere after it died. Since they know that’s not the case, parents stop bragging about their children. The other hosots wondered what a crossbow was.”

“You mean the response is good?”

Schwein nods.

“Okay. Heilang has already come to me just as you wanted. I wonder if that thing can pierce Ogre leather.”

huh? Why ogre leather?

“Yes? Excuse me? Why does an ogre pierce leather?”

“There is an ogre that has been hanging around here for several years. I saw it once or twice too. At first glance, it seems like he is the enemy of Heukrang’s mother and husband.”

···ah.

Now that I think about it, I have never seen Shir’s father.

The same goes for the priest’s spouse.

“They say that when they settled here with the help of the white wolf, it was first a colony of ogres.”

I vaguely remember hearing about it from Deborah and Deborah.

“I think quite a few of this pack of wolves were killed by ogres when they settled here. Although we are making the curved sword used by the white wolf, only that white wolf is abnormally strong, and not even the other wolves are that strong. In reality, without the white wolf, this village is defenseless against ogres.”

I see

Come to think of it, when I first came here, I heard that Yuso’s father, Yuso, was also robbed by an ogre while chasing oxygen.

“It is possible to produce it, but there is another unexpected problem.”

“What is it?”

“Even though I made it thick considering that the crossbow was strong, the arrowhead and shaft could not withstand the force and broke. So I have no choice…”

Schwein looks directly into my eyes.

“Steel is needed.”

My heart was beating loudly. Bringing steel to the South?

“But, there is no way to bring in the steel.”

“I can’t import it, so I’m thinking of making it.”

“How?”

“Sometimes you cut down as many trees as you can, light a fire and cut them down until they turn into steel, and sometimes you plow the ground to find coal. Lastly…”

finally?

“······Making a completely new alloy.”

The first two are quite difficult, but the last one makes no sense. Nevertheless, his eyes and voice are extremely serious.

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“What can’t you do? Every blacksmith is a metallurgist. If you want to take on the challenge, you need a metallurgist who is knowledgeable about minerals in the south.”

Schwein glances at my hand.

To be precise, towards my will.

“There is bronze on your finger because the ridiculous things you say have come true, and there is steel that anyone wants because something ridiculous happened.”

···This person wants Felix.

He is a person who rarely goes out of the cave. It is inevitable that he will have narrower insight into the ores of the South than a metallurgist who knows more about the South.

“I don’t plan on making much. We will make a pattern that fits the arrowhead, pour molten iron into it, and manufacture it to a size that can be coated.”

“Of course, we cannot say that there are no unknown alloys, but there is no way we can find them in a short period of time. Is a new alloy really necessary in the first place? It won’t be used much, so we’ll just use the firewood we cut down…”

Schwein looks at me so intently that it’s difficult to continue speaking.

Why do we shy away from logging and focus on new ores?

“······I know someone, but we’re not that close.”

“I will go there myself.”

This is crazy.

Dverg is entering the southern Ain city, that is, the elven city? At that moment, I can clearly see that it will become an arrow holder.

“The metallurgist is located in the elven metropolis called Ymir’s Tomb. This is where the older generation of elves live. If caught incorrectly, both mice and birds may die without realizing it.”

Schwein shakes his head.

He then points to Dennis, who is splitting wood with his chin.

“I guess I can go with that elf.”

······What does this mean?

Did you not hear what Heilang and Dennis were talking about at lunch? Or maybe he doesn’t speak Elvish.

“You also need to know swear words. As much as we curse about elves, we also know a lot about them.”

“Dennis cannot enter the elf village.”

“Unai is a high-trust society, so there won’t be a separate identity test, right? All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and go quietly. If that elf had suffered from an infectious disease that spread to grave trees, he wouldn’t have been able to trim his family’s grave trees for quite some time.”

······Dennis protected his family even by getting sick in order to cut down a grave tree infected with company disease. However, as Schwein said, he would never have been around the grave tree since then. Because it’s dangerous for your family.

“······That certainly seems to be the case.”

“Okay. Many people realize something precious only after losing it. The elf looses the net on the grave tree. Try to persuade him well.”

······It’s unreasonable.

It was my fault for leaving Ymir’s grave immediately without knowing the circumstances, but it was too sudden. This is like giving vacation from the first day of work.

Wouldn’t it feel like you’re being kicked out?

“Dennis has settled down less than a day ago and does not have a home. Wouldn’t it be difficult right now?”

“Is that elf’s name Dennis?”

“Yes. I guess I won’t have much time until I settle down here.”

It takes some time.

huh? Schwein picked up the ax standing on the threshold of the workshop.

“I’ll help you set up the site within two days.”

Schwein drank all the liquor in his other hand, then took his ruler, ink, fountain pen, saw, etc. and started walking out of the village.

“Well, I don’t like it, elf, but if we just hold on for a little while, wouldn’t it be better for both of us? Let’s go out and say it, trusting that I gave permission.”

They know that I am the employer.

···Schwein also knows how to speak Elvish. Perhaps the language Schwein spoke from the beginning was Elvish, not Hosot.

“Okay.”

There must be some reason why I can’t say anything.

I have no desire to pry. When I waved at Schwein, Schwein also waved his hand in my direction and started walking away.

Stumble!

Something was weighing down my body.

Sur! Shir wraps his arms around my shoulders, and his chin rests on top of my head.

W-what—whoa━!

“What are you doing here?”

“···Stories like this and that! It’s heavy…?!”

Only then did Shir, who had been leaning against me, adjust his posture.

“Let’s go and eat meat. I also want to ask you something! Oh, that’s that one! It’s yours!”

Deberg cuts Sanso’s thigh in the brazier and roasts it, sweating profusely.

······It’s the size of my torso, right?

“No matter what I do, I don’t have the confidence to eat all of that?”

“You can eat it forever.”

“Even if I eat it for a long time, won’t it go bad before I finish eating it?”

“I don’t know. It’s your responsibility, so you handle it somehow.”

ah! I need to get Dennis!

As he waddles uncomfortably with the hanging Shir and stands in front of the brazier, Deberg is delighted.

“Hurry and take this! Baking is too difficult so I can’t do it!”

“···Can you cut it into three pieces?”

“I’ll cut it right away, so don’t go anywhere and just wait!”

Deberg, who cut up the meat while screaming, put it in three bowls and presented it to me.

“Thank you. I will eat well. Sur. Just hold one on top. Now let me go.”

Damn it! I called your name!

Shir, who was clinging to me like a leech, is startled by my emotions and falls away from me.

“······Take it back first. I’ll stop by somewhere else for a moment and then go.”

“Yes! Come quickly!”

Shir laughs awkwardly and walks away.

I glance around and see people looking at me from the corner of their eyes. Calling Shir’s name causes negative emotions in others.

It’s as if this world is a game and the developer called Hein patched Shir’s name to be called Amor.

So is it strange that I don’t follow that? Am I a bug? Are you becoming the bad cheese mold the devil said you were? ···Let’s not think nonsense. What I’m doing is right. I will go to my grave and never do anything I will regret.

Because death is not the end.