~ Adventurer"s life Day 27 (Sat) Afternoon ~ Comnes Town – Workshop – Rostam

Taking the skeleton turned Mario to his Rostam workshop, from there we found the owner of the shop, Addrianne, to which she immediately teared up when seeing Mario.

"Dear!"
"You"ve… sure had it hard."

I"m quite surprised how she even manages to realise it was her dead husband in that sort of appearance… Must be the beard.
Though, the appearance of the wife (widow?) embracing a mustached skeleton is quite surreal…

Once things calmed down, Mario asked about the state of the shop since the last time he was here.
If things were to be going well, then perhaps he can finally rest in peace… somehow though, I get the feeling it won"t turn out as easily as that.

"Since the time I got hold of the recipe again, I"ve been able to make surprising improvements to it and the sales had been going well, but…"

From what she said, ever since she had been selling some slime made containers to the old carpenter next door, it"s popularity suddenly rose due to its lightweight and ability to carry much more liquid than a normal bamboo tube… So right now, she"s been having quite a number of requests for these items.

However, since she had her requests for slime jelly collection removed prior to that, she doesn"t have enough materials to make them. Not to mention the guild had been busy in handling the sudden influx of adventurers so her request had been put on hold, making her quite troubled over it.

"Master. Could we not help with collecting some slime jelly for her?"

So Mario says facing my direction… By the way, he had been calling me ‘Master" ever since he had merged with the skeleton and wouldn"t stop despite my request… It"s a little embarra.s.sing so I wondered what"s preventing him doing so.

However, aside from having some sort of malicious intent against me, he has a surprising amount of freedom in everything else. So much so that it"s hard to restrain him in doing what he wants to do.
Like now, how Mario just came back to the room with cups of tea.

"Hm. Well, we do still have some time to spare, not to mention there"s still some materials I"d want to collect there too."

Then again, we"re going to have to be mindful about other parties if we are to do this quickly, especially at this time…

"… Should we head to the guild first to put up some requests?"

Benedetta, who had been silent until now, spoke up.

"… Why"s that?"
"It"s fairly expensive, but with it we can have some adventurers collect it for us, not to mention it could also give a little bit of publicity as well."

I see, since it"s an informal request, they"ll be coming here instead of the guild for the exchange.

"… But, then to be having the adventurers come to the shop directly, wouldn"t the guild say something about that?"
"It"s not particularly special as there"re many adventurers who also complete requests without pa.s.sing through the guild so as to avoid taxes. So long as the transaction is not conspicuously large, the guild wouldn"t really get involved. Besides, they"re also quite busy with the adventurer influx."

Benedetta also adds that due to the increase of adventurers, many more requests would be taken, making it harder for novice adventurers who can"t venture into the hunting grounds yet.
Recently, it"s even gotten to the point where there would be many injured novices from recklessly hunting sh.e.l.led rabbits when there were no herb collection requests available…

I see now. This would actually benefit the guild in some way, as it would at least help out the novices here.

… But Benedetta… I didn"t think you"d be the type of person to actively avoid taxes!

~ Adventurer"s life Day 27 (Sat) Afternoon ~ Comnes Town – Adventurers Guild – Exchange Centre – Back Room

Still with a guilty conscience and paranoid of getting caught, I brought the topic up to Ohmas, the person who I have the most intimacy with.
… While he was thinking, I was already regretting bringing the matter up until…

"Mhm. That"s not a bad idea at all! Go right ahead!"
"Eh… ?"

That went surprisingly easy… Though because Rostam wouldn"t have much to fund it, we can"t put up too many requests for it, but from what he said, the guild can even give a little help in the payment so long as it"s given back… Why so supportive?

"No well, recently the guild had quite a bit of money, but there"s not enough requests to use it for… not to mention public safety had been getting worse because of this and the n.o.ble quarters had been complaining about it…"

Is that so. So it benefits them too is it.

After awhile of discussing matters regarding the Rostam workshop, we settled on uncontracted promise on continuing to place requests onto the request board, but if the amount of requests increases, then the exchange will be made via the guild.
Now with adding on to a supply from the guild, it should be much more stable, though however, even I don"t know if this would be able to meet up with the demand or not.

Once everything was settled, I had myself create some health potions before meeting up with the others to collect some slime jelly.

~ Adventurer"s life Day 27 (Sat) Afternoon ~ Comnes Town – North West – Wetlands

Since there aren"t any strong monsters at the wetlands, me, Benedetta and Mario (skeleton B) would search the area while only skeleton C handles the black slugs.

Mario is, as expected, much quicker in searching and extracting those slime jellies, carrying with him a large container to store these from the workshop.
As for me, I"m a little more slower as I worry about damaging the core, and the same went for Benedetta too.
Skeleton C on the other hand, is collecting at a speed similar to Mario and had already managed to… wait wha!?

"Hold on, how is this guy collecting slimes even though I told it to be keeping guard… and it"s even good at it… ?"
"Eh!? I just noticed, but it already collected this much!"

Being so dextrous was surprising enough, but the biggest problem was that it stopped following my previous instruction and then did something else… Does it really have a will of its own… What is this?

"Ah, sorry about that… I kinda borrowed him without asking…"
"So it was you!"

… So it seems like Mario can take control of a single skeleton from me, furthermore the skeleton he has control over would inherit a portion of Mario"s abilities…
So in addition to collecting, he also seemed to be proficient in using a hatchet for battle, so having him take control of skeleton A would be quite interesting.

The two Mario skeletons already came back with a bag full of slime jelly.
I called out another skeleton to carry the items as we head back.

There"s a lot of things I still don"t get here but… Oh well…

~ Adventurer"s life Day 27 (Sat) Afternoon ~ Comnes Town – Workshop – Rostam

When arriving back to the store, the old carpenter next door, Piettro, was already sitting on a seat in the room.
It seems he was called here by Adrianne since he didn"t seem too shocked when seeing Mario.
Mario also greeted him which Piettro responded back with a mumble. As usual I can"t understand a thing he"s saying.

Mario headed towards the back room carrying the bag full of slime jellies, so we also followed him there.

"What"s that bottle?"
"It"s the digestive fluids from the those black slugs Master… it"s one of the main ingredients when making slime materials."

Once he placed the slime onto a different container, he poured only a small portion of the black slug liquid onto the jelly… to which it then,

"And so… it turns into this."
"It hardened?"

When the liquid came into contact with its surface, the slime became cloudy and seemingly solidified after a bit of delay…

He apparently found this out back when he was working around the wetlands.
Black slugs may be quite slow, but slimes are even slower… they"re a sitting duck when attacked by them, so they developed this sort of method in order to keep them repelled long enough to either have them starved or until the next rainfall.

"Of course, this isn"t simply just pure Black Slug fluids. It"s got a couple of ingredients to it for improving transparency, elasticity and strength too."

So it"s a trade secret is it… not that I"m going to pry for the details to begin with.

But still, this is actually pretty amazing. I first thought that the material would only produce something similar to vinyl, but by the looks of it, it seems like you could make something like plastic too!
And with plastic, you could probably make anything with it!

"Couldn"t you sell this if you were to make it as a water bottle? You can use it for things like potions and such…"
"I"ve also thought of the same thing, but before I even managed to pa.s.s on this recipe, I died.
"Make it! I"ll help you out!"
"You"ve already helped plenty enough… The slime"s still quite soft right now, it"ll take another hour or so for it to harden."

That"s good to hear!

While waiting, we had a chat with the Old carpenter next door, Piettro, and his son, Gaspro.
Gaspro is at his fifties, with frizzled brown hair, a large forehead and a round nose, sort of similar to his father.
It seems like his wife had already pa.s.sed away long ago and had been working with his father since.

On hand, Piettro had a bamboo container and was point to it, saying something… Hm? Wasn"t this the one I had been putting in slime jellies into before and left it inside Rostam for a bit?

"This is one that my old man made. See… there"s some unique scratches at the back right? It"s a hidden mark from our shop."

Gaspro explained it to us for him… so my containers were made by him huh…

As Gaspro said, the hidden marks were for identifying which items had been made by their workshop. But this sort of practice is used mainly on larger items like furniture, so it seems like they"ve been adding them in for fun.

"There was much more work in the city for us in the past…"

According to him, there were a number of workshops writing in various expertise, with carpentry being one of them, but they"re in quite a pinch right now with the declining supply of wood since imports of it from the north and south had been dropping.

Gaspro had been working with bamboo and woodwork repairs for some time, but it"s not particularly something great to work in.

"… So it"s a big help to us for Adrianne to be requesting our help for her slime project."

However, since he was originally working as a carpenter, production with it was slower than expected.
Ever since Mario, who"s been quite experienced in making slime materials, came back, he"s been quite motivated.

… At that, Piettro handed me over a bamboo container with some sort of expectation in his eyes.

"Do you want me to engrave onto this?"

With a mumble, he gave a slight nod to it… Can this be done?

"Mmm… putting our store name onto the product huh… that"s a little unusual."
"If you were to out your store name onto it, then there would be other merchants that would like to trade directly with you. Not to mention this could also be known outside of town."
"Dear, is this not a good idea? Let"s do it!"
"I also think it"s a good idea."

In contrast to the somewhat sceptical Mario, both Adrianne and Benedetta seemed to be in full agreement to it.

In this world, although it"s quite common for an expensive furniture to be engraved with the family crest, engraving store brand names onto their products is quite unusual.
From the perspective of other stores, it"s often felt as something shabby and shameless, and there"s often the case where it would be believed that the carving would weaken the structure.
However, since the slime hardens within the mold, it"s possible to have the brand carved into the mold itself.

So long as the product itself won"t be hated by the customers, this could be publicized quite well.

~ Adventurer"s life Day 27 (Sat) Afternoon ~ Comnes Town – Workshop – Rostam

"The slime container is now complete! Of course, you can also use it to store portions too."
"Ooh! That"s awesome!"

Mario came back with about 20 or so cylindrical shaped bottles, the edges were rounded off and the texture was more akin to plastic than gla.s.s.
The wooden lid was similar to a wide cork, wound tightly from the bottle.
Even when tipped upside down, there was no sign of it spilling… It"s surprisingly tight.

I took about 5 of those before standing up.

"Alright… I"ll be going."
"Eh… ? Where are you going?"
"To the guild! See ya!"

I forgot about the important thing regarding the throwable bottles and was moving to promote the items…

That said, I only found out about it the next day.

—- Divine Protection and Skills —-
Necromancer level 6: Undead Servant 21 Summons; Bone manipulation; Ghost Servant; Bonuses < bone="" weapon;="" bone="" armor;="" gathering;="" night="" vision="">
Alchemist level 6: (Health/Poison/Mana) potion create; Extraction; Plating; Bonuses < throw;="" gathering="">
Sculptor level 6: Engrave; Golem (Wood/Earth/Stone); Bonuses < dagger;="" hammer;="" sculpting;="" gathering;="" mining="">

—- Summon Equipment —-
A: Hatchet + 6/6, Kite shield (metal) + 6/6, Blood stained leather armor + 0/6.
B: Mace + 6/6, Round shield with iron frame (wood) + 6/6
C: Mace + 6/6, Heavy round shield (bone) + 6/6
D-O: Club + 6/6, Heavy round shield (bone) + 6/6

—- Equipment —-
Pig femur Bone dagger - 2 sets + 6/6
Barbarian robe + 0/3
Half-face guarded Viking helmet (bone) + 5/4
Heavy Round Shield (bone) + 5/4

※: + X/Y Arbitrary level of engraving and plating respectively.

TL Note: It"s my procrastination chapter!