Survival in Another World with My Mistress!, Volume 2, page 24
We spent the night at the frontline base, and I spent the next morning doing my “Kousuke, the man with the healing hands” routine.
“Whooooa?! M-my leg is straight again?!”
“My aching knee?!”
“Even after the tendons were cut, I can move my fingers?!”
“I can fight again!”
Nothing could match the splint. One little stick of wood and cloth could heal people with broken bones, limps, and wounded hands—anything short of a lost limb.
“It’s still so strange, no matter how many times I see it,” Sir Leonard said with astonishment. He was here to be my guard just in case. He’d been on the receiving end of my care once before.
As always, the initial skeptics looked at me with reverence after I had treated two or three people. Ha ha ha. Yes, revere me more.
I was done treating everyone in less than an hour. Delighted and feeling whole again, people bounced around and zipped throughout the spot we’d picked for treatments. Others started swinging practice weapons or just marveling at the whole situation.
“Everyone looks so much more cheerful now,” I commented.
“I was also that excited when I was once again able to move the way I used to. I would wager that when the ugly necessities of this war are done with, this is the end your powers will serve,” Sir Leonard said.
“Yeah, you might be right.”
It certainly would be ideal to use my powers for helping people live. Still, it was tough to live from day to day with people out there actively trying to kill you. I had no idea what the entity responsible for bringing me into this world was hoping for, but all I could do was keep on going in my own way.
I handed off my patients to Danan, since he was in command at the base, and headed down to R&D. We had a lot of things to work on: developing the golem communicators for additional purposes, making radio broadcasts a reality, and creating magical sources of power.
“Welcome,” Ira said.
“Hey, folks. Long time no see.”
“It has been a while.”
“So it has.”
“Nice to see ya again.”
I looked around, but Sykes was nowhere to be found. D-don’t tell me…
“Where’s Sykes?”
Everyone averted their eyes at my question. Uh, guys?
“He’s sleeping; he’s not feeling so well.”
“Wow, are you guys merciless or what?” I said.
“Ha ha ha.”
This is no laughing matter if you ask me. Is this the future that awaits me too? I’m scared… So scared, I’m trembling in my boots. But Ira shouldn’t be so bad, right?
“We’ve given him medicine, so he should be okay,” one lady said after misinterpreting my gaze.
Will he really be okay with medicine alone? It’ll be no joke if he’s too worn down and sucked dry to get anything done; y’all might kill him.
“Um, okay. Let’s just change the subject. Yeah.” This conversation was leading nowhere. Sorry, Sykes. You were a good man. “So, uh, which projects made progress while I was away?”
“You mean the projects for the magical wave relay, golem power, magic guns, magic sword mass production, and the crystallization of the node’s magic?”
The last three were news to me. I had given everyone information about my guns in case it could be of use to them, and I was amazed to learn that they had begun developing magic guns from that baseline.
“We’ve based the designs of our magic guns on your bolt-action rifles. We’re looking for a way to shoot magical bullets, right?”
“That’s right. We’re currently experimenting with different firing mechanisms that use fire magic, wind magic, or both. Right now, we’re tackling the issue of how each method loses range to blowback.”
The lamia blacksmith and the mouse beastfolk mage showed me the blueprint for the gun.
Hmm, this definitely looks to be inspired by the bolt-action rifle, but perhaps they’d be better served using a muzzleloader for reference instead?
“If this is how it works, then I think I might know a better kind of gun to use for reference instead. I’ll make a number of them and give them to you tomorrow. As for what kind of gun it is…”
I explained the mechanism for muzzleloaders to the best of my knowledge, including how you didn’t need to stuff gunpowder into them, and how—so long as you shoved a bullet into the chamber—you’d be able to reload at about the same speed as a crossbow and then fire it by setting off magic inside of the barrel. If the bullets and the barrel of the gun were well made, I doubted they needed to worry about blowback, so they’d only need to get the firing mechanism and the structural integrity of the gun down.
“Ah, that does sound much simpler.”
“We shall try to come up with a new design based on this method.”
Tonight, I would make a sample muzzleloading rifle and bullets to give them tomorrow. Next up on the list, magic swords.
“The mass production of magic swords and crystallization of the magic from the node are projects in progress at the home base.”
“Is that technically possible?”
“We have come up with a mock-up of a mechanism that can draw out and collect the node’s magic by analyzing the barrier device. We’re also developing a mechanism that can simultaneously crystallize magic and turn finished iron and steel weapons into magicked iron and magicked steel through continuous thaumaturgical bombardment.”
“If we manage to make it work, then we will most certainly be able to move ahead with all kinds of things. If we can mass-produce magicked iron and steel, that alone will boost the entire Liberation Army’s power.”
Weapons made of magicked iron and steel were more durable and kept their edge longer than normal ones. Armor made of the same stuff would have an increased resistance to magic. I doubted I could help with that kind of project.
But wait a minute. In that one survival game in the world made of blocks, you can enchant equipment with all kinds of effects. There was an achievement for being a fantasy blacksmith too. It stands to reason that my abilities themselves might work with magical elements. Maybe I can show off my powers by preparing magical materials for crafting and building?
At present, I didn’t see any workbenches for that sort of thing in the crafting menu, but I had reason to assume that something like that would be added to my crafting list if I just put them in my inventory.
“Hey, I have an idea. Would you mind giving me our lineup of magical materials? It doesn’t have to be that many,” I said.
“Hmm? Why?”
“There’s just something I want to test really quick.” I told everyone, including Ira, about what I was thinking.
I was able to handle mithril and its alloys even though they didn’t exist in the world I came from, so there was a chance that I could make something like a workbench for the creation of such magical items. If I could make such a workbench, then I might be able to craft something useful.
“Interesting,” Ira said.
“Your powers are so versatile. It certainly seems possible.”
“I think it would be worth a shot. If he does manage to make something that way, then we might be able to take the technology from that product.”
“Hm, then let’s give it a whirl. I’m interested to see what kind of magical items you’ll make.”
Everyone seemed on board with my suggestion. They would all bring what materials they had tomorrow and we’d experiment. Hmm, the possibility of making a new workbench? I’m looking forward to it.
***
After the meeting with R&D, I had some time to myself. It wasn’t yet afternoon, but I didn’t have any other jobs to do or people I needed to talk to. We probably wouldn’t have to worry about gizmas and the Holy Kingdom for the time being, and we had plenty of food and military supplies stockpiled.
We had more laborers producing things now, so it would be best to let the members of the Liberation Army make everything they could so that they’d have jobs to do, while I made things only I could make.
With my free time, I decided to develop new items for the first time in a while. I’d also work to better understand my powers.
Sylphy met up with me after her meeting with Danan, and Sir Leonard came along with her to act as my guard.
“I’m thinking of trying to make miso and soy sauce.”
“Miso and soy sauce,” Sylphy repeated.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what those must be from the names alone,” Sir Leonard said.
Together, we all headed to the storehouse where we kept our food reserves. I wanted to look for beans that looked like viable ingredients.
“It’d be nice if there was something like soybeans.”
“What kind of beans are soybeans?” Sir Leonard asked me.
“They’re beans that grow inside of a hull; they’re spherical and about the size of my pinky. We don’t usually eat them as is. When they’re not ripened, they taste good if you boil them with salt. They have all kinds of uses and ways to prepare them after you boil them.”
“Hmm, that sounds pretty similar to oil beans.”
“Yeah, I agree,” Sylphy said.
“Oil beans,” I repeated.
“I believe we are growing them here to extract the oil from them. They keep well and could potentially be eaten if we boiled them, so I believe there must be some in storage,” Sir Leonard said.
At the storehouse, we received a ten-kilogram bag of oil beans, a large quantity of salt, and three kilograms each of wheat and barley that hadn’t been milled yet.
“Will this be enough for ingredients?” Sylphy asked.
“We’re gonna boil these, smash them, mix them together, and then ferment them,” I explained.
The first thing to try to make would be miso. The koji mold would be the bottleneck for this endeavor, but surely I could figure it out with my handy-dandy crafting powers. Skipping the fermenting with koji mold seemed a whole lot easier than turning gizma meat into something more akin to beef.
“The question is, what kind of crafting workbench should I use for this?”
I doubted my smithing station would cut it. I wouldn’t say the improved workbench was completely out of the question, but it didn’t seem like the right fit. And the cooking counter and brewing bench seemed dubious.
I tossed all of the ingredients into my inventory and then checked the crafting menus for the cooking counter and brewing bench.
Roasted Soy Flour——Materials: Soybean × 2
Soy Milk——Materials: Soybean × 2, Water × 2
I found roasted soy flour and soy milk in the cooking counter’s crafting menu. Roasted soy flour wasn’t good on its own, though. I needed mochi too. But with soy milk, I could probably process that into tofu. For now, I decided to go ahead and make both.
“What are these?” Sir Leonard asked me.
“Roasted soy flour and soy milk. One’s flour made of ground roasted soybeans, and the other is like a juice made from boiled, smashed, squeezed, and strained soybeans. They’re highly nutritious.”
“This flour has a pleasant scent. I get the feeling it could be used in lots of recipes,” Sylphy said.
“This thing called soy milk has a bit of a grassy smell to it. It certainly seems nutritious,” Sir Leonard observed.
They’d reached for what I made without hesitation, which kinda surprised me.
“The roasted soy flour is used in a lot of confections. We have a food called mochi, which is smashed grain that’s then kneaded and made really soft. We sprinkle roasted soy flour mixed with sugar on it or drizzle honey on top with the flour. Plenty of food can be prepared with soy milk too.”
But I still didn’t have any miso. I checked the brewing bench just in case, but I didn’t see anything that sounded like miso there either.
“Hmm… I can’t make it even though I’m pretty sure I have all of the ingredients.”
Does this mean that the workbenches I have won’t work? I can’t get it to appear using item creation by imagining it either. In which case, this must mean that I need a specialized kind of crafting table for making it.
Equipment for fermenting and maturing ingredients… Like a cask for brewing? I feel like it’d work on the brewing bench too though, since I can make alcohol with it. But fine, a cask. I’ll make a cask. I’ll create a cask for brewing using item creation. C’mon, cask! Caaask.
Brewing Cask——Materials: Wood × 10
“Woohoo!”
“Wh-what happened?” Sylphy asked me.
“Oh, I can make a workbench that should work for brewing now.”
“Brewing, you say? Like for brewing spirits?” Sir Leonard asked.
“It might do that, yeah.”
“I shall go pilfer grapes and barley!” Sir Leonard dashed straight back to the storehouse. It was close by, but that old man must’ve been dying for some wine and beer.
“Will you be able to make mead too?” Sylphy asked.
“Maybe.”
“I’ll go get some nectar.” Sylphy dashed back to the storehouse too. You two sure love your alcohol.
Anyway, I could make brewing casks now. I’m glad it costs so little to make. I guess I’ll make two of them.
“Hmm? It stacks?”
Normally, the workbenches didn’t stack in my inventory, but the casks did, just like other materials and items. Did that mean these were consumable items?
“They’re cheap to make, but if they’re not reusable, they might not be so cheap after all.”
The brewing casks were finished, so I took them out and accessed them. The brewing menu appeared.
Miso——Materials: Soybean × 2, Grain × 2, Salt × 2, Water × 2
Soy Sauce——Materials: Soybean × 1, Grain × 1, Salt × 2, Water × 4
“All right!”
Miso and soy sauce require pretty much the same ingredients… And yeesh, soy sauce takes forever to craft. A whole 19.2 hours? But wait, it must’ve originally been 24 hours reduced by 20 percent thanks to my Skilled Worker skill. And miso takes half that. Usually, this stuff probably takes years to mature.
As it so happened, it took about 200 grams of soybeans to make one unit of miso. The cask was as big as a regular cask. They must get really packed in.
The law of conservation of mass was on vacation yet again today.
“Kousuke, I’ve brought the nectar,” Sylphy announced.
“And I have brought grapes and barley,” Sir Leonard added.
The boozehounds arrived just as I was preparing the miso and soy sauce. I took what they brought and accessed the brewing cask’s menu.
Elven Mead——Materials: Nectar × 2, Water × 6
Wine——Materials: Grape × 10
Ale——Materials: Barley × 4, Water × 4
Beer——Materials: Barley × 3, Hops × 1, Water × 4
Well, what did you know? I could make them. Elven mead and wine were their own separate recipes, understandably enough, but I was surprised to see that ale and beer had their own too. I don’t have any hops… I bet I could use the herbs Ira and the elves gave me instead. But which kinds would work? I’ll have to figure it out later.
The crafting time for ale was a surprising 8 minutes. That’s fast! The elven mead was the next fastest at 30 minutes. Beer took 4.3 hours, while wine took 8.6 hours.
“We can drink ale right away?! And we can drink the other kinds of alcohol tomorrow?!” Sir Leonard asked, overjoyed.
“Don’t get too excited now.”
“I would hardly call it that. But to think that you can make even alcoholic drinks that quickly…” Sylphy said.
Sir Leonard was more than ecstatic, and even Sylphy had a happy smile on her face. I didn’t know if it was true of Sir Leonard, but I knew that Sylphy loved to drink. She was still considered a child among elves, but she was older than me, so I couldn’t really protest.
“I am also intrigued by the miso and soy sauce you’re concocting,” Sir Leonard said.
“They’ve got a unique flavor to them, but they’re delicious. Though they might not be to everyone’s tastes.”
Still though, soy sauce was an all-purpose condiment. I was sure everyone would be obsessed with it as soon as they tried it. Miso wasn’t so versatile. The only things I could think of using miso for were miso soup and vegetables preserved in miso. And chan-chan-yaki, since it was basically a miso salmon stir fry?
Actually, cooked meat and fish dipped in miso might be pretty good. And we could try using it with soy sauce too. And it’d be tasty just to smear it on vegetables and munch on those too.
As I was telling everyone about this, the ale finished, so I took out a ceramic cup and poured it out of the cask.
“To our victory…though I guess we haven’t won quite yet,” I said.
“We still have many skirmishes ahead,” Sir Leonard replied.
“But we can’t deny that you and all of our soldiers managed to get back safely, and you even deterred the Holy Kingdom’s army,” Sylphy pointed out.
“Kousuke was the one who did that. However, you’re right. I cannot deny it was a victory.”
“Hee hee. Yeah. To our victory!”
“Victory!”
We lightly clinked our cups together and then gulped down the ale. This was my first time drinking it. Unlike beer, it wasn’t bitter. It tasted a bit sour, but it had a fruity note to it, which I liked. I might prefer this to beer.
“Hmm, this is my first time having ale. Not bad,” Sylphy said.
“I agree.”
“This ale you’ve made is of high quality,” Sir Leonard told me. “The ale offered in your average tavern on the edge of town tastes like horse piss in comparison.”
“Really? Remind me never to go drinking in those kinds of places.”
Even while we drank, I continued setting up things to brew. I could mass-produce casks using the improved workbench, so I was banging them out one after the other. I had a large quantity of crops to prepare for brewing, too. I prepared the same amount of miso and soy sauce while I prepared as many casks as I could for making elven mead, wine, ale, and beer.
