"The urchins..."
Staring at the mountain of urchin remains in the kitchen, I was quietly feeling down. I'd thought I'd have several more chances to enjoy them, but they were all gone now. I figured this was a perfectly natural reaction.
The tuna and other fish were still there, so I could enjoy seafood bowls topped with those. But I hadn't expected the urchins to run out this quickly, so the blow hit harder than I'd anticipated.
"Tenma-sama, is something wrong?"
While I was standing there staring glumly at the mountain of urchin remains, Aina popped into the kitchen.
"No, nothing really... I was just wondering if urchin shells could be used as fertilizer."
"You're lying."
I'd blurted out a lie on the spot, but it didn't seem to work on Aina. Still, urchin shells probably contained calcium and such, so I decided to dry some out and keep them for experiments.
"This is the first time I've seen sea urchins, but... the first person to eat one must have been pretty bold. Normally you wouldn't think something like this could be eaten... but once you try it, it really is delicious. I can understand why you're feeling down, Tenma-sama. So why don't we go consult with Maria-sama?"
With that, Aina took the urchin shells and headed for Maria-sama's room.
"Maria-sama, excuse me."
" Aina, was Tenma here?"
The moment Aina knocked, Maria-sama opened the door with a worried voice. And upon seeing me standing behind Aina—
"Tenma, I'm sorry."
—that's how she greeted me. According to what she said next, Maria-sama had also noticed I was feeling down, and she recalled how members of the royal family had been frequently eating and drinking at our house. Well, Maria-sama herself didn't come by to eat that often, but Tida and Luna came regularly, and of course the King, Ernest, and Lyle also showed up at decent intervals. They'd bring ingredients sometimes, and Caesar-sama would have Tida and Luna bring payment for their share, but I'd been covering costs too. Most of what I paid for came from food obtained incidentally while taking on guild commissions, but I'd also bought rare ingredients down south, so it added up to a fair amount. Incidentally, Maria-sama had known that Tida and Luna came by for meals regularly, but she was surprised to learn the King and the others visited even more often than she'd expected.
So when I was reflecting on having eaten too many urchins, Aina and Grandpa told me about what the King and the others had been doing, and I was so overwhelmed with anger and guilt that I didn't know what to do—so I apparently asked Aina to come check on me.
"Maria-sama, I have a suggestion about that."
While I was still trying to figure out how to respond to Maria-sama's apology, Aina held out the urchin shells in front of Maria-sama.
"Aina... what about those?"
Maria-sama seemed slightly irritated that Aina had cut in from the side, and there was a bit of an edge to her voice.
"Actually, the true identity of the urchin I received earlier appears to be—
this.
But Maria-sama, aren't you quite familiar with—
this—
?"
When Aina pointed it out, Maria-sama took a good look at the urchin shell resting on her palm, and her expression shifted to surprise as she recognized it.
"
This
is that urchin...
This
was that delicious?"
"So I was right after all. It had the same characteristics as something I'd heard about from you before, so I had a feeling... Maria-sama, why not have this shipped from your family estate as an apology instead?"
"That's right! That's a wonderful idea! Tenma, I'm not sure if this will make up for everything, but I'll have plenty of urchin brought over from my homeland!"
Now that Maria-sama knew the truth about the urchin, she suddenly got all fired up and kept vigorously shaking my hand over and over.
"Um... what exactly is going on?"
I couldn't keep up with this sudden turn of events, so I asked Maria-sama what was happening, but she had apparently forgotten all about me and started writing a letter at a furious pace... well, she was in such a rush that she kept crumpling up botched letters and tossing them aside...
"So, Aina. Why did Maria-sama react like that?"
"Apparently, the creature called urchin is treated like garbage in Maria-sama's homeland."
Apparently, Maria-sama's hometown was a duchy facing the northern sea, and in the fishing grounds belonging to that duchy, urchins were teeming everywhere. The locals didn't even recognize them as food, and since they got in the way of fishing, they were periodically removed and disposed of.
Aina reportedly didn't realize it from just the inside of the urchin, but when she saw the shell, she figured Maria-sama could easily obtain them.
"It's done! Aina, quickly arrange to have this delivered to my family home!"
"Understood."
Aina received the letter, then went to instruct the coachman waiting outside the estate to bring it to the royal castle.
"Now we can eat urchins to our heart's content! Father and brother might discover how delicious urchins are and try to make them a specialty someday, so before that happens—
"—let's claim credit for discovering that urchins are edible—
"—and make sure we can get our hands on them reliably! Kelp too, while we're at it!"
According to Maria-sama, apparently no one eats urchins (not in the surrounding territories or neighboring countries either), and if this were accepted, it would undoubtedly become a major industry. She planned to sell that information to her brother (the current duke) and father (the former duke), and in return, secure my share of urchins for free.
Maria-sama's excitement got too carried away, and she grabbed both my hands and started dancing. Well, when I say dancing, it wasn't like a social dance, nor could it really be called the kind of reckless dancing drunks do at a bar—yet despite all that, Maria-sama's movements carried a certain elegance.
As Maria-sama's excitement continued to climb and she threw her arms around me in the dance's finale—
"Hey, Aina... as a son in this situation, what kind of reaction do you think would be the right one?"
"...Wouldn't smiling be the appropriate response?"
Standing where the voice came from were Aina, watching me and Maria-sama with an expressionless face, and Lyle-sama, who had apparently detected something delicious with his own keen sense of smell.
"............"
For a moment, time froze for the four of us. Lyle-sama didn't know how to react, Aina was staying out of it, Maria-sama was embarrassed at being seen in her excited state, and I decided not to say anything unnecessary until someone made a move—resulting in a strangely tense atmosphere.
"Lyle! Sit down right there!"
"O-oh..."
The first to move was Maria-sama. Lyle-sama, suddenly called by name, meekly sat seiza-style right there in the hallway as instructed. And from there began the lecture. Half of that lecture was probably Maria-sama's way of hiding her embarrassment. Well, when I say half, it was added on top of her original lecturing, so in reality it ended up being nearly twice as long as a normal lecture.
"Tenma... I'm really sorry about all that."
Lyle-sama apologized to me for all the eating and drinking approximately three hours after Maria-sama's lecture began. Until then, Lyle-sama had been sitting seiza in the hallway the entire time, getting lectured by Maria-sama.
Incidentally, as a result of the lecture, it was decided that the cost would be deducted from Lyle's salary as managed by Maria-sama, and Lyle's monthly allowance was further reduced.
Incidentally, Lyle had come to our place expecting a meal, but even he couldn't very well ask to be fed right after Maria-sama's lecture, so after apologizing to me, he immediately headed back to the royal castle together with Tida and the others. He said he was about to receive his second lecture together with the King. And from what I heard later, because Ernest hadn't been present during that second lecture, he ended up having to endure a third lecture with Ernest added in as well…
The day after treating Maria-sama and the others to seafood rice bowls,
"This is the armor I'm planning to give to Amy. It's something I used to wear back in the day, so it's a bit scuffed, but it's good quality, light, and durable. With a little repair, it should be perfectly usable."
Later than planned, but I decided to hand over the armor and other items I'd been storing in my Dimension Bag to Amy.
This was something I'd used before I started operating in Gunjou City—armor made from the hide of the bipedal reptilian Monster known as a "Lizardman." It was crafted from carefully selected parts and was said to be a masterpiece the craftsman took pride in, but because they insisted on using only the best parts,
only
the top-grade pieces were used, it ended up being too small for an average adult male, and even for a woman, the fit was uncomfortably tight.
Thanks to that, it was priced at a level even my earnings at the time could afford. Well, the shopkeeper probably suspected the money had been stolen, but he seemed to figure it was better to play dumb and sell it rather than leave it sitting there. After all, since even women found it tight, only someone the size of a child could actually wear it.
It was light, durable, and easy to move in, making it my favorite piece of armor at the time, but after about a year and a half it became too tight, and I switched to other armor before the second year rolled around. Even after switching, I brought it to the craftsman several times to see if it could be repaired, but either there weren't suitable materials for the job or the craftsman's skills were lacking, so it had been sitting in my Dimension Bag ever since.
Despite being Lizardman armor, in the Royal Capital there are reliable
craftsmen,
and there are materials from Wyvern subspecies and Earth Dragons available for repairs.
"It should end up being better armor than what I had back then."
"If you're going to go that far, wouldn't it be better to just make something new from Wyvern subspecies materials, big brother?"
Luna, who was prodding at the Lizardman armor behind Amy (showing up again despite what happened just yesterday, the shameless girl), tilted her head and voiced her doubt, but there were several reasons for my decision.
"One reason I'm not making it from scratch with Wyvern subspecies materials is that new ones are stiff and hard to move in. The one I used before is old but barely worn, and since it's been stored in my Dimension Bag the whole time, it's still at a nice, supple hardness. The second reason is that armor made almost entirely from Wyvern subspecies or Earth Dragon materials would be too expensive and too conspicuous."
Once word got out that it contained valuable materials, someone would surely try to take it from Amy by force, either to sell it off or break it apart for parts. If Amy only got injured in the process, that would be one thing, but I didn't want someone deciding to kill her quickly and then steal it. I'd already given Amy a Golem for protection, but with Amy's lack of experience, she'd more likely be caught off guard than not. So even though it was good armor,
not worth the risk
of going after—or at least, that's what I wanted them to think. So I only used expensive materials in inconspicuous places for the repairs.
"Well, for an academy exercise, the Lizardman materials alone would probably be plenty, I'd think."
I hadn't asked for details about what kind of exercise they'd be doing, but apparently it was something as simple as heading into the nearby forest or grasslands.
"Teacher, thank you so much!"
Amy was visibly excited about the fact that she could actually carry her own armor, her voice bouncier than usual.
"As for weapons, I think anything we have here would do, but if you're going to do it, you might as well swing by Kelly's place and pick something out after taking a look."
So that's what we did—immediately set off for Kelly's workshop. Tida and Luna were coming along, and that meant Chris, who'd tagged along as our guard, was coming too.
"So this is the big entourage, huh?"
The moment we arrived at the workshop, Kelly counted our numbers and greeted us with an exasperated voice.
True to the "big entourage" label, the people who'd shown up at the workshop included the original group (me, Tida and the other two, and Chris), plus Amour, Jeanne, Aura, Aina, Shiromaru (who'd stepped out of the bag at Chris's request and was moving around on his own), and, for some reason, Albert and his two idiot friends.
Amour had started getting ready the second I said I was heading out. Jeanne and Aura had come along because they were worried Aina would have a hard time without me there. Aina ended up joining as the one keeping those two in check (though really, she was there to guard Tida and Luna).
I could understand all of that. But the reason those three idiots were here was simply that they'd been about to go somewhere to have fun, stumbled across us, and decided it looked interesting so they forcibly joined up.
Normally, I'd have turned them away, but Amy—who'd been helped out by Albert and the others not long ago—said she didn't mind, so they tagged along without any hesitation. Incidentally, since Amy was a girl and these were guys getting close to her, Tida had been keeping a wary eye on Lion for a while now.
"So, the business at hand is repairing and adjusting this armor, plus consulting on weapons… Neither the armor nor the weapons will be done right away, so we'll do the consultation today and the actual delivery on a later date."
Once he'd gotten Amy's confirmation on that, Kelly started jotting down Amy's measurements on a wooden plank. Tida had been trying to sneak a peek at the plank, but Aina had firmly grabbed his arm. Only I, Aina, and Chris had noticed what was going on. Tida was dragged to a corner of the workshop by Aina and Chris and given a quiet scolding where the others wouldn't see. After the lecture, Tida was full of remorse and shame over what he'd done, so I tried to comfort him by saying it wasn't odd for a boy to want to know about a girl he liked—but then Tida asked me if I'd been the same way, and I reflexively answered that I wasn't (in this life), which ended up twisting the knife even further.
With Tida moping off to the side, Amy went around consulting with everyone to decide on the details of her equipment and weapon adjustments. When the topic of what color to make the armor came up, Luna chimed in:
"Your armor should be bright red!"
And when her voice echoed through the workshop, the one who reacted the most—somehow—was Tida. The person it actually mattered to, Amy, seemed keen on the idea too.
"Why is red good?"
I asked Luna for her reasoning behind pushing red, and apparently it was simply because it was the same color as her own armor.
"Tenma-sama. The red that Luna-sama speaks of holds a special meaning among the royal family."
According to Aina's explanation, males of the royal family wear "blue armor," as the name Blue Male suggests, while females wear "red armor." The armor uses some gold and silver, but is predominantly red. While there's no rule forbidding other nobles from using the same color, as a matter of etiquette, those wearing formal armor in the same color typically use a different color for nearly half of it. However, for armor worn by commoners, there's apparently no need to worry too much about the color.
"I see... but you should drop the red."
Hearing my words, Tida was the most surprised of all. She was probably imagining what it would be like if Amy wore a color that
contrasted with her own.
She was looking at me with a slightly resentful expression. Meanwhile, Luna and Amy looked puzzled, though they didn't seem to think much beyond that. For reference, Amur and Aina reacted as though this were obvious, while the other members wore confused expressions.
"Amy, you're planning to keep working as an adventurer in the future, right? In that case, red armor is way too conspicuous. Some people wear flashy armor to lure in enemies or targets, but adventurers fundamentally wear dark-colored armor like black or brown to avoid being detected."
For instance, the dungeons Amy would frequent most in the future tend to be dimly lit, and colors like red make her easily spotted by enemies. The same holds true on grasslands — red stands out when trying to hunt prey, making it easy for targets to flee, and it also makes her more vulnerable to attacks from flying Monsters.
"Royals, on the other hand, need to deliberately stand out during battles and such. To allies, it says, 'I'm fighting here too,' and to enemies, 'The head you're after is right here'... something like that."
When Amy heard this, she looked startled and immediately said she'd stop using red. Luna, influenced by her, also started saying she'd switch to a different color, but Aina reminded her of the royal family's duty.
In the end, Amy settled on a brownish light green — what she called warbler green or olive in her previous life.
For reference, as for armor colors: Aina and I wear black, Jeanne and Aura wear tawny, Chris wears white, Amur wears black and yellow tiger stripes, Albert wears indigo, Cain wears gray, and Lion wears deep green. The last three apparently hadn't officially chosen these as their formal colors — they just happened to be colors they currently liked.
Also, when Luna remarked that Amur's tiger pattern was conspicuous, she was told that the pattern actually provided a camouflage effect against animals (including animal-type Monsters) and even functioned as a magic item with Concealment properties. This seemed to satisfy her — or rather, she probably found it too much trouble to think about and simply decided it was fine since it was a magic item.
"What about weapons?"
"Something single-edged and short, like yours."
Apparently, sword-shaped weapons had become trendy at the academy recently. Well, Amy said she wanted a single-edged weapon regardless of trends, but Kelly looked troubled.
"Well, if you really insist, that's fine... but did you know? After Tenma started making a name for himself, a lot of people switched to swords, but almost all of them ended up going back to their original weapons."
According to Kelly, many young adventurers had been drawn to swords after seeing the cutting power I showed at the tournament, but most of the swords circulating in the Royal Capital were merely cast and then sharpened, causing frequent incidents where blades snapped or bent during use.
It wasn't just because there were so many second- and third-rate products, though — even with a first-rate sword, stories were common of people who didn't know how to use them properly and ended up forcing clashes with other blades, chipping the edge. Some adventurers even fell into poverty from the repair costs alone.
As for Kelly herself, she had only forged a few swords, all for practice, and had disposed of them all without listing them for sale. But among her fellow blacksmiths, there were some who...
practice pieces
Even though the smith had explicitly refused and sold them at a low price, some people ended up in actual disputes after being told they'd been handed defective products that snapped right away. Apparently, though, the blacksmith came out decisively on top in the end…
As it happened, the blacksmith in question had experience forging swords, and while the practice pieces he made couldn't be called first-rate, they were apparently perfectly serviceable. According to a traveling merchant from the south—a tanuki beastkin who happened to pass by—it seemed that "getting a blade of this quality at that price is practically unheard of."
"Rani, huh?"
"It's Rani-tan."
Without a doubt, that traveling merchant had to be Rani. She'd probably noticed that swords were starting to trend and had been going around to see if there was money to be made.
"Well, in the end it's Amy's call, but I won't be forging any katanas. At least, not ones good enough to sell."
Amy was hesitating after Kelly's remark, so I decided to offer some advice.
"Amy, if single-edged is fine and it doesn't have to be a katana, there are weapons shaped like one."
I said that and pulled a bladed tool off the workshop shelf to show her.
"It's a nata. There's a related type called a 'sword-cleaver' that looks similar to a katana if you just look at the shape, and it's easy to handle too."
The people who had failed after switching to katanas were probably the ones who used them to smash and hack rather than draw-cut. In this country, plenty of people relied on the weight and momentum of a sword to hack through things, and honestly, it was easier that way and didn't require much technique. But with something as thin as a katana, it was no surprise that it snapped or bent when used like that.
The nata, by contrast, was thick enough that you could hack with it the way you would when splitting firewood, so it wouldn't snap or bend even if you got a little rough with it. On top of that, the spine could be used like a blunt instrument, and depending on the length, it could even serve as a knife for cooking or as a general-purpose tool.
Amy perked up with interest at this explanation and started looking around the workshop for a sword-cleaver, but Kelly told her they didn't have one, and Amy looked disappointed. For now, though, since the feel of the nata hadn't been bad at all, it seemed they'd be moving forward with the sword-cleaver as the weapon of choice.
"For the materials, you should use the ones I've got."
When Amy and Kelly's discussion had reached the topic of materials, I handed Kelly the Dimension Bag containing the items that were slated for disposal. Kelly peered inside the bag and pulled out a few things that looked usable.
"This one, this one, and this one too—these'll work."
What Kelly took out were weapons and armor made of magic iron. She planned to repurpose them into several sword-cleavers. While Kelly was picking through the materials, a female dwarven employee had Amy hold rods of various lengths and used lead plates and other weights to figure out the rough center of gravity for the sword-cleaver.
"I should have a prototype of the sword-cleaver ready by the day after tomorrow, so come by around then. The armor will come after that."
Since Kelly was about to get started on the preparation work, I handed over the deposit and we all left the workshop. According to the female dwarven employee who came out to see us off, business had been slow lately and they'd had plenty of downtime, so the sword-cleaver would probably be finished by tomorrow, let alone the day after. Well, since she'd said the day after tomorrow, I didn't think we'd be going tomorrow.
"If you don't have anything else to do from here, let's head over to the Guild!"
When we'd gotten a little ways from the workshop, Lion made a suggestion.
"It's fine with me, but what about the rest of you?"
When I asked, everyone nodded, so we decided to head straight to the Guild.
We walked for several dozen minutes, and by the time we finally arrived at the Guild, our bodies had well and truly grown cold from the chill. We hurried inside to escape the freezing air and made a beeline for the attached tavern, seeking warm drinks.
A handful of adventurers were having a drinking session in the tavern, but since Chris — a knight who looked like he came from a pretty high-ranking family — and myself along with the Three Idiots, who were all nobles, were present, none of the template troublemakers showed up to bother the kids.
Each of us ordered whatever drink caught our fancy and settled in for a moment of rest. I scanned the request forms posted on the bulletin board, but as expected, given the season, there weren't any convenient jobs to be had.
"Hey, how about taking this one?"
Lion turned to Albert and Cain with the proposal.
"Sorry, I've already got plans tonight."
"Me too."
They shut him down instantly. Lion then turned his gaze toward me, but—
"It's too cold. Not happening."
I refused the moment our eyes met. I had zero interest in going back out into the freezing cold to do anything on purpose.
And so we ended up leaving the Guild almost immediately. As it turned out, the "plans" Albert and Cain had mentioned were actually dates with girls, and Lion supposedly moped around for the next few days over it.