BXBX NOVEL Volume 1 - 13
~ Side Ryouma ~
This morning Sebasu-san informed me that the members of the Duke’s Family will be going to the office of the prefectural governor to meet him today. So like that I ended up by myself. The madam told me that it’s not good to walk around the town by myself and to stay in the lodging instead, but I can’t do that.
Since I’ve finally been registered to the guild, I figured I’d try to get a request. First off how about a generic herb collection quest?
I drag out of my item box, a basket attached to a wooden rack with shoulder straps that can be worn on my back, specifically made for the purpose of collecting things in the forest. I then put my slime inside that and go to the guild. As I look for the requests available for a G Rank, I find that there are requests to help out with Herb Collection, Sweeping, Moving Houses... etc.
At first I thought of accepting the request to help for collecting herbs but, it seems even if I don’t take it now and just take it once I get the herbs would also be fine. So I can just get a different mission and then get the herbs as I come back.
As I thought that I looked for missions other than herb collecting, and then by chance I found two sheets of written requests that stood out.
The contents were sweeping the house and cleaning the shared toilet.
The house aside, the shared toilet can be dealt with by the Scavenger Slime and the magic I came up with. Thinking that, I went to the reception and asked about these two requests.
“Excuse me, I have something I want to ask”
“Welcome, what would you like to know?”
“Yes, may I know the specifics of these two requests?”
“Let me see... this request, huh? Hmm... quite a bit of time has passed since these requests has been put up. Basing on the contents alone it may seem like a normal cleaning job but it stinks and it’s dirty so no one wants to do it. And also the size...”
“Is it big?”
“Very much, actually. First off this thing about sweeping the house, well the thing is this person’s house is right next to a dump site. The client’s also unhappy about it but she got it cheap so she just endured it.”
But in these past few months, the wall of the basement separating the house from the dump site collapsed, and so the trash of the dump site ended up falling into the basement. And then because of the smell the family was troubled so they wanted someone to deal with it. But unless the wall is fixed the trash will just keep going in, but then in order to fix the wall, somehow someway you need to do something about the trash so it’s really just walking in circles.
And then there’s this shared toilet... originally the public office should have employed people with slimes but it seems no matter how much the public office tried to pay they got refused. So with no one to pump out the toilet, this request has been left here for 5 months already. There have also been complaints about the smell coming so... they probably won’t be able to keep it under the rug soon...”
“So there were concerns about catching diseases... because of the two cases...”
“Ara, that’s pretty smart of you. Amazing. That’s exactly right, it’s easy to catch diseases in a dirty place. That’s why they want something to be done about it but no one wants to take the request. In the first place, if the office were to pay properly then there’s no way the people with slimes would refuse. Because the places where they can work are few, so it’s hard to imagine them picking their jobs since they’re desperate in trying to make a living.”
“Specifically, how big are these two cases?”
"The house has a 200 sqm basement, and as for the common toilets, there are 30 7m-wide, 2km-deep, latrine pits. It’s one pit per job for the common toilet."
“And the contents of the trash? As for the toilet I think I can figure it out by myself... ”
“Mainly food scraps for the garbage. And aside from that just the wastes from working with wood”
If it’s like that then I guess I can make the Scavenger Slime eat it...
“I see... then can I accept the request of the case regarding the house”
“Eh!? You’re accepting it!?”
“Yes, since I have a magic for cleaning that’s convenient to use. Although because it takes up a lot of magic, there’s not lot of people that use it.”
“So that’s how it is~ then please bring out your guild card. There’s no time limit but if you try to pull out midway you’ll have to pay a fine”
“I understand”
As I said that I left the guild, and went to the house of the client. The house of the client was in the eastern part of the Town of Gimuru. Even inside the residential district there was an area where cheap house were lined up.
I knock on the door of the house... let’s knock one more time... no one’s still coming out... are they out? ... I knock one more time but this time I call out as well.
“Hello anyone there! I’m someone from the Adventurer’s Guild who accepted your request to clean up!”
The moment I said that, I heard a sound that said dodododo! And the door was opened forcefully.
“Is it true you came here to clean nya!?”
The one who came out had cat ears on her head and a tail attached to her waist, a woman of the cat man tribe. I knew about them but this is my first time seeing one in the flesh. It’s unfortunate though that my first time meeting with a beast man had to be accompanied by the horrifying stench of food scraps. However as a former Japanese that had worked on the service industry, my smile won’t break!
“Yes, my name is Ryouma Takebayashi and I’ve been dispatched by the Adventurer’s Guild. Is it fine with the client?”
“That’s right nya!? You really came to clean nya! I already gave up nya~!”
“Well then please confirm the request”
“Yes, yes! There’s no mistake nya! I am the client Miya nya! I’m really thankful you came nya!”
“Please do give me your thanks after the request has been fulfilled.”
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
What’s up with this guy!? She suddenly cried... wait, what should I do in this situation?
“W–wait! Please calm down, ok?”
“I’m sorry nya... I’m happy... because all the adventurers that had come here seemed really reluctant and kept complaining... and everyone stopped and went home midway nya... there were also people who couldn’t bear the smell as soon as they got to the front door and went home... even the people who said they’d do it until the end like you also left...”
All the adventurers until now, do try to endure it... there may be diseases, but it won’t be at the entrance, right?
“Then, I want to start as soon as possible, the place I’m to work at is the basement, right?”
“That’s right nya. But, what do you plan to do nya?”
“I heard that the trash is made up food scraps and remnants of wood. In that case I have a convenient magic I can use.”
“Eh, really nya?”
“Yes, the consumption of magic power is high so not a lot of people use it. And besides I also have my slave monster.”
“You were a Slave Magic User nya? Well to be honest as long as it ends up being clean, anything is fine nya. Then please take care of it quickly nya”
“Understood. Just to be sure, Miya-san doesn’t having anything important in the basement right?”
“None nya, to begin with the basement wasn’t even used as a storage room nya. And even if there was, considering it’s buried inside that trash, might as well throw it away nya.”
“Then in that case I’ll finish this quickly, and completely dispose of everything in the basement. This will be fine, yes?”
“Yes nya. Please take care of it nya”
“Then please allow me to enter. Where’s the entrance to the basement?”
“Over here nya”
Miya-san brought me to a staircase that continued down to the basement. When I went down that staircase, there was a door there which I opened, and what throught that door what lay before me was a large amount of trash and swarms of flies.
I close the door once, and take the Huge Scavenger Slime from that basket rack I equipped a while ago. And then I open the door for a second time, allowing the Huge Scavenger Slime to enter, and then I tell it to separate in my mind.
Immediately the slime began to split and filled the room to the ceiling. At that moment I made the slimes release foul odor. Immediately the flies started gathering to the slimes and were eaten.
From then on I just made the Scavenger Slime do nothing else but eat the food scraps. If one were to see me right now it’d look like I’m just playing hooky, but I put up a barrier magic and have hidden myself.
I’ve mostly made the Scavenger Slimes eat trash for the past 20 minutes or so, but just as the guild had mentioned, the trash just keeps going in through the hole.
From the looks of things this house was built underneath a hill, to add to that there’s a dump site over there, so what happens is the garbage smoothly falls down the hill and ends inside this basement. Who made a house in this kind of place?
Settling this problem is pretty simple, the answer... make the Scavengers eat until it stops! That’s it, only, it might be problematic if the slimes end up going outside so I put up a Barrier of Concealment over at the dumpsite. That way we can’t be seen from the outside and won’t end up causing a commotion. Even if I’m found out, I’m with the Slave Magic Users, so it’ll be fine, but just in case.
In the end it’s been 1 hours since I’ve put the barrier until the trash was completely eaten.
But what’s up with the body of these guys? It’s not like they’re a bunch of gluttons as they’re mileage is pretty good, but, it looks like they can eat whatever’s been given to them.
Well in any case the trash has been rid of but the walls are still dirty. This is where I come in. I make the Scavenger Slimes and Cleaner Slimes shoot out deodorization liquid against the inner wall and the outer wall of the room, and once the smell’s been dealt with I wash it with water.
“Mist Wash”
The water magic, Mist Wash, sprays out compressed water and gets rid of dirt. When I was researching magic in the forest, I tried to reproduce the high pressure water cutting magic, Water Cut, but failed. I noticed that the rock I hit with it was cleaner than before, and remembered there was something like this in my previous world, and so like this I considered it to be useful as a cleaning magic.
This magic can get rid of stubborn dirt. But while this magic is being used, it uses up magic power, so cleaning one room with it would take up quite a bit of magic power. It has the advantage of being able to be used as long as one keeps pouring magic into it, but the consumption is like an incontinent person that keeps pissing magic away. So I think unless one has a lot of magic power, this magic is quite difficult to use.
After washing it I had the Scavenger Slime drink the dirty water.
After washing the wall it became clean. But I’m still concerned about the hole in the wall. It’d be careless to leave it like this, so I might as well somehow close it up.
I make a brick from the earth outside using Create Block, and in the same way using Create Block I trim the hole into a square. And then using the Sticky Hardening Liquid of the Sticky Slime as a substitute for cement I filled in the hole with the brick. Adding in the help of the Slimes, it took us around 20 minutes to finish.
I’ve finished everything I can do so I have the Cleaner Slime clean me up and put the Slimes back into my wooden rack with shoulder straps and then go over to where Miya-san is.
“Miya-san”
“Nya!? Wh–what’s wrong nya? Are you leaving...?”
“Certainly, I’m about to leave. Since everything is already finished.”
“...nya? Eh, what do you mean?”
I brought Miya-san with a question mark floating over her head to the basement. When Miya-san saw the clean basement her mouth opened wide to the point it looked like her jaw was about to fall off.
“Nya... what did you do nya!?”
“Cleaning”
“Amazing nya! It really became clean nya! The trash kept going in so until now no one has managed to clean it nya! Come to think of it the hole’s being filled up too!?”
“Well since trash would go back in, I used Earth Magic and filled it up with the stone I made. There’s some different stones around that might be conspicuous, if it’s ugly I can remove it.”
“No need nya! I don’t mind and, once it’s been cleaned it up I’d been intending to block it. So, rather than saying it’s ugly I’m grateful nya.”
“Is that so, then if that’s the case... can we consider the request to have been completed?”
“Of course nya. Since you’ve managed to clean it up this fast, and even fixed the wall I’ll increase the payment nya!”
“Thank you very much”
I received Miya-san’s sign on the document for the request, and went back to the guild to go report to the receptionist that explained to me the details of the request.
“Excuse me”
“Ara, it’s this morning’s”
“I came to report about the completion of the request”
“Eh? Completion? You didn’t abandon?”
“It was completed”
As I said that I brought out the document for the request.
“You’re right... it was completed, and also the pay was even increased... you’re amazing. No one could complete this request for a long time, you know? Since the smell is thick and no matter how much you clean it up, trash just keeps going through the hole, so people who became downhearted just kept coming one after another, you know? To think that you were able to finish this request without even taking 2 hours...”
“It’s because I had a really convenient magic”
“Oh that’s right, well good job. With this the report for the completion of the request has been completed, the compensation inside is 30 pieces of silver”
“Eh? Isn’t quite a bit much?”
“Well the client, Miya-san, was quite troubled since people kept refusing this request, so she kept increasing the price. Plus she also instructed to increase your remuneration”
“I see, I understand”
“Also, the Guild Master said to call you when you came back”
“The Guild Master?”
When I asked that, the one who answered me wasn’t the woman in front of me but the guy who was doing some legal work on the nearby counter.
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing big. It’s just the usual.”
“What do you mean? Ah... I am Ryouma Takebayashi by the way.”
“I’m Jeff Granger. That old man... the guild master, is a nosy guy so, adventurers, especially newbies like you that’s under 13 years old, he usually calls out to try and help. He also helped me out when I was a new comer. He may seem like your run of the mill bandit, but there’s no need to be scared.”
“Is that how it is, thank you very much?”
“Don’t mind it”
Right after that a voice from inside the counter called us. The one who called us was the Guild Master.
“That’s exactly right, so you don’t need to give thanks to that guy”
“Ah, Guild Master”
“Ge! Old man”
“And who looks like a bandit you bastard!”
“Old man anyone who looks at you would say you look like a bandit!”
“Shaddap! I can’t help my face! But I’m not making a crooked face like a bandit!”
“Women and children run while screaming when they meet you in the dead of night, right?”
“Gu... if it’s the people of this town then there’s no problem...”
“Well that’s because everyone has already gotten used to it!”
“Gufuu! ... Enough... Ryouma, come”
The Guild Master who was hurt by Jeff’s words put his heart under control, and went back inside while calling me. I gave my greetings to the receptionist lady and Jeff-san and go after the Guild Master.
And then I got to the place where I went to yesterday, the room of the Guild Master.
“Sit somewhere appropriate... or wait, that thing you’re carrying on your back is that a basket? It stands out a lot”
“Please excuse me. Inside this basket is my Slave Monster”
“You were a Slave Magic User? I thought you were surely a hunter”
“Well my Slave Monster is only a Slime and I learned Slave Magic just by observing. I’m a hunter that can use Slave Magic. I have my Sticky Slimes work with my traps and have my Poison Slimes poison my arrows”
Hearing that the Guild Master grinned laughing, and said this.
“You have a pretty dirty combination, huh?”
“You think? It’s a Slime after all.”
“I do it myself so I understand but if it was just a slime then it’d be fine but, a high class race isn’t something to be made light of.
There’s a lot of adventurers who would group slimes and high class slimes together and think they’re weak, but a high class slime with an adventurer that can fight isn’t thought to be weak.
If one gets hit by the acid of a slime, their equipment will go bad. If it ends up as long fight, then when one goes home the new tools will be crumbling. If it’s poison then one’s life will be put in danger, and Sticky Slimes are a pain the ass. If a different magical beast comes while you can’t move, then you’re life’s over.”
“I see... then if that’s the case, work at the Adventurer’s Guild becomes easier, huh? Actually when I registered that I use Slimes at the Tamer Guild, the Branch Manager clearly showed that he wasn’t pleased with me and seemed to have decided that I’d be incompetent”
“From the times I’ve met that guy, I’d say it’s just because that bastard’s pride is too big”
“Yes, since the slime can’t do jobs that require strength, and besides I also went to look for jobs that don’t require strength, today.”
“I see... Right, that talk about work. I heard that you already took a job today, it looks like it went well?”
“Yes, the client was quite pleased and even gave me a bonus.”
“Ho–, that’s pretty good for a first job. I didn’t hear anything except for cleaning, but what kind of job did you take?”
“I cleaned the house of the client called Miya-san”
When the Guild Master heard that he stared at me in wonder.
“You cleaned that girl’s house?”
“Did you know about it?”
“Well yeah... I mean Miya is also an adventurer that lives in this town. She comes quite frequently to the guild so I hear quite a bit.”
“Is that so?”
“But... to actually fulfill that request, you were able to clean up, right?”
“Yes”
“I didn’t think that there would actually be a person that could clean that girl’s house... and, how did you do it?”
“I had a magic that was good for the situation. It’s something that can be used when one has a lot of magic so it’s a rather hard to use magic, and so not a lot of people know about it. “
“Ho–? Then in that case I have another request I’d like you to take...”
Perhaps...
“Is it the request to clean the Town’s shared toilet?”
“Oh so you knew about it?”
“Yes, today, before taking a request, I was wondering which one I should take.”
“Then in that case the talk will be quick. The public office has brought out a cleaning request, and I don’t want the townsmen to say that the reason it wasn’t cleaned was because of the guild. The complaints have been coming in. Speaking of which, originally the cause was because the public office was stingy with bringing out money for the sake of the slum.”
“The receptionist lady also mentioned that, is that true?”
“Aah, it’s true. Did you know that in these past few years, this town’s income has been decreasing?”
“If I’m correct it’s because of the decreasing production rate of the mine, right?”
“Right, there’s also the condition of the mine since last year. And also this year, the abandonment of the mine will be decided. So because of that the income of the town has been quite bad. So the public office has been trying to cut costs but... they’ve been mainly cutting down on the town’s administrative expenses so, the blame’s been shifted on to the people of the town.
The ones that have really been put into a disadvantage is the slum. Until now the public office has been cutting down on the number of employees to manage labor cost but as a result the number of people helping out became insufficient. The work won’t end so they started saying that the people aren’t working properly and won’t pay them properly. There’s been a lot of complaints from the townsmen, so although they want to try hiring the people of the slum’s and add to that, that they gave the reason that the people of the slums won’t work properly and tried hiring them with a salary of next to nothing, in the end even the guys from the slum didn’t want to take it up.
No matter how troubled someone is over money, if the price doesn’t match with the work the people of the slum won’t work. And it’s not like they’re asking for much. It’s just that they can’t have a decent lifestyle so it’s easy for them to get sick. And if they work for almost for free then the risk of getting sick will just get higher.”
I see...
“I understand, I’ll prepare and accept it quickly. If it’s fast then I can take it by tomorrow”
“You’re a big help, thanks. The rewards will be plentiful.”
“Please take care of me”
Incidentally, I should also try talking to Rheinhart-san and the rest, since the one that holds the most influence is them. And besides they’ll also want to know what I did today, so I figured if they knew about this then they’ll know how to respond.
“...what are you thinking?”
Did it show on my face?
“No, today I’m acting by myself so I thought I’d ask a couple of things from the people who accompanied me to register yesterday”
Hearing that, Guild Master grinned laughingly.
As he made that face, I thought about what Jeff-san said, and certainly, it was really like the face a bandit would make...
“You have a pretty good personality, huh? And, do you think you they’ll help?”
“Of course, even just knowing them, I think they’ll help”
“Your basis?”
“Well I don’t really have much to base it on but... I’m an orphan without anywhere to go and lived in the forest. There, I recently met everyone by chance. After that I’ve bothered them quite a bit here and there. They did that much for someone like me whom they barely knew.
Just me aside though, there’s no way they’ll be able to treat everyone in the slums just as they’ve treated me, right? But, I don’t think they’re the kind of people who wouldn’t feel anything knowing the current situation.”
“I see”
“Yes. Well then, I should be going soon, since I want to finish my preparations for tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I’ll leave it to you. When you get here I’ll immediately tell them to prioritize that request. Well it’s nothing even if it’s prioritized since no one wants to take it.”
“You said it.”
Saying that, I left the room of the Guild Master as I laughed and then went back home. On the way I went to look for some cloths for western clothes and sewing tools. I found some cheap ones and bought a set, then I also bought an empty spool of thread.