Chapter 28: Recently, Eating Oily Foods Has Been Giving Me Stomach Aches
Day 3 of my adventurer life! I’m changing my schedule for today and taking a break from work to explore the town and go shopping. I would like to buy some flour. And perhaps some weapons too.
As such, I must fulfill my stomach first. I wonder what’s for breakfast today? …….It’s a hot dog again. Well, the soup is still good, but…..it’s somehow disappointing.
As I was leaving the inn, I saw a familiar-looking ponytail girl, so I gave her a slight wave. I still haven’t heard her name yet.
First up, a weapons shop. Right now, I was walking around with Norn and Bell in search of a weapons shop. But in the first place, it would be foolish to search by myself since I wasn’t familiar with the town. It might be smarter to go to the guild and ask the receptionist for information. In that case, let’s go to the guild then.
I arrived at the guild and looked around for an open window.
“Excuse me.” “Yes…..oh? Will you be gathering today too?” “Ah, no. I just wanted to ask if you knew of any good weapons shops around here? I thought it would be better to go to one recommended by the guild rather than accidently going to a weird one.” “I see, that might actually be better. Well, I would recommend these weapons shops then……”
I was given two places. One shop specializes in leather armor and such. The other dealt with custom made weapons and such. But I wanted to get disposable throwing knives so the latter would be the one I would be going to. As for armor, I already made one myself with detailed specifications that include things like “a design that wasn’t too tight around my chest and would hinder my movements,” thus I think it isn’t necessary. Ah, but I would like some clothes too. Since I did get reborn as a cute girl, I wanted to dress up a bit. Although, I have no plans on showing it to anyone.
Hmm……wait, couldn’t I just get some materials and make my own clothes? Right, let’s go with that.
Thus, I arrived at the weapon shop while thinking such thoughts. For blacksmiths, I have this weird impression that they would be tough-looking middle-aged men, but the shopkeeper was just a normal, friendly looking person. But he was a bit muscular. I was immediately shown to the knives. Using thinner knives would mean less damage, so I guess I should go with something that’s wide and thick? Using something like that should be able to hinder movement better, but would it also cause too much bleeding?
After looking around for a bit, I finally found a suitable throwing knives. It cost one silver coin each. Which was a bit expensive. But I bought a hundred of them for the time being. So a total of one small gold coin. I bought too much? Well, being safe was important. But I would need to strengthen the knives later.
I was also given ten extra knives for buying them in bulk. I placed all the knives into Storage while pretending to put them into my bag.
Afterwards, I was also shown a selection of short swords. I checked them with my Appraisal skill, but frankly my own short sword was much better. These were probably mass produced through casting.
The blacksmith also showed me what he called a masterpiece, but……the distribution of the carbon content wasn’t uniform. I guess I should go take a look at a different weapon shop?
But in the end, I decided to just go to a clothing store without checking out another weapon shop. In this world, the clothes being sold were basically just used clothes. You could tell the clothes were old from just a glance. And there wasn’t anything cute either. I’ll just make the clothes myself.
After asking the store employee about the location, I switched to a store that sold cloth. And I bought various different types of cloth. Which cost a total of about 5 silver coins. The store employee was fairly surprised. I was even given a send off after leaving the store.
……I’m a bit hesitant about whether I should come back or not.
Anyways, with this, the matters regarding weapons and clothes are all solved. So next up, food. But where should I go to eat? I was a bit unsure. It’s not really something I can go to the guild to ask about…….
I glanced up at the sky, it looked like it was about noon. In that case, let’s just head back to the inn and eat. Thus, I returned back to the inn. I decided to have lunch at the inn. The menu was saute rabbit meat. And a light soup with bread. I wished there was rice instead, I’m getting tired of eating bread.
As I was eating, I heard a voice coming from the kitchen.
“Like I said, this is completely different! What I ate was much more crunchier and tender! What I ate was overflowing with flavor……..” “I made it just like you told me to! This should be as delicious as it gets! But you say you ate something even more delicious than this!?” “Then how about you stop acting so stubborn and just ask for the recipe!” “You want me to bow my head to such a little child!”
Right, I’m not really sure what’s going on, but it seems complicated. I’ll just continue eating then. After I finished eating, I asked one of the waiters for the location of the market and headed there.
Oh, it looks quite busy here. How nice.
After looking around for a while, I found a place selling potatoes! I used Appraisal on the potatoes, freshness, check, recently-harvested, also check. I bought all of them at once. Potato salad, french fries. It’s hard to give up on these types of foods. Now, if I just had butter too……yep.
After exploring around a bit more, I’ve found tomatoes! But there wasn’t anywhere selling cheese. Oh, but I found butter! ……I wonder if milk is being sold somewhere.
But I didn’t feel like buying the flour because it had other things mixed into it. If it was just some millets inside then it would at least be edible, but sand and stones……were they trying to kill people?
I could probably separate them by using Storage, but I didn’t really feel like doing so. At the very least, I would like to find something a bit better. But in a world like this…… I’m not exactly sure if there would be anything better? But fortunately……
Hurray, I found something that could be eaten!
“I would like this please!” “Yes, thank you very mu-…..huh, aren’t you-” “Huh, Nicole?”
It was Nicole.
After talking for a bit, it seems that he usually conducts business at his store near the commercial district. The reason he was here was because he wanted to sharpen his savviness. Apparently, even after setting up his store, he would still come here to sell things out of habit from his earlier years. I could understand that, it was important not to forget your roots. Like how I had ran away for freedom.
“But this flour, huh. There are other……ohh, I see, your glasses.” “Right, something like that. By the way……”
When I asked Nicole if he knew anything about rice, he told me that he would sometimes carry it. But he didn’t have any in stock right now. As such he gave me the location of his store and agreed to sell me some next time.
“But, rice….. It’s not really a popular ingredient…..oh, right, you’re actually a pretty good cook. Do you perhaps have a recipe that uses rice?”
“Yes, rather, I have many recipes. I actually really like rice.” “I see, recipes that use rice……”
Nicole has begun calculating potential profits. If I stayed here any longer I might be introduced to his son and be involved in various other troublesome things, thus, I decided to retreat.
Afterwards, I bought various other different things. I also bought a bit of salt. Which ended up costing a total of one small gold coin. I already blew through two small gold coins today……to be honest, it sort of hurts. As such, I will do my best tomorrow.
I arrived back at the inn a little early, but I decided to take a bath. After that, I began the process of strengthening the throwing knives. As expected, 110 was quite a lot. But I managed to finish strengthening all of them. However, as a result, I had almost no MP left.
I headed towards the dining hall feeling a bit light-headed just in time for dinner. I was disappointed in the morning, so I’m expecting something delicious this time!
…….And a cutlet sandwich was brought out.
Eh…….what’s this? It wasn’t an exact copy of the cutlet sandwich I made, but instead an imitation. I could tell just by looking at it that it was something quite complex.
First, the bread. It was completely drenched in oil. The chopped cabbage too. My appetite was almost gone at this point. The taste was quite dreadful. Ughh, my clothes were getting dirty too. The meat inside also had too much salt on it so it was quite salty. And the meat was hard too. I tried eating a bit more. It was also full of tendons. This was quite horrible. I want to leave.
I could also hear voices coming from the kitchen.
“I told you so! Did you see the face she was making!?” “But even so, the other customers were praising it!” “That’s not the issue here!”
I understand that he was trying to copy what I made, I really do……but this is just terrible. I washed it down with the soup and somehow managed to finish it all. But it was so oily that it made my stomach ache.
I glanced around my surroundings, and the other customers were lavishing the food with praise. Probably, because it was a dish that didn’t exist in this world. But even so, this was a different matter. Ugh, I need to rest my stomach.
“Um, excuse me……”
It was the waitress girl with the blonde ponytail.
“Our cook just wanted to make it no matter what……he had asked me to help him since I was watching you cook from the side, but it ended up becoming something completely different.”
According to her explanation, it seems that the cook had an interest in imitating dishes he has never seen before. He had seen how I made it, and the ponytail waitress had also been watching from the side. He had believed he should’ve been able to make the dish since he had been a cook for so long.
But when he actually tried making it, he ended with a completely different thing. Although the ponytail waitress had eaten the dish before, the cook didn’t really listen to the advice she offered. And in the end, he pushed to have what he made served as tonight’s dinner. Additionally……
“Also he’s been telling other customers that it’s a dish he came up with by himself, so I really am sorry.”
Recipes that have never been seen before are of great value. Apparently, the cook wanted the honor of having invented the dish, but even so, really? Even more so, he had named the dish “shredded orc meat with fried bread.” The name was quite terrible.
“It’s fine, rather it’s essentially a completely different dish. So it isn’t something to fret over. You ate it before so it should be obvious, right?” “Yes, that is true…”
Afterwards, I talked for a bit with the ponytail waitress before heading back to my room.
Additionally, the ponytail girl’s name was Lily. Apparently, she also wasn’t from this town, and had followed her older sister when she came to this town for work reasons. She was referred to this inn for work also because of her sister.
After being healed by the ponytail girl, I went right to sleep. But I had stomach aches during the night and had to go to the bathroom numerous times.