Chapter 38: Report
The next day, with cause of the epidemic discovered, I went with Master to see the new play from Maxwell’s theater troupe to relax.
The title was, “The Heroes in the War of Demons and Gods”.
Adventurers with the group name “Bear” received the blessings of the gods, climbed the World Tree, and helped the god of destruction to conquer the Demon King, or something like that.
All the records from back then were influenced by the destruction of the World Tree, and are extremely vague. There’s nobody around any more who knows the truth of it.
Well, there were probably some alive back then among the long-lived elves, but they’re practically shut-ins. I’ve heard they hadn’t left the forests back then, so there’s probably nobody around any more who knows the truth of it.
As such, when making plays, the playwrite commonly adds a fitting interpretation these days. This play’s selling point is supposed to be its bold interpretation.
However, the actual highlight of it isn’t the script and so on.
It’s the three-dimensionality of the labyrinth interpretation on the stage, and the action that jumps around in all directions within it.
At some point it’ll surpass novelty and move on to something that can only be called absurd. But that super flashy production seems to be giving it support on the streets.
The lead actor jumps from a cliff.
The scout kicks off a wall, and leaps behind an enemy.
The Demon King does a back roll to dodge an attack.
“Amazing, it’s almost like me!”
“With your acrobatics gift, yeah. I’m always surprised how you can pull off those moves in the middle of combat, Eir.”
I grip my fists in excitement, and Master calmly remarks.
Couldn’t you get just a little bit more excited while you watch?
“Ah, the Demon King’s underling there, that’s Moto, the stage setter.”
“Eh? Ah, you’re right… Hey, isn’t the water goddess’s name the same as yours, Master?”
“Ahh, there’s this story that she’s my ancestor. Obviously nonsense though. If you wanna talk about that, aren’t you supposed to be the god of destruction’s descendant, Eir?”
“Hey, Yig is the only one saying that. It lacks credibility.”
“But supposing it were true, that would mean your ancestor and my ancestor probably teamed up in the same party. And that’s… yeah, that doesn’t sound bad.”
“You… think so?”
“I do.”
The operas that nobility like to watch have to be watched in silence, but for plays in the middle of the city like this, nobody is going to get angry with you for chatting.
Plus there’s gossip that our ancestors just happen to stand among the key figures in the War of Demons and Gods, so even throughout the play our conversation never stopped.
The play largely received favorable impressions, and the faces of the audience members returning home were full of excitement.
Though apparently it didn’t meet someone’s taste—
“This is soo wrong, Yuuri is absolutely not that glamorous looking, seriously—.”
“Hey, stop being rude! I do so have a chest! Look! Look!”
And it went on. The couple of people commenting on Carla’s role as the god of destruction… huh? Yig?
I thought I just saw Yig together with a young boy, but I had to be imagining it.
She said, “I’m going around to eat at all the food stalls today!” early this morning before flying out the door, so there’s no way she’s here.
Actually, maybe she caught a boy to play around with and… yeah, I really can’t imagine that. I must have seen wrong.
Completely putting the look-a-like out of mind, we specially headed backstage to give our greetings.
Seeing us visit, the theater troupe gave us a warm welcome.
“Yo, how was it? How was my action?!”
“Kyaaa, Eir, you came to see us? Come on over here.”
“By the way, have you decided to join the troupe?!”
“I won’t.”
“Please don’t try to persuade her. It makes things difficult for me.”
“Damn, this twerp is showing off like usual!”
The leading actor first seeks my action coaching. Carla tries to get a hug from me. I immediately refuse mister Morgan’s invitation, and Master holds me to his chest saying he won’t hand me over. This excites the rest of the watching group members.
Yup, nothing has changed here. That fact gives me some peace of mind.
“Well, about the stylistic beauty of it. What did you think? Personally, I’m pretty confident in this one.”
“Yeah, it was great. When I think of plays, they’re mostly left and right movement, but you had plenty of strong movement forward and back, but more importantly up and down.”
“Moving across the stage in a crouch felt fresh.”
Plays are, of course, harder to see from farther away. So they typically do a lot of their movement standing.
Even so, this play used high platforms where they performed crouching and jumping action. This is all very novel I think.
“I see, I see! Alright, this kind of action is going places. Time to ride the wave and make the next…”
“Troupe leader, cut us some slack! How much do you think it cost to make these moves possible?!”
The troupe members warn their leader against flexing his creative urges in a strange direction. Jumping and soaring so much is bound to wear on their endurance too, so its understandable.
They’ll have to accept their fate though. My condolences.
~*~
Afterward, we decided to have a light lunch on a terrace before leaving for the elf village.
As usual, I have three people’s worth of food lined up on the table, while Master has a single person’s worth set meal.
Master has a small hot sandwich, soup, and salad. I have the pasta set with soup, a meat doria, and grilled chicken. Plus I’ll add a cookie for dessert.
The other customers stared my way, seemingly very interested in the amount of food before me, but I’m ignoring them. Delicious food comes first. Worrying about anything else is sacrilegious to the dishes.
“No matter how often I see it though… you sure do eat a lot.”
Master blurts out dumbfounded, while I gleefully stuff my face with food.
At home Master is the one who makes the food, so he should already be well aware of that.
Only due to also having another big eater in Yig, lately the dishes have been large platefuls that we serve our own portions from.
That being the case, this may actually be the first time in a while he’s seen my personal helping all lined up at once.
“I’m fuel inefficient.”
“It’s fine as long as it doesn’t slow you down of course. Look, you’ve got some on you.”
Master picks off a grain of rice from the doria stuck near my mouth. I closed my mouth around his finger, and chewed on the rice grain.
“Uwah, hey! Is it normal to chew on someone’s finger?”
“Would have been a waste.”
“You should really be more shy about this stuff.”
“I mean, it’s just Master Rimuru after all—”
“Don’t play it off by imitating Yig. And what do you mean “just,” that’s so rude.”
“Well I know this isn’t enough to make you mad.”
“Kgh, it’s as if you’ve seen right through me…”
He’s acting like he’s mad, but in the end he just warned me.
I went with the flow and licked his finger, but it’s true that was a little ill-mannered. I’ll be more careful in the future.
By the time we finished our meal, the whole terrace was wrapped up in a warm and fluffy atmosphere for some reason.
~*~
We leave for the village past noon. We don’t have anything to carry this time, so we’re leaving Yig at home.
Apparently she doesn’t want to go near the poison-filled steam drifting close by the village anyway. There’s not much worry of battle either, so it shouldn’t be a concern.
We’re leaving later than usual, so we decided I would be carrying Master and flying to shorten the trip.
For fear of being conspicuous, I can’t take very high altitude, but Master seems to have taken a liking to skimming just above the treetops at high speeds.
“How surprising. I thought you would be scared.”
“You aren’t going to let me fall. Since I know that, it’s more thrilling. It actually feels kinda nice.”
“Amy was scared though.”
“Men are probably better with this kind of thing.”
“The next opportunity we get, I’m gonna do all sorts of acrobatic flying then.”
“Sounds fun. I can’t wait.”
While carrying Master in his smug composure, we arrived at the elf village.
They should know I can fly already, since they’ve seen what I look like, so we land directly inside the village.
Leaving the villagers who were dazed by our sudden landing behind, we intruded on the village elder’s home.
~*~
“Oho, so it was rignia stones mixed with steam?”
“Yes, when I boiled the water off the sample we brought back, this was left.”
Taking in the report, the elder strokes his lengthy beard.
Master produced the vial filled with rignia stone powder. The elder accepts it, and fixedly gazes upon it before questioning back.
“I understand the cause. If the vapor filling it contains a poisonous substance, then the mine must be closed, I suppose?”
“I guess so… the rignia stone-rich soil in there is the problem. If something could be done about the water vein… is there magic that might help?”
Even if it was being used for a fake test, the rignia stones obtained from that mine are a valuable resource for magicians.
I’m sure they’d like to keep making use of it if they can.
“Magic grand enough to interfere with the water vein is certainly beyond me.”
“The elves also have their own particular type of magic, or so I’ve heard?”
Ah, I see. I thought Master was acting strangely helpful with the elves… but that’s what his goal is.
“Indeed we do, but… that’s hardly something we can teach to outsiders.”
“Hmm, then what if we could… do something about the water vein?”
“What?”
“If we can stop the water, then could you provide instruction on your unique magic?”
How strange, we were supposed to have nothing to do with this, and leave it to them, but now Master might learn their magic?
“Humu, you say some funny things… but, indeed, very well. We would be interested in a technique that can manipulate a waterway as well.”
“Alright, I’ve got your word here, yeah?”
“This is payment upon completion, you hear? Only once you’ve cleanly remove the underground stream, so we’re able to continue mining rignia stones again.”
“Yes, of course that’s fine.”
Uhh, this is starting to look kind of like a wicked lord in secret talks with a corrupt merchant.
You can see the dark aura they’re giving off.
“Alright Eir, let’s get moving, shall we?”
“Ah, uh… yes?”
As Master leaves the elder’s house in high spirits, I ended up following in a panic.
~*~
Outside the elder’s house, I question Master.
I don’t know any kind of magic that can get rid of an underground stream.
“Master Rimuru, do you have a way to do this?”
“I don’t not have one, I guess. Look, you hear about it a lot right? “when you dig up a well, another well somewhere else goes dry,” they say.”
“And?”
“They say it a lot about hot springs, too. I’m sure there are plenty of causes, but if we dig the water flow up somewhere else, the amount in the mine will drop, right? So I thought we could try digging it up.”
“… …And who’s doing the digging?”
“You, of course.”
I figured!
Dimensional Storage isn’t suited to digging up dirt. Which means it’s just going to be brute force digging.
Just thinking about how sweaty and muddy I’m going to get is depressing.
“Relax, nobody’s going to be around to see us.”
“Hm?”
“How many blasts of Yig’s breath do you have left in Dimensional Storage?”
“… Ah.”
Come to think of it, didn’t he mention using it to dig out a basement?
This could be a good practice run.
“About ten, I think.”
“Let’s test out how much you can dig up at full power. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll just have to do the manual labor, but we can just bring Yig along for that, right? If we tell her we’re digging up a hot spring, I doubt she would object.”
Yeah, hot spring lover that she is, she would likely come running to help if we told her “we’re digging a hot spring”.
Moreover, if just one doesn’t dry up the mine, we could just dig up more… In other words, there’s no way we can fail?
“Master Rimuru… you’re kinda unfair.”
“Not at all.”
With a carefree response, Master hummed as he continued on.
Author’s Note:
???: “peek, peek”
Chapter 38: Report
The next day, with cause of the epidemic discovered, I went with Master to see the new play from Maxwell’s theater troupe to relax.
The title was, “The Heroes in the War of Demons and Gods”.
Adventurers with the group name “Bear” received the blessings of the gods, climbed the World Tree, and helped the god of destruction to conquer the Demon King, or something like that.
All the records from back then were influenced by the destruction of the World Tree, and are extremely vague. There’s nobody around any more who knows the truth of it.
Well, there were probably some alive back then among the long-lived elves, but they’re practically shut-ins. I’ve heard they hadn’t left the forests back then, so there’s probably nobody around any more who knows the truth of it.
As such, when making plays, the playwrite commonly adds a fitting interpretation these days. This play’s selling point is supposed to be its bold interpretation.
However, the actual highlight of it isn’t the script and so on.
It’s the three-dimensionality of the labyrinth interpretation on the stage, and the action that jumps around in all directions within it.
At some point it’ll surpass novelty and move on to something that can only be called absurd. But that super flashy production seems to be giving it support on the streets.
The lead actor jumps from a cliff.
The scout kicks off a wall, and leaps behind an enemy.
The Demon King does a back roll to dodge an attack.
“Amazing, it’s almost like me!”
“With your acrobatics gift, yeah. I’m always surprised how you can pull off those moves in the middle of combat, Eir.”
I grip my fists in excitement, and Master calmly remarks.
Couldn’t you get just a little bit more excited while you watch?
“Ah, the Demon King’s underling there, that’s Moto, the stage setter.”
“Eh? Ah, you’re right… Hey, isn’t the water goddess’s name the same as yours, Master?”
“Ahh, there’s this story that she’s my ancestor. Obviously nonsense though. If you wanna talk about that, aren’t you supposed to be the god of destruction’s descendant, Eir?”
“Hey, Yig is the only one saying that. It lacks credibility.”
“But supposing it were true, that would mean your ancestor and my ancestor probably teamed up in the same party. And that’s… yeah, that doesn’t sound bad.”
“You… think so?”
“I do.”
The operas that nobility like to watch have to be watched in silence, but for plays in the middle of the city like this, nobody is going to get angry with you for chatting.
Plus there’s gossip that our ancestors just happen to stand among the key figures in the War of Demons and Gods, so even throughout the play our conversation never stopped.
The play largely received favorable impressions, and the faces of the audience members returning home were full of excitement.
Though apparently it didn’t meet someone’s taste—
“This is soo wrong, Yuuri is absolutely not that glamorous looking, seriously—.”
“Hey, stop being rude! I do so have a chest! Look! Look!”
And it went on. The couple of people commenting on Carla’s role as the god of destruction… huh? Yig?
I thought I just saw Yig together with a young boy, but I had to be imagining it.
She said, “I’m going around to eat at all the food stalls today!” early this morning before flying out the door, so there’s no way she’s here.
Actually, maybe she caught a boy to play around with and… yeah, I really can’t imagine that. I must have seen wrong.
Completely putting the look-a-like out of mind, we specially headed backstage to give our greetings.
Seeing us visit, the theater troupe gave us a warm welcome.
“Yo, how was it? How was my action?!”
“Kyaaa, Eir, you came to see us? Come on over here.”
“By the way, have you decided to join the troupe?!”
“I won’t.”
“Please don’t try to persuade her. It makes things difficult for me.”
“Damn, this twerp is showing off like usual!”
The leading actor first seeks my action coaching. Carla tries to get a hug from me. I immediately refuse mister Morgan’s invitation, and Master holds me to his chest saying he won’t hand me over. This excites the rest of the watching group members.
Yup, nothing has changed here. That fact gives me some peace of mind.
“Well, about the stylistic beauty of it. What did you think? Personally, I’m pretty confident in this one.”
“Yeah, it was great. When I think of plays, they’re mostly left and right movement, but you had plenty of strong movement forward and back, but more importantly up and down.”
“Moving across the stage in a crouch felt fresh.”
Plays are, of course, harder to see from farther away. So they typically do a lot of their movement standing.
Even so, this play used high platforms where they performed crouching and jumping action. This is all very novel I think.
“I see, I see! Alright, this kind of action is going places. Time to ride the wave and make the next…”
“Troupe leader, cut us some slack! How much do you think it cost to make these moves possible?!”
The troupe members warn their leader against flexing his creative urges in a strange direction. Jumping and soaring so much is bound to wear on their endurance too, so its understandable.
They’ll have to accept their fate though. My condolences.
~*~
Afterward, we decided to have a light lunch on a terrace before leaving for the elf village.
As usual, I have three people’s worth of food lined up on the table, while Master has a single person’s worth set meal.
Master has a small hot sandwich, soup, and salad. I have the pasta set with soup, a meat doria, and grilled chicken. Plus I’ll add a cookie for dessert.
The other customers stared my way, seemingly very interested in the amount of food before me, but I’m ignoring them. Delicious food comes first. Worrying about anything else is sacrilegious to the dishes.
“No matter how often I see it though… you sure do eat a lot.”
Master blurts out dumbfounded, while I gleefully stuff my face with food.
At home Master is the one who makes the food, so he should already be well aware of that.
Only due to also having another big eater in Yig, lately the dishes have been large platefuls that we serve our own portions from.
That being the case, this may actually be the first time in a while he’s seen my personal helping all lined up at once.
“I’m fuel inefficient.”
“It’s fine as long as it doesn’t slow you down of course. Look, you’ve got some on you.”
Master picks off a grain of rice from the doria stuck near my mouth. I closed my mouth around his finger, and chewed on the rice grain.
“Uwah, hey! Is it normal to chew on someone’s finger?”
“Would have been a waste.”
“You should really be more shy about this stuff.”
“I mean, it’s just Master Rimuru after all—”
“Don’t play it off by imitating Yig. And what do you mean “just,” that’s so rude.”
“Well I know this isn’t enough to make you mad.”
“Kgh, it’s as if you’ve seen right through me…”
He’s acting like he’s mad, but in the end he just warned me.
I went with the flow and licked his finger, but it’s true that was a little ill-mannered. I’ll be more careful in the future.
By the time we finished our meal, the whole terrace was wrapped up in a warm and fluffy atmosphere for some reason.
~*~
We leave for the village past noon. We don’t have anything to carry this time, so we’re leaving Yig at home.
Apparently she doesn’t want to go near the poison-filled steam drifting close by the village anyway. There’s not much worry of battle either, so it shouldn’t be a concern.
We’re leaving later than usual, so we decided I would be carrying Master and flying to shorten the trip.
For fear of being conspicuous, I can’t take very high altitude, but Master seems to have taken a liking to skimming just above the treetops at high speeds.
“How surprising. I thought you would be scared.”
“You aren’t going to let me fall. Since I know that, it’s more thrilling. It actually feels kinda nice.”
“Amy was scared though.”
“Men are probably better with this kind of thing.”
“The next opportunity we get, I’m gonna do all sorts of acrobatic flying then.”
“Sounds fun. I can’t wait.”
While carrying Master in his smug composure, we arrived at the elf village.
They should know I can fly already, since they’ve seen what I look like, so we land directly inside the village.
Leaving the villagers who were dazed by our sudden landing behind, we intruded on the village elder’s home.
~*~
“Oho, so it was rignia stones mixed with steam?”
“Yes, when I boiled the water off the sample we brought back, this was left.”
Taking in the report, the elder strokes his lengthy beard.
Master produced the vial filled with rignia stone powder. The elder accepts it, and fixedly gazes upon it before questioning back.
“I understand the cause. If the vapor filling it contains a poisonous substance, then the mine must be closed, I suppose?”
“I guess so… the rignia stone-rich soil in there is the problem. If something could be done about the water vein… is there magic that might help?”
Even if it was being used for a fake test, the rignia stones obtained from that mine are a valuable resource for magicians.
I’m sure they’d like to keep making use of it if they can.
“Magic grand enough to interfere with the water vein is certainly beyond me.”
“The elves also have their own particular type of magic, or so I’ve heard?”
Ah, I see. I thought Master was acting strangely helpful with the elves… but that’s what his goal is.
“Indeed we do, but… that’s hardly something we can teach to outsiders.”
“Hmm, then what if we could… do something about the water vein?”
“What?”
“If we can stop the water, then could you provide instruction on your unique magic?”
How strange, we were supposed to have nothing to do with this, and leave it to them, but now Master might learn their magic?
“Humu, you say some funny things… but, indeed, very well. We would be interested in a technique that can manipulate a waterway as well.”
“Alright, I’ve got your word here, yeah?”
“This is payment upon completion, you hear? Only once you’ve cleanly remove the underground stream, so we’re able to continue mining rignia stones again.”
“Yes, of course that’s fine.”
Uhh, this is starting to look kind of like a wicked lord in secret talks with a corrupt merchant.
You can see the dark aura they’re giving off.
“Alright Eir, let’s get moving, shall we?”
“Ah, uh… yes?”
As Master leaves the elder’s house in high spirits, I ended up following in a panic.
~*~
Outside the elder’s house, I question Master.
I don’t know any kind of magic that can get rid of an underground stream.
“Master Rimuru, do you have a way to do this?”
“I don’t not have one, I guess. Look, you hear about it a lot right? “when you dig up a well, another well somewhere else goes dry,” they say.”
“And?”
“They say it a lot about hot springs, too. I’m sure there are plenty of causes, but if we dig the water flow up somewhere else, the amount in the mine will drop, right? So I thought we could try digging it up.”
“… …And who’s doing the digging?”
“You, of course.”
I figured!
Dimensional Storage isn’t suited to digging up dirt. Which means it’s just going to be brute force digging.
Just thinking about how sweaty and muddy I’m going to get is depressing.
“Relax, nobody’s going to be around to see us.”
“Hm?”
“How many blasts of Yig’s breath do you have left in Dimensional Storage?”
“… Ah.”
Come to think of it, didn’t he mention using it to dig out a basement?
This could be a good practice run.
“About ten, I think.”
“Let’s test out how much you can dig up at full power. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll just have to do the manual labor, but we can just bring Yig along for that, right? If we tell her we’re digging up a hot spring, I doubt she would object.”
Yeah, hot spring lover that she is, she would likely come running to help if we told her “we’re digging a hot spring”.
Moreover, if just one doesn’t dry up the mine, we could just dig up more… In other words, there’s no way we can fail?
“Master Rimuru… you’re kinda unfair.”
“Not at all.”
With a carefree response, Master hummed as he continued on.
Author’s Note:
???: “peek, peek”
