Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26 – IT SEEMS TO BE LUNCH WITHOUTSCRAMBLING

Eventually the negotiations ended smoothly.

Az offered something in exchange for Renya’s lunch.

“It is an instruction for elementary magic of the attack system, how about that? It is something that will fetch a reasonable price. I get the feeling from you that your role is that of a swordsman, so you haven’t learned offensive magic yet, right?” (Az)(ED: Az is offering to zap a spell into Renya’s brain, just like with the Light spell beforehand.)

Slowly drawing out the conditions in small steps, it was similar to gaining advantageous terms by delaying the negotiations. Az seemed to be uninterested in concluding the bargaining. Just in that moment he offered the best thing he himself could give.

Even Renya who was offered this was slightly surprised.

Going by the price list he was shown at Khalil’s shop, if it was something with a reasonable price, Az had offered something having a value of 50 silver coins to start with.

If we were to talk about his previous world it would be equivalent to 50,000 yen.

If we assume the lunch price for the portions of 5 adult men, it could be commented to be quite extraordinary without a doubt.

“Quite lavish, no?” (Renya)

“I am not unwilling to give you this. All the more if it will allow us to eat something delicious in this place. My party members have a lot of hardships.” (Az)

Az said while looking at the members who diligently devoted themselves to their role of being his shield.

Be that as it may, they take the role of a meat shield for the sake of gaining time for the spell casting and it seemed that they received genuine gratitude for their protection from him. Although his unsociable facial expression didn’t change, his voice was filled with his real feelings.

Somehow, with only that, Renya’s feeling changed to it even being fine to just share lunch with them rather than proposing a deal. The current situation with the offered conditions by the other party would usually end up being called too good. Renya had a hunch that there was something different from what was promised.

“It’s just that there are bad people in the city who make their living by excessively overcharging for these kinds of services. I will entrust one to you.” (Az) (ED: Az is saying it’s not as pricey a service as Renya believes, mainly because Renya fell prey to being overcharged before.)

“I understand. With this the transaction is concluded.” (Renya)

Even if I splurge a bit on the lunch, I won’t be stricken by a curse, Renya was thinking.

“Well then, although I want to instruct you right away… what would be fine?” (Az)

“A high-powered blow? …Something that obstructs the actions of an opponent by hitting them would be fine, but…” (Renya)

While recalling the matter about having a hopelessly low quantity of mana from Khalil’s shop, Renya was pondering.

Although he tried to improve his magic ability by repeatedly practicing the [Light] magic for a splendid number of times since then, he didn’t really feel as if it was something he could do. He didn’t believe that he had improved very much.

As Renya’s doctrine was to increase the number of moves rather than their firepower, when it came down to defeating numbers, he had no other options but to connect a sure-hit physical attack or bet on the weight of the blow.

Telling these matters to Az, after a while of considering, Az said,

“I guess for high firepower it would be . In case of obstructing their actions, it would be , but if you don’t aim for damage infliction, I think would also be fine. You also have to have something like aptitude for it.” (Az)

“I checked the aptitude at the magician Khalil’s shop. I was told it is wind.” (Renya)

“That fellow? If it was her examining you, there is no doubt about it, I guess… but wind, huh? If it is wind, then either or would be good.” (Az)

For cutting up things with wind, , and for dulling the movement by coiling wind around the feet, , Az explained.

As the type of went along with Renya’s style of magic, Az words hinted towards him not being very suited for .

“On the point of firepower it is far inferior to . If it is our vanguard members, even if they don’t apply any considerable defensive magic, they will easily defend against it.” (Az)

“Fumu… this is a point to be worried about…” (Renya)

After all, it is elementary magic, was something that Renya understood.

Although one might say the firepower was high, apparently with its power the most that could do in face of heavy armor was to the extent of causing petty scalding.

“My recommendation is after all. The user-friendliness is good and it has a wide usability so you don’t need to be very cautious about use against potential opponents.” (Az)

“The opinion of an expert is valuable. I will request this then, huh?” (Renya)

Once Renya decided, Az took out a scrap of paper from his luggage similar to the one he had seen in Khalil’s shop and affixed it to Renya’s forehead.

“Bestow, ” (Az)

The paper affixed to his forehead vanished and since a similar message streamed in as he had seen before, Renya accepted the selection.(T/N: The information terminal messages he means)

“Spell, according to my power, shoot a Fire Ball.”

“Even if I continue to use this, how is it related to improving my magic capacity, I wonder?” (Renya)

“Ah, did you also hear about this method? If you practice magic, your magic capacity will naturally increase. However, the accepted theory says that it won’t increase much further than what you possess by nature, just that…” (Az)

Az said while apparently having difficulty in speaking about it.

It seemed to be something to take into consideration when Renya was told that he was lacking magic capacity at Khalil’s shop.

“It can’t be helped. Even if you can only use it as a one off spell it will increase your options in combat. Because of that, there is no reason to not use it.” (Az)

“By the way, what is it?” (Renya)

He asked as Az had taken an interest in something.

“About how many times have you become able to use the spell?” (Az)

“Let’s see…” (Renya)

Since he hadn’t even done something like counting, Renya tried to roughly calculate it mentally.

As it was something along the lines of simultaneously activating 16 instances with the most recent casting macro, how many times can it be implemented until it stops?He didn’t really pay any attention to that.

“Since it didn’t cause the mana to be exhausted with 16 parallel instances activated within an hour of 60 activations…” (Renya)

“…What was that?” (Az)

“At the least I can use as many as 960 castings, I think?” (Renya)

Hearing Renya talking smoothly about the number, Az’s facial expression became stiff.

Even though Az’s face was bluntly expressionless from the start, you could see it turn into even more of a carved statue than usual. Renya pondered whether he had said something odd and suddenly hit on an answer.

It is about me having been told that I have practically no magic capacity.

It isn’t useful even if I practice to such an extent? That’s quite shocking, Renya judged.

“I guess it can’t be helped since I have no talent…” (Renya)

“If only I had the aptitude.” Renya sighed due to those profane words. Cutting into that, those words were covered by Az.

“No talent, you say? You, what the hell are you saying about yourself? Don’t you understand?” (Az)

“I do understand. Most likely I am not suited for it.” (Renya)

“Don’t say such stupid things. Listen! What I am about to tell you now, don’t talk about it, okay?” (Az)

Suddenly bringing his face close, he lowered the volume of his voice. While also thinking that he wasn’t really happy about a man drawing near, Renya nodded due to being pressured by the seriousness of Az’s facial expression.

“First off, did you say parallel activation?” (Az)

“Eh, ah, un” (Renya)

“Although I am not even able to use magic with parallel activation… the limit is two.” (Az)

“Un?” (Renya)

An expert couldn’t use more than two magic spells simultaneously.

If that is the truth, then what the hell does it mean for me to be even able to activate 16 at the same time?

“But in addition to the number of activations, if I were to keep up using without a break, I would be able to activate it around 100 times before using up the majority of my mana.” (Az)

Looking at the Az’s face in front of him, Renya was staring.

He honestly couldn’t see a glimpse of a lie being told in that face.

Although he didn’t seem to be telling lies, the contents of his words were still unbelievable.

As my magic capacity was evaluated to be lacking by Khalil, there is no way for it to be close to 10 times that of an expert like Az.

As he considered it to be impossible, Renya didn’t actually lie about it himself either. Furthermore, even this close to 10 times the numbers, still left him with a margin on the numbers of activation.

“What is this about…?” (Renya)

Due to still seeing Renya murmuring without comprehension, Az shook his head.

“It’s not like I understand it. Although you might usually suspect an error in the measurement, I don’t think that is possible if it was done by Khalil.” (Az)

The practice was an incredible success, going by such reasoning is likewise unlikely.

Just a moment ago I was told by Az that it wasn’t possible to increase it by practicing to such an extent either.

If I were to have an idea, I guess it couldn’t be helped to think that it was one of those many skills I received before coming to this world, Renya recalled.

As that little girl said, the abilities will be sure to grow in proportion to being forged by training.

Those are the fruits of training~ while separating his face from Az, Renya could agree to such view. It wasn’t due to understanding it though.

“Although I don’t know why it has become like this, if we assume this to be a fact, you can expect it to cause nothing but trouble if the surroundings became aware of this.” (Az)

“Isn’t it already too late since you know about it?” (Renya)

“In my case… I don’t have the hobby of spreading rumors about someone else’s circumstances.” (Az)

Despite having an unsociable face, only one side of Az’s mouth moved slightly.

Somehow Renya realized that he was kind of smiling.

“I am thankful for that. I am grateful for the accompanying warning.” (Renya)

“There is no need for thanks… although I would be happy if you give me a slightly larger portion of pasta for lunch.” (Az)

“I will see to that.” (Renya)

Although he didn’t prepare such an extent of pasta in his [Inventory] due to Renya arranging the amount of pasta roughly referencing upon himself, since he knew that Shion and Rona wouldn’t eat more than he had assessed, he guessed there wouldn’t be any difficulty to something like giving Az’s party a larger portion. With acknowledging his words, Renya conveyed this meaning to Az.

◆◇◆◇◆

“I’m bored…” (Shion)

Shion murmured lazily.

As the small information exchange due to the deal was completely finished, there was nothing to do afterwards.

Since neither Renya nor Az had any intention to dive into the dungeon until they finished eating lunch, naturally as there was nothing to do for the other members either it resulted in not being able to do anything but spending time on something like standby.

After Az finished the exchange with Renya, he reported the established deal to his party members. Retrieving a carpet from within his luggage, he sat down on it with a thump on top of holding some volume of a book and began to read silently.

Such a side of Az was something usual for the other members, huh? Without even particularly minding about something like this, each of them scattered to some suitable place around there in order to laze around and bask in the sun or to take a nap.

Speaking of Renya, since he exhausted the soup he had received from the inn yesterday, he began his work by placing the pot with the deep bottom on top of the cooking stove and throwing in vegetables and meat in there as it would take some time to boil them well while cooking on a low flame.

Although Renya intended to offer two types of sauces for lunch, one made out of cheese and milk and the other from the tomato-like vegetable, it was unthinkable for it to become satisfactory without something serving as a base for that.

Given that this didn’t mean that there would be a large quantity necessary, he carefully and slowly cooked together the reasonable amount of ingredients. Occasionally Renya added water to finish concentrating it.

As the flavor of the finished concentrated base became strong, it ended up becoming bland, or rather the flavor was rough.

The important difference could be determined by how well the good flavor of the vegetables and meat could be extracted. While persuading himself of that, Renya kept standing watch on the soup.(T/N: Is this a frigging cooking novel !! >. In case of obstructing their actions, it would be , but if you don’t aim for damage infliction, I think would also be fine. You also have to have something like aptitude for it.” (Az)

“I checked the aptitude at the magician Khalil’s shop. I was told it is wind.” (Renya)

“That fellow? If it was her examining you, there is no doubt about it, I guess… but wind, huh? If it is wind, then either or would be good.” (Az)

For cutting up things with wind, , and for dulling the movement by coiling wind around the feet, , Az explained.

As the type of went along with Renya’s style of magic, Az words hinted towards him not being very suited for .

“On the point of firepower it is far inferior to . If it is our vanguard members, even if they don’t apply any considerable defensive magic, they will easily defend against it.” (Az)

“Fumu… this is a point to be worried about…” (Renya)

After all, it is elementary magic, was something that Renya understood.

Although one might say the firepower was high, apparently with its power the most that could do in face of heavy armor was to the extent of causing petty scalding.

“My recommendation is after all. The user-friendliness is good and it has a wide usability so you don’t need to be very cautious about use against potential opponents.” (Az)

“The opinion of an expert is valuable. I will request this then, huh?” (Renya)

Once Renya decided, Az took out a scrap of paper from his luggage similar to the one he had seen in Khalil’s shop and affixed it to Renya’s forehead.

“Bestow, ” (Az)

The paper affixed to his forehead vanished and since a similar message streamed in as he had seen before, Renya accepted the selection.(T/N: The information terminal messages he means)

“Spell, according to my power, shoot a Fire Ball.”

“Even if I continue to use this, how is it related to improving my magic capacity, I wonder?” (Renya)

“Ah, did you also hear about this method? If you practice magic, your magic capacity will naturally increase. However, the accepted theory says that it won’t increase much further than what you possess by nature, just that…” (Az)

Az said while apparently having difficulty in speaking about it.

It seemed to be something to take into consideration when Renya was told that he was lacking magic capacity at Khalil’s shop.

“It can’t be helped. Even if you can only use it as a one off spell it will increase your options in combat. Because of that, there is no reason to not use it.” (Az)

“By the way, what is it?” (Renya)

He asked as Az had taken an interest in something.

“About how many times have you become able to use the spell?” (Az)

“Let’s see…” (Renya)

Since he hadn’t even done something like counting, Renya tried to roughly calculate it mentally.

As it was something along the lines of simultaneously activating 16 instances with the most recent casting macro, how many times can it be implemented until it stops?He didn’t really pay any attention to that.

“Since it didn’t cause the mana to be exhausted with 16 parallel instances activated within an hour of 60 activations…” (Renya)

“…What was that?” (Az)

“At the least I can use as many as 960 castings, I think?” (Renya)

Hearing Renya talking smoothly about the number, Az’s facial expression became stiff.

Even though Az’s face was bluntly expressionless from the start, you could see it turn into even more of a carved statue than usual. Renya pondered whether he had said something odd and suddenly hit on an answer.

It is about me having been told that I have practically no magic capacity.

It isn’t useful even if I practice to such an extent? That’s quite shocking, Renya judged.

“I guess it can’t be helped since I have no talent…” (Renya)

“If only I had the aptitude.” Renya sighed due to those profane words. Cutting into that, those words were covered by Az.

“No talent, you say? You, what the hell are you saying about yourself? Don’t you understand?” (Az)

“I do understand. Most likely I am not suited for it.” (Renya)

“Don’t say such stupid things. Listen! What I am about to tell you now, don’t talk about it, okay?” (Az)

Suddenly bringing his face close, he lowered the volume of his voice. While also thinking that he wasn’t really happy about a man drawing near, Renya nodded due to being pressured by the seriousness of Az’s facial expression.

“First off, did you say parallel activation?” (Az)

“Eh, ah, un” (Renya)

“Although I am not even able to use magic with parallel activation… the limit is two.” (Az)

“Un?” (Renya)

An expert couldn’t use more than two magic spells simultaneously.

If that is the truth, then what the hell does it mean for me to be even able to activate 16 at the same time?

“But in addition to the number of activations, if I were to keep up using without a break, I would be able to activate it around 100 times before using up the majority of my mana.” (Az)

Looking at the Az’s face in front of him, Renya was staring.

He honestly couldn’t see a glimpse of a lie being told in that face.

Although he didn’t seem to be telling lies, the contents of his words were still unbelievable.

As my magic capacity was evaluated to be lacking by Khalil, there is no way for it to be close to 10 times that of an expert like Az.

As he considered it to be impossible, Renya didn’t actually lie about it himself either. Furthermore, even this close to 10 times the numbers, still left him with a margin on the numbers of activation.

“What is this about…?” (Renya)

Due to still seeing Renya murmuring without comprehension, Az shook his head.

“It’s not like I understand it. Although you might usually suspect an error in the measurement, I don’t think that is possible if it was done by Khalil.” (Az)

The practice was an incredible success, going by such reasoning is likewise unlikely.

Just a moment ago I was told by Az that it wasn’t possible to increase it by practicing to such an extent either.

If I were to have an idea, I guess it couldn’t be helped to think that it was one of those many skills I received before coming to this world, Renya recalled.

As that little girl said, the abilities will be sure to grow in proportion to being forged by training.

Those are the fruits of training~ while separating his face from Az, Renya could agree to such view. It wasn’t due to understanding it though.

“Although I don’t know why it has become like this, if we assume this to be a fact, you can expect it to cause nothing but trouble if the surroundings became aware of this.” (Az)

“Isn’t it already too late since you know about it?” (Renya)

“In my case… I don’t have the hobby of spreading rumors about someone else’s circumstances.” (Az)

Despite having an unsociable face, only one side of Az’s mouth moved slightly.

Somehow Renya realized that he was kind of smiling.

“I am thankful for that. I am grateful for the accompanying warning.” (Renya)

“There is no need for thanks… although I would be happy if you give me a slightly larger portion of pasta for lunch.” (Az)

“I will see to that.” (Renya)

Although he didn’t prepare such an extent of pasta in his [Inventory] due to Renya arranging the amount of pasta roughly referencing upon himself, since he knew that Shion and Rona wouldn’t eat more than he had assessed, he guessed there wouldn’t be any difficulty to something like giving Az’s party a larger portion. With acknowledging his words, Renya conveyed this meaning to Az.

◆◇◆◇◆

“I’m bored…” (Shion)

Shion murmured lazily.

As the small information exchange due to the deal was completely finished, there was nothing to do afterwards.

Since neither Renya nor Az had any intention to dive into the dungeon until they finished eating lunch, naturally as there was nothing to do for the other members either it resulted in not being able to do anything but spending time on something like standby.

After Az finished the exchange with Renya, he reported the established deal to his party members. Retrieving a carpet from within his luggage, he sat down on it with a thump on top of holding some volume of a book and began to read silently.

Such a side of Az was something usual for the other members, huh? Without even particularly minding about something like this, each of them scattered to some suitable place around there in order to laze around and bask in the sun or to take a nap.

Speaking of Renya, since he exhausted the soup he had received from the inn yesterday, he began his work by placing the pot with the deep bottom on top of the cooking stove and throwing in vegetables and meat in there as it would take some time to boil them well while cooking on a low flame.

Although Renya intended to offer two types of sauces for lunch, one made out of cheese and milk and the other from the tomato-like vegetable, it was unthinkable for it to become satisfactory without something serving as a base for that.

Given that this didn’t mean that there would be a large quantity necessary, he carefully and slowly cooked together the reasonable amount of ingredients. Occasionally Renya added water to finish concentrating it.

As the flavor of the finished concentrated base became strong, it ended up becoming bland, or rather the flavor was rough.

The important difference could be determined by how well the good flavor of the vegetables and meat could be extracted. While persuading himself of that, Renya kept standing watch on the soup.(T/N: Is this a frigging cooking novel !! ><;;)

Rona, going with the flow, ended up taking this state of affairs completely for granted and retired into the tent because she wanted to sleep until she got called by his voice.

Although Shion watched Renya working for a while, she soon enough got tired of it in the end.

“I guess it’s inevitable, huh? I have ended up being in charge of lunch recently. Preparations are important for cooking.” (Renya)

“We… pretty much came here to capture the dungeon, right?” (Shion)

Then why is there a mood as if we were going for a picnic?Shion couldn’t help but feel such doubts.

Meanwhile Renya was scooping out the scum emerging on the surface of the pot.

“It isn’t a good thing to be tense when it is unnecessary, right?” (Renya)

“Aren’t we slacking off too much?” (Shion)

“Well, what do you think?” (Renya)

Renya thought that they might be a bit too carefree as well.

Nevertheless he had no intention on cutting corners in his duty of preparing lunch at all.

He peeled the skin of the tomato-like vegetables after boiling them. Combining it with the remade soup by putting it into the pot, this would transform into a paste. Furthermore he threw in similar pastes transformed from other vegetables in. They added an aroma of herbs and slightly increased the concentration by increasing the viscosity.

It was completed by seasoning it with a small quantity of salt and small pieces of meat.

As for the cheese and milk sauce, he mixed the soup with the milk and seasoned that with salt n’ pepper. He heated it until it became thick by constantly tossing in pieces of cheese in there.

Finely cut small pieces of vegetables were put in next.

Since he obtained something of the sort of noodles as pasta, he put those into the deep pot alongside plenty of water. He took out the pasta after waiting for it to boil with irregular movements.

Although it was frequently said that you left it inside until the core part became one long hair before pulling it out, since Renya wasn’t fond of such a method, he boiled them properly and then took them out.

Soon after putting the two types of sauces into their respective deep dishes, he placed the boiled pasta on a large plate and completed it by arranging individual plates.

All that was left was for each to pick up some pasta, pour it with their preferred sauce and eat it.

Because it was also a portion of pasta for 8 people all together, it was unthinkable to finish cooking it in one go.

While watching the pasta placed on the plate disappearing, he thoughtMaa, it’s fine since they are able to eat something delicious, no?Renya was single-mindedly boiling pasta.