CH 168

We were welcomed into the small village, although in reality there were no more than 10 houses in this village. I went to the small house where the smoke of the coal was coming from and asked if I could borrow the furnace. I offered several silver coins and the owner, Vince-san, was more than happy to allow me to use it since there was no more blacksmithing work to be done for today. 

And then on, I spent the whole day holed up in the blacksmith workshop. The sound of me hammering the iron reverberated all over the small village. While I was working, Yurina-san was resting in the guest room adjoined to the blacksmith workshop. Her fatigue must’ve already piled up due to traveling in a wagon, something she was not used to along with other various reasons.

And so, after a lot of trial and error, I somehow managed to finish making the firewood based chimney stove. I used the stone I got from the village to make the baseline floor of the stove and made a small aperture to refill the firewood from inside the wagon. Since the smoke would be running upward, I decided to install the chimney right on top of the stove. 

An opening was made on the top of the stove in accordance to the size and the dimension of the chimney and then I processed the joint part between the chimney and the stove to prevent the heat from the chimney from burning the canopy part of the wagon. 

After I somehow finished installing the stove, I gave it a test run. I used a fire dagger to light the firewood and waited for a little while before the warm air started filling the covered wagon, just like the warmth you could get from lighting a fireplace inside a house. 

This stove came with a cooking stove on top of it so I could make food while staying inside the covered wagon. I didn’t have to go outside and ended up feeling cold in order to cook. I was really happy with the finished result.

With this, we would be able to get through the upcoming cold winter night. I would like to believe that my decision to visit this small village was not a mistake after all. 

The night was getting late by the time I finished with work so I decided to stay in this small village tonight. I gave Vince-san, the owner of this place, 1 gold coin as hush money.

The next day, I had the villager to share with me some food and other necessities like fuel for our journey through Vince-san. Of course at first they were reluctant to do so since necessities to get through the winter was a precious commodity for a small village like this one, especially since we were already entering the winter period where snow started to pile up. However, their attitude immediately changed upon tasting the food and other goods I was willing to barter in exchange.

The thing I offered was not money but things like cured tucarus and neitolius with zircoot plant (basically kombu jime), smoked egg and cheese and the fire daggers that I had made in between my fishing break. 

Money wasn’t worth as much during the winter season where peddler’s feet became heavy from the snow. Instead, they were more happy to get ingredients from the river since the river was dangerous due to the monster and the smoked food. Also the fire daggers were greatly appreciated since it was basically a useful tool to create fire, you could use it not only during the winter but during other seasons as well. 

I’m glad I made those fire daggers in between my fishing break. 

On the other hand, I managed to stock up on salt, garlic, soybean, alcohol, egg, chicken meat, milk, cheese, pickled vegetables, frozen fruit, wheat flour and firewood along with other stuff. Among those things, there was this thing called soybean sauce and when I licked it, I realized it tasted exactly like regular soy sauce. 

“UWOHHHH!!!”

Tears of gratitude immediately ran down my face and I shook Vince-san’s hand vigorously. With this, our culinary repertoire would become much more exciting… 

Having a good meal and alcohol was a very important part of the honeymoon after all. This discovery would be passed down to the next generation…. Probably.

Another thing we got was an alcohol called ‘seryu’. Apparently this alcohol was made using isekai rice and had the same dry taste similar to japanese sake. It could be used not only for drinking but also for cooking.

Since I was keeping my visitation to a town to the bare minimum, I had to stock up as much as I could when I had the chance. 

Apparently on ordinary business transactions they usually had, there was no opportunity that could allow them to obtain a fire dagger and so, the villager who had been so cold and distant before, suddenly became very friendly.

They said that we should stay for several nights more but since we wanted to avoid any human interaction as much as possible, we decided to leave that small village on that very day. 

Well, though it’s good that they’re now acting friendly with us. 

When I asked Vince-san to not tell anyone that I had visited this small village because I was being pursued by someone relentlessly, he then pounded his chest energetically while saying,”Leave it to me!”

And so, the covered wagon carrying Yurina-san, Ash and me, left the small unknown village that was filled with kind people. 

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T/N: Hopefully the villager is not easily swayed by money so they won’t snitch on MC. I thought fire dagger is pretty common since fire dagger is not that expensive but it turns out for a village in the middle of nowhere like that, fire dagger is an extremely rare tool