Fairy Tale Chronicles

Volume 3 Sequel 3.1

Translator: Reflet

Editor: Weasalopes

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This particular event occurred the day that the workshop finally began training the apprentices in magic toolmaking. It also happened to be the day that certain employees left from Igreos temple.

「Ah, Master Hiroshi, might I have a moment?」

「What’s the matter?」

「I hear sounds from below this building. What might it be?」

「Sound……?」

The temple employee asked Hiroshi, who contemplated it briefly. There were three rooms below Darl’s workshop: a storage room and two work rooms. Thanks to enchantments, the storage room had expanded capacity and was connected with the other storages, so that couldn’t be it. The sound must therefore be coming from one of the work rooms.

「A sound from one of the underground rooms, eh…I wonder if somethin’ happened……?」

Still, now that it was interconnected with the workshop in Wulls, there was hardly any need to use the underground work stations in Darl. No one should be using either room right now, so there should be no noise. As he thought about it, Hiroshi felt that something was off, but he couldn’t recall what precisely it was.

「I can’t remember off the top of my head, so imma head down and see.」

Hiroshi still couldn’t remember, figuring it was quicker to go down and check it out. He left the men where they were. As soon as he headed downstairs, Hiroshi immediately remembered what he had forgotten.

「Right, right. I forgot that I cleansed the evil idol.」

Hiroshi muttered as he heard Haruna’s voice escaping from the door that was firmly sealed off. Before going to the underground ruins he had soaked it in holy water and left Haruna’s song playing before leaving the area and forgetting about the idol. If it were Haruna in this scenario, she probably would have remembered at the word “underground”, but Hiroshi did not have such inhuman memory. And so he did not remember until he was face to face with it.

Although the door was firmly sealed shut, as they never had the intention of leaving it that way for a long period of time, the effects were beginning to thin out. This resulted in the sound barrier gradually diminishing until at last the sound was escaping out to where people could hear it.

「I think it’s marinated long enough, so I better just throw it out already.」

Using the word “marinate” was a little odd, but anyway, quite a bit of time had elapsed since the idol had soaked in the liquid. By this point, the idol could very well just be destroyed, but Hiroshi didn’t think it was that fragile and figured it was best just to dispose of it, so with that in mind, he decided to contact Haruna and Mio.

『Haruna-san, Mio, I needa tell ya somethin’.』

『What?　What happened?』

『Sensei, is there work for us?』

Haruna and Mio responded quickly. Today, the two of them were working on different tasks that they said they wanted to focus on. It wasn’t really all that important though. Haruna was just checking the seasonal food stocks for Hiroshi and Makoto’s birthdays and Mio was having a bra newly made now that her current bra had begun to wear out lately, hunting giant spiders near Ortem village.

They already had a ton of spirit thread, so why hunt more giant spiders? Mio was aware of this, but there were two reasons why she decided to: one, because Hiroshi making women’s underwear, especially brassieres, wouldn’t even last half a day, plus Mio didn’t have any skill in handling spirit thread or spirit cloth. She could maybe make a fairly uncool set of panties, but who knew how many tools she’d go through before making even one set. So Mio saw this also as a good opportunity to up her skill at making spider silk in depth.

『Ya’ll remember the evil idol?』

『Ah～! We left the song on play, didn’t we!?』

『……Oh yeah, we did. I totally forgot.』

Once they heard the reason for Hiroshi calling them, Haruna let out a loud voice and Mio came in one second later. Both of them seemed to have forgotten. It hadn’t been a high priority for them, plus other things, so in a sense, this was to be expected.

『One of the boys comin’ from the temple for trainin’ said that they heard a sound underground. I just remembered when I went down, and I figured it’s about time I dispose of it.』

『Yeah, you definitely should.』

『And, so…It’s a bit dangerous dealin’ with it by myself, so if ya ain’t pressed for time, couldja maybe help out?』

Haruna and Mio consented to Hiroshi’s petition without hesitation. Neither of them were dealing with anything particularly pressing. Haruna’s errand could be taken care of tomorrow or the next day, and Mio already had secured plenty of cocoons. All she needed to do now was stay up and work on it every night.

『Then imma prepare over here, so get back as soon as ya can. Sorry ‘bout this.』

『Alright.』

『Be there soon.』

After hearing their answers, Hiroshi ended the call and decided to give instructions to his pupils for dealing with the aftermath. This would involve harvesting a catalyst. Hiroshi was planning to make his students gather the ingredients for the enchantments in today’s lesson. He wasn’t going to have them use ingredients from dangerous places or anything like that, but just in case, Hiroshi made sure to contact Tatsuya and Makoto for protection.

「Now then, let’s see what’s goin’ on.」

Hiroshi breathed out a small sigh as he prepared the barrier tools and whatnot. The idol seemed to have marinated for far too long, and he just had the feeling that things were going to progress in an undesirable direction.

And so this dangerous cleanup that would probably invite more trouble than it was worth began to speed along as preparations were made.

「So, Sensei, what’s going on?」

Mio asked Hiroshi for the situation as soon as she got back to the workshop in Darl.

「Imma look inside right now, but I don’t think there’s anythin’ good waitin’ inside.」

Mio nodded, encouraging Hiroshi to continue, and so Hiroshi cancelled the seal and opened the door very slightly. On the other side of the door was an oddly clean room.

「……There ain’t a shred of miasma in sight……」

「The feng shui’s been cleansed too?」

「Seems that way.」

It would seem that they had both underestimated the capabilities of the hymnals. Sure, they had left it playing for over two weeks on repeat, but who knew that a simple recording like this could have such an immense cleansing effect? Still, Aearis could easily bring about the same effect without any ritual if she got serious, so this was still a discount version of her power.

「And now, for the goods.」

After they finished looking over the room, Hiroshi and Mio saw what state said evil idol was in before quickly releasing the idol from its physical form and watching the figure in a trancelike state as it completely stopped moving. By this point there was not a single fragment of miasma remaining.

「Y’know, this is kinda creepy.」

「Yeah, it’s creepy.」

「Yeah, that’s totally creepy～」

Hiroshi and Mio turned around to see the source of the voice, Haruna, who was suddenly there behind their backs peeking at the idol.

「Haru, when’d you get here?」

「Right about now. But sheesh, who would have thought just leaving a recording playing would have such astounding effects?」

「Yup, seems that way. When makin’ cleansing equipment, we should prolly blockade the forge ‘n smelting furnace for two weeks or so ‘n then play the song on repeat.」

「I sort of feel like singing is slowly losing its original purpose……」

Haruna remarked, looking at Hiroshi with reproachful eyes. Hiroshi grimaced at her before going ahead and taking the bottle with the idol in it. Regardless of how they were going to dispose of it, first things first, they needed to disassemble it. After all, they couldn’t just crush it and throw it away.

「Now then, what’s goin’ on with this thing…」

「Can we use it for materials?」

「I think so, but I dunno what for.」

Hiroshi responded to Haruna’s question, deciding to go to the other underground room. The workstation upstairs was going to be used by the priests for training, so it wouldn’t be good to have strange effects surrounding that area.

「So, Sensei. What would you like to start with?」

「Let’s start with the easy stuff, like what’s been going on with the bottled holy water.」

Haruna and Mio watched Hiroshi as he took out water quality checkers. At this point, the girls still had nothing they must do.

「……Physically drinkin’ the water shouldn’t be a problem. Now, as for magic or mystical, well……」

Hiroshi then squirted some holy water onto the magic stones and other machine parts with a dropper, checking for any reactions or changes. There weren’t any visible signs of harm from the looks of it, but there was no mistake about it: the water was no longer holy water.