Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyusoukyoku

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"When you get to Gururian city, don’t miss out on eating the round red bean paste! Though since it’s one big copper coin for one, it’s not easy to have one. For a merchant like Onii-san, you’d get laughed by your business partners if you’ve never eaten one."

"What kind of sweets is it?"

"Umm~ you make this white lump and put the sweet black lump as the main part around it."

The sisters who are with us at the campground before Gururian city are talking about the established sweet in the city. It’s somehow an imaginable, yet misleading explanation.

"You’ve never eaten one either have you. This girl becomes interested in the sweet after a merchant boasts about it in the village."

"Fuhn. When I get my wages at the apprenticeship, then. I’ll eat it first and foremost~."

"Wages you say, it’ll be years before that."

As I understand, these sisters come from a village nearby to be apprentices in a merchant store at Gururian city. They’re guaranteed of necessities like food and shelter, but in exchange they won’t get wages until they become full-fledged. This is like Edo era.

Such employment method might be unexpectedly cheaper than buying slaves for labor.

"Master, the merchants seem to be departing."

"Then, we should go too."

Liza comes to call the dawdling me.

Looks like the merchants who are with us at the camping ground are departing. There are three group of merchants. I heard a lot of stories from them when I offered them ales and fish last night.

The most troubling story is, "In a remote place deep in the mountain, red light could be seen, and sounds of hammer hitting something resounded all through the night.", such ghost story. It really feels like something I’ve done myself.

Thanks to my night work that’s become a ghost story, I’ve successfully refined and casted a lot of tin and zinc. I made mud walls to prevent the noise from leaking out, but it didn’t seem to be enough.

Since we could arrive at Gururian city before noon with the wagon, I invite the sisters to go there together.

"Yay!"

"Thank you very much. Is it alright?"

"I don’t mind, we have the same destination anyway."

These sisters are doing reckless thing of walking to Gururian city on foot. It seems the distance between the sisters’ village to the Gururian city is two days away by foot, good thing that they don’t get attacked by beasts. Last night, they slept with us in our tent, but their chastities could’ve been in danger if we weren’t there.

Our wagon joins with the other merchants’ carriages while advancing.

There are a group of suspicious young nobles gathering on the open space before Gururian city, so I decide not to go first and blend with the other merchants instead.

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"Merchants who are visiting Gururian city! We desire magic swords. We promise to the people who give us magic swords that we will give them favor as purveyors in the future!"

An man past his 20s wearing knight-like clothes is appealing to the merchants who are lining up to enter the city. Naturally, no one answers it. There’s a similar noble at the dwarf village, he’s probably the same kind of him.

I’ve stored Liza’s magic spear inside the Holding Bag since it looks like it’d get entangled. It became a problem when we were entering Muno city back then, I had put it away before this. Right now Liza is hanging a normal sword on her waist.

"Hey hey, that noble-sama said that he’d make you a purvoyer if you gave him a magic sword! It’s amazing right, Onee-chan."

"It sure is. However, such expensive things like magic swords have nothing to do with us."

"You girls, you’d get deceived in the city like that you know?"

Arisa worryingly butts in the carefree talk of the sisters.

"That one is, you know, 『We do not have money. However we want magic swords. Give it to us for free. As the compensation, we’ll give you favor if we succeed in the future. Don’t complain even if we don’t succeed.』, convenient for them alone, such nonsense isn’t it?"

"Uwah, so it’s like that. I didn’t know."

"Arisa-chan, you’re smart even though you’re small."

The sisters get down the wagon with Nana’s help. They line up on people’s queue since the queues for carriage and people are different.

"Satou-san, thank you~."

"Thank you very much. On top of letting us slept together, you even gave us meal all day."

"Don’t worry about it."

"That won’t do, we’ll be working in a utensil store called Midoriya, so if you need something there do pay us a visit, I can’t give you discount, but I’ll prepare the best goods for you."

I think employees would only be given chores, but I accept the girls good wills and thank them.

The nobles and their servants from earlier seem to be negotiating with the merchants who are queuing one by one. I’ll enter the city before they get here.

We go toward the gate without lining up. Nana and Liza have confirmed with the gatekeeper that nobles could be prioritized to enter first. Even though it’s not like no-check admission in the self-governing dominion of the dwarves, they only check us formally.

I could hear, "Eh", and "So he’s a noble-sama." from behind. Come to think of it, I’ve not told them my house name.

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During the past several days, I’ve made swords for Pochi and Tama--ones that would equal Liza’s magic spear--but I’ve not been able to produce satisfactory ones.

I could give them the magic swords from the storage, but they’re too big for anyone beside Nana, so I try to make ones myself.

There are five types of magic swords.

The first is the type that incorporates the magic circuit from Trazayuya’s holy sword research. There are many good magic swords of this type. That being the case, the degree of difficulty is abnormally high.

The gold and silver wooden magic swords are of this type.

The second is the magic sword like the one elder Dohar has made. It’s a type that could accept magic power without special magic circuit as it’s a characteristic of magic metal like mithril or adamantite. It’s hard to acquired the material, but their stabilities are their strong points.

The third is weapons made from monster’s parts, just like Liza’s magic spear. The performance is similar to the second type, but the individual difference is too great, weapons made from the same monster’s parts could have great difference, there are a lot of poor ones.

The fourth is cursed weapons. Even though it has permanent magic grant, it basically gives harm to the user, so people who use this type are few. At present, I’ve never actually seen anyone who does beside elder Dohar.

The fifth is a type where the blade part and the magic circuit are made separately, and then attached to become a magic sword. I noticed this when I dissembled a magic sword from the storage. The blade part is ordinary, but the grip part has magic circuit imprinted. When you put in magic power, it gives [Strengthen] and [Dexterity] effects. It even quickens the sword’s drawing speed.

You can separately makes magic circuit on the blade and the grip, this is easier than engraving magic circuit on the blade part.

The ones I’ve produced in the experiments are the first and the third type.

For the method from Trazayuya’s document, I tried to create the circuit during the casting process of the sword, but since the circuit liquid was weak to heat, it dissolved halfway through. The sword can roughly accept magic power, but the circulated magic power is distorted, there’s no practical use for it.

Next, I made blades by shaving shell from beetle monster and hard newt’s bones, and permeated circuit liquid on the gap to improve the magic conduction. For once, real-like magic swords are finished, but the aspects such as strengths are inferior compared to Liza’s magic spear so I put it on reserve.

I got [Bone Crafting] when I was shaving bones, although it seemed to be of little use.

◇

Sweet smells is drifting the moment we enter the city. It smells like a Japanese sweets, or rather, red bean pastes.

"Kuu, what a nice smell!"

"Is it Japanese sweets."

Arisa’s and my tensions are rising while the others see us curiously.

"Young gentleman over there, how about some excellent round red bean paste?"

A girl of around a high schooler’s age is selling while carrying a food tray on her neck. It’s like a style of the boxed lunch seller from Showa era. Unfortunately her clothes is a normal plain village girl-like, not Japanese clothes. She’s wearing a short apron on her waist.

I buy several round red bean pastes and distribute it to everyone. Mia looks a bit unwilling, but when I tell her, "It’s a sweet snack made from grains and beans.", she timidly puts it on her mouth.

"I think it needs a bit more sugar."

Arisa makes a slight request, but everyone has already finished eating.

"Fuh, this is, that right."

"Umu, that huh."

Yes, it’s an [Ohagi]. The inside of the dumpling is not sticky rice but granulated glutinous rice. The red bean paste is coarse too, it feels like [Ohagi] from long ago.

"So it’s really true, this city’s name is."

"I wonder if it’s a bad pun."

People would not know that it’s a bad pun if they don’t know Japanese language so I won’t tell this to anyone, but this [Gururian]. The one who’s named this city is definitely a Japanese who likes bad pun.

◇

We’ve wasted some time from buying the sweets. First of all, I have to go to the lord’s place and hand Nina-san’s letter.

Lady Karina and the maid squad are inside the ship that’s currently entering the port, but they most likely will remain on the ship until it reach the capital. Since Raka should not be able to detect us here, there’s probably no need to worry.

It seems that The First preliminary fights to enter the qualification are happening on the public parks here and there in this city now. The name [The First] is making me cry.

It looks like you need to pay three copper coins on the agency at the town hall to get the participation proof, and when there are 10 people who have gathered, the first preliminary round could begin.

A match happens every time two people gather, and after gathering 32 people who have win a match, the preliminary match is over, and the second match begin it seems. People who have won four first preliminary matches could participate on the second preliminary round. I see, I guess each city has to have best four. It has been a week since it begins, and there are already 20 people who have passed the first round.

There’s a preliminary match taking place on the park near the main road, I stop the wagon and watch it. Since Pochi and Tama are restless whenever cheers are raised on the public park, I decide to watch it for a bit.

A sharp sighted weaselkin girl tried to sell me wager checks but I refused. When I ask Pochi why she is sniffing violently, it seems that she’s smelled yakitori scent. I ask Nana to buy it. There doesn’t seem to be any idiot that tries to pick-up Nana who’s wearing a full body armor from head to toe.

I distribute the yakitori and minced fish meat on sticks that Nana’s bought to everyone. Even Mia has bought fruit water unnoticed.

The people who participate in the preliminary fight are mixed goods of mostly level 3-7, but some who exceed level 10 rarely mixed in too. The ones who are fighting now are both on the upper level 10s.

They both wear leather armors, one-handed swords and shields, they are long-time mercenaries. Their levels aren’t different with Liza and the others, but they’re slow, and there are too many useless movements during the swords’ blows exchanges. I’d say that the beastkin girls wouldn’t lose against either of them, This is not favoritism.

Apparently, the winner of this match would be eligible to participate in the first preliminary round, so the cheering is quite frantic. However, to watch a game during weekdays like this, I wonder if this gallery is fine with their works?

It’s probably not because of that needless worry, but a tumult can be heard from the public park nearby.

"It’s terrible! Monsters have appeared inside the city!"

That is terrible.

I confirm the map, but there are surprisingly a lot of monsters in the whole city. Looks like they are cavalry monsters called running dragons. It seems that most of them are assigned as the private soldiers of the viceroy.

There is no monster at the direction where the voice from before comes.

The one there is a demon--

Moreover, there’s a troublesome person nearby.