Let's Take a Bath in the Forest

I want to take a bath. A hot bath. I've been washing myself in wells and rivers, but a hot bath is what a Japanese person really needs.

However, apparently only nobles in this world can take hot baths. What an unequal society.

But I have Shangri-La. It sells a Goemon-style bath made from a drum barrel for 20,000 yen.

I put my plan into action: soaking in a bath in the forest to soothe the fatigue of life in another world.

I went to the riverbank where I'd held the banquet with the beastmen and opened the screen.

I still had money, so for now I needed water. A drum barrel holds about 200 liters, after all. The poly tanks used for kerosene and the like should hold 18 liters.

When I checked Shangri-La, I found white water tanks for sale. They held 20 liters and cost 1,500 yen each. I decided to buy ten of them.

I couldn't use the same tanks for water and kerosene or oil, so I'd need to buy separate ones.

The ones for kerosene were red or blue, the sort you often saw at home-improvement stores. I'd used one to fill the kerosene heater at home too.

When I pressed the 【Purchase】 button, the poly tanks came tumbling down onto the riverbank stones with a loud clattering sound.

I opened the lid, sank the tank into the river, and filled it with water. That way, I wouldn't need a pump. Once it was full, I put it in the Item Box—and repeated the process ten times.

Carrying ten of these things normally would have been a real pain, but thanks to the Item Box, I could return to the forest empty-handed.

The Item Box was truly a godsend.

I rode my mountain bike along the road I'd cleared to the forest. Apparently, the forest was slightly higher up, so the way back was uphill.

Still, the bike had gears, so I could just shift down. It took about ten minutes to get to town in the morning, but about fifteen minutes to return.

Even so, it was much faster and easier than walking.

When I entered the forest, it was already getting somewhat dark. Almost no light reached the forest in the evening, so I decided to start a fire while I could still see what I was doing.

All right, let's try buying the drum-barrel bath from Shangri-La...

"Click."

With a heavy thud, a drum barrel dropped from the sky. It was painted blue, and a brass drain valve was fitted at the very bottom.

Ah, I see. I'd been thinking only about putting water in, but I hadn't thought about getting it out.

It also came with a round wooden slatted platform. I was supposed to float this in the tub and stand on it. Otherwise, the bottom of the drum barrel would be hot enough to burn me.

Next, I had to make a base for the tub. I couldn't light a fire with it sitting directly on the ground, so a base was essential.

I bought concrete blocks and arranged them on the ground, then tried to set the drum-barrel bath on top of them... but it was heavy!

I stood it on its edge and struggled to roll it onto the blocks.

"Phew... Now for the water."

I'd worked up a sweat before even getting into the bath.

I figured filling it from a high place would be easy, so I brought out a stepladder. I thought I could simply place a water-filled poly tank from the Item Box directly on top of it—but it didn't work.

It would have been fine if the top of the stepladder were wider, but I couldn't precisely control where items appeared.

I gave up on taking the tank directly out of the Item Box. I picked up one poly tank and climbed the stepladder, but it was heavy!

Of course it was—20 liters of water weighs 20 kilograms. I poured the water into the drum barrel while I thought.

This would leave me exhausted before I even took a bath. Wasn't there something better? I searched Shangri-La again.

I searched for electric kerosene pumps and the like, but I couldn't find anything suitable. The hoses were all too short.

The rotary models with long hoses were made for drum barrels. They were used to transfer kerosene from drum barrels into poly tanks, not the other way around.

Besides, I'd used a rotary pump before, and it took quite a while.

But then I found something good: a 100-volt electric pump. It had a square red body and seemed to be made overseas. It cost 10,000 yen.

I clicked to buy the pump, a hose, and the attachment for connecting them, and the red electric pump dropped from the sky.

Once I connected the hose to the pump, I took the diesel generator out of the Item Box. I never thought it would get another turn this soon.

I plugged it in and started the generator.

"Switch ON!"

The motor began to hum, and water flowed from the poly tank into the drum barrel. This was fast! It finished filling in about thirty seconds.

I'd brought ten poly tanks, but filling the drum barrel with all of them would make it overflow. I'd use eight and save two for adjusting the temperature.

I'd already used two, leaving six, but at this rate, I could finish filling it in three minutes. All right! This would be over in no time.

It was filled in a flash, and I stored the pump and generator in the Item Box.

All that remained was to light a fire and heat the water.

Even so, I'd made one small mistake. The opening for the fire was too narrow. I should have made the base a little higher.

But failure was the mother of success. After taking a bath and draining the water, I could stack a few more blocks to raise it.

For today, I had to make do with this. I kept feeding firewood into the opening and burning it.

Oh, right—I needed to install a thermometer too. I laid a stick across the rim of the drum barrel and tied on a digital thermometer I'd bought for 1,000 yen.

This thermometer was apparently for cooking, but... well, as long as it worked, it was fine.

I stirred the water with a board from time to time, and after about an hour, it was hot. It took quite a while.

If I made the base wider and increased the heat, I could probably shorten the time it took to heat the bath.

While the bath was heating, I ate cup ramen and packaged rice. This packaged rice sure was convenient.

I'd looked for rice at the market in town, but they didn't sell any. Being able to eat rice whenever I wanted was a blessing for a Japanese person.

Still, since I'd gone to the trouble of building a campfire, cooking rice in a mess tin sounded interesting too.

While I waited for the water to boil, I searched Shangri-La and found another useful item: a valve that attached to the lid of a poly tank.

I could attach it to a poly tank, lay the tank on its side, and use it like a water faucet. That way, I could add water to the bath to adjust the temperature.

I set the poly tank for adjusting the temperature on the stepladder. It was starting to look more and more like a proper bath.

I bought another small stepladder and tried using it as a foothold for getting into the bath. But when I actually looked at it... wasn't this going to be difficult?

In my mind, it seemed better to lay a metal bar across the top and pull myself in as if I were doing a pull-up...

I bought a single metal pipe from Shangri-La and laid it across the rim of the drum barrel. I would use this as a handhold.

"Well, guess it's finally time to try it..."

I stripped completely naked in the pitch-black forest. I climbed the stepladder stark naked, grabbed the metal pipe resting on the drum barrel's rim, and slowly stepped onto the slatted platform before lowering myself into the hot water.

"Fiiiii..."

I couldn't help making a sound like an old man, but I was an old man, so it couldn't be helped. The water felt wonderful. This was my first bath since coming to this other world.

And it was in the middle of the forest. This was the pinnacle of the slow life. No one could easily imitate this, no matter how hard they tried. Ah, this was heaven.

I got out once to wash myself—but then I realized something. What was I going to do with the wastewater?

If I was going to live here, I had to deal with both wastewater and the toilet.

In places without sewers in my original world, wastewater was often simply allowed to seep into the ground through something called subsurface infiltration... but that stuff smelled. It was just an open ditch.

For the toilet, I could make compost. There was plenty of grass, after all. I could chop up the waste and the cut grass, then mix them with soil.

I wanted to cultivate this entire area and make a field. Light reached it during the day, so I should be able to grow simple vegetables.

That left the sewer... but I thought of a good solution.

I could throw it into the trash can on the Status screen. As a test, I poured hot water into the empty cup from the cup ramen I'd just eaten and put it in the trash can...

The display read 【Styrofoam Cup】【Hot Water】. And then—if I pressed the button to empty the trash can...

"There, it's empty."

Good. That gave me a way to deal with the wastewater—in other words, I could just throw it in the trash can. I soaked in the hot water and thought about a more concrete way to handle the sewage.

I could build a settling tank out of concrete, throw the clarified water into the trash can, and use the accumulated sludge as compost.

Shangri-La sold cement, as well as plenty of books about concrete and DIY projects. I could manage somehow.

I also had the Yu○bo for digging holes.

Still, I didn't have to do anything that elaborate. I could just collect it in a large plastic pool or something.

Maintaining a clean environment took time, effort, and money. In the old days, toilets were emptied by waste collectors, and there were plenty of manure pits, while sewage was simply discharged into the open.

There were open ditches all over the city, giving off terrible smells. If a flood occurred, things became a complete disaster.

When water flowed into the open ditches and toilets, it all backed up and spread through the city. The whole city would be engulfed in a horrific stench.

But thinking about that, Dalia was a clean city. It didn't smell at all.

Come to think of it, I wondered how the sewers in that city worked. I'd ask about it the next time I went into town.

Still, I was starting to see a way forward.

I was beginning to feel that I could enjoy a slow life even in another world.

------◇◇◇------

The next day, I decided to close my stall for the day and use the power shovel to level the ground.

"All right! Summon Yu○bo!"

I took the heavy machinery out of the Item Box. Something this huge fit inside it, so what on earth did the inside look like?

Not that thinking about it would help me understand.

I climbed in right away and started the engine! Unlike a car, the power shovel didn't have an accelerator by your feet.

There was a throttle lever on the right side of the seat, which I used to control it.

The faster I ran the engine, the faster the arm moved. I operated the arm using the two levers in front of me.

There was another lever in the center, which was for moving the machine. Push it forward to go forward, pull it back to reverse, and twist it to the right to turn right.

Once I learned the controls, it was easy. It reminded me of a video game controller.

I cut up the stump left behind after felling the tree with the chainsaw, then dug it out with the power shovel.

The power was incredible. There was no way I could have done this alone. When I dug up the surrounding area too, I found countless tree roots.

I couldn't use it as a field until I cleared all of them away. I kept digging up the ground and pulling out the roots.

They just kept coming. I'd only dug up an area about ten meters by twenty, but the roots had piled up like a mountain.

I'd use them as firewood after drying them. But they wouldn't be usable as firewood until they'd dried for six months to a year, so I'd have to leave them piled up for a while.

Man, operating heavy machinery was fun. I felt like digging up the whole area. This was what it meant to return to one's childhood.

I carefully leveled the place where I planned to build the shed. I had to make it as flat as possible. But what should I do about the foundation?

The standard foundation for this kind of shed was a slab foundation, but... I figured simple pier stones would do.

Besides, I wouldn't know how large the shed was until I bought it.

But once I bought the shed, how would I set it on the foundation? When I searched Shangri-La, I found that it sold hydraulic jacks too.

I supposed I'd have to put one under the shed and gradually lift it. Hmm... I wouldn't know until I saw the actual thing.

But I'd bought such an expensive piece of equipment in the power shovel, so my balance was getting a little low.

I'd sell something else wholesale to the Marrow Company and raise some funds. What would be good? Sugar seemed to be a valuable commodity, so maybe sugar.

That was another staple of stories about other worlds. I bought white sugar and put it in a white jar I purchased at the same time.

This white jar was actually a burial urn. When I searched for a large one of a suitable size, this was the only thing I could find.

Still, it was unused, so there was no problem with using it as a burial urn.

Next... I could take some silver necklaces and accessories, one cameo, and perhaps some gold-plated accessories to see how they reacted.

Shangri-La also sold gold accessories. They were made of 18-karat gold, but they were predictably expensive. Necklaces cost more than 200,000 yen.

But the exchange rate wasn't very good. Silver was cheap in Shangri-La, so selling it for a high price here gave me an excellent conversion rate.

As expected, silver products were the way to go.

For dinner that evening, I made oyakodon with the eggs I had left over.

Come to think of it, I ate tanindon fairly often at home, but I barely remembered ever eating oyakodon...

I ate karaage all the time, though...

That's right, I wanted some karaage too. I could just buy the ingredients, so I'd try making it next time.

------◇◇◇------

The next day, I put the goods in my Item Box and visited the Marrow Company.

Marrow-san, the head of the company, and his daughter Primula-san came out to greet me.

"We've been waiting for you. There are many customers eagerly awaiting Kenichi-san's products."

"I wish I could get more, but they're all rare items, so it's difficult to obtain them... My apologies."

"Not at all. It would be impossible to obtain that many so easily, so that's understandable."

They showed me straight into the parlor, where the items taken from my Item Box were laid out on the table.

"Oh my, this one is lovely, Father~"

Primula-san had picked up a bracelet decorated with gold plating and cut glass. It had quite a stylish design.

"What a troublesome daughter. If you take that one, there won't be enough left for our customers."

Even as he said that, Marrow-san was extremely weak when it came to his daughter's requests.

"Primula-san, it's gold-colored, but it's only plating."

"Plating? By plating, you mean covering something with gold using mercury...?"

"That's right. I'm impressed you know that."

Of course, it was actually electroplating, which was entirely different.

"Why go to so much trouble?"

"Well, the craftsman who made it is an eccentric."

Naturally, that was a huge lie.

I took a lidded white jar from my Item Box and placed it on the low table.

"I brought something unusual today."

"What is this...?"

Primula-san removed the lid from the jar and gazed at the white powder inside.

"This is sugar."

"Huh? This is? Sugar this white...?"

Most of the sugar in this world was unrefined brown sugar.

"It was refined by a craftsman using a secret method and painstaking care."

Sugar, yet he said he'd taken pains with it—what did that even mean?

Marrow-san and Primula-san licked some of the sugar off their fingers to taste it.

"Oh! This is certainly sugar. And it doesn't have any unpleasant bitterness at all..."

"All the impurities have been painstakingly removed."

"No, this is extraordinary."

Even as they said that, their expressions remained troubled.

"Is there a problem?"

"Kenichi-san, you came here from outside the country, didn't you?"

Primula-san pressed the point as if to make sure.

"That's right, but..."

"Salt and sugar are state monopolies in this country."

"Huh?"

Marrow-san's words suddenly made everything click. Salt and sugar really were valuable commodities. Salt had been a state monopoly in my original world too.

"However, this sugar is excellent. Our household will purchase it privately."

The wholesale price Marrow-san offered was one gold coin (200,000 yen) per jar of sugar. It was quite expensive, as expected. He also bought the white jar I'd used to hold it—the burial urn—for one silver coin (50,000 yen).

Sugar only cost about 200 yen per kilogram in Shangri-La. I thought this would have an incredible conversion rate, but...

A state monopoly... It couldn't be helped.

I'd realized sugar and salt were off-limits, but the item popular with wealthy people was the cameo.

"Many people would like to buy more of these..."

"They're quite labor-intensive to make."

"You carve them out of layers of agate with different colors, correct?"

"That's right."

"I showed one to a jeweler I know, and he said that reproducing it would take so much work that it would be difficult to sell as a commercial product."

The deal proceeded smoothly, and I obtained fifteen gold coins (3,000,000 yen).

With that, I could buy the shed and put an end to my life in a tent.

On my way out of the estate, I brought up the subject of sewage with Marrow-san.

"Oh, there are purification tanks that use water stones. Didn't you know?"

"Yes—in the countryside, people often simply discharged it into the open..."

"Indeed, that was common."

Apparently, anyone who lived in the city was required to install a purification tank. I see—the treatment tanks were made using water stones that purified water.

That explained why the city was so clean.

As for toilets, they were emptied by waste collectors, and apparently specialized businesses processed the waste outside the city into fertilizer.

That day, I opened my stall a little before noon and made just under 10,000 yen in sales.

I could stop my stall now that I'd started doing business with the Marrow Company, but I never knew what kind of connections I might make.

In fact, my connection with the Marrow Company had come through the maid who visited my stall.

Excited that I would be able to get the shed, I returned to the campsite.

------◇◇◇------

Well then, shall I try buying it?

I checked Shangri-La and put the log-house-style shed in my cart. It cost 1.7 million yen—a major purchase.

"Here goes... click."

I pressed the purchase button.

Then—large quantities of squared timber and boards began raining down from the sky. There were glass window frames too. They piled up on the ground.

"What the heck is this?!"

Why were they all in pieces?

I checked the Shangri-La page again.

"Self-build... SELF-BUILD?!"

That's right. The shed was a construction kit.

Seriously...?