Rhodonite

Using the scaffolding we had built, we climbed to the top of the cliff, where untouched medicinal herbs and mushrooms grew in abundance.

As expected, untouched land was full of game.

We focused on searching for medicinal herbs during the morning and obtained nearly fifty of them—a great haul.

For lunch, I decided to cook something using the Nobi mushrooms we had picked.

I thought mushroom pasta would be good, but long pasta wasn't popular with people in this world. They had even reacted negatively to macaroni.

It was probably because they had no similar food... Square or bow-tie pasta might be all right, though...

But there was no need to force them to eat something they disliked. I just had to make something they could eat and enjoy.

So I decided to make gyoza.

Apparently, this world had dishes made by kneading wheat flour and stuffing it with meat, so there shouldn't be any negative reaction to this.

Making the gyoza wrappers myself would be tedious, so I bought them from Shangri-La.

"Kenichi, what is that?"

"Hmm, it's kneaded wheat flour rolled out thin. You put meat and vegetables inside, then grill it."

For the meat, I used bear meat that had been soaked in milk to remove its odor. Since it would be sealed inside the wrapper and grilled, the meat soaked in alcohol probably wouldn't work.

To mince it, I bought a meat grinder—a mincer—for 2,500 yen.

"Anemone, wash your hands, then put the meat in here and turn the handle."

"What happens when I turn it?"

"The meat gets crushed and comes out."

"Got it!"

After washing her hands in the river, Anemone put meat into the mincer and turned the handle with all her might.

"Amazing! This is fun!"

"Primula, chop this vegetable for me. As finely as possible."

"Yes... What is it?"

"It's a leafy vegetable."

What I took out of my Item Box was napa cabbage. When you think of gyoza, you think of napa cabbage. My family used to put cabbage in ours, though.

I added salt to the minced meat, along with a little Chinese soup stock. Then I chopped up the star of today's dish—the Nobi mushrooms—and kneaded everything together thoroughly.

I could have used a food processor to chop the vegetables and knead the filling, but since I had extra hands, it was better to have everyone help.

However, beastfolk weren't useful for this sort of task. If I let them help, their fur would get mixed in.

Then it was time to wrap the filling in the wrappers, and this was where Shangri-La came in.

They sold gyoza makers for around 700 yen. I bought two and had Anemone help me.

"Anemone, put the filling in this thin wrapper, brush the edge with flour slurry, then fold it shut. There, it's finished. Can you do it?"

"Yep, I can!"

While Anemone and I made gyoza one after another, I had Primula start grilling them on the cassette stove and griddle.

However, the beastfolk were snatching the cooked gyoza as they came off the griddle.

"Mnyaa!"

"These are delicious! Who'd have thought bear meat could turn into something this tasty...?"

"Hey, hey, stop snacking. We'll lose track of how many we're supposed to have."

"Fumya."

At my words, Myaree hurriedly pulled her hand back.

We made seventy gyoza in all. That should be plenty. If there were any left over, I could put them in my Item Box.

It was only gyoza—but the wrappers were made of flour, providing carbohydrates, and there was meat and vegetables inside. It was practically a complete meal by itself.

For dipping sauce, I had soy sauce and chili oil, but people in this world seemed to dislike soy sauce, so I brought out salt and mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise might be considered unorthodox, but it had to be better than sauce, right?

Still, no one had ever told me to eat gyoza with anything other than soy sauce. Though I vaguely remembered seeing people eat them with sauce and mustard...

The salt kneaded into the meat had given it some flavor already, though.

"Delicious!"

"Oof! The juices are spilling out!"

Everyone seemed to be eating them with mayonnaise, and Anemone and Primula liked them too.

I tried one myself—yeah, even as bear-meat gyoza, it wasn't strange at all. If you called it this kind of dish, then that's what it was.

The mushrooms we had added gave it an excellent flavor too. These were seriously delicious mushrooms.

In my original world, they would have been on the level of hon-shimeji mushrooms.

"If we made the wrappers thicker, we could put them in soup too."

"That sounds delicious. I should try selling them in my shop too."

"But that would take a lot of work."

"We could hire people in the city and have them help us."

As expected of a businesswoman. I was thinking about somehow managing everything alone, while she had been making business plans on the assumption that she would hire people from the start.

"Kenichi, you seem to add some sort of powder while cooking. What is it?"

"It's powder made by crushing seaweed that grows in the ocean and dried fish. Adding it gives the flavor more depth."

They probably wouldn't understand if I called it umami.

"Nyaa! So that's why meat dishes sometimes taste like fish, nya!"

Myaree had noticed the flavor of the bonito stock.

"But using actual dried fish in soup is fairly difficult. If you simmer it for too long, it can start smelling fishy."

"Making delicious food requires excellent knowledge and a great deal of time and effort, doesn't it?"

After everyone enjoyed the gyoza, we began our afternoon work.

Anemone and Primula searched for medicinal herbs on top of the cliff, while Myaree and Nyamena explored the forest.

And I began investigating the orange-colored rock partway up the cliff.

About a meter above the top of the scaffolding, a black stratum ran diagonally through the cliff, with clusters of brightly colored material scattered inside it.

Though I called it orange, it wasn't the color of a mandarin orange. It was much redder and deeper in hue.

First, there was a small gap between the cliff and the scaffolding, so I filled it by attaching boards across it.

Then, to keep the stones I dug out from falling below, I taped a blue tarp to the cliff with duct tape.

Now, how should I excavate this...?

An ordinary electric hammer should do. You know, the thing they use in roadwork to go da-da-da! and smash concrete.

Though was it called a hammer or a hammerer? Did the name vary by manufacturer, or was one of them a registered trademark?

When I searched Shangri-La, I found all sorts of them, but I tried buying a 50,000-yen one made by a Japanese manufacturer.

Bigger is better. Since I would be digging out ore, a somewhat larger model would probably be preferable.

Then I took a diesel generator out of my Item Box. A portable battery wouldn't have enough power to run this thing.

I had thought this generator would soon be cast aside, but it had proved much more useful than expected. I had underestimated it a little.

I connected the electric hammer to the generator and pulled the recoil starter. The engine started on the first try.

But the engine was as noisy as ever.

"All right, let's give it a try..."

I held the hammer and pulled the trigger. It started up, but the vibration lacked power. Sometimes it also had trouble starting.

The generator was running at full throttle too—this was a capacity problem. In other words, it wasn't generating enough power.

Could this generator be run in parallel? With modern generators, you could connect them in parallel to increase their capacity.

I searched for the page where I had bought the generator from Shangri-La—but it was gone!

There wasn't even a page anymore. Had they taken the money and run? Damn, this was why I didn't trust products from that country...

If it broke or I happened to get a dud, I'd be finished right there.

Never mind. I'd use the other gasoline generator. This one was a large Japanese-made Y○ model capable of parallel operation, with a 2-kilowatt output.

This one should be fine. I only had mixed fuel for two-stroke engines, so it would emit a little white smoke, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Of course, it might cause problems in the long run.

Wait, could I use that magic tool that separated liquids to remove the two-stroke oil from the mixed fuel?

If I could, I might be able to use it as ordinary gasoline...

I put the diesel generator back into my Item Box and started over.

"All right! Here we go!"

I started the generator and pulled the trigger. The hammer began vibrating vigorously, breaking apart the rock one chunk after another.

"What are you doing?!"

Anemone was peering over the top of the cliff.

"What are you doing, Kenichi?"

"There's a beautiful stone here, so I'm digging it out."

"Show it to me later."

"Sure."

Within a few minutes, a dark-orange stone the size of my fist came tumbling down. I held the translucent stone up toward the sky.

"It's pretty beautiful. But are there gemstones this color?"

At times like this, I put things into my Item Box. If it had a name, it should appear on the screen.

――And what appeared on the screen was 【Rhodonite】.

"Rhodonite? What the heck is that?"

I didn't know anything beyond that. In times like this, Shangri-La was the answer. I browsed electronic books about minerals.

How about this one? 【A Color Picture Guide to Minerals and Gemstones Even a Monkey Can Understand】

"Click."

I immediately opened the ebook and decided to look up rhodonite.

Let's see... Rhodonite, a type of silicate mineral found in manganese deposits.

Huh. I had never known there was a stone like this. Was it one of those little-known gems? Could it be valuable?

At times like this, it was easy enough to put it through Shangri-La's buyback appraisal.

"Let's see...?"

【Would you like an appraisal and buyback offer?】

Yes, please—click.

【Appraisal Result】【Rhodonite　Buyback Price: 200,000 yen】

200,000 yen? Seriously? For a stone like this? Well, if it was a gemstone, this was a fairly large uncut specimen.

It might even be cheap compared with diamonds and the like. An uncut diamond or ruby this size would be worth tens of billions of yen.

Still, I now knew it could make money, and this one stone had already covered the cost of the electric hammer and generator.

No—wait, wait. It wasn't time to panic yet. I couldn't relax until I had also recouped the cost of the scaffolding.

But there were still plenty of orange-colored stones. Could this turn out to be easy money?

Naturally, a larger uncut specimen should fetch a higher appraisal... All right!

I got to work, using the electric hammer to extract the largest uncut specimens I could.

I swung the electric hammer back and forth atop the long scaffolding while wearing my safety harness.

I had completely forgotten that I was nine meters above the ground.

I continued working until evening and dug out an uncut stone twice the size of the first, along with another slightly larger one.

Shangri-La's appraisal results were 400,000 yen and 600,000 yen.

"Yes! I've more than made back the cost!"

What's more, I could use these stones to charge Shangri-La's Black Hole without putting any of this world's money into it.

From what I could see, they were embedded in the charcoal-colored stratum, so there might be more if I dug into the other black areas.

Should I excavate on a large scale?

If I bought large heavy machinery equipped with a hydraulic breaker, I could really tear into the rock.

No—wait, wait. I had just admonished myself not to solve everything with heavy machinery.

What would I do if I bought a huge excavator and only found this much?

I decided to watch the situation for a while.

As it began to grow dark, I called out to Anemone and Primula, who were still above us.

"Heeey, let's have dinner soon."

"Okay!"

They came down the stairs from above.

"Here, Anemone. This is the stone."

I showed her the fist-sized orange stone I had dug out first.

"Ah, it's pretty!"

"How much do you think it's worth?"

As a merchant, Primula seemed interested in its price.

"I don't know. We could go into town and ask the old woman at the tool shop."

Shangri-La had appraised it at 200,000 yen, but how much would it be worth in this world? If it was worth several gold coins, for example, exchanging it in town would be more efficient.

"What about Myaree and Nyamena? Where did they go?"

"I don't know."

Well, they had good night vision. They would probably return once it got dark. Until then, we might as well prepare dinner.

"Okay!"

We all climbed down from the scaffolding and returned home.

I made soup outside and set our usual bread on the table.

The main dish was steak made from bear meat soaked in brandy.

As I grilled it on the griddle, I flambéed it to burn off the alcohol.

"Wow!"

Anemone flinched at the flames leaping up. Come on, your magic was far more impressive than this.

However, she entered a sort of trance while using magic, so apparently her emotions didn't change much.

That was why she wasn't startled by her own flames either.

Perhaps drawn by the smell of grilling meat, Bell emerged from the darkness.

――Which meant those two should be coming back soon too.

"Nyaa!"

"Heeey!"

There they were, right on cue.

"You're late. How far did you go?"

"We went pretty deep. Just as you said, Boss, this huge ledge doesn't connect to anything. There aren't any monsters at all."

"Nyaa! But there were birds, nya!"

"Of course there were. Birds can fly, so cliffs don't matter to them."

It seemed they had each brought down three birds. They were holding blue, white, and multicolored birds in their hands.

"Kenichi, put them in your Item Box until we can sell them in town, nya."

"If there's room, put mine in there too."

"Sure, but I'm taking one bird as payment for dinner."

"That's fine. The food you make is the sort you can't eat in town even if you pay ordinary prices for it."

"Kenichi! I found this too, nya."

Myaree held out a small, slightly greenish egg. It was a little larger than a quail egg.

"An egg?"

"This is from a Kokka bird, nya. It's considered a luxury food, nya."

"How much does one cost?"

"Probably more than two copper coins—2,000 yen."

Apparently, Primula knew about these eggs too.

That was expensive. A single egg this small cost 2,000 yen? For comparison, eggs cost around 200 yen each in this world.

The adult Kokka birds were apparently delicious too. Myaree had waited by the nest for a while, but it seemed the parent bird had noticed her and never returned.

"Kenichi, put these eggs in there too, nya."

"Well, they would be a huge loss if they broke."

There were five eggs, worth 10,000 yen in total—but that was the retail price. Wholesale, they would probably be worth around 5,000 yen.

"What the heck is this?!"

Nyamena, who had eaten the bear steak, shouted.

"What happened? Didn't you like it?"

"It's the opposite—it's too delicious! But what is that aroma? It isn't wine, is it...?"

"Oh, that's the smell of the alcohol I soaked the bear meat in to remove its odor."

"Alcohol?! Boss, I have a favor to ask."

"What is it?"

"I'll give you all of today's catch if you'll let me have some of that alcohol."

"Sure, a little should be fine."

I took out a cup and poured in enough brandy to fill half of it. It was the cheap stuff that cost around 1,000 yen a bottle, since I used it for cooking.

"It's very strong, so be careful."

"Oh, what a wonderful aroma!"

Nyamena took a sip of the brandy and fell silent.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, man... If I keep enjoying luxuries like this, I'll never be able to live in town again. Once you've tasted something like this, how can you eat ordinary food in town?"

"Not knowing you're unhappy is a kind of happiness."

"Oh, dear..."

"Nyaa! It's delicious! I'm no Nyamena, but I can't believe bear meat can become this tasty, nya!"

"It's delicious."

"We could open a high-end restaurant with this alone."

"I'm not interested, so Primula can teach the recipe to someone and have them do it."

"But without the delicious alcohol you have..."

"I'm no expert on brewing, so I don't know how to make it. But I can make wine-braised meat."

"But that wine is the sort of fine product nobles drink, isn't it?"

"Yeah, Baron Northpole said that too."

While I was talking with Primula, Nyamena started getting clingy.

"Come on! What am I supposed to do now? I can't live in town after learning about food this delicious!"

"It's not my fault. Is she a maudlin drunk?"

I tried to pull her away as she hugged me, but once a beastwoman grabbed me with her strength, there was no escaping.

"Fgyah! Let go!"

"I'm not going to take anyone away from you. Just feed me, and let me live nearby."

"Well, Nyamena is necessary as Primula's bodyguard."

"Gyaa! I don't trust her!"

"That's not true, is it, Primula?"

"Yes, she's a very honest person."

"Gyaa!"

Myaree was being noisy, but Nyamena seemed to be after the food and alcohol I made. She also appeared to be an excellent bodyguard and hunter.

"If Primula is all right with it, then I am too."

"Yes, Nyamena-san seems to be after the food and alcohol, after all."

Primula was glaring at me, but I had no interest in Nyamena.

She could refuse if she didn't like it, but Nyamena was probably valuable personnel to her too.

There weren't many skilled female bodyguards. A male bodyguard probably couldn't be trusted unless he was an especially exceptional person.

"The house is already full, so you'll probably have to sleep in the shed. Is that all right?"

"That's fine. I'll only be sleeping there, and as long as it keeps out the rain and wind, I'm happy. The room I'm renting now is an attic so cramped it looks like a mouse's nest."

Nyamena's speech was beginning to slur a little. The brandy was taking effect.

"All right. If that's okay with you, then go ahead. I'll guarantee you meals."

"Yay!"

"Fgyah!"

"Myaree, she says she'll sleep somewhere else, so what's the problem?"

"Amyamyamya..."

Myaree was whipping her tail back and forth. Was she irritated?

But would Nyamena really say yes to staying in that shed...?

It was already pitch-black outside. There wasn't enough time to bring out and prepare the shed, so I decided to arrange Nyamena's lodgings tomorrow.

After we finished eating and cleaning up, we went inside, and Primula began preparing tomorrow's food.

"Kenichi, do you still have bear meat left?"

"Yeah, there's still plenty."

After all, I had several hundred kilograms of meat alone. Even if I ate one kilogram a day, it would take nearly a year to finish.

Myaree kept putting herself between Nyamena and me, repeatedly threatening her to keep her away.

You don't need to be so wary.

Tomorrow, I planned to go into town with Primula to sell the game we had accumulated and ask the old woman at the tool shop how much the orange stones were worth.