Dual Cultivation

The Man Picked up by the Gods – Volume 2 Chapter 7

TL Note: Don’t remember what I called it before. But the version of ‘Identify’ he uses will be called ‘Identify Monster’ from now on.

Oh and I mistranslated something in the last chapter. Poline wasn’t going to stop by a flower shop, she is actually the florist.

I’ll update the previous chapter shortly after I post this chapter.

Volume 2 Chapter 7

Day 3 of the Construction

From what I’d thought up last night with my architecture skill, my store will be two stories high with a basement underneath. Since according to my architecture skill that’s the limit.

Using my earth magic, ‘Create Block, I dug a basement and made some rocks for construction at the same time. Afterwards I let the some slimes carry the rocks.

And then with my earth magic, ‘Create Block’ and an application of the architecture skill’s knowledge, ‘Pavement’, I changed the surface of the earth into a strong foundation.

It feels like I just pushed the earth together, creating an entirely flat surface of land without any cracked or hollowed parts. Anyway with this I’ve finished preparing the foundation.

Back in Earth, it was still necessary to arrange the bars in between the base concrete and the levelling concrete, but according to my architecture skill this world doesn’t have that. Hmm… I wonder if it’ll be alright.

… Well, it’ll probably be fine. After all, the knowledge I have in construction just came from my part-time so it’s shallow to begin with, and that kind of stuff doesn’t seem to be present in the knowledge of this world. Anyways, for the meantime, it’s good that I’ve finally managed to complete the foundation of the building. And also, the other buildings around here also use the same knowledge, so it’ll probably be fine. If I do something strange I’ll just get attention, and if it’s half-baked and something bad happens it’ll be a problem, so let’s just say that it’s fine.

After that I used the rock I’d just made a while ago along with the sticky slime’s hardening liquid to serve as replacement for cement. This part of the construction proceeded smoothly without magic.

Next, I used magic to create some stone pillars. I also used magic to create the basement and its walls, the floor of the first floor, and the part that will become the wall outside.

Magic is really useful. To actually manipulate lumber this much, and I hadn’t even used one suit. I installed the walls and the stone pillars inside the box of stone and then reinforced it. It’s simple, but I know that’s its durable enough.

When I saw the pillars made of stone, for a moment I thought of turning it into a pillar like those in the old temples I’d seen in a text book once in my student days, but then I decided not to. There’s no point even if I were to put something that pompous in the basement.

Lastly, I used ‘Smooth Pavement’ on the area that was going to be the stores interior. This magic is different from ‘Pavement’. This is a magic that focuses on smoothness rather than durability. With this magic I can make the floor look as smooth as marble.

Anyway, it’s late now and I’ve used up quite a bit of my magic power too, so I guess I’ll end today here.

Day 4 of the Construction

I divided the first floor with walls made out of rock and hardening liquid. After that I also went to make the second floor. I made it smooth just like I did yesterday. After this I went back home.

Day 5 of the Construction

Today I’m going to make the ceiling and arrange the interiors. So I cut down a tree from near the mine and then shaped it with magic according to the knowledge from my woodworking skill.

I remove the water of the tree using alchemy little by little. Then using the wind magic, Wind Cutter, I imagine the chain saw back in Earth inside my head as I create a new kind of wind magic called, ‘Circle Saw’. With that I cut off several planks of wood. After that I combined earth and wind magic to use the magic, ‘Polish Wheel’, and using that I made the surface of the planks pretty.

With ‘Polish Wheel’, I imagine ‘Break Rock’ making sand, and the wind magic, ‘Circle Saw’ rotating quickly on its surroundings. This magic can’t cut things, it can only polish. There’s sand inside the wind that is spinning very quickly, which will polish the surface its acting on.

Anyway, next, I dried the trees with alchemy. Unfortunately, though, because I took out all the water too quickly, there were many whose shapes have been warped. Well I’m not going to turn these things into pillars anyways, so I guess it’ll be fine.

After I managed to turn them into lumbers, I ended the day.

Day 6 of the Construction

I made some shelves and counters with the lumber I made yesterday. Then I used the sticky liquid to varnish it, and then I dried it.

I also stuck some planks to the walls with the sticky liquid.

While a building made out of stone is fine. For a store, the kind of feeling a building like that exudes is just too heavy.

Along with sticking some planks to the walls, I also used earth magic to modify the affixed planks. Like this I was able to make the interior feel like it’s made out of wood.

It was around this time that I suddenly noticed the cleaner slimes acting strange.

Eh, it’s eating the trash and the wood cuts from the construction? Although they eat filth, they’ve never eaten trash by themselves… scavenger slimes have, but… huh? Isn’t it eating right now? Wait, it’s eating it, then throwing it over to one place… wait a moment, it’s cleaning!

As I quickly used ‘Identify Monster’ on the cleaner slimes I noticed that it had a new skill called, ‘Cleaning Duty’. There was actually this kind of skill? Or rather, slimes were able to learn skills? To think I that would find out just now. Oh wait, there were slimes that learned how to use staff techniques, right?

Ah, whatever. I don’t really have any problems with it.

After that, whenever I ran out of planks I cut them, and then left the size and shape up to the acid slimes. Because of this the pace sped up again.

Looking at the lumbers the acid slimes had made, I felt like they did a good job.

Day 7 of the Construction

I arranged the part of the interior that can be seen by the customers. Then after that was the exterior. The exterior is exactly the same color as the color of a hardened block of soil. Although there’s nothing particularly wrong with it, when it comes to business I kind of want to change it.

A laundromat. In other words a store that does laundry. When I imagine that kind of store, what comes to my mind is a white store. I want to paint the outer walls white. I can’t do anything about this with earth magic, so I went over to Serge-san’s place to ask.

“You want the walls painted white?” [Serge]

“Is it not possible?” [Ryouma]

“It’s possible, only, it’s not a color that gets used a lot by stores. White stones are expensive, and it’s easy to get dirty, so it’s mostly used in the nobles’ mansions.” [Serge]

“That’s true… but thinking about the current color of the walls, I think white looks cleaner compared to the color of the soil.” [Ryouma]

“I agree with you on that point. However, because there aren’t really plenty of demand for it, there’s not much in stock.” [Serge]

“I see…” [Ryouma]

I wonder if white is impossible… wait a moment… isn’t this town a mining town with a mine?

“Serge-san, does this mining town also have a place that deals with iron?” [Ryouma]

“There is, however, what are you planning to do with it?” [Serge]

“If there is, then they must use quicklime in their manufacturing process, right?” [Ryouma]

“As expected of Ryouma-sama, you’re well informed. They are using the quicklime to remove the impurities from the iron.” [Serge]

“Would it be possible to acquire some of that quicklime? If possible, cheaply.” [Ryouma]

“Yes, it’s possible. Since it isn’t expensive to begin with, and my store actually deals with quicklime.” [Serge]

“I see, that’s good to hear. If I were to harden quicklime with my earth magic, I might be able to make white stone cheaply.” [Ryouma]

There won’t be any problems with the color if it’s quicklime. It’s also used in Japan as ingredient for mortar, so there shouldn’t be any problems with using it. While it’s unfortunate that I don’t have any knowledge regarding how to make mortar, it’s good enough that I can turn it into a block with my earth magic. After that if I were to varnish it with the sticky slime’s sticky liquid, it should become quite easy to clean.

It seems Serge-san didn’t’ think of this.

After that I received the quicklime from Serge-san. As I tried out my idea it turned out that just as I had predicted, it was possible to turn the quicklime into a building stone with ‘Create Block’.

Serge-san showed a little interest when he realized he could get white stones at a low price and bought what he could as he quickly took his leave. He’s a nice guy, but right now I want to focus on building my store.

Today, I ended up buying a huge bulk of quicklime from Serge-san.

When I got back to the store, I was just about to stick the white stones on the wall when I suddenly thought of something.

I took out one normal building block and lightly spread on it the sticky slime’s sticky liquid. And then on top of that, I used the magic, ‘Smooth Pavement’, on the quicklime. As I did so, as if it was wrapping itself around it, the normal building block became a smooth white building block.

Quicklime coating success!

Right after that I quickly mobilized my sticky slimes and had them creep the walls to cover it in sticky liquid. And with my ‘Smooth Pavement’ I was able to coat the outer walls white.

I was able to finish it way easier this way than by making blocks, but because of that I ended up not using most of the quicklime. Because I had a surplus of quicklime, I decided to stop coating the outer walls with the sticky liquid.

Since it would be hard on the slimes if I were to do the whole thing one more time, and since it also won’t take that much effort, then I guess it’ll be fine to just recoat the wall when it gets too dirty.

Like this I put away the large excess of quicklime inside my Dimension Home.

The pace was ridiculously fast and the store’s been mostly made now… only, now that the store has been made, it’s kind of lonely to just leave the surrounding land bare.

I want to plant some plants on the lawn, but… oh yeah, why don’t I go ask my neighbor with a flower shop? I might be able to buy something. If I do buy, I should take care of it with my wood magic.

As soon as I got to the store, a voice called out to me.

“Welcome–! Ah, Ryouma!” [Lenny]

“Good morning, …Lenny-san” [Ryouma]

I almost forgot her name.

“You don’t need to attach a san. Besides I’m also younger, so just call me Lenny. Well, what’re you here for?” [Lenny]

“Then, Lenny, I want to buy some seeds to plant in my lawn.” [Ryouma]

“Alright, we have several kinds. Just wat a moment. Mooooom!” [Lenny]

As Lenny went inside the store, she called out in a loud voice. Poline-san was talking by the counter with two other women when she heard that loud voice.

“What’s all the ruckus for? It’s immodest you know?” [Poline]

“It’s because mom’s too caught up chatting! But forget that, we have a customer!” [Lenny]

“Oh? Well if it isn’t Ryouma. Did you come to buy something?” [Poline]

“Oh, so that kid’s Ryouma?” [Woman]

“Even though he’s this small, amazing, huh?” [Woman]

For some reason even the women Poline-san was chatting with, came over. For the meantime let’s greet them.

“Hello, my name is Ryouma Takebayashi.” [Ryouma]

“Oh? You really are polite. I’d also like my kids to learn that. I’m Chiara by the way.” [Chiara]

“I’m Mary. It’s nice to meet you. Also, I’ve been hearing rumors of you.” [Mary]

“Rumors?” [Ryouma]

Eh? What kind of rumors?

“You’ve always been building a store around here, right? Well it turned out to be better than expected, so it got spread around that you’re an amazing magician.” [Poline]

“I’m not amazing, you know? I’ve always been using magic that could be used in day-to-day life, so this kind of job is my specialty.” [Ryouma]

“To be able to make something that robust, that’s plenty amazing. There’s also the rumor that you have a lot of slimes with you.” [Poline]

“Oh that one’s true.” [Ryouma]

“We know. After all we saw it with our own eyes.” [Chiara]

“We saw a lot of slimes carrying the stones Ryouma-kun was using.” [Mary]

“Oh, so you saw that.” [Ryouma]

“It was my first time seeing slimes move like that. They just kept coming.” [Chiara]

“There’re plenty of slave magic users other than you, but I’ve never seen any slave monsters like yours. By the way you said that you wanted to buy something, right? What do you want to buy?’ [Poline]

“I want something I can plant in my lawn. Do you have any?” [Ryouma]

“We do. The price will depend on what kind you buy. If it’s for your lawn, a bag will cost you 130 suits. How much do you need?” [Poline]

“I would like to purchase enough to cover the land around the store I’d just built.” [Ryouma]

As I was trying to think of how much I actually needed, Poline-san offered to help me.

“Mind showing me the store? I’ll give you advice.” [Poline]

“Oh, thank you very much.” [Ryouma]

As I said that, I brought Poline-san over. Lenny, Chiara-san, and Mary-san also came.

And then when the four saw my store, they stopped in their tracks and closely stared at it.

“Is something the matter?” [Ryouma]

“I was just a little bit surprised. This morning, the store had a different color, right?” [Poline]

“When we came around before it still had the color of the soil.” [Mary]

Ahh, so that’s why.

“Just a while ago I painted it with magic. It’s a laundromat after all, so I thought its color didn’t feel ‘clean’ enough. So I bought some quicklime and with earth magic painted it.” [Ryouma]

“Haa~ you’re really skilled.” [Poline]

“Certainly, this way is prettier.” [Mary]

“You’re opening a laundromat, right? I wonder if I should also try it out. After all if I could save time on washing clothes, then I could have more time doing the chores.” [Chiara]

“By all means, please do come. Since we’ve just gotten to know each other, I’ll offer to let you use the laundry free of charge, once.” [Ryouma]

As I said that, I took out 2 bags from the item box and distributed it to them. After all, making use of opportunities like this to get customers is a must.

After that I got from Poline-san the seeds I needed. 15 bags of seeds for the lawn, and 2 bags of flower seeds.

I’ll sow these tomorrow.

Speaking of which, I feel like I’ve heard from someone before that it’s possible to advertise on the bulletin board of the guild…

I also need to get the scavenger slimes make me some fertilizer… so I guess I’ll go to the guild tomorrow.

Since that’s the case I’ll have to go home quickly and think of an advertisement…