Chapter 2-15 : New Products Ⅰ (part 2)

It’s been a while since I sold Flexible Gloves to Andre-san and the other Collectors.

And since then, the amount of the Ice Fang Bats’ fangs that have been purchased has steadily increased.

I also provided Lorea-chan with a pair of Flexible Gloves so that she could safely collect the fangs from Collectors.

Of course, I also taught her how to distinguish between the fangs from young bats and the fangs from the older ones so that she knew how much money she should pay to the Collectors.

Lorea-chan could now serve customers very well, so I didn’t have to go to the counter very often.

Thanks to Lorea-chan, I could take advantage of my spare time to do something else like making a pumping machine that would be installed in the village for public use.

I also made two types of artifacts that were useful to the villagers, and arranged them in the store.

The first one was the Insect Repellent Veil that Lorea-chan and I talked about before.

Insects would never come near an area that was covered with the Insect Repellent Veil. It would definitely be a convenient artifact for farmers in the summer.

The insect repellent artifacts that were commonly used by Collectors cost 20,000 reas, while my Insect Repellent Veil only cost 2,800 reas.

The effective range of my insect repellant was smaller than the other one’s, but mine was a lot cheaper.

To make Insect Repellent Veils, I need the organs from Spit Worms.

I already made a poster saying, “Looking for Spit Worms” and put it on the store’s bulletin board the other day.

The purchase of the Spit Worms was also going smoothly just like the fangs. Collectors kept selling them to my store.

Because the price of the Spit Worms was determined by their length and gender, it was easy for the Collectors to find out if the ones they got were expensive or cheap.

Of course, it was easy for Lorea-chan too to set the purchase price.

Well, sometimes things that are easy to do and things that can be done are two different things.

Because, you see, they are worms!

I remember I had a hard time practicing processing worms when I was at Alchemists School.

I was kinda afraid of worms.

Yes, ‘was’.

After processing worm materials many times, I finally managed to overcome my fear of worms.

I could now grab them without flinching. Not only that, they even looked like golden coins to me.

Humans really can get used to anything…

Because I had such an experience, I asked Lorea-chan, “Are you fine with them?”, she then tilted her head and asked me back, “Hm? Do you mean with these worms?”

Then she said, “Sarasa-san, if I was afraid of worms, I would never be able to live in this village, you know?”

Even though Lorea-chan’s family is not a farmer family, she often saw worms and other insects around her house.

She sometimes exterminated worms, so it was only natural that she was used to them.

She had no problem with worms other than the poisonous ones.

Therefore, she touched the Spit Worms with her bare hands like it was nothing whenever Collectors came to sell them.

As expected from a girl who grew up in the countryside…

The other artifact that I made for the villagers was the Cooling Hat.

This artifact was made of the fangs from the Ice Fang Bats, and could provide a chilling sensation to the wearer’s body from head to waist.

These artifacts are a saviour for the farmers who work under the scorching sun in the summer.

However, its price was way more expensive than the Insect Repellent Veil. It was about 7,000 reas.

Unlike the Insect Repellent Veil that was in volume 3 of the Encyclopedia of Alchemy, the Cooling hat was in volume 4, so of course the Cooling Hat was more expensive.

Moreover, 7,000 reas was the price after I put a discount on it. The original price was higher.

I can’t take too much profit from the villagers after all.

Even though they were quite expensive for the people who lived in the countryside, both the Insect Repellent Veil and the Cooling Hat sold pretty well. Perhaps because the villagers still had extra money they got from selling Hellfire Grizzlies’ furs.

Well, in the first place, I was the one who bought the furs from them, so basically, I just got my money back.

It was a good thing that the villagers could live more comfortably thanks to my artifacts, but it was a bit against my will to increase the circulation of money in this village.

Since I like this village, I want it to prosper. Besides, if the villagers became rich, my business would definitely grow.

In the first place, the villagers rarely came to my store because they thought that artifacts were expensive.

It was probably thanks to Lorea-chan that the Insect Repellent Veils and the Cooling Hats were sold this time.

To be precise, it was thanks to Lorea-chan and her mother, Marie-san. She spread the information about the price and effect of my artifacts to the villagers.

Moreover, the one who always took care of my store was Lorea-chan, making it easier for the villagers to stop by my store.

In order to keep this flow, I asked everyone for advice.

「So… anyone has an idea?」(Sarasa)

「Money, huh…? I think the villagers here can live even without money. The ones who pay in cash when they buy something from my family’s general store are mostly the Collectors, not the villagers.」(Lorea)

「I see. The people here mostly get their food by bartering with the other villagers after all…」(Sarasa)

The food in my house is mostly gotten from the hunter, Jasper-san, and the farmers. I gave Lorea-chan money, and she would buy food from them.

However, the other people usually barter; they exchange crops with others.

Looks like it’s only Diral-san’s inn, Daruna-san’s general store, and the village mayor who are paid with money.

Unlike them, it seems that it was hard for the other villagers to earn money.

「By the way, the dried meat that the villagers made from Hellfire Grizzlies is about to complete. My dad will go sell it once it’s done, but…」(Lorea)

「Hellfire Grizzlies’ meat, huh…? It’s not that delicious, is it?」(Sarasa)

「Yes, sadly. It doesn’t seem to sell very well.」(Lorea)

「It’s a preserved food after all, and most preserved food is not that good. However, if we didn’t make it into dried meat, it would definitely rot. There was too much meat to process at once so it couldn’t be helped.」(Sarasa)

Too bad that Hellfire Grizzlies’ meat is not different from normal meat so it can’t be used as materials for alchemy.

Moreover, because its beastly smell was quite strong, it was inferior to wild boar meat.

Even if the villagers managed to sell all of the meat, the amount of money they would get would definitely be less than when they sold the fur to me.

Besides, it would just become a temporary source of income for the villagers. It wasn’t that different from the income they got from selling the fur to me.

Therefore, it wouldn’t truly make the village prosper.

But… I wonder what I should do to make the village prosper…