Volume 2 - CH 2.07
Jesus Christ, what are you saying, Michio?! I know, okay? I want to eat her out, but I know I shouldn’t. But when she’s sitting in front of me like that, all flustered and embarrassed… then it should really be alright for me to… no! Don’t fall into temptation! Just… just find something to divert your attention from how erotically-cute Roxanne is right now! Something! Anything!
Oh yeah! Her ears! Her doggy ears totally remind me of something! Something puffy and delicious… cream puffs? No. Marshmallows? Nah, not even close. Chiffon cake? No, that’s not it either. Something… something even puffier… That’s right, isobeyaki! (TL NOTE: Mochi rice cake with seaweed). How come I didn’t notice that earlier?! Those droopy ears have the same feeling as those stretchy roasted rice cakes, and have the same softness and elasticity that can melt even the most stone-cold of hearts!
Isobeyaki, huh? This used to be one of my absolutely favourite foods that I loved to stuff my face with, but I don’t think I will ever have another opportunity to eat it. I don’t even know if this world even has the ingredients necessary to make it such as mochi, seaweed or soy sauce to begin with, but if I searched hard enough…
「You wouldn’t happen to know if there are any places that serve isobeyaki here, wouldn’t you?」
「Isobe… yaki? I have never heard of such a dish. What is it?」
「Oh, right, I guess you wouldn’t know it under that name, huh? It’s one of my favourite dishes from my homeland, consisting of a sweet rice cake wrapped in seaweed.」
「I don’t know about anything around here, but if you want seaweed and grilled fish then your best bet would probably be at one of the cities located near the sea that have beaches.」
Yeah, I figured as much, but what I wanted to eat right now was isobeyaki, not grilled fish. Maybe that’s how isobeyaki was translated into Brahim? But that would mean that the concept is not always properly translated, since grilled fish and isobeyaki are two entirely different things, with their only common element being seaweed.
「Is that so? Then we might as well go try it out whenever we will get the chance.」
「U-ummm, master? Are you planning to… to return to your homeland one day?」
Roxanne asked me. She must have been quite worried about that matter.
「My homeland, huh?」
「Yes.」
「I am way happier with what I have here so far. And you don’t have to worry about that.」
As I continued to play with Roxanne’s ears, our conversation has taken a rather serious turn. Time after time, I have to remind myself that this is not Japan, which has both its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, I will probably never be able to eat isobeyaki again, but on the other, there is bound to be a multitude of dishes that can serve as its substitute. All I have to do is to put in an effort to find them. Worst case scenario, anything that is soft, smooth and elastic will do. Also, I know that the matter of my returning to my old world is something that I will have to consider eventually, I guess that for now…
「I’m not going back to my homeland. Or rather, even if I wanted to go back there, I can’t.」
Roxanne contemplated my answer in silence.
「So you really won’t be going back?」
「Yeah. As I said, at the current time I cannot go back there, so I guess that means that I won’t be able to set you free.」
「No, that is not why I asked about it…」
「It’s fine. I understand.」
I picked her ears and shook them playfully.
「It’s just… it’s a common practice here to sell your slaves when you no longer need them, so I thought….」
I see. Another part of the twisted common sense of this world? In any case, I get it now. So Roxanne was worried that I might sell her to someone else if I wanted to leave this kingdom and go back home.
「You don’t have to worry one bit. I plan on keeping you with me for as long as I live.」
「Understood, thank you very much. Your kindness truly knows no bounds.」
「But in order to get our Party stronger, we will definitely need more members, so I intend to gather them up in the foreseeable future.」
「Yes, of course, such a thing is only natural.」
What I said just now could very well be interpreted as a proclamation of getting myself a harem, but Roxanne doesn’t seem to have any qualms about that. And let’s be honest here, if anybody wanted to nitpick, I specifically said that I’m going to increase the number of Party members, not my personal slaves. But if I had to choose between making a dude or a beautiful girl a member of my Party, then I think that my choice would be obvious to anyone with more than one brain cell in their head.
Just like Roxanne said, increasing the number of Party members is the natural thing to do for any aspiring Adventurer who wants to make a living out of Labyrinth exploration. Sure, more Party members means more expenses for me as a Leader if I wanted to ensure that each member is going to have the best equipment in top condition, but it also means earning that much more money to split between all the members. Not a bad way of living, but I cannot stop wondering if there is another way to go about it?
But what can I do? I do not have any specialist knowledge in the areas that might be useful in this world such as agriculture, cooking, commerce or transportation, and I have no guarantee that if I tried to make something based on my modern knowledge it would actually work.
Once upon a time long, long ago I happened to read the biography of that one fellow, James Watt was his name, I think. He was a great inventor who came up with the steam engine, but his success in that field only came after he won the patent trial with his rival. I wonder if this world even knows the concept of a patent to begin with?
What about midwifery? It might be under a different name, but they should have midwives in here, and I bet that a vast majority of them are women. And if they don’t, then that would be a great niche to fill!
When taking care of the children right after they are born they could disinfect their hands with limewater. Medical instruments such as scissors and the like could be sterilized with boiling water. Sheets and towels could be sun-dried and sanitized. Those steps alone should be enough to significantly reduce deaths from infections and puerperal fever.
Yes, the more I think about it, the more prosperous the prospect of introducing the profession of midwife becomes. With enough work put into it, maybe the day where gynecology and abortions could be implemented into the healthcare system (assuming this world has something like that to begin with.) That was the theory, but as we all know, the theory and practice can be worlds apart from each other, and from the practical standpoint this whole endeavor was not very realistic.
First of all, it would be difficult for Roxanne to be a midwife due to the differences in biology of humans, elves, dwarves and beastmen. And even if she could work with all the races concurrently, the incidence of puerperium might be different for all of them. Not to mention that with the current level of medicine, which should be about the same as that of medieval Europe, there’s no way that I would allow her to touch the babies with her hands washed with just some hot water mixed with plain old herbs. Nononono, such unsanitary practices are absolutely out of the question!
Oh yeah! Her ears! Her doggy ears totally remind me of something! Something puffy and delicious… cream puffs? No. Marshmallows? Nah, not even close. Chiffon cake? No, that’s not it either. Something… something even puffier… That’s right, isobeyaki! (TL NOTE: Mochi rice cake with seaweed). How come I didn’t notice that earlier?! Those droopy ears have the same feeling as those stretchy roasted rice cakes, and have the same softness and elasticity that can melt even the most stone-cold of hearts!
Isobeyaki, huh? This used to be one of my absolutely favourite foods that I loved to stuff my face with, but I don’t think I will ever have another opportunity to eat it. I don’t even know if this world even has the ingredients necessary to make it such as mochi, seaweed or soy sauce to begin with, but if I searched hard enough…
「You wouldn’t happen to know if there are any places that serve isobeyaki here, wouldn’t you?」
「Isobe… yaki? I have never heard of such a dish. What is it?」
「Oh, right, I guess you wouldn’t know it under that name, huh? It’s one of my favourite dishes from my homeland, consisting of a sweet rice cake wrapped in seaweed.」
「I don’t know about anything around here, but if you want seaweed and grilled fish then your best bet would probably be at one of the cities located near the sea that have beaches.」
Yeah, I figured as much, but what I wanted to eat right now was isobeyaki, not grilled fish. Maybe that’s how isobeyaki was translated into Brahim? But that would mean that the concept is not always properly translated, since grilled fish and isobeyaki are two entirely different things, with their only common element being seaweed.
「Is that so? Then we might as well go try it out whenever we will get the chance.」
「U-ummm, master? Are you planning to… to return to your homeland one day?」
Roxanne asked me. She must have been quite worried about that matter.
「My homeland, huh?」
「Yes.」
「I am way happier with what I have here so far. And you don’t have to worry about that.」
As I continued to play with Roxanne’s ears, our conversation has taken a rather serious turn. Time after time, I have to remind myself that this is not Japan, which has both its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, I will probably never be able to eat isobeyaki again, but on the other, there is bound to be a multitude of dishes that can serve as its substitute. All I have to do is to put in an effort to find them. Worst case scenario, anything that is soft, smooth and elastic will do. Also, I know that the matter of my returning to my old world is something that I will have to consider eventually, I guess that for now…
「I’m not going back to my homeland. Or rather, even if I wanted to go back there, I can’t.」
Roxanne contemplated my answer in silence.
「So you really won’t be going back?」
「Yeah. As I said, at the current time I cannot go back there, so I guess that means that I won’t be able to set you free.」
「No, that is not why I asked about it…」
「It’s fine. I understand.」
I picked her ears and shook them playfully.
「It’s just… it’s a common practice here to sell your slaves when you no longer need them, so I thought….」
I see. Another part of the twisted common sense of this world? In any case, I get it now. So Roxanne was worried that I might sell her to someone else if I wanted to leave this kingdom and go back home.
「You don’t have to worry one bit. I plan on keeping you with me for as long as I live.」
「Understood, thank you very much. Your kindness truly knows no bounds.」
「But in order to get our Party stronger, we will definitely need more members, so I intend to gather them up in the foreseeable future.」
「Yes, of course, such a thing is only natural.」
What I said just now could very well be interpreted as a proclamation of getting myself a harem, but Roxanne doesn’t seem to have any qualms about that. And let’s be honest here, if anybody wanted to nitpick, I specifically said that I’m going to increase the number of Party members, not my personal slaves. But if I had to choose between making a dude or a beautiful girl a member of my Party, then I think that my choice would be obvious to anyone with more than one brain cell in their head.
Just like Roxanne said, increasing the number of Party members is the natural thing to do for any aspiring Adventurer who wants to make a living out of Labyrinth exploration. Sure, more Party members means more expenses for me as a Leader if I wanted to ensure that each member is going to have the best equipment in top condition, but it also means earning that much more money to split between all the members. Not a bad way of living, but I cannot stop wondering if there is another way to go about it?
But what can I do? I do not have any specialist knowledge in the areas that might be useful in this world such as agriculture, cooking, commerce or transportation, and I have no guarantee that if I tried to make something based on my modern knowledge it would actually work.
Once upon a time long, long ago I happened to read the biography of that one fellow, James Watt was his name, I think. He was a great inventor who came up with the steam engine, but his success in that field only came after he won the patent trial with his rival. I wonder if this world even knows the concept of a patent to begin with?
What about midwifery? It might be under a different name, but they should have midwives in here, and I bet that a vast majority of them are women. And if they don’t, then that would be a great niche to fill!
When taking care of the children right after they are born they could disinfect their hands with limewater. Medical instruments such as scissors and the like could be sterilized with boiling water. Sheets and towels could be sun-dried and sanitized. Those steps alone should be enough to significantly reduce deaths from infections and puerperal fever.
Yes, the more I think about it, the more prosperous the prospect of introducing the profession of midwife becomes. With enough work put into it, maybe the day where gynecology and abortions could be implemented into the healthcare system (assuming this world has something like that to begin with.) That was the theory, but as we all know, the theory and practice can be worlds apart from each other, and from the practical standpoint this whole endeavor was not very realistic.
First of all, it would be difficult for Roxanne to be a midwife due to the differences in biology of humans, elves, dwarves and beastmen. And even if she could work with all the races concurrently, the incidence of puerperium might be different for all of them. Not to mention that with the current level of medicine, which should be about the same as that of medieval Europe, there’s no way that I would allow her to touch the babies with her hands washed with just some hot water mixed with plain old herbs. Nononono, such unsanitary practices are absolutely out of the question!
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