Volume 5 - CH 5.9

I do not feel that pesticides are something that should be prepared in a literal cooking pot, but what can you do, this is literally the only option available for me if I want to get rid of that thing that appeared in our house.

Now, I remember that back when I first acquired the Alchemist’s Job it was as a result of me creating some simple soap by boiling it in a cooking pot, but I wonder if the process is going to look similar this time around as well? I mean, Sherry said that we should use the leaves to ultimately create a paste out of them, but who says that we cannot make a soap that is going to be shaped like a dumpling?

That would have been quite a combination: a dumpling-shaped soap containing disinfectants and insecticides. But if we actually did that, I have a feeling that there would be a pretty solid chance that that thing would not have touched something like that with a ten-foot pole, and honestly, I would not even blame it for it. I have never tasted soap in my life, not even as a kid by accident, but I am fairly certain that the taste would be so revolting that it would have left me traumatized for the rest of my life and the aftertaste would have stayed in my mouth for weeks to come, so going through something similar is a fate that I would not have wished upon the worst of my enemies….

Unless they were a bunch of total assholes and douchebags of course, in which case, serves them right! Anyway, what I am trying to say here is: if it is for the purpose of bringing peace and harmony back into our house and riding it of that goddamn thing, then I will gladly use those leaves to commit the biggest and most foul of crimes against food, just as long as it is going to be enough to get the job done properly.

「Okay master, I am going to start giving you the instructions now, so make sure that you will listen and follow them closely. Now that we have the Shyuraf leaves, you have to chop them all into a really small pieces, after which you have to simmer all of them until they become thick and sticky. When the mixture become sticky enough, you have to remove the leftover leaves that did not turn into a paste along with the others, and then simmer it some more. After boiling everything until it becomes completely white, you just have to remove it from the heat and leave it out to dry.」

While Roxanne and I were busy cooking dinner for the three of us, Sherry was taking care of creatin our makeshift insecticide while giving me a step-by-step explanation of how to do it, 「just in case if I ever had to prepare it myself」, as she have put it.

「And exactly for how long it would be best to do it?」

「Ideally you should leave it to dry for a couple of days. Two or three at best. Supposedly, the longer you are going to leave it to dry, the stronger the effects of the final, finished product are going to be. By the way, master, did you know that the creature that we are going to be using it against is a lowly and vulgar one, so when it is offered food, it is simply going to follow its basic instincts and eat everything that has been offered to it, regardless of what it is and how it might taste?」

「Is that so?」

「Yes. And since the leaves of Shyuraf, much like other naturally poisonous substances, are tasteless and odorless, the animals and monsters that have eaten the food made out of it are going to have their flesh and blood permeated with the poison’s effects, which is going to work against others of their ilk who will later come to devour the body of their fallen brethren, because a master is probably aware, in nature, nothing is allowed to go to waste, not even the corpses of animals big and small that still have flesh on them that can be eaten by others who are going to be using it as their own sustenance. And that is why we are going to aim for the medicine to be as strong as possible so that it would cause as much damage as possible not only to the thing but also to its brethren when it comes back to its natural habitat after eating the food offered to it by us. If we are going to be lucky, the secondary damage of that poisoned thing is going to spread to any potential others that would have come to take its place after its death, meaning that it is going to be all over for them, and we will be able to celebrate our complete victory over them without ever having to worry about them coming back to haunt us ever again.」

Amazing. That is a truly amazing, if only just a little bit morbid, plan.

「Cпасибо (TL Note: Spasiba, for those of you who do not know Russian writing system), Sherry.」

「I am sorry master, but what was that? Because I totally did not understand what you just said.」

And there is no way you could have, Sherry, because that was spasiba in Russian language from my old world. (TL Note: Frankly, I have idea why the author threw such a random Russian word in there, but am I the only one who starts to see a pattern here?)

「I said spasiba.」

I said matter-of-factly.

「Supa…..?」

「Spicy…. Ba?」

「It means thank you. Changing the subject, what are we gonna do with the finished mixture when it dries up sufficiently? We will just make balls out of it and leave them somewhere in the house, hoping that the dam thing is going to catch the bait?」

「Essentially, but before we are going to use it to set our trap, we will have to apply some finishing touches to it, mostly by battering the balls of poison in sugar and flour that are going so add some much-needed, because if they stay odorless and tasteless, there is a risk that it might not eat enough of it to get poisoned right away.」

「In other words, what you are saying is that if we prepare it in the right way, then we can expect to see the effects as soon as today’s night, right?」

My chest is getting hot with anticipation, even though I know that it should not be doing that, because when it comes to stuff like this, it is always better to temper our expectations then to hold them unreasonably high like I am doing right now. But if everything goes down smoothly, just the way it should, then I am finally going to be able to sleep with the piece of mind without having keep one eye open all the time and constantly being at edge.

It was probably because I managed to get an uninterrupted good night’s sleep, but when we went to the Labyrinth the next day, our exploration was able to proceed considerably well. After we went to Palmasque and delivered yet another mirror to the Duke of Hartz in the morning, we stayed in the Labyrinth for an entire day and arrived at the Boss Room on the tenth floor of Vale’s Labyrinth to challenge its Floor Boss. Since the main enemies on the tenth floor were NT Ants, it meant that the Floor Boss of this floor was going to a bigger, meaner version of them, and it really was.

When we walked through the door and the green smoke began to accumulate in the middle of the room, what emerged out of it after a moment was the figure of the Floor Boss, but even though it looked more imposing than the regular NT Ants and its attacks had a much higher chance of getting us poisoned, it was no match for our tried and true strategy that has been honed throughout all of our previous Floor Boss battles on lower floors and other Labyrinths: Roxanne simply got in front of it and focused its attention on herself as she continued to dodge every single attack while Sherry and I approached it from behind and molested its backside util it dropped dead and disappeared in an explosion of green smoke. Overall, it was not that hard of a Floor Boss to deal with.

「All right, so what should we do for now? Should we withdraw for now or proceed forward to the eleventh floor to get a feel for how it is up there?」