011: The Village Square

Once my dad left with the mayor, I started walking around to see what on sale in the square. This is a fantasy world, there should be something delicious or interesting. I’d be great to find some rice. I wonder what that colorful mushroom is for?

After I’m done browsing, I’d like to visit the village cafe and eat some ordinary food. What are ordinary people eating in this world? I know there’s eggs, but what about omelets? What about Tamagoyaki? If it’s not a known recipe, I’d need to get one of the special frying pans to make them. I guess that’d be more work for Bartolo.

I’ll start off by buying some vegetables from a young man nearby.

“Do you want to barter or buy?” Young Man

I’ve been given two silver coins as allowance by my mother Elna and ten copper coins for ingredients by Bartolo. It’s plenty of money for a rural village.

“Hmm, I’m buying.” Al

Vegetables are lines up on a rough burlap cloth. Peas, spinach, carrots, potatoes, dried fruits? These all look fresh.

“How much for these?” Al

“A cup of dried fruit is 2 copper coins, each pea is 5 deci, each spinach is 2 deci’s, 2 carrots are 5 deci, 5 potatoes for 1 copper, which makes…” Young Man

“4 copper coins and two deci, right?” Al

“Oh, that sounds right. Are you good at arithmetic?” Young Man

“Well, I guess I’m good enough.” Al

“If you can do arithmetic that fast at your age, your future looks promising.” Young Man

The vegetable seller smiles as he wraps up my vegetables in a bit of burlap.

“If you forget to bring any wrapping cloth next time, I’ll have to charge you for it. Since it’s the first time, I’ll give it to you for free.” Young Man

“I understand, thanks.” Al

In exchange for his vegetables, I gave him four coppers and two deci’s from my pocket.

For future reference, the money equivalents for this world is:

It seems this planet decimalized earlier than Earth. It makes it easier to me, coming from a metric-based country.

I ducked into a deserted alley a off the plaza to store my purchases with Spatial Magic. I’ve been experimenting with Spatial Magic recently, to see what other functionality I can extract from it. It was trial and error, but I discovered some interesting things. Although I can only enact the effects close to myself, I can distort space and crush objects, cut space, and affect gravity to a small extent. The current product of these experiments is the ability to move objects in and out of a subspace like thing.

Any object put in the subspace doesn’t rot or change temperature. Now I can enjoy hot food anytime, anywhere. Spatial Magic would be even more in demand by merchants if this was known. When opening the subspace, you open like you would a gate and enter, but collecting items from the subspace can be tricky. If you can’t visualize the items you previously stored, you can’t retrieve them. You can keep track of duplicate items easily, since visualizing the item will let you know how many you have stored. Once I figured this out, I’ve picked up various foods, wood, and materials to store in the subspace.

I didn’t think I could remember everything, so I wrote it down on a list so I can keep track of what’s been stored. I don’t want to fall into playing a forgetful character that can’t keep track of his items.

A little bit later, Nord returned to the square. Looks like his meeting has wrapped up.

“What have you been up to?” Nord

“I’ve been looking around at what’s for sale. I was curious about that rainbow mushroom?” Al

“Haha, you’ll learn about that when you grow up.” Nord

Oh, it was one of the things for certain activities? When I tried to ask the person selling it, I was just told that children weren’t allowed to buy it.

“Dad, let’s get a snack in the village.” Al

“Hmm, that’s fine. Let’s eat around here.” Nord

By the way, farmers from this world will sometimes grab a meal in between the normal meal times. It seems that they do this to get a pick-me-up in between the two meals. In poorer areas, farmers can’t do that and some will pass out from running out of energy. Recently, my family has started eating three meals, it’s nice to do a breakfast, noon and night meal.

Nord and I entered a restaurant under a sign with a spoon, fork and mug of beer on it. Pictures work when most of the population is functionally illiterate.

“Welcome! Oh, it’s the lord.” Celia

When I entered the store, a nice older woman in an apron welcomed us in.

“Hi, Celia. How are you doing?” Nord

“Hey, thanks to this spaghetti recipe you gave me, my customers are coming around more often. Getting a bit low on salt from the amount I’m selling though.” Celia

Ah, right. The recipe I showed Bartolo used salt when boiling the noodles. If you can’t harvest salt locally, it could get a bit difficult while waiting on the next shipment.

“Well, you should thank Al for the recipe. He’s the one I brought along today.” Nord

“Oh, that’s Alfred.” Celia

“That’s right.” Nord

“Amazing. Any other new recipes?” Celia

Really, you should experiment to make some new recipes. You’re a cook, how do you not have the skills. But, if you get too used to only following other’s lead, it’s harder to strike out on your own. For instance, teachers always take attendance using alphabetical order, or how women almost always take the last name of their husband.

“Hmm, I might have an idea, but I don’t think I have the tool for it.” Al

“You need a new tool to make it? Tools, Logan might be able to make it.” Celia

“Really?” Al

“I’m not going to do it for you. Ask your father. I’ll let you know where to find Logan when you’re ready.” Celia

“Ok, I’ll ask you when I have some time.” Al

Time for a snack after the business talk.

“Does Al want to be a chef in the future?” Nord

“No, cooking is just a hobby. Bartolo is much better than I, and I’d like to keep it that way.” Al

“Haha, that’s right… You don’t seem to be the chef type.” Nord

According to the menu, there weren’t any Japanese style food. The menu had soup du jour, stew, and spaghetti. I can see why more customers are coming after spaghetti was introduced since they previously were limited to soup and stew with a side of brown bread. I’m going to have to think of more recipes.

Translation

Good Job!

Do Better!

Chapter

Love It!

What?

FFS!

Really?