“Transform? So you can take other forms besides this one?”
“Mmhmm, Voram and Cador.”
“Voram and Cador…which one is this current form?”
“Cador.”
Sierra said so, and like magic, reverted to her shaggy-haired body.
“This is Voram.”
“So Sierra, which body is your true form?”
“True form, what?”
The white kobold Sierra, now wearing Hime’s tracksuit, simply cocked her head puzzledly. I suppose since she can switch freely, neither is really her true form.
“Which form do you prefer, Sierra?”
“This one.”
Seeing her indicate her usual narrow-eyed self, I felt reassured. To me, the white kobold was undoubtedly the real Sierra.
“But ah, being made for ‘infiltration ops’…what exactly were the alchemists Ethan and Leah trying to have you Sieras do?”
Mars asked, but Sierra just stuck out her tongue and tilted her head.
“Don’t know, wasn’t imprinted with that.”
“Then what were you imprinted with?”
“Stuff like geography, language, how to use weapons and tools…oh and orders.”
Sierra scratched under her chin and looked my way.
“Orders?”
“Protect the one who summoned Sierra.”
As if it was her strongest directive, she said so with a satisfied nod and snort.
“So in the end, we still don’t know about that aspect…”
“Well, we did learn they were made to be quite combative at least. Anyway Sierra, make sure to get dressed when taking human form. I’ll buy you clothes.”
“Don’t need.”
“No no, you gotta wear clothes. I insist.”
“Yeah, Tonbo could get arrested otherwise.”
“Arrested, troublesome.”
So she understands getting arrested would be bad. Well, I suppose if she doesn’t take human form outside, she won’t need clothes.
“Just please, don’t randomly transform outside, okay? I’m begging you.”
“Too cold for Cador form.”
“Even when it gets warmer, no transforming, please.”
I deeply bowed my head to Sierra. Thinking about it, even if she kept her clothes on, an adult walking around with a child is already pretty questionable. If she capriciously transformed, it would be the end for me.
In the end, when I promised Sierra “I’ll treat you to something delicious if you promise,” she immediately agreed after stuffing her mouth full of her first ever delivery pizza, her face stained bright red.
As we went about getting Sierra’s family registration updated to show her as a lycanthrope species, the 22nd year of the Lost Calendar was coming to a close before I knew it.
Gripping the hem of the stylish but thin coat Hime had me buy, I shivered while elsewhere the fur-coated Mars and Sierra seemed quite unbothered by the cold, if begrudgingly so. Of course, being busy wasn’t the only reason I had been running ragged since autumn to the point of forgetting my own birthday. Apparently, the drone-related systems had successfully begun operating.
Although the delivery service seems to be used quite a bit, there are still not many buyback requests. Well, as the convenience of delivery drones spreads, the value of points will increase, and buyback requests should also increase. And, after the space development business settled down a bit, we finally started working on that side as well.
Yes, Leah’s medicine.
“Tonbo, I caught it.”
“Oh, thank you! Then use a razor or shaver to shave the hair and…”
In the large plaza Area A at the front of the Tokyo Third Dungeon that I had visited for the first time, I was shaving the fur of a rat-like monster about the size of a rabbit that Sierra had caught. The reason was simple – to test the effects of the hair growth medicine. Various other medicines had been traded as well, but the hair growth medicine was probably the one with the most obvious effects.
“Let’s see, according to the instructions, you apply it right? If you want to grow it out, the effects are immediate, but if you want to regrow it, you have to apply it repeatedly over time…”
These instructions were handwritten by the alchemist Leah herself. To get them, I did the same thing to her that Princess did to the skilled people at her home. I had Sierra write a letter, which I then copied and pasted all over apples.
These analog methods are always incredibly effective – Leah’s reply came within a few days. And through this exchange, we were able to get the medicine instructions in exchange for offering her cider, which she loves apples. Though when we asked about other things, she didn’t answer, so many mysteries of the other world remain…well, I guess it doesn’t really matter if the mysteries of a world I’ll never visit remain unsolved.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT GADGETIZEDPANDA.COM
“First let’s test the hair growth part…”
“Here’s the dropper.”
“Thanks, I’ll just drop some on its back…”
I first dripped the liquid medicine onto the rat’s back and waited a while.
“Think it’s working?”
“Whether it works or not, we don’t really have anywhere to get rid of it right now, do we? I don’t think it really matters,”
said an unenthused Mars, but I was quite interested in the effects of these other-world potions. Simply because they’re game-item-like and exciting.
“Well, if it works, Princess said we can just release it into space along with the instructions, right?”
“Yeah, I guess. The trades in our galaxy have just ended up going around and around with the same kind of stuff or stuff we can’t handle. I guess it’s hard for trading to really go anywhere without being able to target what goods get traded.”
As Mars said, random trading doesn’t often hit the jackpot. Or maybe the hurdle for a jackpot has just gotten higher since Princess started making most things for us. We used to go wild just getting a single cleaning ball in the early days.
“Oh, doesn’t it look like the hair has already grown?”
Looking at the rat’s back like Mars said, the fur did seem to be growing a bit, but it also looked like the color had changed from being wet.
“Does it seem longer?”
“Why don’t you try wiping it off and see?”
I used a kitchen paper towel from the junkyard to wipe off the hair growth medicine, and sure enough, the fur seemed to have grown out a bit.
“Whoa! Success! Isn’t that amazing?”
“It is amazing, but aren’t there hair growth products like that on Earth too?”
“No, there aren’t.”
While research into pharmaceutical products using monster materials seems to have progressed somewhat, I’ve never heard of a hair growth product this effective. I’d love to send a dozen or so to my slightly balding father.
“Should I try applying it somewhere else it’s not growing too?”
“Well, we did come all the way here to investigate, after all.”
I applied the medicine to the rat’s hairless hands as it squirmed under Sierra’s foot.
“Um, Tonbo, what other medicines did we have again?”
“Well, there’s a virility tonic and a cavity treatment and…”
“A mana potion?”
“Ah right, right…but it seems like everything besides the hair growth medicine is going to be hard to test…”
“Yeah, the rat doesn’t seem to have cavities, and it probably doesn’t need virility either. And the mana potion is so incomprehensible even after reading the instructions that it’s too dangerous to use…”
As we were having this conversation watching the rat squirm pinned under Sierra’s foot, I noticed something coming from the dungeon entrance.
“Someone’s coming?”
“No, it’s ours, isn’t it?”
“Ah, I see.”
No sooner had I said that than they revealed themselves – blinking LEDs and high-pitched propeller sounds – it was indeed Kawashima’s drones, as Mars had said.
The three of them flew in a line near the ceiling, with someone’s order items loaded in the cargo hold underneath. They curved around dangerously as if on a ceiling rail before quickly disappearing deeper into the dungeon.
“That’s the first time I’ve actually seen them delivering orders. Princess isn’t controlling them manually anymore, is she?”
“She said they’re basically on auto-pilot.”
“Weird birds.”
Well, to Sierra they must look like weird birds.
Incidentally, the reason they fly in a line of three is so that if one becomes unable to fly, the others can retrieve it. Leaving a broken drone abandoned in the dungeon is an issue, as there’s a risk of theft. While not made from space materials, we still don’t want copied products being made from reverse-engineering.
“Sierra, those are called ‘drones’.”
“Drone birds?”
“Not birds, machines. Like golems, I guess?”
“Are they pseudo-lifeforms? But they don’t have magic power.”
“Ah no, sorry…my analogy was poor.”
Right, I probably shouldn’t use gaming knowledge to explain things to someone from a world where golems actually exist.
“Anyway, those aren’t living things…they’re more like the cars or trains you’ve ridden in before.”
“So you can ride them?”
“No, they’re too small, they just carry cargo.”
“I see.”
Looking down at Sierra’s feet, the rat monster seemed to have tired itself out from struggling.
“It’s calmed down, so let’s put it in a cage to rest.”
“Yeah. Sierra, put it in here.”
“okay”
Sierra placed the rat into the space-metal cage I took from the junkyard, and we all washed our hands at a camp sink. Most adventurers don’t really care, but it was a rat monster, so we should probably wash our hands after touching it.
“Lets eat…”
“I’ll have an orange.”
“Sweet bread!”
We laid out a picnic blanket we usually use for setting up shop in a side path of the dungeon and sat down to relax.
As I poured hot water from a kettle into paper cups with tea bags, the drone that had flown by earlier came back and disappeared toward the entrance.
“Oh, they’re really working hard.”
“Yeah, watching them, those drones are fast.”
By the time I was drinking my second cup of tea, another drone carrying cargo had flown by. It seemed there were quite a few customers at the dungeon today…and before the drone that had just left could return, yet another one flew off with cargo.
“Doesn’t that seem like a lot of traffic?”
“Yeah, it does.”
The drones continued going back and forth repeatedly, and although it was starting to concern me a bit, we headed home before dinner.
Incidentally, we did try repeatedly reapplying the hair growth medicine for a few hours, but no hair grew on the rat’s hands…so we ended up just releasing it to the junkyard labeled “effective for hair growth” for the time being.
Also check out my friend Localizermeerkat for more LN translations!
BUY THE SOURCE MATERIAL TO SUPPORT THE AUTHOR !!!
Kindly click on the green button above and contribute to filling the green bar if you’re interested in having another LN from the request page translated. Also, every donation is being used to purchase the source material and to fund more English translations.
Please consider joining my Ko-Fi membership. By becoming a member, you’ll also gain access to 2-10 additional chapters of all of the novels from this site translated into English. Last but not least your support will also assist me in upholding the translation quality and speed. For more information, please follow the link.
Donation for faster release is always welcome
Additionally, I am now accepting translation requests.
