By the Grace of the Gods: Volume 1 Read online

  “...Doing everything alone... isn’t always... a good thing...”

  “Even so, I want to take the first step myself.”

  “...The decision is yours... My Lady...”

  “I... I...! I’ll do it! Could I have some of your water?”

  Everyone around me shed a tear at that declaration. Eliaria was fighting back a deep blush. There was no need for her to force herself... And what was with this atmosphere? It was like an important decision had been made, when in reality what she had to do was... you know...

  But now that it’s come to this, I’d feel bad just bringing out water and calling it a day, so I offered her the bathtub. As a former Japanese person, there were times when I wanted to submerge myself in a bath, so I had made a proper bathtub. Though I had never imagined this would happen to it.

  “There is, a bath... feel free to use it.”

  “You have a bath? Thank you so much!”

  I filled the tub with water magic, then boiled it with fire magic. Once the temperature was adjusted with more water magic, I informed the young lady it was ready. The preparation only took a few minutes — magic was truly convenient.

  After Eliaria and her two maids went into the bathroom, I returned to the others, where Hughes was rubbing his cheek and groaning.

  “Ow-ow-ow... Well, that wasn’t very nice.”

  “You brought it on yourself.”

  “That was a little too much...”

  His words had certainly lacked delicacy. I was often told the same in my previous life, but even I could tell that was insensitive. In my old life, careless remarks could be taken as sexual harassment, after all. That’s why I had to take extra care. If I didn’t, I would have been socially ostracized.

  “Ah, Ryoma. Welcome back.”

  “Ma’am... I don’t know what to say...”

  “It’s fine, she decided this for herself. It’s not like you lied about it, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then it’s fine. At any rate, I’m happy to see that child show an earnest interest in becoming a tamer. If she only wanted to obtain a cleaner slime, she could have negotiated with you to give her one instead.”

  ...

  ...

  What... did you just... say?

  “Excuse me?”

  “That you could have given her one... Did the thought not cross your mind?”

  Ha, hahaha... I wonder why such a simple thought hadn’t occurred to me...? Now that I thought about it, wasn’t that the simplest way of obtaining something? It never even crossed my mind... Maybe I’ve been isolated in the forest for too long?

  “Goodness...”

  “Ah, such youth. That was amusing. But I truly was glad about my daughter’s attitude, you know?”

  “I see...”

  For some reason, I felt tired...

  After all of that, the young lady got out of her bath and collected the water, taking it to the river in search of slimes while I had my clothing sized by the maids. She was lucky and managed to return successfully by the time I finished trying on all the clothes. Of course, she had her captured slime with her, and made her first contract under the watchful eye of me and ten others.

  By then, it had already gotten rather late, so it was decided that they would all stay over at my place for the night. I offered them all my bathtub and got cooking. The two maids and Sebas the butler offered to help, but I refused. While I would have been grateful for help, my kitchen was rather cramped. There was no room for three adults and all the cooking utensils were a children’s size, made for me. It would have been bad for their backs.

  For the record, dinner was a ginger stir-fry imitation using wild animal meat and ground giger. Reinhart took a great liking to it, and it was received favorably by the others as well, but it was a little off to me, as a former Japanese person. However, the taste grew on me.

  The only source of salt I had was what little rock salt was in the cliffs, but they contained minerals that had to be separated and refined through alchemy to prevent harm to the body. If I didn’t have alchemy, I wouldn’t have been able to live in this forest for three years. I had managed to secure a non-life threatening amount, but it wasn’t satisfactory.

  Well, for now, I was glad that they liked it.

  Chapter 1 Episode 5: Inconsistent Logic

  After dinner, we were chatting over tea when Elise said, “Ryoma, have you decided on what you want to do from here?”

  “...I’m unsure, to be honest. Do I stay... or move elsewhere...”

  My research had settled for now, my head finally cooling after seeing enough slimes to fill an entire room. Meeting people like this also left me wondering about certain things. Things like ingredients and seasonings for cooking.

  ...That’s why I figured it was about time to go and see the world. But what should I say? A child with an established background as an antisocial recluse wants to go and see the world! That would be too unnatural... All right, it was time to pull out the almighty excuse — the grandparents.

  “...Grandparents told me... live happily in town... My current life... is content. But I started to think... grandparents... might not wish for me... to live here...”

  “Ryoma...”

  A solemn air fell upon the room when Reinbach closed his eyes and said, “Then... how about you leave the forest with us?”

  “Huh?”

  Huh, what was this person saying? Today was our first time meeting each other, no?

  “Our family is a ducal house. Covering the living necessities of one person is no difficulty. Not to mention how it’d be a waste to have a talented tamer like you hidden away so deep in the forest like this. You may not like towns, but won’t you try leaving the forest a bit?”

  ...I had never expected to receive an invitation like that. The others around me were also giving me kind looks that said they agreed. Everyone was so kind, it made my heart hurt...

  “We will be going to stay in a town called Gimul tomorrow, then return home in two months. It will be possible to return here, so would you like to join us for our journey?”

  “Journey...”

  Thinking about it carefully, I knew nothing about this world... Though the gods had given me basic knowledge, it wasn’t as though I had seen things with my own eyes. I hadn’t even known what the outside world thought about slimes. There may be many more examples like that.

  ...These people seemed like nice people, and it’d be better than being alone, right? And if I didn’t go now, I’d probably drag my feet for another 2-3 months without moving...

  “That... would be nice. I will probably cause you trouble... but would you allow me... to join you?”

  “Yes! So you’re willing to come?”

  “Because I myself... started thinking... about leaving the forest...”

  “I see, I see. You’ll have to prepare for the journey. Let’s extend our departure to tomorrow afternoon. Do you think you can get ready in that time?”

  “Until morning is fine. If I use Item Box... I can bring it all.”

  “Oh my, you can use Item Box at that young age? That’s amazing.”

  Really? I had heard that many people could use Item Box, though?

  “Grandma said... it was useful, so I learned it. I was told... many could use it.”

  “Oh, no no. Even if it’s basic magic, it’s a higher element magic, you know? While there are many people that can use Item Box, when you consider your age that’s plenty impressive.”

  Not again... Was I missing information somewhere? Or was the information I had not adjusted for age? This meant I had to be careful not to mess up... But I was also quite lucky to come across people who could supplement my general knowledge like this.

  “It seems like Master Ryoma has talents in areas other than magic too. You have a very exciting future ahead of you.”

  “That’s true. If you have anything you want to study other than taming magic, let us know, okay? We’ll teach you.”
r />   “Being able to study alongside Ryoma sounds fun.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  After wrapping things up with a word of thanks, Eliaria and her household staff offered to help me, so we started with cleaning the worst room first.

  “Whoa, what is this room?”

  “It’s filled with weapons and armor.”

  “Just sorting through all this is going to be hard work...”

  “Is that a pelt at the back?”

  “What are these bags in the corner that look like trash?”

  I had brought them to the room I was using for storage. It had everything I had gathered over the last 3 years, including the belongings of bandits and things.

  I sometimes cleaned the weapons and armor so those were organized to a degree, but everything else was basically piled upon each other.

  “Item Box... all of it. Everything... will be put away. The bags in the corner are bandit loot.”

  “What’s inside?”

  “Dunno...”

  “You mean you haven’t checked? Defeating bandits without checking your spoils is like risking your life for nothing, you know?”

  “I wasn’t really interested.”

  I responded to Hughes’s words with a single phrase, but there were several reasons for that. Firstly, most bandits’ belongings were dirty and smelly, with nothing of particular value. At worst, there would be nothing other than rotten food and trash. Some of them had money, but that was worthless without going into town... In the end, the amount of effort wasn’t worth the gains, so at some point I stopped checking them properly and just threw them in here after the slimes were done cleaning.

  “In that case, would it be better to examine the contents first?”

  “True, it’d be better to just chuck it out if it’s just trash inside. How about we split up the separation and storage steps to get it done at the same time?”

  I agreed to Araune and Jill’s suggestions, so Eliaria and the two maids were assigned the duty of separating the bandits’ belongings. If I was tasked with separating things, we wouldn’t be able to get both jobs done at once.

  Thus, we started working on throwing everything I had into the black hole. From what I heard partway through, there was some surprisingly valuable equipment, and the pelts would sell for a pretty penny too. Even more unexpectedly, a bag containing a hefty 40 medium gold coins was discovered. From what I knew, that was a fairly large amount of money, which I was grateful for now that I was heading to the town.

  However... Considering what happened with the slimes, the accuracy of my knowledge was a concern. I should probably have them teach me the value of things, just to be sure.

  We continued to work while I pondered over such things, and once we were done I had the cleaner slimes and scavenger slimes finish off the rest. I then offered the now-clean room to the escorts of the ducal house to rest in.

  “You sure? Do you have anything else you need help with?”

  “No, the rest... can do alone. Just ingredients and medicines left.”

  “Medicines... shouldn’t be meddled with by amateurs. All right, call us if you need anything else.”

  “Thank you very much, Camil.”

  “It’s fine, it’s fine. We should be thanking you for the room. Having an enclosed room to rest in is more than we could hope for.”

  After I gave them my thanks, everyone began to prepare to sleep. Now, all that was left were the basic items the three gods had given me when I first came to this world, as well as... That’s right, could I bring my slimes along too? There was no way I could leave them. I should ask. They should still be awake at this time.

  “Mister Reinhart, Lord Reinbach.”

  “What is it, Ryoma?”

  “Can I... bring my slimes on the journey? There’ll be... a total of 17 slimes.”

  “Of course. Nothing wrong with a tamer bringing his familiars.”

  “There’s plenty of room in the carriage, we’ll save some space for them.”

  Oh, that was a relief.

  “Thank you very much.”

  When I said that, they smiled at me in reassurance. They really were wonderful people. If I were to give an example in Japan, it would be like asking someone who agreed to let me hitchhike if I could bring my 17 pets with me too... Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t agree. One or two was one thing, but 17 was way too many. Not that I had a driver’s license to begin with. I really couldn’t be more grateful to the duke’s family... Oh yes, I should give my greetings to them before I leave, too.

  With that thought, I stood up and headed to the training room at the very back of my home. The room itself was nothing but an empty space, but the wall across from the entrance had statues of the gods carved into the rock. Idolatry was not forbidden in this world, and creating your own statues of the gods wasn’t a crime either. It was even recommended in some areas, where the most devout worshipers would use a miniature statue bought from the church as a model to carve their own, little by little as they prayed every day.

  I should seal the entrance with earth magic in case someone came along... There we go.

  Sitting cross-legged before the statues, I meditated for a few minutes before opening my eyes and beginning to speak.

  “Another day has passed safely. I’m sure you know this already, because you’re gods, but I’ll be going out for a while with the guests who visited today. Apparently our destination will be a town called Gimul... It’s finally time for my first journey after coming to this world. Now I can go to a church and keep my promise. However, I don’t know when I can come back again, so I’m taking all my things just in case. If I don’t end up returning... I’ll make more statues in my new place. See you later, then.”

  Once I was done, I stood up and unsealed the entrance to leave the training room.

  It seemed like the only ones I couldn’t talk to normally were other people... If I couldn’t talk to the gods’ statues, I would have noticed a lot earlier than I did. Maybe I was nervous? Well, whatever... Now that everything was ready, all that was left to do was wait for the morning and leave with my slimes. Time to sleep.

  Thus, I crawled under the covers of my bed.

  I wonder what the town’s like...

  My mind was so busy imagining the unseen towns, I found it a little harder to sleep than usual.

  Chapter 1 Episode 6: Morning of Departure

  The next day.

  Hm?

  When I woke up in the morning, I noticed something was different about my room. The only source of light in my room was the magic light beside my pillow. It was dimmed so that everything was dark, but I could immediately tell something was off.

  There were no ‘things.’

  Come to think of it, I packed everything yesterday... I accepted in my head once, before I took a second look and still found it strange. I poured energy into the magic stone to illuminate the room, and found it to be completely empty. While I had packed most of my items away into my Item Box yesterday, I had left the furniture, like the tables, chairs, and shelves.

  I didn’t recall breaking them down either. Yet, I couldn’t see them anywhere. In fact, the bed I should have been sleeping on was gone too. What was going on? There’s no way it could have been stolen, right...? That was impossible. If a thief snuck in I would notice, and the slimes would make a fuss too. I let the duke’s party sleep over last night, but I couldn’t imagine them stealing anything.

  In the first place, stone furniture made from earth magic couldn’t be worth anything, and what thief would assume there would be anything of value in a cave like this? There were various spoils from my battles, but they were stored away in my Item Box.

  All that was left were the slimes...! The slimes! Where were the slimes?!

  “Whoa!”

  Unable to see the single cleaner slime I normally left in my room, I tried to leap up from my sleeping area when suddenly, my body was enveloped in a floating sensation, followed by an impact and
dull pain.

  “Wait, huh?”

  When I sat my sore body up, my surroundings were dark again. I turned on the light, this time to see my usual room. It was rather bare after all the packing, but the table, chair and other furniture were all there. The impact to my body also seemed to be from falling out of bed...

  “Geez, it was just a dream...”

  Now that I had calmed down, I could see the lone cleaner slime hanging over the edge of the bed to peer down at me. I could confirm the other slimes were also within the cave still.

  Honestly, don’t scare me like that... is what I wanted to say, but in this situation I had no one to say it to. Speaking of which, how long was it until the sun rose? If I recall, yesterday...

  “...There it is.”

  The clock I received yesterday was still on the table. The clock face was a round and thin metal plate with numbers and two hands attached, set upon a round pedestal with a Y-shaped metal support. The pedestal, support, and clock face were all decorated in a modest but refined way, and with nothing mechanical in sight to suggest the structure of a clock, I had thought it was a mirror when I first unwrapped it. The back of the clock face was so polished, it really could have passed for a mirror.

  The clock face itself had the numbers 1 to 12 positioned just like on Earth. One rotation was 12 hours, and two was 24 hours — a full day. And one hour was made of 60 minutes. In other words, it could be read in the same way as on Earth, which made things easy.

  However, when I watched it carefully, it seemed like the length of one minute in this world was slightly different to one minute on Earth. Well, the length of a day in this world had never bothered me from the beginning, although that may be due to my relaxed schedule these past three years ruining my body clock...

  Either way, when I checked the clock, it said it was currently 5:30. This clock couldn’t tell morning and afternoon apart, but it was obviously morning. I would have overslept by a lot if it was afternoon. There was time for a second sleep if I wanted, but I didn’t feel like it. As I was thinking that, I heard muffled footsteps from deeper within the house.