Chapter 7:
An Outdoor Essential
THE WHOLE “SECRET BASE” THING lit the fire of creativity under Noela’s butt. Today, she was testing construction ideas for a new base in the yard. Truthfully, I had no clue what the difference was between this base and her first one.
“Groo…”
“Hey, Noela, what’s going to be unique about this base?”
“Everything! Master no see!”
Welp, now she’s mad. I found that cute in and of itself, so we’d had this back and forth several times.
Little engineer Noela slapped her tail against the ground, her expression troubled. “If rain, get wet. If wind blow, fly away. Arroo…”
She could just stay home from her base on rainy and windy days. “Well, you always have to deal with that kind of stuff in a secret base, right?”
“Groo? Master think of solution?”
How do adventurers usually handle the rain and wind? They operated outdoors, so I figured they just took cover wherever they could to sleep. Ugh. That sounds awful.
“Hey, Rei Rei, Noela!” Paula sauntered down the hallway from the drugstore. “I sensed a chance to collaborate and came on over!”
“I think you sensed a chance to make money,” I retorted.
“Tee-hee! You got me!” Paula seemed proud.
I was hardly praising her. Still, I couldn’t make what I was picturing without her help. “Paula, do adventurers carry camping equipment?”
“How do you mean? Like, a portable base of operations or something?”
Yeah, I guess you could call a campsite that.
“Along those lines,” I replied, explaining Earth’s concept of “camping” to Paula. “I thought adventurers might like equipment for that, you know?”
“Awesome idea!” she replied, smiling ear to ear.
I’m sure she can tell camping equipment would turn a profit.
“Master! Heard everything.”
“Oh?”
“Noela want!” Unlike Paula, Noela looked deathly serious. I wouldn’t have to go far to find someone to test the prototype.
“All right. Let’s rock. Once we’re done, you’ll get first dibs, Noela.”
“Groo! Camping! Camping!”
If Paula and I successfully created what I had in mind, it’d solve all Noela’s problems. She could carry it around, and it wouldn’t get waterlogged in the rain. As for hard winds, well, it’d withstand those better than the wooden columns she’d set up for her old secret base.
“I’d love to collaborate with everyone in town on this,” I told Paula. “If all goes well, it might become Kalta’s own local specialty.”
Paula nodded. No objections, I guess. The tool-shop owner loved her hometown, after all; whenever something happened in Kalta, she was the first to try to turn it into a big event. To be honest, I admired the part of her that always attempted to do things for the town.
“I really misjudged you, Paula.”
That clearly didn’t make sense to her. She stared at me blankly. “Huh? What’re you talking about all of a sudden?”
I left the drugstore to Noela and Vivi, and Paula and I headed to town.
“I set up a meeting hall for the townsfolk,” she told me. “Let’s gather them there.”
“Meeting hall?” I repeated. “When the heck did you do that?”
Apparently, she’d renovated one of Kalta’s empty houses. “Heh heh heh! It’ll be amazingly useful, right? When we planned that last event, I thought about how much easier it’d be if we had someplace to meet and discuss things.”
The “event” she was talking about was a big elimination tournament we held using fire extinguishers—“Erasers,” as we called them here. Where’d Paula get the cash for a meeting hall, though? Don’t tell me she raked in the dough from the tournament…? Lord Valgas had said he’d introduce the “Erasers” to merchants in other towns. Huh.
“Anyway, I bought one of those empty houses dirt cheap,” Paula added.
“So, you totally made bank on the tournament, didn’t you?”
“Kalta’s gonna crank out these, uh, ‘tent’ things,” the tool shop owner continued. “We’ll make ’em a must-have for adventurers the world over!”
I’d always had the impression that Paula was money-grubbing. But what if she was actually a first-class businesswoman? Or, at least, had the potential to be? My opinion of her quietly improved.
After Paula and I waited for a while at her meeting hall, Alf the general store owner and some carpenters and craftsmen arrived, making a total of eight people including Paula and me. This really is like a local business association.
“Um, thanks for coming here today,” Paula began. “We’re going to discuss the potential of these ‘tent’ things Rei Rei thought up.”
After she’d announced the topic of the gathering, I explained what a “tent” was and what materials were necessary to construct one. Tents consisted of two primary elements—a canopy made of fabric and a frame forming the tent structure. I drew the whole thing on a sheet of paper.
“I see, I see,” one “business association” member responded. “With something like this, adventurers could take refuge in the rain, aye?”
“We’ll build ’em together and sell ’em!” another exclaimed.
Everyone seemed to be discussing the tent blueprint enthusiastically, rather than addressing its challenges. While they talked things over, Paula told me quietly, “Everyone here knows we’ve held tons of events thanks to cool stuff you designed. A lot of people have made money because of you. I know this blueprint will go over well with them!” She giggled.
“Pharmacist, for the tent frame, will iron rods be good enough?”
“Pretty much,” I replied. “Something light and durable would be best, though.”
“That means bamboo’s the only way to go.”
Hmm. Bamboo’s flexible and tough, so it might just be perfect.
“What fabric should we use, Reiji?” Alf asked.
“It needs to last. Something water-resistant would be best.” If nylon were available, it’d be perfect, but I doubted it existed in this world.
“Leather lasts a while,” said Alf. “But it contracts when it gets wet.”
“No worries. Kirio Drugs carries water repellent. If we just spread some of that…”
The clothing-store owner interrupted me. “Pharmacist, what if we make fabric from repellent-soaked thread?”
“Ah, great idea! We can even apply repellent to the finished tent to increase its water resistance.”
Our meeting continued on productively.