“Okay, I’ll work on making some pitons too,” I said.
“Thanks. Oh, also, one more thing. Nao was wondering if we could make some climbing holds, like at a bouldering gym. We weren’t able to test any this time, but if we had the right kind of bolt for rock walls, attaching it wouldn’t be a problem, right?”
“Oh yeah, I know what you’re talking about,” I said. “It would probably make it easier to climb if you could install those.”
If you were being a rock climbing purist, then climbing holds were a no-no, but for Yuki-san’s party, rock climbing was just a means to an end. The climbing holds used for competition bouldering were designed to be a little bit harder to grab and step onto, but I could make ones that were easier to use, since the objective was just to create equipment that would make it easier and safer for the party to get up and down.
“Now that I think about it, it would probably be a good idea to prepare a rope ladder for the purpose of descending to the ground,” said Haruka.
Yuki-san and Natsuki-san stared at Haruka-san, then nodded simultaneously.
“Yeah, I bet that could work,” said Yuki. “Honestly, it might even be the simplest solution.”
“Mm. It’s quite likely that we’ll be attacked while climbing in the dungeon, after all,” said Natsuki.
Oh, you’re going to use all of this stuff inside the dungeon too? Not just for mining ore? Oh yeah, I guess the ore is a secret, since it’s for Haruka-san’s ring.
“Um, what would you like me to do?” I asked. “Will these tools not be necessary?”
“No, please continue to work on developing and improving them,” said Haruka. “There’s no point being able to descend if we can’t ascend.”
“Okay.”
“There’s also no guarantee that a rope ladder will stay where we put it in the dungeon,” said Yuki.
“If we’re ever unable to return, death will be the only path that remains to us,” said Natsuki.
Her tone was casual, but those words were pretty ominous.
“By the way, what kind of place are you currently stuck at where you need rock climbing equipment to get past?” I asked.
“Actually, it’s an area with spectacular views,” said Haruka.
“Indeed,” said Natsuki. “There’s a waterfall beggaring anything I saw back on Earth.”
“Definitely the kind of thing you can only see in a different world,” said Yuki.
“Was it really that amazing? I wish I could see it at least once,” I said.
The girls’ words had stirred my curiosity. None of the scenery I’d seen in this world so far has seemed that special. Granted, I didn’t get out of Laffan much. I had seen plenty of strange things, like the giant barrash mushrooms and giant salmon, so I couldn’t help but be aware that I was in a different world. Still, the idea of unearthly scenery had me interested.
“It’s definitely worth seeing at least once in a lifetime,” said Yuki. “You’d probably die if you stopped to take in the view, though.”
“...Seriously?”
“I mean, yeah, it’s inside of a dungeon. There are plenty of monsters that are hard to spot too,” Yuki replied.
Man, dungeons really are dangerous. I guess they’re places that ordinary people just aren’t meant to explore.
“Well, if you really want to see the scenery for yourself, we can help guide you there,” said Yuki. “Haruka said something about earning a living as tour guides after we retire from adventuring, so this might be a good opportunity to practice.”
Oh, is it actually not that dangerous for them, or do they have a way to guide people safely? If so, I kind of want to go. You almost never get the opportunity to go on a guided tour in this world, after all.
“It might be a good idea to practice with Tomi first,” said Haruka. “Even if we make some mistakes, it’ll be fun.”
“Huh? No way! I’m not a character in a gag manga!”
It wasn’t like I would come back to life in the next panel if I exploded. I was sturdier than I’d been back on Earth, but an explosion would hurt me just as much as it would anyone else, and so would falling from high up.
“I’m joking, of course,” said Haruka. “The road to the dungeon itself is actually more dangerous than the interior, so unfortunately we currently aren’t capable of guiding you there.”
“It’s all right—there’s nothing to apologize about,” I said. “Oh well.”
A part of me did want to see the magnificent scenery they’d described for myself, but I valued my life and safety way more, so I had no intention of demanding anything unreasonable from Haruka-san’s party.
“We can take you to the dungeon once we get strong enough that we can fend off monsters without getting distracted,” said Yuki. “Don’t get your hopes up, though.”
“We aren’t high-ranking adventurers, after all,” Natsuki added.
Nah, I think Rank 5 is quite high considering the fact that you’ve only been adventuring for about a year. That said, maybe I will get to see the dungeon after all.
“In that case, I’ll help your party reach new heights as adventurers by doing what I’m best at,” I said.
“Yeah, we’re counting on you,” said Yuki. “Right now, we just need you to work on the rock climbing tools. Oh, by the way, how are the rice hullers and rice mills coming along? We asked you to prioritize the rock climbing stuff, so there’s no rush, but I just wanted to check.”
“Oh, yeah, those two are already pretty much complete!”
It had been relatively easy for me to build a prototype for a rice huller thanks to the motor and the rubber that the girls had brought me. I had more or less copied the basic structure and mechanisms that Natsuki-san had described to me. The only new thing I’d added was a function that allowed you to fine-tune the space between the two rubber rollers manually. This was actually a pretty important function, since the different types of rice that Haruka-san’s party had given me varied widely in size, but the basic concept was simple enough. It had been even easier to come up with a prototype for the milling machine. Haruka-san had brought a machine that looked like a food processor as a point of reference, so I had more or less also copied that, with a few changes.
“The only thing I have yet to complete is the function to break the grains down to a quarter of their original size,” I said. “I’m still struggling.”
Dry rice tended to be very hard and brittle. You could split a grain into two pieces without too much trouble, but if you tried for four, most of the pieces would just crumble.
“You could sift through them and pick out the good ones, but more than half might end up getting wasted that way,” I said.
“We could use some of it for rice flour,” Natsuki mused, “but I’m afraid that more than half would really be too much wastage.”
“Yeah, I figured as much,” I said. “I’m testing all sorts of different methods, but...”
I had tried solutions like sharpening the blades or splitting the rice along different axes, and I had been able to improve the yield a bit as a result, but I was nowhere close to our goal, and I wasn’t sure how to proceed.
“Hmm. The rice is still edible in its original size,” said Yuki. “It’s just the texture and the soaking time...”
“We can improve the soaking time, but the texture is unavoidable,” said Haruka. “Oh, what if you try splitting the grains after you soak them?”
“I think that would keep them from crumbling, but are you actually okay with that?” I asked.
You couldn’t just leave rice soaking indefinitely, so you would have to soak the grains, then split them every time you made rice for a meal. Man, how many hours would it take to soak those big grains? I sure wouldn’t be willing to go through the hassle for every single meal.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Haruka replied. “We’ll just cook a large amount of rice at once instead—we have the ability to keep food hot for an extended period of time.”
“...Oh, right. In that case, I suppose it should work just fine for your party.”
Haruka-san’s party owned magic bags. I hadn’t really asked about them, but they were apparently good enough that they could stop the flow of time for any object stored in them. They would make it really easy for the girls to preserve freshly cooked rice, although I couldn’t decide if that was a worthwhile use of such a valuable and powerful magic item.
“Okay, cool,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind as I continue working.”
“Thank you,” said Haruka. “Oh, we have another job for you as well. You know who Mary and Metea are, right?”
“...Yeah. I attended the welcome party that you held for them. They sometimes drop by here too.”