Yoshino just glared at me, though. “Cooking is one thing, Nao, but not every girl is good at sewing!”
“Yeah, I understand, of course, but Natsuki and Yuki have learned to make clothes without the Sewing skill, so I figured you three could probably—”
“No, that’s actually not normal at all! The girls around you are just super talented!” Yoshino brought her fist down on the table and pointed at Kaho. “Look at Kaho! She has the Extremely Attractive Appearance skill, but she’s no match for a true noble lady like Natsuki!”
“Precisely!” Kaho said, seemingly on reflex, but then a look of shock came over her face. “Wait, me?” she asked, pointing at herself. Her ears and tail stood on end, then drooped when she took a look at Natsuki; her shoulders, too, sagged. “O-On reflection, I have to concede the point—but I’m still in the competition as long as I have my lovely ears and tail, am I not...?” She hugged her tail as if to comfort herself.
Sae gave Haruka the once-over and sighed. “Ugh. I’m no match for Haruka-san either.”
“I don’t think there’s any real need to compare yourselves to us in terms of appearance,” said Haruka.
“Easy enough for you to say!” Kaho retorted. “The truly blessed can never understand how the less fortunate feel!” She brought her fist down on the table in frustration.
“It really isn’t a big deal,” said Yuki. “When it comes to being popular with the opposite sex, personality matters a lot more than appearances...”
Kaho responded with a blank stare to Yuki’s attempts to comfort her. “When it comes to personality, too, every path is closed to me. Strength is hardly an advantage as a woman...”
“Nah, what matters the most is that you can earn money—that’s what your strength is good for,” said Yuki. “There actually aren’t that many adventurers out there who can slay orcs. And you’re all pretty, so I personally bet you’ll have a lotta options if you just start looking.”
“Mm, I suppose you’re right,” said Kaho. “But I cannot abide the thought of men approaching us in order to live on our earnings.”
“Yeah, especially in this world,” said Yuki.
“Even back in our old world, people really judged ‘house husbands,’” I pointed out.
Kaho let out a sigh. The rest of us could only chuckle awkwardly. It was one thing for a little kid like Metea to expect food and support from adults, but an adult man, not so much.
“In any case, all three of you are quite strong, so I imagine it will be difficult for your party to find adventurers capable of collaborating with you as equal partners, Kaho-san,” said Natsuki.
“I think it’s outright impossible,” said Touya. “Those Level 8 skills you’ve got—that’s got to be top tier in the entire kingdom. There’re slim odds of finding even one dude who meets the conditions you set out. There’s no way you’ll ever find three. Seriously, most other adventurers out there are weaker than you. The idea of finding three equal partners is a pipe dream.”
“Ugh. I’m sure you’re right,” said Sae. “Our skill builds are a bit too specialized.”
“Mm. My ability to deal damage is completely overkill for foes like orcs, and the same applies for Sae,” said Kaho.
Yoshino nodded to herself a couple times as she listened to Kaho, but then she looked around at my party as if she had suddenly realized something.
“Well, to return to an earlier topic—now that I think about it, I guess you can cut down on expenses by making things yourselves, but that doesn’t increase your income, right?”
Oh, so she noticed, huh? Yeah, naturally, it’s not just by cutting expenses that we’ve been able to earn so much money. It’s true that we’re making money thanks to our skills and magic, but...
The five of us looked at each other, silently conferring about how to answer. We would never have told someone like Tokuoka any of our secrets—or, for that matter, let him into our house—but the Jade Wings girls seemed like normal, amiable people, so it might be worth sharing some of our secrets if it would help us to form a positive relationship. Haruka paused in thought, but then she nodded at me, and no one else reacted negatively, so it seemed I had received approval to reveal our secret.
“...The thing is, we can make magic bags ourselves thanks to the Alchemy skill,” I said.
“R-Really?! That’s absolutely amazing!” Kaho exclaimed.
“Since your party has experience slaying orcs, you can probably imagine the utility of owning magic bags,” said Haruka. “If there’s effectively no limit to the amount of material you can bring back from the field, then selling meat is far more profitable than slaying monsters in order to recover and sell their magicites.”
Anyone who had any experience as an adventurer would understand the importance of being able to transport materials. All three members of Jade Wings nodded emphatically.
“Y-Yeah, the biggest issue we had with slaying orcs was carrying them back to town with us,” said Yoshino. “After we got a bicycle trailer, our earnings increased a lot, but if we’d had magic bags...”
“...we would have been able to earn far more money,” Sae finished. “I really wish one of us had had the foresight to pick the Alchemy skill.”
“I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple,” said Haruka. “Having someone with the Alchemy skill is necessary but not sufficient. You also need someone who can use Time Magic, and if the two don’t have good synergy, the enchantment can fail. We simply got lucky that Nao and I met all of the conditions.”
“Ugh. I suppose specialized builds are a grave error in real life,” said Kaho. “Could we perchance purchase magic bags from you?”
“We can certainly make some, but I don’t know about selling them,” I said.
I purposely avoided answering Kaho directly and once again exchanged glances with my party members.