After lunch, during the afternoon tea that had now become a daily routine, we exchanged progress reports with the scouting team.
“That’s why the old butler isn’t around,” Jeff said.
“Yes, and I wanted to ask you... Do you know anyone from the slums who can twist rope? If you do, I’d love to hire them, and preferably a team of children through you, to have rope twisted in bulk. I could always buy rope like we’re doing today, but considering how much of it I may need in the future, and the fact that there are other people who might need rope, it’s going to be much easier to make it in-house,” I explained.
“We’d probably get a decent crew if I hit up the guys that came from farm towns. Don’t expect too much from the kids, though. They could probably twist rope if we teach them, but it’ll take some time until they can produce their fair share each day.” Jeff added that ropes were mostly made by farmers during their downtime or over winter. Although the craft wasn’t exclusive to farming communities, hay was harder to come by in the city, where people were more focused on their own jobs anyway.
“Wouldn’t it be faster to get your goblins to do it?” Jeff suggested.
“I could ask the goblins, and they could use the stem of the grainspear grass to do it. But the goblins are taking care of the slimes for me, and I’d rather have them assisting with my research whenever possible...mostly to keep my research confidential.”
“You could say the goblins are great secret-keepers. I doubt any of them would try to sell any trade secrets—not that they would find a buyer if they could. On the other hand, there is nothing to hide about the process of twisting rope. After seeing Sebas react the way he did, I think it is prudent to give what could be a massive contract to a group of human workers,” Eleonora said.
That settled it. I’d hire a team to twist rope for me. Jeff’s suggestion gave me another idea, though. “What if I asked them to make this?” I took something from my Item Box to show him.
“A thin stick and a small cone? What are those?” he asked.
“Something I intend to use for my hexes. They’re called incense.”
“I remember that’s what you wanted the baobark trees for. You made some already?” Hudom asked.
I’d made these samples last night with some of the baobark branches I’d collected during our construction projects.
“I mixed crushed baobark with powdered aromatics and water, shaped them, and let them dry. I used magic to dry these out, but they should come out the same when dried naturally.”
“Sounds easier than twisting rope. Kids who can’t even pick up litter could make those. Kind of like playing with clay, if you don’t mind the comparison,” Jeff said.
“Pretty similar, when you do it all by hand,” I agreed. It had felt like playing with clay last night when I was trying to find the right amount of water to use. The process would be streamlined as the crew grew accustomed to it. Using dedicated molds and tools could boost efficiency and quality assurance. “They would have to be careful not to inhale wood dust while they work, so I’d like to hire someone to monitor that side of things.”
“You’d need some muscle to crush the lumber, right? We’ll hire a few guys to do that and keep an eye on the kids. As long as the work isn’t too complicated, it won’t be hard to get a team together. How do you use those things anyway?” Jeff asked.
“You just light them. Let me show you. I haven’t actually used them yet.”
Seeing that the others were interested in seeing the incense in action, I placed the cone-shaped incense on an empty dish and lit a fire with magic. I waved my hand to put out the flame. Smoke danced for a moment before turning into a thin strand that stretched to the ceiling, filling the room with a distinct scent. Smoke’s flowing smoothly. So far, so good.
“It smells...familiar.”
“Not to me, but it’s relaxing, somehow.”
“Like the smell of a deep forest...and spices?”
“I know! It smells like the drink Ryoma gave me the other day!”
The four beastkin offered the impressions they received from their keen senses of smell. I doubted that I could have picked up that much if I didn’t know what I’d put in it.
“I put in some heatwood bark for the smell,” I explained.
“Huh... Is this what the Sea of Trees smells like?”
“Imagine this smell mixed with rain and other vegetation. Like Miya said, the liquor from the Sea of Trees smells very similar to this.” Because the liquor was made and kept in heatwood barrels, it carried the same notes. The unique smell came from one of the chemicals the heatwood trees contained to protect themselves from pests and diseases. It was possible that some people might be allergic to the scent, but it was completely harmless to other creatures.
While I’d used bug repellent I made from midnight dew, those who stayed in the Sea of Trees for a while all used repellent extracted from heatwood. Even the monsters of the forest—like the raptors I encountered so frequently—scratched out sap from heatwood trees. Fresh gouges on heatwood trees were said to mark raptor mating season.
“The sap on the bark mainly keeps bugs away. Pests immune to the repellent are met with the more deadly sap under the bark. I was told that older trees have more concentrated toxin in them. The bark I used in the incense came from a tree I felled in my home village, about four or five decades old. In addition to the scent, the incense should also work as an insecticide.”
I noticed that while the five adventurers were nodding along to my explanation and enjoying the scent, the three nobles looked a little stiff.
“Master Takebayashi, these incenses would be considered...highly valuable,” said Sebas.
“Fifty-year-old heatwood trees only grow deep in the Sea of Trees. Thinking about how much work it would take to haul the tree out—not to mention the danger of it—I couldn’t even guess at how much one of those should cost,” Hudom added.
“Utilizing materials from a familiar place can be beneficial for hexing. This is certainly a tool only you could concoct, Ryoma. No one else would think of harvesting that kind of material themself,” Rosenberg said.
It had crossed my mind to sell this kind of incense like a citronella candle, but it was starting to sound like it would be considered a luxury item...even though my overheads were nonexistent, and heatwood wasn’t difficult to source since a single branch weighed as much as a few dozen of the trees I’d see in a city.