My name’s Karina! Today, I’m going shopping! With a budget of two silver coins, what amazing things will I be able to buy?
First off, let’s buy a used leather backpack! Let’s see, that comes out to...one silver coin?! Wait, what?! I used up half my budget right off the bat?!
I only needed the bag to disguise the act of depositing and withdrawing from my space of holding, but wow, this world’s bags were seriously expensive! Well, they weren’t mass-produced in a factory or anything, so I got why they couldn’t be cheap, but still, it was a used product! Cut me some slack!
The middle-aged man running the store had told me that I’d be lucky to get a brand-new bag for two large silvers these days. He’d also said that the more used and worn bags got, the more flexible and easier to use they became. Guess I ended up buying into his sales pitch. Oh well. This backpack was large enough to fit a whole person inside, so it would also prove useful once I was officially a merchant. It was probably worth the investment.
“Hold up, now that I look closer...this has a hole in it!”
The bottom of the leather backpack was all worn out, and there was a hole large enough to stick my index finger through. Hmm...well, as long as I only put big things in here, it shouldn’t be a problem—unless the weight makes the bottom rip out. Don’t tell me the reason the backpack only cost one silver was because it was junk from the start!
Still, since the things I put in here were actually going into the space of holding and not the backpack itself, I figured it didn’t really matter. Wait, no, I still needed to put something in there to make it look like it had my things in it. So let’s seal that sucker up with some magic! I copied a five-centimeter square of intact leather from the upper part of the backpack and pasted it over the hole. Certainly not a professional repair job, but it would have to do. It was the same color leather since it came from the same backpack, so unless you were really inspecting it closely, it looked good as new! Copying small things like this didn’t take a toll on my mind either, so I figured I should probably fix up the rest of this backpack too, if I had some free time later on.
“Come to think of it, maybe I ought to start seriously considering DIY more.”
It was usually cheaper to make things yourself, after all. Well, technically, in Japan even the cost of ingredients and materials could seriously add up, but at least in this world, making things on my own would no doubt be cheaper than buying them. Especially with my spatial magic.
Yeah—that’s right! With spatial magic, why buy home decor? I could make tables and chairs with ease simply by cutting and pasting wood together! Cups too—I could just gouge out small stumps or something! I could make a bed frame out of wood as well, so now I just needed bedclothes. Of course, I only needed to buy one piece of fabric—I could copy the rest! It was for my own use, so it was fair game! Though I decided I should probably only copy things I’d already purchased once. I wasn’t just going to steal from shops by duplicating their wares, especially since I was going to be a merchant myself someday.
Plus, I could get lumber for my own private use by cutting my own trees. Oh, but unseasoned wood was more brittle and prone to breaking, wasn’t it? Maybe there was a spatial magic spell I could use to get around that. For now, I decided to try it. Since it was for my own private use, there weren’t any limits! To be honest, I doubted anyone would complain if I cut down some of the trees in the Kingdom of Alchemy either. I mean, it wasn’t really much of a kingdom anymore these days.
“All right, first off, let’s check to see if I have enough left in the budget to afford cotton or cloth!”
Oh, and some food too. After going without a proper meal for all this time, I was seriously starving.
✦ ✦ ✦
As it turned out, cotton was even more expensive than I’d expected. Hmm, I’d like to buy at least a small portion so I can copy the rest of what I need...but on the other hand, there’s another kind of padding here made from tanned wolf hides that’s priced more reasonably. This portion’s five large coppers...but there are holes all over. Are you really allowed to sell something this poorly made? And why does it have holes in it, anyway? Was the wolf hide used to begin with or something?
I decided to ask the merchant about it. “Hey, mister, why does this have so many holes in it?”
“Oh, that was a project an apprentice of mine did for practice. Couldn’t let my good hides be used for training, so I gave ’em one where the hunter used arrows or something to pierce the wolf full of holes and kill it. Better than some of the ones where the hide got torn in two, at least.”
Apparently the tanning process involved pulling the hide tight, and that had widened the original holes the arrows had made. “Oh, I see now. But...is it really okay to sell something like this?”
“It’s still enough to make up a portion, so why not? I mean, if you’re using it as padding for bedclothes it’s better to have holes in it anyway, since your sweat can ruin it pretty quickly.”
“Oh, okay.” I asked him whether he had any tanned hides that were in better condition. He said he didn’t at the moment, but if he did, they’d at least cost several silvers.
Still, I could always use spatial magic to fix those holes, so for me, it was a bargain. “Then I’ll take this portion here. And some of this dried meat too. Enough to make the total one silver.”
“Sure thing. Thanks very much! You know what, since you’re so pretty, I’ll give you a little extra jerky.”
“Wow, thanks! You’re a nice guy, aren’t you? I like that.”
“Heh heh, just for that, I’ll throw in a few more. Come back soon!”
Ah, the perks of being a beautiful girl!
Still, tools you’d typically need to fix holes like these—needles, thread, scissors, and the like—sure were expensive in this world. In Japan you could go to a hundred-yen store and get any of them, but I guess they’re in higher demand here since everything is handmade. Purchasing all of the aforementioned items in this world would normally run me several silvers.
But again, I could manipulate space, so I didn’t need any of that! The convenience of this magic truly was divine!
“Divine... Oh, come to think of it, where is the church here, anyway?”
The merchant heard me and answered. “Over there,” he said, pointing. “Big white building. You can’t miss it.”
“’Preciate it.” If it’s that close, guess I’ll go say hi to the Goddess. I need to give her my offering (Harumikazuchi’s stockings) as well.
I walked down the road and immediately spotted the big white building in question. Just as the merchant had said, there was no way I could have missed it. What a wonderful edifice!
“Welcome, miss. Do you have business at the church today?”
After all, look at this pink-haired, well-endowed nun! What is she, a succubus?! My libido’s going nuts just looking at her! Not good... Her supple, perfectly proportioned body’s making me drool. Better gulp it down. “Ah, well, I just thought I’d come to pray.”
“To pray! My, how devout! Please, right this way!”
Miss Nun led me to the chapel. At the front was an altar of wood and stained glass, with a round symbol in the center that very much resembled the five-yen coin the Goddess had given me as an ID. Pews were lined up facing the front of the chapel, and a few people were sitting here and there. I guessed you were allowed to come and pray whenever you wanted. Oh, it looked like some folks were also just stretched out on the pews, asleep.
“Are they, um, allowed to do that?”
“Of course. Entering a state of nothingness is also a form of worship. Though we do step in once the snoring reaches an intolerable threshold.”
“R-Right.” If something like that counted as worship, I thought I could become quite the pious follower myself! With such thoughts, I made my way to a pew in the very front and sat down.
Um... How am I supposed to give the Goddess this offering, anyway? For now, I took Harumikazuchi’s stockings out of my space of holding. The moment I did, I felt the space around me transform.
Before I knew it, I found myself in another space, which resembled a twinkling night sky. I was still in a sitting position, but there was no chair underneath me. It was different from the white space I’d first met the Goddess in, but once more, before my eyes, was the golden-haired girl from before.
“Hey, hey, welcome back, Karina! I’ve been waiting for you to show up! Now gimme those socks!”
“Here ya go.”
Acquiescing to her immediate demand, I handed over the coveted stockings. The Goddess let out a whoop of joy as she raised the garments high, then proceeded to sniff them.