Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 7 Read online

  Sara, Miss Karina, and Princess Menea were one thing, but how did I end up dancing with the other priestesses, Miss Ringrande, and Princess Meriest, too?

  Well, I got to dance with a lot of pretty girls and lovely ladies, so I guess all’s well that ends well.

  Workshop Visits and Magic Sword Casting

  Satou here. The field trips I went on in my school days brought me nothing but pain, but I have clear memories of all the tours I went on as an adult. I guess it helps when you’re actually interested in the subject.

  “Yay! We can really spend the whole day together?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  Arisa gleefully latched on to my arm when I nodded.

  All my nobility-related business and socializing were done for the time being, so I was finally able to spend a day sightseeing and touring workshops with my party.

  Our first stop was the old capital’s glass studio.

  “What is that, master? Candy?”

  Lulu looked curiously at the small tube one of the workers held.

  They were currently creating glass vessels.

  A magic user had placed a cooling spell on the passage we were observing from, so we weren’t too hot, but I could see beads of sweat on the workers’ faces.

  “Candyyy?”

  “Pochi loves candy because it’s sweet, sir.”

  Tama and Pochi drooled a little.

  “No, sillies. It’s a tool for making glass,” Arisa explained to the confused trio.

  The worker blew into the tube, and a bubble of glass formed at the end.

  It seemed much larger than what I remembered from when I went on a field trip to a glassblowing studio in school. Looking closer, I realized the pipe was actually a magic tool.

  “Weeeeird?”

  “He blew and made a circle, sir!”

  “Calm down, you two.”

  Liza scooped the excited pair up into her arms.

  But it was clear from the movement of her tail that she was intrigued, too.

  “Balloon?”

  “Master, it formed a bubble, I report.”

  As the glass vessel grew larger, Nana looked as if she was about to stray from the passage for a closer look, so Mia and I held her back by the arms.

  Lulu, who’d been about to follow suit, turned a little red.

  “Master, closer observation is necessary, I propose.”

  “We have to observe from here, okay?”

  “Be good,” Mia chimed in.

  In contrast with Nana’s fascination, Arisa looked so bored that she was stifling a yawn.

  I couldn’t entirely blame her, I guess. Since this was an orc glass workshop, I was expecting something a little more fantasy-like than this decidedly ordinary glass studio.

  “If you’re interested, would you like to try it yourself once you’ve had a look around?”

  “Certainly, if that’s all right.”

  The head of the studio was giving us a tour.

  We were probably getting the VIP treatment because we were introduced to him by the head of the noble family who owned the studio.

  The next room he showed us was where the basic materials for the glass were processed. The laborers here had cloths covering their mouths and noses, probably to keep out dust.

  “Here we crush granite, quartzite, and other stones into powder. Then we mix it with this blue-gray powder, which is made from orc stone, and heat it up to form glass.”

  Orc stone? What kind of fantasy substance was that?

  I curiously asked the workshop head about it.

  “It’s an ore that can be found near the Grapevine Mountains. If its powder is mixed with water, it forms bubbles. The bubbles are…”

  Judging by the rest of his explanation, the orc stone was basically a natural soda.

  I was pretty sure there was a similar ore in my old world, though I couldn’t remember its name. All this new information made me happy, although I wondered whether it was inconvenient for the man to have to give such a technical explanation to an observing noble.

  The last room was heavily fortified, with guards stationed at the entrance.

  “These are the magic tools we use to make sheet glass.”

  The large room was the size of a gymnasium, containing several large magic tools running side by side. It reminded me of a modern factory.

  Apparently, these tools were left by the Orc Empire that stood here before the Shiga Kingdom.

  “Reminds me of a hydraulic press.”

  I could see what Arisa meant. Red-hot glass was poured over a base that was about five feet by seven feet, then pressed by a mechanism above it to make plate glass.

  I seemed to remember seeing an old video of glass being poured over molten metal to make plate glass, but here they used a sort of magic force field to form the flat sheets instead.

  I might be able to reproduce it pretty simply with spells like Magic Mold and Cube.

  In addition, they showed us the process of turning these glass sheets into mirrors, which involved something called silver nitrate. The finished mirror wasn’t much different from the kind I used in my old world. The process of making silver nitrate was in one of my alchemy books, so if I got my hands on this orc stone stuff, I could probably make mirrors myself.

  Checking on the map, I found an alchemy store that sold it.

  I didn’t know how useful it would be, but I decided to stock up on some while we were in the old capital.

  Then, after the tour…

  “All right, let’s see who can make the coolest glass!”

  “Tama won’t looose?”

  “Pochi won’t, either, sir.”

  As usual, Arisa was getting Tama and Pochi way too worked up.

  Tama and Pochi breathed in deeply and blew into the pipes as hard as they could. Unfortunately, their lung capacity proved too much for the swelling glass, which burst with a loud popping sound.

  Most of the other girls shrieked, startled by the loud noise.

  A few of them were silent, like Mia and Nana, but they still froze with their eyes wide.

  As a small mercy, the hot glass only flew away from the group, so nobody was hurt.

  I took Tama, Pochi, and the agitator, Arisa, to apologize to the head of the studio.

  “Not at all. I’m simply relieved that none of you were injured. Still, normally the worst that happens if one blows too hard is that a hole opens in the glass and it buckles, so I’m surprised it exploded like that…”

  The man seemed bewildered, but at least he wasn’t angry.

  After that, we followed the workers’ directions, and everyone was able to make a glass piece of their own.

  I was particularly pleased, since I got the “Glassworking” skill in the process.

  On our way out, I inquired as to the price of a full-length mirror. Unfortunately, their reservations were so full that it would be two years before they could make one.

  They were able to make hand mirrors much more immediately, though, so I figured I’d buy a few.

  “Your work must be very popular, then.”

  “Yes, we’re quite fortunate. About half a year ago, we developed a technique for producing transparent glass at a low cost, and ever since then we’ve been flooded with so many orders that our magic machines never get a rest.”

  So there was a recent technological innovation, huh? I wondered whether it was the result of many years of research or the work of some brilliant new engineer.

  Maybe it was even thanks to a mysterious note like the pottery recipe I’d gotten from the red-helmeted ratfolk man in Seiryuu County.

  “Whew, I’m stuffed!”

  Arisa sighed contentedly, her belly full of crab hot pot and grilled crab.

  There was no such thing as crab forks in this world. I cut up the shells to make it easier to eat without them this time, but I planned to try making my own crab forks before our next crab hot pot.

  “So fuuull?”

  “I can’t eat
another bite, sir.”

  Tama and Pochi looked just as pleased as Arisa.

  “Oh, Arisa, you can be such a glutton.”

  “Can you blame me? It was so good!”

  Clearly Lulu’s scolding wasn’t inspiring any regret in her sister.

  Pochi and Tama were all right, since they were training with the Saga Empire samurai Kajiro, but Arisa seemed to be putting on a bit of weight.

  We might have to start watching our calories a little.

  “So what kind of workshop are we visiting next? Tell me it’s not another silk workshop full of caterpillars or a smelly soy sauce factory?”

  Arisa wrinkled her nose. The jade-silk workshop, with its greenhouse full of puppy-size caterpillars munching away on mithril scraps, certainly had been a sight.

  But the cloth made from the thread these caterpillars produced, called jade silk, was very high quality.

  This cloth had excellent magic conduction and cutability, not to mention incredible smoothness and glossiness.

  I acquired a small thread-spooling machine and an old-fashioned loom at that workshop, so I was hoping to try them out next time I encountered some caterpillar- or spider-type monsters on our journey.

  She didn’t want anything smelly, though, huh…?

  “I was thinking of visiting an artist’s atelier this afternoon. Would you prefer a magic-tool workshop or a barrier-post maker?”

  “Pictuuures?”

  “Do they make picture books, sir?”

  “Interested.”

  The other children all wanted to go to the atelier.

  In the end, Arisa had no choice but to give in.

  “Now behold my watercolor magic!”

  A noble in the prime of his life stood in front of a white canvas, holding not a brush but a short wand.

  He was the owner of this atelier. At first, we’d watched other artists make ordinary oil paintings, but once the owner found out we were here, he came to give us a demonstration of his specialty: painting with magic.

  The only relevant skills he had were “Water Magic” and “Painting,” though, so I gathered that there was no actual skill called “Watercolor Magic.”

  Next to me, the clerk who’d been guiding us around the atelier shrank apologetically.

  “… Palette Control E No Gujizai!”

  The owner finished a rather long chant, and an array of colored blobs of water appeared around his wand.

  With each wave of his arm, a colorful picture began to appear on the canvas.

  Whenever he spoke the name of a color, the tip of his wand would change to match. He was even able to affect the nature of the brushstrokes with phrases like “vibrant” and “light as a feather.”

  I could see why he went out of his way to show it off for us. Even aside from the quality of the picture itself, it made for an amazing performance.

  “Prettyyyy?”

  “It’s amazing, sir!”

  Once again held in Liza’s arms, Tama and Pochi flailed excitedly.

  Mia looked disappointed, since she had high standards for fine art, but the other girls all seemed very impressed.

  “…Phew. What do you think? Not too shabby, I hope?”

  “No, that was wonderful.”

  Though his words were humble, the owner looked very proud of himself as he stood before the completed canvas.

  “Sir, could you return to the office soon, please?”

  “No, no, I must entertain Sir Pendragon…”

  A butler-like figure dragged away the owner, back to the work he’d apparently been shirking to entertain us.

  “Sir Knight, we have a painting classroom as well. Would you and your associates like to try your hand?”

  At the clerk’s invitation, we all made paintings of our own.

  Since I had the “Painting” skill, I was able to make a respectable attempt.

  I couldn’t come up with any ideas, so I ended up trying to reproduce the painting of the waving girl I’d seen in the old capital’s museum.

  “I see you excel at painting as well as cooking, Sir Knight. Is this a picture of one of your esteemed family members, perhaps?”

  “No, this is a reproduction of a painting I saw at the museum. It was very interesting, since the girl in the picture actually waved at me. I think it must have been some kind of magic item.”

  “…A magic item that can make a painting move?”

  The woman looked flummoxed by my story.

  They had illusion-creating magic tools and optical illusions, but she seemed unfamiliar with the “moving picture” I described.

  If even a worker at an artist’s atelier had never heard of it, I must have seen some secret new work that hadn’t been officially released yet.

  That made me feel pretty lucky.

  “Look, sir.”

  Pochi, the first to finish her picture, came to show me her work. It wasn’t exactly polished, but it was very heartwarming.

  “Wow, that looks great, Pochi.”

  “This is Pochi and master, sir. And over here is…”

  Pochi pointed at each part of the painting and explained.

  It had the flatness of a child’s drawing, but her personality shone through in it. Pochi and I were depicted holding hands in the center, with everyone else forming a circle around us.

  My favorite part was that everyone was smiling.

  “Tama’s done, too?”

  “…Wow, very impressive.”

  It was so remarkably photorealistic that I was at a loss for words for a moment.

  “Damn, Tama!”

  “Wow.”

  Peering over her shoulder, Arisa and Mia let out exclamations of surprise.

  “It looks very tasty, sir.”

  Pochi drooled a little as she looked at the painting.

  Tama’s subject of choice was a hamburg steak, so of course she did.

  Between the piping-hot steam and the demi-glace sauce dripping over the steak and onto the iron plate, the painting was full of lifelike touches.

  If you used this image as a poster, you could sell hamburg steaks like crazy.

  The other children showed me their paintings in turn.

  “Ooh, a flower garden? Very nice, Mia.”

  Mia’s painting depicted herself and me standing in a flower garden. Naturally, it was very good.

  “Mm. Wedding.”

  I decided not to comment on the title of the image.

  “Master, I would like your evaluation, I entreat.”

  “It looks good to me.”

  To be honest, I couldn’t really tell what Nana’s painting was supposed to be.

  “Chick?”

  “Mia’s query is correct, I affirm.”

  This exchange finally revealed the meaning of the yellow-filled canvas.

  Liza painted a picture of Tama and Pochi, while Lulu painted Arisa. While they were clumsily made, both were wonderful paintings that showed the artists’ love for the subjects.

  Since this was probably their first time ever painting something, I thought following their hearts was the best way to go.

  Aside from Arisa, who had to be stopped from painting a nude picture of me, everyone finished their pictures and left the classroom quite satisfied.

  On the way home from the workshop, I stopped off to buy some painting supplies.

  While I was at it, I inquired whether there were any merchants who could carry a letter to Seiryuu City for me and was directed to a purveyor for nobles who agreed to take it on his way to Kuhanou City.

  My letter was addressed to the magic soldier Zena.

  I was sending it in a sealed letter box, so I was able to enclose a few items I’d bought in the old capital.

  This time, Tama and Pochi had letters to send as well.

  Their letters were addressed to young Yuni, their friend who worked at the Gatefront Inn in Seiryuu City.

  Tama’s was only a single line, but Pochi wrote enough to fill a small novella.

 
Since it might be difficult for the recipient to interpret these on her own, Arisa added a supplementary letter to the landlady of the inn. Glancing it over, I found the kind of polite letter you might send to a business partner.

  Rather than sending letters alone, I added some old capital souvenirs for the folks at the Gatefront Inn as well, including gifts for Yuni that Tama and Pochi picked out.

  There was no easy way to send round-trip mail in the Shiga Kingdom, so I included some postage money for Yuni to write a reply.

  The price of sending a letter in this parallel world was a bit high for children, after all.

  “Boy, you really splurged on that.”

  “You think so? I only spent about three gold coins.”

  Arisa looked at me in astonishment as I thought over the enclosed gifts.

  The jade-silk ribbons and hand mirrors were a little expensive, but the high-end hand creams, coral necklaces, tortoiseshell combs, and glass baubles weren’t nearly as pricey as they sounded.

  All told, it was still cheaper than a single one of the gifts I made for those tea parties.

  When I said that, Arisa only stared at me even more.

  “Let’s all make a picture book together!”

  Arisa must have enjoyed the painting class, since she made this proposal after dinner.

  “Picture book?”

  Mia tilted her head at Arisa.

  “That’s right! We’ll decide on a story, and we’ll each draw one of the pictures! It’ll be fun!”

  “That could be entertaining.”

  Surprisingly, Liza seemed to be on board.

  I guess she’s always liked having picture books read to her, too.

  “I’ll draaaw?”

  “I want to make a story, too, sir.”

  “Arisa, please present the algorithm for picture book production, I request.”

  Tama, Pochi, and Nana were game, too.

  “Perhaps we should use the big table in the dining room, then?”

  “““Yeah!”””

  At Lulu’s pragmatic proposal, everyone moved into the dining room.

  As the one in charge of drawing the cover, I spent a fun evening with my comrades.

  Once they’d worn themselves out, I put them to bed before using the Return spell to teleport to the labyrinth ruins and do some personal work of my own.