After completing my morning routine, it was time to go to work.
When I met up with Yurdum-san in front of the laundromat, I noticed that his eyes were already dead despite it being so early in the morning.
âGood morning. Did something happen?â [Ryouma]
âNo, itâs just the usual, but itâs precisely because of that that Iâm starting to doubt myself for getting used to that spell of yours, Boss.â [Yurdum]
Ah, I see.
Heâs talking about my spell that gathers water to allow my boat to float and move. It certainly would be difficult for a normal magician to maintain this spell for more than an hour while cleaning the road and clearing it of snow, both mana-wise and technique-wise, and yet, here I am doing it as though nothing could be more natural, and everyone just accepts it.
Iâve also gradually started to get used to it.
But anyhow, if thatâs all, then I suppose thereâs no problem. I quickly put away my boat, and headed to work with Yurdum-san.
Our workplace this morning is right in front of my store. Because today Iâm going to be clearing snow manually at the residential district in the eastern part of town. Although I cleared the road of snow with my slime magic early this morning, the snow has been pouring throughout town, and thereâs still plenty of streets to clear.
âCouldnât you have just cleaned everything with your boat?â [Yurdum]
âThatâs true, but as small as my boat may be, the streets there are simply too narrow, and even my mana pool wonât be able to last if I had to clean every nook and cranny. Itâs not a good idea to drink too many mana potions too, so Iâve been limiting the use of that spell to just places that people donât pass by much early in the morning, places that have bigger roads, and places that are lacking in help.
Once the hour gets a little later into the morning, the adventurers from the guild and the people hired by the government office will also start working anyway. Not to mention, the townspeople themselves will also help clear out the snow, so thereâs no reason to force myself to do that much.â [Ryouma]
âThatâs true, I guess. Or rather, wonât you normally run out of mana? Youâve been doing stuff like that right from the morning, and youâve never looked tired or anything, so Iâve always thought that that boat was some kind of magic tool, or maybe thereâs some magic stone supplying it with mana or something.â [Yurdum]
âThereâs no way Iâd go through that much trouble.â [Ryouma]
âYeah, I figured. You donât look the sort⊠Wait a sec, wouldnât it normally be more convincing to be told that heâs relying on some kind of trick or on potions?â [Yurdum]
Yurdum-san seems to be conflicted⊠I never said there were âno tricksâ, though.
Speaking of which, itâs easy for accidents to occur while clearing snow.
While working below the eaves of the roof, snow piled up on the roof can slide down and injure you, or they might bury you under their weight, keeping you from moving.
While working in high places, thereâs the risk of falling, of course, but on top of that, you can also fall into a pile of snow and be unable to get out.
There are a lot of cases of such accidents, so itâs important to prepare well and be careful when removing snow, and itâs just as important to work in groups.
While Yurdum-san and I talked like that, before long, we arrived at our destination.
âLetâs start from here.â [Ryouma]
âAlright.â [Yurdum]
Like that we started clearing the snow from a street in the residential district.
First, Yurdum-san opened the lid to the gutter for drainage.
âIâll be counting on you today too.â [Ryouma]
Then I took out my filter slimes from my dimension magic, and got them to block both ends of the gutter. After that I took out two more slimes from a water jug, the sewage slime and the sludge slime.
The sewage slime evolved from an aqua slime that preferred poison-type mana, while the sludge slime evolved from a mud slime that fed off of sludge. Just like the scavenger slime, both of these slimes possess the Stench skill. Other than that thereâs not much difference between them and the aqua slimes or mud slimes.
In the same way that ice slimes are thought to be merely aqua slimes that have frozen over, these two slimes are thought to be slimes that have merely been dirtied, and most people donât consider them to be an actual evolution.
They were able to evolve because theyâve been hard at work cleaning the gutters before this cold wave came. In fact, theyâre very good at that job.
After all, they feed off of sewage and sludge, so theyâll naturally clean the gutters as long as you leave them there. If a proper setup is prepared for them, they should be useful in large-scale sewer treatments too. Alsoâ
âBoss?ăIs something the matter?â [Yurdum]
âAh, itâs nothing!â [Ryouma]
Oops, thatâs not good. Lost myself in my thoughts, thinking about the slimes again, there for a moment. Weâre at work right now. Gotta focus.
As I renewed my focus, I affixed several sheets of my Light-Absorbent Hot Plate on copper tubes that matched the width of the gutters. By the way, the Light-Absorbent Hot Plates are made by combining the âFine Black Powderâ that I showed to the gods last time and the hardening liquid sheet of the sticky slimes.
By raising the temperature high enough to melt snow, the snow thrown into the gutters can be melted, effectively filling the role that would otherwise be filled by a snow melter tank, and greatly increasing the efficiency of our work.
âŠUnfortunately, the plates merely produce heat through light reflected on it, and that heat is passed on to the water through the copper tubes, so theyâre really nothing more than a simple apparatus and I canât judge them to be a complete product just yet. I think they can still be improved, though perhaps not as good as the solar water-heaters that we used back in Japan.
I spoke about it with Grisiera-san and her group from the Merchant Guild, and the discussion can basically be summarized asâŠ
ă»The hot plates already produce enough heat, so they can be used right away. Moreover, their efficiency can be increased by using them alongside light magic.
ă»There are plenty of workers, especially, adventurers, that can use the rudimentary light spell, Light, even though theyâre not mages.
ă»The design may be simple, but thatâs actually a boon, because itâs precisely that simple design that will allow town craftsmen to mass produce the copper pipes.
ă»Once mass produced, they can be installed throughout town to increase the efficiency of all the workers.
ă»What needs to be prioritized now wasnât the completion of the tool, but the countermeasures to deal with the snow.
With the discussion concluding as such, improvements to the design were put on hold, and the Merchant Guild tasked the craftsmen to mass produce the copper pipes, while I produced as many hot plates as I could and lentă»ă» them to the Merchant Guild. The water heater produced by combining the two products would then be used by the workers, while the merchant guild supervised the whole affair.
I decided to merely lend the hot plates because theyâre still merely experimental, so I have no plans on selling them just yet. With Reinhart-sanâs permission, I might create an improved water heater and sell them in the future to make some change.
As is with its current simple design, the copper pipes can get hotter than the hood of a car on a summer day. It should be possible to further improve and optimize the water heater, and even combining it with a big stove shouldnât be impossible, but as for whether they can be sold or not, Iâll have to find out once I start experimenting and making estimates.
âHeave-ho!â [Ryouma]
After setting the water heater, all that was left was good old physical labor. Yes, weâre really just shoveling the snow normally.
Simple work like this can be done even while deep in thought.
I used my dimension magic and took out a tool with the end of a bulldozer made out of hardening liquid sheet in place of plastic to push all of the snow toward the gutter in one go. After that it was up to the water heater and the slimes inside the gutter to take care of the rest.
Water above a certain level would be filtered by the filter slime and flushed down the end of the gutter, so the water would never overflow. Like that we continued our work merrily.
âGood morning.â [Grandma]
âAh, good morning, grandma.â [Yurdum]
While we were working, Yurdum-san called out to a grandma that walked out of a house.
âHave you cleared the snow in front of my house already? Thank you⊠Iâll go clear the snow in the roof then.â [Grandma]
âGrandma, are you planning to climb up your roof?ăThatâs too dangerous, let us do it.â [Yurdum]
âNah, Iâd feel bad. You already cleared the snow in front of my house. Besides, these legs and loins of mine are still plenty strong.â [Grandma]
âDonât feel bad, Grandma, weâll take care of it. Boss!â [Yurdum]
âI heard. We canât enter private areas, so weâve only cleared the streets until now, but if itâs alright with you, weâd love to clear your roof for you. We have a tool just for that too.â [Ryouma]
I had a terrible experience removing snow from the roof before, so there was a time when I went all over the net researching about tools to deal with snow. Thanks to that, though, Iâm able to create a bunch by recalling those memories.
Of the tools to help with that, the tool I personally found most convenient was a long rod with a metal fixture at the end for cutting snow and a waterproof cloth. The tool is able to efficiently remove snow by sliding the cut snow over the cloth.
âBesides, weâre in an emergency right now. The guild will pay us too as long as we can get proof of our work here in writing. Thereâs a subsidiary aid from the government office for stuff like this, so there wonât be any demerit to you at all.â [Yurdum]
âReally?â [Grandma]
âThatâs right, so just leave it to us.â [Yurdum]
âIn that case, Iâll be counting on you boys then.â [Grandma]
And so, we ended up removing the snow off the grandmaâs roof.
âThat grandma hates being treated like sheâs old, so we need to be careful.â [Yurdum]
Yurdum-san told me quietly while we worked.
It mightâve been because he sensed that that he suddenly brought the topic to compensation.
Heâd brought the topic there rather forcefully, but the grandma didnât seem to mind.
Heâd also easily taken care of a person who asked something unreasonable before when we were clearing the snow.
Yurdum-san appears to be frivolous, but heâs generally a kind and considerate person, though Iâm not sure whether to describe him as someone sharp toward peopleâs emotions or merely someone good at handling distance with others.ăThe more we work together, the more I feel that.
âBy the way, Boss, did something happen recently?â [Yurdum]
âWhat do you mean?â [Ryouma]
âYouâve started to become tense again lately, you know, like last time.â [Yurdum]
âŠReally sharp. And here I was trying not to let it show on me.
âIâm trying not to let last time happen again too, but thereâs something about the air that I just canât shake off.â [Ryouma]
âI see⊠I think itâs been peaceful lately, though. I havenât been picking up any strange glances our way when weâre together, and the snow is like this too. Even if the enemies are planning something, Iâm sure they didnât see this snow coming.â [Yurdum]
âYou might be right, but⊠If I were in their shoesă»ă»ă»ă»ă»ă»ă»ă»ă», Iâd make it so that I can move out at a momentâs notice.â [Ryouma]
I tried putting into words that vague feeling within me.
âItâs true that itâs been peaceful lately. But thatâs exactly what makes it feel so revolting⊠Like the calm before the storm⊠In the first place, the enemy is trying to harass the duke, the actions theyâve taken strike me as though they have a grudge of some sort.ăAnd yet they refuse to attack the members of the duke directly, choosing instead to wreak havoc in town and pull down the reputation of the duke.
Perhaps a direct attack would push their actions beyond the scope of mere harassment, and make it easier to trace them, but what really bothers me is that these people, or the very least, the person giving the orders hasnât put the town in his eye at all. He doesnât care about getting unrelated people caught up in his schemes as long as he can accomplish his goals, or at least, thatâs the feeling he gives me.â [Ryouma]
ââŠYeah, this wonât end as just a nuisance to the people. In fact, when I first came to this city, the air was a lot worse. Apparently, there was an increase in the number of robberies, so the guy definitely doesnât care about involving unrelated people.â [Yurdum]
âYes, now do you think a person like that would give up without accomplishing his goals? I donât think so. Besides, while the enemyâs influence in Gimuru has been suppressed, Reinhart-san has been acting in the imperial capital. From the enemyâs perspective, their plan failed, and now theyâre on the verge of being caught.
As the saying goes, a cornered rat will bite the cat. Now that the enemy has been driven to a corner, heâs bound to throw all pretense, and it wouldnât be strange if he were to stake everything on one last roll⊠In fact, itâs very likely.â [Ryouma]
Because the more I think of this enemy, the more I think about his situation, the more I feel that way.
âPerhaps this heavy snow was unexpected even for them, perhaps itâs obstructed them. But that goes for us too, and in fact, this crazy snow also has us up a wall. If the enemy has been cornered, then they might very well stake it all on one last bet.ăOf course, I donât have proof for any of this.â [Ryouma]
When I said that, Yurdum-san seemed to understand.
âIn that case, theyâll probably attack the moment we show an opening. Alright, Iâll be sure to keep a careful eye out.â [Yurdum]
âThank you very much. It would be good if nothing happened, but just to be safe, we should prepare as much as we can. Iâve also sent a request to the related departments to recheck the emergency response manual⊠So everything that can be done for now has already been done. Just as Yurdum-san said, it has been relatively peaceful recently, so it should be fine to relax a bit⊠Otherwise, itâll end up like last time.â
Thatâs really a black mark on my history, and Iâd really rather not go back to it.
Regardless, Iâm glad that Yurdum-san is taking my words seriously even though I have no proof to back them up. Of course, there are other people working with me too, but itâs probably because heâs here with me that Iâm able to maintain my calm this time and remain leisurely like this.
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