Chapter 42:
Spice
After some time, the Crimson Vow reached a certain town.
They still had not escaped the reaches of Brandel’s borders, but as there were no signs of Mile having been discovered, there was no reason for them to rush. Plus, even if someone did find her out, they could easily shake off any pursuers.
“Why don’t we spend the next few days in this town? We’ve been walking for several days straight now, but we do still need to try and make a bit of money. If we came all the way to another country just to plow straight through it, then it kind of defeats the purpose of going on tour. I want to at least be able to say that we did a few jobs while we were here in Brandel. If anything comes up for Mile, then we’ll just pack up and book it for the border immediately.”
Reina was right, the other three realized. It had in fact been some time since they had last taken a job.
“Spices?” Mile suddenly asked.
The other three followed her gaze.
Spice Gathering. Payment determined by amount and variety of spices acquired. Please speak to client for further details.
“Are you saying we should take this one? Just how does one come by spices? This is the first time that you’ve visited this town, too—isn’t it, Mile? You don’t have any acquaintances or associates in the area, and we have no way of knowing what kind of spices grow around here… But then again, I guess you’d know about that sort of thing. You’re so good at cooking, after all.” Reina sounded skeptical, but Mile just grinned.
“It’ll be fine,” said Mile. “I’ve already got a bit of an inventory anyway. Plus you’d normally expect people to go to a specialty shop or the town market or make a request for something like spices from the merchants’ guild. So if they’re sending their request to the Hunters’ Guild it means that…”
“Something else is going on?” asked Mavis.
Mile nodded.
Reina shrugged. “It doesn’t look like there are any other interesting jobs, anyway. I’d like to think that by now goblin hunting is a little beneath us. It’s probably good experience for us to take weird jobs like these now and then. Is that all right with you all?”
Naturally, Mavis, Pauline, and Mile, nodded.
“Very well then! This will be our first job in this town!” Reina announced, moving to tear the posting from the job board, but Pauline hurriedly stopped her.
“Hang on, you can’t just rip it off! This doesn’t look like it’s just a one-time job. Plus, the job isn’t truly accepted until we’ve spoken to the client and agreed on the terms. The final processing isn’t going to happen right here and now!”
“Oh, whoops!”
And so the Crimson Vow proceeded to the clerk to gather further details about the job before leaving the guild behind them.
***
“So this is the place,” said Reina, standing before a restaurant and looking up at the sign looming over them. It was a rather unnecessarily grandiose sign.
“In we go!”
She proceeded through the door, upon which hung a sign that said “Temporarily Closed.” The other three followed her.
Indeed, the client who had requested this particular job was the owner of this particular eatery—an incredibly run-of-the-mill, or perhaps a little more high-class than normal—establishment known as “Calamity.”
A shop called Calamity that’s looking for spices… What a peppery turn of events! Lights, calamity, action! Er, wait—isn’t “calamity” an English word that means like, “plague” or “disaster?” I’ve got a bad feeling about this… Mile thought to herself. However, no one in this world spoke English, so it probably didn’t actually mean anything. It would have to be a coincidence.
“Pardon us, we saw your posting at the Hunters’ Guild, so…”
When it came to most official exchanges, Mavis was the one to take charge. She was the oldest and seemed the most earnest, after all… And, of course, she was the true party leader.
Yes, the leader of the Crimson Vow was Mavis. Even she seemed to forget that now and then.
“Oh, came to take the job then, did you?”
Hearing Mavis’s voice, a man who appeared to be in his forties emerged from the kitchen.
“We can’t produce our own spices around here, and it’s gonna be a long while until the next shipment, so we’ve been in a bit of a pickle! But uh, do you have any leads on spices? They aren’t something that you can easily come by in this area, and of course normally we’d go to a shop or the merchants’ guild, but they don’t have any more to sell. I’ve already spent most of my dough, so I wouldn’t be handing this off to the hunters’ guild—which really is rather expensive—if I were looking for something easy to find,” the man explained, appearing half-optimistic and half-concerned.
As he went on to explain, this shop used an extravagant amount of high-quality spices in its recipes. (Well, compared to Mile’s experiences from her previous life, they were actually quite stingy with them, but…) Though their ingredients were expensive, they were considered a high-class establishment, so they still managed to turn quite a profit.
Though the shop was well managed, very recently, a calamity had occurred: the merchants who were meant to deliver spices to the shop from a far-off town were assailed by bandits and all their stock plundered.
Bandit attacks were incredibly rare on the route that they took, but, like it or not, that is what had happened.
Thankfully, as the shop had not received any goods, they did not have to pay for them, and they immediately placed another order. However, the spices originated from far away, and apparently, the suppliers had been hit with an unexpected influx of orders, meaning that they were going to be out of stock for some time yet.
For a high-class restaurant known for its well-seasoned dishes, not having spices was entirely out of the question. They had even decided to accept a slight decrease in quality in order to try to scrape up the necessary spices from nearby sources. However…
“The ones who normally enjoy dishes with high-quality seasonings are usually nobles or particularly prosperous merchants. The general populace typically doesn’t even visit any restaurants. They just use pungent herbs and vegetables with a lot of salt. Once you start introducing real spices, you have to raise your prices, or else your profits go down and you can’t stay in business. Our customers know good food when they taste it, and they come to prefer it over the cheap stuff.
“Generally this is not a problem for us, since using high-quality spices is our shop’s selling point. We’re the kind of place that the common man can only visit a few times a year, so the high prices are no issue. In fact, I’d say being pricey gives us more cachet. Of course, spices are a rather rare commodity to begin with. Now that we’ve already scraped up as much as we possibly can, there isn’t much left to find. We’ve already gotten everything we can from our neighbors, both on the capital side and on the border side…”
Apparently, this job was not going to be an easy one.
Somehow, I don’t think we’ll have most of the problems that normal hunters would encounter, thought three of the Crimson Vow.
Indeed, three of them thought this.
And it was the normal hunters who were doing the thinking.
“Well, you can let us worry about how it’ll get done. As for the terms of the job…”
Taking the reigns of the conversation from Mavis, Pauline hashed out the details with the shop owner. The result of their discussion was that, given the fact that they had no idea of the type, quality, or amount of spices they would be able to secure, the job would not be billed at a flat rate as with most task requests but treated as a regular mercantile transaction.
No matter how much the shop owner wanted the spices, if the restock fee ended up being too high, the shop would be in trouble. So it was agreed that he would pay no more than 1.5 times the standard market rate. Any more than that and it would start to dip into their profits.
On top of this, they mutually agreed that even if they failed, the Crimson Vow would not be required to pay a penalty fee, and it would not be recorded as a job failed but as a “job completed with zero results.” This was a complicated task, and even if the Crimson Vow were to fail, it would cause no further hardship for the shop. After all, at that point, the job could still be made available to other hunters.
With this arrangement, there was almost no risk for the Crimson Vow. Even in the worst-case scenario, all they would end up suffering would be a waste of their time. Such was the beauty of Pauline’s negotiating skills.
“With that, I believe our discussion is complete. We will present this contract to the guild along with our job acceptance report.”
With Mavis offering up the last word, the four moved to stand.
“Just a minute.”
Apparently, however, the shop owner was not finished.
“While you’re here, I want you to try our food. We only have a small quantity of the spices that we’ve previously acquired from afar, so I’ll make a little something with those and scrounge up another dish that can be made without spices. I’d like you to try both. If it gives you a bit more strength, things’ll turn out better for all of us!”
It was unclear whether he truly believed that, whether he merely wanted to show off his cooking skills, or whether he thought that this might be the only chance for these hunters, a typically impoverished group, to taste such high-class cooking for themselves…
No matter what his thought process might be, there was certainly no reason for them to refuse.
Plus, Reina had already plopped back down into her seat, the drool practically running from her mouth.
“Pardon the intrusion,” Mavis had no choice but to reply. “It seems as though we will be taking you up on that offer…”
After a short while, the owner brought out two dishes that were visually indistinguishable from one another and placed them before the girls.
“Here are two versions of a spicy beef stir-fry with garlic scapes, chives, mushrooms, and wild vegetables. One is made with our usual spices, and one is made without. The unspiced one has been supplemented with more pungent vegetables, local herbs, and salt for flavor.”
They all tried both of the dishes to compare, and…
“They’re completely different!” said Mavis.
“They really are,” added Mile, apologetically. “No offense meant to your skills, sir, but no matter how much work you’ve put into salvaging the unspiced one, the flavor pales in comparison.”
The shop owner grinned and replied, “No offense taken. In fact, I’ll take that as a compliment, a testament to just how good our seasoning is. I think this will help you understand just how crucial it is for us to get those spices. As long as I’ve gotten that much across, then having you try out these dishes was worthwhile.”
Now that the man mentioned it, what he said was true. The four certainly did feel more inspired now to acquire the spices on Calamity’s behalf.
“Please. We aren’t just some fancy eatery for nobles to frequent but a part of the community—a local, high-quality shop where the common man can experience a bit of luxury now and then. We may not be cheap, but what we share with the people is a dream, an aspiration, something that they can acquire if they just reach a little farther.
“To tell you the truth, what I love the most is to see the happy looks of satisfaction on the faces of our customers who can enjoy this luxury only a few times a year. That’s why I want to reopen this shop as soon as I can. And for that, I absolutely need those spices.”
The four girls nodded and stood. Not the smallest scrap of food was left on their plates.
“What—are y’all heading out already?” asked the shop owner. “I’ve still got more dishes for you to try!”
And so, they sat themselves right back down again.
***
The Crimson Vow left Calamity behind and headed straight to the guild, where they made their report to the clerks and handed over the contract with the terms that had been established during their discussion. Then they set off into the nearby forest.
“So Pauline, why did you decide to include that provision for job failure in the contract? You know I already have a ton of spices packed away in my inventory. Even if we only gave him those, there’s no way that the job could be labeled a failure…”
“It’s for insurance purposes!”
“Wha…?”
What Mile should have been surprised by was the fact that the people of this world had already hit upon the concept of “insurance.” Of course, the insurance of this world didn’t work exactly the same way as that of modern-day Earth—but what left Mile truly flabbergasted was Pauline’s inscrutable actions and the fact that she would bother with such a thing on a job that they had no chance of failing at all.
***
“All right then, are you gonna spill the beans or what?”
“Huh?”
The moment they arrived in the forest, Reina clapped Mile on the shoulders. Mile was perplexed.
“You weren’t really planning on just handing over all the spices you use for your own cooking to the guy and calling it a day, were you?!” Reina continued pointedly. “So, what’s the plan? You gonna use your location magic to figure out where the wild peppers grow? Or are we gonna track down those bandits and retrieve the stolen spices?”
Mavis and Pauline listened in with bated breath, wondering which option Mile was going to choose.
“We aren’t doing either of those things! First off, we aren’t going to be finding any fields full of peppers around here. As for the bandits, how are we supposed to capture them when we don’t even know which bandits they were attacked by or where?!”
It was a reasonable response.
“Aw, come on…”
The other three were completely dejected.
They had become thoroughly spoiled by Mile’s abilities.
“Obviously, we’re going to be making the spices!”
“Whaaaaaaaat?!?!”
And yet, she still managed to surprise them.
“All right now. Pauline, you make an Ultra Hot Waterball in this pan here. Slowly now, make sure it doesn’t spill. Careful…”
Pauline faced the pan that Mile had produced from storage and cautiously began her spell.
“Waterball… Ultra Hot…”
Ker-plunk.
A bright red liquid sloshed into the pan, filling it up to the brim. A noxious aroma drifted up from the vessel.
“Now, I just need to figure out how to break this down…”
Mile thought hard.
Judging by the smell, the Ultra Hot magic definitely employed some sort of capsaicin. This liquid, brought into being by magic, was a physical substance. If she could just remove the capsaicin components from the liquid, they could probably be used as spices.
She had no idea if this physical substance had been brought about by molecular conversion or whether it had been transmitted there from somewhere else, but all that really mattered to her at the moment was that it existed now , so she tried not to think too hard about it.
The root of the spicy taste that came with spiced food was typically either something like the capsaicin found in chili peppers—habanero and the like—or else the allyl compounds that were found in wasabi, mustard, garlic, and so forth. However, those allyl compounds were highly volatile, so their use in cooking environments was fairly limited.
Furthermore, when it came to spices, there were also substances such as nutmeg, ginger, cassia, cumin, coriander, pepper, cinnamon, sage, thyme, bay leaves, et cetera. However, what the shop owner was after were most likely those spices of the capsaicin variety. With that in mind, the other possibilities became irrelevant.
This was the reason that Mile had asked Pauline to employ her Ultra Hot magic. However…
“If we simmer it for a while, there’s a chance that all the spice might go out of it, even if the spice elements—unlike allyl compounds—are chemically stable. Plus, heating it up until all the liquid evaporates might take a long while…”
The boiling and evaporating methods would probably prove rather inefficient in producing a large amount of spices—and plus, even with a number of pans, they would only be able to collect a small amount. Realizing this, Mile racked her brain for alternatives.
And then suddenly, she was struck with an epiphany.
“That’s it! According to a modern physics book I read ages ago, there might just be a way! The ‘LovePlus Demon’! No, wait—that was a different sort of methodology. That one was, ‘If a being of sufficient intellect to know every facet of a dating sim’s code existed, then they could predict the outcomes of every route of the game,’ or something like that. That’s not right at all!
“Right—I remember now! The principle I was thinking of was something like: ‘A vessel of lukewarm coffee is divided into two portions with a shutter. If you employed an omnipotent demon to open the shutter only when the faster moving molecules moved from right to left, and when the slower moving molecules moved from left to right, then you could divide the liquid into hot and cold without introducing additional energy into the system, thereby decreasing the entropy.’ So if we used something like that…
“Oh, yes, yes—that was it! The ‘Maxwell House’s Demon’ principle… Anyway, in reality, there’s been a reduction in information here, and as a result, an increase in entropy, but that’s got nothing to do with me! And besides, I don’t have to rely on any demons because I have my nanobuddies…”
MUTTER.
MUTTER… MUTTER…
Suddenly, a chattering seemed to fill the air around her.
Mile, however, did not notice this and began to attempt a spell.
“Nanomachines inside the pan form a thin membrane in the middle and use that shutter to separate the two sides into moisture and capsaicin…”
GYAAAAAAAAAH!
She heard a noise.
“Okay, forget that. Just separate out the capsaicin particles however you want, nanos. Oh yeah, and since we don’t actually need the moisture, you can just get rid of that.”
Shwoop!
The next moment, all the moisture had vanished from the saucepan, leaving only a small amount of red powder remaining on the bottom of the dish. (Incidentally, capsaicin actually crystalizes into a white powder, but the nanomachines, of their own judgment, concluded that that would not seem especially “spicy,” and, ever prudent, decided to add in the red coloring themselves.)
I wonder what was so awful about the partition method… Mile pondered, tilting her head.
“What in the world were you just muttering to yourself about?” asked Reina. “Is this the magic-made spice you were talking about?”
She stuck her fingers into the pan and took up a pinch of the powder, giving it a curious lick.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
It was pure, crystallized capsaicin. On the Scoville scale, it would have a value of 16,000,000 units. For comparison, this was roughly 3,200 to 6,400 times the heat of your standard Tabasco sauce, which has a rating of around 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units. It was not a level of heat that your average human could bear.
Mile had rushed to stop her, but she was a moment too late.
“…! ……!! ………!!!”
Reina fell to the ground writhing, unable to speak.
Pauline, who had been about to stick her finger in to taste it as well, froze, white as a sheet.
“R-Reina, open your mouth, hurry! Stick your tongue out as far as you can!”
Through gobs of tears, Reina steeled herself and followed Mile’s directions, thrusting her tongue out.
“Ice Water!”
Mile struck Reina’s tongue with a beam of magical water.
Because capsaicin locks onto the portions of the tongue that sense heat as well as the pain receptors, numbing the tongue with cold water would dull the sensation, while the powerful stream blasted the molecules away. And then…
“Heat!”
Capsaicin does not easily dissolve in water, but it does in oil, so she withdrew some cooking oil from her inventory and heated it, using that to wash Reina’s tongue. Finally…
“While that cleans off your tongue, take this and drink it very slowly!”
With that, she pulled out the final ingredient, some heated milk that was still warm from the inventory, and handed it to Reina.
Despite Mile’s quick thinking, Reina was still in pain, but she had gotten past the worst of it, so she endured quietly, not bothering to complain to Mile.
Seeing this, Mile recalled the tale of a certain boy detective.
Lick…
“Hm, this is potassium cyanide!”
Collapse.
***
“I-Is this pure chili powder?!”
Pauline gaped at the capsaicin powder that had suddenly appeared, her eyes like that of a nuclear physicist.
“Yes,” said Mile. “Well, this is technically only the component of a chili pepper that makes it spicy, isolated here on its own.”
Hearing this, Pauline appeared to be in a trance.
“This pure spice came from my magic… For as long as I have magical power, I can make this high-priced ingredient over and over again! This is the work of a god. It’s like I can shoot gold coins from my fingertips! With this, I’ll be filthy rich, like no one ever was! Unparalleled riches!!!”
Though it was not the same as pepper, which was often worth literally its weight in gold, chili was a very high-priced ingredient by weight, as far as foodstuffs went. Plus, this was the spice in pure, crystalized form. Of course Pauline would be riding high.
Oh, this is bad… Mile fretted, watching her friend.
At this rate, Pauline was going to start suggesting that they go into high-volume production of this chili—or rather, capsaicin powder—so that they could make a fortune… Well, actually, she was already saying it.
At this rate she’s gonna go over to the Dark Side. I can’t let that happen…
Quickly, Mile poked a hole in the rising soufflé that was Pauline’s dreams.
“We can’t do that, Pauline! If we made a fortune off of this powder, it would spell disaster for the spice industry! It’s not just producers or transporters who would suffer—think of the ramifications for international trade. Besides, given that we would have no record of having purchased it, having transported it, having stored it anywhere, or even having paid taxes on it, the authorities would catch on to us in a heartbeat. And all the nobles and officials and merchants and criminals would come crawling out of the woodwork, asking us for information and exclusivity and tax money…”
“Erk.”
Pauline was, of course, a merchant’s daughter. She understood exactly what Mile was getting at. If they didn’t tell people that they had acquired the product by magic, they might be abducted, tortured, or even arrested for import fraud and tax evasion. On the other hand, if they did spill the beans, they might be murdered to keep the secret from getting out—or else the secret would get out, and the price would plummet. It would be a fatal blow for producers and brokers of chilis, and it would cripple their own profits as well.
And of course, the biggest problem would be that Pauline’s special Ultra Hot magic would begin to spread.
Thus far, the Crimson Vow, as its originators, were the only ones who knew about this magic. Only a few dozen people so far had witnessed it (or rather, been on the receiving end of it), and for the most part, those people could not use magic. Even for the ones who were capable mages, it would be incredibly difficult to determine the source of the spell’s effect from seeing it just one time.
Besides, any mage who would sully their hands with criminal acts was not much of a mage to speak of at all. If they had any significant amount of power, they would be more than able to make money by legitimate means. Furthermore, any such person who had made an enemy of the Crimson Vow had since been imprisoned and sold off for labor.
So, as things were, there was little worry of any knowledge of this particular magic being spread to other people. However, if it did get out, and mages with criminal intent began using Ultra Hot-type magic…
The balance of power between mages and melee fighters would crumble entirely and those criminal mages would become unstoppable!
As all this ran through Pauline’s mind in a single instant, the blood drained from her face.
“I-In that case, won’t even this little bit we made right now cause a problem?” offered Mavis.
“Erk!”
Mile faltered.
“Uhm, well, it’s… you know!”
“Know what?” Mavis and Reina asked, suspiciously.
“This is this, and that is that!”
“………”
And so the mass-production of the synthetic spices began.
Pauline used her Ultra Hot magic, while Mile used her isolation magic, and then the jars were stored away in her inventory.
Obviously, they could not march back into town too quickly—that would be suspicious. Therefore, they made the collective decision to stay a while longer and produce a large amount of the product for future use. As long as it was stored in Mile’s inventory, it would not deteriorate, and it could also be used as a weapon. While Mile and Pauline were busy putting the powder into the various containers that were already inside Mile’s storage space, Reina and Mavis set to work packing it into vessels of bamboo and grass that could be tossed like grenades and other such weaponry.
These were weapons that could sap all the fight from an opponent without injuring them. It truly was a humane means of combat.
However, as Reina sat quietly packing the hand grenades, a strange, wicked grin hung on her face.
There could only be one reason for this.
She couldn’t accept being the only one to suffer. Misery loves company, after all.
In the midst of her work, Mile caught this smile out of the corner of her eye and began to think, desperately, of how to devise some countermeasure should one of those grenades suddenly be lobbed her way…
***
That evening, the Crimson Vow returned to town and took a room at an inn. Initially, they had planned to camp out for three days to feign the amount of time it would take to go hunting or gathering for goods; however, the longer they stayed away, the longer Calamity would remain closed.
Plus, they were already doing something that was outside the norm. It made little difference if it took three days or one to do it.
By now, such things were of little consequence to them.
It was possible that they had breathed in too many of the spice particles and gone funny in the head. They had inhaled too much curry and gone mad, just like Hanada Kousaku, the Curry General of Houchounin Ajihei , and his Black Curry.
Still, for the sake of making it look like it had at least taken them a little more time—and because they were now eager to call it quits for the night rather than heading straight for Calamity, they journeyed to the inn to take a load off.
They could do it tomorrow. That’s a saying they have in Spain, isn’t it? “Hasta mañana,” which in this case meant, “The deadline doesn’t haftah mattah-nya!”
…Who let that catperson in here?!
***
“So, anyway. We got them.”
“…What do you mean, ‘so, anyway’? Well, I suppose… Let’s just see ’em!”
Given how quickly the girls had returned to him, the owner of Calamity held out little hope for their results, resigning himself to receiving only the smallest bounty, offered up merely for the sake of form and in the hope of earning a job completion mark.
For one, the Crimson Vow did not appear to even be carrying anything, which meant that their offerings could not have been anything more than what they could stuff in their pockets. However…
Boom!
From out of nowhere, a massive bucket suddenly appeared atop the table. Inside the bucket was a strange red power.
“Wha…? No, d-don’t tell me…”
Instinctively, the owner reached out to touch the powder, but Mile swiftly seized him by the wrist.
“Tch!”
Reina, robbed of a new ally in suffering, glared at Mile, fangs bared.
“R-Reina, you’re really scaring me…”
After finally persuading the owner not to sample (?) the powder directly, they procured a small pot full of soup and mixed a tiny amount into it. And then, when he sampled that …
“Pwah!”
He collapsed.
“W-water…”
“Here you go!”
Thinking that just such a thing might occur, Mile had already prepared a glass of cold water and stored it away in her inventory. Unlike in Reina’s case, the owner would not have the pure product lingering on his tongue, so the water should be enough.
Mile had to try desperately to restrain herself from instead withdrawing some earthworms that were still stored away in her inventory from the time they had all gone fishing, just for the sake of a joke. It probably would be less than prudent to offer a client a glass of cold “ worm -ter.”
After a short while, the shop owner was back on his feet. Naturally, he had a few questions.
“Where in the world did you get your hands on this? No, wait, more importantly—what is this stuff?”
“Oh, well, this is a pure, concentrated version of the components of chilis that make them spicy. Unfortunately, the supplier swore us to absolute secrecy…”
“……”
The owner stared into the bucket with frighteningly serious eyes.
“So, how much of it would you like to buy?”
Leave it to Pauline to cut straight to the chase.
The market price for pepper was five silver per gram. It had roughly the same value as gold. Chilis were nowhere near that pricey, usually netting 1 silver per gram. This was still fairly expensive, but one gram of powdered spice worked out to a very large amount—so much so that you wouldn’t even use a tenth of it in one dish. Incidentally, if you used a full gram in a single dish, even that was only 1 silver’s worth, which in Japanese money equaled about 1,000 yen. And at any rate, the owner was only buying the spice at a 1.5x markup from the market rate. He could break even by just raising the prices of his dishes slightly, so it wasn’t a big deal.
There was probably about five kilograms there before him… At market rate, that would come to around 50 gold or five million yen in modern-day Japanese currency. At a markup of 1.5x, that would be 75 gold. Plus, it was already around 5,000 times hotter than standard chili powder—only a fraction of the normal amount of this special powder would still be more than enough.
Even so, the Crimson Vow obviously could not price it 5,000 times higher than the normal rate, and they were very curious as to how the shop owner would value it. While they all stared each other down, the owner casually stuck a finger into the soup from before and tasted it again, deep in thought.
Finally, he reached his conclusion.
“I’ll give ya ten gold for the lot.”
“What?”
The owner was an honest, hard-working individual who loved to cook. Therefore, Mavis, Reina, and Mile were shocked at hearing such a low price presented. Only Pauline showed no signs of surprise.
“Might I ask the basis of that appraisal?” she asked pointedly. “Bearing the standard price for chilis in mind.”
The owner flinched slightly, but then recalled that he was only facing a little girl, and his resolve swiftly returned.
“It’s too finely processed. There’s no hint of the original peppers. That’s why the price has gone down. This is merely spice—it has none of the complex flavors of a chili pepper. In fact, the price I gave you is already an undeservedly high one for less-than-third-rate, inferior goods such as these. But, since you did go out and do the job properly, I thought I’d cut’cha a break! Ahaha!”
The owner gave a forced laugh, but Pauline only peered at him, her eyes like ice.
“And what of the fact that, because it’s so spicy, you’d barely need to use any of it?”
“Oh? I’m pretty sure that was just a mismeasurement on my part. It’s just a little bit on the spicy side.”
“How much do you suppose it cost us to acquire this quantity?”
“There’s no way a group of greenhorns like you would have the money to stock up for very much. I bet you stole it from somewhere or got it on the cheap, right? Look, just hand it over already, and don’t make trouble. You are gonna tell me where you got this from, aren’tcha?”
“Mile, put it away!”
“On it!”
“Huh?”
At Reina’s command, Mile put the bucket full of spice back into storage at once.
The owner gaped, wide-eyed, at the suddenly empty space.
“That’s a ‘complete, with no results,’ then.”
The Crimson Vow moved to leave, but the owner rushed to stop them.
“Wha…?! W-wait! I’m the one who hired you all, so…”
“We failed to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement on the price, so the negotiation is a failure, isn’t it? The job was complete as contracted, with no penalties on either side. That was indeed the original contract. It says so on the guild record, in fact—in writing,” Pauline reminded him.
“Guh…”
The owner, backed into a corner, began to panic.
“W-well, what I meant was, I only have ten gold on hand right now! I definitely didn’t think that I was going to buy that much off of you fer just ten gold! Obviously we can’t keep much gold in the shop at one time. We’d get robbed blind if we did. I have to go withdraw the rest from the merchants’ guild, so it’s gonna take me a bit! Please, come back here this evening. I’ll have it ready for you then!”
How suspicious.
The Crimson Vow all shared the same thought, but they nodded to acknowledge his words and left the shop behind them.
***
“So, what do you think?” asked Mile.
Pauline shrugged.
“It’s not looking great. First off, he tried to avoid giving us a price. Then he tried to drive the price down, probably because he was underestimating us. And after that, he attempted to sniff out our source.”
“And here I thought he was a true artist, someone concerned with flavor above all else…” Mile said, disappointed. “If he hadn’t tried to belittle us or squeeze our source out of us, I might’ve been inclined to even charge him less than market price. It cost us nothing to make it, and it is true that it’s incredibly spicy without much smell or flavor, which makes it very difficult to cook with, after all.”
“Well,” said Reina, “I guess it just goes to show that all it takes is a pile of money to bring out someone’s true colors.”
She cast a sidelong glance at Pauline, who did not seem to notice.
Sighing, Pauline said, “I get the feeling that even if we wait until evening, it isn’t going to change anything.”
“Well, in that case, why don’t we go hunt something while we’re waiting around, so it’s not a total waste of our time?”
“Yeah!!!”
Mavis’s proposal was well received.
***
That evening, the Crimson Vow returned again to the gourmet eatery, Calamity. There, they sat across a table from the shop’s owner, each side facing the other.
“Now then, shall we continue this afternoon’s negotiations? We have yet to hear your new proposal regarding a price arrangement. How much are you willing to pay?”
Pauline’s voice was cold. Clearly, she no longer regarded the man as a suitable trade partner.
“First,” he replied, “I wanna see the goods again. I can’t risk forking over a bunch of money just for you to take it and then say, ‘Oh, we actually already sold it all somewhere else.’”
Pauline nodded, and once more, Mile withdrew the bucket full of powdered spice from her inventory and placed it atop the table. Seeing this, the owner grinned.
“Now then, how about you tell me where this stuff came from? Give me that, and I’ll raise my price to eleven gold for the lot.”
“Ahhhh…”
The four girls let out a prolonged sigh. This was, in fact, a waste of their time.
As the four moved to stand and leave once again, the owner clapped his hands twice. The side door opened, and five fellows, who appeared to be hunters in their thirties or forties, appeared. Two of the men stood blocking the doors, while the other three surrounded the owner, as if to guard him.
“Well,” said the man, “I thought we could handle this peacefully, but I guess you all wanna do it the hard way. You three—capture them!”
“Ahhhh…”
Once again, the Crimson Vow let out a great sigh.
“Well, uh, I’m not exactly sure why you want us to capture them,” said one of the men. “It doesn’t look like you’re in danger or anything. You just had a failed negotiation, didn’t you? Taking them prisoner for that alone would make us criminals…”
Apparently, these were not some thugs on the owner’s payroll but just a group of normal hunters.
“They’re clearly wagon-raiding bandits! That bucket there contains the spices that were stolen from us. They waltzed in here out of nowhere trying to sell my own goods back to me, and when I offered eleven gold pieces to get them back, all they wanted to do was keep drivin’ up the price! So I’m gonna bring them down and hand them over to the authorities! Now hurry up and capture them!”
Even with these excuses, it could cause quite a lot of trouble to falsely imprison someone. Especially given that they were dealing with a group of young girls, it was entirely possible that the hunters would be given a red mark or even have their licenses revoked. They were not about to do something so imprudent.
“Mister, we were hired as your guards. We have no reason to capture a group of young ladies who have made no move to cause you any harm—whether or not they’re bandits. Though I suppose, if they were bandits, there would be a reward out for them, and, as good hunters ourselves, I can’t see why we shouldn’t want to cooperate with you… Have you any proof?”
The owner pointed straight at the bucket on the table.
“That! That right there is the product that our shop ordered from far away, which was stolen by bandits on its way here!”
The hunter turned to the Crimson Vow and asked, “Is that true?”
Fwp fwp fwp!
The girls shook their heads in unison.
“To begin with, that bucket contains a specialty spice that we obtained all on our own. It’s not something that you can get anywhere else. Why don’t you ask the owner there where it is that he ordered it from?” Mile started. “It would probably take a long time to confirm his claims with the source, but I’m sure that if you asked around at the neighboring shops and with the merchants’ guild, they could tell you whether such a source exists, whether they have ever sold such a product, and whether this product is one that is typically used by this store.”
The hunters’ gazes all turned toward the owner.
“M-my sources are a proprietary secret! That’s not something you go flapping your gums about! Why don’t you all tell us where you got that from and prove your innocence?!”
“Oh?” said Mile, a look of feigned shock on her face. “But didn’t you just say that a source was something you shouldn’t go flapping your gums about?”
The hunters snickered.
“Wha…”
“Plus,” she continued, “regarding those stolen spices, didn’t you tell us just yesterday morning that they had been stolen before you even had a chance to receive the goods—so you hadn’t lost any money on them? In which case, the stolen goods were never your property but that of the spice merchants, weren’t they? Are you really trying to say that you have a legitimate claim to their goods?”
The hunters looked on in surprise as the owner stammered wordlessly.
“Furthermore, did you really order this great an amount? Are you saying that the amount you ordered is exactly the same as the amount in this bucket?”
“Y-yes! I ordered five kilograms—it’s a perfect match!”
As the owner made this claim, a grin spread across Mile’s face.
“In that case… Allow me to clear up your misgivings!”
One after another, Mile drew out a variety of containers in many shapes and sizes, lining them all up on the table. Altogether, they contained an enormous amount of spices.
“Huuhhhhhhhh?!?!”
There was a cry of shock, not only from the owner, but from the five hunters as well.
“St-storage magic!!!”
The whole group was, of course, shocked at just how many vessels had appeared, although given that the owner was already aware of Mile’s storage magic abilities, he did not share the hunters’ surprise on this count.
“I would say that this is proof that these spices are not something that we merely stole from some caravan, wouldn’t you?” said Mile, facing not the owner but the five hunters.
The hunters nodded emphatically.
“Um, so. Judging by what I overheard earlier, I’m guessing that you all are hunters who were hired for what you thought was going to be a normal, legitimate guard job?” Mile asked.
The man who seemed to be the leader scratched his head and replied, “That’s right. It was a job that just got posted this morning and wasn’t discussed very much ahead of time. He told us that he was dealing with a group of hunters and that he wanted to have us ready as a show of force just in case the negotiations got a little hairy. We were supposed to show up and look intimidating when he gave us the signal. He said it was just a group of little girl rookies, so it would be no big thing—and that we’d get a feast of good food and booze this evening for doing just a little bit of work. So of course we grabbed that slip the moment we saw it…”
“In that case, I would say that the circumstances here are clear, are they not? This man wove a false tale in order to try and steal these spices away from us and secure our supply route for himself—and aimed to make you all do something criminal in the process. Our possession of these spices clearly contradicts the owner’s testimony earlier. Plus, if he truly thought we were bandits, wouldn’t the usual course be to contact the authorities rather than contracting hunters at his own expense? This man has hired you under false pretenses, given false testimony, and tried to force us to reveal our secrets. Would you all be so kind as to serve as witnesses to this with the guild and the city guard?”
“Y-yeah, absolutely. If we didn’t, we would get a job failure marked on our record or even be labeled accomplices to a crime, which would be bad for us, obviously. Yet we also have a request: please attest to the fact that our party never made any mistakes or did anything illegal—we were only deceived!”
Mile readily agreed. The hunters looked relieved.
“Now, as for our culprit…”
The man suddenly appeared queasy.
“You knew that these spices were not stolen goods, but you tried frame us as criminals just to get your hands on them. Furthermore, you didn’t even have any rights to the stolen goods in the first place. You deceived the guards you hired from the guild and tried to make them accomplices to your crimes. Before we turn you over to the authorities, by way of the guild, is there anything you would like to say for yourself?”
As Mile offered the man a last word, he began to argue desperately. “I-I meant you no ill! This isn’t that serious—”
“Oh, ‘no ill?’ The thought never crossed your mind that you might be doing something wrong? You’re saying that for you, this is a completely normal procedure? That it didn’t make your conscience sting even a little bit?”
The Crimson Vow and the hired hunters all glared down at him as though the man were little more than a pile of dirt.
“Huh? Uh, no, that’s not what I meant! I just…”
“If you could try and trick someone into a criminal act with no ill will, then I just shudder to think what atrocities you might commit when an evil mood does strike you…”
And then Mile landed the finishing blow.
“Also, are you going to tell me that you intended to fight against the hunters who you yourself hired through the guild?” She turned to the other hunters. “What does the guild do in matters like this?”
“It’s seldom seen, but such acts of malice toward the guild are committed now and then. Not only will he no longer be able to place requests with the guild, but he’ll be taken in and turned over to the authorities. If things had gone south and we’d ended up fighting you girls, there might have been some casualties. He won’t get off lightly, I can tell you that.”
As he listened in on this exchange, the owner went white as a sheet. Seeing how terribly he was trembling, Mile thought to herself, Well, I guess we’ve frightened him enough .
“So then, what made you decide to do this?” she asked.
The owner desperately replied, “I j-just really wanted those spices! I thought that if I could get my hands on a spice like that for cheap—not just temporarily but for the foreseeable future—then I could start selling dishes that were chock full of spice for lower prices… I know it’s no excuse, but I figured that if I had a cheap, nearby source of seasonings with that much heat, then even if it was lacking in flavor or aroma, I could mix it up with normal chilis and use a few other tricks to make do! If I could get it as cheaply as possible, then all my the less-fortunate customers, for whom this food was out of budget so far, would be able to enjoy this spicy food whenever they liked, without a care…
“You all are traveling hunters, aren’t you? If you all lived around here then there’s no way I wouldn’t have noticed a group of such memorable young women as yourselves. In other words, you’re going to be leaving town soon, aren’t you? And so, your source!” He collapsed, hands on the floor, his head hung in shame. “I just wanted so badly to know how you got your hands on that spice…”
The girls were a bit troubled.
From the get-go, they had thought the owner was rather arrogant. However, given that his position as their client gave him a bit of an elevated standing, and that they were, of course, only a group of young girls, they had not thought too much of it. It was not at all rare to meet some stubborn older gentleman who was passionate about his craft.
Besides, when it came to his cooking and his customers, he seemed incredibly sincere.
If only they had not been the ones to take on this job.
If only they had brought him a normal kind of spice in a normal amount.
If only things had gone that way, then perhaps the man could have proceeded through a normal transaction and continued to run his business as a normal restaurateur.
Their own misdeeds had driven this man to the path of crime and sent his life into disarray.
As they realized this, a crippling unease set upon them.
“So then, what did you intend to do if seeing your hired guards did not persuade us and things came to blows?” asked Mile.
The owner stared blankly and replied, “What? I mean, you all are no match for them! I just figured that you girls would quietly surrender in order to protect yourselves or that you would easily be captured, and then you might tell us where you got the spices in order to prove that you weren’t thieves. Then I could discover the source that way…”
“And then you intended to turn us over to the authorities so that we could be jailed—even executed—for a crime that we didn’t commit?”
The man raised his voice in shock.
“O-of course not! I would never do such a thing! All I really wanted was the source, so after I got you to tell me that much, I was going to give you your gold, apologize for the misunderstanding, and let you go!”
The explanation was sound, but Mile wouldn’t let him off the hook so easily.
“What if we didn’t tell you?”
“…What?”
“What I’m saying is, what had you planned to do if we decided that we valued our loyalty over our lives and refused to tell you our source? Were you still going to turn us over as bandits? Or did you plan to torture the information out of us?”
The owner’s face went blank and took a few moments to return to his original expression.
“…I didn’t think about that.”
“Huh?”
There was a chorus of confusion throughout the room.
“I didn’t think that far ahead…”
Somehow or other, it seemed he was telling the truth.
“Well, at any rate, there was never any possibility of that happening in the first place.”
“Huh??”
The owner’s and the hunters’ voices overlapped.
“I mean, if it had truly come to blows, we would have just knocked all the other hunters out and turned all six of you in to the authorities, letting them know we had been attacked by robbers.”
The hunters sneered at Mile, with expressions that seemed to say, “Hey now, enough with the jokes, kid.”
That was when Mile snapped.
At first, she had merely been trying to gauge the shop owner’s intent, or rather, how far ahead he had planned. Once she had done so, her intention was to wave the whole thing off, like, “Oh well, there wasn’t a chance of that happening anyway, so it’s whatever, honestly.” But clearly, these men were not taking them seriously.
Any hunters who would stand for letting themselves be so belittled would never make it in this line of work.
“Reina! Pauline!”
“Firebomb!”
“Ice Needle!”
At Mile’s signal, the two swiftly cast their spell-free spells, and a small ball of flame, along with a modest barrage of ice needles, appeared above their heads. They had been holding these spells in their heads from the moment the other hunters appeared, ready to cast them at a moment’s notice. This was a natural precaution for mages.
“What?! Spell-free casting?!”
The guard hunters’ eyes went wide.
Then, Mile drew a copper coin from her inventory (pretending to pull it from her bosom), turned to Mavis, and flicked her fingers.
“Mavis!”
“On it!”
Her sword slashed in the blink of an eye, and Mavis’s left hand flew from the grip of her sword through the air.
As you may have guessed, it was the special trick that Mile herself had popularized: the Copper Coin Cutter.
When the girls went drinking with the guild master back in the town where Mile had first registered as a hunter, Mavis had heard Laura describe this special technique, which Mile had used to impress the hunters in the guild there. Later, Mavis begged Mile to teach it to her, and so the trick was passed on to her.
However, for as much as it was called a “trick,” that did not mean that it was the sort of thing that just anyone could pick up if given the right instruction. It was a technique that Mavis could only use because she was wielding a sword that had been forged by Mile.
“Wh…?”
Impossibly, the hunters’ eyes opened even wider. In Mavis’s open palm, there was the copper coin cut cleanly in two. They turned to look back at Pauline and Reina, the firebomb and ice needles still floating above their heads.
“P-please forgive us!!!”
The hunters went pale, imagining just how things might turn out if a real battle erupted. Now, they knew the Crimson Vow’s true strength.
“M-man, I really didn’t expect this. You all are so young… You have such a skilled swordswoman; these two mages, who are as good as B-ranks; and as for you , you’re little, but… You’re the brains of the operation, aren’t you?” asked the fellow who appeared to be the hunters’ leader.
Mile shook her head. “No. Compared to Pauline’s blackhearte—ahem, resourcefulness —I am but an infant. I am a swordswoman-slash-mage.”
From beside her, Reina added, “And really, Mile’s the strongest of all of us—whether with magic or swords.”
“Wha…” The five hunters shrunk away.
They’re terrifying. These girls are terrifying!
The Crimson Vow’s reputation had yet to spread across national borders.
Of course, they had made a name for themselves at the graduation exam, and with a few other incidents, but in the end, they were still just a group of rookie C-rank hunters. It would be strange if people in other countries did know their name. It was one thing in the capital of their own country, where plenty of people had attended the exhibition and seen their prowess for themselves, but even in the Kingdom of Tils, hardly anyone outside of the capital itself had even heard of them.
There was a small chance that some people knew about Veil, the boy who had vanquished the leader of the Roaring Mithrils. That was all according to Mile’s plan…
And now, it was time to deal with the owner.
It would be one thing if this were a routine job, but Reina, Pauline, and of course, Mavis, were useless when it came to such an unusual situation. Thus, they let Mile take the reigns. Every aspect of this operation had been left up to her judgment.
Mile thought for a bit, then faced the shop owner and spoke.
“That’ll be twelve gold pieces.”
“Huh?”
Everyone, save for the Crimson Vow, stared at Mile in confusion.
“What did you just say?” asked the lead hunter.
“I said, twelve gold pieces.”
“………”
Silence spread throughout the room.
“But why?!” the leader screeched angrily.
And so, Mile explained.
“I don’t think that the owner here is a bad person, deep down… He merely had the incredible chance to get his hands on the spice of his dreams, which stirred up a bit of evil in him…”
“No ordinarily honest person would ever stoop that low!” The leader of the hunters protested. “If he’s the kind of guy who would do this, I guarantee you that he would definitely do the same thing all over again in similar circumstances! To make matters worse, he’ll have learned from this experience. Next time, he won’t bother hiring a legitimate guard, but instead some actual thugs, and I doubt that whoever he sets his sights on will be nearly as strong as you. They’ll probably be tortured by those thugs or their buddies and end up strung up as criminals on false charges. You do understand that, don’t you?!”
He was, in fact, correct.
However, Mile rejected his argument.
“It’s fine. I’m sure the owner is already reflecting on his actions, and he won’t try anything like this again in the future. Besides, the specialty spice we offered him was something that we’d already brought along with us in storage. It’s not made anywhere around here, and there’s no possible way for the owner to get in touch with the producers. Plus…”
“Plus?”
“If he ever does something like this again, we’ll come back and deal with him. And when we do, we’ll be sure to stuff a ton of this spice down his throat. The same amount as what’s in that bucket right now, perhaps…”
Hearing this, the owner began to tremble.
An experience like that would spell death for him, both emotionally and physically.
When the guard hunters saw this, they snickered.
“Anyway,” Mile continued, “if he swears he’ll never do it again, then I suppose we can let him off this once. Even if we turned him over to the authorities, it’s not like he’s a bandit or anything, so we wouldn’t get any reward for it. Moreover, we wouldn’t be able to sell our spices, so we wouldn’t make a profit. Besides, you’d be losing the best restaurant in town—it’s really a lose-lose situation. Therefore, I think we can just let him off, though not without a bit of a penalty.”
“A penalty?”
“Yes. Say, for example, he has to pay each of you one extra gold coin on top of your promised wages, for wasting your time. Five gold in total…”
“All right!!!” came a chorus.
“I-If he really is reflecting on his actions, th-then I guess it would be all right to let him go just this once! We mustn’t forget that compassion is an important part of being human!”
The moment they heard Mile’s proposal, the leader and his allies’ attitudes changed immediately. Mile looked to the owner and saw him nodding his head fervently. Apparently, the matter was settled.
She stored away all of the spices, save for the bucket they had brought out initially, ignoring the owner’s small sigh. Understandably, the man did not have the strength of heart to suggest that they sell him any additional spices. It was clear from the fact that Mile had only brought out the one bucket initially that she had never intended to sell him any more than that. Now recognizing that she had clearly obtained the product from some far-off land and would not want to be relieved of her stock all at once, the owner understood it was only natural she would reject any further requests.
In fact, neither the claim that the spice was “not made anywhere around here” or that she had “brought it along in storage” was technically a lie. They had made the product themselves, so it wasn’t something anyone else in the area would be able to provide, and they had in fact carried it from the forest in storage. So really, Mile had told the whole truth. If anyone should misinterpret her words, why, that was no fault of hers, was it?
The owner retreated to the shop’s hidden vault and came back with a leather sack, handing twelve gold coins to the Crimson Vow and one each to the other hunters as he signed each of their job completion forms. The guard hunters’ pay had already been deposited ahead of time at the guild, so they would retrieve it once they gave their report there.
***
“So, now what?”
“Hm, what to do…?”
After leaving the restaurant behind and giving their report at the guildhall, the Crimson Vow huddled up near the job posting board. They had originally planned to spend several days in this town, but now that the spice matter was settled, there did not appear to be any other interesting jobs available.
As usual, if other hunters were to hear them hemming and hawing over what jobs to choose based on interest alone, they would be furious, but as it stood the Crimson Vow were not hurting for money. Plus, while the aim of this journey was ostensibly to find out what the elder dragons were after, at the moment, that much was merely incidental. Their main goal for now was to better themselves, earn more promotion points, and to have fun traveling with their friends.
This did not mean that they might not still take on boring, low-level hunting and extermination jobs now and then, depending on the circumstances, but, if at all possible, they would prefer to do unusual and interesting jobs—ones that would temper their skills and grant them new experiences.
For young maidens, time was a precious thing. They could not afford to waste it on tasks that were not worth their while.
Indeed, Mile had said something along these lines.
This time, it wasn’t, “I just want to be a normal girl!” but instead, “We don’t have any time to waste!”
“Should we head on to the next town?”
“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
“Guess you’re right.”
“I just want to get out of this country already so we can relax.”
With their opinions all in alignment, they decided to head for the border at once. They were already very close, so it would take them no time at all to reach the next kingdom.
“In that case, let’s head back to the inn, let them know we’re leaving, and head on out.”
“Yeah!!!”
***
Several days later…
Calamity, the restaurant that had been temporarily shut down due to a shortage of spices, was now back in business—which was booming. Though the quality of the menu’s flavors had decreased somewhat, they had a brand new menu full of dishes that were packed with spice and their prices slashed to be well within reach of the common man. However, the posting indicated this was a limited-time offer. They happened to have obtained some spices for cheap, and once their supply was all used up, it would be back to the normal dishes and prices.
When all the other restaurants heard the news of how Calamity had obtained such cheap spices by placing a request at the Hunters’ Guild, they would rush to do the same. However, there were no other hunters around who could fulfill such a request. The owners all shrugged, thinking to themselves, No matter. There’s no way the amount of spices that a single party could have brought in will last Calamity very long. Once they run out, they’ll have to close again until their regular shipment comes in. Yet somehow, the “limited time” offer showed no signs of ending—even well after the reordered spices had finally arrived from their faraway source.
Through much experimentation, the owner of Calamity had come to the conclusion that using the spice powder in its pure form made dishes far too spicy—nay, dangerous even. It did not dissolve well in water, but it did mix well with oil, alcohol, and vinegar, so he began making solutions of those, which made the substance easier to use. This was also far more efficient, going a long way to stretch the amount of spice he had available.
Recall, this was a powder of pure capsaicin. Even very watered down, the heat would still pack quite a punch. Thus, he was able to continue effectively using his supply for a very long time.
Finally, when his supply began to run low, the owner of the gourmet restaurant Calamity stored away the last pinch of his special spice in a little glass vial, tucking it into his hidden vault. He stared at that vial for a short while and then returned to his work.
What might the owner have been thinking as he gazed at that tiny glass container? Only the man himself would ever know.
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