Maid Will Go On Through Thick And Thin! Chapter 6

“Make sure to never get separated from us, got it!?”
“I won’t get separated!”
“Don’t go off on your own!”
“I won’t go off on my own!”
“If it gets dangerous, run immediately!”
“I’ll run!”
“Make sure you keep those promises! Got it!?”
“I understand master! Let’s go—!”
….not sure about that
And with that, I got them to bring me outside.
Outside, was outside. The one where birds or rabbits with horns attack every 5 minutes.
Most of them were cut down by Suzumoto or Kadomi-kun in one slice though.
And while singing, I scanned the plants, comparing them to those I remember, got President to appraise every plant that looked like it could be used for cooking and gathered as much as possible with the roots and dirt.
As expected, I can only break off and bring back a branch for trees though.
Among them, I got vegetables that looked like young salad leaves, something like raspberries, something like carrots, something like tomatoes, something like onions and something like mint, it was a great bounty.
Just that the vegetables’ leaves were the size of komatsuna’s, the raspberries were orange-size, the carrots were white and the tomatoes were excessively large. The things like onions and mint being just like onions and mint was extremely helpful.
And onions have the effect of increasing HP regeneration speed and mint has the effect of MP regeneration.
……come to think of it, bay laurels and rosemary looked the same too.
Does food with special effects look the same?

imported?

Right after getting back, I got President to use some large-scale earth magic to make a  huge 10m x 10m enclosure linked to the window, it’s not like he can go out to explore with his sprain. The height of the wall is 3m. With peep holes just in case.
And then I got him to plough the area within and planted the plants I had gotten there.
And it’s complete once I got Hagasaki-kun to produce water and water them.
It’s a kitchen garden, everyone! With this, I can harvest fresh vegetables on my own! I did it!
If possible, I would like to redirect a water source close by, but we decided to wait until President and Hagasaki-kun are more used to their earth and water magic.
And then, even though it won’t grow or bear fruit anytime soon, I planted the seeds of the lemon-coloured peaches. It would be fun if because of some otherworld quality, they grew quickly.

nah

Since they expended a lot of MP, President aside, I’m uncertain about making Hagasaki-kun go out like that, so I had them become test subjects for [MP Recovery Effects].
“Here, eat.”
When I brought out the mint, President started chewing it.
“It’s not very nice.”
“Yeah.”
Sorry for making you eat something like that.
When I asked if their MP recovered, it’s uncertain since it’s definitely not something that can be measured with something like a barometer, but their mental fatigue was certainly disappearing……meaning, it felt like MP recovered.
“Here, Hagasaki-kun too, eat.”
“I don’t want to. Why must I chew on gra.s.s.”
Isn’t that rude to President who had just chewed on gra.s.s just now?
Hmm, this selfish brat. Can’t be helped. It’s true he is a bit pitiful like that. Let’s try changing it up a little.
I boiled hot water, added mint and left it alone for a while. Mint tea, done.
Is this or chewing raw mint leaves better? Actually, will it recover MP in tea form? It also serves as an experiment for that.
“Okay, tea.”
After doing this much, he finally accepted.
“……how’s it?”
I asked Hagasaki-kun for his impressions after he finished it.
“It’s not nice nor bad. Very weird. Water please.”
Hmmm, bad reception.

mint tea is……yeah

And so President and I stayed behind while the others went out again.
Not forgetting to sing every 25 minutes, I spent the rest of the time chatting with President.
A—h, it’s nice to have someone to talk to.
While chatting, I tanned the deerskin that had finished soaking in the alum salt solution and smoked the next set of deer meat that had been set aside for preservation.
It looks like President’s sprain had gotten better (hooray for otherworld remedies) so I worked him hard. Things are a lot easier with a man’s help. Tanning needs strength. It’s really helpful.

used his buffed stats

“By the way, has your skills increased since then?”
“They increased. Eeeh, appraisal, earth magic, mapping, construction magic, emergency evasion, poison synthesis, poison resistance. How about Maito-san?”
(T/N: Not sure about construction magic, might just be earth-wood magic.)
“Haven’t increased…… Only cleaning, dissection, ballad, increased recovery speed, treatment, ripen.”
This difference is probably caused by whether we go out right? Things just won’t work out.
“Increased recovery speed, how did you get that?”
……hmmm, as expected, this is unnatural. [Increased Recovery Speed].
If I said that I got it through self-mutilation, it feels like I will get scolded a bunch. Hmmm.
“I cut my finger while cutting meat with the kitchen knife. After doing that a few times, I got it.”
“Eeeh, we’ve also gotten injured quite a lot, but we haven’t gotten increased recovery speed, why is that?”
I can’t say that it might be the difference between injury and self-mutilation, so I just tilted my head and ended the topic there.
……but President’s instinct is sharp so it feels like he will figure it out eventually.
“By the way, among the skills you obtained, which are obtained through repet.i.tion and which are through apt.i.tude and necessity?”
“Appraisal, earth magic, construction magic and poison synthesis are probably apt.i.tude and necessity. I think mapping, emergency evasion and poison resistance were through repet.i.tion.”
Hmhm, wait.
“Poison resistance?”
“I got it when I tried drinking poison.”
Th, that is, eh……aaah, I can’t say anything about others. Mhm, that would be stirring up a hornet’s nest. I won’t say anything.
“How about Maito-san’s skills?”
Hmmm, wait a little, I haven’t thought about it……
For now, [Cleaning] should be an apt.i.tude and necessity skill.
Without repet.i.tion or anything, it activated right from the start.
[Ripen] is probably the same.
[Dissection]……is probably repet.i.tion. I don’t feel any necessity of a skill for cutting potatoes.
Of course [Increased Recovery Speed] and [Treatment] was from repet.i.tion. This is for sure.
And the one I’m not sure about……[Ballad]. I certainly got it when I was singing while cleaning but……I think it might have been necessity.
At that time I happened to be worrying about them. If not for [Prayer Song], Suzumoto might have gotten a deeper gouge.

so kinda both?

Eh, I just realised, but what is apt.i.tude?
President and the others are always saying apt.i.tude this apt.i.tude that, so I thought they knew the meaning, but apparently they don’t understand it well either.
Since the skill that can be obtained even if they did the same thing was different depending on person, they concluded that ‘Aah, there’s probably apt.i.tude.’
……since we have the chance, let’s try thinking about it.
a.n.a.lyze
For example, President is a [Scholar], so he has a lot of those type of skills. It also seems like Suzumoto learnt [Decapitate] because he is a [Swordsman] and Hagasaki-kun can use magic because he is a [Magician].
But the thing to consider here, is Hagasaki-kun’s magic.
Right now, the magic that Hagasaki-kun has learnt are water, ice and wind, those kind of magic.
He hasn’t learnt fire or earth.
Conversely, President can use earth magic. Even though he is a [Scholar]. (Is it that? Earth magic for geological surveys?)
……the [Apt.i.tude] we are talking about was mainly based on profession, but it might be based on each person’s personality.
When it comes to Hagasaki-kun……he certainly has the feel of ice or water.
Hagasaki-kun is a kind of chilly, goes with the flow and a transparent kind of person.
……mhm, he certainly does become cold like ice quite often when hiding his embarra.s.sment or the like. And then that affects the type of magic you can use, what is going on with this otherworld.

no idea

Anyway, while talking about those kind of things at length, everyone came back.
Since they brought back the chemistry lab office, so we set it up at once.
“……this part here, looks a little like a corridor.”
With two cla.s.srooms close together, it certainly feels like a corridor.
It makes me remember when cla.s.srooms were lined along the corridor.
instead of scattered around

After being sentimental for a while, dinner, time to prepare dinner.
They brought back a deer today as well, so I’ll be dissecting it. My kitchen knife will blow fire!

calm down

Using the bay laurels I got earlier today, I tried making stew.
Cooking the deer meet with that thing like carrots, potato, tomato and bay leaves, I made something similar to pot-au-feu.
If possible I want some consomme cubes but I can’t complain.
Well, tomatoes are a treasure house of glutamic acid and there’s inosinic acid from deer meat, so the flavour is perfect, probably.
And the staple is tubers again.
I miss rice……

pray

The meal was quite well received, they had been only eating things with the same things til now. But we were already considerably blessed with salt, soy sauce and sugar.
Well, as a j.a.panese, we should be greedy when it comes to food.
The tastiness of meals affects everyone’s morale too. I’ll try something else tomorrow.

great support

Now then. It’s night. Everyone has gone to sleep. They’re physically exhausted after all.
And I am still soaking deerskin in alum salt solution.
It’s hard work with the size of the skin, but since the most troublesome part of tanning (sc.r.a.pping off the fats and sinews left on the skin) is gone with [Cleaning], I can’t complain.
And after that, I cut the deer meat, applied salt, and stuck on rosemary or other herbs. I’ll smoke these tomorrow.
And after confirming that everyone is asleep, it is time for experiments.

….more self-mutilation?

I had thought about it.
I don’t know my own apt.i.tudes, but I can kind of guess the apt.i.tudes of a [Maid].
Taking care of basic necessities, food, clothes and home, and making life pleasant, wait for the master’s return at home, isn’t that a maid’s job?
Among that nursing or babysitting might be included but for now I have no plans for those so I’ll ignore them for now.
Looking at my skills, I am dealing with the fields of home and food with [Cleaning] and [Ripen]. The rest can be said to be my own player skill or being made up for with simple knowledge or techniques.
……yes, without even thinking about it, a [Maid]’s job is normally things that can be done without otherworld features like skills.
But despite that skills are necessary. Definitely necessary. Absolutely necessary.
Because this is another world. A world where anything is possible. Since anything is possible, unless I can do everything, I cannot serve as an otherworld maid.
……and the introduction dragged out, but [Cleaning] and [Ripen] are extensions of my pre-existing knowledge and techniques.
But Hagasaki-kun and President’s magics are on a completely different vector from those.
And so I thought that I want to try doing something ridiculous like that.
The experiment is simple. An experiment for a skill for the [clothes] part of basic necessities.
(T/N: 衣食住=basic necessities, 衣=clothes, 食=food, 住=home. okay not quite basic necessities, more of living necessities, but that term sounds weird.)

civilised necessities

I have sakura wood prepared, naturally, it contains cellulose.
I’m aiming for acetate. I want acetylcellulose fiber made by sticking an acetyl base onto the cellulose.
An acetyl base can be stuck on by reacting the cellulose with acetic acid, but I’m not doing that, nope.
After all, I’ve seen plenty of spectacles that just casually ignore the law of conservation of energy and stuff. It can probably pick up hydrogen, oxygen and carbon from the air around and do something about it, probably. I won’t think about all the kinds of energy that will be produced by that!
……if I’m doing that, then it comes to why do I even need cellulose but, that……my remaining sanity, or common sense, something like that……mhm. I really don’t feel like I can make something out of nothing.
make it out of air
Never mind that.
Anyway, I just need to make this wood into acetate. I should be able to do it with a skill or some otherworld quality nanika (something).
……but, I have absolutely no idea how to activate a skill, so for now I put my hand on the wood and imagined it. I continuously drew an image of the wood breaking down, boiling, becoming pulp and adding acetic acid.
Not even the slightest response.
Retrai. This time I imagined acetate fiber. Fiber with this kind of white l.u.s.ter……the cross section is uneven like, this……
……it’s not working.
Hmmm, it just won’t work. Does this, making clothes, really fall outside a maid-san’s job? Or am I doing it wrong?
Come on, wood, if you don’t want to trouble me then obediently become acetate.
……no way it would.
sing it?
Hmm, what’s wrong? Am I supposed to not rely on otherworld magic?
But Hagasaki-kun activated ice magic just by lifting his staff……
……hm? Staff?
magic?
Come to think of it, I always use the feather duster to activate [Cleaning]. The kitchen knife for [Dissection].
[Ballad] can be done myself so nothing is needed. But thinking about it, even for [Treatment], I was using vaseline or something else.
Could it be that tools are needed to activate skills?
A—h, when I think of it that way, things come together.
Which means……when making fiber from wood, what’s needed?
……for now I tried taking out a beaker and gla.s.s rod.
Okay, retrai. Become acetate.

boof

……it worked. A limp pile of acetate fiber.
But, this, probably, needs to go through spinning→weaving→cutting→sewing to finally become clothes right?
There is scissors and needles so I can do something about cutting and sewing, but even if I spin by hand, weaving……
……a loom, is necessary……

end