CH 141

Chapter 141 – Ugh…

In the end, the line was just too long, so we gave up on checking the skill conversion fee with the Skill Points Conversion Priest.

Those priests should be available on any temple, so it would be better to check it out in smaller cities instead of in capitals filled with people.

Cities connected by gates always have temples, after all.

Dotril doesn’t have that many people, so it might be a good place to go to for this.

“To think that there is a shrine here. I thought there was only the temple.” I muttered out loud.

“Well, there isn’t anything worth enshrining in this city.” Lolita replied.

After leaving the temple, we arrived at a location that had become a tourist attraction. A shrine.

As the Tabarist Empire has a Japanese aesthetic, a shrine suits it very well.

This place looked a lot better than the temple.

Though just like what Lolita said, no gods are enshrined here.

Could the dead be enshrined here then, maybe?

“This is the home of our Clan.” One person from the shrine said.

“Good afternoon.” I told that person.

“Oh, good afternoon!” That person replied.

“That’s your Clan Home!? It’s amazing!” Lolita exclaimed.

“… It’s elaborate.” Lulu commented.

“Yeah! We worked hard on it!” The shrine person said.

As we strolled through the beautiful precincts, a shrine maiden that was selling fortune strips joined our conversation.

With large fox ears, she looked like a priestess of Inari. *

Then, Lolita muttered about the ‘Fake Kansai Dialect’, but I’m not sure which part of it is fake. **

But then, I saw a small ad, on the uniform of the Inari priestess, about the ‘Fake Kansai Dialect Association’ Clan.

So ‘Fake Kansai Dialect’ was their Clan name? That’s honestly a great name.

“Anyways, this shrine was really well-made.” I commented.

“We have someone with experience as a temple-carpenter on the Clan. They were very excited about making this.” The Inari priestess answered.

“… This was player-made?” Lulu muttered.

“No way! That’s crazy!” Lolita exclaimed.

“Is it even possible to make buildings with just a high-level of Woodworking? What I heard on the forums was that the Architecture skill was basically necessary to try making anything.” I asked.

“That’s usually the case, but this was built with almost no assistance from Skills. Our carpenter said it was actually fairly easy to make this, because they didn’t need to worry about stuff like construction laws or standard parameters to follow.” The Inari priestess explained.

“Wait, with players doing the job of heavy machinery, it can actually become easier than it is in real life?” Lolita was in disbelief.

“Well, regardless of how you made it. It’s truly amazing. Definitely a great tourist attraction.” I said.

“We worked hard!

“Ah, by the way, why don’t you draw a fortune? Mine is an honest fortune that can’t give you bad luck.” The Inari priestess suggested.

“Honest…” Lulu muttered.

At the priestess recommendation, each of us drew a 100 nil lottery.

Me and Lulu got good luck, but… Lolita got the worst luck fortune, which shouldn’t be there at all.

“What’s honest about that!?” Lolita exclaimed.

“I said there was no bad luck, but I said nothing about worst luck.” The Inari priestess replied.

“It’s a scam!” Lolita screamed.

The Inari Priestess and Lolita make a great pair, don’t they? They should try making a comedy show at some point.

******

We had some fun talking after the thing with the fortune slips, but then some other people came to sightsee, so the Inari priestess headed over to them.

Seems like she is having plenty of fun.

Meanwhile, we kept on walking around the precincts while soothing the pouting Lolita. But since the shrine wasn’t that large, it didn’t take long for us to finish seeing it.

Well, mainly because this is the Clan Home of the Fake Kansai Dialect Association. So more than half of the area is off-limits to non-members. It can’t be helped.

Even then, it was a really well-made shrine. To the point it was hard to believe it was hand-made. I thoroughly enjoyed the visit.

If I ever have the opportunity to design a store from scratch, I might want to ask for their help.

… Though well, it’s not like I care that much for this kind of thing, so the opportunity probably won’t come.

Also, maybe temple carpenters and normal carpenters are different. Can’t say I know much about this kind of thing.

“Where are we going next?” Lolita asked.

“I’ll leave it to you.” I told them.

“… The castle, maybe?” Lulu suggested.

“Isn’t it western-style though?” Lolita commented.

“Well, we can at least take a look.” I said.

Every country has a king who rules over it.

Even if we are set to be Pioneers brought here by the Goddess, it’s still impossible to get an audience with the king unless we put a lot of work into it.

So, at least for now, we can only think of the king as an NPC who lives in the castle.

Well, I guess I cleared plenty of NPC quests, so I might be closer to having a chance with meeting the king than most other players.

However, that’s not really enough to have an audience with the king.

… Though I don’t really want to have an audience with the king in the first place.

But well, if there was a nice reward attached to it, then I might consider it.

In any case, it’s only natural that the Tabarist Empire too has a castle.

Of course, we can’t enter it without permission though, so we can only look at it from outside, but… Even if this country has a Japanese aesthetic, this castle looks western from outside.

The shapes differ a bit from country to country, but they really aren’t that different.

Maybe a castle fanatic would be able to highlight what changed, but we can’t.

Therefore, our impressions of it were…

“It’s the same.” I said.

“Same as the other ones.” Lolita said.

“… The number of spires is… There is one more here? Maybe… It looks the same.” Lulu said.

Those were basically it.

Other players who visited the castle seemed to have similar impressions, so I guess nobody was too impressed by it.

“Is there anything else to sightsee?” I asked.

“It’s being quite fun.” Lolita said.

“… The cherry blossoms were beautiful.” Lulu commented.

“I finally found you! You’re Bucket!” We suddenly heard this shout.

We had just finished observing the castle from afar, but we were now stopped for some reason.

I don’t have a good feeling about this.

When we turned towards the source of the voice, we saw a child that looked about as tall as the elementary schoolers, Mii and Muu.

She used a light dress that let her move around easily. The type of casual clothing people would wear in real life.

It probably has no real defensive power, but it might be an original with some good stats.

Or rather, it’s definitely an original. Clothes like that aren’t put up for sale.

It’s certainly quite remarkable when compared to the clothes of the people in our surroundings.

Though well, Lolita’s frilly clothes are even more remarkable.

“What do you need?” Lolita stepped towards the girl.

“Who are you!? I have no business with you! I have business with Bucket!” The child exclaimed.

“Mmm… No no, that’s not how it works. The three of us are in the middle of sightseeing, and a stranger suddenly decided to interrupt our trip without even making a prior appointment. It’s my job to deal with this kind of person, you know?” Lolita replied.

Immediately after the girl appeared, Lolita quickly made eye contact with me. Once she saw me shook my head, she stepped forward.

This girl’s attitude isn’t very good, and she is a total stranger.

With this in mind, Lolita decided to apply her usual response policy.

We are top crafters of the Zabrina Kingdom, so we knew we could get into trouble when sightseeing.

So, during our preliminary meeting before the trip started, it was decided that, if this kind of problem happened during the trip, Lolita, our Clan Master, would step forward and deal with it.

She is an easily-bullied person, but she is also a very reliable Clan Master. She doesn’t have this role just for show.

We had no such problem in the Ljungsmelis Republic, so we were hoping that things would go smoothly on the Tabarist Empire too, but it seems like this will not be the case.

“Even though you made no prior appointment, you still tried interrupting our sightseeing trip while being a complete stranger. Why do you think I wouldn’t get in your way then?” Lolita asked her.

“Ugh…” The girl groaned.

“If you have something to talk about with Bucket, you can contact her through her store, and her clerks will report it to her if they think Bucket needs to know about it, alright?

“So, please leave, or we’ll have to file a report on you.” Lolita told her.

Though well, even if we do file a report here, the management team won’t interfere with a situation like this one.

That said, right now I’m still the only person who can reliably make steel items with Options in them, and there are other things like the Magic Dolls that I have a monopoly on.

Due to that, there are plenty of Clans that want me to join them, and some players don’t mind trying to use forceful means to do so.

Therefore, Lolita’s response was the right one.

And just in case, we’re recording the whole exchange, just to have some slight advantage if it’s needed.

————-

* Translator’s Note: Inari is one of the main Shinto gods. It represents foxes, fertility, rice, tea, sake, industry, agriculture, prosperity and worldly success. You can look up the wikipedia page if you’re curious.

** Translator’s Note: Kansai is a specific region of Japan that has a dialect that is a bit different from the “normal” dialect of Japan. It’s referred to as “more melodic and harsher” than the standard language. Sometimes people imitate the Kansai dialect for fun, but the imitation is usually obvious to people that actually speak in Kansai dialect (and it can actually be kinda annoying to them at times). This imitation of the Kansai dialect, that still has some things that are clearly fake for someone that actually speaks the Kansai dialect, is referred to as “Fake Kansai Dialect.”