CH 273

Then, after a lot of things happened, Mr. Nick introduced me to a nice inn and we decided to move there.

“Here?” (Rook)

It was located on a back road off the main street near the Adventurers’ Guild, and at first glance it looked like just a house, but there was a metal relief of a horse with horns growing out of its forehead carved on the top of the door, and those who knew about it… or rather those who didn’t, would never notice it. It looked absolutely unrecognizable. The name of the place is “Sacred White Horse Pavilion”.

I opened the door and entered.

“Welcome. Oh, I haven’t seen you here before. Did someone introduce you?”  (Innkeeper)

“Yes, I was introduced by Mr. Nick.” (Rook)

The middle-aged man with a beard and muscular build, who seemed to be the owner, looked like he was thinking for a moment, “Referred by Nick?”

Nick told me about this inn. Basically, it is a restaurant that does not accept first-time visitors, and it is said that you cannot enter without an introduction, but even with an introduction, if the owner does not approve of you, you will be turned away. It seems to be that kind of place.

Nick told me that as long as I was polite, it would be fine, and he also said that he had a soft spot for children, so it wouldn’t be a problem.

“So, one night? Five nights? One night is one gold coin, five nights is two gold coins and five silver coins.” (Innkeeper)

One of the features of this inn is that it offers a discount if you stay for consecutive nights, in effect, half price.

The reason for the low price is that the rooms are not cleaned and beds are not made by the staff during the consecutive-night stay.

“Five nights, please.” (Rook)

“Got it.” (Innkeeper)

After paying, the owner rummaged around in the counter and called out to the back of the store, “Hey!”.

Then guided by a young woman who appeared with a “Yes!”, I entered the room on the second floor and closed the door.

“Phew~” (Rook)

I sat down on the bed and let Shion out before collapsing into it.

The bed is not too bad, with a firm packing of hay.

For now, the atmosphere is so much better than the previous inn, and the owner seems to have a good personality, although he is a muscle man. The price is also lower, so my evaluation is quite positive at this point.

Actually, I was thinking of renting a rental property, but after talking with Mr. Nick, I gave up on it because it seemed like it would be complicated to register with the government office and pay taxes. I guess living in a house might not be a big advantage unless I am considering a full-fledged permanent residence.

“Well, then–to a new world. Open the dimensional door, [Holy Dimension]!” (Rook)

I opened the [Holy Dimension], went inside, and took out more and more items I had bought from my backpack and magic bag and put them on the floor.

“I might as well experiment before dinner, right?” (Rook)

“Kyu?” (Shion)

“An experiment to improve our future diet, Mr. Watson.” (Rook)

“…kyu.” (Shion)

I think I got a “what the hell are you talking about?” look on his face, but I didn’t care and started to put the ceramicss I had bought in the [Holy Dimension] on the floor.

Then I filled one of them with water using the magic of [Water Drop].

“Shion, can you pour Holy Water in this plate?” (Rook)

“Kyu?” (Shion)

Shion made a curious face and made holy water and put it in the dish.

The plate with the water I made with magic. Next to it, there is a plate with Holy Water that Shion made.

“Hmm… If we are going to experiment, maybe we should try using well water as well.” (Rook)

What we are going to do now is an Oran germination experiment in the [Holy Dimension].

The purpose is to find out if it is possible to grow plants in the [Holy Dimension], but I also want to find out what difference water makes. There are interesting items such as water made by magic and Holy Water, and I would like to try them. In this experiment, I need to prepare well water as a control so that I can understand the difference.

“I’ll go fetch well water later.” (Rook)

But it is difficult to do a lot of work on the ground. I want a table. I’d like to get a table somewhere.

“Next, I take out a grimoire from my backpack.” (Rook)

I take out a grimoire from my backpack. It was a grimoire of [Light Arrow], which I found at the alchemist’s store.

I bought it because it was alright because of [Large Heal], so I checked it out and found it was alright.

As usual, I read the grimoire and learn the magic.

“Good! Now I learned new magic again!” (Rook)

“Kyu!” (Shion)

I celebrate with Shion with a tiny high-five.

I can’t experiment further today, let’s go outside tomorrow and test the power of [Light Arrow]. As I was thinking this, the wooden window of the inn room shook with a rattling sound.

I went out of the [Holy Dimension] and lifted the wooden window.

“Wow, it’s cold!” (Rook)

Fine snowflakes were flying in with the cold air from the darkness beyond the window.

It might pile up tomorrow.

“…Is my cold weather gear enough?” (Rook)

I suddenly wondered.

I have a fur cloak, and I bought thicker gloves and socks at Aluppo. But will that be enough?

On Earth, I can know the approximate temperature in each region, so I can choose your clothes accordingly, but over here, there is no such thing, and there is no parameter for measuring. Even in the same environment where it snows, the meaning should be different in an environment where the hot water freezes instantly at around 0 degrees.

“Cold weather gear… Don’t you need it, Shion?” (Rook)

“Kyu?” (Rook)

For a moment, I imagined the kind of dog clothes that some rich person’s dog would be wearing, but I don’t think such things are normally sold in this world. Well, Shion is basically inside the hood of the robe I’m wearing, so I guess he doesn’t need it.

That being the case, I started to think about protection against the cold.

Then I realized something important.

“…well, there’s no heating in the room, to begin with, is there?” (Rook)

I mean, there must not have been any room with a fireplace in the town inn so far. It would be cost-ineffective to have a fireplace in every room, but then the usual way to get through the winter would be to wear heavy clothing or warm bedding. But since most lodgings have beds and pillows, but no bedding, adventurers who cannot carry bedding with them will have no choice but to wear heavy clothing.

“Well, there are no heaters in the snowy mountains, so we should be fine, as long as we wear heavy clothes!” (Rook)

I’ll have to get some more winter clothes in the near future.

As I was thinking this, I heard the bottom of a pot banging downstairs.

“It’s dinner, let’s go.” (Rook)

“Kyu!” (Shion)

Close the [Holy Dimension] and go down the stairs.

A muffled aroma wafted through the air as I entered the dining room. Several adventurers were eating, enveloped in it.

I took a seat at the counter and showed the plate with my room number on it to a well-dressed middle-aged woman behind the counter.

“Would you like a drink?” (Woman)

“A lager.” (Rook)

“Five copper coins.” (Woman)

Was yesterday’s lodging a rip-off, after all? No, it was just that I was thinking in terms of yesterday’s store, but even here the prices are about double those of other towns. I knew that the prices in this Royal Capital were too high.

While I was thinking about this, a large plate of soup was placed in front of me.

Inside the plate was brown soup. Various ingredients are floating in the soup. It was quite filling.

“Here’s the lager.” (Woman)

“Thank you.” (Rook)

The lager arrived, so I took a sip of the soup.

“Delicious.” (Rook)

The soup has a rich dashi [T/N: Japanese soup stock] and a salty taste. The lager here is also different from yesterday’s lager.

I lifted up the ingredients with a spoon to check and found that there were a lot of vegetables, meat, mushrooms, and other things I couldn’t identify.

“It’s just as I heard…” (Rook)

According to Mr. Nick, there is a large restaurant facing the main street at the back of this store, and the scrap ingredients served there flow into this store, and they are all put in a pot and simmered to make the food here. That’s right.

Thanks to such a wonderful system that does not produce waste or food loss, this inn is able to operate at a low price.

“Lately, the merchants…” (Adventurer)

“–little ore–” (Adventurer)

“No, that’s–” (Adventurer)

I listen to the conversations of the people around me as I pick up the chunks from the soup and feed them to Shion.

It is interesting to find hints of information in the small talk of people in places like this.

And so we enjoyed the mystery ingredient soup. Afterwards, I fetched water from the well and brought it back to my room, poured it into a dish set up in the [Holy Dimension], and placed Oran seeds in the dish containing three kinds of water: well water, magic water, and holy water.

I shall observe how this turns out for a while.