Volume 1 - CH 9.3

Chapter 1-9 : Which I Will Start From? (part 3)

When I woke up, the sun had completely risen.

It seems it’s almost noon.

I got up and looked out from the window.

The simple fences in front of the house were already completed.

「Wow. They work really fast… How about the side?」

I moved to the window on the side.

「Un. It’s still not done yet. Well, of course, it’s only been half a day.」

They were still stacking the stones to make stone walls.

But still, to get this far in just half a day was really quick.

Kuuuu~~~

「Uhh… I’m hungry. Let’s eat~」

It was troublesome to go to the cafeteria now, so I just ate some dried meat that I had bought for breakfast and lunch at the same time.

After that I did some light exercise to refresh my body.

「Yosh!」

I went out from the front and walked around the house to the backyard while looking at the half-built fence.

「Geberg-san, thank you for your hard work! Is everything going well?」(Sarasa)

「Yo, Ojou-chan. Well, yeah. We’re going to set the pillars in place today, and tomorrow, we’ll set the boards, make the gates, and finish it」(Geberg)

「Wow, that’s really fast!」(Sarasa)

「I’ve fixed the walls but, can you wait a few days for the signboard?」(Geberg)

I looked at the house.

「ーAh! I didn’t realize the wall was fixed. And for the signboard, I don’t mind waiting for a few days.」(Sarasa)

The cracks in the plaster around the walls have been cleanly repainted.

「Well then, I’ll leave the rest to you, Geberg-san.」(Sarasa)

「Ou, you can count on me!」(Geberg)

I left Geberg-san who replied powerfully, and looked around the house again.

It seems there’s nothing I can do to help with the fences, so should I do my best to turn this “not-so-well-maintained front yard” to “well maintained front yard” ?

Now that I have collected all the herbs here, I can just trim the grass.

I want to make my store look cute.

So maybe I will also prune the trees and make a flower bed.

If I plant herbs that have beautiful flowers, it will be killing two birds with one stone, right?

However, since the types of herbs whose flowers and leaves I will use as ingredients are not suitable to be planted in a flowerbed, I have to use different types of herbs.

「Anyway, let’s start with pruning the tree.」

I cut off the branches of the tree that were too long.

With magic of course.

I bought a saw, but since I only cut the branches that were relatively small, using magic is enough.

Besides, I’m short, so pruning a tree would be difficult if I used a saw.

I would only use a saw to cut something bigger.

Because I used magic, I didn’t have to climb the tree or prepare a chair or something.

After cutting the excess branches off, I put them together in the corner of the yard.

And now the grass.

I used magic to mow the grass in the wide area, but I would manually cut the grass near the side of the house and fences.

Even magic that ordinary magicians cannot do easily will be easy for an alchemist like me!

「Fufufu~! Magic really is convenient~」

I continued working as the men around me watched me splendidly (not really, actually) doing my work with magic.

Well, regardless of whether I did it splendidly or not, doing this kind of work using magic requires a high ability to control the magic, so not many people can do this.

Otherwise, the number of alchemists wouldn’t be small, right?

「The flowerbeds will be….. I think one near the entrance and one near the wall of the house will be good.」

After deciding the position, I dug up the soil and… hmm… maybe I’ll use something like logs to make a boundary.

I went to where Geberg-san was and asked himー

「Geberg-san, in this village, is it okay if I cut the trees in the forest down?」(Sarasa)

「Yeah. No problem. There are a loooot of trees here after all.」(Geberg)

「I see. Thank you!」(Sarasa)

Then I went to the back of the house, cut several small trees down, and brought the logs to the front yard.

The men gave me an astonishing gaze when I walked past them while carrying a lot of logs.

Well, of course, there’s no way a girl like me could carry this many logs.

I could do it because I strengthened my body with magic.

After that, I lined up the logs around the flowerbeds.

「Yosh, It’s finished~」

The tidily pruned tree, beautifully trimmed grass, and rusticーno, simple and natural looking flowerbeds.

Now, this yard should be good enough to be called a “well-maintained yard”.

Next will be…

「Hmm… I wonder what herbs I should plant in the flowerbeds…」

Among the materials I had, I tried to remember if I had herbs with beautiful flowers.

Almost all kinds of herbs had beautiful flowers, but the herb seeds that I had now were only materials for alchemy.

Yes, the seed itself was a material.

Well, they won’t sprout if I plant only the roots, so I can’t use them.

「It’s spring now, so most of the herbs should be okay, but…」

Yes. Fortunately, it’s spring now.

It’s a good time to sow seeds.

Well, I can just sow the seeds that I have now (that were materials for alchemy).

It would be enough for ornamental use.

But, what if I will need them as materials later?

Hmmm…

Oh, well… Let’s just plant them.

After thinking for a while, I decided to plant the seeds.

I planted the seeds of herbs with cute white flowers in the flowerbed near the entrance.

And in the flowerbed near the wall of the house, I planted the seeds of herbs with slightly large purple flowers.

「This one will grow ivy, so I have to prepare stanchions around it before the buds come out.」

Both are strong herbs, so I’m sure they will definitely sprout.

「Fu fu, fu fu fu fu~」

Imagining working at my own store surrounded by flowers, I smirked unintentionally.

The men who were working around me made slightly disgusted faces.