Level Down 75 (Patreon)

Volume 2 Chapter 33 - Reasons for Purchasing Building Materials

RAW

“Oo─i, Len-nii. Come back soon─.” (Rebecca)

“...No, this. What do I do?” (Allen)

Allen somehow managed to regain his senses after being called out by Rebecca, and feeling a heavy weight on his hands, he looked to Rebecca for help.

However, Rebecca shook her head with a grin on her face.

“I’d be troubled even if you ask me that. It's Len-nii's rightful share. You should just use it however you want.” (Rebecca)

“No, but it's 18,440,000 zenny, you know. That’s about six years' worth of my old annual salary... huh, I feel like this is a bit light for that.” (Allen)

Allen couldn't hide his turmoil, but as he compared it to his old annual income, he remembered the time when he first obtained a large sum of money from the sale of the ogre king's materials and tilted his head.

Because he realized that the weight in his hands was not much different from the weight he felt at that time.

The initial sale price of the ogre king's materials was 6 million zenny, in other words, 600 gold coins. That weight remained firmly in Allen's memory.

The reward this time is three times that amount. Obviously this was too little. Seeing Allen brooding about that discrepancy, Rebecca was a little surprised.

“Len-nii, you know it well. That one only has 8,440,000 zenny. The rest is still in negotiation.” (Rebecca)

“Hm? Aah, so the money from selling treants hasn't come in yet. No, it’s not like I’m planning to use it for anything, so I don’t really care. But, you say it’s still in negotiation... In other words, this money was originally purely Rebecca’s, right!?” (Allen)

Allen looked at Rebecca with wide-eyed surprise, and Rebecca nodded her head, albeit a little dissatisfied.

“Un. It’s actually my money. Aa-aah, here I was going to have Len-nii count the coins one by one and make you go ‘Wait, there’s not enough money at all,’ in surprise.” (Rebecca)

Allen was astonished when he confirmed that the money he received originally belonged to Rebecca, while Rebecca grumbled about it with a disappointed look on her face.

Hearing those words, Allen imagined himself taking out the gold coins from the bag and counting them one by one, and he let out a deep sigh at the barrenness of it all.

“No, why do I have to do something that sounds like a penance?” (Allen)

“Eh, isn't it fun? That ‘I earned this much money’ kind of feeling.” (Rebecca)

“Eh, could it be, you’ve done it?” (Allen)

In response to Allen's question, ‘Fufufu,’ Rebecca replied with a meaningful smile.

From that alone, Allen realized that ‘Ah, this girl definitely hadn’t done it,’ and once again, he turned his gaze to the bag in front of him.

Allen felt like Rebecca was complaining about something outside of his field of vision, but he pretended not to notice and looked at the gold coins stuffed in the bag as he thought about what he should do.

And he quickly reached a conclusion.

“Alright, for now I'll leave it be until it's needed.” (Allen)

“I thought Len-nii would do that. If you're worried about leaving it at home, you should use the Merchant Guild's storage service. You don't have to be a member of the guild to use the service. Well, there will be a fee when you take it in and take it out though.” (Rebecca)

“I guess you can't replace safety. Thanks, I'll think about it.” (Allen)

Allen expressed his gratitude to Rebecca for thinking of him and teaching him such things, and for the time being, placed the bag of gold coins she had given him on the desk.

Then he headed straight to the kitchen and started preparing dinner. Actually, it was a little early to prepare dinner, but he didn't have enough time to do anything else, so he thought he'd make something a little more elaborate.

It was partly because he wanted to focus on something so as not to remember or think about strange things though.

Rebecca, who was sitting at the table, happily watched Allen’s back profile.

Rebecca loved watching Allen cook. When she still lived here, Allen went to work early in the morning to earn a living as an adventurer, so the still young Rebecca didn't get to spend that much time with him.

When Allen came home, he played with her for just a bit before he started cooking as she sat at the table and watched, which was a very precious time for the young Rebecca.

While listening to the rhythmic sound of knives moving, she talked with the other siblings about what they would have for dinner today, and talked about interesting things that happened today so that Allen, who was cooking, could hear.

Even though there were times when they suffered because they didn't have money, Rebecca was happy enough with just that. That's why she loved Allen, who continued to protect her happiness like that.

As Rebecca was fondly reminiscing about the past, Allen, who had no idea that Rebecca was thinking about such things, called out to her in his usual tone while cooking.

“Come to think of it, Rebecca. Where did you end up selling those treant building materials?” (Allen)

“Hm? It's Lord-sama's place, you know.” (Rebecca)

“HAA!? Uwah, dangerous!” (Allen)

When the unexpected word ‘Lord’ came up in a casual conversation, Allen's hands lost control of the knife and almost swung it at his finger, but he hurriedly avoided it.

The timing was so close that if Allen's reaction was just a bit slower, he might have been cut, so Allen let out a deep breath and was relieved.

Then, when his mind had calmed down a bit, he asked Rebecca again.

“When you say Lord, you mean the one here in Lilac, right?” (Allen)

“Un. Count Naveen El Lilac. Somehow, a lot happened yesterday and I met with the person himself.” (Rebecca)

“No, I don't think he's the kind of person you can just meet though.” (Allen)

“Un, I think so too.” (Rebecca)

When Rebecca responded to Allen's comment with a straight face and folded arms, Allen wanted to reply back with ‘You’re not making any sense,’ but judging from Rebecca's reaction, it seemed like the person herself didn't really understand it either, so he stopped.

And perhaps, that was the reason why she was so tired yesterday, he was a little convinced.

Because Allen knew that meeting the Lord who was a count was extremely tiring, having experienced it himself, although it was as Nella.

“Still, buying that much treant building materials, is he planning to build something?” (Allen)

“There was a stampede the other day, right? It seems they're going to build a fort around it for the future.” (Rebecca)

“Heeh, you sure knew it well. I didn't know that at all.” (Allen)

‘Even I, a local, didn't know it, as expected of a peddler,’ he thought, happy to see Rebecca's growth and was about to start cooking again, but...

“Un, because it hasn't been announced yet.” (Rebecca)

“...” (Allen)

Hearing the words that came back, Allen put the knife down. Then, he headed over to the table and sat down opposite Rebecca, who was looking up at him with a grin.

As she saw Allen do that, Rebecca's smile deepened.

“Areh, aren’t you going to cook?” (Rebecca)

“As if I can! If I make something while listening to your story, no matter how many fingers I have, it won't be enough.” (Allen)

“Len-nii, you only have five fingers. Hah, could it be, Len-nii can grow fingers now...” (Rebecca)

“As if I can! I'll listen to your story before I cook, so hurry up and talk.” (Allen)

“Ee─h, what should I do─?” (Rebecca)

As Rebecca continued to tease him without even trying to hide the fact that she's happy to be cared about, Allen's patience began to wear out just a little.

That said, Allen wouldn’t resort to direct violence. Because as a family, Allen knew how to inflict the most damage on Rebecca.

“Alright, let's change our dinner to peanut dishes. Stir-fried peanuts and rabbit meat, peanut soup, and simmered peanuts are good too. Oh, we have some time, how about making the bread peanut-flavored?” (Allen)

Rebecca's face turned pale at Allen's words.

Peanuts are green vegetables that are about 30 centimeters long and shaped like an elongated face. Although it has extremely high nutritional value and is popular to some as a health food, it is also extremely bitter.

It can be said to be representative of vegetables that parents want to feed but is unpopular with children.

And it's also what Rebecca dislikes the most.

“Len-nii is inhuman! How could you try to feed such a thing to someone, Len-nii must have been possessed by a demon lord. You demon lord!” (Rebecca)

“First of all, you should apologize to the people who grow peanuts. So, what are you going to do? Are we seriously changing the menu?” (Allen)

“I'm sorry, peanut farmers. And demon lord-sama, please be lenient with me.” (Rebecca)

Rebecca did an about-face and started apologizing, and Allen gave a wry smile at that.

And then, ‘So you’ll still treat me as a demon lord?’ Allen thought but he decided to ignore it in order to quickly move on to the main topic.

“So, how did you know about that plan before it was announced? You wanted treant building materials because you knew about that, right?” (Allen)

“Hmm, I guess you're half right. I only heard about the specific plans yesterday. But I did guess they're trying to build something that will require a lot of durable building materials, like treants.”

“Heeh, what made you think that?” (Allen)

To Allen's question, Rebecca returned to her proud face and answered smoothly, and when Allen continued his words, Rebecca held up three fingers and began speaking.

“The first is the requests from the Adventurers’ Guild. Len-nii also accepted one, but did you know that lately there’s been an increase in requests for carpenters like Nick-san to raise their levels?” (Rebecca)

“No, I’ve been taking Nick's carpenter friends along to raise their level pretty often, but were there other requests like that? Lately, Matilda has been giving me a lot of requests, so I haven't been looking at the bulletin board much, so I can’t really tell.” (Allen)

“It wasn't that obvious. But if you look at the recent request history, there was a noticeable change.” (Rebecca)

Rebecca assured him of this, and Allen nodded in return.

The Adventurers’ Guild has a list in the corner of the bulletin board where you can check recently submitted requests.

The purpose of this system is that if you are unsure whether a request posted on the bulletin board is appropriate or not, you can look up the recent request details and their reward amounts and use it as one of the basis to decide whether to accept the request or not.

However, the current situation was that there were almost no adventurers who used it.

“You sure knew it well, the request history.” (Allen)

“I guess so. It's convenient because I can easily see the demand in the places I visit as a peddler.” (Rebecca)

“The guys at the guild might be happy if you tell them that.” (Allen)

Allen muttered, he knew from his time as a guild employee that the idea of abolishing it came up because it was troublesome to compile and update even though it was not used by adventurers.

‘So it can be used like that,’ Allen was impressed, and Rebecca continued to explain.

“Actually, it's possible that the increase in requests was in response to Len-nii raising the level of Nick-san and the others at the Brandt Workshop, so that’s that. So, the next thing that convinced me that there was a plan was the fact that Brandt Workshop bought the treant building materials that Len-nii brought.” (Rebecca)

At Rebecca’s words she said while smiling and bending two of her fingers, Allen tried to deduce why she thought that.

However, from Allen's understanding, even if Brandt Workshop, which focuses on carpentry, bought treant building materials, it wasn’t strange.

────

Previous | Next