Two weeks had passed since we rescued the Great Busters. Because I’d taken it on as a personal favor for Rache-san rather than an official request, we shouldn't have earned any Guild contribution points. Yet, strangely enough, we were promoted to B-Rank anyway.
“I handled the paperwork, and in exchange, I made Buffy recognize your promotions, nya! You should be grateful, nya!”
That was what Rache-san told us, but in reality, I suspected she’d simply been ordered to clear her backlog of work.
Even for the Aingurna Adventurer's Guild, losing A-Rank Adventurers would have been a catastrophic loss. The truth of the matter seemed to be that when we accepted Rache-san’s favor, Buffy had retroactively processed it as an emergency rescue request. Normally, reaching B-Rank required a formal examination, but since we had defeated a B-Rank monster right in front of the acting Guild Master, that encounter was treated as our practical exam.
Spira had been D-Rank before the request, but she skipped right over C to join us at B-Rank. It really did seem like Rache-san had used her authority to push that one through. Still, as a Spirit, Spira’s combat power was among the highest in our group. I figured she could handle B-Rank activity without any trouble, so I gratefully accepted the promotion on her behalf.
Lately, we had been focusing our activities within Aingurna. To be specific, my days were consumed by enchanting toothpicks with Malice-purifying Clean. I did it day after day, over and over. I’d produced so many enchanted magic tools that I’d long since lost count. I kept going as long as my Mana lasted—and even when I hit my limit, I’d chug a Magic Power Recovery Potion just to keep the line moving.
Stuck inside the Magic House doing nothing but endless, repetitive manual labor... I was bored out of my mind! But it couldn't be helped. I was the one who proposed this plan, and I was the only one with the Enchant Skill. I just never imagined I’d become this busy.
“Tort! We’re almost out of toothpicks again!”
“What? Already?!”
Halfa came bursting into the Magic House. I was certain she’d taken at least a hundred of them only an hour ago.
These enchanted magic tools were used to serve food at the Muscle-yaki stalls operated by the Gurna Warrior Group. They called the dish Muscle-yaki, but the prototype was basically takoyaki. Since octopus was difficult to source in large quantities, they seemed to be using a variety of other fillings instead.
The purpose of using toothpick-type enchanted magic tools at these stalls was, of course, to purify anyone who had been influenced by the Voice of Malice.
Generally, magic tools are triggered by the user’s intent to cast magic combined with an activation keyword. However, those aren't absolute requirements; you can build them to activate through intent alone. That said, if you make the activation conditions too loose, you risk unintended triggers, so most crafters deliberately make the requirements a bit stricter.
My special toothpicks were designed to activate if the person holding them simply thought the word "Hot!" The magic was targeted at the user themselves. If someone ate piping-hot takoyaki—or Muscle-yaki—using one of these toothpicks, the odds of it activating were incredibly high. The conditions were a bit loose, but even if it triggered by mistake, it would only cast Clean on the user, so there was no real danger.
“I’ll take whatever’s finished for now, okay?” Halfa said.
“Wait a minute! I can’t keep up this pace forever. Let’s change the strategy. Give these toothpicks only to first-time customers, and let the repeaters use normal ones.”
“Ah, yeah... I hate to tell you this, but... we’ve been doing that for a while now.”
“...Huh?”
The initial plan was to include one special toothpick with every six-piece order of Muscle-yaki. Since it was a food the people of Aingurna weren't familiar with, I didn't think it would sell that explosively, so I figured that would be plenty. For the first few days, that was indeed the case. But somewhere along the line, the customer base started ballooning. Now, it seemed we were running out of special toothpicks even when only distributing them to the new arrivals.
“The Warrior Group guys got really into it,” Halfa explained. “There was only one stall at first, but now... I think there are about ten?”
“T-Ten?!”
No wonder I couldn't keep up! To think things had expanded that much while I was sequestered in the Magic House, enchanting until my eyes crossed!
“Every stall uses different ingredients, so people are having fun trying them all out. Shiroru was having a blast teaching them all sorts of recipes.”
“Shiroru...!”
The fact that Shiroru could talk was common knowledge among the Warrior Group now. I hadn't told Masso-san to keep it a secret, and since he accepted it so casually, the rest of the warriors just followed suit.
Still, the combination of a gluttonous Holy Beast and a group of high-spirited warriors was a recipe for disaster. If they kept developing new products at this rate, my enchanting would never catch up. Honestly, I’d already fallen behind.
“Anyway, I’m taking these!”
With that, Halfa snatched up the fresh batch of special toothpicks and hurried away.