Chapter 2-15 : New Products Ⅰ (part 1)
After seeing off Andre-san, I asked Lorea-chan to take care of the store and immediately started making Flexible Gloves.
The number of Collectors who ordered the gloves was way more than what I expected, so I’m planning to use the large alchemy pot in my workshop.
I have to make many gloves, but they’re not that hard to make.
First, I threw all the necessary materials into the alchemy pot and stirred them while pouring my magical power into the pot for a while.
After all the materials melted together and became a thick brown liquid, I prepared two hand-shaped molds. One for the right glove, and one for the left glove.
The molds were made of wood that was carved to resemble a hand with five fingers stretched out.
I don’t need to make multiple gloves with various sizes because they will fit perfectly with the users’ hands no matter how big their hands are.
Because of that, I didn’t need to make many hand-shaped molds.
The molds I made were not perfect because I’m not that good at woodworking, but I could barely see the difference between the right hand-shaped mold and the left one.
I dipped both the hand-shaped molds up to the wrist in the thick brown liquid, pulled it up, and let it dry for a while.
The base for a pair of gloves could be made by repeating this process about ten times.
So as not to waste time, I prepared two more sets of hand-shaped molds while waiting for the previous ones to dry.
I emptied my mind and focused on repeating these simple tasks.
「Sarasa-san, it’s about time to eat lunchーー Uwaa! W-What are those!? Ha, Hands…?」(Lorea)
While I was still doing my work, Lorea-chan came into my workshop and screamed after seeing the ‘hands’ that were lined up on the table.
「Ah, these are hand-shaped molds.」(Sarasa)
Well, I think it’s only natural for her to scream after seeing these things.
After all, they looked like creepy hands that were growing from the table.
「A, Ahh… So they’re just something like hand-shaped wooden models, huh…? I see, so this is how you make Flexible Gloves?」(Lorea)
「Yup. Can you wait a little longer? This liquid will be ruined if I leave it now.」(Sarasa)
「Alright.」(Lorea)
This liquid, which is the main material to make the gloves, will quickly harden if I leave it too long.
I have to occasionally stir this liquid and pour my magical power into it.
It will be wasted if I stop stirring and pouring magical power, so I have to carefully consider the amount of my magical power and work speed in making the gloves.
「Umm… Sarasa-san, is there anything I can do to help? Like dipping those wooden hands?」(Lorea)
「Let’s see….. Dipping these hand-shaped molds may seem easy to do, but it actually requires technique.」(Sarasa)
By injecting a small amount of my magical power into the hand-shaped molds, the liquid will combine with my magical power and form a film.
If I put too little magical power, the film will be too thin, and if I put too much, it will be too thick.
The quality of the finished product will not be good if the film is too thin or too thick.
In the first place, Lorea-chan can’t control her magical power, so this kind of work is not for her.
Let’s see if there’s anything else she can help me with… Hmm…
「Oh, right. Lorea-chan, can you spread the gloves that are piled over there and line them up on the table?」(Sarasa)
「Understood!」(Lorea)
With a little help from Lorea-chan, I kept working until I used up all the remaining liquid, and after that, we went to the kitchen to eat lunch.
After enjoying Lorea-chan’s delicious lunch and having a short break, I went to check if the gloves were dry, and then went back to work.
I took all the gloves that have dried, put them into the alchemy pot and processed them all together.
After I finished processing them, the Flexible Gloves were finished.
However, I still have to hang them and let them dry.
「Hahh… Hanging them will be kinda troublesome… I wonder how many gloves were made. Let’s see…」(Sarasa)
I kept doing the work without counting, so I don’t know how many gloves I’ve made.
While occasionally rotating my stiff shoulders, I took out the finished Flexible Gloves from the alchemy pot and counted them.
There are 62 pairs of them.
In other words, I’ve repeated the tasks of dipping the hand-shaped molds and drying them more than a thousand times.
「Ughh… No wonder my shoulders hurt…」(Sarasa)
Considering that Flexible Gloves are durable items so people won’t replace them often, maybe I made a little too many of them…
「Oh, well. As long as I can sell the gloves to Andre-san and the other Collectors on the list, I can get back my money that I used to buy the materials.」(Sarasa)
Un. There’s no problem.
I can just line up the rest of the Flexible Gloves on the display shelves at the store.
New Collectors may come and buy them in the future.
「I can think about it later. Anyway, I should hang them to dry first.」(Sarasa)
I put all the finished Flexible Gloves into a basket and carried it to the backyard.
I took the rope that was usually used to hang clothes, tied it to a tree and began to hang the gloves on the rope one by one.
There are 62 pairs of Flexible Gloves, so there are 124 gloves that I have to hang.
This is quite painful work. I feel like my shoulders will hurt even more…
I wanted to ask Lorea-chan to help me, but there would be no one taking care of the store.
I had no choice but to do it myself.
After a while of doing this painful workー
「This is… the last one!ーー Phew…」(Sarasa)
I finally finished hanging all the gloves with my stiff shoulders, but…
Uhh… the sight of many gloves swaying on the stretched rope looks kinda creepy…
There’s no exhilarating feeling like when I hung the Environment Adjusting Cloth a while ago.
The light brown color of the gloves was making the atmosphere a little gloomy.
「Still, I have no choice but to hang them here. Well, no one can see them anyway, so there’s no problem.」(Sarasa)
People would find it creepy if they saw the gloves, but because Geberg-san has fixed my wooden walls, my backyard cannot be seen from the outside.
Un. I’m sure there will be no problem.
◇ ◇ ◇
-In the evening-
「Hiiiiiiyyyyーー!」(Iris)
「W-What the hell are those thingsー!?」(Kate)
Suddenly, I heard screams from the backyard.
I went there and saw Iris-san and Kate-san, who had just come home from work, frozen with pale faces at the backyard door.
Not very happy with this particular recipe. It really is more slice of life than crafting, oh well.
What the heck do you think crafting something is? This IS crafting! Go study some engineering or chemistry or something! And pay attention in class!
Engineering or creating something is mostly boring stuff that you do repetitively. I’m in the field, so I know.
I also know some modern chemistry, which is the advanced version of alchemy. Alchemy comes from the Arabic word Al-Kimia, which is the primitive version of chemistry. Then we advanced to chemistry when Dalton proposed the atomic theory for chemistry. Then it advanced a lot into modern chemistry when Mendelev came up with the Periodic Law and compiled the first Periodic Table for chemistry. In Physics and in Chemistry, you can theoretically turn Lead into Gold. It’s just extremely hard and not worth the effort.