Chapter 374: The Pickup

Four days later, they were busily making wiley jam from early in the morning.

Instead of using a magic stove like usual, a fireplace, heated by a magic crystal Jin controlled, was built in front of the village mayor’s house. They were going to make a large pot of the jam.

“Wow, the smell is sweet yet sour.”

The children took out the berries they’d gathered and threw them into the pot. The golem maid Sarah stirred the pot while crushing the berries.

The pot was made of aluminum. Although it was considered poor-quality material, no one in the village seemed bothered by it. Jin had used aluminum because it was still light even though it was so big.

During the middle of the night, Land had been ordered to gather wiley from nearby mountains, so the total amount of berries had tripled since yesterday. However, no one noticed this increase.

Before they noticed, the berries were crushed and tossed into the pot.

When the juice oozed out and it became easier to stir. The foam that came floating up was then scooped out.

“I’m adding the sugar.”

Jin emptied the sugar into the pot.

They added 50 kg of sugar to roughly 50 kg of wiley. Then, taking care not to let it burn by continually stirring, the liquid was slowly boiled down to a syrupy consistency, and the jam was ready.

The stronger the sourness, the more delicious the jam would be.

During his days as an orphan, Jin had made jam from off season strawberries that could be purchased cheaply. He would add a lot of sugar and let the water cook off to have it keep for a long time.

If they put it in the freezer, the jam would keep until next spring, but usually it would be eaten up before then anyway.

“Let me see… Ouch!”

Jin had scooped up a little jam from his stirring spatula using his finger, only to burn his tongue upon tasting it.

“Yeah, this is sweet!”

From Jin’s side, Saki snuck a taste from the spatula too, and she broke out in a smile afterwards.

The pot was removed from the fire and allowed to cool before being distributed to each household.

“Hmm, the magic crystal still has energy…”

Jin decided to make a marmalade, as the heating crystal was still usable.

“Reiko, bring me 50 kilos of Citran. Oh, and sugar too. ”

Jin gave instructions to Reiko, and asked Meine for a cutting board and a kitchen knife.

“Okay, I’d appreciate some help from anyone who’s free.”

After two minutes had passed, Reiko came back from the Nido Castle warehouse with the supplies, and those who could use kitchen knives were made to peel and chop up the citron skin.

In the meantime, Jin made another large pot.

“Put the chopped skin in a pot, boil it once and discard the hot water.”

There seem to be various methods to make marmalade, but Jin went with his own way. It felt more natural to leave the white part on the inside of the skin.

“We can eat about half of the peeled fruit but squeeze the other half and put the juice in a pot.”

“Yes!”

Despite the energetic replies, the children were stuffing their faces with the majority of the Citran. Seeing this, Jin ordered Reiko, Ehr, and Edgar to squeeze the juice.

Citran has a lot of juice, so even if half of the fruit was eaten it would be enough for the marmalade.

The juice and shredded skins were boiled down. The foam from the top of the pot was scooped out and the boiling juices were mixed with sugar.

If too little sugar was used, it wouldn’t keep very long.

Having made jam from early in the morning, they finished up just around noon.

Everyone in the village had gathered around to taste the finished products.

“Oh! Yummy!”

They ate the freshly made jam and marmalade on specialty bread.

The jams were flavorful, so only a little bit was needed on each piece of bread.

“Big bro, this is delicious!”

“Thanks, Jin!”

The children who knew the expensive sugar was supplied by Jin thanked him between their mouthfuls.

The remainder was distributed into 29 portions. Each house received 2 bottles of wily Jam and 1 bottle of marmalade.

The bottles were Jin’s specially made crystal ones. Normally, they wouldn’t be used to hold jam, but nobody, including Saki, said anything.

“When you’re done eating, be sure to clean up your mouth. I’ll show you how… ”

Meine instructed the children.

Fortunately, the village of Kaina had almost no cases of dental caries or periodontal disease, but that could easily change along with new eating habits. As such, it was worth teaching the kids dental hygiene now.

Jin had noticed that some drinking water used in Kaina Village seems to contain a very small amount of baking soda, explaining why the hot spring was a bicarbonate spring.

Since baking soda can be used for cooking, he was investigating whether he could extract it from the water. However, he didn’t want to harm the natural water by doing so.

Plus, it was possible that the natural baking soda was responsible for keeping the villagers’ dental health in check with its slight alkaline levels.

On top of that, the water contained more aether than water in other parts of the continent.

The water was about 0.1 ppm in Klein’s capital city of Alban, but about 10 ppm in Kaina village. Meaning it was 100 times more potent.

However, since it was still only 10 ppm, meaning 1 / 100,000, there was no effect on the human body (nor on the mana of said human body).

However, it may help in maintaining the villagers’ dental health.

Jin hadn’t done any clinical trials, so he couldn’t say for sure, but he thought there was a high possibility this was why there were no dental problems in the village.

“Well, it’s about time I go pick up Reinhardt.”

It was 12:30 in the afternoon at Kaina Village. In Banne, where Reinhardt was, it would be around 9:30 in the morning.

“Be careful, Jin.”

“Heh, I’m looking forward to seeing Reinhardt and Belch.”

“Big bro, have a safe trip”

With Elsa, Saki and Hannah seeing them off, Jin and Reiko left for Hourai Island using a warp gate.

On their way through the gate,

“How does the oxygen supply work in here?”

Jin asked Butler 50, who oversaw the portal.

“I check the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels and ventilate it at fixed intervals using the warp gates.”

Relieved to hear this, Jin continued to Horai Island.

“Welcome back, my lord”

“Good to be back, Rou. Today, I’m going to bring my friend Reinhardt and his wife to Kaina Village. Tomorrow or the day after that, I’ll bring you there too. Does that sound alright? ”

“Yeah, it does. I’ll be ready to go. ”

Reinhardt would likely be with his Schwarzritter ‘Noir’ and Belch would be with her automata ‘Neon’.

It was unlikely Noir would be able to pass through the small warp gate Jin had in his carriage. For this reason, the Falcon 10 was dispatched in advance to assemble a warp gate in the barn at Saki’s house that was large enough to fit both the carriage and Noir through.

For security reasons, the gate was disassembled shortly after each use and had to be reassembled when they returned.

“Is the carriage okay in the ‘warp gate’?”

The warp gate was large enough for a carriage.

“Yeah. If we let them know ahead of time, we’ll be temporarily allowed through security”

Reiko would use a built-in magic communicator to contact Laojun just before the transfer, and they would contact him to get its overseer to loosen security.

After confirming all this, Jin pulled out one of the golem horses he had made the other day. It would help pull Reinhard’s carriage.

Living horses were hard to care for so Jin preferred his golem ones.

“I’m glad I made a lot.”

Jin said to himself while riding on his horse.

“… Oh yeah, I have to ask for the horses I lent to Lycia and Pasco …”

That would have to be put off until later because Jin was on his way to pick up Reinhard in Banne, which was a part of the Shouro Empire.

＊ ＊ ＊

“Hey, is Lord Jin really coming to pick you up today?”

Belch asked Reinhardt, while they were preparing for the journey at Count Randle’s house in Banne.

It was a little past 9. Clouds covered the sky, and the sunlight was weak. It wasn’t likely to rain where they were, but the weather looked like it might be different elsewhere.

“Oh, without a doubt”

For the time being, the mana communicator had been kept a secret from Belch, so Reinhardt couldn’t talk on it long, but he had managed to make all the arrangements in a short exchange with Kou.

“Reinhard, safe travels”

The butler, Claude, gave these words as farewell.

This time, due to a private request that only the couple came, Reinhardt and Belch went to their carriage without anyone other than the Schwarzritter Noir and the Automata Neon.

The Randles believed, because Reinhardt was staying inside their territory, there was no danger.

There wouldn’t be any danger, but, as only Rienhardt knew, they weren’t actually planning on staying within the territory.

Just then, Jin and Reiko appear.

“Oh, oh!?”

Reinhardt’s father, Wolfgang, raised his voice startled. It was his first time seeing a horse-shaped golem.

Naturally, he seemed not to see Jin in the carriage because he was so surprised by the golem. Claude the butler, was accustomed to the golems, however, so she was unphased.

“Reinhardt, Belch, I’m here to pick you up.”

“Thanks for coming, Jin.”

“Lord Jin, thanks for all your hard work.”

Reinhardt shook hands with Jin.