Unavoidable, Alcohol (2)
So yeah, I went right ahead and built a brewery and a distillation facility. I did it. Sometimes you just gotta make it happen fast.
The village had already been brewing something like an ale before, so I basically just expanded on that and set up proper facilities for larger-scale production.
As for the distillation setup… well, I just built a normal one. Heat the mash until the ethanol turns into vapor, run it through a long coiled tube to cool it down, and collect it at the end—that’s it.
If I had to say, the only clever bit was that I added another container around the cooling coil to hold some of the un-distilled mash, which acts as the coolant. That way, the mash warms up a bit, and I save a little energy when it’s time to boil it later. Waste not, want not, right?
So anyway—
Panis Village officially started recruiting for “brewing and distillation work.” We got several applications right away, picked out a few promising folks, and now they’re working hard at it.
Turns out, among the applicants were people like “My family used to run a sake brewery…” or “I studied fermentation research…” and so on. Some of them even said, “You know, maybe quitting adventuring and settling down with a steady job isn’t so bad,” and decided to stay. Thanks a ton, seriously!
They started brewing with a ton of enthusiasm, so I’ve got high hopes for what’s to come. Apparently, some of them are even trying stuff like “Can we make wine from these ridiculous amounts of tomatoes?”—so yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing how that turns out. … Though, uh, I can’t taste-test any of it myself. Yeah…
… By the way, the main ingredient being used here is barley, but what exactly do you get if you distill that? Whiskey? Barley shochu? … Eh, whatever.
Anyway, while they were making what might be whiskey or might be barley shochu, people started saying, “If we’ve gone this far, we should totally try making wine too…”
So I figured, “Alright, let’s give it a shot,” and planted some fruit saplings I’d bought from town on top of the giant slimes. I mean, we’ve got plenty of those massive guys lying around now, and just letting them loaf about feels like a waste, right?
… Long story short—it worked. Grapes actually grew.
Though, getting there was a bit of a hassle. Grapes are pretty picky—they don’t grow well without the right temperature. Around here, the region isn’t that cold, and it’s early summer now, so I figured temperature wouldn’t be a problem. But… apparently, the crazy-fast growth rate of slime-based farming changes the equation.
The saplings grew into full trees in a single day, so I thought, “This is it!” But then they wouldn’t bloom or bear fruit, so I suspected nutrient or temperature problems.
And then… I built one. A greenhouse.
I reconstructed crystal into crystal glass, made a ton of it, and built a big iron-framed crystal greenhouse.
And since I was already doing it, I went all out—installed watering spots for the slimes, added showers for easy fertilizer spraying. Every day, the slimes would get their fertilizer shower there.
… Apparently, the warm, sunlit greenhouse was comfy for the slimes too. Not just the giant ones, but the regular ones as well started lazing around in there… and the day after the greenhouse was finished, grapes appeared.
I dunno why. Maybe it was the temperature? The mana-rich water? Or maybe just the change of environment gave the slimes a little morale boost.
Whatever the cause, the grapes grew, so I’ll call that a win. Yeah!
So now, a few of the giant slimes have grapevines growing on them, and grapes are being harvested daily.
That batch is being used for winemaking. Sadly, fermentation speed can’t really be rushed, so it’s a waiting game—but I’m expecting it to bring in solid profits.
At the same time, I also built small-scale spinning and weaving workshops.
For the looms, I took apart and restructured the village’s “best and most expensive loom” and made several copies of it. Lifesaver.
Then I watched the ladies work, going “Oh my! What a lovely loom!” as they busily weaved, and studied how fabric weaving actually works. I mean, it’s not like I’d ever really paid attention to how cloth is made before.
After learning the basics, I started seeing parts of the process that could be automated if I added some kind of power source—so I began developing a new type of loom using my disassemble-absorb-reconstruct ability.
I mean, I’d heard in world history that weaving machines got automated at some point, so I figured, yeah, there’s gotta be some process I can mechanize.
Eventually, I managed to make a treadle-powered loom that could switch warp threads and pass the shuttle automatically. The village ladies loved it. “This boy’s a genius!” they said. That’s right! I am a genius! Go ahead, praise me! The more praise, the more energy I get!
Someday, we could probably upgrade to water-powered automatic looms, but that’d be way too high-tech for this world already, so I decided to stop there. I mass-produced the treadle looms and set up a weaving workshop.
That one actually got more job applications than the brewery—huge success! A lot of the village ladies said, “Well, these days, the slimes do most of the farming for us, so we’ve got a lot of free time…” and decided to become part-time weavers. I’m seriously grateful.
But—
“… For now, I’ll keep supplying the fibers myself, and eventually we’ll move on to large-scale cotton or hemp production… yeah…”
Yeah, unlike the brewery, this one kind of makes me part of the production chain myself. Right now, I’m reconstructing cellulose fibers in bulk, the women spin them into thread, and then weave the fabric—but since the raw materials depend entirely on me, I really need to fix that soon.
So, on that note—I planted hemp on the giant slimes.
… That harvest was hectic. I knew hemp was fast-growing, but I didn’t realize how fast.
Like, seriously. After just one day of leaving them alone, the hemp growing on the slimes had gotten so tall and heavy that it threw off their balance—and inside the greenhouse, the poor giant slimes were wobbling and flailing around under the weight of the hemp stalks!
I felt kinda bad seeing them squirm like that, so now the rule is: “Plant hemp only half a day before you want to harvest it! Never leave it longer than half a day!” Because yeah—hemp grows to two meters in half a day. What the heck. Bamboo shoots after rain have nothing on this.
Still, thanks to that, the village now has new jobs extracting fibers from the hemp, and employment shot up overnight.
… and before I knew it, Panis Village had a bunch of new industries.
Strong distilled liquor infused with slime-grown medicinal herbs became the village’s signature product.
The women’s weaving work was going great, and production speed was rising.
And the crystal-glass greenhouse? It became a massive hit among the wealthy folks coming for hot spring therapy—basically a tourist attraction. People kept saying, “This whole building’s made of crystal!?” and, well, we just went with, “Yes, it’s made of crystal!” Since, you know, this world doesn’t have transparent glass-making technology yet.
Because of that, the bottles for the upcoming whiskey or wine have to be ceramic, not glass. So a pottery workshop’s being built too.
… Basically, Panis Village is changing fast.
The population’s exploded.
Managing it all must be a real headache, but I’ve kinda dumped that whole issue on Edele-san, so I feel a bit guilty. Still, she says, “The environment’s good, so there aren’t any complaints. And most people here are former adventurers who owe their livelihoods to the dungeon, so they’re cooperative.”
… She also said, “And even if someone isn’t cooperative, well—there are plenty of former adventurers here now, right? …They’ll solve it with force if needed.” Yeah, sounds peaceful enough to me.
On the other hand, we were about to hit a labor shortage, so I was thinking of pausing further expansion—but surprisingly, a lot of adventurers said things like, “I just want to quit adventuring and live a stable life…” So yeah, that’s how things got this big.
… Yup. There were two things I really didn’t see coming.
First: I hadn’t realized how many adventurers didn’t actually want to be adventurers.
I knew some of them used to be soldiers or mercenaries who lost their jobs after wars ended, or got injured and couldn’t keep fighting, so they turned to adventuring as their only option.
And I knew about the “I wanted a life of thrills and glory, so I became an adventurer without thinking ahead—now I regret it!” types too.
But what I didn’t expect were the ones who said things like, “I’m the youngest child, so I couldn’t inherit the family land. But I couldn’t afford the fee to get a new plot of land blessed, so I had no choice but to leave home and become an adventurer,” or “I have no education, fighting’s all I can do, so I’ve just been scraping by day-to-day.”
Turns out, the majority of adventurers weren’t doing it because they wanted to, but because they had no other choice. That was surprise number one.
The second surprise was that all these former adventurers who moved here felt a deep sense of gratitude toward the dungeon itself.
See, most adventurers make their living by delving into dungeons. So they actually know better than anyone what kind of place a dungeon is.
And for many of them—people who had no other options—the dungeon that supported their lives became their “home” and their “salvation.” Especially this Panis Village dungeon, which is a gentle, low-risk dungeon—that made them even more thankful.
Basically, the people moving here are the ones with no ties or regrets about their old lives, or whose old lives were terrible.
And when you gather a bunch of people like that in one place—centered around a shared source of salvation, the dungeon—well…
“The Dungeon God-sama, thank you for today’s blessings!”
“Dear Dungeon God! Please grant us another fine day!”
… They built a shrine at the dungeon entrance to worship the “God of the Dungeon.” Now the whole village stops by to pray there every morning.
Yeah. Something I never saw coming has happened.
… Faith!
Faith! It’s spreading like wildfire!
The original villagers of Panis already know I’m the “Little God of the Dungeon,” so they just smile and greet me warmly.
The newcomers, at first, tilt their heads a bit when they see that—but within a week, they’re all like, “Good morning, Asuma-sama!” and “Asuma-sama, lovely weather today, isn’t it?” with bright smiles.
… Honestly, I have no idea what kind of status I hold now. If I dig too deep, I might open a can of worms, so I’m not touching it.
So I’m just quietly watching the shrine, all the while thinking, “Wait… are they worshipping me? Or the dungeon itself?” in constant unease…
Because, well—something else, not entirely unexpected, is happening.
That day, Lisas-san and I were heading to the dungeon entrance for an inspection.
Next to the entrance reception stands the “Dungeon God Shrine,” so it’s always a little awkward walking past—but normally, I just ignore it and move on.
Normally, that is.
… That day was different. There was a crowd of adventurers, all stirred up, and in the middle of them, one man was shouting—
“The dungeon has no will of its own! There is but one true god! Cease this blasphemous dungeon worship at once!”
Well, well… I knew you’d come back someday!
What do you think about this chapter?
