Unavoidable, Alcohol (6)
And so, with a “Whatever happens, happens!” attitude, we went all in on poaching jewelry craftsmen.
We asked the first jewelry craftsman old man to send out letters, and sure enough, when the others got word that he said it was okay, they all started quitting one after another, saying, “Well, if he’s moving, guess we’ll move too,” and we warmly welcomed the whole bunch of them. And then—
“Um, everyone, I’d like you to start by creating the Saintess’s ornaments…”
That was how I found myself making such a request before the fifteen assembled craftsmen — jewelers, engravers, and goldsmiths alike.
Here’s our plan.
First, we poach the craftsmen from the Grand Cathedral. At the very least, we’ll definitely take every single jewelry-related craftsman… Well, in the end, we ended up pulling away all of them, including the engravers and goldsmiths, leaving not a single trace behind, but hey.
That way, we strip the Grand Cathedral of the ability to produce jewelry.
The Grand Cathedral won’t be able to make any ornaments.
And then… we will craft the Saintess’s ornaments and present them to her as a gift.
… That will be our opening to make direct contact with the Saintess herself.
In the end, if the Saintess personally decides, “Let’s not mess with Panis Village,” then that’s all we need.
Even if that doesn’t happen, the Grand Cathedral will no longer be able to produce even their ritual crystals, meaning they’ll have no choice but to outsource all that work until they can find replacement craftsmen.
If that happens, we can use that as leverage, wielding both the craftsmen’s skills and our abundant crystal resources as our weapons.
In that case, the best outcome would be for the Church to conclude, “It’s religiously disadvantageous, but the trade benefits are too big to ignore, so we can’t destroy Panis Village.” That’d be great.
… Worst-case scenario, it turns into a holy war, so here’s hoping it doesn’t come to that. If it does, we could technically arm the dungeon with convenient modern weapons… but yeah, I’d really rather not.
Anyway—
“These are your facilities! I tried to prepare everything you might need, but if anything’s missing, just say so!”
We immediately took the craftsmen we’d just poached to the workshop. I’d asked the first jewelry craftsman, “What kind of equipment do you need?” and had everything set up accordingly. That said, the craftsmen brought most of their own tools, so what we provided were mainly the furnaces, large anvils, desks, chairs — the basics.
“Here are the materials! If you need more, just let me know!”
“Ohhh…!”
Then came the materials showcase. We’d prepared a wide range of jewellery — particularly large, clear, high-quality quartz crystals, plus amethyst, citrine, rose quartz, and even cloudy white ones.
On top of that, driven by the simple question, “Wouldn’t anything colorless and transparent do?”, I also prepared diamond and cubic zirconia. Though, well, they’re harder than quartz, so a bit more difficult to process…
“We’ve also got other supplies, so if there’s anything else—”
“Booze!”
“That’s at the cafeteria!”
We’d even stocked up on things like charcoal for firing, paper for sketching design drafts, and so on. I gotta say, even by my own standards, I’ve created a pretty damn perfect working environment!
“So, is there anything missing?”
Feeling pretty proud of myself, I asked that — and the craftsmen cheerfully looked around, muttering amongst themselves, until one of them said:
“Hey, young master. Sorry, but we’re short on base metal… not enough gold or silver.”
“Right?! Yeah, I figured! I’ll do my best to get some by the end of the day!”
And just like that, I had a brand-new headache to deal with!
Gold, man! You can’t make it without the element itself! What am I supposed to do about that!?
… Anyway.
While I watched the craftsmen huddling together, saying things like “With crystals this fine, we’ve gotta make something that shows them off!” “Can’t believe I’m seeing so many colored quartz pieces all at once!” “By the way, what’s this ridiculously sparkly transparent one? It’s not quartz, right?” — I muttered to myself:
“Alright. Base metal. Yeah… base metal…”
This was it — the unavoidable problem I was always going to have to face if we were making ornaments. And now was the time to deal with it.
“I’ve still got a little from the holy knight’s armor, but really, it’s just a little…”
Right. The problem is gold.
When you’re making accessories, you absolutely need that “base metal” part — the precious metals like gold, silver, or platinum. And we don’t have any!
“We’ll have to mine gold…”
“Is that even something we can mine?”
“Well… if we work at it, maybe…?”
Gold, huh. Getting our hands on gold.
Technically speaking, I think there should be trace amounts contained in the deeper layers of rock, so if I just decompose and absorb enough of it, I should be able to extract the gold element to some extent… probably.
That’s the advantage of dungeon power — even if an element only exists in microscopic amounts, I can break down and reassemble it to extract it. No need for refining at all.
And thinking about that, silver should be even easier to get. It exists here and there in compounds, so it should be more plentiful. Probably. Probably.
After thinking it through, I came to the optimistic conclusion of, “Yeah, it’s probably doable.” We’ll just have to carry out large-scale mining under Panis Village — mining, extracting only the elements we need, and then immediately filling it back in with stone. That should work.
“… If all else fails, I could just knock three protons off lead and turn it into gold, but, uh, I have no idea how the energy output would work for that…”
“There he goes again, saying complicated stuff…”
“When Asma-sama starts saying these things… are those the words of God or something?”
Well, it’s more like modern alchemy, but yeah… it’s not exactly realistic, and I’d rather not blow up the whole region in the process, so…
Alright. I’ll just dig honestly.
And so, the mining operation began.
“… Asuma-sama, you’re wearing something weird.”
“It’s just for the mood.”
I sat in my house wearing a hard hat that said “Safety First.” … Hey, I can decompose, absorb, and reconstruct everything remotely anyway, so there’s no need for me to physically go underground. Still, I wanted to feel the vibe, you know?
“So, did you get any gold?”
“Hmm… yeah, kinda. Uh, here, this much.”
And, well, we got some results. I reconstructed all the gold elements currently stored within the dungeon and gathered them in my palm.
“Waaah… still doesn’t look like enough, huh?”
“Actually, that’s a fair bit, I think…”
For now, we’ve collected about ten grams of gold… And about four times as much silver. Plus around one gram of platinum. Tons of arsenic and mercury too, but those we definitely don’t need!
“Honestly, getting all this iron’s the real blessing here.”
“With how the village’s growing, we’ll need lots of it.”
Yeah, iron’s coming out in decent quantities too, which is great. It’s a common element in granite, but we’ll be using a lot of it for construction and tools, so I’ll take it.
“… Feels like we should’ve done this sooner.”
“Maybe, but hey — since we’re doing it now, that’s good enough, right, Asma-sama?”
“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s look on the bright side.”
That’s the thing — with dungeon power, I don’t need refining. Even if gold ore isn’t visible, if there’s just 0.0001 grams of gold per ton of rock, I can break down 10,000 tons and get one gram of gold. Simple as that.
So yeah, I’ll keep making the most of this power from now on.
… And then.
“I guess dungeons have their limits, huh.”
“Well, yeah, Asuma-sama…”
“So that whole ‘Cherish finite resources!’ thing is actually true, huh…”
I used up the dungeon’s limits, digging and digging until I’d mined it all out. Well, I say “digging,” but really, it was just “erase and fill, erase and fill,” over and over again.
After completely stripping the dungeon within its entire range — the very edges of its influence—
“At least we’ve got enough gold for now, right?”
“Yeah. And with the silver we’ve got, if we mix the two, it should be enough for the Saintess’s ornaments… I think.”
I’d finally managed to form an ingot heavy enough to weigh down my palm.
But…
“… We’ve got no future supply, huh…”
Thinking ahead, this amount just won’t be enough.
Can’t forget why we wanted the jewelry craftsmen in the first place — it was to gain noble backing.
Even if we get the Saintess’s support, we still want the nobles’ too. For that, we need to brand Panis Village’s ornaments and keep profiting long-term. That’s the plan.
But if we use up all our gold now, well…
It’s fine, really — in the long run, we’ll just have to buy gold from elsewhere. Still, it’s a bit worrying…
Hmm…
“Maybe we should have them work mainly with silver, since we’ve got more of that…”
If we’re going to build a brand, we should probably establish a defining characteristic.
Of course, Panis Village ornaments already have their distinctive “large, high-quality jewelry." The craftsmen themselves said, “We’d rather emphasize the beauty of the stones than the base metal,” so we can focus on that — but still…
… Yeah.
“Maybe we could rhodium-plate them… ah, wait, we don’t have much rhodium either. Of course not. Uh, platinum… nope, barely any. Figures, rare metals and all.”
I tried producing ingots of every metal stored in the dungeon to see if any could substitute for gold.
But rare metals are rare for a reason! There’s even less platinum than gold — totally impractical!
“We’ve got tons of mercury, arsenic, and lead though…”
“Wha—!? Asuma-sama! This metal’s melting!?”
“Yeah, that’s normal for this one…”
When I pulled out some mercury, it immediately went drip-drip-drip… — of course, it’s a liquid.
So I quickly reabsorbed it. Mishisia-san, watching with a serious look, said softly, “There really are so many strange metals in this world that I’ve never seen before…” Cute.
“Aluminum… eh, it’s probably too soft for ornaments, huh…”
I’d found a decent amount of aluminum while mining shallower layers, but yeah, it’s too soft for jewelry. It’s light, which is nice, but… no good? Guess not.
… Which means…
“What about titanium!?”
“What’s titanium?”
“A light, hard metal that can take on almost any color!”
If we used titanium, we could make truly unique accessories unlike anything else in this world… right!?
What do you think about this chapter?
