Chapter 39

Thanks to the vitamin supplements, Stella and the people living on the outskirts of town all became energetic.

And this was the best news for Ninorichi, a town that was about to face a construction boom.

After all, whether it was an inn, a tavern, or an adventurer's guild, construction required manpower.

In Ninorichi, a frontier town, it was difficult to gather the necessary manpower, and they were in a situation where they would even borrow a cat's paw.

Half of the people living on the outskirts were elderly, but the other half were still active.

According to Karen, those who could work in the fields would go to the fields, and the men would go to construction.

And the other half of the elderly could also do simple tasks.

Hearing this, I decided to put into action a plan I had been considering for a long time...

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That day, I was conducting an experiment in the kitchen of the shop.

I placed a pot of water on a portable stove and turned on the heat.

After a few minutes,

When the water boiled, I turned off the heat and floated an empty tin can in the pot.

This empty can contained a shaved candle, and I was about to melt the candle using a water bath.

"The heat... is this enough?"

As I fiddled with the knob of the portable stove,

"Shiro-niichan, what are you doing? Cooking?"

Aina, who had finished the pre-business cleaning, peered into the pot.

Looking at what was boiling in the pot, she made a puzzled face.

"This... is a candle?"

"Yeah. I'm melting the candle."

"...Are you cooking with a candle?"

"Hehe, no. I'm using the melted candle to make survival matches."

"!? Survival matches!! Are you making 'survival matches' now? Aina has never seen anyone make survival matches before!"

Aina got excited at my words.

She was so excited that her breathing became heavy.

Is this it?

Aina must have misunderstood that I am an alchemist.

"Oh? If you're interested, would you like to make them together?"

"Sure! Aina will make survival matches too!"

According to what I heard from an acquaintance, survival matches can be easily made with a candle.

Hearing this, I looked up the instructions online and bought the necessary materials from a nearby 100-yen store.

First, I took the matches out of the box.

"Look, Aina. The candle has melted into a liquid, right? I'm going to dip the matches in this liquid wax like this..."

I dipped the tips of the matches into the melted wax and quickly took them out.

Then I placed chopsticks in an empty space to let the wax dry, arranging the matches so that their tips were suspended.

"When the wax hardens, the next step is this."

Saying this, I opened the cap of a small bottle I had prepared.

"What's that?"

"This is called 'nail polish.' It's usually applied to nails, but this time we're going to apply it to the matches. Watch. I'm going to apply it thinly like this."

"Thinly?"

"Yeah. If you apply too much, the matches won't light."

"Wow."

Aina's eyes sparkled as she followed the matches I held with her gaze.

"When the nail polish dries, it's complete. Now, this is the main part."

"The main part?"

"Yeah. We need to test if the survival matches we just made can light. So, I'll take the completed matches... here we go."

I grabbed a few of the newly made matches and threw them into a glass of water.

"Aah!? Shiro-niichan, the matches are getting wet!"

"I'm doing it on purpose. If they can't be used when wet, they're not survival matches. ...Okay, that should be enough."

I scooped up the matches floating in the water and handed them to Aina.

"Aina, try to see if they can light."

"O-okay."

Aina took the survival matches I had made and,

"Here we go!"

She rubbed the match against the side of the matchbox.

The result was—

"They lit... Shiro-niichan, they lit! Look! They're on fire! They lit even though they were wet!"

Aina was very excited.

Perhaps because her excitement had risen, she kept lighting the self-made survival matches one after another.

"The experiment was a success. Aina, did you understand how to make them?"

"Sure! I think I can do it!"

"Great. Then let's make them together."

"Okay!"

And so, Aina and I became so engrossed in making survival matches that we forgot the shop's opening time.