Chapter 19 – It seems to be a peddler

Please note: In the previous chapter 18 I made a blunder in interpretation. The part where Renya was talking about practising the Light magic I interpreted a part that he could move the light unit due to light moving as a wave. But as this part bugged me, I consulted Jiangshi from TA and he translated it that Renya just noticed that he could train Light magic on top of his palm while moving himself. I changed it towards that.

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At the northern gate Renya presented the guild card and answered to the guard, who asked him where he was headed, that he would train and at the same time travel a bit further away have a look around.

Renya waved his hands in return to the guard who asked him to be careful on the move and the guard waved back. Renya walked at a steady pace for a while until he was at a spot, which he believed to be far enough from the gate, and then he suddenly started to run.

Though he said he would go a bit further to take a look around, Renya surveyed the surroundings after departing from the northern gate. As Shion had said before, it was a scene where you could truly see nothing.

There should be some weak monsters around, even though he thought that, there was no sign of their presence in this place, either. Looking at the rough ground, only a few short weeds were sporadically growing.

As it might be the best place for people who only want to swing their weapon, Renya felt that it was in no way lacking if he wanted to test his stamina simultaneously as well. He thought of only traveling at a running pace while he explored.

Leaving further away from the city, there might be some easily handled monsters.

In the beginning his speed was to the degree of doing some light jogging, even though he got swept up after a while into a running pace that felt in a way like performing a marathon, he didn’t show any sign of running out of breath.

While thinking that his body had become something surprisingly light, he now felt like trying to sprint for a short distance. Although his breathing rate increased somewhat as expected, there wasn’t any sign that he had to stop running due to exhaustion.

As it was his own body, Renya ended up having a somewhat eerie feeling. It isn’t a bad thing, rather if I had to say it, then it is a conveniently nice thing, because of that he stopped worrying about it.

While keeping a stable pace for approximately one hour, he continued to run. The plain ended quickly and he ended up arriving at the group of mountains exposing a rugged rock surface.

There was no presence of anything living. While admiring the stretched out rocky mountains, he tried to roughly calculate in his head.

Shion said that to reach these mountains going on foot it would take a few hours.

As there are individual differences, the walking speed would be roughly about 4 km/h.

Since the inhabitants of this world, rather than only the adventurers, train their bodies, I should assume a little higher speed like 5 km/h.

Because I think that a few hours could mean something around 5 to 6 hours and if I make a little estimation of 5 hours, I can calculate that the distance between the city and the rocky mountains is roughly 25 km.

Speaking of a speed of 25 km/h, you can calculate that running 100 m will take approximately around 14 seconds.

That doesn’t mean that it is that fast, although Renya though that, running a little less than 2 hours to travel 42 km is a marathon run. From the fact that he thought like that you could declare that those thoughts were very far off from the norm.

“Well, let’s start then, huh?” (Renya)

From his [Inventory] he took out the long sword he had just recently purchased. Renya muttered those words while confirming his grip.

I am not an idiot who doesn’t know the technical proficiency of brandishing edged tools, was what he thought, but speaking about how he judged his own ability, you could say that it was the same no matter which weapon he bought.

Nonetheless, it was unknown what Renya expected from this long sword either.

It was produced in large quantities, it was sold at the markets on every corner, and when talking about the quality of the blade, there was no edge put on it either. It was produced for the sake of using it to strike, suppress, and cut.

It couldn’t be helped that Renya was extremely dissatisfied with it.

I was expecting the thing to have at some degree of sharpness, even if only a little, though he ended up thinking this, since this could be called a typical weapon in this world, he had no choice but to accept it.

After ascertaining his grip, he tried to lightly swing it.

Renya didn’t have any suitable knowledge about swordsmanship in this world.

And since his memories had been removed, although he couldn’t state it with certainty, he didn’t expect that he learned handling weapons as a child when he went to school in his previous world.

For this reason, without having the knowledge about things like form, as he somehow finished taking a pose in order to wield the sword, since he had absolutely no knowledge about it, he started practice-swinging, combining slashes and thrusts using some logic. It gave off a reasonable appearance.

As far as Renya was concerned, as he was unusually unlucky, he only wanted to earnestly practice kendo. To a certain extent he was currently applying swordsmanship, it might be even possible to adequately use this style when going into battle.

However, he devoted most of his previous life to ingrain techniques into his body, techniques that used swordsmanship employing a katana.

Such, as a representative, the long sword Renya decided to hold, proved that his compatibility with the weapons of this world was the worst.

Unlike this world’s weapons whose intended purpose was to strike, suppress, and cut, a katana was something that killed when you drew it and connected.

If you used it to strike similarly to this world’s long sword, it wouldn’t matter how excellent the katana was, it would end up breaking or warping.

Since it differed in the way it killed, the way to handle it was naturally totally different too.

As it was such a distinctive gap, Renya’s body accumulated discomfort and no matter which movement he started his body became unable to follow it.

When he fought against the goblins at the pioneer’s village, he became excited by the battle itself. Even though he was still fine then to wield the weapons, if he analyzed it calmly and tried to fight as usual, this out of place feeling or rather this discomfort would have been quite large.

Renya repeated the practice swings for who-knows-how-long and then after he stored the long sword in its scabbard and tossed it into his [Inventory], he breathed a sigh.

“This is useless… it’s not even worth complaining about.” (Renya)

He moved fairly well.

But, the disposition of something like being reasonably satisfied didn’t occur to Renya.

Deeply sighting, he shook his head while sitting on a convenient stone for some time.

“Is something troubling you?”

Suddenly a voice came flying at him from the back. Standing in a flash, Renya turned his head while putting himself on guard.

The slope of the mountains was in Renya’s back and that mountain had an astonishingly high level of altitude. He looked up to see a single little girl there who was crouching down using her knees and elbows while wrapping her cheeks with both hands.

Her hair style consisted of long black hair with tied pigtails on the left and right. The half opened eyes with red pupils somehow gave off the feeling as if she was sleepy.

She wore a plain light brown shirt and trousers on top, which were covered with a dull grey mantle. On her right waist something with the shape of a slightly large pouch was hung. Going by her appearance he concluded that it was likely that she was in the middle of a journey.

“Who are you?” (Renya)

She wasn’t someone he remembered having seen before.

Without giving an answer to Renya regarding her identity, she stood up from the place she had been crouching and jumped down from the slope just like that.

That agility caused Renya to heighten his caution.

The slope was at a height to the extent that Renya had to look up. When she jumped down from that place, which likely had a height of about 3 m, the girl practically didn’t bend her knee and yet she didn’t stagger from the landing impact. Still and silent, Renya watched the girl who descended in front of his eyes.

“If you ask someone for their name, it is common sense to give your own name right after asking, is what I would like to point out to you. But given that it was me, who called out to you, I shall give you my name!”

Unnaturally flipping up the mantle and arrogantly putting both hands on her hips, no matter how and where you looked, she was shady on top of being suspicious-looking.

While maintaining a distance that would allow him to escape at any time, Renya watched the little girl, who grandly introduced herself, intently.

“I am called the peddler Gi… Kirie (T/N: >> Kirie <<)” (Kirie)

“I don’t believe it’s something you should brag about?” (Renya)

Calmly, quickly cutting into Kirie’s introduction, Renya inserted his tsukkomi causing the cocky Kirie to drop her shoulders with a feeling of despondence.

“Shouldn’t you say something more appropriate by reading the mood there?” (Kirie)

“Though I don’t know about that, what does this peddler-san want from me?” (Renya)

Since she approached specifically to greet him, Renya asked her while trying to guess her intentions.

Seeing that the expression of vigilance didn’t vanish from his face, Kirie, who called herself a shoujo, smiled bitterly.

“Even if you don’t stand on guard like this…” (Kirie)

“Just in case, I had checked that there was no one else close by. And yet you were there. That should be plenty of reason to remain on guard, don’t you agree?” (Renya)

Renya didn’t understand magic like the one Rona used.

Therefore, to make certain, even though he didn’t mention it, he paid attention to his surroundings. He had confirmed that there wasn’t anyone in the range of his attentive field of vision.

I think probably it would have become awkward, if anyone were to see my way of using the sword. Though he likely shouldn’t give such a reason for that.

“I will be troubled if you look down on peddlers. After all I have to repel the attacks of bandits as well as monsters while continuously traveling from city to city in order to conduct my business. Something on the level of erasing my own presence is a trivial matter.” (Kirie)

Once again doing a complete reverse, Kirie suddenly and forcefully puffed up her chest with pride.

Is that how it is? while pondering about it, Renya tried to throw out another question.

“Although you are calling yourself a merchant, you don’t carry any merchandise, do you?” (Renya)

“I am a rare peddler. I possess [Inventory]. Amazing, don’t you agree?” (Kirie)

Renya nodded for the time being as he understood the underlying logic.

“So, what are you selling?” (Renya)

“I am able to sell whatever you like. It must be something like fate to meet each other in this place. Do you want me to show you some of my wares?” (Kirie)

Without even waiting for a reply, Kirie took out a voluminous carpet, which you wouldn’t expect to possibly fit into such place, from the pouch hanging on her waist. She immediately spread it out on the ground.

Furthermore she took out various goods from the same pouch while lining them up on top of the carpet in a way so you could easily examine them. Somehow I am certain I encountered this pocket she possesses in some anime, Renya thought.

Small bottles like test tubes filled with multicolored liquids, ornaments made out of precious metals adorned with jewels, some materials like black leather, gloves with an appearance of exposing the fingers and several pairs of shoes.

As she lined up the things from within the pouch like that, Renya’s eyes were glued to the last item Kirie took out.

“That is…” (Renya)

“Oya, you have a discerning eye to immediately spot this.” (Kirie)

Kirie made sure to hold it reverently with both hands. She presented a single katana in front of Renya’s eyes.

A matte black leather was wrapped around the estimated part of the hilt.

The guard on the sword was made out of plain black metal with the same lack of gloss.

Although he couldn’t see whether the blade of the katana matched them as it was in its scabbard, the scabbard appeared to be made from metal as well, having a similar black color. Something like a silver arabesque pattern was applied as a design.

“Please, feel free to ascertain it for yourself by drawing it.” (Kirie)

He grasped the scabbard of the katana he was handed with his left hand and drew it out of the opening of the sheath.

With a delightful feeling of *kun~tsu*, he could feel the blade sliding out of the scabbard. (T/N: Kun refers to the drawing of the blade while sheathed and the tsu is the sound of it coming free completely.)

Turning over the edge of the unsheathed katana’s blade, he set it up at eye level while leaking a small sigh of admiration.

The texture of the surface had a skillfully fine small ferrite pieces matching the wave pattern along its length. The tempered pattern of the katana’s blade had an inlet inserted having an rotund appearance of wind swaying clovers intermingling with each other. ²

Measuring the katana’s blade with his eyes, it had a length of approximately 2 shaku 4 sun. (T/N: shaku = 30,3 cm, sun = approx. 3 cm … so approx. 72,6 cm)

Though he didn’t understand the inscription on the exposed tang after examining it, Given that the curving is shallow, I fear that it’s likely this katana’s designated classification would be uchigatana,¹ he judged.

For a while Renya was staring at it intently checking the condition of the blade. Carefully returning the katana’s blade into its scabbard, he handed the katana back to Kirie.

“It was a considerably sharp sword and a feast for the eyes.” (Renya)

“Oya? You won’t buy it?” (Kirie)

As Kirie said this unexpectedly, Renya naturally took something like a single breath.

“You have only this many goods. Probably it is beyond my grasp.” (Renya)

“No~ I was told that this weapon was used by some Lost. But, well, for most of the people in this world it is a half-hearted weapon.” (Kirie)

While grasping the received katana with her right hand, she began to scribble with a *kaki kaki* with the free left hand. Kirie displayed a troubled laugh.

“It is exceedingly beautiful. But it is emitting a feeling of being ~ a rare piece of art, or perhaps I should say there are no people who are able to accurately handle it as weapon. As there were many people broke off their interest in it due to its appearance, honestly speaking, I had no other choice but to hold onto it.” (Kirie)

“What a waste.” (Renya)

Renya thought so from the bottom of his heart.

Clinging to these words, no matter what Kirie’s voice became stuffily zealous recommending her merchandise.

“I believe it is a great satisfaction for people who can handle a tool to receive it after all. Such being the case, if you can handle it accurately, I think I wouldn’t mind selling it to you for a special price. For only an astonishingly low 20 gold coins!” (Kirie)

“I believe I can handle it perfectly. I just don’t have such money on hand.” (Renya)

Together with the share he held onto when he arrived in this world here, adding to that the sum he got for selling off the magic crystals and also the reward for the goblin subjugation, he didn’t possess that kind of money. Renya easily gave up on the purchase.

I can’t shake a sleeve I don’t have and I think I don’t want to go as far as lending money from somewhere just so that I can buy it.

In the case of an edged tool, I can use it, I believe. My handling of the longsword is embarrassing though.

I think you could say I am simply swinging an iron pole. Well, in it’s own way it can be used in combat somehow.

Renya gave up after reaching such a conclusion. However, Kirie didn’t want to lose this buyer here. Thus, she earnestly hung on tenaciously as she didn’t know when the next buyer who knew about this object might appear.

“Well then, how about bartering for it? Since you came to this place to do weapon training, aren’t you an adventurer-san? Don’t you have some rare item you could exchange for the katana?” (Kirie)

“Sorry, but it hasn’t been a long time yet since I came to this world here. Besides, it is unthinkable by all means that I possess such a rare item that could counterbalance it (T/N: the katana).” (Renya)

“Mu? This world here? Might you possibly be a Lost human?” (Kirie)

Blaming himself with the audible words “Damn!”, there was no further need to conceal it since he spilled the beans already. Given Kirie’s astonishment alongside her inquiry, Renya nodded.

Seeing Renya nodding, Kirie’s face in a flash sparkled with a joyful expression.

“If that’s the case! Did you bring in anything from your world? Something that doesn’t exist in this world would have plenty of value.” (Kirie)

“Even if you said that…” (Renya)

Because it could be said that an ordinary Lost would come from their original world to this world by something like falling through a vortex, it wouldn’t be strange for them to bring the items they held onto at the time they fell into this world either.

However, if Renya was to believe the words of that little girl, once the body completely passed away in the original world, it was consequently impossible to bring in anything from the original world.

Having unintentionally thought this far, Renya opened his [Inventory] to look into it.

There he found only one item stored away.

That was, although not an item brought in from his original world, something which historically originated from his former world.

Even though it was something that had a reasonable value by itself, as he also recognized it with spite, looking at it from the view of common people, that was… an object which inevitably couldn’t be called anything more than a stick.

In spite of thinking like that, as he had no other options, Renya took it out from his [Inventory].

“That is?” (Kirie)

“It is called a shinai. In my world… maa, let’s just say it is a weapon for the time being.” (Renya)

“That is, maa… how to say it? …Can I also borrow it for a little while?” (Kirie)

Renya passed over the shinai he took out on top of Kirie’s extended left hand she held out.

Although the thought of her possibly making off with the shinai crossed his mind for an instant, he judged it quite unlikely for her to escape from this place while leaving the still spread out merchandise at her own feet without a care.

Kirie held the katana in the right hand without change. In the left hand she grasped the hilt of the shinai and assessed it while lightly swinging it.

“This is also considerably light.” (Kirie)

“Well, in my world it is a weapon serving mainly for practice.” (Renya)

“Houhou… oya? Isn’t this a grade 10 item?” (Kirie)

As Kirie gazed at the shinai closely, she suddenly told him what she had noticed.

If I’m not mistaken, such an explaination was given at the time when I first saw it in the [Inventory], he remembered.

Since she is a merchant, I guess judging such things is one of her fortes.

Or I think she could also possess the skill of appraisal. While considering this, Renya nodded.

As he tried to ask about her expression, she nimbly arranged the shinai in her left hand and the katana in her right hand. Thinking about something, Kirie counted 10 times as she knocked them together each time. Abruptly she held out the katana in her right hand facing Renya.

“Oi?” (Renya)

“Let’s exchange. Although I don’t quite understand this item, since it certainly is a grade 10 item, this will sell for any price to dilettantes!” (Kirie)

“Though I also have a problem with the way you talk about something I took out, are you really fine with this?” (Renya)

“Yes, even if I held onto this katana here, I won’t be able to sell it successfully either. Since its rank is only grade 7, its value is considerably lower.” (Kirie)

“If you are willing to exchange it, it will be quite helpful to me, though…” (Renya)

Even though Renya had an expression of not being quite convinced, Kirie floated a smile with *niko niko* as it was actually nothing more than an absolutely beneficial shopping to her.

“As I can sweep out deadstock as well as obtain a novel commodity, it is a very good thing.” (Kirie)

“Is that so? If that’s really fine, please go ahead, but.” (Renya)

“Yes, maidoari~” (Kirie) (T/N: Thanks for your purchase/for making business with you, for those who don’t know )

Even though Renya somehow couldn’t help feeling that this ended up being an extremely unbalanced transaction, Kiried pushed the katana onto Renya and promptly stored away the shinai in the void storage going via the pouch in the end.

“You don’t have any other businesses of a lifetime besides this one, do you? If there isn’t, you don’t mind me storing my merchandise, do you?” (Kirie)

“Indeed, since I don’t have any money on hand to that extent.” (Renya)

While graping the obtained katana tightly, as Renya answered her, within his mind he wondered, Now then, how am I supposed to equip this?

Since it was an uchigatana, it would be the proper way to carry it on his waist. but there was no way that Renya had a place on his current clothes to wear this katana.

“Now that you mention it …” (Kirie)

Being quite casual, Kirie said while storing back the spread out merchandise into her pouch.

“As it is a special occasion, would you let me see how to use that weapon perfectly?” (Kirie)

“Fumu?” (Renya)

“I will prepare the target.” (Kirie)

Having almost finished putting away the items, Kirie took out another object from within her pouch.

That object resembled something that could be seen on paddy fields and their likes in Renya’s former world.

It was a scarecrow made out of straw and a stick.

In order for the scarecrow to have the shape of a human-like body, it wore a leather armor. As such, it appeared to have something like intensity in its own way.

Kirie stabbed it into the ground like a stake so that its feet section was affixed in the ground. By sending Renya a signal as if she said “There you go”, she took a little distance.

Albeit wondering what he should do, Renya felt in some respects something like obligation due to the business deal not long ago. He judged that he could listen to a request of such level.

Furthermore, Kirie had said「a person handling it accurately」. Thus it could also be said that it was necessary to establish proper proof.

When he saw that Kirie had sufficiently distanced herself from the scarecrow, Renya lightly lowered his hips, held the katana with his left hand close to his waist and drew his right hand gently near to its hilt.

Currently, although he would use it for the first time, he had something like a hallucination remembering a time where he carried a katana in his hands in the far gone olden days.

Renya’s eyes fixedly stared at the scarecrow.

The distance from Renya to the scarecrow was roughly about 2 meters.

Remembering the feeling of oppression similar to being choked by merely watching, Kirie gulped down her saliva involuntarily in the instant Renya moved his right hand.

Drawing it out, at the time she thought that, Renya’s body had already returned to its former position. In the same way as if being immersed in a slow lingering memory, the katana’s blade was returned into its scabbard.

Kirie was dumbfounded.

She didn’t remember taking her eyes off him.

Even though she didn’t, within Kirie’s field of vision, the part of the scarecrow, which Renya had cut by stepping in with a single step, ended up in a spectacle of cleanly falling off.

Somehow, watching in front, Kirie ended up feeling as if she was the one having been cut. At the same time Renya completely stored back the katana’s blade, the plain scarecrow arbitrarily fell apart.

Thus, the scarecrow, which had been cut from the left side up to the right shoulder, dropped onto the ground being separated into four parts.

“As it happened due to drawing the katana from the initial position, this probably should be correctly named as battoujutsu.” (Renya) (T/N: Art of sword drawing … see Rurounin no Kenshin for further references)

Breathing out without a warning, Kirie remained stiff as she turned towards Renya’s direction while he explained.

“Although kenjutsu is yet another different art… Are you satisfied with this?” (Renya)

*nikori* Renya displayed a smiling face. Although it was likely that Renya wasn’t aware of anything, Kirie’s muscles along the spine were frozen stiff in reminiscence of the spectacle before and except nodding her head with a *koku koku* she wasn’t able to move at all.

 

Translators comment

For those butting their heads on top of the desk, I didn’t make a mistake when the peddler introduced herself as “Gi … Kirie”, for the rest I refer you to Interlude 3. 😉

(ED: I dunno, Kirie showed a lot of emotion.  I’m not wholly convinced.)

 

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Translation Notes

¹ It is a short Katana, predecessor to kodachi‘s, for more information see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uchigatana

² Explanation provided by Faceman. Thank you. 🙂

I guess he is talking about hamon line, and can be adjusted by smith by varying the thickness of clay applied onto blade before quenching (clay slows down the cooling when hot metal is put into water/oil, so with the clay layer being of variable thickness, the steel obtains differences in atomic microstructure that can be brought out by proper polishing. Clover pattern would be somethinglike this http://www.tofugu.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/japanese-sword-hamon.jpg

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