kscans

Chapter 126 - A Beginning for the Otherworld Thermostatic Chamber 1. The Kotatsu

"Mmm... pure bliss..."

Muttering a phrase worthy of an old man right from the start, the one melting into a puddle was our very own Yuri. Despite this, he was still a child of twelve, soon to be thirteen, with the appearance of one who had barely come of age.

The reason this child was uttering such a line... was the thing Yuri was currently in.

That’s right. It was the kotatsu, the symbol of Japanese winter and the cradle of the Japanese soul.

"Ngaah... five years since I was reincarnated into this world, I never thought the day would come when I’d be relaxing in a kotatsu... I never even dreamed of it..."

The catalyst was the constant-temperature magic tool he had acquired at a magic tool shop in Laurenzen.

Initially, he had obtained it with the intention of building a heated fermentation storeroom, but due to various circumstances, he had decided to take a wait-and-see approach to heated fermentation, which freed up his schedule for analyzing the magic tool and creating a prototype. He hadn't given up on heated fermentation itself and planned to conduct it on a small scale as a test. So, he would need a thermostat anyway. He had been analyzing the magic formula at a somewhat leisurely pace, and fortunately, the formula wasn't that complex, so he somehow managed to become capable of creating it himself. The benefit of the `Magic Tool Creation (Basic)` skill integrated into his `Rural Life Guide` was probably significant as well. And the only way to know if the magic circuit he created worked correctly was to actually try it out.

The original magic tool was a niche item for warming gloves, but Yuri had no intention of making something like that now. For one thing, Yuri didn't even own any gloves. The output wasn't enough to warm an entire room, nor could it maintain a high enough temperature to boil water. By the standards of this world, it was a subtly unhelpful tool...

"...But... this seems perfect for a kotatsu..."

Yes. For a Japanese person, it was a magic tool with performance that was nothing short of a godsend.

And so it was that Yuri, under the pretext of verifying the magic circuit he had created, began the production of a kotatsu.

He had yet to acquire the `Woodworking` skill, but he had accumulated a fair amount of experience in woodworking. Making the wooden frame of a kotatsu was no great trouble. The problem, rather, was the futon. Naturally, in this world, there was no such thing as a kotatsu futon. He had no choice but to make it himself, and the sewing itself wasn't particularly troublesome, but...

"The cloth and cotton... will it be enough..."

He had originally purchased the cloth and cotton to make a mattress and a comforter. He had other customers to consider, so he hadn't bought a particularly large amount. He had been thinking of making a padded short coat with the leftovers... but now it seemed there was a chance he might not even have enough, let alone have leftovers.

"I’m still making the kotatsu futon, though."

He wanted to make a new mattress, but he could just use his down futon as a comforter as he had been, and a padded short coat wasn't essential. On the other hand, for Yuri, who possessed the heart of a Japanese person, a kotatsu in winter was something he could not compromise on.

And so, these circumstances led to the self-indulgent scene described at the beginning.

"Hmm... the problem is the capacity of the magic stone battery. I wish I could increase it a bit more, if possible."

Though it was being treated entirely as a battery, he was essentially charging a monster's magic stone with his own magic power and using it as a power source for the magic tool. Because the magic stone he was using was high-quality and large, he was extravagantly using a Thrustboar's magic stone, it boasted a capacity unthinkable for any ordinary magic tool. But for Yuri, who wished he could just laze around in the kotatsu all day, the nagging question was whether he could increase the capacity a little more.

"A bigger magic stone than this would be... from a Tyrantbot or a Gambit Grizzly, I guess. ...But I want to keep the high-capacity magic stones in reserve for emergencies... and it's not like the capacity would increase that dramatically either..."

To get a bigger magic stone than this, it seemed he would have to hunt a dragon. But... hunting a dragon for a kotatsu seemed rather problematic, didn't it? Yuri still had enough reason left to make that judgment.

"In that case... I wonder if it’s possible to connect multiple magic stones to increase the effective capacity."

For the sake of his kotatsu life, Yuri was willing to work hard enough to raise his magic tool creation skill. So he thought.