kscans

Chapter 268 - Inba's Magic Tool Shop 4. Various New Orders (Part 1)

Now, changing perspectives, we have Yuri, who had successfully received his ordered magic tools. He had obtained both items that were his initial objective without any problems. All that was left was to quietly depart... but there was no way Yuri would make such a virtuous decision. This was a magic tool shop he could rarely visit. He had to scrutinize every nook and cranny of the shop, not letting a single speck of dust escape his keen gaze. How could he not?

What particularly concerned Yuri was the Mixer, as Yuri perceived it, that Mand had told him about. A mixer would have various uses, and products applying its technology were wide-ranging. If he could get one here, he wanted to.

With this intention, he had been looking around the shop for a while, but... for some reason, no matter how much he looked, he couldn't find a magic tool that looked like one. From the way Mand spoke, it seemed to be a fairly common magic tool in kitchens.

"A mixer? This way!"

At a loss, he asked Silica, who was nearby, and she spiritedly pulled him to a corner of the shop. ...Wait, wasn’t that the corner for failed, discounted products?

Paying no mind to Yuri’s inner doubts, Silica proudly picked up an item.

(...A bowl?)

What he wanted was a mixer. He had no use for a bowl. In front of a bewildered Yuri, Silica triumphantly listed its virtues. By listening to her explanation, Yuri was finally able to understand what a "mixer" in this world was. And at the same time, he realized he had been greatly mistaken.

(So this world's "mixer"... is this kind of thing...)

Yuri, who was, for better or worse, still influenced by the memories of his past life, had assumed from the start that a cooking mixer would be a blender or something similar... but he was made to realize how shallow his thinking had been. This was, after all, a "sword and magic world." A mixer here was not some unrefined device that ran on electricity and a motor.

(A magical formula is built into the bowl, and it stirs the ingredients placed inside... Of course our conversation was a little off...)

Since it was completely specialized for stirring ingredients, it lacked functions like cutting or pulverizing ingredients with a rotating blade. If he were to compare it to a device from his past life, the closest might be the Magnetic Stirrer used in chemistry for preparing liquids.

Yuri’s interest aside, according to Silica’s passionate speech, this "mixer" was an excellent item capable of continuously adjusting its rotation speed. It was what you would call "with a continuously variable speed function." ...And yet, why was such an ‘excellent item’ lamenting its fate in the discount corner?

"This idiot girl messed up the rotation speed adjustment."

"Auntie!"

She had gotten too absorbed in improving its performance, from Silica’s perspective, and as a result, the rotation speed became unnecessarily high. When set to maximum speed,

"Ah... so it gets carried away and the contents fly out..."

Precisely because she had made it continuously variable, it had apparently become difficult to set it to the appropriate speed. To make matters worse, it tended to rotate faster than appropriate, leading to a series of accidents where the contents flew out.

"After seeing that mess, there's no way I'd recommend it to a customer."

So she made sure to warn any customers who showed interest in buying it. Some had bought it for fun anyway, but all of them had apparently returned it within three days. It would probably sell if they changed it from continuously variable to step-variable speed, or readjusted the maximum speed, but Silica, who was particular about her craft, stubbornly refused. To this day, it has become the master of the discount corner. Nagara, watching from the side, looked exasperated.

"...Well, the container itself is quite large, so it might be fine for mixing a small amount. I live alone, so the amount I’d stir is limited anyway."

"...Are you saying you’ll buy it, lad? As a shop, I can’t really recommend it, you know."

"Auntie!"

"If it really doesn’t work, I can just put a lid on it."

His reason for deciding to buy it boiled down to wanting the magical formula for high-speed rotation and continuously variable speed. Thanks to visiting this shop, he now understood that cooking appliances like mixers were underdeveloped here. If he wanted such tools, he had no choice but to create them himself. He had considered prototyping a mixer before but gave up thinking the sealing would be difficult... but on second thought, weren't there tools like Hand Mixers and Hand Blenders in his past life? With those, the rotating part is stuck into the bowl, so sealing shouldn't be an issue. However, if he was going to make it himself, he would need a rotation magic formula. If it came with high-speed rotation and speed adjustment functions, it could be said to be the perfect reference.

Without revealing a hint of his true intentions, Yuri declared his purchase, saying something like, "high speeds are romantic." Inba looked on, exasperated. Meanwhile, his guardians watching from behind already wore expressions of resignation. Yuri wouldn't listen anyway.

"But..."

Yuri didn’t forget to add a word of caution, glancing at Silica, who was elated at having found someone who understood.

"I’m buying this because I think it’s interesting... and useful, but I don’t think it will sell unless you design it from the user’s perspective, you know?"

"Y-yes..."

The experience of being admonished and chided by a boy who was much younger, from Silica’s perspective, seemed to have made even her reconsider. She meekly bowed her head and took his advice to heart.