kscans

Chapter 269 - Inba's Magic Tool Shop 5. Various New Orders (Part 2)

Although his concerns about the long-awaited "mixer" had been resolved, Yuri's gaze was still wandering around the shop. When asked what on earth he was looking for,

"Recording and playback?"

"And a megaphone and a sound collector? What are you ordering those for?"

Inba and Silica were taken aback by Yuri's answer, but this was actually a long-standing issue for him. What Yuri was thinking of was the Noise Blaster from his past life.

Yuri had formed a friendly, secret, at least, not something he could openly publicize, agreement with the small birds and field mice. In exchange for them not recklessly damaging his crops, he provided infrastructure and services like creating fields for birds and beasts outside the village and preparing watering holes and hiding places. In return, the small birds and mice took on the role of patrolling and guarding the area around the village. As a result, a win-win symbiotic relationship had been established between Yuri and the local birds and beasts. However, there were foolish animals and monsters, usually strays from other places who didn’t know about Yuri, who ignored these rules and tried to invade the village. Yuri, who was fed up with dealing with them, consulted, a rare occurrence, with the small birds and field mice, and the idea of scaring them away with a loud noise came up. Yuri was concerned that it would also stress the small birds and mice, but the birds and mice themselves offered their opinion, "We won’t mind if we know it’s not dangerous, so we’d like you to try making a sound."

They had reached a general agreement on that point, but... since Yuri had no means of obtaining a Noise Blaster, the matter had been temporarily shelved.

However, now that he had been blessed with the opportunity to visit the renowned Inba's Magic Tool Shop here in the merchant city of Laurenzen, wasn't this the perfect time to tackle this issue? That's what Yuri thought, and when he consulted Inba and Silica,

"Ah... so that’s what this is about..."

"True, if you’re living alone on Salt-Sour Mountain, you might need that kind of ingenuity..."

He was able to gain the understanding of Inba, Silica, and his guardians. In fact, Old Man Audel and Dona, who had actually visited Yuri's fields and didn't know about his secret pact with the birds and mice, were inwardly convinced that a child must face extraordinary hardships to maintain such a large field all by himself.

"Well, I understand the story, but... you say you’ll drive away pests, but what on earth kind of sound are you going to make?"

"That’s something I’ll have to try various things for. Is a simply loud noise enough, or is a high-pitched or low-pitched sound better? Is the duration more important than the volume, or what should the interval between sounds be... I’ll need to try changing things up in various ways..."

"Ah... so that's what you mean by recording. You’re going to record various sounds and test their effectiveness?"

I see, in that case, recording and playback functions would certainly be necessary.

"And you need a megaphone to transmit the playback sound far away, right?"

"Ah, can the megaphone part be made detachable from the main body?"

"Well, it’s not impossible, but..."

"What are you going to do with just a megaphone? There are no other people in your village, are there, lad?"

"People do come by veeeery occasionally. But I can't guarantee I'll always notice and be there to greet them."

It seemed he was thinking of using the megaphone as a call bell. To Inba, using a magic tool for just that was the height of luxury.

"Wouldn't ringing a bell or something work?"

Yuri’s answer to Inba’s question, which seemed perfectly natural to the others around them, was,