Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start With Magical Tools Volume 4 (eBook)

Hisaya Amagishi (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022
250 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-1-7183-8104-9 (ISBN)

Infos

When her camp stove proves to be a huge hit, Dahlia finds herself frequenting the castle for business dealings with the Order of Beast Hunters, even though she mostly finds joy in improving the knights' meals during their travels. However, her sudden success doesn't please everyone-especially not those who view her as an unworthy commoner. How will her new inventions, products, and handmade magical swords develop? All this and more awaits in the fourth installment of Dahlia's artisanal adventures!

Textauszug

Castle Etiquette and the Lady of the Green Tower

“When she is being escorted, the woman shall rest the fingers of her right hand upon the man’s left. However, if her escort is left-handed, then she shall take his right hand instead,” read a passage in the encyclopedic tome on proprieties.

Her eyes glazed over as she recalled how complicated business etiquette had sometimes been in her past life as well, but as she had been born as a commoner in this life, this was a nuisance that she hadn’t quite anticipated.

Dahlia Rossetti was her name in this world, and this was her second chance at life. She had found her calling as a maker of magical tools that made daily life easier. Her red hair and green eyes contrasted brilliantly with her meek and modest character, something she shared with her past self.

“How goes it?” asked the young man sitting diagonally across from her at the coffee table in the living room. Volfred Scalfarotto was the fourth son of an earl, a royal knight, a member of the Order of Beast Hunters, and—perhaps most importantly of all—Dahlia’s good friend. His fair skin stood out against his jet-black hair, pairing handsomely with a sharp nose and a chiseled jawline. However, most striking were his eyes of gold; they completed an aesthetic that ought to have been the magnum opus of a great painter. But for him, the blessing of beauty was a curse in disguise.

“Not very well, I’m afraid. There seems to be quite a bit of castle etiquette that isn’t covered here... How about you, Volf?”

“This is tricky, all right. Like on this page, it says, ‘Before entering a room with someone higher in social status, the woman shall remove her hand from her escort’s. Then, they shall individually enter the room and offer their salutations.’ But what if you have no idea who’s inside the room? Not to mention, I very much doubt I’d remember that rule either,” he said, and then heaved a sigh. Defeated though he was, the pensive look on his face was no less evocative of a fine portrait.

In her past life, Dahlia would have described her current home as a fantasy world, what with the magic toolmakers and monster hunters here; all that was missing were the magic carpet rides and the alchemical transmutation of lead into gold. For work, she crafted useful everyday items, not unlike the nifty gadgets and household appliances of her previous lifetime. As for Volf, he defended the kingdom’s subjects from the catastrophic force of nature that were monsters. But how had a craftswoman and a knight become entangled in the troubles of decorum?

It had started with a trifling matter of wet socks. Volf made an off-the-cuff remark to Dahlia about how his boots trapped sweat and moisture and how it plagued him during expeditions, to which she quickly found a solution in enchanting a set of wicking toe socks and evaporating insoles. Dahlia had originally had them made for her late father, but he’d passed away before he could ever use them. Volf had a few extra sets, and so he shared them with his captain and fellow knights, garnering rave reviews. As far as Dahlia was concerned, just knowing that her inventions were making a positive difference was satisfaction enough.

However, there were even more surprises in store. When the contract came in to supply the Order of Beast Hunters with socks and soles, Dahlia assumed they had mistakenly added extra zeros to their figures and hence sought the vice-guildmaster of the Merchants’ Guild for advice. It transpired that the order had made no mistake, and Dahlia’s overnight success necessitated a meeting with the heads of the Tailors’ Guild and the Adventurers’ Guild. In the end, they’d made plans for the construction of a new workshop to facilitate mass production of the toe socks and insoles.

Thus, Dahlia needed to send her regards on behalf of the Rossetti Trading Company to the Order of Beast Hunters before production began. However, when she was more or less summoned to the castle by the order’s captain, she wasn’t given much of a choice but to visit in person.

The castle was neither a place for commoners nor was it somewhere that the owner of a recently founded company would go directly for business meetings. Though her father had been a baron, Dahlia hadn’t grown up as a noble and thus knew nothing of their decorum. On the other hand, Volf was the son of an earl and also a guarantor of the company. It might seem obvious that he could simply teach her from experience, but nothing ever came that easily.

Volf had lived in a villa separate from his family estate from about the age of ten. Soon after graduating from high school, he’d entered the Order of Beast Hunters. This meant that he knew the very basics of etiquette but was far from comfortable around it. Moreover, he had little opportunity to practice the formalities because his work didn’t involve tending to visiting dignitaries. Ultimately, all of these circumstances had led to the current predicament inside the ivy-twined tower where Dahlia and Volf were suffering through the dry manual of instruction.

“I would’ve studied harder if I’d known I was gonna need it someday...” Volf groaned as he splayed across the table.

“It’s almost as if we’re cramming the day before our finals.”

“Just like we’re back in school, huh?”

In the capital of Ordine, formal education consisted of elementary school and high school. Most children attended the former for the fundamentals, such as reading, writing, arithmetic, and basic history. High schools were akin to institutes of technology as they offered specific vocational training and applied research. Unlike in Japan, age was not a factor in the educational system here. However, the concepts of entrance examinations, advancement, and graduation were identical. Naturally, failure meant being unable to matriculate, advance a grade, or graduate, respectively.

Right before exams, students’ cries lamenting their lack of preparation echoed through both elementary and high schools. It was predictably a whole different story afterward, as they reverted to their usual fun-loving selves.

“Why is it so much easier to remember stuff about magical swords...?” Volf asked. He sighed once again.

To say that he was a fanatic on the subject was a bit of an understatement. If there existed a fairy tale about a magical sword, no matter what nation it was from, Volf had all the words from the preface to the afterword memorized. He had failed twice to pull the undrawable sword from the stone in the castle and had burned his hand touching his captain’s magical sword (with permission, of course). Recently, Dahlia had even indulged him by conducting an experiment to create an enchanted sword. It’d be a wise bet to count on him being overjoyed when they were successful.

“That’s, um, very much like you, Volf.”

“Hey, magical swords and chivalric romance go hand in hand. And look who’s talking,” he said, jokingly defending himself. “You know everything there is to know about magical tools.”

“Well, I suppose. I am a magical toolmaker, after all.” A professional had to be knowledgeable in her field, she reasoned. And Dahlia was indeed very inquisitive about any magical tool, new or old, and she loved discovering and trying ones she had yet to see.

She’d always had a fondness for making things, even in her old life when she had worked at a company that produced household appliances. It was unfortunate, to say the least, that she was transferred to the customer satisfaction department to handle complaints. It was there that she’d overworked herself into her grave.

But now that the appliances she made were magical, the possibilities were even greater than before. In this world, there were myriads of different materials from which to craft tools and innumerable sources of ingredients for enchantment. Metals, plants, and monster parts could be combined in different recipes and ratios for an endless variety of magical effects.

However, for Dahlia, the grandest idea of all was that magical tools could improve the lives of ordinary people, just as the domestic appliances of her previous life had. She aimed to make life just a little easier and people just a little happier, and her inventions provided her the means. And if that wasn’t romanticism, then what was?

Volf noticed Dahlia’s attention was no longer on the pages of the etiquette manual but had drifted to the books on magical tools that rested on her shelves. His golden eyes narrowed to crescents as he chuckled heartily. “That’s so like you too, Dahlia. Guess we’re just two peas in a pod.”

And she knew he was right.

In a corner of the nobles’ quarter lay the Goddess’s Right Eye, a store specializing in magical tools. Its proprietor was a man named Oswald; it was he who had so kindly offered Dahlia lessons in proper castle etiquette. Dahlia arrived before the store closed for the day. Volf—who was by her side—had asked to come along, so she had sent him a letter when the appointment was scheduled. Behind the two of them was Ivano, who also wanted to introduce himself to Oswald as a guarantor of the Rossetti Trading Company. Fortunately, Oswald had scheduled this meeting for right before the end of the workday, meaning that Ivano was able to make the visit as well.

Shockingly, Volf had chosen to wear his black dress uniform. He said he was determined to learn proper manners for the dealings between the company and his order, but his outfit was surely unsuitable for the sweltering...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.8.2022
• Reihe/Serie: Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools
• Reihe/Serie: Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools
• Illustrationen: Hisaya Amagishi
• Übersetzer: Hisaya Amagishi
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: business • female protagonist • Isekai • Light Novel • Magic • Reincarnation
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-8104-2 / 1718381042
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-8104-9 / 9781718381049