Chapter 354 (2/2)

“Yeah, that’s more like it. … Say, Reinhart, are you running an errand for your father?”

“Yeah, is he home?”

Saki shook her head.

“You know how my father is. He suddenly rushed out two days ago. He could at the Harihari Desert or the Krueger Mountains by now…”

“Good grief! Just as usual…”

Hearing Saki’s reply, Reinhart gave out an amazed expression on his face.

“So, what is did your father ask you to do?”

Saki asked this while looking at both Jin and Reinhart alternately.

Reinhart was the one to answer that question.

“Actually, we came here today because Jin is interested in alchemy.”

Saki sank her teeth into that answer.

“I see! So Jin is also interested in alchemy! In that case, you’re just in time! Come on in, you two!”

Without waiting for an answer from either of them, Saki dragged them both into the house. Jin and Reinhart smiled bitterly as they followed her in.

“Which reminds me, you came back safely, Reinhart! I’m glad, I’m glad!”

Saki said that as if she had just remembered about it while walking through the corridor.

“You never change, Saki. You’ll never marry anyone like that!”

So had Reinhart replied while letting out a sarcastic laugh. While that kind of speech is nowadays considered sexual harassment, Saki turned it aside with a smile.

“Oohoho, don’t worry about that. I don’t have the slightest interest in getting married, after all.”

And after saying that, she suddenly turned over to Reinhart, and said:

“Which reminds me, I heard you got engaged to Belche! Congratulations!”

“Yeah, thank you, Saki.”

Reinhart replied with a smile. But Jin thought that the smile that Saki had shown in return had a hint of sadness. However, as soon as Saki had turned around, he thought that he was probably his imagination, and didn’t speak a word about it.

Opening the door at the end of the corridor, Saki turned to Jin and said:

“Here we are, this is my laboratory.”

Reinhart, who had been there many times, murmured:

“It’s been a while since I last came here.”

As the door opened and they went in, a strange odor invaded their noses.

A few flask-like containers were lined up on the working table, and some of them had some sort of liquid in them. The smell seemed to drift from those flasks.

The smell of several liquids mixed together, making it a particularly strong kind of smell.

“…”

There was one of those smells that Jin was able to tell apart from the rest. It was one that he was familiar with. He approached the flasks lined up on the working table.

“Wait, Jin! Be careful! I got that swelling because I touched that sap there on the left-most part of the table.”

“Huh?”

Jin took a quick look at that flask. It contained a black, sappy liquid. After gently shaking the flask, he could see it was considerably viscous.

“Hmm…”

But that wasn’t the flask that Jin’s nose was driven to. It was the second one next to that one.

That other flask contained a liquid of a slightly ambered color. Jin gave a more thorough sniff at that liquid.

“… Yeah, there’s no mistaking it. I don’t even need to use ’Analyze’ on this one. This is maple syrup!”

After hearing that, Saki quickly approached Jin and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Jin! You know what this is!”

“Ah, yeah. Where I come from it’s called maple syrup. It’s a sweetener made from boiling sap extracted from sugar maple trees…”

Translations by AsianHobbyist Website

Having heard that, Saki released Jin’s shoulders, faced Reinhart, and began to cry out in excitement.

“Reinhart! Did you hear that? This ‘maple syrup’ may be used as a substitute for sugar! It will even rival sugar itself!

Reinhart seemed to know that reaction fairly well. He replied with a sarcastic smile.

“Oh, I see! I wonder if you can finance and create a mass production system?”

Saki seemed pleased with that reply.

“Ohoho! You get it, don’t you? As expected from my childhood friend! Okay, there are many of these ‘sugar maple’ trees growing at the shores of Lake Tosumo. All we need to do is to go there and extract the sap from them, right?”

Saki was extremely thrilled when she spoke. Jin, however, could not help intervening.

“Uh, if you try to make a sweetener out of it, you would have to boil it a lot.”