Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN)
Volume 3 - Ch 2.12

Unfortunately for us, since there was no one behind the counter, it meant that we cannot sell our items even if we wanted to at the moment.

Think the shops are going to be open already or do we have to wait a few hours before we could do some shopping?

I think we wont have any problems with that. The shops in Quratar are opened for business from early hours in order to accommodate for the needs of the Adventurers who tend to go to the Labyrinth during the night or early in the morning, after all.

We left Quratars Adventurers Guild and made our way towards the shops located on the street that our landlady, Honesta pointed us towards when we first came into her shop. Most of them were indeed open foe business already, but not all of them. Even though it was still relatively early in the morning, there were a lot of people going back and forth between them looking for various tools and ingredients. Looks like Roxanne was telling the truth indeed. This particular part of the city was really well accommodated towards the Adventurers and Explorers needs.

Unfortunately, Honestas hardware shop was among the ones that were still closed at this hour, so we had to go to visit the other ones in order to buy all the ingredients we needed in order to make breakfast for ourselves. Not that much of a detour to be called inconvenient, but if we could buy all of the things we needed in one place instead of going from one shop to another, that will always be a preferable option for me. Well, its not like we are strapped for time or have anything planned for the day, so we might as well have ourselves a little walk. After all, there is a saying that goes something along the lines of exercising makes the meal that much more pleasurable, right?

It is a shame that this world is not technologically advanced enough to have fridges and refrigerators in it. That way we could buy a bunch of things in bulk and not worry about keeping them in the house for longer periods of time, because with how things are now, we have no choice but to always buy things like eggs or milk fresh and eat them right away while they are still non-spoilt. I wonder how the shopkeepers handle things like that in here? At the very least I do not think that they bring them to their stores straight from the farms early in the mornings, so the more likely option seems to be procuring them in the evening and probably store them in the cool storage room so that they wouldnt go bad until the morning on particularly hot days. That way they would always have fresh produce for sale while switching it with the one from the day before that might be going bad, moldy, or stale. Nowadays we do not think about it all that much, but without the method to properly preserve food, it wouldnt be strange for it to start going bad across the span of a single day, especially in the summer where the temperatures tend to be especially high (judging by the Tokyo standard).

From what I have seen so far, Quratar is located in a rather peaceful countryside, with the farms and the fields located not that far away from the citys center. Back in Vale, there were also fields right outside of the city, but there the distinction was much more clear-cut than in Quratar, because Veil had an actual wall separating the inside of the city from the outside, whereas here there is no wall and the cityscape gradually transitions to that of a countryside, making the boundary between the residential and agricultural areas somewhat ambiguous and unclear. Hell, there is a large field that someone was tending to just beyond the house we have rented, so if I were to look carefully, I would probably see cows and chickens running wild somewhere in the distance. Mind you, while I was still living in Japan I have never saw any kind of livestock in the flesh, so maybe I will have the opportunity for that to change sometime soon here?

We bought the things necessary for breakfast and were on our way back to the Adventurers Guild when we passed by the bakery, where the lady who looked like the bakerys owner called out to us.

My my, good day to the lovely young couple. Why dont you take a look at the bread Ive made? Fresh batch made just this morning shortly after sunrise.

So bread is being sold from the early morning, huh?

Of course it is, young man. Buying it for breakfast is one of the more popular traditions of this city, and the fresher it is, the better! It gets harder the more time passes since it came out of the oven, so if you want it at its absolute softest, theres no time like the present!

Ah, yes, thats true. Fresh bread is infinitely tastier than the hardened one. Cant argue with that.

Roxanne agreed with what the baker lady was saying. Seems like she has a good amount of experience with bread and its hardening. In modern day Japan there were a lot of ways to make not only bread, but also all kinds of confections and baked goods last for a fairly long time, but since there is ni modern technology in this world, I am afraid that a loaf of bread might not last even a few hours without going stale.

So, whats it going to be? Will you two lovebirds buy yourselves a nice, fresh, hot loaf of bread freshly out of the baking furnace?

I could have sworn that not a minute ago she was saying that she was baking those since sunrise, and I am pretty sure that some time has already passed since then so theres no way that they are freshly out of the oven but ah well, no use arguing about the semantics I guess.

In that case, can I ask for that one loaf from the back? The one over there?

I said while pointing my finger at what looked like a medium-sized loaf of French bread.

Ohh, you have a really discerning eye, young man! The ones in the back are some of my most high quality breads, all for the lowly price of 8 Nars per loaf!

So it seems like the loaves from the back rows are actually considered to be some kind of luxury items. I wonder if it will be any different from what we had bought for dinner yesterday, because that bread was not particularly tasty if I were to completely honest with you. I know that I am probably biased as hell when it comes to the culinary matters of this world because my tongue is still used to the superb quality of food from Japan, but if I want to get truly used to living here, I cannot allow myself to be picky about the quality of the food I am going to eat all the time. Normally I would say that this is something that simply cannot be helped, but if I work on tempering my expectations, then I am sure my taste buds will slowly accommodate. That, or we simply have to procure more spices and seasonings for ourselves to make the food less bland.

My 30% discount did not work this time, but it was understandable since I only bought one item. Besides, last night when I bought two breads of almost the same size as the one I bought today, but taken from one of the front rows, the difference in the price was pretty miniscule, so I dont think using the discount matters all that much when you buy the things that cost less than 10 Nars. Also, maybe it is because the baker lady looks like shes quite a gluttonous eater (TL Note: Nice way of calling someone fat, Michio. Could have simply said she was big boned), but the size of this thing is definitely more on a larger side than anything else. Is this considered normal here? Because I think that if we go about it reasonably, this one loaf of bread could be enough for the two of us for two, maybe three days at best. Hmm, could it be that this is the bread that is made with the Kobold Flour as an ingredient? Because if so, then damn, maybe I should have bought another one with the discount after all? But then again, if I ended up buying more than we could eat, then some of it would undeniably go to waste and we would have to throw it out, and that wont do!