Shut-in Magician - Chapter 17
Chapter 017: Living at the Royal Capital
Even since Shiu came to the Royal Capital, he didn’t just live like an adventurer, he also experienced living as a commoner.
He woke up early in the morning, exercised, cleaned and then prepared breakfast. He was still experimenting with food and was excited that the food he’d made everything was significant.
After that he would prepare food for Feles and either fed it to him or had him play while Shiu ate breakfast.
After breakfast, he tidied up and old man Stan usually woke up while he sweeping the garden.
Shiu called out to the main residence and shared the bread he’d made for sampling.
Then he would get dressed, place Feles into his chest pocket and head to the market.
Often he would just look around the market.
He didn’t have anything that he wanted right now probably because he’d purchased and traded so many things at the beginning.
He didn’t just buy things here, he also sold things as well.
He had mentioned that he had some Stone Boar meat while talking to the merchant Ana and people from all over the market asked him to sell it to them.
Stone Boar meat seemed to be really popular and sold at a fairly high price.
However, since his spatial magic was supposed to be a secret, he couldn’t sell too much.
Since he was already at it, he also pulled out the Lupus pelt and surprisingly, it also sold for a high price. The people at the market purchased it at a higher price than the Guild would. The difference was probably the handling charge.
He also took out his extra monster cores and mana stones. He kept some because he wanted to try and bestow magic onto them.
Thanks to this, more people greeted him at the market when they saw him.
Next, he explored the city. He had burnt the city map into his mind.
Shiu knew what the landscape was like because he had usedSearchandOverviewbut it was better to see it with his own eyes.
He enjoyed the scenery as he walked and returned to Bariado Tool Shop.
From there he would usually go to Wurst restaurant with old man Stan and Emina to have lunch or he would go into restaurants he saw during his walks. He also had fun looking for a bakery.
He went to the library a lot in the afternoon. He had already recorded all of the library books so he didn’t have to go there anymore, but he liked the atmosphere and he could study in the library. However, he had Feles with him so he would leave the library when Feles got tired.
As weird as it seems, you could even take the child of a rare beast into the library. However, points would be deducted if the child was noisy or dirty.
He would show up at the Guild if he didn’t go to the library.
Shiu would attend the courses organised by the Guild because they were free and seemed interesting.
The short courses had a fee attached to them and Shiu felt like it wouldn’t suit him so he didn’t apply for them.
The Guild was deserted in the afternoons and children like Shiu could browse leisurely.
The Guild was full of adventurers looking for job requests in the morning and it would sometimes turn into a frenzy and Shiu couldn’t keep up with that.
Sometimes he would go to the beast mount shop that Ana had introduced him to.
The shop also had horses, so he would help with their care. He would play with the beast mounts and ride them.
Feles wasn’t very pleased when Shiu played with the other children and would hit Shiu with his tail which was interesting.
He seemed to be eager to grow up so that he could let Shiu ride him.
That was what the animal tamer told him.
It was a hindrance for children to come to the beast mount shop to play, but they hadn’t treated him cruelly because he had been introduced by Ana. It also helped that he knew how to take care of horses and brought Feles with him.
Rather, they were thankful that he was taking care of the horses for free.
Shiu was glad that he could see taming magic up close.
He had also learnt the truth that a considerable amount of beast mounts were being traded.
The sun would set while he was playing with the beast mounts so he returned to Bariado Tool Shop.
Emina and Aqela would be waiting when he entered through the back and he would start teaching them.
Aqela would help out at the restaurant after school, so she was very reluctant at first.
Still, she became excited when Emina told her that she could learn magic easily.
Emina was currently learning simple water and fire magic, and next was studying arithmetic.
He also taught Aqela the same, but all she could do for the time being was ignite fire magic.
“It isn’t as hard as I thought it would be if I’m being taught like this!”
Emina was excited that she could do simple arithmetic calculations.
Shiu was a little worried about what was taught at schools.
Aqela was the same age as Shiu and she did calculations on her hand.
We learnt a bit more than that at the temple, Shiu thought without saying it out loud.
However, the thing Shiu didn’t know was that the temple he was at didn’t teach children that much. Shiu understood things easily so the priests were excited to teach him many things and this studies progressed further than normal for children.
Children usually had help from their parents and they couldn’t learn things easily.
There were other ways to live if one could use magic and you didn’t need to study arithmetic (not math) if you didn’t want to become a government official.
Even so, it was necessary that one could do the minimal calculations if they wanted to work in management.
“Then, I’ll give you an example.”
Emina looked fed up with the work when Shiu handed out his handmade worksheet.
“Eeeeeh, there’s still more?”
“Eminsan, you have to be able to calculate change mentally.” Shiu tried to say gently but Emina suddenly became crestfallen.
” I know but”
They could ask an accountant to take care of the accounts since that was what most shops did, so it was fine.
However, old man Stan was currently taking care of the whole store by himself so there was nothing they couldn’t do if they tried. Shiu recommended that Emina learn how to do this herself too, because it cost money to hire an accountant. It was wasteful not to save money if you could.
That was why he encouraged her to learn mental arithmetic to familiarise herself with the work.
“This store does business with foreign kingdoms and adventurers also come here.”
” I know.”
“We don’t just use Roca currency, there’s also Adol, Derrita and Rocal. All those currencies are in use now. You’ll lose customers if you decide to use Roca because you’re not good at calculating. It’s also troublesome for them to go out of their way to exchange money.”
“You’re right.”
“It’s also bad to keep them waiting.”
“Well, of course.”
“So, do your best?”
“Myuu!” Feles had the perfect timing and Emina smiled wryly.
“You’re right. It’s for me so I’ll try my best!”
Aqela was next to Emina and she attempted to solve the addition and subtraction problems.
Shiu urged them to solve the problems quickly, it didn’t matter if they were right or wrong.
They could already add and subtract things, so now all that was left was for them to calculate faster. Therefore, Shiu turned this into a game.
If they could finish the worksheet in the time limit then Shiu would give them the cookies he’d made.
If they couldn’t calculate it within the time limit then they got nothing.
Crunchy cookies made from wheat germ were popular and Emina and Aqela were both looking forward to eating them.
It was used as bait.
“I finished!”
“Okay, show me.”
Shiu skimmed through the worksheet. She only had one problem wrong so she passed.
“This is the wrong answer. You got it wrong because you rushed, but your mistakes will decrease once you get used to it.” He gave her a small bag filled with cookies.
“Thank you. I’ll try my hardest as well.”
“That’s good.”
“Can you make more worksheets for us?”
Okay, he answered and he looked at Emina’s hands. Things were also going well on her end.
Sometimes he would have dinner with Bariado’s family and sometimes he would eat at home with Feles.
There were many shops that sold side dishes in the Royal Capital and many housewives also worked, so they would buy food from the store.
Shiu liked cooking and he was used to it so except for lunch, he made his own meals.
He made Japanese meals when he cooked with rice, so he ate alone when he did.
He tried recipes from Shayn when he ate with old man Stan.
Shiu didn’t think he should recommend those recipes to people who weren’t used to cooking and he didn’t approve of the current flavours.
He wanted to do a taste test when he completed the recipe. Old man Stan was also interested in foreign cuisine like Shiu was and was looking forward to tasting it.
Old man Stan travelled a lot when he was younger and he probably missed foreign food.
He had settled down because he was getting older and Emina’s parents had passed away.
Old man Stan would often talk about his past to Shiu at night.
Translator: Blushy