CHAPTER 60: SIBLINGS SHOP FOR CLOTHES

　“Brother, how about this? Oh, some sunglasses!” (Haru)

　We’re currently going from store to store, looking for equipment. Even if we buy cheap clothes, it won’t be a problem if we go home and used [Alchemy] on them with dungeon materials, so we’re focusing on appearance and ease of wear. I’ve already decided on clothes, pants, and shoes, and the rest is just accessories.

　By the way, I haven’t even bought any clothes yet. I didn’t buy them because I might change my mind halfway through the trip.

　Haru, who was reluctant at first, must have gotten into the mood as she chose her clothes. She is now cheerfully picking out accessories. However.

“I don’t know about fashion. I will leave it to Haru.”

　To be honest, I don’t really know what to wear, good or bad. All I can do is pick an outfit line and pick something that looks good. Haru had made the final decision on what to wear.

“Well, this, this, and this, Brother, money.” (Haru)

“Okay, let me check first. I said I’d leave it to you, but I didn’t say I’d let you decide for me. So which one?” (Kei)

“I don’t think that’s what you call, ‘I leave it to you’. Here.” (Haru)

　Haru handed me a black cap that I would normally wear when exercising, and a fashion mask, or was it a cloth mask. No sunglasses for now.

　Haru’s hat was something fluffy on top of her head, with a brim in front. The colors weren’t all black, but I plan to use black materials in the alchemy to make it black.

　Eventually, we decided on everything to buy, so we headed back to the house, buying the clothes we had decided on. The sky was tinged with orange, and we realized that we hadn’t eaten lunch when we got home.

　I quickly start cooking dinner as I watch Haru start to change into the clothes I bought her. Come to think of it, I haven’t eaten any Minotaur meat lately. The meat that the monsters in the forest drop are quite tasty, so I’m quite satisfied with them. I don’t see any problem with that, though.

“How about you, Brother?” (Haru)

　Haru, who was changing her clothes behind me, called out to me, and I turned around to see her standing there, wearing an outlandishly colored outfit.

“It’s not good because the colors are strange.” (Haru)

“Oh, that’s right.” (Kei)

　I had originally bought it with the intention of dying it black through alchemy, so the color was all random. Well, if we wear it before we dye it, it will be like this.

“I’ll use [Alchemy] on the clothes tomorrow. Did you see any black monsters in the forest?” (Kei)

“There was a black bird.” (Haru)

“Birds don’t drop fur. So Black Wolves again?” (Kei)

“Well, the Black Wolf’s materials are weak. We should’ve just bought black clothes and use [Alchemy] on them for performance.” (Haru)

“It can’t be helped. The purpose is not performance but appearance.” (Kei)

“That’s right.” (Haru)

　Haru is still dissatisfied and is pondering what to do about it.

　The color of the hoodie we are using now is close to black, but this was not a problem because it was originally a black hoodie and only the performance of the dungeon item was changed using [Alchemy].

“Oh, come on, Brother. I’m not sure if it’s just the performance or performance ‘and’ color, but can’t you just alchemize ‘just’ the color?” (Haru)

“Oh? I see, I’ve never done it before.” (Kei)

　I took out items of different colors from the Item Pouch in the safe and smelted them one by one.

　I’m not sure what to do with it. It’s difficult because there’s so much information. I guess it’s easier to just send them all to the right place. I mean, this seems impossible. I can’t seem to get it right, so I force myself to transfer the colors, leaving it to the amount of magic power I have.

“Oh, it’s a failure.” (Haru)

　Looking at the material picked up by Haru, the color changed, but the color was very uneven, and there were places where the color did not change, which was quite a disappointing result.

“Then, hey. Why not use [Alchemy] to turn hoodie black using a black material and then do it again but transferring only the properties of the strong materials?” (Haru)

“Oh, can I do that, I think? If so, the lowest possible level of Black Fur is good. It’s easy to alchemize.” (Kei)

　The difficulty of Alchemy skills depends on the use of strong materials. The more information you have to process in your mind when using Alchemy, the more difficult it will be.

　So if you repeatedly alchemize the same thing, the strength of that thing will increase, making it more difficult to alchemize. However, the number of times I’ve alchemized has something to do with it, since the difficulty level increased even when I repeated alchemizing things that didn’t get any stronger.

　The more information you process in your mind, the more difficult it becomes. Is it true that smelting only colors is harder than smelting everything? It’s easy to copy and paste a sentence on a computer, but it’s just as troublesome to copy only the Kanji characters in a sentence.

　I wonder if the reason why only properties are easy is that everything is purely quantified. The strength of a substance is just as it is, and skills and so on are just letters, so they are not as detailed as colors.

“Okay, dinner’s ready.” (Kei)

“Thanks for the meal.” (Haru)

　We had dinner, took a shower as usual, and went to sleep.

　The next day.

　We unusually dove into the dungeon in the morning. However, we were just collecting fur by defeating the Black Kobolds that appeared around the 12th floor, so it was nothing special.

　At our level, if we kicked it too hard, it might explode. There was no difference in the drops, but we didn’t want to get ourselves dirty with flesh and blood, so we kicked them gently so that the Kobold would die after hitting the wall.

　Incidentally, the kobold’s name is technically High Kobold. It is a Kobold with a sword and is a little stronger on this floor. Unlike wolves, they don’t gather in packs, which is probably why they are so strong. It doesn’t matter, though, because they’re kicked to death before they can raise their swords.

　And now that we’ve collected a certain amount of fur, we return home and spread out the gear we’ve bought. It was a lot of work, as we needed a good number of furs for everything from shoes to hats. The drops are not 100% fur either.

“So, [Alchemy].” (Kei)

　It’s been a long time since I’ve done this, so I put my hand over my clothes and said the word [Alchemy] out loud. In the blink of an eye, the High Kobold Fur on my hands was gone and all my gear was dyed black. And then,

“And again, [Alchemy].” (Kei)

　The next step was to use [Alchemy] to transfer only the properties of the powerful materials I had obtained in the Forest into black clothing. Perhaps it was because I used the fur of a weak High Kobold, the resistance was minimal.

“Brother, what about the soles of our shoes? What about the plastic part?” (Haru)

　Since I used the fur and only used [Alchemy] on the cloth part, there were various parts that I couldn’t enhance.

“I have a substitute, wait for it. [Alchemy].” (Kei)

　The rubber part is made of Slime Gel dropped by the Big Slime that appears in the Forest. Using Haru’s crafting and magic, the water is drained from the gel and it becomes rubbery.

　Since we don’t have plastic, we’ll use wood, which is a strong and flexible material found in Treants.

　For the zippers of the parka, I used a Horn from the Forest.

　And.

“How is it Brother?” (Haru)

　 Haru spun around on the spot with a triumphant look on her face.

　Haru’s hands are wrapped in the pockets of a loose-fitting, one-size-fits-all parka, and she’s wearing long, black pants that show the lines of her legs, and black, low-heeled boots on her feet. Her mouth was covered with a mask, and on her head, she wore that hat I mentioned. In addition, she was wearing a small silver earring that I don’t know where she got it from, giving her the air of a grown woman. Although the fact that she was still tiny was quite something.

　I, on the other hand, was fine. I’m wearing loose, sturdy-looking pants, gray clothes, an open-fronted parka, and my hat. Of course, I wore a mask. But… That’s right.

“Haru, I’m the only one that looks suspicious.” (Kei)

　Compared to the mature-looking Haru, my clothes seemed to make me a bit too suspicious-looking.