After school in the afternoon.
Since Suto had not joined any clubs yet, he did not need to participate in club activities.
He simply carried his schoolbag and left school directly.
As he walked along the road where cherry blossoms drifted down, Suto lowered his head and saw ants on the ground, suddenly remembering something.
He bent down and pinched an ant between his fingers.
The tiny ant struggled nonstop between his fingertips.
Suto tried to store it in his inventory.
It failed.
Suto applied a little pressure with his fingers.
The ant was easily crushed to death.
He tried again.
This time, Suto successfully stored the ant’s corpse in his inventory.
As expected, living things didn’t work.
Only dead things could be stored in the inventory.
Suto clapped his hands and took out his phone.
He did not go straight home.
Instead, he followed the navigation on his phone to a market near the school.
Logically speaking, Suto should have gone to the market in Beika Town.
That place was closer to his apartment, so going back and forth would be more convenient.
However, considering how dangerous the Beika Town area was, Suto still chose this market near the school.
As for the ingredients and other things he bought, he could just secretly put them into his inventory later.
It wouldn’t be troublesome.
After arriving at the market, Suto first walked around slowly and observed the situation.
He found that there were no live chickens or ducks being sold in the market.
After asking one of the stall owners, he learned that Japanese law required poultry to be processed through proper slaughterhouses before being sold.
Selling live poultry in markets was prohibited to ensure hygiene and prevent disease.
Suto looked at the already divided chicken parts in the freezer and shook his head.
Just as he was about to leave, the stall owner called out to him again.
“Customer, actually, it’s not completely impossible.”
“Oh?”
“As long as you have a chef’s license or a student ID from a culinary school, you can go directly to a farm to buy them.”
“I see.
Thank you for telling me.”
After thanking the stall owner, Suto left the poultry section.
Transferring to a culinary school or something like that was a bit too unrealistic.
After all, his current identity as a Toyogasaki high school student had not been easy to draw.
However, the information provided by that helpful stall owner was not completely useless.
In the future, he could find a chance to make one or two chef friends.
Or he could simply go to a slaughterhouse and ask whether he could do some part-time work there…
A moment later, Suto arrived at the seafood section.
There were quite a few live fish and shrimp here, and the prices were much cheaper than what he had seen at [Seto Fisheries] last night.
“What kind of fish are you looking for, young man?”
An uncle wearing an apron greeted him while cutting fish.
Suto stood in front of the stall, watched him kill the fish, and asked, “Are all the fish here killed on the spot?”
“Of course!”
“Kill it yourself?
Young man, we don’t charge extra for killing fish!”
Suto insisted, “I know, but I want to kill it myself.
Is that okay?”
The stall owner uncle glanced at the Toyogasaki uniform he was wearing and suddenly asked, “Do you want to become a chef?”
In this world, a chef was not an ordinary profession that anyone could become just because they wanted to.
Suto was silent for a moment before saying, “Yes.
I want to become a chef in the future.”
“I see.”
As the uncle skillfully cut open the fish’s belly and removed its organs, he said thoughtfully, “So you want to do culinary training?”
“Yes!”
“All right, I get it.
But killing fish isn’t as simple as it looks.
Be careful.”
Suto nodded.
“Mm.
Thank you, uncle.”
“No need to thank me.
The path of a chef isn’t that easy.
Back in my day…”
The stall owner uncle sighed, and his gaze became somewhat nostalgic.
Suto glanced at him and could tell that this stall owner uncle seemed to have once had a chef dream too.
It was just that in the end, he had become a fish butcher, killing fish at this stall day after day.
Suto did not disturb the stall owner uncle’s memories.
He quietly picked through the fish at the stall by himself.
A one and a half kg bonito.
Suto pressed the fish against the cutting board and picked up the kitchen knife.
In his previous life, he liked eating fish quite a bit, and he had also processed fish at home many times, so he had some confidence.
The knife rose and fell.
A crisp sound rang out.
Once again, two copper coins burst out from the fish’s corpse and fell to the ground.
The stall owner uncle stood beside him and watched.
Seeing that Suto’s technique was indeed practiced, he nodded slightly.
Suto glanced at the uncle.
After confirming that he really could not notice the two copper coins that had just dropped, Suto relaxed.
Just as he had guessed, it wasn’t only snakes.
Fish could also be judged as monsters and drop money.
Suto first properly processed the bonito.
Only then did he casually brush his hand across the ground as if by accident, storing the two copper coins into the wallet inside his inventory.
[0 gold coins, 0 silver coins, 14 copper coins]
Good.
Another 2 copper coins earned.
The future of becoming a millionaire was promising.
Suto paid the money and thanked the stall owner uncle again. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
The stall owner uncle waved his hand.
“It’s nothing.
Just a small matter.”
Suto asked, “Then next time?”
The stall owner uncle smiled.
“Of course you can next time too.”
After saying goodbye to the stall owner, Suto left the market.
He took out his phone and followed the navigation to a nearby park.
Taking advantage of the fact that no one was around, Suto stored the fish meat in his hand into his inventory.
After that, he began his great insect-catching mission inside the park.
Beetles, spiders, butterflies, caterpillars…
Suto searched through all the insects he could find in the park and mercilessly exterminated them.
However, even after the sky turned dark, not a single copper coin dropped.
Suto straightened his body, twisted his sore waist and neck, and muttered to himself, “It doesn’t seem to be a drop-rate problem.
Insects simply don’t drop money at all.”
But snakes and fish both could.
Perhaps it was related to their size.
Only when the target’s body exceeded a certain threshold could money drop.
Suto sighed.
It seemed his idea of farming money from ant nests had gone bankrupt.
“That’s enough for today.
Time to go back.”
After leaving the park, he took his schoolbag out of the inventory in advance.
Suto was already a little tired, so he didn’t want to squeeze into the subway again.
He directly took a taxi back.
After getting out at the apartment entrance, Suto saw the landlady.
She was holding a bag and constantly sprinkling some strange powder along the wall.
“Miyuri-san, what are you doing?”
“Suo-kun!
This is snake repellent powder!
I’m planning to sprinkle it all around the entire apartment building!
This way, snakes won’t sneak into everyone’s rooms again!”
“Oh.”
The bag of snake repellent powder was a woven sack.
With the landlady’s elementary-school-like figure, she could only drag it along as she walked.
Suto looked at her hardworking back and walked toward her.
“I’ll help you, Miyuri-san.”
“Thank you, Suo-kun!”
Suto reached out and took the bag of snake repellent powder from the landlady.
His fingers seemed to brush against hers by accident.
[Ding—]
…