Strawberry Devil in a Fantasy World

Before I went to the designated location to manufacture things, I took a small detour to the local eateries. Because of my contributions in the war, I was handsomely paid. I also negotiated an advance payment for the products I was planning to sell to the city of Vera or the kingdom.

"Ehehe, let's see what's good to eat."

With my [creation] ability, I planned to replicate as much food as possible. That way I could save on my food bills. Though, it probably wouldn't let me replicate everything. To combat that, I also planned to visit the local grocery shops to buy up lots of fresh produce. Those ones I was sure I was able to reproduce with my ability.

Hmm... If I recreate the same dish I just used absorption on, wouldn't that mean I'm literally re-eating food? Is that okay? Isn't it a bit strange?

No. Way. Those devious stray thoughts shall not sway my appetite! It's been so long!

Either way, I should eat first and think later. I hadn't enjoyed a good meal for so long.

Within hours, I bought as much unique foods as I could. Fruits, vegetables, meats, sauces, spices, grains, I didn't neglect buying a sample of each. Although fresh produce was a bit scarce, dried and preserved snacks weren't uncommon either.

I ate them on the spot without hesitation. I couldn't possibly let Smoothie find out my betrayal!

Now let's see, which ones can I reproduce?

Apparently I was able to reproduce everything but the forms weren't guaranteed. For example, if I wanted a sandwich, I had to create the different layers separately. Moreover, texture and appearance couldn't be replicated at all. Meat simply didn't taste like meat, least in terms of their texture. Vegetable didn't look like vegetables unless I put in quite a bit of effort. Only their flavors were replicated.

Well, this is a failure. This stuff can hardly be considered emergency ration.

Before, when I was replicating things, they were fairly simple things. Poisons were uniform molecules as far as my abilities were concerned. The figurines were personally designed by me from scratch so there was no problem either. Simple containers and whatnot were all designed by me, and uniformity was acceptable.

Complex things originating from living creatures were different. It seemed that I was simply not at a level where I could recreate those things. Right now, the only living thing I could replicate was anything associated with my originating species, that being a strawberry plant.

Ah, my hopes and dreams...

Somewhat depressed, I headed to a storage area to create some products needed by the city.

Work should take my mind off of today's tragedy! Mm.

Someone had arrived before me. It was a casually dressed harefolk, or Jud-Farrana, who was looking threw some paperwork at a desk set up at the entrance of a vault.

I greeted with, "Hi."

"Hmm?" He raised his head and nodded, "Your Honorable. My name is Fuu. I will be the one inspecting the products."

"Ah okay, are the stuff at my residence going to be shipped here as well?"

"Indeed. They will arrive shortly. Please proceed with your tasks at your leisure."

"Ah... Okay then."

What's with this "Your Honorable" business? Being treated like a bigshot is entertaining once a while but he better lay it off or I'm going to get annoyed.

The storage area was supposed to be inside the vault but my work area was outside of it since he was the one to inspect my finished products. Basically, he was there for quality assurance.

For hours upon hours, I produced things non-stop. A fey being was just that insane when unlimited mana was provided. I wasn't too far off when it came to cheap things like these.

It was only until that harefolk could no longer lift another finger did I take a break. He worked quietly by himself with such diligence that I just couldn't help admire his work ethics. Another harefolk had also swung by to drop off the stuff from my residence but he left as quickly as he came. I didn't get to know that person.

"Good work!" I praised Fuu with a smile.

"It was my pleasure, Your Honorable." He returned a weak smile.

You should take it easy for a while.

After my work was done, it was already night time outside. I didn't know when I started but I felt like I just worked for a whole day continuously. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to level up. At this rate, my raw materials should dry up fairly soon if nothing more was being collected by my clones. I kind of wished my menu would tell me how much extra resources I had. That way I could plan things out properly without doing all this guesswork.

With Fuu's permission, At a corner of the storage area, I began filling containers with mineral water. Containers I created were carbon based that used very little amount of minerals and no water. I had to find a way to use them up, yet nothing else came to mind. There was also the issue with minerals. I had too much of those and not many places to apply them.

I needed a breather and some ideas on what to create next.

Given the extent of my ability to replicate things, ice cream might be doable. It was basically fat and sugar, and maybe add some proteins. The issue was no one here consumed dairy products in any shape or form. There weren't even substitutes. If I only froze a mixture of fat and sugar, it was sure to be a failure. The closest I could replicate was strawberry sorbet which was basically sugar and ice.

A journey to find dairy product was necessary! At least, I had to pay more attention to things around me to stir up some ideas. A genius shouldn't ever settle in one place.

Anyway, whether ice cream would be popular or not was none of my concern. It was for a personal reason, that being which I wanted to eat ice cream! Nothing could beat a cup of frozen dessert after work.

Hmm... It's not too far. I might as well pay a visit.

Since the primary city barrier still wasn't fixed, I was free to teleport around. Well, even if it was fixed, they wouldn't erect it at the moment when no enemy was near.

In a blink, I was looking at Smoothie's original body, Strawberry Smoothie.

It had grown only a bit since I last came. Unlike the last time I visited, this time I decided to trim it down. Smoothie would understand. There was no point having such a large body when I could just transfer to her the resources she needed. In addition, it was only a matter of time before an army marched in this direction and burnt everything down including my clones in this area. To be honest, these clones were still undisturbed.

Personally, I had limited the growth of all my clones to the size of large bushes and some as small as one leaf. Ones that had grown too large were trimmed remotely by me. The reason was mainly for sustainability. Earlier I had all my clones absorb mana from the air. If there was a whole forest of my clones continuously siphoning mana like that, nothing would survive near it. Overtime, nutrients wouldn't flow to my clones, and my resources would then dwindle.

Alright, I'm keeping your trimmings. It's like a haircut! Ehh... I'm sure she wouldn't mind?

A stroll was a stroll. In my case, I didn't like walking. I teleported around using [strawberry substitution] to my clones planted near habitats I had visited before.

These kobolds, I didn't forget about you! Never mind, I totally forgot about your existence until just a moment ago. Heh, I accidentally took away all of your strawberries, how generous of me.

To my surprise, they didn't die out. Though, the village with the cult seemed to have died out. Since I wasn't gone for too long, very little had changed. They were still cultivating strawberries in small fields.

Haaa... I'll let them grow strawberries again. Why? Because I am a benevolent lord!

They probably thought strawberry plants were hibernating or something, who knows? I am here to raise them out of slumber!

The strawberries this time wasn't like a narcotic. They were only minutely addictive and extracts a tiny bit of their mana if they overate. That likely wasn't going to happen if strawberries grew at a normal rate so there was that. My definition of normal was abnormal to start with. Right, these strawberry plants would fruit without flowers.

I was feeling magnanimous today so I let the strawberry plants here each fruit one strawberry once every double full moon.

As a side note, so far I had only seen two moons orbiting around this planet. Their orbiting periods if I remembered correctly were quite long for some reason. On top of that, those two moons weren't synchronized in their orbital period. In layman terms, the fruiting period was about once every forty five days or one strawberry per plant per forty five days.

Why am I so benevolent today? Wait, I'm always benevolent! Stray thoughts, go away.