Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of the Other World (LN)

Because there is no way in hell that an ordinary baking soda would have any magic-stopping properties.

Would it be possible for the Shell Powder found in Wheat Flour to be mixed and then heated in order to be used for cleaning purposes?

You want to try using Shell Powder in such a way?

Thats right, if that would be possible, that is. Can it be done?

I have never heard of anyone using Shell Powder for cleaning purposes, so I honestly do not know.

Damn, so is this something different after all?

What about Vinegar then? Can that be used for cleaning instead?

I have never heard anyone mentioning something like that either.

I was expecting such an answer from her, but I wanted to ask that question nonetheless, just so that I could e absolutely sure that I have thoroughly exhausted all of my options. For that matter, I wasnt even sure if this world had vinegar in it, but since Roxanne did not react in any strange way when she heard that word and it got translated into Brahim properly then they must have it. This is good news, because the only alternative to asking about it would be to walk round the shops that might be selling it and try every vinegar-like product that I could get my hands on, and since vinegar tastes just awful, this is not a prospect that I would be happy about.

In any case, it looks like this world has vinegar and baking soda in it, but at the same time it does not look like the people in this world know that both of those things can actually be used in getting rid of all kinds of stains on all kinds of surfaces and in removing dirt in general. This is a bit problematic, but it is not any kind of a major setback for what I want to try out, and as long as I show Roxanne that she can clean using those two ingredients, I do not really care about other people still being kept in the dark about it.

Our next stop was the general store where I asked the female clerk behind the counter if they were selling Shell Powder, and after getting an affirmative answer from her I also bought an additional two cooking pots (it never hurts to have too many of them in case one of them ends up getting damaged or destroyed, and even if it does not, having more spares around is always a good thing) and a bunch of Kochi fruits. Since I bought more than one product and the owner of the store had the Merchant Job, this time I was able to properly utilize my thirty percent discount, saving a nice bit of money that would otherwise go to waste. When that bit of additional shopping was done we went back to the Adventurers Guild where we warped back home.

Now, you are probably wondering what I am I going to be making with all those things that I just bought, huh? Well fear not, because I can finally give you the answer you wanted to hear! As I mentioned before, the purpose of that shopping was not so that I could make honeycomb toffee better than the one I made as the science experiment back in junior high. I want to make something a little bit more practical. Using all of the ingredients that I have gathered I want to have a shot at making soap. Thats right, your eyes are not deceiving you, you read that correctly. I want to make a legitimate soap that we could use to clean ourselves up properly whenever we will be taking a bath.

Truth to be told, I would be much more confident in this whole endeavor if I had access to some nice rice bran, but I should be able to make do with what I already have here with me: a mashed Koichi fruit, which should act as a nice soap berry substitute, since its vegetable oil contains fatty acids, just like rice bran oil.

The ingredients I am going to use to make soap are as follows:

When combined, the fatty acids (?) from the Koichi Fruits vegetable oil (?) and sodium bicarbonate from Shell Powders baking soda (?) should create fatty acids sodium salt, or in other words, your regular, plain old soap.

As for the procedure of creating it, I remember it quite well, even though the memory associated with it is a rather painful one, much like the most of the memories of my school life. That day, as per the usual I was left with no option but to make my science experiment together with the teacher, since all the other kids in the have already made groups of their own, and even if they didnt do that, I am positive that every last one of the classmates from my group would either not talk to me and assign me any tasks at all, or they would do everything in their power to make me feel miserable and unwelcome. And whats that? What about making groups in accordance with the numbers from the attendance list? From the reasons stated above, this would not have worked as well. I hate to remind myself of this, but I was mistreated or ignored by pretty much everyone around me. So yeah, there you have it.

In any case, if you have baking soda, you can make soap. Everything rides on that particular assumption here. Ideally, I really would have like to have some bona fide rice bran and pure vegetable oil in order to ensure that the chances of this little experiment succeeding would be as high as possible, but you know, beggars cant be choosers, so I will just have to do my best with what I have been given, and if it ends up not succeeding, theres no point in beatig myself up over it since that will be my first attempt at making something from a truly modern world in the one where technology is pretty much nonexistent. Later, when I will have some free time on my hands, I might just go t the Imperial City and have a look across various shops to see if they will have a rice bran, but for now I wont worry myself with it anymore and focus on the tsk at hand.

Immediately after returning back home, I headed straight to the kitchen with all of the ingredients in tow. I prepared about half the pot worth of water and proceeded to bring it to the boiling point. If all goes well, then I might as well start using this pot and a separate jar I bough exclusively for the purposes of storing soap in it. Next, I grounded the Shell Powder and added it into the water which was already boiling.

Ooooh, its frothing! Its beginning to froth!

The bubbles started forming on the surface of the water and Shell Powder mixture. So I was right, this is baking soda after all! In the meantime, I was carefully stirring the mashed Koichi Fruit in a separate container. If this will be anything like the rice bran, I will have to add in a crapton of it in order for the whole thing to succeed. I also do not remember the exact amount of the bran that had to be added, so I will have to make sure to stop adding it whenever I will deep the amount to be right. I just hope that I wont end up adding either too much or too little of it, ruining the entire thing as a result. Next thing I had to do was to mix both the mashed fruit and the water with Shell Powder together, and when I did that, it formed a brown, muddy liquid in the pot, and it kept on getting thicker and thicker, to the point where the simple act of stirring it all in the pot was beginning to seriously tire my hands. By the looks of it, it seems to have worked better than I have initially expected it to work. Something is telling me that the soap that I made as a byproduct of that honeycomb toffee experiment looked more or less like that.

What is this, master? What are you making?

Having apparently been done with tending to the herbs growing in our little garden, Roxanne came over to me and looked at my creation over my shoulder with a curious look on her face.

I am trying to make soap, although I have no idea whether it will work out or not.

You know how to make soap? Thats amazing!

Thank you for the compliment, but as I said, I have no idea if this is going to turn out alright at all. Worst case scenario, I might have simply wasted all the ingredients we just bought for nothing.