A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation

Three days had passed since they finished all their preparations and plunged into the spot.

A lot had happened, but Lizel and the others were continuing their sightseeing in the Demon Ore Nation (Kavana) as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

Today, they were walking through the town with Lizel in the lead, planning to buy souvenirs for Stud and Judge who were in the Capital City.

The last time they went to the Commerce Nation (Malcaid), it had been for a commission, so it had felt inappropriate to shop for souvenirs and they’d missed the chance. This time, though, it was just a sightseeing trip.

Lizel very much wanted to bring something back for the two who always looked after him.

They walked through the cave shopping district, occasionally turning off into side alleys.

Though it was a cave illuminated by lanterns, it didn’t smell of earth, nor was there the musty dustiness peculiar to caves.

Stone had been stacked, walls carved, even decorated with reliefs, so that the streets—though rugged—were strikingly beautiful. As expected of a country with so many engineers.

Lizel ignored the cries hawking bargains and the calls drawing customers in, walking on without hesitation.

“What’re you gonna buy?”

“I thought something consumable would be safest, but that’s a bit sad, so since we’re here I figured I’d get something that feels properly like it’s from the Demon Ore Nation.”

To be honest, Gill secretly thought consumables would probably be better.

After all, they interacted in all kinds of ways, but this would be Lizel’s first official gift to them.

Knowing how deeply those two were devoted to Lizel, he was worried that whatever they received would end up enshrined as a family heirloom.

Lizel was having fun, so for now he decided to just watch and keep his mouth shut.

“I found this place while we were walking the other day, and I thought something safely practical might be nice.”

“Ahh, that doesn’t sound bad.”

“If you tell ’em to use it when you give it to ’em, they probably will.”

“Ah, here we are.”

Before they knew it, they’d passed the livelier rows of shops and stepped into a more refined area.

The shops lined up here were full of specialties unique to the Demon Ore Nation: gemstones, rare ores, precision magical tools, delicate interior decor—stores dealing in high‑priced goods one after another.

With the two behind him wondering whether this was really the right kind of place to buy souvenirs, Lizel stepped into a particular shop.

What filled the place was clocks, clocks, and more clocks. Grandfather clocks, wall clocks, and—by far the most numerous—wristwatches displayed in the glass cases.

Lizel peered in at them, wondering which to choose, while Gill and Eleven watched on, half resigned, used to this sort of thing.

“Well, they’re practical, I guess.”

“Most people don’t pick this kinda thing as a souvenir, though.”

In Lizel’s original world as in this one, the concept of time hadn’t changed.

Seconds, minutes, hours were defined as standards, but the residents only really lived with an awareness of hours.

They used the hourly tolling of bells as a rough guide; in daily life, seconds and minutes were almost never needed. In villages, they didn’t even use the bells.

So clocks were more ornaments than tools, and because of their precision they weren’t something one could buy lightly.

Naturally, the people who owned them were limited.

The reason Lizel thought of clocks as practical tools was purely because he was a noble.

Sometimes he’d act on schedules measured in minutes, attend meetings with strictly limited times, and in a world where having a clock was taken for granted, parliamentary sessions were of course specified down to the minute.

Lizel owned one as a matter of course, but he’d taken it off on his very first day crossing into this world, because wearing it would have stood out too much.

However, while it would seem strange for an adventurer to have one, for a shop owner or a guild employee it wouldn’t be particularly out of place.