Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 7: Earning a Daily Wage – The First Job: Kitchen Cleaning
“There are jobs that are more outdoor tasks, such as hunting, investigating, and gathering, as well as farm work, jobs in town, and so on—what kind would you prefer?”
I think about it as Matilda asks. The lower the risk, the better.
“Either farm work or city work. Preferably something that pays by the day.”
I want to earn some money I can use here.
“In that case, the work that can be done today is harvesting, weed-pulling, tree cutting, warehouse organizing, house cleaning, gutter cleaning, carrying loads, factory work, and organizing documents.”
There’s quite a few.
Which one is best? Cutting trees and carrying load seems like hard work.
All of these are basically pay-per-task, with the client checking the work and payment being made upon completion.
“Which ones are nearby?”
Since I can’t choose, I’ll narrow it down by location.
“Warehouse organizing and house cleaning. Both are nearby.”
If I had to choose of these two, probably house cleaning.
“Can you tell me more about the house cleaning?”
“Yes, this is a request from Jill. She’s elderly and finds household chores burdensome, so she wants help with cleaning the places she can’t manage herself. The reward is 3,000 gold.”
I have no idea if that’s cheap or expensive.
“By the way, the accommodation fee for the dormitory rooms that the guild provides to support new recruits is 500 gold if you’re staying in the shared room, and 1,000 gold for a simple private room.”
I appreciate Matilda’s explanation. This is probably a very cheap place to stay. So I think it’s probably okay to think of 1 gold as about 1 yen.
The reward’s 3,000 yen, huh.
I think I can probably do house cleaning.
“I would like to accept this request.”
“Understood. I’ll handle the procedures.”
After a little wait, I receive a slip.
“Please take this request slip and go to this house. It has a red roof, so you should be able to spot it easily. Once the work is done, get Jill to sign it and then submit it at the front desk.”
She spreads out a map and shows me the location. I see—it’s close to the guild.
Glad I won’t get lost.
“Thank you,” I say, and Matilda gave me a bright smile in return.
Without getting lost, I arrived at the two-story house with a red roof. When I called out from the front door, a voice answered from inside.
Is it okay for me to just go in?
I open the door.
Ah, it smells like my grandma’s house.
That familiar smell from when I used to visit my grandma to show her my report cards back in elementary school. It was an indescribable smell, a mixture of dried grass, incense, and the smell of everyday life.
I hear voices from a room right near the entrance, so I head that way.
Yeah, it’s a bit messy. Not shockingly dirty, but there’s a fair amount of stuff piled up.
When I look in the direction of the voice, I see an elderly person who appeared to be spending their time within a two-meter radius of the bed.
I get it. People tend to put things within reach. It becomes like a nest.
“I’m Saki, from the Adventurers’ Guild,” I introduce myself, showing the request slip.
“Oh, finally you’ve come. I’d like you to help with cleaning the kitchen,”
Wait, so it’s not cleaning the entire house?
The elderly person—probably Jill-san—slowly gets out of the bed, limping a bit, and leads me to the next room. This must be Jill-san.
The kitchen is, well, a mess. Trash, dishes, pots stacked up.
It brings back memories. I’ve been in this situation once myself. I left some radishes alone and before I knew it, flowers had started blooming.
I know this from my own experience with a messy room. Whether I can clean this up or not depends on…
“Can I ask you one thing? Do you ever get rid of things?”
It depends on how much I can throw away.
“Ah, well. I’d like to keep anything that I can make use of, but…”
As I suspected. Yeah, This tendency is stronger among the elderly, but they are reluctant to throw away things that can still be used.
But with this much stuff, it probably won’t get clean unless I throw some away. Still, the individual has to agree with it.
“Can I throw away things that are obviously trash?
“Well, that’s fine.”
Great, I got their word.
Then, I’ll get started.
I put on a mask and gloves, ready to go.
First, I throw away obvious trash—anything I think is junk.
The basket fills up in no time.
Just doing that already makes the space look clearer, and increases the floor space.
I’ll let them check the contents of the basket one last time to see if it’s okay to throw them away later.
Just throwing out the trash can make a big difference.
I quickly sweep the floor I could see. It’s okay to do a rough sweep since I’ll clean it again later anyway.
Next, I wash the dishes and pots in the sink.
water’s flowing, I’m not sure from where, whether it’s a real water tap or something magical—but it comes out, so that’s a relief.
Ah, this won’t work with just water. I need dish soap. I’ll buy some.
Activate 1,000-yen repeat.
I’ve bought dish soap on sale before, right? 670 ml for 248 yen. I could probably find it even cheaper, but this is fine.
Can I buy this by the gram, like 10 yen worth?
Yeah, it works.
So, I’ll start with 5 yen worth in this container.
Wow, the foam is amazing and cleans really well.
I’m getting kind of high.
I also washed the dishes and pots on the table and clumped the dishes, pots and pans back on the table.
There are a lot of pots and dishes.
I take everything out of storage—everything.
I roughly sort them into trash, tableware, food and seasonings, kitchen utensils, and other items.
Some items seem to be valuables or money, so I prepare a box for those and put them aside.
And then, sad news.
Stockpiles of salt and sugar-like substances start appearing here and there.
Altogether, there’s probably enough salt and sugar that she won’t need to buy any for a long time.
It’s common for elderly people to stockpile excessively, but still, being able to stockpile so much is a good thing,
I guess this means salt isn’t that expensive.
Looks like the “stockpile salt and sugar” plan is a no-go.