Chapter 4—Progress?

A week passed. We used that week to work and complete quests, always keeping safety in mind as our first priority. We used the money we earned to purchase new weapons and armor.

The first thing we bought was a hoe. Well, it’s not a weapon, but... We’d had a lot of trouble disposing of the boar’s innards on our first day; that was the first reason we decided to buy a hoe. In fact, we bought it first thing the very next day. Since it was an agricultural tool, it wasn’t that expensive, and in fact, that was another reason we bought it, but an even bigger reason was because of...well, toilet circumstances in forests. I mean, nature calls eventually if you spend half a day in the woods.

It was awkward to deal with, but it was a natural phenomenon that we couldn’t avoid as living beings. However, we couldn’t just leave our fine works as is on the ground. It wasn’t really about our responsibility as intelligent beings; rather, it was the fact that it would be very unpleasant to accidentally step on something dirty like that, so we absolutely had to dig holes to dispose of it. Well, among the three of us, only Touya dropped a nuke into one of the holes we dug, and he only did it once. The real problem was that with Touya carrying a hoe around, it was like we were going out to work as farmers, not adventurers; it felt weird.

There was also more to this topic about nature’s call. Haruka strongly suggested buying some cloth to use as blindfolds, which Touya and I agreed to right away. I mean, there was no way we could say no.

We also bought enough new clothes to change and rotate through, along with sturdy leather clothes to serve as armor. Or rather, we bought some pieces of actual leather armor for Touya, since he was our frontline fighter, and that helped us get through the week without any injuries. As for actual weapons, we bought a spear for me and a bow for Haruka. I was able to stab a boar to death after a bit of training, but I wasn’t skilled enough to aim for the eyes of a charging boar like Touya could, so during combat, I played a supporting role. There was also the risk of damaging the boar’s fur too much with too many attacks, which would lead to us getting less money for the hide. As for Haruka’s skills with the bow, let’s just say that cooked birds became part of our diet as well. Hopefully we can eventually buy a pot to make some bird stew.

Touya was the only one who didn’t have a proper weapon yet, since our plan to buy an actual sword was on hold for now; a good sword was way too expensive. However, the wooden sword had bounced off a boar’s head without doing any damage on our first day, so we decided to at least buy an iron cudgel—or, well, a long iron baton. The iron baton helped us defeat boars without damaging their fur, but it meant that Touya’s Swordsmanship skill didn’t level up. In fact, he got a new skill called Staff Fighting out of it, which was amusing in a way; he swung the baton around in exactly the same way he used his wooden sword, so that was more evidence that this world was different from a game: skills were quite flexible and weren’t set in stone.

As for me, I practiced magic every day, so I became somewhat better at casting spells. Or rather, I did get better at magic, but I still wasn’t useful in combat. My Fire Arrow would burn a boar’s fur, so I was forbidden from using it outside of emergencies.

Haruka, on the other hand, was the real MVP among us. The first thing that came to mind as an example of her importance to our party was her Purification spell from Light Magic. It could cleanse all sorts of dirt and grime, so it was a very useful spell for staying clean. There wasn’t a bath or shower available at the inn, so it was thanks to the Purification spell that we could lead normal lives. All praise Haruka-sama! Also, people who could use Purification were apparently extremely popular and sought-after among adventurers. It might seem like most adventurers wouldn’t care about cleanliness, but the truth was that monsters could easily sniff you out if you were filthy and smelled bad. Thus, most adventurers tried their best to stay clean, and Purification was a very useful spell for that purpose.

In addition to that, Haruka also managed to create a completely new spell that wasn’t listed in our status windows. It was a rather simple spell that just created a chunk of ice the size of a ping-pong ball, but it was thanks to that spell that we could cool and preserve our prey to a certain extent, which meant that we didn’t have to return to town right away every time we felled an animal. As for me, I still hadn’t managed to create a new spell yet, nope. It is what it is.

One skill that ended up being more useful than we thought it would be was Haruka’s Sewing skill. Haruka managed to weave a backpack based on suggestions from Touya and me. It was a meticulously crafted masterpiece that took quite some time to complete; it was based on the army-style backpacks that were common back on Earth. It was mostly made out of cloth, with some leather in important places to make it sturdier. It had pockets we could put things inside, along with parts that we could tie together with strings. It was also made so that we could discard it in an instant if we had to during combat, and we could carry it either on our backs or with our hands depending on the situation. A backpack as handy as this was probably unobtainable in or anywhere near this town.

We were originally going to just buy a proper bag, but all we found were simple knapsacks, handbags, and shoulder satchels. We couldn’t find anything that looked like a backpack. Luckily, Haruka had the Sewing skill, so we just decided to craft our own backpacks, which she completed after some trial and error. The process placed an extra burden on Haruka, but it turned out to be worthwhile; it was thanks to her that we managed to obtain individual backpacks for all three of us at a fairly cheap material price. These backpacks allowed us to carry a large amount of luggage with us, which meant that we could carry back the spoils of our hunt even if we caught more game than usual in a day. However, the difference in our physical strength was significant, so the amount of luggage Touya carried was at least double the amount that I carried. Sadly, I could only carry slightly more than Haruka, which made me worry somewhat about the fact that I hadn’t been very useful so far.

“Nao, can you help me out with something?”

“Hmm? Yeah, sure.”

Because of my insecurities about not contributing enough to the group, I always responded with a yes right away whenever Haruka asked for my help like this.

“Just Nao? Am I not needed?” Touya asked.

“Well, I was just thinking about taking a shot at searching for Yuki and Natsuki. It would be safer to have you around, Touya, but you look more or less the same as before, right?”

“I mean, yeah, I have animal ears now, but I’m sure people I know will still recognize me.”

Yuki and Natsuki were girls who we were all good friends with. We had been worried about them this whole time, but we didn’t have the luxury of searching for them while we were still struggling to earn enough for our routine expenses, and unfortunately, we hadn’t bumped into them in the areas that we frequently visited in our daily lives. If we were to search for them now, we would have to walk around areas we hadn’t visited before, which meant that we would also run into a lot of people we hadn’t met before. It would be best to avoid trouble in case we ran into our other classmates. Haruka and I explained all of this to Touya, but he didn’t seem like he understood.

“Huh, really? I can’t tell what my own face looks like right now.”

“Yeah, we don’t have a proper mirror,” I said.

I had only seen my own reflection in water, so I couldn’t tell exactly how different I looked from before. However, if I looked roughly as different as Haruka did, then only people who knew me well would recognize me on sight if we passed each other.

“Hmm, all right. Enjoy your date!”

“It’s nothing romantic, Touya,” said Haruka.

Touya grinned as he joked with us. Haruka and I just responded with dry laughter and then left the inn. I wish I could enjoy a date with no cares or worries about this new world, but alas...

“First of all, let’s go buy some cloaks with hoods. Elves stand out in this town—for a different reason than usual.”

“Yeah, there are barely any elves in this town,” I said.

We had passed by a few beastmen in our time here, but we hadn’t seen any other elves at all. Compared to beastmen, elves had an easier time hiding their ears, so maybe we just hadn’t noticed, but either way, there definitely weren’t many elves around. We had already been conscious of the looks we’d been getting, but we lacked spare money to buy clothes with hoods, so we went on with our business as usual. Even after we had managed to start earning a stable amount of money, we hadn’t really seen a point in hiding our ears after all this time, since we never wandered far from the same places every day. However, we were now planning to visit areas that we hadn’t been to before, so it was worth it to buy some cloaks if that would help us avoid troublesome situations.

We arrived at a secondhand clothes store where we had bought articles of clothing a few times before. While we were searching for cloaks that would fit us, Haruka voiced her complaints about how we weren’t here for fashion. “It’s a shame that we’re buying clothes for practical purposes instead of fashion.”

“Yeah,” I said after a moment’s pause. I was agreeing with her out loud, but in reality, I was only pretending. Honestly, I’m glad I won’t be forced to spend a lot of time waiting for Haruka to choose clothes. I hope she never finds out what I really think, though.

“Hmm, these look like they’ll do. They seem fairly sturdy and the quality seems okay. These aren’t matching outfits, but oh well.”

Haruka had chosen three cloaks after about thirty minutes of searching. They didn’t have any holes in them, but they looked a bit dirty. However, her Purification could take care of that to an extent, so these were decent secondhand clothes for our purposes. I asked her why she’d picked out a cloak for Touya, and she said it was because he would need one too, with winter approaching. We purchased the cloaks, put them on over our clothes, and covered our heads with the hoods. That covered our pointed elf ears and made our faces harder to see. I was also holding out my spear to show that we were armed, so if someone still tried to pick a fight with us despite all that, then that someone would probably be a massive idiot.

“Let’s start off by searching around the old town district,” said Haruka.

Laffan, the city we were staying in, could be roughly divided into four main areas. There was the old town district, the commercial district where many artisans and shops were located, the new town district that was the main residential area, and the administrative district, which had a lot of governmental facilities along with the residences of the wealthy. The Slumbering Bear was located in the new town district, but the Adventurers’ Guild was located in the old town district, which was a bit more dangerous than the other parts of town. It was only natural that many cheap inns were located in the old town district near the guild, and it was common to see adventurers or ruffians around there. We had to visit the old town district every time we went to the guild, but we hadn’t explored the more dangerous parts of the district. If Natsuki and Yuki had been here at some point, then it was highly probable that they were gone by now.

“Oh yeah, you asked Diola-san about Natsuki and Yuki, right?” I asked.

“Of course. I don’t exactly have proof, but I’m fairly sure that Natsuki and Yuki weren’t among the girls around our age who registered recently.”

They might have registered under different names, or they might have looked different if, like us, they were something other than human now, but it wasn’t something we could be absolutely sure about.

“However, there were some names that definitely sounded like they were our classmates.”

“So just like we thought?”

“I did ask Diola-san to keep quiet about them, but I’m not sure if that’ll do anything...”

“I guess it all depends on how Diola-san feels about this.”

The concept of personal privacy definitely didn’t exist in this world. Diola-san wasn’t an information broker by any means, but information was something that one could purchase with the right amount of money.

“Well, there’s no point in worrying about it, so let’s just prioritize our search for Natsuki and Yuki,” said Haruka.

“Mm.”

The old town district was exactly what its name implied—it was the area where people had resided back when Laffan was still just a village. Thus, there were still a lot of houses that covered large tracts of land, but most of the district was a mess of houses that had decayed over time. We looked in the cheap inns and taverns, but it was hard for us to gather information, since we had no experience doing so. All we could do was check the faces of the people inside. It was hard to tell if this was actually productive or not. We also poked around narrow alleys and looked for people who were walking around, but we didn’t find anyone. There wasn’t really anything else we could do, however.

“Do you really think we’ll find them like this, Haruka?”

“Well, if they’re in this town, then it’s possible. Everyone needs to earn money to survive, after all.”

“If they didn’t register at the Adventurers’ Guild, then their other options would be part-time work at restaurants or something similar, right?”

“Mm. Those are about the only places that’ll hire people regardless of their background. Well, there are some worse ‘options,’ but let’s not talk about those...”

Haruka looked gloomy as she cut herself off. There were many worst-case scenarios, like if Natsuki and Yuki had been captured by criminals, forced into prostitution, or were already dead, but there was no point in worrying about such things when we hadn’t found any clues yet.

I wanted to cheer Haruka up and shift her focus away from dark thoughts, so I asked her a question after I took a look at our surroundings. “Oh yeah, I’ve been wondering about something for a while. We passed by a lot of land that looked like farms here and there. What do you know about that?”

“They’re probably farms that have been here for a long time. Apparently, most of the previous residents sold their land here and moved to the new town district, but there appear to be some people who still live here.”

Occasionally, we passed by farmholds that seemed to appear out of nowhere between the rows of smaller houses. Such farmholds covered a large area of land; it was as if they were crowding out the other houses. There were large houses in the middle of the farmland along with fields and gardens, and some of the houses were surrounded by groves of trees, so they stood out from their surroundings.

“Those fields seem quite large for what look like kitchen gardens. And what about those trees?”

“Mm, the land here isn’t being put to good use at all, considering that the town’s surrounded by walls now. The lord of this town sure is kind to allow this.”

“Yeah. A person with that much power would normally confiscate the land to sell.”

It was fairly obvious that it would cost a lot of money to build walls. The currently active farms were located outside of the town’s walls, so with that in mind, the farms inside would normally be forcibly subjected to land readjustment. Perhaps the lord really was kind and considerate of the town’s residents, as Haruka had implied.

“Also, do you have any idea what those strange creatures crawling around the gardens are?”

“Oh, those things? Well...”

Haruka responded to my question with an expression of hesitation visible on her face, as if she was reluctant to describe them. I didn’t really know how to describe them myself. They sort of looked like gray reptiles. They were about the size of a small dog. The best way to describe them would be as fat lizards that had gotten shrunk down, I guess? A more exact comparison would be Godzilla with a shorter tail. Well, they appear to be bipedal, at least. They walked slowly through the gardens and rolled around on their backs to bathe in the sun. There were at least ten of them on each farm. Most of them seemed to live in the gardens of the larger farms.

“They’re livestock, right, Haruka?”

There was no way those creatures were wild animals. They didn’t look like they could fly, and I doubt they came in from outside the gates. My Scout skill didn’t react to them, so they probably weren’t dangerous, but there were too many of them to be considered pets, and only rich people could afford to keep pets in this world.

“Well, uh, yeah, they’re livestock.”

Haruka still sounded like she was hesitant about something, but I’d more or less expected that they were livestock.

“Hmm, I guess some reptiles are edible, such as alligators.”

“Uh, I hate to break it to you, but meat isn’t the main thing these animals produce.”

“Huh?”

“These animals are called jabbs, and it’s their eggs that are gathered for consumption.”

“The eggs?! Well then, this might be a trite thing to say, but reptile eggs gross me out a bit. I’d rather not eat that kind of thing if I can avoid it.” Reptile eggs seem like they’d be, like, slimy or something. I mean, I haven’t actually seen one myself, but still.

“I have bad news for you, Nao.”

“Don’t tell me...”

“You’ve already eaten those eggs before. Remember earlier this week when you ate eggs that you thought were chicken eggs? Those were actually jabb eggs.”

“Seriously?! I didn’t want to know that! I can’t believe I thought those eggs were delicious when I ate them!”

“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t say anything about it back then.”

Haruka folded her arms together and nodded, but I wasn’t satisfied with her answer.

“Couldn’t you have just continued to not say anything about it?”

“Well, you ended up seeing some jabbs here, so yeah. It would bother you more if I glossed over what they were after this, wouldn’t it?”

“I mean, yeah, it would for sure.”

I had happily eaten those eggs when I didn’t know what they actually were, so it wouldn’t be a problem if I just didn’t think about them. All right, once I get back, I’ll tell Touya exactly what kind of eggs he ate. It’s not because I want to drag him down with me or anything, nope. It’s just common sense, so I wouldn’t want my good friend Touya to embarrass himself at some point due to not knowing, yep.

“Well, I’m still really surprised that those rich-tasting eggs were actually reptile eggs.”

“Yeah, I didn’t expect that taste either. I was hesitant to eat them at first, since I knew what they were from my General Knowledge skill, but I didn’t mind once I actually ate some. Jabbs are also quite easy to raise and take care of as livestock.”

According to Haruka, most jabbs were vigorous omnivores, so you could use leftovers and vegetable scraps to feed them.

They were very peaceful animals as well, and wouldn’t fight over territory. They didn’t screech loudly like chickens did, so it was possible to raise them even in the middle of residential areas.

“The only real downside to jabbs is that they don’t lay eggs as frequently as chickens do, and they also don’t sit on their eggs to help hatch them, so it takes extra effort to increase their population.”

“That makes sense, since they’re reptiles. Wait, wouldn’t the eggs just hatch by themselves, then?”

“I’m not too sure, but that’s probably what happens in the wild. Eggs from domesticated jabbs seem to be artificially incubated.”

“Oh right, they’re raised as livestock. What about their meat?”

“Well, you probably won’t encounter jabb meat as part of a meal in restaurants or food stalls.”

“I see.” I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or not. I had already eaten the eggs, so it wouldn’t really make a difference at this point to eat the meat if I somehow came across it. “Wait, if it’s possible to obtain eggs, then would it be possible to create mayonnaise?”

“Hm? Do you like mayonnaise, Nao? I don’t remember you enjoying mayonnaise a lot.”

It seemed like Haruka found it strange that I’d brought up mayonnaise, so I went ahead and explained why.

“Well, no, it’s not something I like that much, but I was just thinking that if we poured mayonnaise on things that didn’t taste too good, then it would be easier to wolf them down, right?”

I felt like a lot of people would agree with me on this. I mean, isn’t that a common childhood memory—pouring mayonnaise on vegetables you didn’t really like so that they wouldn’t taste as bad? It wasn’t mayonnaise itself that was important; I just wanted some kind of seasoning or dressing that we could use with food that didn’t taste too good in order to make it easier to eat.

“Okay, I understand what you mean, so I can try to make some mayonnaise later. Oh, actually, it might be best to wait until I learn the Disinfect spell, since raw eggs are an ingredient.”

“Hm? I thought mayonnaise made with raw eggs was safe because it also contained vinegar, wasn’t it?” I also remembered something about how vinegar would keep the mayonnaise from spoiling, despite raw eggs being an ingredient.

“Well, that depends on whether the problem you’re worrying about is salmonella. Raw eggs aren’t commonly consumed in this world, and it would be dangerous if there were bacteria that vinegar couldn’t kill off, right?”

“Yeah, that’s true. There are definitely bacteria that vinegar can’t kill off.”

I had seen news before about foodborne bacteria that were immune to alcohol and had to be killed with chlorine. Now that I think about it, aren’t bacteria that can be killed off by nothing more than vinegar quite weak? It’s probably a bad idea to assume that these eggs are the same as chicken eggs back on Earth. Well, they’re not even chicken eggs in the first place, so yeah.

“Okay, yeah, it does sound dangerous. I guess I’ll just look forward to it some day in the future.”

“Mm. I’ll try to create some mayonnaise when I can, so just wait patiently until then, Nao.”

Our livelihood would probably be completely stable by then. At least, that was what I hoped our future would be like.

I continued to chat with Haruka as we searched far and wide throughout the old town district, but we didn’t find Natsuki or Yuki. We then went to search the other three districts of the town and searched around until sunset. However, we didn’t find Natsuki and Yuki, or even any clues as to where they might have gone, so we wearily headed back to our inn.

★★★★★★★★★

“Oh yeah, Touya, Nao, don’t you two think it’s time for a change? I think we’re ready to venture deeper into the forest now.”

Our daily lives had been fairly stable recently, and we had established a rough routine. We would wake up early in the morning and then head out for work. We would return to town and finish selling the day’s spoils before sunset. Afterwards, we would practice our individual abilities, such as sword swinging and magic, until it was time for dinner. We also used that block of spare time to finish other business or tasks. We had searched for Natsuki and Yuki multiple times during that period, but we still hadn’t found any clues. We were drawing closer to the conclusion that they weren’t in this town.

After we finished dinner, Haruka would cast Purification on all of us. Some of us would then bathe ourselves in water if we felt like it that day. We would spend the remaining time before bed just chatting with each other about what we should do next. It was in the middle of one of these chats that Haruka brought up a new course of action.

“Well, yeah, we should be fine now, I think...?”

Touya didn’t sound very confident when he replied, but that was probably because of what had happened yesterday. We were able to hunt the tusk boars that appeared near the entrance of the east forest now, but we encountered a large bear instead yesterday. It was called a wipe bear, and it stood about three meters tall. That height and size had been very intimidating to us. Touya had bravely attacked the bear with his long iron baton, but the bear had barely taken any damage, and it had been hard to aim for vital spots like its eyes due to its height. I had jumped into the fray with my spear, and Haruka had backed us up with her bow, but the bear’s thick fur had blunted our attacks, so we hadn’t been able to do any real damage.

In the end, we had decided to forget trying to defeat it without damaging its fur and had gone all out. We had somehow managed to defeat it thanks to not holding back on our mana usage, along with the fact that Haruka had landed arrows in its eyes. However, it had been a close call, and it had been the first time since I’d come to this world that I had felt like my life was in danger.

On top of all that, the meat that we had fought so hard to obtain and bring back to the guild was worth even less than tusk boar meat. The reason was that although wipe bear meat was fairly rare, it didn’t taste very good, so it didn’t go for much relative to its rarity. Tusk boar meat is definitely delicious, so I guess that makes sense.

As for the bear’s fur, it would fetch a decent price in good condition, but the fur we brought back wasn’t in good condition at all, so we barely got anything for it. The encounter with the bear hadn’t been worth it at all relative to how dangerous it had been. On the bright side, Diola-san had told us that it was rare to come across wipe bears, so we probably wouldn’t encounter them that often in the future. We would have had to rethink our plans if such bears were actually a common encounter.

One thing that was common, however, was for rookie adventurers to get wiped out when they encountered a wipe bear. Sure, wipe bears aren’t a common encounter, but rookies will die if they do happen to meet one, right? We had only survived thanks to Haruka’s archery and my magic, and also thanks to Touya shielding us in his frontline role, so it made sense that most rookies would die if they encountered a wipe bear. But at this point, we weren’t really rookies anymore, either as adventurers or in terms of our skill levels.

“Well, I’m not against the idea. Is it because of dindels that you want to try going deeper into the forest?” I asked. “Do we really have to go for them?”

Dindel was the fruit that we had heard about from Diola-san on our first day. They could only be found fairly deep into the forest near this area. Each dindel could be exchanged at the guild for anywhere from one hundred to three hundred Rea, but our daily income was stable around thirty thousand to forty thousand Rea thanks to additional income from tusk boars. If we wanted to earn that much from dindels, assuming we got an average price of two hundred Rea per dindel, then we would have to bring back about two hundred dindels. Sure, we have proper backpacks now thanks to Haruka, but can we really bring back two hundred dindels? They’re each, like, the size of a small apple.

“If we sold dindels as is, then we would only earn as much as we do now with boars, but dindel fruits can go for much more if we can process them well, so it’s entirely possible to earn double our current income.”

According to Haruka, the value of dindel fruits would more than double if you processed them properly and turned them into dried fruits without reducing their size. However, it was very difficult to preserve and dry a fruit that large while making sure it didn’t rot and without cutting it apart, so specialized knowledge was necessary. That knowledge was the reason why they were so valuable, but Haruka said that she could deal with all of that via magic. In addition, if we dried dindels so that they would last longer before going bad, then we could sell them ourselves without having to sell them at the guild, which meant that we could get even more money per dindel.

“Well, if we spend time selling dindels ourselves, then we lose out on time we could spend gathering more dindels, so we’ll have to think about whether it’s worth it or not.”

“Hmm, I see. Wait, did you learn another new spell, Haruka?!”

“Well, it’s just a spell that lets me dry things. It’s nothing special, but it’s useful for drying laundry.”

Oh, is that why Haruka hasn’t been hanging her laundry in our room lately? I thought she was just wearing clothes that she used Purification on like Touya and I were doing.

“You say it’s nothing special, but I think that’s pretty amazing,” said Touya. “Oh yeah, Nao, I was wondering—how many new spells have you learned, sir?”

“Zero.”

“Huh? What did you say? I didn’t hear you.” Touya feigned deafness and put his hands to his ears while he asked me to repeat myself.

“Zero, damn it!” I should’ve expected nothing less from my childhood friend. He knows exactly how to get on my nerves!

“Don’t worry, Nao. I won’t abandon you even if your talent dries up, so rest easy, okay?” Haruka smiled compassionately and spread her arms towards me when she said that, but it didn’t make me happy at all.

Well, actually, I feel a bit happy, but I feel even more frustrated. “I’d rather take money than pity—I mean, can you teach me the tricks to learn new spells, Haruka?”

“Tricks, you say? Hmm, well, my best advice for you would be to picture in your mind not just the goal, but also the process leading up to that goal, I guess?”

One example that Haruka mentioned was the Dry spell that she had learned recently. The way she used this spell was by thinking about how she wanted to remove the water content inside the target of her spell instead of just thinking of the word “dry” by itself. In addition, the amount of mana required for a spell would differ depending on the steps taken towards the result, even if the result was the same for different methods. For example, one method would be to make the water molecules move faster to generate heat so they evaporated, and another method would be to squeeze the water out of the target. In this case, the second method would require less mana. The first method would still leave lingering heat even after the target was dried, so that heat would increase the amount of mana required as a result. Well, that was Haruka’s theory about how it worked.

“I see. Thanks—I’ll keep this in mind while I try things out. Wait, if that first method counts for Water Magic, couldn’t you replicate a microwave oven like that?”

Microwave ovens generated microwaves that caused water molecules to vibrate, and that produced heat. If Haruka’s Dry spell actually moved water molecules around, then maybe it was possible to stop the process at the heat stage before the water evaporated. If it was possible to control the spell like that, we could use it to warm up food.

“Well, actually, I’m still testing things out, so I’m not quite there yet.”

“Oh, so if things go well, then we’ll be able to eat many more different sorts of foods! I’ll be waiting for good news, Haruka! Well, I guess you could do it as well, Nao, but yeah...”

We’d started to take lunch from the inn every day after we had obtained a decent amount of money. Food that we hunted down and cooked ourselves was delicious, but it would take quite a lot of time to do all of that. Thus, we brought food from the inn with us to save time, but the food was cold by the time we ate it. Even though the inn’s meals were decent, they didn’t taste good when cold. I had tried to warm up our meals with my Ignite spell, but things hadn’t gone very well, and that was why Touya was kind of making fun of me.

“Ugh! Just wash your back, Touya! I’ll show you eventually and develop a useful spell myself!”

“Wash your back? What do you mean?”

“Huh? Oh, my bad, I meant to say just wait and see.”

Well, I guess waiting around for somebody while naked is one way to express excitement. Wait, what am I talking about?

“Nao, developing useful spells for daily life is fine and all, but don’t forget about spells for combat as well, okay?” said Haruka.

Oh, yeah, of course. I’ll apply myself to developing those as well, Haruka. I had practiced my Fire Arrow spell in an attempt to compress the flames so that they wouldn’t burn an animal’s fur, but I hadn’t had any success so far. It wasn’t a new spell, so I had no problems using the spell itself, but I couldn’t compress the arrow to my goal of somewhere between one to two centimeters. However, I had managed to accomplish my other goal of being able to compress the arrows without a decrease in the potency of the spell, so that project was close to complete. Well, I hope it is.

“Okay, so does that mean you both agree with my idea of going further into the forest? We need to make some progress, or we might end up stuck as ordinary adventurers like this.”

As in the type of ordinary adventurers who die midway through life? That’s definitely bad. We needed to maintain our spirit of self-improvement. Our goal was to become successful adventurers.

“Well, to be honest, there is something I’m a bit worried about.” I had just nodded in response to Haruka’s request for confirmation, but Touya shook his head after some thought and brought up what was bothering him. “Sure, wipe bears aren’t a common encounter, but my weapon did no damage to one, right? If we can buy new weapons, then I’ll be down for going deeper into the forest.”

It wasn’t exactly like Touya had done no damage at all to the bear, but it was my spear and magic that had dealt it fatal wounds. His current strength wasn’t enough to deal significant damage with a blunt weapon against a wipe bear’s natural armor.

Haruka seemed to be reflecting on how things had gone against that bear as well, and she nodded after some thought. “Hmm, that’s true. You do need a new weapon. We’ll have to burn through a bit of our savings, but we have enough to spare right now. Are you going to use a one-handed sword?”

“It would be cool to use a two-handed sword as a beastman, but I’m our only frontline, so that’s not really a good option. It would be safer to go for a more defense-oriented style with a one-handed sword along with a shield, right?”

“Yeah, that would fit our current formation and combat style better,” said Haruka.

“Mm. That would be ideal,” I said.

In terms of defensive capabilities, Haruka and I were outright paper—just about anything could slice through us easily. We were elves, so it was a given that we weren’t strong physically. Touya would probably survive even if he took a whack from a wipe bear, but Haruka and I would probably break if we got hit. By break, I meant physically, not mentally. I was honestly very impressed by Touya’s ability to stand toe to toe against a bear like that.

“Well, we all have our own roles in combat. Oh, make sure you choose good gear, okay? It’s not just my life on the line, since I’m responsible for guarding both of you!” Touya smiled as he said that.

★★★★★★★★★

We spent as much as we reasonably could on Touya’s new sword and shield. He was our frontline tank, after all. If enemies managed to get past him, then I probably wouldn’t be able to deal with them myself, so there was no point in being stingy with these purchases.

We spent a day for Touya to get used to his new gear, and then we ventured further into the forest the next day. Compared to the outskirts of the forest, it was harder to traverse, which was probably because very few people ventured this deep. Touya led the way through, and we stepped on undergrowth as we cleared tree branches with Touya’s new sword to forge our path. We weren’t walking around aimlessly, of course. We had a rough idea of where to go, since we had asked Diola-san beforehand. She had requested a fee of three dindel fruits for that information, but it was definitely worth the price, since we wouldn’t have to search aimlessly in the forest.

“I gotta say, though, I’m a bit sad that this is the first use of my new sword...”

“It is what it is. A proper hatchet would cost a decent amount of money, on top of being additional luggage,” said Haruka. “Besides, it’s not like that broadsword of yours has a really sharp edge, so it’s not that much of a problem, right?”

Most swords in this world were crafted for smashing as blunt weapons instead of slashing through objects. That didn’t mean they weren’t forged properly, though. They were definitely sharper than long iron batons, but only expensive masterpieces would be able to slice through things like butter. Daggers and knives had proper sharp edges in this world as well, but broadswords were more useful for adventurers due to the importance of durability. It wasn’t possible to wash and sharpen weapons after each slash or cut, after all.

“What should we do about enemies that we encounter on the way, Haruka?” I asked. “Should we hunt them for materials to bring back with us?”

“No, we should avoid combat if possible. We can hunt boars on our way back if we still have time and energy, though.”

“Okay.”

I had gotten used to how my skills worked, so I was able to tell apart targets that I had detected with my Scout skill. I could scan quite far if I focused on using the skill, so it was fairly easy to avoid boars now if we wanted to do so.

“However, if we encounter monsters, then we should fight them. That’s one of our other objectives.”

We had two objectives here that Haruka had brought up, and we needed to complete both to make progress as adventurers. One of those objectives was to defeat monsters in combat. More specifically, we needed to defeat humanoid monsters in combat. It was going to be our first step towards fighting human enemies, such as bandits. There weren’t that many bandits in this area, but apparently some areas in this world were rife with them, and it was more dangerous to get attacked by bandits than monsters there.

“Bandits, eh? Man, so they do exist in this world.” Touya sighed as he said that, The reason this topic hadn’t been discussed before was because we hadn’t encountered any so far due to this area being peaceful.

“There were bandits back on Earth too, you know?” I said. “Purse snatchers are basically a type of bandit.”

The difference with purse snatchers was that most didn’t kill to steal. In certain countries, it was common sense not to stop while driving, even at red lights. That was because you would get attacked if you stopped in the middle of the road, and the police in those countries wouldn’t do anything. They would just say it was the driver’s fault for stopping, apparently.

“Well, the difference in this world is that we can defend ourselves without getting in trouble here.”

Even if the person was a robber, it was still a crime to kill them back in Japan. It was very difficult to meet the legal requirements for self-defense for most situations.

“Hmm, can we really defeat humanoid enemies, though?” I asked.

“Well, would you be able to defeat a gorilla if one attacked you?” Haruka asked.

“Oh yeah, gorillas have very strong grips. Some even throw their dung at you,” said Touya. “Well, we’ll probably be fine, since we were able to defeat a bear.”

The only gorillas that throw dung at people are the ones in zoos. Well, I’ve never met a wild gorilla, so maybe they throw dung as well.

“Goblins should be fine as well, then,” said Haruka. “Goblins look closer to humans than gorillas do, after all.”

“That makes sense, now that you put it that way.” That example made me feel like I would be okay as well.

“Besides, can bandits actually be classified as humans in the first place? They’re more like wild animals that make noises somewhat similar to human words, but that’s about it.”

“Whew, that’s a hot take, Haruka,” I said.

“Well, I just think that thugs are the bane of society. I hate how things like extortion, shoplifting, and bike theft are just classified as misdemeanors! It’s absolutely ridiculous!”

“Yeah, I agree with you on things like bike and umbrella theft, Haruka! I really want to beat the crap out of people who do things like that!” Touya nodded and eagerly agreed to what Haruka said.

I felt the same way he did. It wasn’t the price of the stolen items that irritated me, but rather the nuisances that would assail me afterwards. For example, I would get soaked in the rain instead of whoever had stolen my umbrella, and I would have to walk a long distance on foot or be forced to use a bus or train if my bike got stolen. Once, I’d had to walk home without an umbrella because it had gotten stolen, and I had seen a river on my way back. When I saw that river, I’d wished that the thief was nearby so I could dunk his ass in and send the guy swimming. However, my anger paled in comparison to Haruka’s.

“Exactly! They’re all crimes, so all of the perpetrators should be disposed of one way or another!” Haruka yelled out some spicy words as an indication of how furious she was.

Well, those words were reasonable from her perspective. Objectively speaking, Haruka and her friends were girls who were definitely above average in the looks department, and that meant that they had sometimes found themselves in troublesome situations as a result. Nothing had ever happened when Haruka hung out with just Touya and me, but whenever she’d gone out with just her girlfriends, they had often gotten unwanted attention from guys who tried to hit on them. In fact, there had been some occasions when it had led to the police getting involved. In addition, Haruka had somewhat of a natural inclination to take care of and look out for others, so she had often found herself getting involved to save her friends from nasty situations. Well, that’s just what I’ve heard, but knowing her, it’s definitely true.

“Especially rapists! They should be castrated immediately! Their genes have no place or value in this world!”

Haruka seemed to have recalled an unpleasant memory as she grimaced and continued to vent out her frustrations. Yeah, people who can’t control themselves like that are definitely human pests. However, that doesn’t automatically apply to their children. Even if the pregnancy was against their will, there are some victims who still give birth to those children.

“Um, Haruka, I agree with you for the most part, but it’s not like children can choose what genes they’re born with, right?”

I placed one of my hands on Haruka’s shoulders as I tried to calm her down with my words, and Haruka seemed to realize that she had lost her cool, since she coughed awkwardly and averted her eyes.

“Y-Yeah, my bad. Perhaps I went overboard by saying genes. However, considering the mental damage that victims suffer and the chance of rapists offending again, I definitely think some kind of permanent physical punishment is needed. Wouldn’t it be terrifying for a victim to know that the person who raped them could be released back into society within a few years and could be living somewhere nearby?”

Haruka was still a bit extreme even after she had calmed down. Well, I understand why she feels this way.

“Hey, Nao, why’s Haruka so angry right now?” Touya whispered.

“Oh right, I forgot that you don’t know about this, Touya,” I whispered back. “You see, a girl who was Haruka’s friend got assaulted by a rapist before. Haruka managed to save her right before the rapist could actually do anything, but you know...”

“Mm, that would definitely be a traumatic experience for the victim.”

Haruka had been quite scary and irritated for a while after that happened. It was a tough time for me too; I’d had to be careful around her and had been forced to do various things to placate her, even though I had nothing to do with the incident.

“Also, why is it that society actually tries to give rapists another chance to start over? What about the victims? They’re the ones who can’t start over due to the lifelong wound inflicted on them by rapists!”

Yeah, if you had friends or family who were assaulted by rapists, then there was no way you’d think those criminals needed a chance to start over. Rather, more common thoughts would be things like “Castrate them!” or “Keep them in jail!” so that the victims wouldn’t have to suffer more. That would be followed up with something like “The victims’ lives were ruined because of them, and you’re saying the perpetrators should get a chance to redeem themselves?” and so on.

“Well, it’s probably different in this world in that there’s nothing to protect us,” said Haruka. “If we lose a fight against bandits, then you two will probably get killed, and I’ll probably get raped before I get killed. Just keep this in mind at all times when facing enemies like bandits or goblins.”

“Oh, yeah, with that in mind, I feel like I won’t hesitate to kill bandits who want to kill us,” said Touya.

“Yeah. To put it in extreme terms, human rights and the idea of killing being wrong...those are just the luxuries of a prosperous society.”

There was no way we could hold back in a life or death fight against criminals. However, whether or not we could steel ourselves to kill other humanoid beings in real time was a different story. I guess it’s a good thing that we discussed this topic now so that we won’t hesitate when the time comes.

★★★★★★★★★

Well, that was how our discussion about humanoids went. However, we luckily (or unluckily) didn’t come across any goblins on our way to our destination in the forest. My Scout skill did detect some boars, but we managed to avoid them since it detected them before we were close. From the time we entered the forest, it took us about an hour to reach our destination. We managed to get here despite having only a rough idea of where to go due to the fact that the dindel tree we found was much taller than the other trees around it.

“Whew, this tree is quite different from what I expected. We were told about this, but it’s very tall,” said Touya.

“How tall are these things?” I asked. “It looks taller than your average apartment building, right?”

“It’s probably at least fifty meters tall,” said Haruka. “Well, that’s just a rough estimate.”

The tree we were looking up at was more than twice as tall as the other trees nearby. I used my Hawk’s Eye skill to glance at its top, and I could barely see some red fruits, so this was probably the dindel tree that we were searching for. The trunk of the tree was extremely thick, but nowhere near as straight as a cedar; rather, it had spreading branches like a camphor tree. At the same time, it gave off an imposing presence due its sheer height. I had seen some of the largest camphor trees in Japan, but the dindel tree in front of me looked like it was at least double both their height and width.

“Whoa, that’s amazing. As elves, can you two actually climb this tree? I definitely can’t do it. I can’t even see the top of the tree—kind of like the Tokyo Skytree.”

“It’s not that tall, Touya,” said Haruka. “A closer example would be something like Tsutenkaku Tower.”

“That’s quite a downgrade...”

The height of the Tokyo Skytree was 634 meters, if I recall correctly. I wasn’t sure about the height of the Tsutenkaku Tower, but I would guess it was somewhere around a hundred meters? I guess it is a downgrade...

“People from Kansai would get angry at you for calling that a downgrade, Touya.”

“I mean, surely people from Kansai don’t think the Tsutenkaku can compare with the Tokyo Skytree, right?”

“It’s still a tall building, regardless, if you were to climb it yourself.”

“Yeah, especially since we’ll have to do something similar to free climbing,” I said.

We don’t even have carabiners to help us with the climb. I wouldn’t even think of trying to climb this tree if I wasn’t an elf. Sure, it was a tall tree, but I was confident I could do it due to the experience I had accumulated climbing trees in the forest many times over the past week.

“Oh yeah, does nobody actually try to gather dindels? I saw a lot near the top with my skill, so wouldn’t it be really profitable?”

“This isn’t only the dindel tree in this forest, Nao. Besides, you also have to factor in the amount of time it takes to get here.”

“Right, I forgot about that.”

It had taken us an hour to get here from the entrance of the forest. If we counted the amount of time needed for the trip here and back to town, we would realistically only have about two to three hours of time to gather dindel fruits. We would be able to save some time from our second attempt onward, since we would know a path that we didn’t have to clear, but it would still be a long trip. Even if we camped out here, there was a limit to the amount of dindel fruits we could actually hoard and carry back.

“Also, not everyone can climb dindel trees. It would be difficult for you, right, Touya?”

Touya shook his head vigorously, as if to say it was an impossible task for him. “Absolutely no way. This is too scary for me!”

Oh right, you need to actually be able to climb this tree in the first place. The monetary reward for dindel fruits was fairly normal in terms of what rookies could earn, but the only problem was that not everybody was capable of taking on this task. It would be fairly easy for elves due to their racial trait of being talented at maneuvering around on trees without losing their balance. If you weren’t an elf, then you would have to be very talented at climbing trees for this.

“There’s also the painful part of having to actually bring down the dindel fruits from all the way up there.” Haruka pointed at the top of the tree as she said that.

In a way, that was the most difficult part of gathering dindel fruits. It wasn’t possible to just throw the fruit down to the ground due to how high in the air they were. There were branches in the way as well, and it was also impossible for someone on the ground to catch them. It would be like asking someone to catch over a hundred apples thrown from the top of an apartment building. Even if you tied a bag to carry them down faster, the branches would still get in the way, so you would have to do it slowly, with periodic stops along the way. That would require spending more time on the gathering process itself, which would further reduce the total profit relative to time spent.

“Thankfully, we have army-style backpacks, so that makes it easier,” I said.

The advantage of a backpack was that both of our hands would be free, and since they would be strapped to our bodies, they wouldn’t really affect our sense of balance on the tree. Those excellent qualities were probably the reason the military commonly used backpacks like these.

“So, what should I do?” Touya asked. “Should I just wait here on the ground?”

“No, it would be dangerous for you to be alone in this forest, so it’s probably best for you to climb up and stay on the lowest branch of the tree.”

Oh yeah, if Haruka and I are the ones who’ll be climbing to the top, then Touya will be alone. Touya can defeat a boar by himself, but it could be dangerous if he encountered goblins for the first time without help.

“The lowest branch? You mean that one?” Touya looked up at a branch as he said that. It was about five meters up from the root. It was basically the equivalent to the roof of a two-story building. “That’s quite high.”

“Oh yeah, Haruka, how are the two of us even supposed to reach that branch in the first place? It’s not reachable by hand.”

Our physical abilities were improved compared to before, but not to the point where we could jump up all the way to a branch that was five meters up in the air. The area near the root of the tree was also fairly straight compared to the rest of the tree, and there weren’t really any burls we could use to help us climb up. There were a lot of branches from the lowest one onward that we could hop across, so it would be fairly easy from there, but the problem was how to get to that lowest branch in the first place.

“Don’t worry, I thought of that beforehand. The first step before doing anything is to gather information, right?” Haruka cocked her head slightly as she looked at me.

Uh, sorry, I didn’t gather any information on my end. I thought all I needed to know was where we were going...

“I prepared a tool for us to use.” Haruka took a long rope out of her backpack as she said that.

That’s it? I had some rope on me as well, since she had told me to bring some.

“Throw the rope up like this!”

Oh, there’s a weight at the end of the rope. The rope flew over the branch she aimed at, and the weighted end fell to the ground.

“Hold both ends of the rope like this, and then pull them like this.”

As she pulled on the rope, it drew tight around the branch where it met the trunk of the tree.

“All we need to do now is hold on to this rope while we climb up.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Haruka used the few burls that existed as footing and started climbing up along the rope. She reached the lowest branch in no time.

“Damn, you made it look easy. Can you do it too, Nao?”

“Hmm, yeah, probably.”

It would have been impossible with my old body back on Earth, but I felt like I could do this just fine as an elf.

“Alley-oop!”

Oh, that was easy. I managed to climb up right next to Haruka in one go. It looked like I could perform feats like this just fine.

“I’m not as good as you are at this, Nao. Oh well, I should be fine with the rope.”

Touya grabbed the rope and pulled on it a few times, then grasped it firmly and climbed up. Oh, he’s basically doing rappelling, except he’s going up instead of down. Haruka and I had used the trunk of the tree as footing, but Touya was using only his own muscles to lift his entire weight and luggage, so it required a lot of strength.

“Whew, there we go. What should I do from here?”

Touya gave us a somewhat perplexed look after he reached the top of the rope. It would be possible to grab onto thin branches and climb up from there, but the branch we were standing on at the moment was at least fifty centimeters thick. On top of that, it had a rope dangling below it, so it was already difficult to move up here. Haruka and I had gotten here by using the trunk as footing, but Touya couldn’t do that. We should’ve probably tied a rope to another branch before he got up here.

“All right, grab my hand.”

“Thanks.”

I extended my hand to Touya and pulled him up. I didn’t have that much muscle, but I had enough to pull one person up, and Touya himself was very nimble due to being a beastman, so it wasn’t that hard.

“Okay, are we good to go? We’ll be going on ahead, Touya,” said Haruka.

Touya was going to hold the fort here on the lowest branch while we were gone. He would probably be bored out of his mind for a few hours here with nothing to do, but he would have to put up with it. I mean, it’s better than having to spend those hours climbing up and down to gather dindel fruits.

“Oh yeah, can you lend me your bow, Haruka? Lend me Nao’s spear as well.”

“Sure, but why? You can’t really use them here.”

“Well, yeah, but with a bow, I can safely shoot down at enemies from here, right?”

“Arrows aren’t cheap, so I don’t want you to waste any if you can avoid it, but all right. Hold out the bow for a second.”

Touya held out Haruka’s bow and tried to draw the bowstring, but he wasn’t very successful. It’s Haruka’s bow, so surely you don’t need that much strength to draw it, right...?

“Don’t pull on it with brute force like that. This is how you draw it...”

Touya adjusted the way he drew the bow based on Haruka’s advice, and he succeeded after a few tries. Well, it looked like he did, anyway. I’m not sure if he can actually land a shot, though.

“Try not to waste arrows, okay?”

“Of course! I don’t intend to waste any.”

“Also, don’t do anything reckless just because you have nothing to do.”

“Sure, sure, trust me, I won’t.”

Touya replied with a casual tone, but I didn’t feel like I could trust him on this. Haruka seemed to feel the same way, since she furrowed her brow when she heard his response, but she sighed afterwards as if she gave up and then turned towards me.

“I’m kind of worried, but oh well. Let’s go, Nao.”

“Yeah.”

“Take care, both of you! I’m more worried about you two than myself!”

True, we could die if we fall on our way up. I don’t really feel that scared, though. I waved lightly at Touya and then turned away to start climbing up the trunk of the tree. Luckily, this dindel tree had a round trunk like the trunks of cedar, hinoki cypress, and other common trees back in Japan, and there were a lot of branches as well. That meant special tools weren’t required to climb up the tree, but Haruka and I opted for the safe route and took turns holding onto the rope as we climbed up.

“This kinda feels weird, Haruka. Like, I seem to instinctively know the safe spots to climb up...”

“Mm, that’s probably a racial trait that comes with being an elf. Okay, we’re close to the top of the tree now.”

How long have we been climbing? We were almost at the end. The wind had gotten quite strong as we neared the top of the tree, but for some reason, I felt almost no fear at all. The branches around me swayed in the wind, and there were plenty of ripe fruits growing on them, along with some fruits that were still green or yellow. According to Diola-san, the season for dindel fruits was halfway over, but the amount of fruit here meant that we would have plenty to harvest for a while.

“All right, let’s split up and gather the fruits. Be careful, Nao.”

Haruka pointed in different directions as she tied our literal lifeline to a thick branch, and I nodded in agreement before I started to harvest the fruits that were near me. The dindel fruits looked like apples that were slightly squashed in width. They were heavier than I thought they would be. Their skin was somewhat thick and seemed firm; it gave off a sweet and sour smell. I checked the color of the fruits to see if they were red and ripe or not and threw the ripe ones into my backpack as I found them. There had been no ripe fruits on our way up the tree, so it was as if all them were concentrated here. They were so plentiful that it wasn’t possible to harvest them all, which also meant that I didn’t have to move around that much. It only took me about fifteen minutes to completely fill my bag with dindel fruits. I took a break after I filled my bag, then looked at where Haruka was. Her backpack seemed like it still had some room for more.

“Haruka, I’m done over here. Do you want me to help you out?”

“Hmm. Nah, I’m done as well. It would be dangerous to climb back down with a full backpack.”

Haruka glanced at her backpack and then shook it lightly before nodding to herself.

“Y-Yeah, that’s true...”

Oh god, I completely stuffed my own backpack with fruits! Should I take some out and throw them away? Before I could make a decision, Haruka looked back at me and realized my situation.

“All right, move some of the fruit in your backpack to mine, Nao.”

Haruka pointed at her backpack as she said that, and I accepted her suggestion with an awkward smile as I transferred a few dindel fruits over. We then closed our backpacks and checked how much their weight affected us.

“This should be fine. All right, let’s start climbing down. Let’s leave the rope as our lifeline here, since we’ll keep coming back to gather more for a while.”

“You sure? What if other people use this rope and take some of the fruit here?”

It would be much easier to climb up the tree with this rope. I think it would even be possible for people who aren’t elves.

“Mm, that’s why I’m not going to let the rope dangle down completely. I plan to pull it up a bit out of reach for others. If other people still try to climb up, then oh well. It’s not like this is profitable to the point where it’s worth trying to hoard all of the fruit to ourselves.”

“Oh yeah, that’s true.”

Now that I think about it, gathering dindels isn’t really a profitable option for most people. It was possible to encounter monsters on the way here, so it would be a tough task for complete rookies, but by the time they could defeat monsters, they would have better options for earning money. That meant that only people like us who were slightly ahead of rookies would take on this kind of task, so we barely had any competition. The price of commodities would normally go up if supply was low, but this was a fruit. It wasn’t a necessity, so there was an upper limit to the price that people would pay for it. The current price we’d been told at the guild was probably close to the limit. However, people who enjoyed this fruit absolutely loved it, so it was a fruit that was almost guaranteed to sell, and there were some people who would even post gathering quests specifically for dindel fruits. The reward for such quests tended to be just a little bit more than the market price, though, so most of the dindel fruits available in the market were spares sold by adventurers who ignored profit margins and gathered dindel fruits because they themselves enjoyed the taste.

“I hope we won’t be considered rookies anymore and can take on more profitable tasks or quests by next year...” I said.

“That’s if we’re still alive by then.”

“Don’t say such ominous things, Haruka! All right, I’ll start climbing down.”

I told Haruka that I would go on ahead first and started to climb down. The way I climbed down was somewhat similar to rappelling. The trunk of the dindel tree wasn’t exactly perpendicular, so even I could pull this off without any special training.

As I was descending smoothly, I saw something strange. It looked like a net that one would see in an obstacle course, and it was hung between two branches. Touya was lying down on top of the net.

“Oh, are you guys already done, Nao?”

“Yeah, there were plenty of fruits for us to gather. By the way, what’s that net?”

I stretched out my legs on top of the net. It felt like it was quite sturdy.

“Well, I thought you guys would take a while, so I decided to create a place to rest during that time, but I guess it was kind of pointless.”

Apparently he had used the rope in his backpack to create this net. It had taken him some time, so he had just finished a few moments ago.

“So I got here when you had just lied down on the net?”

“Well, this wasn’t the only thing I accomplished.” Touya pointed at a different branch as he said that. There was a dead boar strung up there that already had its innards removed.

“You hunted this down and gutted it yourself?”

“Yeah, I can basically deal with boars just fine at this point.”

Touya and I had relied on Haruka to gut prey in the beginning, but we had both gotten used to it after a few days and were capable of the basics by now. It was still difficult for us to peel the fur off by ourselves, though. The boar that Touya had hunted down still had its fur.

“It looks like you had it easy, eh, Touya?”

Haruka arrived a bit after I did. She was looking at Touya and seemed a bit amazed as she said that.

“Well, we’ll be coming back here from tomorrow onward anyway, so I guess that’s an okay use of rope. However, don’t waste rope if possible, okay? They aren’t cheap.”

“Don’t worry—I didn’t cut the rope while I made this, so it can be used again just fine if I untie it. Also, I tied the rope to the branch here again.”

Touya pointed at the rope we had used to climb to the lowest branch in the beginning. The rope was tied a bit above the branch around the trunk of the tree and dangled down from there. Hmm, that makes it easier to climb up compared to how Touya did it in the beginning. I guess he climbed up this way after he hunted down the boar.

“I see you hunted down a boar as well. How many arrows did you use?”

“Thirteen. I did retrieve all of them, so...”

Touya averted his eyes as he said that, as if he was a bit uneasy about what Haruka would say next. In the past, when Haruka had slain tusk boars using only her bow, she’d generally only used three arrows, so thirteen felt a bit excessive, but I guess it was Touya’s first time using a bow. Wait, I see some spear wounds on the boar, so I guess he used my spear as well. Well, even my spear wouldn’t reach from on top of the branch. If he jumped down to use my spear, he could’ve just used his own sword instead.

“Well, I guess that’s acceptable, since there are some arrows that can be reused just fine.”

Haruka nodded to herself as she checked the arrows that Touya had used. The arrows that could be reused were the ones that had missed. Yeah, it’s kind of obvious that arrows that miss won’t get damaged as much. We could still retrieve broken arrows and fix them. With his Blacksmithing skill, Touya could fix the ones that weren’t damaged too badly. As for the ones he couldn’t fix, we’d have to bring them to the weapon shop. Arrows that flew straight were quite expensive. We couldn’t waste a single one, and small savings like this would build up over time.

“Was this boar the only thing you encountered?”

“Yeah, just this tusk boar. However, it seemed like it came here to eat dindel fruits that had fallen from this tree, so there’s a chance that this is a common gathering spot for monsters as well.”

“Hmm. We should return to town now if we want to avoid danger, but...”

Haruka held her hand to her chin and paused in thought. One of our objectives here was to slay goblins and gain experience. There would be rewards for slaying goblins that appeared near towns, but there would be no reward for slaying goblins here in the forest. That meant the money we got selling magicite obtained from goblins would be our only profit, so it wasn’t exactly a very enticing reward.

“Well, we have a boar here that Touya hunted down,” I said. “It’s been a while, so why don’t we just eat boar meat while we’re here? If we don’t meet any goblins on our way back, we can just search for them another time.”

“Hmm, okay. We’ll be coming back here from tomorrow onward anyway, so I guess it’s not like we need to rush things.”

“Oh, are we actually gonna get to eat boar meat for once?! It’s been a while, so I’m looking forward to it!”

We had only eaten boar meat on our first day. Lunch from that day onward had just been the takeout meals we brought with us from the inn. We had made that decision because it took some time to start a fire and cook the meat, and we could also sell the meat instead of eating it ourselves. Oh God, I’m drooling already at the very thought of the taste of boar meat...

“Well, I’ll prepare the meat, so I’ll leave the firewood gathering to you two,” said Haruka.

“Okay!” we said.

We were quick to take action. I started to search around right away and gathered branches. People barely visited this part of the forest compared to the outskirts, so it was even easier to find dry branches here. We placed the branches we gathered at a spot slightly away from the dindel tree, and then I swiftly started a bonfire. It was fairly easy for me to do so now, since I had gotten used to magic.

One might say this should be easy, but it was actually quite difficult. The basic version of Ignite was just a candle flame that wouldn’t be enough to set small branches on fire, but if I went overboard on the potency of the spell, then the firewood would burn to a crisp right away. I had become able to control it so that it was enough to set decently thick branches on fire in a short period of time, but maybe it would be a good idea to develop a spell that could create a charcoal fire on the spot. A simple flame would be enough to cook food in a pot, but if we were to cook over an open fire, then it would only burn the surface, unlike a charcoal fire, and it would also take quite some time. If we just carried charcoal with us instead of gathering branches each time like this, then that would solve the problem, but it wasn’t practical to carry around baggage like that. As Touya and I finished our tasks, Haruka had finished preparing the meat as well, and she skewered some pieces like she had last time. She distributed two skewers to each of us, plus an extra third skewer for Touya.

“Thanks, Haruka! You knew I wanted more!”

Touya grinned happily as he took the third skewer from Haruka, and then he stabbed one end in the ground near the bonfire.

“Oh yeah, Haruka, these are boneless ribs, right?” I asked. “Can we eat spare ribs as well if we get a pot to cook them in?”

Boneless ribs were delicious, but so were spare ribs. The meat of this tusk boar had tasted way better than regular pork, so surely its spare ribs would taste as good. I really want to eat some.

“Oh, I want to try out spare ribs too, Haruka!”

“Yeah, I chose the easiest parts to cook with a skewer. As for spare ribs, a grill net would work too, but there’s still the problem of seasoning.”

“Right, I’d really like some soy sauce to go along with spare ribs.”

It was just my personal preference, but I felt like spare ribs combined with sweet and spicy soy sauce was the best way to eat them. There were also other good ways to eat them, but it felt like a waste to try them out while we still only had salt with us.

“Well, we do have some spare money now, so it would be okay to buy cooking utensils,” said Haruka. “I wonder if they sell camp stoves in this world.”

Camp stoves were cooking utensils for outdoor use, as indicated by the name, and they were very easy to carry around due to their compact size. Well, I’ve never actually used one myself. I had gone camping before, but it was the casual kind of camping where you went by car, so I had never had to worry about buying more expensive compact tools. The ones who bought such tools were probably people who enjoyed climbing mountains frequently.

“We can discuss this again when we take on a quest that’ll require us to stay outside for multiple days,” I said. “It’s extra luggage that we don’t really need right now, after all.”

“It would be great if we had an inventory system or spell for that,” said Touya.

“Well, we’ll probably have to count on Nao for that,” said Haruka.

“I-I’ll do my best to develop something...”

I’m not really sure if there even is an inventory spell, though. Time Magic was very rare in itself, so even information about the type of spells under that category wasn’t common knowledge at all. However, there was one spell that people knew about called Spatial Expansion. If you combined that with Alchemy, then it was possible to create bags or boxes that had more space inside and could hold more things than usual. The name for both bags and boxes made in this way was Magic Bag. That was probably the most realistic solution to aim for in order to solve our luggage problems, but it would be very difficult to obtain one. First of all, there were very few of them on the market due to how rare Time Magic users were. Even if we managed to discover one for sale, its price would probably be some astronomical amount that we wouldn’t be able to afford. All we could really do was hope that my Time Magic and Haruka’s Alchemy would eventually be capable of making one after we leveled up or something. I hope leveling is enough. Neither of us has any clue about where to start, sadly.

“Oh yeah, can we try out some of the dindel fruits while we wait for the meat to cook?” Touya asked.

“I’m down! I wanted to try them out myself while I was gathering them!”

Touya had glanced at my backpack as he brought up the idea of trying out the dindel fruits, and I agreed with him right away. The fruits had given off an alluring sweet smell back when I was gathering them, and I could still smell that sweetness wafting out of my backpack. There weren’t any cheap sweet foods in this world, so it had been a long time since I last ate something sweet, and the smell of dindel fruits was overwhelmingly tempting to me.

“Hmm, sure. I was wondering about their taste myself. A few dindel fruits wouldn’t hurt.”

Haruka seemed to feel the same way I did, since she agreed as well. I took out some fruits and a knife from my backpack.

“Well, let’s slice one in half first.”

We didn’t know how to eat dindel fruit, so Haruka took one and sliced it to start off. We all looked inside the fruit after it was sliced.

“It seems like we’re supposed to throw away the skin, right?”

The skin looked somewhat like the skin of an orange and didn’t seem like it would be easy to chew. Its complete redness was interesting; it sort of looked like the skin of a red pepper as well. As for the inside, the flesh of the fruit was dense and looked ready for consumption. There didn’t seem to be any seeds, so it sort of looked like a jelly that was packed tight inside the skin as a bowl.

“This is quite an interesting fruit,” I said. “Seeds are normally located in the center of a fruit, right, Haruka?”

“Yeah. Well, at least this means the fruit’s easy to eat. Let’s split it in four pieces and then try it out.”

Haruka sliced the fruit in half again and then handed us some slices. I took a bite of my piece the moment I got it, and a juicy sweet taste oozed out into my mouth along with a good tinge of sourness. It was a little chewy, similar to a hard peach, although the closest comparison that came to mind was a plum. It was easy to peel the skin, and it had no seeds, so I finished my piece fairly fast. It wasn’t really a fibrous fruit, and the texture was pleasant on the tongue, so it felt closer to, like, confections that took some time to craft.

“Damn, this is delicious!” Touya exclaimed happily.

“Yeah, and it’s easy to eat as well, so I can understand why it’s popular with some people.”

Touya and I looked at each other, and then we both turned around to look at the remaining slice in Haruka’s hand.

“Hm? Do you both want more?”

She noticed that both of us had our eyes on the remaining piece and asked us if we hadn’t had enough. She had sliced her own piece into smaller parts and was gracefully eating those instead of biting into the original slice like we had. We nodded in response, of course.

“Well, I guess we can celebrate. Eat as much as you want.”

“Huh? One dindel fruit is worth the equivalent of anywhere from two to three thousand yen, right?” Touya asked.

“You sure about this, Haruka?” I asked. “We can sell these for quite a lot of money.”

We would have enough for a night of rest at an inn if we sold just three of these fruits. That was if we just turned them in at a guild too. The market price was even higher.

Dindel fruits were basically the equivalent of high-quality mangoes back on Earth. They were smaller than apples as well, so their price wasn’t something everyone could afford on a daily basis.

“Well, since we’re the producers, or rather, the harvesters of this batch, we do have the right to enjoy them ourselves. It’s bad for our mental health to be frugal all the time, so it’s fine. Here you go.”

I thanked Haruka as she cut more slices and handed them over to us, and I devoured my slice right away. Yep, delicious. It would be hard to get tired of this taste. It isn’t just sweet; there’s more to it...

“However, in exchange for another piece, can you go gather some more, Nao? This tastes even more delicious than I thought it would, so let’s gather and bring back as many as we can.” Haruka looked at Touya’s empty backpack as she said that. Our initial plan had been to fill that backpack with materials from game and herbs on our way back, but I guess we were going to fill it with dindel fruits instead.

“Okay, I’ll get going,” I said after a pause.

Haruka was busy with cooking, and Touya wasn’t able to climb the dindel tree, so I was the only one left who was free to gather more fruits. Well, at least the ropes were already set this time. I wouldn’t have to spend time tying them again, and I knew the rough locations of the branches along the way up, so I would probably be able to return by the time the meat was ready. I shoved the remaining piece of dindel into my mouth, and then I carried Touya’s backpack with me as I climbed up the dindel tree to gather more fruit.

When I came back down the dindel tree, I saw a starving wolf was eagerly awaiting the feast before him. The “wolf” was Touya, of course.

“Welcome back! All right, time to dig in!”

He went straight for the cooked meat as soon as I arrived.

“Hell yeah, this is delicious!” Touya howled with joy as he chewed on the cooked meat on his skewer.

“You’re as restless as usual, Touya. Welcome back, Nao. Thanks for gathering more dindels.”

“Don’t worry about it. I guess I’ll start eating as well.”

I placed Touya’s backpack on the ground and then sat down next to Haruka. She handed me a skewer with cooked meat on it. There was a rock in the middle of the bonfire with some bread warming on top.

“Time to eat.”

I heard a crispy sound as soon as I chewed on the meat, and I could taste the juicy fat spreading through my mouth. It had been delicious the last time I ate it, and it tasted even better this time. Oh, what’s this fruity smell?

“Did you use some dindel fruit in this, Haruka?”

“Nope. It does smell a bit similar, though. Maybe the boar had eaten some dindel fruit that fell to the ground before?”

So dindel fruits are natural high-quality animal feed? I had heard stories about how Wagyu cows would be fed beer to make their meat taste better, so perhaps dindel fruits were even better for that purpose. I took some warmed bread off the rock and gently sliced it to make a pocket inside. Next, I sandwiched the skewer meat inside the bread and took a bite. The bread’s crusty outside and soft inside went well with the fragrant smell of the fat that the bread had absorbed. It was an exquisite dish. The only seasoning was salt, but it was still delicious.

“Aren’t we losing out by selling this meat, Haruka? I bet we can get way more money for this!”

“I agree, but it’s not like we can preserve the meat.”

“That’s true...”

Haruka was a genius when it came to developing spells, but all she could do currently was create some ice to cool the meat. We could only directly cool things with the ice, so it was only enough to cool drinks like water, not enough to freeze things. Even if we could freeze things, it would be pointless, since we didn’t have a refrigerator.

“It’s up to you to come up with something for this, Nao.”

Yeah, it was my responsibility, since my Time Magic can manipulate time and space. If a beginner created a magic bag with Time Magic, it would only have extra space, but after I improved my mastery of Time Magic, I would be able to add extra functions such as weight reduction and the ability to freeze time inside the bag. If I could reach that level of mastery, we would be able to fit a large amount of all sorts of baggage without any worries, including food that would normally go bad. That also meant that magic bags created by beginners would end up quite heavy as a result of more things being packed into the extra space.

“Look, I’ll master Time Magic by next year, and then we’ll come back to hunt more boars around the same time of year!”

“I’m looking forward to it. We’ll also be able to carry a lot more dindel fruits with us if that’s the case. What do you think, Touya?”

It was strange that Touya had been so quiet, since he would normally jump in if the topic was meat. We looked at him to see what he was doing, and I noticed that the meat on the three skewers he’d had initially was already gone. He had already started to cook some more meat that he’d sliced himself.

Touya noticed our gazes were on him, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to cook the meat. “Hmm? Wouldn’t it be a waste not to eat as much of this delicious meat as we can?”

“Are you trying to stuff yourself with food? I mean, I guess it’s fine.”

It was Touya who had hunted down the boar, after all. Besides, it wasn’t like we’d been struggling with money recently. However, Haruka and I couldn’t eat as much as Touya, sadly. Elves were no match for beastmen in that respect.

“We’re not trying to tell you not to eat, Touya. Just say something before you cook more meat. It’s not going to taste good without seasoning.” As Haruka expressed her amazement at Touya’s appetite, she sprinkled some salt over the slices of meat he was cooking. “This should make it taste better, but it’s going to take a while for those large cuts to cook. Hmm, should we try out some spare ribs, Nao? We happen to have a nice heated rock that we can cook some on.”

“Sure, that sounds—”

“I want to try some too!”

Touya interrupted me as he raised his hands to catch Haruka’s attention. She seemed to have predicted his reaction, since she shrugged, salted some spare ribs, and started to cook them on top of the rock.

“I feel like boneless ribs would be better, since we only have salt, but oh well.” Haruka added more firewood to the fire as she said that. She used chopsticks to flip the meat during the cooking process.

Those chopsticks were handmade, of course. Chopsticks were a great tool due to how easy it was to make them, and because of the vast number of things you could use them for. They could fulfill the role of basically every other utensil. The only downside to chopsticks was the difficulty of learning how to use them, and the fact that specialized cutlery tools were better for certain uses.

“Okay, the spare ribs are almost done. How should we eat these ribs, though?”

Oh yeah, we don’t have any plates, and we only have one pair of chopsticks. Haruka paused in thought for a moment and then tore some leaves off of a nearby branch and used them to wrap the spare ribs. She handed portions to all of us.

“This’ll do in place of plates. Some stalls in town wrap food with these leaves like this, so it’ll be fine.”

It looked like she’d chosen the leaves at random, but apparently she’d known what she was looking for. All right, let’s see what these spare ribs taste like. Mm, yeah, they taste good. They do taste good, but I feel like something’s missing.

“Mm, yeah, I think these would taste better without the bone if we’re going to cook them with salt. There’s not really any fat here, so it doesn’t feel complete.”

“What do you mean? The hard and chewy taste is pretty good, isn’t it?”

That sounds more like the bone than the meat, Touya. If you think the bone is delicious, then that’s probably because you’re a beastman. I definitely wouldn’t want to chew on bone.

“Would you prefer to have some femur bones instead, Touya?”

“Are you treating me like a dog, Haruka?!”

Touya looked like he was shocked at Haruka’s words, but it was his own fault due to what he’d said earlier.

“Do bones actually taste any good at all, Touya?” I asked. “I mean, obviously I’ve seen pictures of dogs with bones in their mouths, so it isn’t the weirdest idea, but still.”

“Well, it’s more like it’s enjoyable to chew on bones. It’s got some kind of taste that isn’t exactly great, but it makes you want to chew on it.”

Something like chewing gum? Well, that actually has proper flavors, so it’s a bit different. Maybe it’s his inner animal instincts that make him want to chew on bones, like how hamsters gnaw on hard objects that aren’t edible.

“Yeah, uh, I don’t really get what you’re talking about. Just try not to chew bones in public if you can avoid it, Touya.”

A bone chewing-hobby wouldn’t cost any money, but I wouldn’t really want to be associated with a friend who chewed on bones while walking around in public.

“Dude, it’s not like I’d normally want to chew on bones! It’s just like if the meat I’m eating has a bone in it, then I kind of want to chew on the bone too!”

Guess I don’t have to worry about any damage to my reputation. Touya crushed through the rib bones as he said that, though, which was quite a shocking sight for me. It wasn’t like the bone had been thoroughly stewed for a long time. It was just bone cooked with fire, so I was fairly sure the bone was still quite hard. It would be more than enough to destroy the jaws of a human or elf.

“All right, that’s enough about bones,” said Touya. “What about the remaining meat? Can we make dried meat with this?”

“Oh, dried meat! That sounds like proper fantasy setting food!”

I’d fixated on the idea of frozen meat due to modern standards, but there were different methods for preserving meat in the past! If we used “primitive” methods, then we could—Wait...

“Actually, how is dried meat made? Do you know, Touya?”

“No ideas here. Do we just slice up the meat and dry it in the sun?”

That sounded like the wrong way to do things. The meat would probably rot that way, and even if we somehow managed to dry the meat like that, boar meat was technically a type of pork, so it wouldn’t be edible as is. Mm, surely Haruka can save us in situations like this.

Touya and I both looked at Haruka, and she responded with a lopsided grin. “The usual method in this world is to preserve meat with salt. It might also be good to use herbs that can help with preserving meat. Once the salt has soaked in, you wash the meat and dry it. That should be it.”

“What about bacteria or parasites?”

“It’s the same as dry-cured ham. The salt should take care of that.”

If we had spare time to spend on trying to perfect dried food, we could have tried to marinate or smoke it to make it taste good, but the best we could make at the moment would most likely turn out to be some salty dried meat that wouldn’t taste very good.

“I can give it a shot and try to make some if that sounds good enough.”

The drying process would normally take about an hour, but it was probably possible to skip the long wait via the Dry spell that Haruka had practiced on dindel fruits, so we had a choice before us.

“Sure, can you give it a try?” I asked. “I’ve kind of always wanted to try dried meat, since it’s what I consider standard fantasy food.”

“Yeah, same here! Rye bread and ale didn’t live up to my expectations for standard fantasy food, so I hope this does!”

“Expectations? I think dried meat will be joining those two as well, Touya, but I’ll give it a try.”

Before she started, she mentioned that it would probably only be a little bit better than the dried meat that we could buy in town, but she still agreed to give it a shot.

“Honestly though, this world doesn’t really feel like a fantasy one aside from the existence of magic.” Well, I guess our status display screens and Help Guide are kind of magical too, but still.

“That’s more than enough to make it a fantasy world even without getting into how the town looks and what our daily lives there are like. Besides, have you forgotten what our race is, Nao?”

Right, we’re elves. On top of that, Touya has animal ears on his head. I guess it’s a fantasy world indeed. I wouldn’t really consider the town landscape and our daily lives as fantasy, though. It felt more rudimentary and inconvenient than anything else. That was probably what standard fantasy worlds were like, but still.

“I mean, yeah, you’re right, Haruka, but we haven’t encountered something that screams ‘fantasy!’ yet...”

“Mm, I feel the same way as you, Nao. We haven’t encountered anything that would be absolutely impossible back on Earth yet.”

“Doesn’t magic count? If not, what counts for you two?”

“Well, things like fantasy metals such as mithril, or swords that can slice through anything for some reason, I guess?”

The examples Touya gave were quite fitting considering he’d gotten the Blacksmithing skill. Swords like those definitely defied the laws of physics. There would be narration in fantasy works about how a sword would cleanly slice through things like a thick tree in one blow, but normally a sword would just get stuck. You’d know this if you had used a saw before, but a saw blade had teeth with both left-tilting and right-tilting bevels. They were designed like that to increase the area that the blade could cut and shave through, and the gap between the left- and right-tilting teeth allowed the saw blade to pass through the wood cleanly.

I wonder how swords that can slice through anything would work for this. Such swords had rhombic cross sections, so even if they could slice through anything, the slice would only be as wide as the cutting edge. The back of the sword would be very thick, so there was no way it could pass through. If swords like that could actually cut through anything, then they would need to have a very thin blade like a metal plate, or it would have to be something like a beam saber that could slice through things with more than just its edge. Otherwise, the sword would have to defy the laws of physics and pass through the sliced object magically. Hmm, actually, I want to see those kinds of magical swords, since we’re in a fantasy world.

“As for me, I would consider things like dragons or dungeons as things that scream ‘fantasy’ to me,” I said.

You can’t describe fantasy without those two things, yep. Touya vigorously nodded in agreement with me when I looked at him, so that was probably a common idea about what fantasy should be.

“Really, Nao? Be glad we haven’t encountered a dragon yet. We would be dead by now.”

Haruka sighed heavily at what I said; I seemed to have rendered her speechless. Come on, it’s just a dream of mine. Don’t be so harsh...

“Well, dragons are legendary creatures, so I don’t know what’ll happen if we actually encounter one, but we’ll probably get killed if we do. As for dungeons, they technically do exist in this world.”

“Wait, really? There are actually dungeons?”

“Damn, I wanna go to one!”

I felt the same way Touya did.

“Nobody knows why or how dungeons exist in this world, apparently. On a side note, if we had started out in a dungeon when we were initially transported to this world, we would probably be dead by now.”

That made sense. Our starting conditions in this world had been harsher than even an early Wizardry game. There was no way we could successfully raid a dungeon with just clothes made out of cloth and ten large silver coins as our starting items. Maybe it would’ve been fine in a game, but this was real life for us, so we would most likely die if we tried.

“So yeah, Touya, we’re not going to explore any dungeons until much later in the future. You don’t want to die, right?”

“Well, yeah. I guess I’ll leave the decision to you, then, Haruka.”

Our general policy was to leave things to Haruka, since that was our best option. That was what we’d learned from this past week.

After that discussion, we waited for Touya to finish his meal and then headed back to Laffan. In the end, we didn’t encounter any goblins or even boars on our way back. Touya wanted to slay at least one more boar to increase the amount of dried meat we had, but we had plenty of meat as it was. Haruka scolded him and told him about the time and effort it would take her to dry the meat, so he reluctantly gave up on the idea of a hunting session. Even if we managed to hunt down another boar, we wouldn’t have enough space in our backpacks to fit all the meat and fur, so it wasn’t a realistic choice in the first place. Due to the lack of space, we only gathered a small amount of herbs that we could use with dried meat on our way back.

★★★★★★★★★

Compared to other times of day, the Adventurers’ Guild was rather empty during the period before evening. The busiest times were right after dawn, when day laborers came to look for jobs, and right before sunset. It was quite unpleasant to visit the guild during those two time periods. Thankfully, our daily schedules rarely overlapped with those workers. People who visited the guild during this time period before evening were adventurers who had gone outside of town for work or quests, but there usually weren’t that many of them. This area was fairly peaceful compared to other areas in this world, which also meant that there wasn’t as much work for adventurers available, and thus adventurers who had gotten some experience would move to other towns in search of quests that offered better rewards. That meant we could take it easy with work here, so this area was a good starting place to get transported to initially. Thanks, “evil” god!

“Hello, Diola-san.”

“Hello, Haruka-san. I’m glad to see you again. Hello to you two as well, Nao-san, Touya-san.”

“Hello.”

“We’re back!”

Diola-san would often be at the counter at this time of day. The concept of weekends didn’t exist for most of the working class, and that included the Adventurers’ Guild, so apparently, she would clock in for work every day unless something happened. The truth was that one would have to work that much in order to earn enough for a living that wasn’t miserable. Well, that was what life as staff at the Adventurers’ Guild was like, at least. Adventurers would eventually be able to take breaks as they became more skilled. One reason for that was the increased reward per quest as your abilities improved, but it was also because there would be a lot of difficult quests, and it would be painful if you couldn’t take some days off to recover.

For example, escort quests would require adventurers to camp out during the journey, and they would have to be on guard at night as well. Even if you took a nap in between, fatigue would still accumulate over a few days. Thus, it was common for adventurers to take one or two days off to rest after they reached town; otherwise, it would negatively impact their ability to work and complete quests. If you continued to take on work without resting due to a lack of money, you would make mistakes more often, and sometimes those mistakes would be fatal. Apparently, this was the most common cause of death for middle-aged adventurers who couldn’t force themselves through grueling work schedules anymore. That was the cruel reality of an adventurer’s life.

“Your information helped us a lot, Diola-san. As thanks, here are some gifts for the information fee.”

“Thank you very much. These dindel fruits are one of my favorite parts of this season!” Diola-san smiled as she took the dindel fruits that Haruka handed over, and she smiled again at the delicious smell. “Mm, the smell of dindel fruit is great. I’m looking forward to this after dinner.” She then placed the dindel fruits into a bag next to her, as if she was stuffing away some treasure.

“I have to say, I’m quite impressed by your party’s skills at hunting and gathering in the forest, Haruka-san. Is it because two of you are elves? Your party would be able to earn even more if you had magic bags.” She looked at our fully stuffed backpacks as she said that.

“We haven’t seen any magic bags around here, but aren’t they expensive?”

“They’re expensive and rare, since you have to be both an alchemist and a mage who can use Time Magic to make one. There’s almost nobody who fits those requirements.”

“I see. I guess that means it’s quite difficult to create one as well.”

“Oh no, it’s just that mages who can use Time Magic are quite rare. The process for making one isn’t that difficult in itself, apparently. The crafting recipe for magic bags is available in the alchemist encyclopedia.”

Hmm? I knew magic bags were rare and expensive, but they’re not difficult to make? I’ve also never heard of that last thing she said...

“Alchemist encyclopedia?”

“Hm? Have you not heard about this before? Every alchemist has one with them, apparently. From what I’ve heard, you’re required to buy one when you join the Alchemist Association.”

“I see. Does that mean it’s something that you can’t normally obtain?”

Haruka seemed a bit disappointed as she asked that, but Diola-san shook her head in response.

“Not quite.”

“Hm?”

“It appears that the money paid for an alchemist encyclopedia serves as the admission fee for the Alchemist Association, so you’re required to buy one even if you don’t need it. However, the book is useless for people who aren’t adventurers, right? What do you think happens when alchemists with these books die?”

“The books get disposed of?”

“Yes. These books aren’t something ordinary citizens read, and even if the deceased alchemist had family who would also become alchemists, they would be forced to buy a new one when they join the Alchemist Association anyway. That means that you can sometimes find alchemist encyclopedias for rather cheap in used bookstores.”

“Hmm, that’s interesting. Do they actually sell?”

“They can be used as a reference guide for buying alchemical components, so there is some demand for them. The Adventurers’ Guild here has some of these encyclopedias as well, in case adventurers request information here.”

These alchemist encyclopedias were used to look up items that were effective against monsters with special or unique attacks, apparently.

“Well, I’m glad your party came here this year, Haruka-san. Information about where you can gather dindel fruits would be useless if there was nobody who could actually go gather them.”

Diola-san mentioned that she enjoyed trading information about the location of dindel fruits to rookies who would go gather dindel fruits in exchange for some of the harvest. However, rookies like that who could actually climb dindel trees were quite rare, so it was a perk of the job that she could only enjoy once in a while.

“Doesn’t that count as abuse of power, Diola-san?”

“What do you mean? This is a fair trade. After all, it helped your party save time not having to search for dindel trees, right?” Diola-san smiled and waved her hands to deny what Haruka pointed out.

I mean, yeah, it’s true that we didn’t have to search around aimlessly in the forest thanks to her information.

We would have had to have given a tip even if we had gotten this information from someone else.

“Abuse of power is quite different. It’s more like things such as complaining about how the fruits are damaged, and then offering to buy them for a cheaper price and—”

“Huh?” When she heard that, Haruka stopped in her tracks just as she was about to take some dindel fruits out of her backpack.

“O-Oh, we don’t do that here at this guild! We’re a fair and clean guild! We buy materials for fair prices! I’m not lying!”

There was visible panic on Diola-san’s face as she denied the allegations, but she seemed very suspicious. Everything about this situation seemed suspicious.

“Really? Will you buy these fruits at a fair price?”

“O-Of course! But, well, um, some of these are...”

Dindels would go for anywhere between one hundred to three hundred Rea. Most of the dindels that Haruka took out had a three hundred Rea price tag attached to them, but there were a few that had gone for two hundred Rea instead. The ones that had gone for two hundred Rea amounted to a little bit less than five percent of all the dindels. I took a look and checked those dindels myself. They looked perfectly edible despite being slightly damaged.

“You see, those damaged parts are the reason these ones go for less, so...”

Diola-san seemed a bit hesitant as she told us about how the guild would properly inspect dindel fruits and pay a fair price for them, but it was also normal for the price to go down if the fruits were damaged, and she would buy those from the guild at a staff member discount. Such fruits were fine if they were consumed right away, but if they were preserved by drying, the damaged parts would cause them to rot more easily, so that was why they were cheaper than regular dindel fruits.

“What I’m saying is that we’re not unfairly complaining so we can buy them for a cheaper price. It’s just that, well, there are some adventurers who don’t understand this...”

“I see.”

So they’re the type of people who incessantly complain without good reason? It would cause some trouble if adventurers found out that the fruits they sold more cheaply would be bought by some guild staff members for personal consumption.

“Actually, now that I think about it, aren’t staff member discounts basically a form of black market trade?”

“Not at all! I buy them before they’re entered into the guild ledger, so it’s perfectly legal!”

Oh, so she thought this out. Wait, no, isn’t that walking a fine line between legal and not?

Diola-san seemed to notice the nuance behind the looks we gave her, and she shook her head in denial. “Believe me, it is! It’s illegal to resell them, but personal consumption by yourself or family is allowed! Implicitly, that is...”

So does it count as a perk of the job? This was a harsh world to live in, so I couldn’t tell if the idea of employee benefits existed in this world or if it was just that the rules weren’t strictly enforced. Her voice lowered as she mentioned the “implicit” part, so it was probably the latter in this case. I wasn’t a stickler for the rules by any means, so I didn’t really consider it a bad thing. There were some countries back on Earth where employers took tips into account when calculating the salary for their employees, and there were also some jobs that paid a lower salary in exchange for benefits such as staff meals or the option of live-in work.

“Well, I don’t really mind as long as you don’t get fired, Diola-san. It would be a shame if we were to part ways so soon after we just started to get along well.”

“Don’t say such ominous things, please! This is one of the few perks of this job that I enjoy!”

Diola-san loved dindel fruits, but the market price for them was expensive enough that she couldn’t really afford them with her salary as a receptionist. Well, they were luxury items and too expensive to purchase on a regular basis, so it was technically a reward for her to be able to purchase slightly damaged dindel fruits from the guild for less than half of the market price.

“There aren’t that many female staff members here in this guild, and I’m glad about that, since it means I don’t have much competition for dindel fruits!”

Touya and I looked at each other when we heard those words. We both had bitter smiles on our faces. I would personally prefer a guild with a lot of young and beautiful female receptionists. Diola-san is more the cute type than the beautiful type, and she looks to be around thirty years old, so she isn’t exactly young—wait, what was that chilling feeling I got just now? Uh, yeah, actually, Diola-san counts as young, yep.

“So yeah, I would appreciate it if you would be willing to sell all of the dindels that your party has.”

The dindels that Haruka took out were just the ones from her own backpack. Diola-san had her eyes fixed on my backpack and Touya’s as well, which were both stuffed full. Well, Touya’s backpack was mostly stuffed with meat, so that was the wrong backpack to stare at. The dindels that I’d gone to gather myself to make up for the ones we’d eaten were split between Haruka’s backpack and my own.

“Oh, it’s not like we’re purposely selling fewer dindels for no reason, Diola-san. We have other plans for these ones. Would you happen to know how to process dindels into dried fruits?”

“Wait, are you planning to attempt that by yourself? It’s probably impossible, since the recipe for dried dindel fruits is a secret.”

She gave us a look that seemed to say we should sell all of our dindels instead of wasting some of them trying to make dried dindels, but we wanted to make dried dindels if possible so we could sell them for a higher price, and we also wanted to keep some for ourselves if we could preserve them.

“We’ll sell them here if we don’t succeed, so can you share some information with us? If we do succeed, we’ll share some of them with you.”

“Oh, really? I guess that leaves me no choice but to say yes.” Her choice of words was that she had “no choice,” but she was grinning as she said that, so it was fairly easy to tell what was on her mind. “Well, I don’t really know much about the process myself. All I know is that the basic method appears to be to wash them clean, remove the calyx, and then just dry them. You need to do so in the right weather and temperature, and there’s a specific method to dry them in the sunlight, but all of that seems to be a secret.”

“I figured that would be the only public information. Oh well.”

“Well, hmm...”

Haruka seemed a bit disappointed at the lack of information, and Diola-san was about to respond to her before she stopped herself.

“Hm? Is there something else?” Haruka asked.

“Mm, we could use any hints available,” I said.

Our only option at the moment was trial and error, but we were going to use fruits that wouldn’t last very long before going bad, so even though we were going to use magic, we wouldn’t be able to try that many times. Any sort of hint would be very useful for us.

In the end, Diola-san gave in and hesitantly answered our requests for more information. “Well, I saw the drying process once myself, and I saw water being boiled multiple times, but I’m not sure if that has anything to do with the process.”

Boiling water? Are we supposed to boil the dindel fruits before drying them? Maybe we’re supposed to melt chemical additives and mix them with the fruit. Or are we supposed to infuse herbs as a preservative to coat the fruit with? I think there was some modern-day method of preserving citrus fruits via coating them with some kind of juice.

“I see. Thank you for the helpful information,” said Haruka.

“I’m glad to be of help. However, please try to avoid spreading this information if possible. It’s standard information for people in the know, but there are some people who would be troublesome if they got word of this...”

“Of course, don’t worry. Being a receptionist sure is a tough job. After all, you have to deal with all sorts of people, even if they’re unpleasant or weird.”

“Indeed! I’m glad you understand—I mean, not at all!”

Diola-san was about to nod strongly in agreement before she stopped herself, forced a smile, and hastily denied Haruka’s words instead. It would be okay to grumble like this at a bar, but it was definitely not okay here at the guild. After all, there were other adventurers nearby, and her boss was probably here at the guild as well.

“Your polite and thoughtful support has helped us constantly as adventurers, Diola-san,” I said. “Right, Touya?”

“Yeah. It was thanks to your help that we’ve been able to earn money without any problems, even as rookie adventurers.”

The look that another staff member was giving Diola-san seemed to have become a bit harsher than before, so we did our best to back her up. It was Haruka’s banter that had started all of this, after all.

“Oh no, not at all! I’m just doing my job.”

Whew. Diola-san seemed a bit flattered as she waved her hands to deny our praise, and the staff member who seemed like her boss looked away from her as if to shake his head. He looked away, so I guess she won’t get yelled at now? I’m sorry if you get yelled at in the end, Diola-san. It would probably be a good idea to leave the guild before Haruka blurted out anything else that would cause trouble for Diola-san. It wasn’t a busy time of the day, but it was probably not a good thing for her to spend too much time chatting while on the job.

“Okay, we’ll be going now. We’ll be back tomorrow to take on more quests and work.”

“I look forward to seeing your party again.”

Diola-san sent us off with a bow as we headed out of the guild.