Chapter 3—Return to Laffan

Fortunately, nothing of note happened during Yuki and Natsuki’s last day as waitresses, so we were able to leave Sarstedt the next morning, just as we had planned. We weren’t pressed for time on our journey back to Laffan the way we had been on our journey to Sarstedt, so we took our time, especially since Yuki and Natsuki were with us now. On the road, we just ate the sandwiches we’d made for all three meals of the day, but Yuki and Natsuki enjoyed them way more than I’d thought they would. Tears almost came to my eyes out of both happiness and pity when I saw they were so glad to eat such simple food. I had an urge to exclaim something like “I’ll treat you girls to some great food!” after I saw their reactions to the sandwiches.

“Did neither of you ever go outside of Sarstedt, Yuki?” I asked.

“No, all we did was register at the Adventurers’ Guild. We weren’t able to afford equipment that we would need for work outside of town, after all.”

Natsuki and Yuki had registered at the Adventurers’ Guild without changing their names, apparently. That meant that I didn’t have to change the names that I called them like I had with Touya.

“Mm, that makes sense. I would’ve been very surprised if you’d been able to buy proper equipment with that tiny amount of starting money.”

Yuki and Natsuki were wearing normal clothes made of plain cloth, similar to the ones you would start with in an RPG. The only weapon they had on them was Natsuki’s spear; they had squeezed the money out of their budget so they would look like proper adventurers, but they hadn’t actually used it in combat yet. Natsuki’s Spearmanship skill is Level 4, though, so it’s higher than mine. Hmm, maybe she should use my spear.

I brought the idea up to her. “Uh, Natsuki, do you want to use my spear? You’ll probably be able to put it to better use.”

“Huh?” She looked surprised for a brief second but then shook her head. “Oh, no, I haven’t contributed in any way at all yet, so it would be wrong for me to use that expensive-looking spear of yours. Besides, you know, there’s that proverb about how only a bad workman blames his tools, right?”

“I see—so you’re basically telling Nao that he has to depend on an expensive spear because he isn’t a very good spearman?” Haruka asked.

“Ugh!” I said. “I can’t believe you would say something so mean, Natsuki, but I can’t deny it!”

“Haruka—?! No, hear me out, Nao! That’s not what I think at all, okay?!”

I was really touched by the sensitivity Natsuki showed when she panicked and did her best to soothe my ego. Of course, I knew Haruka was just joking, so it wasn’t like I had actually suffered a painful blow to my confidence.

“It’s a fact that Natsuki’s the strongest of any of us when it comes to close combat, however,” said Haruka. “She has the Weapon Proficiency: Spears skill along with Level 4 Spearmanship and Level 3 Martial Arts, after all.”

It was definitely true that Natsuki seemed like she was quite strong based on those skills. She had other good skills as well, such as resistance to poison and disease, healing via Light Magic, and skills that would fit a scout or thief role in a standard fantasy game party. Overall, her skill build made her the most capable of any of us at adapting to whatever situation that might come her way. Her skill build was a bit similar to mine as well, so there was a very real possibility that I would end up becoming a downgraded version of Natsuki if I didn’t do my best to improve my Time Magic. More importantly, if I failed to do so, then I wouldn’t be able to joke about the word downgrade with Yuki.

“That’s just in terms of my skills, though,” said Natsuki. “I haven’t actually seen any combat yet. How was it when the three of you experienced combat for the first time?”

We looked at each other and did our best to recall our first experience. Our first foe was a tusk boar, if I remember correctly. Touya faced the boar head on, while Haruka and I backed him up from the trees, so...

“I would say that I got used to it fairly quickly, I guess?” said Touya. “But I also couldn’t really stop and worry at the time.”

“I only had to use my bow and magic, so I think it was a bit different for me,” said Haruka. “However, I was easily able to cast aside my hesitation after I thought about the money we would need for things like inn fees and other expenses, since I knew we could earn that money by slaying the boar.”

“Whoa, a pragmatic perspective. That’s exactly what I’d expect from you, Haruka,” said Natsuki.

“In a way, boars are basically like a free source of money that chases you,” I said. “Gutting the boar was quite difficult the first time, though.”

These days, I was able to gut and butcher boars with ease, but in the beginning, I had struggled with things like skinning a boar or slicing its head off, which had made me feel nauseous. I didn’t feel that way about the meat once we had finished butchering a boar, but the internal organs still gave me an uncomfortable feeling.

“Gutting, huh? I guess we’ll have to get used to that as well. Let’s do our best, Yuki.”

“Oh, so I have to learn as well? I’m not good with that kind of thing, but oh well...”

Yuki had a bitter smile on her face when she heard what Natsuki said to her, but she still looked like she was willing to learn. She wasn’t the type of girl who would say “There’s absolutely no way I can do that!” even about things she wasn’t comfortable with, after all. Well, if she’d actually said something ridiculous and selfish like that under these circumstances, then I wouldn’t have hesitated to slap her, girl or not.

“You’ll both get used to it eventually, even if you don’t really want to,” I said. “You have the Copy skill, Yuki, so you might quickly get better at it than we are.”

“You also need to get used to seeing blood and guts if you want to actually accomplish anything in combat,” said Touya. “If you flinch at the very sight in the middle of combat, then you’ll die right away.”

Touya made a very good point. If we had a party member who screamed things like “I’m scared!” or “Eww!” during combat, then I was confident that I would disband that party on the spot.

“It sounds like you all went through and overcame all sorts of troubles,” said Natsuki. “Well, I suppose that goes without saying, considering that you managed to get to Sarstedt as quickly as you did.”

“I wanted to go to Sarstedt much earlier than we did, but I wasn’t completely sure if you two were actually there, so I had to wait and make sure we’d be able to protect ourselves on the way there,” said Haruka.

“Nah, don’t worry about it, Haruka! You did amazing compared to us!” said Yuki. “I was a big part of the reason we didn’t go outside of town, but that doesn’t change the fact that we weren’t able to venture outside.”

“Mm. I was hoping that you would be able to find us, so I’m actually quite relieved,” said Natsuki. “Right before you found us, we were thinking about how it was about time to quit our job at that inn, even if it meant taking on more risks.”

“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t be able to plan out a future with the meager pay from that job,” I said.

“Yes, that just seems to be how it is for jobs that anyone can do in this world.” Natsuki smiled bitterly as she said that. It had truly been an exploitative part-time job, but life wasn’t easy in this world.

“Oh yeah, we can just slay any enemies we encounter on our way back as practice for Yuki and Natsuki,” said Haruka.

Yuki looked very surprised when she heard what Haruka said, and she raised her voice in a panic. “Huh?! I don’t have a weapon, you know?! I don’t have any skills related to weapons either!”

“I guess you can try to make do with your Martial Arts skill?” Haruka lifted one of her hands to her chin and slightly tilted her head in a cute way as she said that.

However...

“Please don’t expect the impossible from a beginner!” said Yuki. “I learned this skill from Natsuki, but I haven’t actually put it to use yet!”

...Yuki is right that Haruka is expecting too much from her. It would be absolutely crazy to take on a wild animal with nothing but Martial Arts, even if you had some experience.

“Hmm, what else are you capable of, Yuki?” Touya asked.

Yuki looked absolutely shocked at Touya’s question. She averted her eyes and answered without much confidence. “Touya, are you really asking me, the one who took the Copy skill? I can technically use spells like Sand Blast from Earth Magic, but...”

“She can blind someone with that spell,” said Natsuki. “It doesn’t actually inflict damage, but it can be a useful spell depending on how it’s used.”

Uh, I don’t know what to say about that. It doesn’t sound as simple to use as something like my Fire Arrow spell... “What other spells can you use?”

“A spell called Ground Control...”

“It’s a spell that can dig holes and create small protrusions in the ground.”

“If you’re going to describe my spells, don’t make them sound so lame, Natsuki! You’re making me sound like I’m totally useless!”

After she heard Yuki’s complaints, Natsuki briefly paused in thought before she spoke again. “I don’t think I’m wrong... Oh, by that, I don’t mean that you’re useless. I’m just saying that my description isn’t wrong.”

Yuki furiously shook her head and pointed at Natsuki. “Don’t correct yourself like that! It makes it sound like there’s some hidden implication behind your words!” It appeared that she wasn’t pleased with Natsuki’s response.

Both of Yuki’s spells sound like they could be good depending on how they’re used, though. “Hmm, that Ground Control spell could be used for snares,” I said.

“Oh yeah,” said Touya.

“What do you mean by snares?” Yuki asked.

Oh, Yuki and Natsuki don’t know what snares are? It’s a fairly basic term for people who know about fantasy. It’s kind of strange that it didn’t come to mind for Natsuki, since she has a skill for that just like I do, but oh well.

“Uh, well, it’s kind of like a staple for fantasy novels,” said Touya. “Snares are more or less like traps, right, Nao?”

“Yeah. All snares can usually do is make it harder for enemies to take actions while they’re caught in one, but they can be quite useful if you know how to use them well.”

Snares weren’t fancy by any means, but they were easy to use. The type of snare I had in mind wouldn’t be feasible in every type of terrain, but Earth Magic probably wouldn’t be affected by those restrictions—well, except perhaps indoors, where there was no earth to use.

“Oh right, I guess tripping in a small hole can still cause sprains and bone fractures,” said Natsuki.

“That’s if you know how to use the spell at exactly the right moment, but yeah,” I said.

“It’s okay! I can pull that off! Well, I’ll practice so I can pull that off!” said Yuki.

I wasn’t sure if it was going to be that easy. It was hard enough for me to land my Fire Arrow on agile enemies that were moving around fast, so the task of tripping them sounded even more difficult. If you created the snare too early, then they would just dodge it. Even if you created the snare at the right moment, you would have to match the enemy’s speed. It would probably be easier to trip someone with a protrusion in the ground instead, but holes would be better for inflicting sprains or bone fractures. Yuki’s spell definitely sounded like it could be used for lethal purposes if done right, but that didn’t change how difficult it would be.

“If we find a tusk boar, how about we lure it to us and have Yuki face it head on?” Haruka asked.

Touya expressed his disapproval at Haruka’s reckless suggestion. “Huh? That sounds a bit too dangerous, Haruka...”

On the other hand, Yuki tilted her head in confusion, since she had no idea what a tusk boar was. “What’s a tusk boar, Nao?” she asked me. “Based on its name, is it just a kind of boar?”

“It’s a type of boar with huge tusks, Yuki. Most tusk boars weigh at least one hundred kilograms as well.”

Yuki’s face turned pale as soon as I told her what tusk boars were, and she rapidly shook her head in fear. “Impossible! I’ll die!”

“The fear of death if you mess up would help you do your best, wouldn’t it?”

“What’s with that Spartan mentality of yours, Haruka?! Where did the gentle and kind Haruka that I knew disappear to?!”

“That Haruka is dead. I’m a new and reborn Haruka.”

Mm, I also died before coming to this world. I guess I’m a new and reborn Nao, then.

“I mean, yeah, it’s true that we had died before getting transported to this world, but that’s not what I’m getting at!”

“Okay, I’ll reactivate my kindness. Natsuki can be at your side while you face a tusk boar head-on.”

Natsuki looked a bit confused when Haruka named her. “Huh, me? I mean, I don’t mind doing it if I need to, but...” She still held her spear up to indicate that she was ready for the task, though. That spear’s probably going to break in half if you try to stop a boar’s charge head on with it, so please don’t try it, Natsuki.

“Even if Yuki succeeds in tripping the boar, it’ll still be dangerous,” said Touya. “If she does succeed, that’s a lump of meat that weighs at least one hundred kilograms rolling towards her, which could easily crush her, right?”

“Touya makes a very good point,” I said. “If you’re going to assign someone to stop the boar, then it should be him.”

“I’m just joking, of course,” said Haruka. “Half-joking, that is.” She shrugged in response to what Touya and I said, but that could only mean she was serious about the other half. “For an actual serious formation, we’ll have Touya in front next to Yuki and Natsuki as our main attackers. I’ll take on the support role, and Nao will be the one in charge of luring a tusk boar over to us.”

Okay, that sounds like a better formation for Natsuki and Yuki to get practice in combat. However, Natsuki gave me a worried look when she heard the formation that Haruka proposed. “Doesn’t that formation put Nao-kun in danger?”

“Nah, I can deal with boars just fine, Natsuki. We’ve slain a lot of them before. Or rather, we’ve slain almost nothing but boars.”

Our lives in this different world were basically full of memories of encounters with boars. If we didn’t include birds, then the only other living beings that we had slain were a wipe bear once and a couple of goblins. In a way, our bodies and equipment were made out of boars and dindels.

“Oh, you guys haven’t slain many monsters, then?” Yuki asked. “Does that mean your character levels are still low?”

“Hm? Character levels? There’s no such—”

Touya was about to refute Yuki’s strange idea, but Haruka cut him off. “No, character levels actually do exist. Or, well, there’s something that you could call character levels.”

“Huh? Really, Haruka?”

“Yes, really.”

Huh? Didn’t you previously say there wasn’t anything like character levels in this world, Haruka? Actually, come to think of it, maybe she just didn’t say anything about it at all.

“Whoa, a gamelike element to this world after all this time!” Touya exclaimed.

“Haruka, I can’t seem to recall you mentioning this before...” I said.

“Yeah, that’s because I didn’t mention it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us about this until now?” If you’d told us, then—

“Remember how the concept of experience points came up when we discussed skills before? That’s the answer.”

I thought back to what we had discussed at that time. Oh, yeah, she was right not to mention this until now.

“What are you guys talking about?” Yuki was asking us because she hadn’t been there with us when we discussed skills.

Haruka sighed before she answered. “If I’d specifically brought up the existence of character levels, then Nao and Touya would most likely have gotten an itch to engage in reckless behavior due to being gamers at heart. To put it frankly, it would have been a pain in the ass to stop them if that had happened.”

Whew, those sure are some frank words, Haruka! It’s kind of sad that I can’t deny them, though. Her conclusion that we wouldn’t be reckless if we didn’t know about leveling up was completely sound and logical.

“I wanted to wait until we grouped up with Natsuki and Yuki before mentioning this, since we’d have more hands to help out in case we got into bad situations as a result of the two of you acting reckless, Nao and Touya. But it’s true that I kept this a secret until now, so I’m sorry about that.”

“Oh, nah, you don’t have to apologize. It’s not like it caused any harm,” said Touya.

“Mm, you made a good decision, Haruka, considering how Touya would’ve likely gone nuts.”

“Huh? Why me?”

Why do you look and sound so surprised, Touya? You’re a hundred percent guilty! “Do you not remember the number of times you suggested that we take on hunt quests for monsters? What would you have done if you’d known about character levels?”

“Uh, I would have suggested that idea even more often. Okay, yeah, I’m sorry...” He lowered his head in apology without hesitation. It looked like he had finally realized that he was guilty of recklessness. However, I wasn’t really in any place to scold Touya, since I had no confidence that I could have restrained myself if I had known about character levels.

“Um, what exactly are character levels?” Natsuki asked.

It appeared that Natsuki was the only one among us who wasn’t familiar with the concept of character levels. Touya and I were gamers, while Haruka and Yuki had the General Knowledge skill. Natsuki wasn’t in either category, so character levels were something completely new to her.

“Yuki, did you not bring this up when you discussed things with Natsuki?” Haruka asked.

“Oh... No, I didn’t. We didn’t plan on going outside of town initially, so I thought it wasn’t necessary.”

“All right then, I’ll take this opportunity to explain what character levels are. Character levels—well, people in this world won’t understand this concept, but I’ll use the term since it’s easy to understand. First off, there’s nothing like that displayed in our status screens, right?”

“Right.” The information contained in your status screen included your name, race, age, condition, skills, and the levels of those skills if they had levels. That amount of information was already useful on its own, but character levels weren’t included.

“With that in mind, if you ask me whether or not character levels do exist, then...”

“They do, right?”

“I’m not sure,” she said after a pause.

“Huh?”

The words that had come out of Haruka’s mouth after that pause had been words of disappointment to us. We all stared at her with confusion in our eyes, and she hastily waved her hands around as if she wasn’t sure how to phrase things, but then she added more information. “What I mean is that I don’t have concrete proof. I’m just assuming character levels do exist based on the circumstantial evidence and the hints we’ve gotten, but there’s no way for me to prove it for sure.”

The circumstantial evidence she mentioned was the fact that you would become stronger by slaying monsters than by slaying other living beings, even though the act of slaying a monster was more or less as difficult as slaying another human.

“Hmm. I guess it would be normal to assume there are some invisible parameters at work if there’s a clear difference in strength between two people with the same physique,” I said.

I went on to give them an example: I could imagine a scenario where I had enough strength in my back muscles to lift a one-hundred-kilogram weight, and there was some other, more muscular person who could lift a three-hundred-kilogram weight. That would be normal. However, if I were able to lift a three- or four-hundred-kilogram one with my current physique, then that would clearly be abnormal.

Yuki pointed right at me and brought up an extreme example. “Nah, there’s a simpler example we can use. Let’s say a girl stabbed you in the back with a kitchen knife, Nao. What do you think would happen to you then?”

“Huh? I mean, the knife would stab right through me, and that would be it, right? Or rather, why did you choose that as an example, Yuki?” Don’t tell scary jokes like that, Yuki!

“I dunno—it just came to mind. Well, yeah, you’d normally just be stabbed, and you might die depending on the circumstances. However, I’ve personally seen that if the person being stabbed is a high-ranked adventurer, then the knife won’t be able to pierce his skin. Strange, isn’t it?”

“Huh? You mean without dodging, right? Wait, just what kind of strange sight did you see?!”

“There’s no catch to this, right, like if that person was wearing armor or something like that?” Touya asked.

“Yeah, not at all. The adventurer I saw was just wearing regular clothes.”

“Oh, I think I get it!” I exclaimed. “That adventurer was wearing chain mail underneath his clothes, right?”

“Ah, that makes sense.” said Touya. “High-ranked adventurers would have to take into account the possibility of being stabbed by girls, huh?”

A high-ranked adventurer who would hit on girls sounds like a very unpleasant person.

“With that in mind, it would be a good idea for you to hide something like a magazine or manga volume under your clothes to protect yourself, Nao,” said Haruka.

“Huh?! Why me? I haven’t done anything that would get me stabbed, right?” I looked at Haruka, Touya, and Yuki as I said that, but they all avoided meeting my eyes. Huh? You guys aren’t going to back me up?

“Well, for now, let’s put aside the topic of whether or not Nao is a playboy.”

Wait, that’s not what we were talking about up until now, is it, Haruka? I sincerely wanted to raise an objection, but I decided to keep quiet in order not to sidetrack the conversation.

“The most important takeaway from the story Yuki brought up is that it’s hard to stab a high-ranked adventurer regardless of their equipment or clothes,” said Haruka. “It seems like a knife can slightly stab through if the adventurer lets their guard down, but they can’t suffer a lethal injury just from being stabbed. It’s as if their entire body is covered with some kind of barrier.”

“That’s way beyond what a normal person can achieve just via training, isn’t it?” Touya asked. “The ability to deflect things with your muscles—that’s like something out of a manga with a humorous setting.”

If that was actually how things worked in this world, however, then that meant you would become more impervious to injuries as your character level grew, which was a good thing to know. I had honestly been really scared about the possibility of having to fight an enemy as strong as a wipe bear again, given that I had assumed that I only had a normal human’s resistance to injuries. I mean, it was flabbergasting that a single clean hit from a wipe bear would almost be enough to kill you.

“Yuki’s example of a high-ranked adventurer is easy enough to understand, but what it implies is that your physical abilities can improve independently of your muscular strength, so there’s definitely some factor at work that’s separate from the normal results of training,” said Haruka.

“Hmm. If that factor is leveling up your character level, then would you be able to level up via training too? Wait, actually, based on what Yuki described, do you level up your character level by slaying monsters?” I asked.

“Based on what people in this world have learned over the ages, it seems like the most efficient way to level up is by slaying monsters. Conventional wisdom in this world dictates that there’s no real point in slaying regular animals or other people for the purpose of improving your abilities.”

People in this world couldn’t carry out proper experiments since they weren’t able to see or measure character levels, which meant that they weren’t able to prove their existence. It was just a rule of thumb that the most efficient way to become stronger was by slaying monsters.

“What’s the difference between slaying monsters and other living beings? Is it the presence of magicite?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Haruka. “The most popular theory in this world is that it’s against the will of the gods to slay living beings that aren’t monsters, but...”

Haruka had an uncertain look on her face as she explained that theory. The will of the gods? Before I was transported to this world, I would have just laughed that off as impossible, but...

“Gods, huh? I didn’t believe in gods up until now, but I can’t deny their existence anymore after the way we got transported here to this world,” said Touya. “Well, that’s if this isn’t all just a dream I’m having.”

“Am I just a character in your dreams, then, Touya? Well, the existence of gods is commonly known and accepted here in this world,” said Haruka. “Also, I’m not sure if this is true, but supposedly the gods sometimes send messages or descend to earth in person as well.”

In contrast with the way things were back on Earth, almost everyone in this different world believed in the existence of divine messages, divine punishment, and events such as gods descending to earth. This was because gods would sometimes intervene in the affairs of mortals, and instances of divine punishment had been observed before. According to Haruka, one of the gravest sins a mortal could commit in this different world was to impersonate a god, and the divine punishment on whoever committed that sin tended to be very dramatic and flashy. Due to this awareness of divine punishments, religious sects devoted to the gods were fairly clean of corruption, and wars in the name of religion didn’t exist in this different world. On the other hand, gods wouldn’t intervene in conflicts between mortals, so wars between countries would occur from time to time. However, such wars weren’t that common due to the existence of monsters that plagued every country in this different world.

“Well, all that we need to know for now is that we can become stronger by slaying monsters,” said Haruka.

“Yeah. There’s no way ordinary people like us will get involved in wars between countries or religions,” said Natsuki.

“Oh no, don’t say things like that, Natsuki. You might jinx us,” said Yuki.

Natsuki looked a bit confused. “What do you mean? We’re not particularly strong, and it’s not like we stand out in any other way either, right?”

I mean, you’re technically right about that, Natsuki, but...

“We’d normally be fine, but we might get dragged into trouble by our other classmates,” said Haruka.

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m worried about. There are a lot of skills that attract trouble.

Natsuki sighed when we reminded her of the factors that could bring us unwanted trouble. “Oh, right. Let’s make sure we stay away from our other classmates.” She had a serious look on her face as she said that.

We all nodded in agreement, of course. We absolutely need to dodge people who have skills like Heroic Aptitude, yep.

★★★★★★★★★

“Oh, I’ve detected a signal on my radar!” I exclaimed.

“Report!” Touya exclaimed.

“Code: boar! Two, located fifty meters out!”

Haruka sighed when she heard Touya and me excitedly exchanging radar operator chatter. “Nao, Touya, what are you two doing playing around?” It seemed that she wasn’t a fan.

“Huh? I’ve just always wanted to say lines like that.”

“I know exactly how you feel, Nao! Or rather, let me say the operator lines!”

Yep, that’s the Touya I know. I figured he would be down for this. I wouldn’t really mind swapping roles, but my scouting abilities are better than yours, ha ha! We were a bit away from the highway, walking closer to the forest. It was almost time for lunch, so we had decided to go along with Touya’s suggestion to hunt boars in order to get food and combat practice at the same time. I kind of wanted to have some poultry for lunch instead, though. I’ll bring it up if we successfully finish boar hunting without too much trouble.

“Uh, Nao, what you mean is that there are two boars located fifty meters away from us, right?” Haruka asked.

“Yeah. Should I go lure them over?”

“Hmm. Let’s split it up like this. Touya, Yuki, and Natsuki will take on one boar, and if you end up luring both boars, then we’ll take on the other one together, Nao.”

“Sure. Oh yeah, here, trade spears with me, Natsuki.”

“Huh? Um, but...” She had a perplexed expression on her face as she looked at my spear and compared it with hers. My spear was probably worth at least ten times as much, so her confusion was reasonable.

“We’re just swapping for the time being. Also, to be honest, your spear will probably snap in two if you try to use it to stop a charging boar.”

“You’re going to be fighting in a team of two with Haruka, though, right, Nao-kun? Aren’t you in more danger than I am?”

“It’s better than the chance of you getting injured, Natsuki. Besides, I can fight with magic as well, so I’ll be fine.”

She looked somehow happy after she heard what I said. “I appreciate the sentiment, Nao-kun. I’ll borrow your spear, then.”

She exchanged her spear for mine. When I took her spear, I struck it into the ground before heading into the forest. A long spear would only hold me back if I was going to lure boars, after all. I chose a random animal trail to follow into the forest, and Haruka climbed up a nearby tree as soon as I did. After she climbed to a secure position, she held her bow to indicate that she was ready at any time. I continued to use my Scout skill to check the movements of the signals as I gradually approached them, and as I got closer, I discovered a pair of tusk boars. They both looked much larger than I had expected them to be. In fact, they were two of the largest tusk boars that I had encountered up until now. One of the boars was considerably smaller than the other one, but it was still quite large. If they’re both large, I guess they’re a breeding pair instead of parent and child?

Tusk boars tended to lack intelligence, so if I provoked them, they would immediately charge, but I would have to adjust that strategy a bit since I had to deal with two boars instead of just one. It would probably be best to start with the smaller boar. Tusk boars would sometimes flee if attacked with something that would deal a lot of damage, so I shot a normal Fire Arrow at it to start off. As soon as the Fire Arrow landed, I jumped forward to where the boar could see me and began making loud noises to attract its attention. As soon as I heard the boar’s roar of anger, I ran back towards the path that I’d come from. I paid attention to the sound of its footsteps as I ran, and I leapt out of the forest towards the spot where I’d left the spear struck in the ground, snatched up the spear, and then headed towards where Touya was waiting with Yuki and Natsuki.

“It’s coming!”

My Scout Skill told me that there were only ten meters left between me and the boar. I was about to run past Natsuki and leave the rest to them, but a hole in the ground appeared in front of my feet as soon as I took a step forward. Whoa, perfect timing! Or it would have been if I were the boar, that is!

“Gaaah!”

I immediately struck my spear into the ground to halt my forward motion and forced myself to take a half step in order to dodge the hole. Afterwards, I did my best to recover my balance before I looked behind me and saw the larger boar charging in my direction. At the same time I turned around, the sound of Natsuki thrusting her spear into the boar vibrated in the air. Yikes, she aimed perfectly for the eyes and thrust with such strength that the spear pierced all the way through the back of the boar’s head! The boar definitely looks like it died instantly from that.

Wait, now’s not the time to just look on at what’s happening! A boar with arrows stuck in its body jumped out of the forest right afterwards—the boar that I had aimed my Fire Arrow at initially. Two more arrows flew and struck the boar before I could react, and as soon as I saw that, I hastily dashed at it to deal the finishing blow with my spear. The boar was staggering on the verge of death. As soon as I landed my blow, its movements stopped completely. I checked with my Scout skill to make sure it was dead before I took a deep breath and sighed in relief.

“Whew, good work,” I said.

I had fought these boars many times by now, but I still got nervous during combat. After she saw me sigh, Yuki hastily ran towards me.

She hung her head as she approached. “Nao, I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean to—”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Yuki. There’s a first time for everything, right? You’re unlikely to succeed on your first try.” I smiled and patted her on the head to imply that she didn’t have to lower it in shame.

Even if I had tripped in the hole she’d made, it wouldn’t have really been a problem. I might have sprained a leg if I’d tripped, but Haruka could heal sprains just fine, and Touya had also been around to help me out if I’d actually been in danger from the boar that was charging from behind. All that had happened was that I’d been forced to perform some acrobatics, so everything was fine.

Haruka agreed with what I said as she hopped down from the tree and retrieved the arrows from the smaller boar. “Yeah, it’s exactly as Nao said. The whole point of practicing is to get experience so you can eventually succeed every time.”

“U-Um, sorry. Also, thanks.”

I lightly slapped Yuki on the shoulder as she expressed her gratitude, and then I went to retrieve the spear, which was still stuck in the smaller boar. The spear wasn’t broken, but it was in a worse condition than the first spear I had used. It would probably be a good idea to buy Natsuki a more durable spear once I got back to Laffan.

“I need you to try to learn the Disassemble skill, Yuki,” said Haruka. “That’s even more important than combat. Luckily, we have two boars here that you can practice with.”

“Ugh! I’ll do my best...”

She flinched a bit at first, but she still courageously expressed her resolve to learn. Good luck, Yuki. You’ll get used to it eventually. As for Natsuki, she had forcefully pulled her spear out of the boar’s head, but her hands weren’t shaking at all. She looked a bit pale, but she seemed fine otherwise. The sight of a boar with a spear piercing its head was quite grotesque, so I was impressed by her mental fortitude. It had taken me a while to recover from the shock when I slew a boar for the first time, so Natsuki’s resilience surpassed mine by far.

“Thanks for lending me your spear, Nao-kun. If I had used my own spear, it would have probably broken in half before it pierced through the boar.”

“No problem. That was really amazing of you, though. I can’t believe you managed to slay this boar with just one thrust.”

The quality of my spear had also played a part in how easily Natsuki had thrust it through the boar’s head, but I couldn’t imagine the sheer self-possession she’d needed to calmly take aim at a charging boar’s vitals, especially considering that it was her first time in combat. The way that I had thought things would go was that Natsuki would attack the boar while Touya held it back and dealt the finishing blow, so I was amazed that she’d managed to face the boar head on and slay it with just one thrust. On top of that, her body hadn’t been pushed back at all despite the fact that the boar had been charging towards her, which meant that she’d managed to hold back the entire weight of the boar with her spear. It was probably a matter of technique and finesse rather than raw strength, so it really was amazing. Level 4 Spearmanship truly made a difference. Our muscular strength was probably very similar if I took into account the difference in race and gender between us, but I definitely wouldn’t have been able to pull off the feat she had just performed.

“Ugh! On the other hand, all I did was almost injure Nao! This was the first time in combat for both of us, so why’s there such a huge difference?!” Yuki exclaimed.

“Well, I practiced martial arts a bit back on Earth, so that could be a factor,” said Natsuki. “Don’t worry, Yuki. You’ll get better as well after you get more practice.”

“Also, if you’re creating a hole to trip an animal that’s charging right at you, it’s probably very difficult to get the timing perfect, so there’s no need to feel bad about it,” said Haruka. “It’s probably impossible to succeed on your first try.”

“Thanks for the support, Haruka. I’ll do my best to practice my Ground Control spell.”

“Mm. However, what you need to practice right now is the Disassemble skill. Copy the skill from me, Yuki.”

“Right. Okay, I’ve successfully copied it.”

Haruka handed Yuki one of the knives we used for gutting, and Yuki nodded to indicate that she was ready.

“All right, I’ll teach Yuki how to use the Disassemble skill here. It would probably be a good idea for you to watch as well, Natsuki. I’d like every one of us to be able to do this.”

“Okay.”

“As for Nao and Touya...”

Haruka looked at us as if to ask what we were going to do, and I voiced an idea that had come to my mind earlier. “Can I go hunting for some game, Haruka? I kind of want some poultry, since it’s been a while since the last time we had some.”

“Poultry? Can you shoot down birds without me?”

Haruka had been the one who had always shot down birds in the past, but I would probably be able to do it as well. However, it would be embarrassing if I failed to bag any birds, so I brought up an excuse in case that happened. “Well, it’s just a way to kill time.”

“Is that so? All right, don’t venture too far into the forest while you’re hunting.”

“Yep, gotcha. Let’s go, Touya.”

“You want me to tag along? Well, I don’t mind, I guess. We’ll be back later, Haruka.”

Haruka had a look of concern in her eyes as she sent us off. I entered the forest again with Touya at my side this time.

“So what’s the plan, Nao? How are we going to hunt birds?”

There were plenty of birds flitting around, so it wouldn’t be too difficult. The ideal scenario would be to bring back a bird that had delicious meat, but for pride’s sake, my first priority was to bag any bird at all.

“Our best chances would be with my Fire Arrow, but it’d be great if you could just dash at a bird and stab it with your sword, Touya. You have the Fleetness skill, don’t you?”

“You’re asking for the impossible, Nao! I can’t reach the birds above the trees! Well, if it’s walking on the forest floor, I might be able to do it.”

“Do you mean something like a quail? I feel like a quail would get squashed if you swung at it with your sword, though.”

Unlike Japanese swords, Touya’s sword was crafted in a way that prioritized blunt force over sharpness. If he swung that kind of sword at a quail, then the likely result was fairly obvious.

“It should be fine if we aim for birds like pheasants or pigeons, I think,” I said. “Oh, what if you stop a bird in its tracks with your Roar skill?”

“Nah, that wouldn’t work. We wouldn’t be able to bag more than one bird at a time that way. The rest would scatter.”

Touya’s Roar skill would make his target wince in fear, but it hadn’t seen much use so far. There was no point in using it against our main quarry, which was tusk boars, since they would just charge directly at us, and we hadn’t had the luxury of taking the time for Touya to use Roar against the more dangerous wipe bear. The skill had an effect on goblins, but Touya had only used it once, so it was hard to say that he’d put it to good use. It was very effective against birds and rabbits, but it would cause animals nearby that weren’t the targets of the skill to run away, so it wasn’t really suited for hunting.

“All right, I’ll leave any birds that you can reach with your sword to you, Touya. I’ll shoot down the ones you can’t reach with my Fire Arrow spell.”

“That sounds fine to me, but even if you get a clean shot at a bird, wouldn’t your Fire Arrow spell just burn it up? Well, you could burn their wings and leave the finishing blow to me, I guess?”

“Please, I’ve improved by now! My Fire Arrow has evolved to new heights!” I took my training seriously, so my magic had improved significantly. I still hadn’t managed to level up any of my magic skills, but I had much better control over magic than in the beginning. “You can say that my Fire Arrow has been updated to version 2.0!”

“That’s a weird way to put it, Nao. I get what you’re saying, though.”

“Whatever, dude. Basically, what it means is that I can compress the flames to increase the amount of piercing damage. If I can land a hit, then I can blast just the head off of a bird like a quail.”

“If...?”

“Well, I’m still working on perfecting the accuracy part. You’ll have to wait for version 3.0 of Fire Arrow before it’s perfect.”

I could compress the flames to a diameter of twenty centimeters, so I could easily hit a target within ten meters as long as it was standing still, but I would have to get within at least five meters of smaller targets like quails.

“Should we aim for slightly larger birds, then, Nao?”

“Yeah, and ideally birds that have meat that isn’t hard to chew.”

Small birds were more difficult to detect even with my Scout skill, but they tended to taste better than larger birds. However, there was a downside to small birds as well: there wouldn’t be as much meat on the bone.

“All right, let’s start searching.”

“Yep.”

Searching for birds meant repeating the same process over and over: I’d detect a signal with my Scout skill and then slowly approach it to check what it actually was. I hadn’t learned to tell exactly what my Scout skill was detecting from the signals themselves quite yet. Well, I had learned to recognize a tusk boar signal more or less accurately, so I was hoping that if I leveled up my Scout skill at some point in the future, I would eventually be able to identify other living beings too. Touya’s Beastman sixth sense was even more ambiguous when it came to distinguishing what he detected, so it wasn’t a good idea to rely on him while hunting. However, he had become very good at sensing the intent to kill from other living beings; his sixth sense would detect hostility very accurately.

“Oh, we found a bird this time,” whispered Touya. “Apparently, it’s called a cotas bird.”

“Is that what your Appraisal told you?” I whispered back. “This bird sure looks quite small...”

I described the bird as small, but it was still larger than a quail. As for how it looked, it was a light brown bird that didn’t have any speckles.

“All right, let’s start off with my version 2.0 Fire Arrow,” I whispered.

“Roger,” Touya whispered back.

I concentrated and compressed my flames as hard as I could and then shot a Fire Arrow the size of a pen at the cotas bird. However, it only brushed the head of the cotas bird and landed on the ground behind it.

“I messed up!”

Before my mind could fully register the fact that I had missed, Touya had already jumped to his feet and stabbed the cotas bird in the head with a knife that we used for gutting.

“Wait, huh?! What did you mean earlier when you said you ‘might’ be able to do this, Touya? You pulled it off easily!” Also, you jumped to your feet as soon as I shot my Fire Arrow before it even missed, didn’t you? Did you not trust my ability to land a hit...?

Touya had a grin on his face as he turned around and looked at me. “I mean, I’m also surprised that I managed to pull it off. I was just prepared to catch the bird in case you happened to miss with your Fire Arrow and it flew away, you know?”

“Ugh...” I didn’t have a rebuttal. There had been only five meters between me and the cotas bird, so I should have been able to land a hit. Well, its head wasn’t even three centimeters long, so I can’t really be blamed for missing such a difficult target, right? Wait, Haruka managed to land her arrows in the eyes of the tusk boars earlier, and Natsuki got a clean hit as well, so...

“All right, I’ll leave the birds to you, Touya. I’ll aim for the birds that you can’t reach.” Okay, let’s just forget about inconvenient truths. There’s no need to record such things!

“Well, with large birds, it’s probably fine to aim for the body instead of the head. Your version 2.0 Fire Arrow is quite powerful, after all.”

“Come on, I’ll properly aim for the head! Trust me, I’ll succeed next time, yep!” Also, stop emphasizing the version 2.0 part! It feels embarrassing when you do that!

Touya had skillfully brought down a decent number of cotas birds by the time I had finally found the right prey for me to take on. It was a dark brown bird with some white feathers near its tail, and its total length was only about fifty centimeters with its wings included. That bird is sitting still on top of a tree branch, so Touya won’t be able to get in my way—ahem, I mean that I won’t need his help. All right, fine, it was my own fault that I missed, but still.

“What kind of bird is that, Touya?” I whispered.

“That one? It’s called a kuulas, apparently. Is its meat edible? It looks kind of like a crow to me,” Touya whispered back.

“It’ll probably be fine. Oh right, I can just check. Help Guide. Oh, it displayed its name along with the tag ‘edible’ next to it.” When I had used my Help Guide on a tusk boar before, it had only told me that it was edible, so I had assumed that it would only tell me whether this was an edible bird, but it was displaying the bird’s name as well. That was probably because I had known the name of the bird before I used the Help Guide on it. “Besides, people used to hunt wild birds for food, although not as many people do nowadays compared to in the past.”

I had heard stories about how my great grandfather had hunted game birds and eaten them. These kinds of birds existed in towns as well, so perhaps it would have been possible to reduce the damage caused by pest birds like pigeons if people just hunted them, but that probably wouldn’t work; the majority of people would probably unconsciously think that such birds were dirty, and birds were smart enough to flee away from towns if they realized they were being hunted down.

“All right, it’s time to bring down this kuulas.”

“Right. Good luck, version 2.0. You’ll need it.”

“Shut up, Touya.” I took a deep breath, aimed at the kuulas, and shot my Fire arrow at it. “Fire Arrow.”

The arrow instantly reached the kuulas and blew off its head. It fell from the branch it was sitting on and dropped to the forest floor.

“Hell yeah!” I went over to pick up my quarry, and it looked like the rest of its body wasn’t damaged at all. This was nicely done, if I do say so myself.

“Whew, you succeeded. How are we supposed to drain the blood from a bird like this, though?”

“Oh, right.”

My Fire Arrow had cauterized the bird’s neck, so it wasn’t bleeding at all. It would be an extremely bad idea to leave it like this, so I took out my own gutting knife and made some small incisions to drain its blood.

“All right, let’s return now that you’ve bagged a bird yourself, Nao.”

“Right...”

We already had more than enough poultry from earlier, since Touya had hunted down six cotas birds. I had insisted on continuing until I found a bird I could bring down myself, which had turned out to be this kuulas, and Touya had been kind enough to humor me. Technically speaking, I already had the excuse that I’d brought up to Haruka before we started out hunting, but it still would have been embarrassing if I’d returned with nothing in my hands while Touya had six birds. I thanked Touya for his patience as we headed out of the forest.

Once we had returned to where Haruka and the others were, we saw that the two boars had been cleanly gutted. It looked like the girls were already done with burying the boars’ internal organs, since there were traces of digging in the ground nearby. Yuki was preparing a bonfire right next to the carcasses, most likely for the purpose of cooking the meat for lunch.

“Welcome back,” said Haruka. “It looks like you two managed to get some birds without too much trouble.”

“Yeah, thankfully,” I replied as I placed the kuulas and some firewood on the ground. I had picked up that firewood on our way back. Touya followed my example and placed his six cotas birds on the ground as well.

“I was thinking about going ahead and cooking the boars, but I guess it was the right idea to wait for you two.”

“I did say I was going to hunt some birds, didn’t I? Ha ha ha!” I don’t have to mention that I was very close to coming back with zero results, right?

“The birds that we placed on the ground are the ones each of us hunted down,” said Touya.

“Touya?!” I exclaimed. “Um, well, we divided the work between us! I’m the one who found our quarry!” Touya had revealed the details that I’d wanted to keep a secret, so I did my best to recover my dignity. I found all of the birds with my Scout skill, so share some of the credit with me, Touya!

“The fact that Touya hunted down more birds means he was better at it than you were, right, Nao?” Haruka asked.

“Well, um, I can explain...” It’s just that my accuracy rate with my Fire Arrow is still low, that’s all! I can nab birds fine if I get a clean hit!

“Oh well, it doesn’t matter how you got them. It’s more important that you try gutting these birds, Natsuki. Nao and Touya went out of their way to hunt them, after all.”

“Oh, okay, Haruka.”

“What about you, Yuki?”

“Um, can I pass on these birds? I’ve learned the Disassemble skill, so that’s enough for now, right...?”

“Huh? You’ve already learned the skill, Yuki?” I asked.

“Yeah, somehow.”

She looked a bit exhausted when I asked her how things had gone, and she told me that she had successfully learned the Disassemble skill after she had gutted the second boar. However, the gutting process had only started to go smoothly when she was halfway through with that second boar, so that was probably when the Sealed status had disappeared.

“If the Copy skill makes it that easy to learn a new skill, it sounds like it’s actually quite useful,” said Touya. “Nao still hasn’t managed to learn the Disassemble skill, after all.”

“It should become available to me at any moment now, but it still hasn’t, yeah. If this is all that it takes for Yuki to learn a skill, though, should we all take some time to teach Yuki our skills?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea!” exclaimed Yuki. “I don’t want to be useless!”

“Sure, let’s all teach each other our skills,” said Haruka. “I’m not sure if we can learn each other’s skills as easily as Yuki can, but it’s probably still worth a try.”

“Yeah, especially for skills like Evasion,” I said. “It’s worth practicing even if we can’t learn it as a skill.”

We probably couldn’t learn skills like General Knowledge or the Help Guide that provided knowledge and information, but practicing skills related to physical abilities might help all of us learn to defend ourselves better. We had plenty of time to allocate for training now due to the fact that our daily income had increased significantly since we first arrived in this world, so there was no reason not to train as often as possible.

“Hey, that sounds important and all, but right now, let’s prepare the birds,” said Touya. “In a way, they’re harder to prepare than boars, right?”

“Mm. Let’s leave five cotas birds for Natsuki to practice on. As for the rest, can we leave it to you and Touya, Nao?”

“Sure, no problem. Bring out the pot, Touya.”

We had initially bought this moderately large pot for the purpose of preserving food. Haruka created some boiling water in the pot with her magic, and then she soaked the birds. This was for the purpose of making it easier to pluck their feathers, but it wasn’t absolutely necessary, so we would normally just work very hard and pluck feathers with sheer willpower.

“Um, Haruka, you created this boiling water with magic, right?” Yuki asked. “What kind of spell did you use?”

“Well, the base spell that I made this variation from is a spell called Water Blast. However, that base spell isn’t very important. You probably know this as well, Yuki, but magic is a field that offers a lot of freedom depending on the caster’s imagination.”

“The amount of mana required to cast a spell also increases with how much you alter it from the base spell, though. Does that variation of yours cost a lot of mana?”

“Not really. The water’s boiling hot, but I’m not blasting it out at high speeds, so the mana consumption isn’t that high.”

In a way, the law of the conservation of energy did apply to the relationship between magic and mana. For example, there was a straightforward spell called Light, which—obviously—would create a source of light. There wouldn’t be much difference between the amount of mana required to cast Light at a luminosity of ten lux for ten minutes and the amount required to cast it at one hundred lux for one minute. A similar concept applied to the Water Blast spell. The spell would use up much more mana when the water was blasting out at higher speeds, but less mana at reduced water pressure. However, this wasn’t an absolute rule. For example, it would be impossible to cast the Light spell at sixty thousand lux for 0.1 seconds with the same amount of mana that was required for my first example. The amount of mana required for sixty thousand lux would be astronomically larger in comparison. It would also be impossible to use the same amount of mana in the first example to use the Light spell at 0.1 lux for an entire day. Common knowledge in this world dictated that there was a certain boundary beyond which mana usage would become very inefficient. However, the amount of mana consumed by a spell was something that only the user could measure intuitively, so no quantitative research had been carried out yet in this world.

“All right, these birds should be ready now,” said Haruka.

She took the birds out of the pot, and we all started to pluck them. Once we were done, the next thing we had to do was to actually finish dressing the birds.

“Be careful not to damage the internal organs when you extract them.”

It would be an absolute disaster if we damaged the internal organs of an animal, which was something I had learned from working on boars. After all, there were all sorts of nasty things inside those organs. I had messed up multiple times when I was practicing with boars, so I didn’t want to go through that again. Haruka had saved us with her Purification spell whenever one of us had messed up, and we had sold that meat instead of eating it ourselves. And just to be clear, we didn’t do that in bad faith! We had Haruka purify the meat, so it was perfectly clean! It’s just a matter of appetite, yeah. What the buyer doesn’t know can’t hurt him, after all!

“A lot of bird organs can be eaten as offal, but let’s discard everything aside from the heart and liver this time.”

Offal from boars would go bad quite fast and was annoying to prepare, so we tended to discard it. However, the heart and liver of a bird were decent enough just with a little salt after we cooked them. We never bothered with gizzards, however, because they took much more time to prepare.

“After that, we just need to slice off the legs, and any remaining down on the skin we can burn off in the bonfire. The last thing we need to do is to clean the birds, but my Purification spell will take care of that.”

“Okay, I’m done,” said Natsuki.

It had taken her a fair amount of time, but considering that it was her first try, Natsuki had actually managed to follow Haruka’s instructions quite well. She hadn’t messed up at all during the process, and Haruka nodded at Natsuki’s work with a satisfied expression on her face.

“Mm, you did well. Keep up the good work and repeat the process on the next bird.”

“Okay.” Natsuki nodded back and then started to dress the next bird right away. It didn’t seem like she had strong feelings of revulsion when it came to gutting animals. She had already gutted a boar before this, though, so perhaps a bird didn’t faze her in comparison. Well, if you just consider all animals food, then there isn’t much difference between gutting a fish and dressing a bird.

“I’ll start cooking while Natsuki’s dealing with the remaining birds. Copy my Cooking skill and help me out, Yuki.”

“I’d be more than happy to help out with cooking! Wait, hold on, why did you decide to get the Cooking skill? Neither of us got it because I already know how to cook, and Natsuki’s even better.”

“Mm, I dabbled a bit in cooking back on Earth, so I didn’t get the Cooking skill.”

On a side note, dabble was definitely not the right word to describe Natsuki’s mastery of cooking. There had only been a few times when I had gotten to eat food that Natsuki had cooked, but she was probably even better at cooking than Haruka. In fact, I would go as far as to say that she was on the level of a professional chef.

“So yeah, what’s the Cooking skill like, Haruka?” Yuki asked.

“Well, if I had to describe it frankly, then...”

“Yeah?”

“It’s completely different from what I expected. I’ve cooked things the same way I would have normally back on Earth, but the food I cook ends up perfectly delicious even if I accidentally spill salt all over it. Honestly, this phenomenon feels like the strangest fantasy experience I’ve had in this world.”

Magic was the most obvious fantasy element in this world, but it was something that we had all come to accept as normal. On the other hand, cooking was something that we had been able to do back on Earth, so the strange way that the Cooking skill worked probably stood out to Haruka more than other things.

“If it’s that different, then I’m really looking forward to your cooking!” Yuki exclaimed.

“It sounds like quite an interesting skill,” said Natsuki. “Would I be able to learn it as well?”

“It appears that chefs in this world have this skill, so you’ll probably be able to learn it if you work hard.”

“I see. If that’s the case, then I’ll do my best to practice cooking as well when we have free time!” Natsuki clenched her fists and sounded pumped up as she declared that. It was quite rare to see her this excited. I guess she must have really enjoyed cooking, since she was so good at it back on Earth.

“Mm, that’ll have to wait until we return to Laffan,” said Haruka. “All right, let’s make some grilled bird skewers, Yuki.”

“Okay!”

It had been a while since the last time I’d eaten some grilled game bird skewers, and they were just as delicious as I remembered them being. The cotas birds were a bit annoying to eat since there were a lot of small bones in the meat, but they tasted so good that I didn’t really mind. I compared the birds Haruka had cooked with the ones Yuki had cooked, and while the ones Yuki had cooked were decent, the ones Haruka had cooked were definitely different and tasted better. That just proved how potent the Cooking skill was, and now Yuki had managed to learn that skill as well, so we could probably expect the same quality of food from both of them the next time they cooked something.

“Hmm, this kuulas meat is kind of hard to chew on,” said Yuki.

“Mm. It’s easy to eat since it doesn’t have any small bones, but I feel like the cotas bird meat is better,” said Natsuki.

“Really? I actually like that it’s tough and that there’s a distinct taste when I chew on it,” said Touya.

“The toughness of the meat probably just depends on how you cook it,” said Haruka. “It just means that kuulas meat isn’t suited for grilling.”

Compared to the cotas birds that Touya had bagged, it appeared that there were mixed opinions about the kuulas that I had brought back. The party was roughly divided in half between positive and negative opinions. Well, Yuki’s opinion didn’t seem to fall in either category. As for me, I agreed the most with what Touya had said. At the same time, I agreed with the girls that kuulas meat was hard to chew. This kuulas would probably be better as minced meat or thinly sliced like beef tongues.

“Honestly, though, I’m just really happy that we’ve been able to eat delicious food ever since we reunited with each other, Haruka,” said Natsuki.

“Yeah, definitely!” exclaimed Yuki. “I can’t believe so many people willingly came to that inn to eat the food there!”

That’s probably because you and Natsuki were there as waitresses. I’d hope that the other places in Sarstedt didn’t serve food worse than that—or rather, I don’t want to think about it. It’s too early to fall into despair about the food in this world!

“The first meal we experienced in Laffan was quite bad as well...” I said.

“Yeah, it definitely betrayed my expectations,” said Touya. “I thought rye bread would be delicious, but nope.”

“We also got betrayed by the taste of ale,” I said. “A single sip was enough for me to decide that I didn’t want to drink any more of it.”

Natsuki nodded deeply to convey an understanding of the pain we’d all been through. “It sounds like you all struggled with food in this world as well, Nao-kun.”

“Nah, our horrible experience was just a onetime thing.” Haruka had a bitter smile on her face and shook her head before she cleared things up. “You two had it far worse than us since the two of you had to eat that kind of food on a daily basis, Natsuki.”

“Yeah, now we’re staying at an inn that provides decent-tasting meals, so food hasn’t been an issue for us,”I said.

The mysterious guard who had recommended The Slumbering Bear had really helped us out. Well, it’s less that he’s mysterious and more like I don’t remember his name. I don’t want to meet him again either; he stared at Haruka, and he’d probably do the same to Yuki and Natsuki since both of them are cute.

“Well, we didn’t really have a choice when it came to food back in Sarstedt,” said Yuki. “A wage of one hundred Rea per day meant that we couldn’t afford to go out to eat...”

“Mm,” said Natsuki. “It might have been possible to find good places to eat out if we’d been willing to take on risks, but I didn’t want to do so since we were just a group of two girls.”

“In that regard, I had an easier time since Nao and Touya were with me,” said Haruka. “Gender definitely makes a difference in this world.”

There had been a few guys who’d tried to hit on Haruka over this past month, but thankfully, none of them had been brave enough to try to push Touya and me aside. It was probably because of how intimidating Touya looked; it was common knowledge that beastmen were generally quite strong.

“I’m really envious of the bond between you three. It’s amazing that you all still managed to stay together even when we were all souls!”

Yuki smiled at us after she expressed her envy, but that smile only caused me pain inside. Well, uh, I was the only one out of the three of us who couldn’t tell the others apart. It was just because I’m a bit dense, right? There’s no way I actually felt nothing deep inside, right? Ugh, it’s all that evil god’s fault that I can’t fully trust myself anymore!

“Oh yeah, while we were gutting the boars, I noticed that we had to throw away most of each carcass,” said Yuki. “It felt like it was up to about half of each boar.”

“Mm. There’s even less if you only count the meat that’s edible,” said Haruka. “It’s because there are a lot of bones and fat that get discarded as well.”

When gutting a boar, the first thing we had to do was throw away all of the internal organs, and that was already a significant amount of flesh. As for the skin and tusks, we’d save them since they could be sold for money. If we didn’t have much time, then we would also discard the fat and the head. After all, in spite of its weight, the head wouldn’t sell for much. If we didn’t have to discard the head, then Touya would roast it and sprinkle some salt all over it before eating it whole. It was a bit of a scary sight to witness. Well, I’d tried some out myself, and it did taste good, so I didn’t really mind. There would be less weight to carry back with us if we just cooked and ate the heads on the spot.

“We do bring the fat back with us if we can, but it doesn’t sell for as much as the meat does.”

Haruka had mentioned before that the fat would be used for all sorts of purposes, like for cooking and as fuel for lamps, but that second part wasn’t relevant to us since we had magic for light. On a side note, if you used lard as fuel for something like an eternal flame, it seems like the smell would make the people tending to it hungry.

“By fat, you mean lard, right?” Natsuki asked. “We might be able to make some tempura with that.”

“Tempura? That sounds good,” said Yuki. “I’d love to eat some tempura, since it would be delicious even with nothing more than salt.”

Yuki smiled at the very thought of eating tempura, and I could feel myself salivating as well just from hearing the word. Ugh, I’d love to eat some!

“We could make some fried pork cutlets as well!” Touya exclaimed. “We don’t have any rice to go with them, but they’d still be delicious if we turned them into pork cutlet sandwiches.”

“Deep fried chicken would also be possible, wouldn’t it?” I asked.

All of us were lost in our fantasies about food for a moment before Haruka snapped us all back to reality by clapping her hands. “Okay, that’s enough fantasizing about food! Touya, we don’t have any sauce to go with fried pork cutlets even if we make some. Besides, it’ll be hard for us to find opportunities to cook such things while we’re living at an inn.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. We’ve gotten on fairly good terms with the innkeeper by now, but it’s not like we can actually borrow the kitchen area, right?”

The innkeeper was already treating us very generously in that he’d lent us some storage space in the warehouse. It would be too much to ask to borrow the kitchen area when he needed it to prepare food for customers.

“Is it not possible to rent a house, Haruka?” Natsuki asked.

“A house? Hmm. Well, our main priorities so far have been saving up for new equipment and searching for you and Yuki, so...”

“How much would these two boars go for, Haruka?” Yuki asked. “Would it be possible to rent a place with the money from these?”

“Hmm, they’ll probably fetch a total of about fifteen thousand Rea, I think.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” I said. “We might even be able to get a bit more than that.”

Yuki’s eyes went wide and she spread her arms in surprise. “Fifteen thousand Rea?! That’s a huge amount! It’d be the equivalent of a hundred and fifty days of work back at the inn we were at!” In reality, though, it was more like her wages had been way too low.

“It’ll be three thousand Rea per person if we split it between the five of us,” said Haruka. “Three thousand Rea is roughly equivalent to thirty thousand yen, so if we want to have a stable future, that means we should aim to consistently earn this much every day.”

“Hmm, so is that how much we need to save up for retirement if we take into account physical decline due to old age?” Natsuki asked. “Actually, it’d be better to earn more if possible, considering that there’s no social security system in this world.”

If we took no days off work, we would be able to earn the equivalent of at least ten million yen per year, but I would prefer to be able to take some days off from time to time. In addition, we had to take into account that we had no idea when we would need to retire from adventurer work.

“We’re a party of five now, so we can probably earn more since we have more hands to carry stuff. If we take the differences between elves and humans into consideration, then both of you can carry as much as Nao can, I think.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m much weaker than Touya, although I’m still stronger than I was before back on Earth.”

This was fairly obvious, but the weakest person among us—physically, at least—was Haruka. Touya could carry twice as much luggage as Haruka, and even with that extra luggage, he would still be just as agile as Haruka was without it. If Yuki and Natsuki could carry about the same amount of luggage I could, then that would mean women in this world had stamina and strength equal to or more than that of men back on Earth.

“I’ll need you two to make backpacks for yourselves as well once we return to Laffan.”

“Wait, do you mean make them by hand, Haruka?”

Haruka smiled at Yuki. “Yes, Yuki. You have the Sewing skill available to you, so do your best.”

Yuki fell silent for a brief moment before she nodded in response. “Ugh—okay, I will...” That probably meant that Haruka was telling her to copy and learn the Sewing skill.

“I sure am envious of the fact that you’re learning so many new skills, Yuki! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

“If you’re truly envious, then stop that forced laugh, Nao. Haruka, is it possible for Nao to help out as well even if he doesn’t have the Sewing skill?”

“Well, I have—”

“We don’t need him. He’ll only get in the way.”

“Ugh!” I had been about to say that I had my own training to do, but Haruka had cut me off and implied that I was useless. However, it was true that there hadn’t really been anything I could do to help out even back when she’d crafted the backpacks for the three of us. She’d crafted the first backpack through trial and error without any sewing pattern to follow. The only thing I had helped with was cutting cloth along the lines that Haruka had drawn. I had also helped a bit with processing the leather, since that required some strength to do, but that was all.

“Don’t worry about it too much. Just leave the sewing to us,” said Natsuki. “We’re better at it, so there’s no need to feel bad.”

“Thanks for cheering me up, Natsuki.”

She smiled kindly at me and said, “No problem.” Her soothing presence really made me feel relieved, and I was glad that we finally had someone like her in our party now.

“Oh yeah, did you make these backpacks by hand because you wanted to save money, Haruka?” Natsuki asked.

“No, it was just because these types of backpacks weren’t sold in stores. I was able to make adjustments since I made them by myself, so they’re quite comfortable to use.”

“Hmm, is that so?” said Yuki. “Wait, if backpacks like these aren’t sold in stores, wouldn’t you be able to sell them?”

“Yeah, you probably could get money for these,” said Natsuki. “Adventurers would most likely appreciate how useful and convenient they are.”

If we took into consideration the prices of other types of bags sold in town along with the price of the raw materials required, then these backpacks would actually be a decent source of income. Well, that was only if we could develop a sales channel and if Yuki and Natsuki helped out with sewing.

“Well, the idea has crossed my mind before, but I discarded it since we’re living at an inn.”

“Oh yeah, we were talking about whether or not it was possible to rent a house,” said Yuki. “You probably have enough money saved up for that by now, right, Haruka?”

“Well, we do have over two hundred fifty thousand Rea in savings, so—”

“Two hundred fifty thousand Rea?! That’s over two and a half million yen!” Yuki yelled in surprise. I wonder how she would react if she found out that we actually had the equivalent of over ten million yen up until a few days ago.

“We won’t be able to afford equipment for both of you if we use the money on a house, though,” said Haruka.

“Wouldn’t one hundred thousand Rea be enough to rent a place, Haruka?” I asked. “For a million yen, you could rent a place for a year in any town in the Japanese countryside, so maybe it’s similar in this world.”

I had no idea how rent actually worked in this world, but Laffan was definitely not an urban area. It seemed like it was closer to a small town in a rural area, so I felt like it should be possible to rent a place with that amount of money.

“Hmm. Land and housing in this world are cheaper than they were back in Japan, so your idea might work.”

“We can use the remaining one hundred fifty thousand Rea to buy chain mail and weapons for Yuki and Natsuki. It’ll be a spear for Natsuki, and a—wait, what kind of weapon do you use, Yuki?”

I looked at Yuki, but she averted her eyes before she quietly muttered a response. “I don’t have any skills related to weapons...”

“Oh, I see. Well, um, we can buy some random weapon for you, I guess?”

It appeared that she wasn’t pleased with my choice of words. “What do you mean, a random weapon?! I have the potential to learn how to use any weapon!” She lowered her voice and added, “Well, that’s if one of you has the skill...”

I mean, she’s not wrong, since she can just copy weapons skills from us, but I don’t think we can afford that many different weapons. Hmm... “Oh, actually, you can just use a baton as your weapon.”

“A baton?”

“Yeah, there’s a skill called Staff Fighting for it. You still have that thing you bought back then, right, Touya?”

“You mean that baton that caused me to learn the Staff Fighting skill? Yeah, I do. It’s a thick iron baton, though. Do you think Yuki can actually make use of it?”

“If she manages to learn the skill for it, then yeah. Besides, she’ll mainly be focusing on magic. Right, Yuki?”

Yuki was only able to use Earth Magic, but she also had decided to get the aptitude skills for Fire, Water, and Time Magic. According to what she’d told us, she’d gotten so many aptitude skills because she’d figured aptitude was something innate that you couldn’t obtain later in life. Wise decision, Yuki.

“Mm, yeah, you’re right, Nao,” said Yuki. “Okay, I’ll focus on practicing magic for now.”

She had paused in thought before replying to me, as if she was considering how much we would have to spend on a new weapon for her, but it looked like she had no objections to my idea, since she nodded after replying. I was glad that she seemed to have understood the potential cost. If we eventually managed to save up more money, it would be fine for her to learn whatever weapon she wanted, but our priority right now was to choose the best possible options for our group as a whole.

“All right, we should probably start heading back to Laffan now,” said Haruka. “We took our time here, after all.”

We’d sat around and chatted while we ate the grilled game skewers and bread along with dindels for dessert. There was still plenty of time to reach Laffan before the gates closed for the day, but we had definitely spent a bit too much time resting here.

“Okay. Oh yeah, um, can I go do something before we head back...?”

Yuki stood up and went to whisper in Haruka’s ear. Haruka nodded and gave out instructions to me and Touya. “Touya, lend me the hoe for digging. Nao, stay on alert with your Scout skill.”

“Haruka?! Why did you bring it up?!” Yuki had a look of shock on her face that indicated she hadn’t expected to be betrayed. Oh, so she’s referring to that kind of business.

“Oh, do you not need a hoe for digging since you can use Earth Magic? Using a hoe would probably be more convenient for covering—”

“No, you know what I mean, right?!” Yuki’s face looked a bit red as she pressed Haruka to stop.

After a moment, Haruka nodded as if she had only just realized what Yuki was talking about. She placed her hands on Yuki’s shoulders to calm her down. “Yuki, you don’t have the luxury of feeling embarrassed about guys knowing what you’re doing or hearing the sound. You’ll die if that’s what you’re worried about, since you’ll be absolutely defenseless during the process.”

“But...”

“Look, I know how you feel all too well. I’ve gone through this experience myself, after all. Don’t worry—you’ll get used to it right away.”

Haruka had hesitated to mention it to us whenever she had to go to the bathroom, but she had learned her lesson after she’d almost had a close encounter with a boar on her own. After that had happened, she’d made sure to bring up the subject every time before she went off alone. Girls can’t just stand up like guys can while pissing, so it’s more dangerous for them. Also, based on what Haruka had told me, girls were in the most danger when they had to go to the bathroom in times of disaster or in refugee camps. When they were defenseless at times like that, other people with malicious intentions were enough of a threat, so it would be even more dangerous if they encountered animals or monsters.

“Dig a hole with this hoe when you have to deal with your business,” said Haruka. “Turn your back to us and pay attention to your surroundings while you do so. If you see something, then run to us right away even if you don’t have time to put your underwear back on.”

“Don’t have time to put my underwear back on?!”

“Don’t worry, I can clean any stains that might happen with my Purification spell. Would you prefer to die or to live, even if that means having the lower half of your body exposed?”

“Ugh...”

Yuki had tears in her eyes as she glared at Haruka, but everything that Haruka had said was the truth, sadly. Guys would just laugh it off if their private parts were exposed out in the open or, at worst, get arrested for public indecency, but for girls, the mental damage would be much greater. I’m pretty sure most people would prefer that over death, though.

“Well, if you die, more than just the lower half of your body might get exposed. Your insides might end up on the outside too.”

“S-Stop with that kind of dark humor, Haruka! It’s not funny at all...”

“The ideal situation would be for all of us to stand guard somewhere near you, but you probably wouldn’t be able to carry out your business if we were that close. Be glad that it’s not necessary since Nao has the Scout skill.”

I’m sorry, Yuki, but nothing’s going to change even if you glare at me with tears in your eyes.

“Uh, just to be clear, all my Scout Skill can detect is hostile intent and the presence of other living beings, so don’t worry about me using it to spy, Yuki,” I said.

“Y-You’ll cover your ears, right, Nao?” Yuki’s face was completely red.

Haruka shot down that request right away. “There’s no way he can do that. Hearing is an important part of scouting, after all. Okay, that’s enough complaining! Go and finish your business right away! You wouldn’t want to let loose in the middle of combat, right?”

Damn, you’re really cornering her, Haruka. Wait, are you cornering her like this so that she has to overcome the same humiliation that you did? Nah, she’s surely just doing this out of concern for Yuki’s health.

“Also, I’ll have Touya dash to your side to protect you if Nao detects a hostile presence, so just accept that fate if it happens.”

Whew, she actually went and dealt the finishing blow to Yuki. Yuki glared at Touya after she heard Haruka’s words, and Touya awkwardly averted his eyes. I mean, he’s our front line, so it’s only natural that he’d be responsible for protecting you in emergencies like that. He might have to stand in front of you to protect you from enemies if it comes down to it, even if you’re in the middle of your business. So, um, please stop glaring at us, okay?

“Ugh! You’re a big stupid dummy, Haruka! Waaaaaaah!”

Even after all her yelling and crying, Yuki still took the hoe and ran into the bushes. Well, I mean, it’s only human for things that come in to go out eventually. That’s just how the body functions, and everyone’s subject to it, regardless of gender or age. Only pop idols of the past could pretend like they had some special power that let them live without using the bathroom.

“Um, is there really no other way around this, Haruka?”

“Oh, do you have to go to the bathroom as well, Natsuki?”

“Well, not now, thankfully. I just feel uneasy thinking about having to do it in the future...”

“It’s just natural bodily functions, so it would be best to give up and accept that you have to do it. Besides, it’s not like Touya and Nao are the kind of guys who get sexually aroused from girls going to the bathroom, right?”

It was a delicate topic, so both Touya and I had done our best to not get involved, but then Haruka had suddenly dragged us into it, so we both replied as fast as we could. “O-Of course not!”

I’m aware there are guys out there who have that fetish, but I can’t relate at all. I mean, there’s no difference between the stuff that comes out of girls and guys, right?

“No, I’m not worried about that at all. It’s just that it’s still embarrassing. You know, with the sound, and, um, the smell...”

“Only Japanese toilets have high-tech devices like Otohime that play melodies to cancel out any sounds. Are you going to replicate the effect by singing while you go to the bathroom?”

Haruka, that’s a horrible idea. That’d just make it obvious that someone’s at the climax of their struggle when the song falters partway through.

“The only thing you can really do to avoid this is to try to go to the bathroom in town before heading out, I think,” said Haruka. “You might get sick if you hold it in for too long. Either way, I still think the best option is to just accept this as part of life in this world. You won’t have a choice if we have to camp out outside over multiple days for work, after all.”

“How do the people in this world deal with this?”

“Well, precisely because of things like the bathroom issue, mixed gender parties aren’t very common, but if people have to form one, it seems that they just don’t worry about it. Or rather, they have no choice but to ignore it if they want to get along as a party.”

“Are there no magical devices that can deal with these issues, Haruka?” Natsuki asked. “There’s magic stuff like that in this world, right?”

“Magical devices for the toilet? There might be some that you can set up in your own house, but you’re asking about ones that we can use while camping out, right? Do you mean something similar to the Otohome device I mentioned earlier?”

“That doesn’t sound like it’d be very useful by itself. We’d also need something that can protect us—maybe a device that can create walls that won’t buckle if a monster rams into them?”

“When it comes to camping, a device like that would be extremely useful for all sorts of purposes, but that’s not realistic. Or rather, there may well be magical devices that can create physical barriers, but I doubt an ordinary person can afford one.”

Mm, Haruka makes a very good point. A magical device as convenient and useful as that would be way more common if it was priced within reach of the average person or adventurer.

“Nao, do either you or Touya have any ideas or opinions?”

“Wait, are you really asking us, Haruka?” I replied. The bathroom discussion is kind of awkward for us to join in on. Oh well, I guess I’ll give it some thought. Hmm... “Well, I think the first thing we need to do is establish what problem you want a magical device to solve. For example, a magical device that prevents others from knowing that you’re going to the bathroom is out of the question, right?”

“Mm, it would be too dangerous and worrisome to sneak off and disappear by yourself while everyone else is resting.”

“As for what else comes to my mind, a magical device that could block out both sound and smell would be good. It would also be nice if we had a magical device that could create a physical barrier that was strong enough to buy some time for you to clean up in emergencies.”

“Let’s put aside that idea for now, but we definitely need something around to serve as a barrier while we go to the bathroom,” said Haruka. “Up until now, we’ve mostly been adventuring around in forests, but we’d be completely exposed if we were out in a flat and open area. That wouldn’t be pleasant even for you two as guys, right?”

“Mm, yeah, I don’t really want to be exposed out in the open if possible,” said Touya.

We had bought some lengths of cloth that we could use as curtains, but we hadn’t used them for that purpose yet. None of us had gotten the urge to go to the bathroom while we were out in the plains, and in the woods, bushes were more than enough to hide behind.

“Hey, what are you guys talking about?”

While we were discussing the bathroom, Yuki had returned, carrying the hoe over her shoulder. She looked like she had gotten over her embarrassment, as she had a very relieved expression on her face.

“We were talking about what we can do to deal with the bathroom issue in the future,” said Haruka.

“I wish you guys had discussed this much earlier! What ideas did you come up with?”

“We discussed how we want to find a way to deal with the sound and smell, something to use as curtains, and how we also want a strong physical barrier if possible.”

“That would definitely put me at ease. Oh yeah, you have the Alchemy skill, right, Haruka? Are there any magical devices you can make with that skill?”

“There’s no way such things exist. That would be way too convenient— Actually, wait, I have an alchemist encyclopedia on me that I can check.” She took a thick book out of her backpack and flipped it open to check the contents. “Let’s see. Oh, there’s a magical device called a Sound Barrier that seems to be used primarily for private conversations or meetings. As for the smell problem, I might be able to solve that if I tinker with a magical device that can be used as an air freshener. As for devices that can create physical barriers, both the cost and the difficulty involved in crafting one scales with the strength of the barrier.”

“Oh, so magical devices that can solve our problems do exist?”

“Yeah, a lot of research and development seems to have been done on these devices since they can be used for all sorts of purposes. Devices that can create physical barriers seem like they’ll be hard to obtain, though.”

Haruka told us that such devices could be used for protection when camping outside or as home security systems, but even ones that could only create small barriers were way too expensive and not something an ordinary adventurer could really afford.

“What about the curtains?” Natsuki asked. “Even if we use something that we can assemble on site and then break down for ease of carrying, it’ll take up a lot of space when it’s assembled, right?”

“Mm. We bought some cloth to use as curtains, but we haven’t used it yet since we can’t really carry around the poles we’d need to hang them on.”

If we’d had carbon fiber on us, then we would have been able to hang cloth up like a tent, but all we could obtain were long wooden poles. It wouldn’t be practical for us to carry such things around all the time.

“Can’t we solve that problem with magical devices, Haruka?” Yuki asked. “If there are magical devices that can create barriers, then couldn’t you just adjust them so the barriers were opaque?”

“That means we’ll need at least three devices in total for blocking out sound, smell, and vision, right?” Touya asked. “Is it really worth investing that much time and money in bathroom stuff?”

Yikes, Touya, that’s not a good thing to say to them!

“Huh?! It’s important and totally worth it, Touya!” Yuki exclaimed. “This is a quality of life thing!”

“Our psychological well-being affects the physical performance of our bodies as well,” said Natsuki.

“Mm. It’ll cause us stress if we have to put up with bad bathroom conditions, which will also be bad for our health,” said Haruka.

“O-Oh, I see. Yeah, you guys are completely right.”

Damn, all three of the girls ganged up on him and smacked him down. Touya flinched and ducked his head as he walked away from where the girls were and came over to sit next to me.

“Is that stuff really that important, Nao?” Touya whispered.

“Yeah, I think so,” I whispered back. “I’d prefer to have those kinds of magical devices as well.”

“Hmm. Oh yeah, I guess they would be good for when we have to let out a number two.”

“Think about it this way. If you’re resting and having a drink, you wouldn’t want to be interrupted all of a sudden by the sound of me shooting out a number two—or by the smell.”

“Yeah, that’d be disgusting!”

“Right? At the same time, it would be dangerous for me to go off on my own to some place where I wouldn’t disturb you, so we definitely need magical devices to solve this problem.”

“Luckily, so far we’ve mainly just had to go do number one outside, but I guess we’ll definitely need magical devices if a number two emergency does happen.”

It appeared that our whispered conversation had convinced Touya of the necessity of magical devices, since he nodded back at me in the end. The girls looked like they had reached a conclusion of their own, since they were also nodding at each other.

“Basically, we need the materials to craft the magical devices we want, the money to afford those materials in the first place, and for Haruka to level up her Alchemy skill,” said Yuki.

“Mm, we’ll need to earn a lot of money for the materials,” said Natsuki.

“It’s the only realistic way to obtain those magical devices, since it’s not easy to buy the finished product in a store,” said Haruka. “Both of you are okay with this course of action, right?” Haruka looked at Touya and me as she asked us that, and we both nodded back immediately.

“Of course!” Touya exclaimed.

“Yeah, I’m fine with it as long as we don’t overextend ourselves,” I said. “We have to earn more money regardless, and it’ll definitely be worthwhile for Haruka to level up her Alchemy skill.”

If leveling up her Alchemy skill also enabled Haruka to craft things like potions, then it would be an even better investment. In fact, in the short term, the ability to craft potions would be more important than those magical devices. We had Haruka’s magic for healing purposes, but injuries and diseases were still scary in this world.

“Okay, now that we’ve decided on a course of action, let’s head towards town!” The minute she said that, Yuki got up and started walking. She sounded very happy, probably because we had found reason to hope that we could eventually solve the bathroom problems she had been worried about.

★★★★★★★★★

A few hours had passed since we’d rested and eaten lunch. We had almost reached Laffan when Touya stopped in his tracks as if something had come to mind all of a sudden.

“Oh yeah, earlier we met Tomi somewhere around here. I wonder if he managed to safely reach Laffan by himself.”

Yuki tilted her head to the side. “Tomi? Who’s that? Is it someone you know?”

“By Tomi, I mean Wakabayashi. He’s a dwarf now. He had collapsed from hunger.”

“Wakabayashi-kun is a dwarf?” Natsuki asked. “That’s hard to picture in my head...”

“Yeah, we didn’t recognize that it was him until he specifically told us,” I said.

“He hadn’t changed the way he talked at all, so it didn’t match his looks and deep voice at all,” said Touya.

I wish he had tried to speak like some tough middle-aged man. Well, in a way, that’s a narrow idea of what dwarfs are like. There must be young dwarfs and dwarf children out there, so it’s unlikely that they all sound like middle-aged men.

“He had apparently been transported into this world along with Tanaka and Takahashi, but...” I repeated the story of what had happened to those two along with our guesses about the skills they had.

Yuki’s face went pale and she replied, “Yikes, land mine skills are really scary!”

“So, um, how many of our classmates do you think are still alive at this point?” Natsuki asked.

“I’m not sure, since it’s hard to track down people who changed their race from the default human,” I said. “From what we know, it seems like around four to five of our classmates have died in Laffan from using the Plunder skill.”

“It seems like there were three of our classmates who died that way in Sarstedt,” said Yuki. “I’m fairly sure about this since I overheard stories about it at the inn.” Yuki also mentioned that Sarstedt wasn’t a large town, so rumors about three dead bodies without a visible cause of death had spread quite fast.

“We’ve also bumped into other classmates aside from Tomi, but the only one we’ve directly interacted with was Umezono,” said Touya.

“Oh yeah...I completely forgot about her.” It looked like Haruka was reflecting on our encounter with Umezono. She frowned.

“What happened?” Natsuki asked.

“Well, it’s just that Umezono tried to pick a fight with Haruka.” While I was at it, I went ahead and told Yuki and Natsuki what had happened. Why did she have to gloat about it before she ran away? Did she really want to become Haruka’s enemy that badly?

“Whoa, I never thought Umezono-san was brave enough to do something like that! Only a brave fool would pick a fight with Haruka!”

“What are you trying to imply, Yuki? Are you saying that I’m somehow terrifying?” Haruka had a smile on her face as she questioned Yuki, but that smile in itself was a bit terrifying.

“I mean, I don’t think you’re terrifying at all. It’s just that it’s hard to believe that someone would take that kind of risk, you know?”

“Yeah, I feel the same way,” said Natsuki. “The wiser choice would be to surrender instead of picking a fight with you, Haruka.”

Yuki and Natsuki nodded to each other in agreement. In fact, none of the boys in our class had ever been stupid enough to pick a fight with Haruka, since there had been a high risk that not just Haruka but a majority of the other girls in our class would end up hating them. After all, it was a rare boy who wouldn’t mind all of his female classmates hating him.

“I can’t believe you’re both so mean to me! I’m a pitiful victim here no matter how you look at it! From an objective perspective, that is.”

Well, objectively speaking, she did get insulted for no good reason even though she just listed her skills as Umezono had requested. Your choice of words makes it hard for me to truly sympathize with you, though, since you sound like you don’t actually care that much, Haruka.

“Anyway, this doesn’t matter at all. She’s not a threat by any means.”

Yep, that’s the Haruka I know. Her scariness and air of mental strength definitely come from this cold and rational side. Well, we’ve managed to survive and lead mostly peaceful lives in this world thanks to that strength of hers, so it’s a good thing.

“Based on what we know so far, it seems like about twenty-five percent of our classmates have died already. That’s way too many careless people, isn’t it?”

“This appears to be Haruka-san’s conclusion on this case,” I said. “What are your thoughts, Touya-san?”

I brought an invisible air microphone to Touya for him to state his thoughts like an expert on television, and he played along with my skit. “Haruka’s not considering the fact that she’s in the minority here. Like, if you think about how many land mines there were among the skills the god initially offered us during the character creation process, then a death rate of twenty-five percent is actually quite low.”

“Yeah, I have the same opinion as you do, Touya. It all depends on whether you considered the cost of the Help Guide as a necessary expense or not,” I said. “I’m not sure if I would’ve been able to resist the allure of skills that looked like cheat skills if I’d had fewer points available to me in the beginning.” Whew, I’m really proud of my past self for deciding to get the Help Guide in the end despite hesitating at first.

“Mm, same here! On the other hand, Haruka managed to resist getting skills that seemed strong and went for both the Help Guide and the General Knowledge skill, and she’s been careful the whole time even after getting transported to this world,” said Touya. “Without Haruka around, I’m pretty confident that I would’ve started taking on goblin hunt quests by myself within a few days!”

Yuki nodded vigorously with a huge smile on her face. “Yeah, there were so many tempting skills, so you can’t really blame someone for getting one!” she exclaimed.

“That’s pretty rich coming from someone who took the Copy skill,” said Natsuki.

Yuki’s smile faded. “Oh, come on, don’t bring that up again! Trust me, I actually do regret my choice!”

“Actually, I guess it wasn’t a bad choice given your current situation, since you can learn skills from all of us.”

“Yeah, absolutely!”

After Natsuki backed her up, Yuki had a happy smile on her face again, and she nodded in agreement, but Haruka was about to dash Yuki’s spirits again.

“However, you’ll have to decide something to focus on. If you don’t, you’ll just end up being a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Your training will also probably be more difficult than ours.”

“Right...”

“Well, it’ll still be amazing if Yuki manages to learn even half of all the skills that we have, right?” I said.

“Yeah, I’ll do my best to learn skills! Please teach me whatever you can, all of you!”

“I don’t mind teaching you my skills, but the training’s going to be relentless,” said Touya. “We’ve allocated a few hours per day for training as part of our daily routine, so it won’t be easy.”

“Oh, so it really does require a lot of time and effort. I guess that makes sense, since results don’t come that easily.”

All three of the girls had been smart in school, but they weren’t the genius type of smart. Rather, it was the type of smart that just came from hard work and taking their studies seriously. They’d also participated in practice for school events like sports day; they would never skip out on such things. Their efforts had always paid off, so that meant they were gifted to an extent, but none of them had ever been the type of person who could perform any task easily without effort or practice.

“I’ve obtained a strong and healthy body in this world, so I guess I’ll have to do training as well,” said Natsuki.

Natsuki hadn’t been bad at sports back on Earth, but she’d definitely had less stamina than other people. In fact, she would sometimes have to take days off school due to her frail health. On the other hand, Yuki had always had the most energy and stamina among the three girls. Haruka had been in the middle, but she’d always gotten the hang of things fairly quickly, so her results had been on equal footing with Yuki’s. Both of them had been near the top of all the girls at our school in terms of performance and results for sports.

“Oh, how many people do you think actually decided to get the Help Guide, Haruka?” Natsuki asked.

“There’s a high chance that the girls who hadn’t really played games before would decide to get the Help Guide. In fact, that was the case for you, wasn’t it, Natsuki? Also, the god did warn us that there were no cheat skills, so there are probably some people who took that warning to heart and avoided the land mine skills.”

Haruka also mentioned that we were in a fairly normal world, not a wild and lawless one, so she believed that our classmates would be able to earn enough money every day to get by even if they didn’t become adventurers. However, I wasn’t so certain about that.

“You sure about that, Haruka?” Touya asked. “Weren’t there tempting skills for girls too, like Heroine Aptitude, Charm, and Attractive Appearance? I’d think some of them would choose skills like those if they didn’t have many points available to them.”

“As for the girls who had played games and read light novels before, they’d probably just take skills like Plunder or the EXP skills without thinking,” I said. Those skills would seem good at first glance if you didn’t pause to think about them, after all. “Well, that’s if they didn’t have anything specific they wanted to get like Touya and Tomi did.” Tomi had always wanted to become a dwarf, which was why he had decided to get skills like Drunkard and Blacksmithing to fit his image of what a dwarf should be.

“Oh yeah, we haven’t asked you yet, but why did you choose to become a beastman, Touya?” Natsuki asked.

“It’s because I wanted a wife with animal ears!”

In response to Touya’s energetic declaration, Yuki and Natsuki both replied “I see...” in unison and then nodded silently. I wasn’t sure what they actually thought deep down since both of them refrained from making any further comments. No need to hold back! Feel free to call him stupid! Well, actually, that would just cause Touya to rant about his animal ears fetish, so I guess silence is the right choice.

“Well, I’m really glad there aren’t any cheat skills in this world,” said Yuki. “If cheat skills were rampant and everybody could use them without any consequences or restrictions, then that’d be an absolute cancer for the people of this world. It’d also make our lives harder.”

“Yeah, definitely,” I said. “It would lead to things like conflicts between people who both have cheat skills, and people who’d forcibly create their own harems with their skills.”

“Mm. Ordinary people like us should just aim for relaxing and peaceful lives,” said Haruka.

We all muttered skeptically in response to what we had just heard from Haruka.

“Ordinary people...?”

“You, ordinary...?”

The girls had a hint of doubt in their voices, as did Touya and I.

“Huh?” She raised her fingers one by one as she brought up her justifications for classifying herself as an ordinary person. “I’ve been careful to not stand out, I’ve avoided dangerous work, and I’ve been working hard to slowly earn and save money. See? I’m an ordinary person no matter how you look at it.”

We all had awkward expressions on our faces as we glanced at each other to discuss our thoughts.

“Well, if you put it that way, you do sound like an ordinary person, but it doesn’t feel right for some reason...” said Touya.

“It’s probably because it doesn’t fit her,” said Natsuki. “She has strong leadership qualities, after all.”

“She’s also very active and decisive,” said Yuki. “In fact, if we hadn’t gotten transported to this world, I think she would’ve started her own company or venture eventually.”

“Oh, that entrepreneur image fits her perfectly!” I exclaimed.

We all nodded in agreement with Yuki. I mean, I can’t really imagine Haruka taking a fairly normal path in life, like going to college, graduating, and then finding an office job. That’s too normal for her.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment? Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I’m not sure exactly how many of our classmates are still alive by now, but there’s no reason for us to go out of our way to look for or get involved with any of them. None of you have anyone you want to look for, right?”

“No one comes to mind,” said Natsuki. “The only people I can trust are right here.”

“Same here,” said Yuki. “I mean, I have friends who I hung out with before, but I can’t say that I’m willing to trust them when our lives are on the line.”

“Mm, like we said before, there’s no one else who Nao and I want to look for either,” said Touya.

“Yep, our minds haven’t changed,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind helping out people like Tomi if we happen to bump into them, but that’s all I’m willing to do.”

Well, that’s only if said person doesn’t have a land mine skill. It would be a hell no from me in that case. I brought up the suggestion to avoid and flee from people with land mine skills, and everyone agreed with my idea.

The first place we headed towards once we had arrived back at Laffan was The Slumbering Bear, of course. We would get the best value for our money at this inn for both food and lodging, so our future plans would have to change drastically if we weren’t able to get rooms here for our new, larger party. Luckily, we were able to register two rooms without any problems, which meant we could rest at ease for now. Then again, this inn was a little-known place, and it never seemed like the available rooms were all full, so I hadn’t really been worried.

With that matter of concern out of the way, we headed towards the Adventurers’ Guild next to sell tusk boar parts. When we entered the guild, we saw Diola-san at the counter, and she looked like she was free as usual.

“Hello, Diola-san,” said Haruka. “It’s been a while since we last met.”

“Oh, hello, Haruka-san. You and your party are back already?”

“Mm, luckily, we managed to finish the business we headed out to do quickly, so we returned as soon as we could.”

“By business, you mean that you were searching for people, right? Would the two people behind you happen to be the ones you were looking for?”

Yuki and Natsuki both bowed when Diola looked at them, and then they introduced themselves.

“Hello, my name’s Yuki.”

“Hello, my name’s Natsuki. We’ve grouped up with Haruka’s party, so I hope we’ll get to know each other well.”

“Mm, I hope so as well. Have both of you already registered at an Adventurers’ Guild?”

“Yeah,” said Yuki. “We registered back at a town called Sarstedt.”

When she heard Yuki’s explanation, Diola-san nodded to indicate that it made sense to her that they’d come with us to Laffan. “Oh, that town? It’s a good thing you came to Laffan, then. Sarstedt isn’t a good place to look for work as adventurers.” Information about other towns would probably reach her ears naturally due to the fact that she worked here at this guild as a receptionist, so she probably knew what things were like at Sarstedt. Lodging fees were expensive in that town, and there was barely any work available for adventurers there. On top of that, the food also tasted bad, so there was absolutely no reason at all to stay in that town voluntarily.

“Also, we slew some tusk boars on our way back,” said Haruka. “Can we sell the boar parts here first?”

“Of course. Please wait for a bit.”

We took out the leather bag with the boar parts and handed them over to Diola-san, who then carried them to the backyard by herself and returned after she was done. Oh yeah, Diola-san sure has more physical strength than I expected. I mean, she carried that leather bag without any difficulty, and it probably weighed at least thirty kilos.

“Whew, all right. Please wait for a bit until the assessment is complete. So, does this mean that you’ll be actively taking on work as a party of five here in this town for a while?”

“Yeah. We’re still rookie adventurers, so we’re going to take things one step at a time,” said Haruka.

“I’m glad to hear that. There are a lot of adventurers who start to mistakenly believe that they can take on more than they actually can once they start earning some money, sadly...” Diola-san’s voice had a gloomy tone; she sighed after bringing that up. Adventurers like that seemed to be a huge source of trouble for her, just like the ones who didn’t listen to the instructions offered by the guild for herb gathering. Most adventurers had some sense of personal responsibility, but it probably wasn’t pleasant for Diola-san to see irresponsible rookies die or retire prematurely from things like injuries.

“On a side note, I’ve been wondering about this for a while, but those three packs you have look quite nice and convenient to use.”

“Oh, I’m glad you noticed, Diola-san,” said Haruka. “I adjusted these backpacks quite a lot while I was making them to achieve that.”

Haruka happily started to explain the functions of the backpacks that she had crafted in order to shift away from the previous gloomy topic. In fact, Haruka went into great detail as she brought up the specific usage and reasons for every single part of the backpacks, and she also claimed that these backpacks were easier to carry than regular cloth sacks and could hold more total weight as well.

“Interesting. Can I try carrying one of them on my back for a bit?”

“Huh? Oh, sure.”

Half of Haruka’s explanation was just boasting about how well-made her backpacks were, but Diola-san seemed like she was very interested in everything Haruka had to say. She stood up and walked over from behind the counter to borrow Haruka’s backpack and placed it on her back. After that, she walked around for a while with the backpack on, took it off once to check how heavy it was, and then placed it on her back again afterwards. She then paused in thought for a while before asking, “This isn’t a magical device, right?” It wasn’t strange of her to think that it could be magical, so that was a natural question.

The backpacks that Haruka had crafted would consume less stamina to carry around compared to satchels or cloth knapsacks that weighed the same, and that was exactly why many countries back on Earth used such backpacks for their armies. After all, if needed, you could carry an amount of supplies equal to your own weight in these backpacks over a long-distance march as long as you went through proper training. In addition, there was a significant difference between expensive and cheap backpacks in terms of how much stamina you would consume carrying one around. Such backpacks might not look very different from each other on the outside, but the difference would be obvious once you actually tried and compared them. A high price didn’t necessarily guarantee high quality, but there was a limit to the quality of cheap backpacks. In regards to the backpacks we had, they were extremely high quality due to the fact that Haruka had performed her best when she’d crafted them, so they were very comfortable and convenient to use.

“Yeah, they’re just normal backpacks,” said Haruka. “I used some sturdy cloth and leather to craft these, but that’s it.”

“I see. Hmm. Would you be willing to sell this to the Adventurers’ Guild, Haruka-san?”

“Huh? Do you mean this backpack?”

“Well, no, I mean the information about how to craft these backpacks. This is a very innovative design, after all.”

“Um, well, I was actually thinking of crafting these ourselves to sell, since we have more hands to help out with crafting now, so...” Haruka looked at Yuki and Natsuki as she said that to indicate they were the new helping hands.

Diola-san looked like she understood Haruka’s idea, but she shook her head in response. “That’s not a bad idea, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. These backpacks are definitely good enough to sell, of course, but how many will you be able to craft per day? If you’re all going to be taking on adventurer work at the same time, then that means you won’t have much time to craft per day. Also, even if you were to devote all of your time to crafting these backpacks, it still probably wouldn’t be worth it.”

Haruka’s Sewing skill was Level 2, and if Yuki managed to copy and learn the Sewing skill from Haruka, then they would probably be able to produce backpacks at a rate faster than the average weaver. However, there would be a limit to the amount that they could produce per day if we took on adventurer work as well, and Touya and I would be useless if Haruka decided to devote all of our time to crafting backpacks for sale.

“In addition, the biggest problem would be that eventually others would copy you. Your backpacks will definitely sell well, but as soon as word spreads, some wealthy merchant will copy your design and produce them at scale to drive you out of the market, you know?”

“Is there no sort of law or system that punishes people for copying products or ideas...?”

“That’d be possible for magical devices that are good enough to be listed in the alchemist encyclopedia, but that’s not the case for these backpacks.”

Despite the fact that international copyright treaties existed back on Earth, people would still make plagiarized and rip-off versions of intellectual property. Civilization wasn’t as developed on this world as it was on Earth, so it would probably be very difficult to obtain things like international or domestic patents.

“Um, wouldn’t that also apply to the Adventurers’ Guild, though?”

“Well, the guild is actually an organization with a significant amount of power and influence. There are barely any merchants who would be willing to challenge the guild head-on. In addition, the main customer base for these backpacks will be adventurers.”

I guess no normal merchant would want to pick a fight with their own customers. Diola-san also mentioned that if Haruka agreed to sell the instructions for crafting these backpacks, then in exchange, the guild would pay royalties for a while, so there was a higher chance that we would earn more in the end from doing it this way rather than crafting and selling backpacks by ourselves.

“Also, if you do agree to this idea, I’d like you to take a few days to teach our weavers how to craft these backpacks. They’ll be the ones doing most of the work.”

This sounded like a good deal based on how Diola-san explained it to us. We could probably trust her to keep her word, and even if we got scammed, the loss of backpack sales wouldn’t really affect us that much. Haruka turned around and looked at all of us to see what we thought about this. We all nodded back to indicate we were down for this idea, so she turned back to Diola-san and agreed.

“Okay, that’s fine with us. I’ll be having Yuki and Natsuki craft these backpacks for themselves as well, so I can just use the same sewing pattern for teaching your weavers, right? It’ll take me a few days before I’m ready, though.”

“Of course. I need some time myself to finalize this idea and to gather the weavers who’ll be making the backpacks, so this works out.”

Diola-san had a smile on her face as she extended her hand, and Haruka firmly grasped it to seal the deal. On a side note, Diola-san was still carrying the backpack on her back while she was doing this. She was also wearing clothes that obviously weren’t meant for heading out of town, so the backpack looked kind of weird on her.

“Oh, right, I still have the backpack on me. I’ll return this to you.” She seemed a bit embarrassed, so it appeared that she had noticed that I was looking at the backpack. She swiftly returned it to Haruka. “Oh, good timing. The assessment seems to be complete as well. Let’s see, the total amount comes to eighteen thousand eight hundred Rea. Is that acceptable to you?”

“Yes.”

Whew, that’s a pretty big haul. We took back the leather bag along with the money that she handed over to us. If Haruka had said no here, then we technically could have gotten back the parts that we had handed over, like the meat, but there hadn’t been any problems so far. This was how things usually went when we came to sell things here at the Adventurers’ Guild. The guild would also clean the bags that we handed over before they were returned to us, so that was quite nice and convenient. People who wanted to negotiate to get more money for specific things would have to bring the materials to the counter at the warehouse located in the backyard to negotiate during the assessment process, but we had never done that before. This was due to the fact that we weren’t knowledgeable enough to negotiate, so it would probably be a pointless waste of time even if we tried. In addition, we wanted to try and leave a good impression on the guild by trusting them with the entire process.

“Also, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you, Diola-san,” said Haruka. “What do you think about the idea of renting a house?”

“You mean renting a house to live in? Well, if you plan to make this town your home base as a party of five, then I think it would be a good idea.”

According to Diola-san, we would be able to rent a house for anywhere between about five thousand and ten thousand Rea per month, so we would actually be saving money compared to staying at an inn if that rent was split between five people. There wasn’t anything like a security deposit required, but we would be chased out of the house right away if we were late with our monthly rent, and we would have to pay for repair fees ourselves if we damaged the house. However, we wouldn’t need a guarantor to rent a house in this world, so it was still easier to rent a house than it was back in Japan as long as we could afford our monthly rent payments.

“Also, the amount you need to pay for rent will vary depending on the location, layout, and the size of the house. Do you have any specific preferences?”

“Hmm.” Haruka turned around and asked all of us, “What do you guys think? Any ideas?”

“Um, is rent more expensive for property close to the center of the town?” Natsuki asked.

“Yes. Rent is expensive for property near the center of the town and property along the main road. On the other hand, rent is cheaper for property located in areas of the town that aren’t as safe as the other areas. Also, it pains me to say this, but rent is fairly cheap for property around the Adventurers’ Guild as well.”

According to what Diola-san told us, it wasn’t that dangerous around here where the Adventurers’ Guild was located, but the stereotypical image of adventurers lowered the value of property around this area. That image was far from the truth, since there weren’t that many adventurers who would cause trouble due to the fact that it would affect your rank. However, that did nothing to change the fact that the ordinary person thought of an adventurer as someone who was armed and walked around in dirty clothes. That was kind of an inevitable part of being an adventurer, though. If you didn’t have the Purification skill, then you would have no choice but to return to town while covered in blood or dirt.

“Should we aim to rent a property near the Adventurers’ Guild, then?” Yuki asked.

“That would be a logical choice for adventurers,” said Natsuki.

“We tend to head out of town from the east gate, so it’d be a bit far from here, though...” I said.

“Once all of you climb up in rank, your party will eventually shift to heading out towards the south forest for more dangerous work, right? When that happens, the gate you’ll be using will be closer if you choose to rent a property near the guild.”

In general, the east forest was suited for rookies, while the south forest was suited for adventurers who had advanced beyond the rookie stage, so what Diola-san had suggested was correct. However, we were able to earn money by slaying tusk boars, so we would continue to head out of the east gate for a while.

“Also, have all of you slain goblins at least once before?”

“Yes, twice,” said Haruka. “Well, Yuki and Natsuki haven’t yet, however.”

“Do you have the magicite from those goblins on you?”

“Oh, um, we didn’t retrieve them...”

“I see. Well, I guess that’s not really necessary for your party, Haruka-san. Can you hand over your adventurer card to me? Please hand over your cards as well, Nao-san and Touya-san.”

We followed Diola-san’s instructions and handed over our adventurer cards to her. She then used something that looked like a chisel to engrave a seal on the back of each of our cards before she handed them back to us.

“Congratulations. You are now rookie adventurers.”

“Huh? We weren’t even considered rookie adventurers until now...?” I asked.

“Mm. Well, I’m not really sure if it applies to your party due how much you’ve earned up until now, but you would normally have to retrieve magicite from monsters before you could be considered an adventurer.”

We hadn’t actually retrieved and turned in magicite at the guild yet, but Diola-san told us that we were more than qualified for a promotion due to our achievements so far. It was only a promotion to Rank 1, though, so the conditions for ranking up probably weren’t strict or hard at all.

“The three of you are now officially Rank 1 adventurers. Technically, this does mean that more quests are now available to you, but this might not be relevant to you right now since you’re all earning a decent amount of Rea as is.”

“Hmm. Wait, if Rank 1 adventurers are considered rookies, how do people refer to adventurers below Rank 1?” Haruka asked. “Do they just get called something like unranked or Rank Zero?”

“There’s no set way to refer to such adventurers, but some people just don’t acknowledge new adventurers, and some rude people use the phrase ‘half rookie’ to look down on new adventurers. I personally think there’s a need for adventurers regardless of whether or not they can defeat monsters, so I don’t see a reason to treat new adventurers differently like that, though.”

Anyone could register as an adventurer as long as they paid the registration fee, so it made sense that some people wouldn’t consider someone an actual adventurer if that person couldn’t defeat one of the weakest monsters in the world. Half rookie kind of did fit, but still.

“By the way, how much does magicite from a goblin go for?”

“They go for about 250 Rea apiece.”

That amount was much smaller than I’d thought it would be. Goblins weren’t exactly strong by any means, but I personally felt like you would need a decent amount of courage and determination to slay goblins.

“If that’s the case, then I guess half rookie would actually be a bit fitting...”

“It’s more just that dindels are worth a lot. However, if there are goblin hunt quests available, then an extra reward gets handed out for the successful completion of that quest, so goblins aren’t always bad as a source of income.”

“Well, aren’t tusk boars also worth a lot?”

“That’s just due to the demand compared to the supply. In fact, it’s amazing that your party has managed to slay and bring back materials from tusk boars each time, since they’re normally not an animal that’s easy to find, you know?”

The only material that could be retrieved from goblins was the magicite inside of them, and the value of that magicite would be determined by its quality. Magicite could be used as fuel, so it would get compared to the other types of fuel available. To put it in simpler terms, if one magicite crystal was used to boil about one hundred liters of water, then it would be compared with the price of firewood required to fuel a fire to boil one hundred liters of water. On the other hand, the meat of the boar could be sold directly, so the price wouldn’t be affected by other factors. The difficulty of slaying a tusk boar didn’t matter, but that was just how things worked in the world. As for why we were able to find and slay tusk boars on a regular basis, it was due to the use of my Scout skill and Touya’s sharp sixth sense as a beastman. The average adventurer probably wouldn’t have either of these, so the price of tusk boar materials was fair due to how rarely most adventurers would encounter them. I wonder why we didn’t retrieve the magicite from goblins, though. Two hundred fifty Rea isn’t nothing, so...

“Oh yeah, why didn’t we retrieve the magicite from those goblins, Haruka?” I whispered.

“It’s because the magicite in goblins is located in the hippocampus area of their brains,” Haruka whispered. “We’d have to smash their heads open for that, so...”

“Ah, I get what you’re saying.”

The goblins in this world looked like the common type of goblins that would appear in games, but they were technically still humanoids, so we would have to smash their skulls with a sword or slice their heads off before working to get to the magicite. Yeah, uh, that’s a bit too gross for me right now. I’m not quite ready yet. I wasn’t willing to do such work myself, and the idea of asking Haruka to do it felt horrible to me as well. It wouldn’t bother me if we smashed the skull of a goblin in combat, but I was still quite reluctant about the idea of purposely mutilating a dead body.

“Oh, we’ve gotten a bit off topic,” said Diola-san. “So, do you have a plan for your housing search? I can help you look for a property through the guild if you’re looking for one that’s in the vicinity.”

“Huh? The Adventurers’ Guild actually offers services like that?”

“Only for property within the vicinity of the guild. As I mentioned earlier, ordinary citizens tend to kind of avoid this part of town when it comes to property, and the property owners also feel safer when the guild acts as the middleman.”

Property owners feel safer if they leave the negotiations with adventurers to the Adventurers’ Guild, huh? Most adventurers would be just fine, but I guess there are some troublemakers out there who can’t be fully trusted.

“In addition, adventurers tend to shun regular middlemen for real estate transactions, so that’s another factor.”

“Oh, I see.”

Regular middlemen also preferred and prioritized people who had jobs that were more stable than adventurer work. The highest-earning adventurers would earn a huge amount of money, but that didn’t change the fact that adventurer work wasn’t stable or reliable—or the fact that it came with a high risk of death.

“I guess we’ll settle for a property in this area of town,” said Haruka. “Do any of you guys have any specific preferences?”

“I’d like a place with a large yard to have plenty of room for training,” said Touya.

“I’d like a place with a bath unit if possible, but it’s probably not, right?” Natsuki asked.

“Is there property available that has a bath unit, Diola-san...?” Haruka asked.

I would love to have a bath unit as well. Purification was more than enough to stay clean, but I would sometimes get in a mood where I wanted to take a bath just for the sake of taking one. It looked like everyone else felt the same way as I did, since we all looked at Diola-san with high expectations in our eyes, but Diola-san just responded by knitting her brows together.

“A bath unit? Um, that would be impossible for a regular house. Only the mansions of nobles can support bath units. The most you could do for a regular house would be to set up something like a tub in a house that has a large laundry area, I suppose...?”

As its name indicated, the laundry area was where you would wash things. Handwashing tended to be the standard method in this world, so there were also laundry areas in inns that were available to the people staying there, and usually it would just be an open place near a well. On the other hand, people who lived on private property would have to wash things throughout the year, regardless of the season, along with large things like sheets, which meant that some houses would have their laundry area indoors with an earthen floor where water could be drained out.

“I guess that’s the most we can do with a rented property,” said Haruka. “Any other preferences?”

“I’d like a house with enough individual rooms for each of us, and ideally a room that we can use for all sorts of work and to store things in,” I said.

We would need somewhere in the house for Haruka to sew and use her Alchemy skill, and we would also need a dedicated room that was spacious enough for storing food, since we had preserved food that we were currently storing in the warehouse at The Slumbering Bear.

“I’d like a house with a yard as well,” said Yuki. “I hope we can afford the peace of mind to grow some flowers.”

Flowers? Oh, gardening? I guess you do need peace of mind for a simple and down-to-earth life. As for me, all I knew about yard maintenance was just how to weed, and that was only because my parents had forced me to weed our yard. I hadn’t cared at all for the flower seedlings that my parents would sometimes buy and plant in the yard at our house. In fact, I’d never understood why they didn’t just plant a fruit tree for fruits to eat or vegetables that were both edible and pleasant to look at.

“I guess that’s it for our preferences,” said Haruka. “Is there a property that meets all of them, Diola-san?”

“Hmm. So you want to rent a house that has at least five individual rooms along with a large yard and laundry area? Well, since we have a deal with the backpacks, I’ll try my best to look for one that fits those conditions, Haruka-san. Can you give me some time to look around?”

“Sure, of course. Thank you very much.”

“Thank you very much,” we all said.

Diola-san looked a bit doubtful about whether there was actually a house that met all of our preferred conditions, but she still smiled and nodded and said that she would do her best to look for one. We all lowered our heads to express our gratitude, and then we headed out of the guild building.

★★★★★★★★★

“This is delicious!” Yuki exclaimed.

Those were Yuki’s first words after she took a bite out of the dinner that was served to us at The Slumbering Bear. She spoke from the bottom of her heart, and the unsociable innkeeper actually looked a bit happy when he heard her.

“I mean it,” said Yuki. “I can’t believe this inn is actually cheaper than the inn we were at before, even with breakfast and dinner included...”

We had split up between different rooms now due to the fact that Yuki and Natsuki had joined our party. Touya and I were staying in one room together, while the three girls were staying together in another room. There weren’t any rooms for two available, so both of our rooms were rooms for four. We technically could have registered a single room for six, but it would cost 750 Rea per night. That option would’ve only saved us 250 Rea per night, but we were easily able to afford the extra expense per day by now. Besides, the difference in cost didn’t matter at all if we compared it to the lodging fees for that inn back at Sarstedt. The food offered here at The Slumbering Bear tasted way better as well, so there was nothing to complain about.

“We’ll have to say goodbye to this inn soon if things go as planned for us, though,” said Haruka.

“Well, that’s if Diola-san can find a good property to recommend to us,” said Touya.

“I wouldn’t mind staying here at this inn over a long period of time, though,” said Yuki.

Haruka, Touya, and I all looked at each other and responded with bitter smiles when we heard what Yuki said.

“Hm? Do the three of you not like this inn?”

“No, that’s not what we’re trying to imply,” I said. “The food here definitely tastes better than at other places, but...”

“It’s more about how eating here is basically kind of like going out to eat,” said Touya.

“If we have to continue eating this the entire time, then well, you know...” said Haruka.

Yuki looked like she didn’t understand what we were trying to get at, but it seemed like Natsuki understood, since she nodded to us and then rephrased our opinions to Yuki. “For example, you wouldn’t like being told that you would have to eat the same food at a diner for every meal over a month, right, Yuki?”

“Oh, yeah, that makes more sense. Even if the food is delicious, I wouldn’t really want to keep eating the same thing every day.”

It was a fact that the food in this world tasted like foreign food to us. The food offered here at this inn was still way better than our other options, and I wouldn’t really mind eating one meal per day here, but I would get a bit sick of it if I had to eat all three meals here every day for a while. It would perhaps be asking for too much for some rice and salted Japanese plums, but eating out for a long period of time would definitely make me crave some homemade Japanese food. I finally understand why some people bring instant food with them on overseas trips. I really do.

“So yeah, I’m looking forward to your cooking, Haruka!” Touya exclaimed.

“There’s not much in the way of seasoning and spices available, but I’ll do my best.”

“Your Cooking skill can take care of that, right?”

“There’s no way—actually, I’m not completely sure about that.”

I felt like the Cooking skill would actually be able to solve everything based on the food that Haruka had cooked for us up until now. The food she’s cooked so far with Level 1 Cooking is already delicious enough, so I wonder what’ll happen after she levels up that skill.

“Oh yeah, was it really okay to make that deal with Diola-san for the backpacks, Haruka?” I asked. “Like, does she have the authority to make those kinds of deals?”

“Oh, did you not know this? Diola-san’s actually one of the higher-ups in the Adventurers’ Guild. More specifically, she’s the vice branch master of the guild in this town.”

“Wait, really?”

She definitely didn’t look like she was a new employee at the guild, but I had thought her position couldn’t be any higher than middle management due to her relative youth.

“Yeah. She said she only managed to get the job due to having connections, but it seems like she’s quite skilled at her job regardless.”

“I guess you would have to be skilled in order to reach the position of vice branch master. Why’s a vice branch master also working as a receptionist, though?”

“According to what she said, it was because there aren’t that many people working at the guild. Laffan is big compared to a town like Sarstedt, but it’s still a town in the countryside.”

That probably meant there weren’t that many adventurers here either. Now that I think about it, I guess there aren’t that many staff working at the Adventurers’ Guild. If I don’t include the branch master and the staff who specialize in certain tasks like appraisal, then the total number of staff is probably in the single digits.

“I see. That makes sense. Oh yeah, what are we going to do from tomorrow onward?”

“Well, we’ve resolved the most urgent issue at hand—finding Yuki and Natsuki—so the general course of action from now on is to work towards the long-term goal of earning enough money to fund a safe and stable livelihood for the rest of our lives.”

Touya and I nodded in agreement, and both Yuki and Natsuki put serious expressions on their faces and lowered their heads to us in a courteous manner to express their thanks.

“I’ve said this before, but let me say thanks once again to all three of you for going out of your way to look for me and Natsuki. I don’t want to think about how our lives would’ve turned out if we hadn’t gotten to reunite with you guys...”

“We really appreciate it,” said Natsuki. “If we’d continued to work alone, then we would have probably had to take on some risks, or we might have continued to stay poor for a long time.”

“We’ve said this before too, but don’t worry about it,” said Touya. “We had something to gain from finding you two, so yeah.”

“Mm, we’re glad to have friends we can trust in this world,” said Haruka.

One of the biggest reasons we had finally decided to rent a house was that Yuki and Natsuki were with us now. It was great to have friends who we didn’t have to worry about in terms of actual land mine skills.

“Besides, I would have regretted it for my entire life if I’d left you two on your own. All right, I guess I’ll spend tomorrow helping you two learn how to craft your own backpacks. Nao, Touya, what about you two?”

“Uh, I guess I don’t really have anything to do aside from training,” I said. “I might go take a walk around town too, but that’s about it.”

We had already taken a break to get some rest a few days before, and there weren’t any urgent matters that I needed to deal with. Even if I ended up with some free time to myself, the only thing I could use it on at the moment was just a walk around town.

“Well, in that case, I’ll head out too,” said Touya. “There’s something I want to check out. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. All right, we’ll all go off and do our own things tomorrow, then.”