Chapter 3—Our First Job

We woke up around sunrise the next day and ate breakfast. There wasn’t a clock anywhere, so we couldn’t tell exactly what time it was, but we would’ve probably still been asleep back on Earth. Well, we woke up early because we also went to bed early yesterday. We had been too tired to stay up due to an exhausting first day in this world, and there hadn’t been any bright lights to keep us awake, so we had just gone to bed right away after we finished dinner. If we had wanted candles for light, we would’ve had to pay for them. It was a luxury that we couldn’t afford. We had discussed using magic in place of candles, but we came to the conclusion that it would be dangerous to test our magic indoors the first time we used it, so we scrapped that idea.

On a side note, I had thought I’d woken up early, but by the time I woke up, Haruka was already up and had washed her face and finished preparing for the day. Touya, on the other hand, was still asleep by the time I came back from washing my face at the well. I woke him up right away by playing with his ears. In a way, this was a nice reward for waking up earlier. I mean, sure, they were Touya’s ears, not a cute beastgirl’s, but the feel of them was quite pleasant, yeah.

The breakfast that the unsociable inn owner provided was soup with meat simmered in it, plus some white bread that seemed to contain a lot of rye flour. It looked like some of the breads commonly sold back in Japan. It wasn’t very puffy and was a bit hard, but it tasted decent enough, since it was freshly baked. I could soften the bread by dipping it in the soup, so it was better than sour bread. Touya muttered that he wasn’t sure he could live in this world if this was the kind of bread we had to eat, so he was probably still disgusted by the brown bread we had forced down our throats yesterday. We were able to ask for and get more servings of this white bread for free. The bread was quite thick, though, so just two slices were enough for me. Touya only ate about three to four slices, so he probably felt the same way I did.

“Oh yeah, Touya, Nao, we might not be able to have lunch today, since we don’t have much money.”

Never mind, I’m going to eat as much as I can. Touya and I looked at each other and then started to stuff more bread into our mouths. Haruka was quietly eating extra bread as well.

★★★★★★★★★

After we were done with our “satisfying” breakfast, we headed for the east gate that we had entered this town through. It was early in the morning, so there weren’t many people on the streets. I had already forgotten the name of the guard from yesterday, and he wasn’t at the gate today. It seemed like there were no regulations about inspecting people who were exiting town, so we passed by the guards who were standing at the gate and followed the highway east.

After we had walked for a while, we turned and looked south and saw a forest ahead of us. That was probably the south forest that the guild staff lady had told us about yesterday. It looked closer than the east forest, which required a few more hours of walking to reach.

“Nao, we’re going to the east forest today, okay?”

“Yeah, I know. Safety first, after all.”

Haruka reminded me of our destination when she noticed that I was looking towards the south forest, but I didn’t really need the reminder. I wasn’t reckless enough to dash towards a dangerous-looking forest when the only one among us who had a weapon was Touya.

“Will we get to the east forest if we keep walking along this highway?”

“Yeah. It’ll take about two hours of walking, so it is a bit far, but it’s relatively safe compared to other paths, since we’re walking along a highway.”

It had taken us about an hour to reach town from where we started yesterday, so the forest we were heading towards was about one hour away from that same starting point. That forest was probably the one I had seen yesterday when I first used my Hawk’s Eye skill. Had the evil god actually been kind enough to drop us somewhere relatively safe to start with?

“This trip will take us a total of four hours, since we need to spend another two going back to town, and if we include the time for actually gathering the herbs, then this’ll basically be a day’s work. How much can we actually earn from this, Haruka?” I asked.

“If things go well, then we can probably return by noon. As for how much we can earn, it’s about the equivalent of an ordinary citizen’s daily wage, plus hazard pay. It’s possible to earn a decent amount if you’re good at finding herbs and can search for them in dangerous areas, but normally it’s not easy to earn large amounts of money from herb gathering.”

“That makes sense. If it was possible to get rich from herb gathering, then everyone would become adventurers.”

“Yeah, there’s no such thing as a job that’s both easy and high paying.”

Haruka shrugged with a bitter smile at reality. In a way, it was only natural that something anyone could gather, like herbs, would have a market price that matched the difficulty of gathering them. Nobody would gather herbs if the price was too low, but if the price was too high, more people would gather herbs and eventually drive the price down. The price would even out at the level of an ordinary person’s hourly wage, plus a little extra depending on the person’s skills. It was the same here in this world as it was back on Earth. That was just how the principles of economics worked.

“Things were basically the same for people without special skills or qualifications back on Earth, and I guess it’s no different here in this world,” I said.

“Luckily, we were granted the equivalent of special skills, so let’s get better at using them so that we can earn money more easily in the future,” said Haruka.

“Sounds good to me,” Touya agreed. “I’m not asking for much, but I hope we can eventually earn enough to be able to eat delicious food every day!”

“Yeah, at the very least, we should aim to earn enough that we can keep staying at the inn we’re at,” said Haruka. “I’d also like to avoid having to go back to that stall for food.”

“Definitely. I hope we never have to eat brown bread again. Also, I hope we end up with enough spare money for hot water.”

Yesterday, we had used the water from the well to wash ourselves instead of hot water, since we needed to save money. With the current weather, that was fine, but ideally, we would want to be able to afford hot water during the cold seasons. A bath or shower was out of reach for us and probably a luxury. Well, I do want access to both a bath and a shower in the long term. After all, I am Japanese. It’s probably impossible until we can afford to buy a house, though.

“Oh yeah, are we going to head straight towards the east forest?”

“No, there’s something I want to check first. We’re far enough away that we can’t see the town gate anymore, so right here should be fine. Let’s test out our skills around here before we go any farther.”

Haruka looked back and double-checked how far we were from town, then led us away from the highway into the grassy plains.

“Oh, are you two going to test out your magic?! I wanted to get magic skills too, but I gave up on them, since I didn’t have enough points...”

“Really? Wouldn’t you have had enough points if you didn’t choose to get the Blacksmithing skill?” I asked. “Besides, a Blacksmithing skill might be useful in games, but wouldn’t it be hard to use in real life?”

Blacksmithing seemed like an interesting skill, but there was no way to use it without a workshop and forge. It’s likely that blacksmiths in real life won’t readily let others use their workshops, and I doubt there are any shared workshops like there are in some games. There was also no way we could afford to buy a blacksmith’s workshop. We would have to succeed as adventurers first and save up money.

“Nah, it’s really difficult for beastmen to learn magic. I messed around with some different builds, but the level of magic skills wouldn’t go up without me taking the aptitude skill as well, and if I’d gotten the aptitude skill, then the total cost would have been too much. As for the Blacksmithing skill, well, it sounded cool!”

“Am I supposed to respect you for making skill choices based on whether they sounded cool or not thinking about the fact that your livelihood depended on your choices, Touya...?” Haruka let out a dry laugh in response to Touya’s narrative.

I butted in and stated the truth. “No, this guy’s just an idiot! Touya, you should’ve chosen skills that would help you survive! ‘Cool’ skills won’t help you earn anything!”

“Come on, hear me out for a second! I actually thought this through! See, I planned on doing things together with you two as a party, so I thought about the possibility of being unable to fight due to our weapons wearing out over time, so 10 Points for this skill sounded like a good idea.”

“Really? My bad, then. Sorry for calling you an idiot.”

It seemed like Touya had actually had a reason for his decision. I asked him for more details, and apparently beastmen needed to spend at least 30 Points to get just one magic skill to Level 1. That was way more expensive than the 10 Points that elves needed for the same result. Touya had figured that the best use of his remaining 10 Points was the Blacksmithing skill. I guess it wasn’t a bad choice, since there are games where gear has a durability stat and is destroyed if that bar is fully depleted.

Haruka, however, had no mercy for Touya. “Isn’t it pointless in real life, though? You can’t fix anything without a forge. The best you could do would be sharpening blades, and that’s it.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Well, we don’t have any weapons to sharpen at the moment, nor do we have a whetstone for sharpening, but just wait until my skill becomes useful later on!”

“Mm, the only weapon we have right now is a club,” I said.

“Yep. Actually, wait, no, it’s a wooden sword. It is technically shaped like a sword.” Touya apparently needed to consider his weapon a sword for his Weapon Proficiency: Swords skill.

“W-Well, the knife we have will probably be very useful for gutting prey, so we’re relying on you to keep it sharp.” Touya was looking a bit dejected based on the way his animal ears were drooping. Haruka seemed to pity him enough that she tried to cheer him up. We need to get a whetstone first, though.

“Okay, let’s test our physical abilities first,” said Haruka. “We don’t have a tape measure or a stopwatch, so let’s just perform some athletic tests and move our bodies around.”

“Yeah, we won’t have specific numbers, but we’ll at least get a rough idea,” I said.

We all went along with Haruka’s idea and performed tests like sprints, vertical jumps, side steps, long jumps, and throwing rocks. As a result of our tests, we found out that Touya had impressive physical abilities.

“How do you feel, Touya?” Haruka asked.

“I feel great! This body’s amazing! It’s exactly what I thought my ideal beastman should be!”

Touya hopped around in delight. His hops went higher than my chest height, so it was quite obvious that he was far more nimble than he used to be back in Japan. Haruka and I weren’t as agile as Touya, but we both could at least reach waist height with our jumps, so our bodies were definitely stronger than they had been back on Earth.

“Our bodies are also stronger than they were before,” I said. “We’re definitely slimmer as well.”

“Mm, I performed well for the athletics tests too,” said Haruka. “We’re elves, so our physical abilities probably have nothing to do with our race, and we didn’t get any skills that would increase our strength. Does that mean the evil god boosted our physical abilities?”

“Yeah, that would make sense. It would be easier to compare if we were still humans, but there’s still a significant difference.”

The description for the elf race mentioned that they had less physical strength than humans, but our new bodies were all definitely stronger than our original bodies. It was possible that the Robust skill made a difference too, but that would only be a factor if the “increased resilience” that the guide mentioned also included stamina.

“Perhaps the physical abilities of the average human in this world are significantly greater than the average back on Earth...” said Haruka.

“Does that really matter?” I asked. “All that matters is that we’re stronger instead of weaker!”

“Well, yeah, that’s true, I guess. It’s not really something for us to worry about.” Haruka seemed like she wanted to pursue that train of thought further, but she apparently decided to ignore it and suggested the next course of action: “All right, let’s try out magic next.”

“Nice, it’s time to see some cool stuff!”

“Oh, Touya, just practice swinging your sword while we do this. You can watch us practice magic if you want, but make sure you’re decently far away.”

“Oh, come on!” Touya’s voice was full of discontent, but Haruka was just giving him advice to stay safe.

“You don’t want to be burnt to a crisp, right? We don’t know if we can actually control our magic yet. Nao, let’s both move farther away and head in different directions before we start practicing.”

“Yeah, we should be careful with magic, since we’re unfamiliar with it. You’ll get plenty of chances to see us use magic in the future, Touya, so just restrain yourself for now.”

“Sure, all right. I don’t want to risk dying, so I’ll stay here.”

“Okay then, I’ll be going over here to practice,” Haruka said, then turned and walked away.

I turned my back to her and checked my skills in my status display screen. The magic skills I had were Time Magic and Fire Magic. I could only use six different spells at the moment. From Time Magic, I could use Heavy Weight, Light Weight, Accelerate Time, and Slow Time. From Fire Magic, I could use Ignite and Fire Arrow. I had learned about this at the same time I got the Time Magic and Fire Magic skills; it was nice that the system had taught me about what kind of spells they were. Based on the information I had in front of me, it seemed like you would learn two spells for every level of a specific magic skill. That doesn’t seem like much at all. Well, I guess it’s different from some games where you’d have to spend stuff like MP to cast spells for a certain amount of damage, so it’s more flexible in a way? Let’s just test things out first.

“Okay, let’s test Ignite first. It doesn’t seem that dangerous even if I mess up.”

I gathered mana at my fingertips. It was my first time doing it, so it was kind of weird that I knew how it worked right away. I guess it was also weird that I could communicate just fine in this world, so there was no point in overthinking it.

“Ignite.” I heard a crackling sound as a spark appeared at my fingertips. It vanished right away, leaving a trail of smoke in the air. I didn’t see any actual fire.

“Was that not enough mana? I’ll gather a bit more, then, and try again. Ignite!”

My fingertips flared up as soon as I cast the spell.

“Whoa! Yikes, that was dangerous! I almost had to say goodbye to some strands of hair on my forehead...”

I had succeeded in creating a fire, but it was stronger than I had thought it would be, and I hastily turned my face away from the heat. This is actually kind of hard. I need to have a clearer image in my mind. Something like the gentle flow of water from my fingertips...

“Ignite.”

A calm and steady flame appeared at my fingertips.

“Nice, I succeeded! Now this is more like it for a spell called Ignite!”

The closest I could get to describing it was as a candle flame at my fingertips. It wavered but continued to burn.

“Hmm, I wonder if I can mix it up for a different result. Something like a turbo lighter or blowtorch flame would be interesting.”

The flame currently burning at my fingertips seemed like it would be enough to set fire to dry leaves but not charcoal or firewood. I put out the flame and then gathered mana at my fingertips again and imagined it spraying outward.

“Ignite!”

Flames burst from my fingertips.

“Nice, just what I had in mind!”

They were blue flames, similar to a blowtorch. The flame burned intensely about ten centimeters from the tips of my fingers.

“This should be enough firepower for charcoal... Wait, that’s enough!”

I felt something rapidly depleting inside me, so I hastily put out the flame.

“Whew, that was close. That was mana, right? I guess that means the amount of mana required scales with how potent a spell is. That does make sense.”

There wasn’t a way for me to check exactly how much mana I had left, but that mana depletion speed felt dangerous. I would probably have run out of mana if I had kept that flame going for another minute or so.

“Oh well, I guess I’ll drop this idea. I might be able to use Ignite like this when I get better at magic, but I should probably just use a weaker flame to light fire for now.”

There was probably no such thing as a firelighter in this world. With that in mind, it would probably be a good idea to gather dry leaves, branches, and bark. It would be inconvenient if we couldn’t find them when we actually needed to start a bonfire.

“Okay, time to try a different spell like Fire Arrow. I’ll just aim for the ground over there.”

I walked ten steps forward and drew a circle on the ground and then returned to where I had been standing before. How should I do it this time? The spell name has the word arrow in it, so something like a charge up and release...

“Fire Arrow!”

I extended my palm out in front of me and imagined mana shooting out. Right away, I heard an explosive sound.

A fire arrow shot out from my palm and landed right next to the circle I had drawn on the ground.

“Wow, I succeeded on my first try this time! My aim was fairly accurate too, so I’ll probably be able to get good use out of this after a bit more practice.”

I fired a few more shots with differing amounts of mana to test things out. As a result, I learned how to concentrate and create fire arrows with a diameter of twenty centimeters. Soon I could accurately hit targets within a distance of ten steps. I also got the hang of adjusting the potency of my fire arrows somewhat.

“Whew. All right, all that’s left is Time Magic, but I don’t think I have much mana left...”

I only had a rough feel for how much mana I had left, but considering how much mana I had used already plus how tired I felt, I would definitely run out of mana if I practiced all of my Time Magic spells. It would be a bad idea to drain my mana completely when I still had to go gather herbs afterwards.

“I can probably just try out Heavy Weight and Light Weight for now, although I feel like it’ll be hard to tell how much of a difference they make.”

Heavy Weight made its target heavier and Light Weight made its target lighter, just as their names implied. I picked up a rock near my feet and then cast Heavy Weight on it, using only a small amount of mana.

“I guess it’s a bit heavier than it was originally...?”

I could tell a slight difference when I held the rock, but that was about it. The spell didn’t last long, so it didn’t seem very useful at all. Maybe it could be useful for setting a trap, like one that would trigger a rock to fall on someone, and then I could cast Heavy Weight on the rock before it landed. I tried out Light Weight too, but it was kind of useless as well. It could be useful for making boulders lighter if they were blocking a path, but that would probably require a lot of mana.

“That should be it for now.”

I felt fatigue coursing through my body after I finished testing my magic, so I was about to take a break and rest, but then...

“Are you done?”

“W-Whoa! O-Oh, it’s you?”

I suddenly heard a voice from behind me and panicked. I spun around and saw that it was Haruka. I did have the Scout skill, but it hadn’t done anything at all. It was probably either because I hadn’t been paying attention or just because it wasn’t an enemy approaching me. I’m lucky it was Haruka this time. It would’ve been very bad if it had been an enemy that I didn’t notice. Yeah, I should stay alert when outside of town. As for Touya, he was somewhat far away behind Haruka and was still concentrating on swinging around his wooden sword. It looked like he was performing a sword dance, though I wasn’t sure if that was the result of a skill or not. His moves didn’t seem like a beginner’s; they were fluid and masterful.

“How did it go, Nao?” Haruka asked. “Can you use offensive magic properly?”

“Well, Ignite can act like a flint for lighting a fire. As for offensive magic, Fire Arrow should be fine. I’m not sure if I can actually land it on a moving target, though. Time Magic’s not really that useful at the moment. I might be able to extend the duration of time spells and carry more materials if I have spare mana, I guess. What about you, Haruka?”

“Light Magic spells seem like they’ll be quite useful, especially since they include healing spells. I can’t heal serious injuries yet, though, so keep that in mind. My Wind and Water Magic are both only Level 1, so they’re not really usable in combat. I can create water, though, so that’ll be useful for daily life.”

“So how did the tests go as far as combat use?”

“No good results. All I can do right now is create sounds to distract enemies and splash water on enemies to surprise them. I’ll need to get my hands on a bow as soon as I can to be able to contribute to a fight.”

“Nah, the fact that you can use healing spells is more than enough contribution. Besides, Touya and I have been relying on you for everything outside of combat.”

Haruka seemed a bit troubled by the fact that she couldn’t really help with combat, but it was perfectly fine for her to leave all the fighting to us for a while. She had always been more reliable than either of us, and now she was even more so due to her General Knowledge skill. It was very reassuring to have her help. I did feel a bit ashamed of myself as a guy for relying so much on her, though. Also, I was extremely scared of injuries. Being unable to work was a straight path to homelessness. That meant Haruka’s ability to heal was extremely valuable.

“Oh yeah, I noticed that the potency of spells seems to depend on how much mana you use. Is it the same for healing spells?”

“It is, but there’s more to it. Touya needs to know about this too. Touya! Stop your swinging practice for now and come over here!”

“Oh, are you two done testing your magic? How did it go?”

As soon as he heard Haruka’s words, Touya stopped his practice and walked over to us, wiping sweat off his brow. I thought his moves had looked masterful earlier, and he gave off the aura of a strong and skilled swordsman already. That was weird, considering that he had never even practiced kendo back in Japan. If this was thanks to his Swordsmanship and Weapon Proficiency: Swords skills, then the effect of skills on our capabilities was probably extremely significant.

“Yeah, I found out that I can use simple offensive magic just fine,” I said. “What about you, Touya? You seem quite different.”

“Yeah, it’s like my body just knows what to do. I’m not mentally prepared, but I’m definitely confident in my physical moves. Weapon Proficiency: Swords and Level 3 Swordsmanship turned out to be amazing!”

Touya laughed out of joy at his newfound capabilities. I had no idea whether Level 3 was considered low or high in this world, but it was definitely not the equivalent of a beginner. I’m looking forward to seeing you in action as our frontline tank, Touya.

“I’ll be focusing on healing for now,” said Haruka. “On that topic, there’s something I want both of you to keep in mind. The potency of spells increases with the amount of mana spent, but it only changes the area of effect for healing spells, so be careful.”

Touya gave some thought to Haruka’s statement, but he couldn’t figure it out, so he asked Haruka to explain further. “What do you mean?”

“For example, if you get cuts all over your body, Touya, I can heal all of your wounds at once with a Level 1 Light Cure as long as I use a lot of mana when I cast it. However, if one of your arteries or blood vessels gets injured from a deep stab wound, then I won’t be able to heal it with Light Cure no matter how much mana I use. I’ll have to use the higher tier spell, Cure, to be able to heal you in that case.”

“So basically, I can’t fight like a berserker or aim to trade wounds with my opponent, right? Instead of taking risky opportunities to deal big damage, I should slowly and carefully chip away at my opponent. Okay.”

“Yeah. Also, protect your limbs above all, okay? There’s almost nobody who can heal dismembered limbs, so it’s basically impossible to heal. With healing magic, it’s more dangerous to lose a finger than to get stabbed in the chest.”

“Right, I’ll be careful.”

So it’s more dangerous to lose a finger than to suffer a potentially fatal wound? I guess that means it’s more dangerous to get stabbed in situations where Haruka can’t heal us. When the time comes, I’m not sure if I can make decisions like that calmly, but I should do my best to be careful as well.

“While we’re at it, I might as well also explain some common knowledge about magic.”

“Wait, now? Shouldn’t you have explained that before we started practicing?” I could use magic just fine now.

“There’s a reason I didn’t mention this earlier, of course. I’ll explain that reason later. First, do you two remember what I said about how the existence of skills and levels isn’t common knowledge?”

Oh yeah, she had said something about how people of this world couldn’t easily check their skills and levels like we could with our status display screens. Wait, I thought the level of your magic skills determined what spells you could use. What about the people of this world, then?

“Nao seems to have realized what I’m getting at. The people of this world don’t know about the existence of spells that become available at certain levels.”

The way people of this world learned magic was via grimoires or from someone who could teach them magic directly. Well, normal grimoires just contained information about the potency of certain spells and what they would do. They were basically something like general textbooks for magic. That meant that for the people of this world, the level system was just an indicator of the spells that they could use by following the directions in a grimoire, instead of a system that unlocked spells with each increased level.

“So, to put it in simpler terms, levels for magic indicate the most difficult magic you can use and not what kinds of magic you can use?”

“Yes. I didn’t mention this at first because I thought you would be able to come up with different ways to use spells. Was I right?”

“Well...”

If I had been told at first that Ignite could only conjure a candle flame at my fingertips, I would have probably have used it only for that. I guess testing out magic on our own was the right thing to do to avoid being stuck with preconceptions about how it “should” work.

“I still don’t really get it, but I guess it doesn’t matter?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. It’s not like we can really compare now,” Haruka said with a rueful smile.

This might be just one way of thinking about magic, but since we can’t compare the two different ways of learning magic under the same conditions, it’s hard to tell which one’s better. Well, all that mattered was that I had figured out how to use different variations of Ignite, so everything was okay.

Touya had been listening quietly as we discussed magic. He asked, “Wait, so does that mean you can create your own unique spells that aren’t listed in any grimoires?”

Haruka nodded in response.

“Yes, although it depends on how much mana you have and how much control you have over magic.”

“Whoa, seriously?! That’s wild! Man, I kinda regret not getting magic skills now...”

“Just to be clear, it’s not normal to be able to use magic easily. Nao and I can use the spells listed under our magic skills along with different variations on those spells, but it’s probably only because the evil god designed the system this way for us.”

In order to learn magic, you would normally have to follow a fixed process like the instructions in a grimoire to cast a specific spell and then practice that process over and over until you could reliably cast that spell without any problems. In our case, we had been reincarnated into this world with a skill system that let us reliably cast spells depending on the level of our skills. That meant we could immediately use the magic that was available to us with no difficulties, and it wouldn’t be hard for us to use different variations either. Well, that’s Haruka’s theory, at least.

“What this means is that if we want to learn new magic, then we’ll have to practice it just like every other mage in this world.”

Haruka had tried to imagine and cast a spell that she couldn’t easily use under her highest level magic skill, Light Magic, but apparently she hadn’t gotten anywhere close to performing it successfully. I guess it would be wishful thinking to believe that we could immediately use new spells just by leveling up our magic skills.

“If you want to get better at using a sword, Touya, then you might need to find someone who can teach you, or just train hard by yourself,” said Haruka.

“Well, actually, Touya already has the Swordsmanship skill, so it’s not like he’s learning from scratch by himself,” I said. “It’s as if he knows the basics already. What’s it like, Touya?”

“Yeah, my body just knows how to move and what to do. I’m not sure if it’s tracing the moves of a specific sword style. All I know is that skills are awesome!”

Touya swung around his wooden sword to show off. I have skills too, like Weapon Proficiency: Spears and Level 2 Spearmanship, so will I be able to move around fluidly like Touya? It doesn’t feel real at all.

“Well, if we can all become that agile thanks to our skills, then we should be fine in the east forest,” I said. “We spent quite some time practicing, so should we jog our way to the forest to save time?”

“Sure, I’m down,” said Touya. “In a way, it’s a good thing that all we have is our clothes and a wooden sword and no luggage to slow us down!”

“Yeah, we should gather as many herbs as we can, or else we might end up being unable to even stay at an inn.”

“Well, I think we’ll be able to earn enough to stay at an inn, but we’ll have to scrape a living day by day if we don’t save up money,” said Haruka. “Jogging’s fine with me too, but don’t go so fast that we can’t talk during the jog. We also need energy left after we reach the forest.”

“Okay,” I said. “Hopefully we can finish things and return to town quickly.”

It felt like we had spent an hour here practicing. We had no food on us, so we would have to return to town in time if we wanted to eat lunch. However, if we stopped gathering herbs too early, then we could end up being unable to stay at an inn, and it would also affect our ability to pay for meals from the next day onwards. It was a predicament that provided a lot of motivation.

★★★★★★★★★

We all started jogging down the road. Actually, the speed at which we “jogged” would have been considered pretty fast back on Earth. Eventually, we saw a forest in front of us and to our right. The edge of the forest was about ten meters away from the highway, and we couldn’t see the other end of the forest from where we were standing. That meant the forest was quite wide and covered a few kilometers at the very least.

“Is that our destination?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Haruka replied.

“Just how wide is this forest? It looks quite wide from here.”

“No idea. I didn’t look up that information. All we need to know is that we won’t encounter dangerous monsters as long as we don’t go too deep into the forest, so let’s gather herbs near the highway.”

“Okay.”

We discovered old tree stumps when we got closer to the forest, so the trees bordering the highway seemed to have been cut down.

“It looks like timber was gathered from this area, since there are a lot of tree stumps left here,” I said.

“Hmm, or maybe the trees were actually cut down to make the highway safer,” said Haruka. “After all, if there were trees right next to a highway, then that would be a perfect spot for animals or bandits to hide, right?”

“Oh yeah, that makes sense.”

An open and clear roadside with nowhere to hide would definitely be safer, since there would be less risk of a sudden ambush. I gave another look at the trees that remained in the area and saw that they weren’t broadleaf trees or very thick. They would be okay for firewood, but they wouldn’t be good timber at all.

“Okay, let’s get started with gathering herbs,” said Haruka.

“Right, let’s—wait, I don’t know what herbs look like,” said Touya.

“Uh, same here,” I said.

I messed up. I should’ve asked back at the Adventurers’ Guild instead of leaving everything to Haruka.

“It’s fine, probably.”

“Oh, can you teach us about herbs, Haruka?”

“No, I only have a rough idea of what herbs look like from my General Knowledge skill. I have an idea, though. Nao, look at this grass here and say the words ‘I want to know about this’ in your head.”

“Hmm? Sure, I guess...”

Haruka pointed at a blade of grass as she gave me instructions. I was a bit confused, but I did what she told me to do, looking at the grass where she was pointing. As soon as I did, a semitransparent tag window appeared in the air, overlaid on the grass. The word “Herb” was written in the window.

“Huh? What’s this? Did we already have access to a function window like this?”

It looked like an augmented reality display window from science fiction works. I guess it’s not too out of place considering that we have status display windows, but still...

“Wait, what are you talking about? I don’t see anything.”

I was pointing at the herb while I spoke to Haruka, but Touya seemed completely lost as he looked back and forth between my face and the spot I was pointing at. Haruka listened to what we both said and nodded as if she had come to a conclusion.

“Okay, so I was right. I just noticed this earlier, but this is probably a function of the Help Guide. The things you can find out with this function are more or less the same as the information from the General Knowledge skill. That’s why I didn’t notice this function existed until now, because I already know information without having to think about things actively.”

“Oh, I basically forgot about the Help Guide up until now, but I guess it really was worth the price of 20 Points. This’ll help a lot with gathering herbs. On a side note, I can’t believe I was so careless...”

I had been a bit oblivious to how serious our situation was due to having a reliable childhood friend with me who I could count on. Skills were our lifelines in this world, so I should have tested them out more thoroughly.

“Wait, so is my Appraisal skill useless, then?”

“Well, Touya, try using your Appraisal on this.”

Touya looked a bit sad, since he thought he wouldn’t be useful for gathering herbs, but Haruka showed him some herbs on her palm that looked like chives.

“Hm? Oh, a display window came up. Apparently this is an herb called Hawart, and it’s used as an ingredient in ointments?”

Touya seemed a bit confused as he described what he saw, but Haruka was satisfied with what she heard.

“I see... So Appraisal gives more information than the Help Guide. The Help Guide’s function is just an auxiliary one—augmenting what the user knows already—while Appraisal’s function is to analyze the target, so that’s probably where the difference comes from.”

If one already knew about what one was looking for, the Help Guide’s function would easily distinguish between herbs and normal grass. On the other hand, Appraisal would analyze each plant one by one and then try to match them with the correct entry from a database or encyclopedia. That was evident from the way Touya’s Appraisal could tell which grass plants were herbs as long as he was looking at a single plant in isolation—a plant that had already been plucked. It wasn’t very useful or efficient for herb-gathering purposes, sadly.

“Yeah, it’s very important to experiment and test our skills,” I said. “The ones where I don’t know anything about how they work are Scout and Third Eye.”

Scout seems like a very important skill, so I should test it out as soon as I can. As for Third Eye, I’m pretty sure Haruka has that skill as well.

“Oh yeah, Haruka, have you already tested out your Third Eye skill?” I asked.

“Yes, of course. It’s a skill that lets me check how strong a target is—or rather, it displays their status screen for me. However, it’s not really effective against people who are very strong. When I used it on rookie adventurers, it let me see their skills, but when I used it on people who looked like veterans, the only information I got was that they were probably strong.”

Whoa, she easily surpassed my expectations. I didn’t think she had already tested it out. It was kind of inconvenient that the skill didn’t work on strong people, but it was still useful to know that it would let its user find out whether or not a target was actually stronger than them.

“Well, I also need to test Third Eye out on monsters to see what happens, in case there are any differences.”

“That makes sense. I guess that leaves the Scout skill, then. I’ll test it out.”

For some reason, I felt like I already knew how to use the skill, so I went ahead and set it to search around the vicinity. I thought a map screen like a radar would pop up, but nothing like that appeared. The skill seemed like it was just able to detect roughly where other living beings were, their vital signs, and whether or not they were hostile. It didn’t feel like it was expending mana like when I used magic, but I felt like I was slowly accumulating fatigue from concentrating on a delicate process, so it was probably a difficult skill to use for a long time.

“How did it go?”

“Well, it let me detect the presence of other living beings, but it didn’t let me know exactly how hostile they were,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, I can detect something similar as well,” said Touya.

“I see—wait, you don’t have the Scout skill, right?!”

“Yeah, I don’t!”

“Man, does that mean my Scout skill is pointless...?”

Dude, I spent 10 Points on this skill! If something like the sixth sense of a beastman can do the same thing, then why did I bother getting this?!

“It’s probably just a racial trait of beastmen, so don’t worry too much about it,” said Haruka. “Also, if you’re already capable of that as is, Touya, then you might be able to obtain the Scout skill eventually. I can’t detect anything on my end.”

“Yep, sounds about right. Besides, it’s not a bad thing to have more bodies for scouting, right, Nao?”

“I mean, yeah, but still...” It made sense, but it didn’t sit well with me for some reason.

“Well, it’s a good thing that there are no hostile beings nearby,” said Haruka. “However, we’ll have to hunt down some game for lunch, and monsters might approach as we’re gathering herbs, so check again when you two see fit, okay?”

It sounded like we were going to hunt out here instead of skipping lunch.

“So we’re going to eat wild game meat for lunch?” Touya asked.

“Yes. We could also try to eat some of the wild grasses around here, but they’re not really edible unless we can turn them into some kind of vegetable tempura.”

“That makes sense, since most wild vegetables have a really bitter taste,” I said. “Besides, vegetable tempura made from wild grass won’t really have any flavor. It’ll just taste like batter and whatever seasoning you use.”

There were very few wild vegetables that were actually satisfying to the stomach. They were considered delicacies back in Japan, so they were often offered at traditional inns, but I probably wouldn’t have bought them if they had been sold at supermarkets as regular vegetables. That’s all there was to them.

“We can’t even make tempura, since we don’t have any flour or oil,” said Haruka. “All we have is some salt. If we can’t hunt anything down, then we’ll be skipping lunch. Let’s do our best, okay?”

“Okay!” we exclaimed.

It would be painful to skip lunch. Touya and I were relying on Haruka to do the gutting work, so the very least we could do was take care of the hunting.

“Yo, Touya, what should we hunt for? Or rather, does your beastman sixth sense thing tell you if there’s any prey nearby?”

“Nah, I just know how big or small they are. Also, how are we going to hunt down our prey? The only weapon we have is my wooden sword, right? We don’t know if your Fire Arrow is actually useful for hunting, Nao.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Game won’t be edible if my Fire Arrow chars it to a crisp.”

“Right? That means birds would be difficult to catch. Small animals like rabbits will probably manage to get away from us. That leaves things like wild boars or deer. We might get attacked back, but how does that sound?”

“Sounds good. Well, that’s if those animals exist in this world.”

“Yeah.”

Touya and I had been engrossed in discussing our hunting plans, so Haruka clapped her hands to get our attention. “Okay, that’s enough for now, you two. It’s good to discuss how and what to hunt, but we need to gather herbs first. The amount we end up gathering will decide whether or not we’ll be able to sleep in a bed or on the ground tonight.” She pointed at the ground. “I don’t know how many types of herbs there are here, but there seem to be quite a lot, so just gather every herb you find.”

“Okay. It should be easy to gather herbs now that you told me about that function of the Help Guide.”

I focused and looked at the ground. The Help Guide told me which plants were herbs right away. This would save me a lot of time, since I didn’t have to try to tell herbs apart from normal grass.

“Uh, what about me...?”

“You can help sort the herbs we gather based on their type, Touya. We’ll also leave you the role of watching out for any approaching danger.”

“Hm? Wait, is it actually necessary for me to sort herbs with my Appraisal skill? We’ll be able to sell all of them if we bring them back to the guild, right?”

“Yes, but there might be some plants that are hard to distinguish. For example, there might be two that are both useful and look similar but are completely different. Also, it’s good to know the effects of different herbs. I might be able to use some for my Alchemy skill if we end up with spares.”

Oh yeah, there are some plants like that where it’s hard to tell them apart even with an explanation.

“All right, I understand now. I’ll watch out for danger, so good luck with gathering herbs, you two!”

Touya’s ears perked up, and he raised his sword to show that he was on guard. However, things weren’t going to be that easy for him.

“You can help gather the herbs that are easy to tell apart, Touya,” I said.

“Yeah, and besides, since you have a sixth sense of a beastman, you can be on guard even while you’re gathering, right?” said Haruka.

As soon as Haruka and I pointed that out, Touya’s ears drooped. He bent over and silently began to separate blades of grass.

★★★★★★★★★

It had been about an hour since we started gathering herbs. We had been able to gather a decent amount thanks to the Help Guide. In addition, the Appraisal skill turned out to be way more useful than we had thought it would be.

Touya pointed out midway through that it wasn’t necessarily only the leaves of plants that were used for medicinal purposes. There were a surprising number of herbs whose other parts—like the roots, flowers, and seeds—were used for medicinal purposes, so it was pointless to just rip off the leaves. The leaves by themselves wouldn’t even go for a single Rea. What that meant was that most of the herbs we had gathered up to that point were basically rubbish. Most of them didn’t have flowers or seeds, and it was impossible to go back and dig up their roots, since we couldn’t remember where exactly we had gathered all of them. Also, we didn’t have a spade for digging, so even if we had remembered, we wouldn’t have been able to dig them up anyway. We might have tried to dig with a small branch if they were herbs that actually sold for a lot, but there was no way herbs that anybody could easily gather here would be that valuable.

On the bright side, we had only been gathering for about five minutes when Touya noticed this issue and pointed it out. The Help Guide hadn’t mentioned anything about roots and seeds, so we had been blissfully unaware that we were about to gather a bunch of rubbish and turn it in at the Adventurers’ Guild before Touya caught wind of the problem. It would’ve been great if he had noticed from the beginning, but he had saved us from wasting any more time, since he was the only one of us with Appraisal, so that made us even. However, we told him to read everything that the Appraisal skill mentioned next time so that this wouldn’t happen again.

After that, we memorized the medicinal herbs that we only needed the leaves from and focused exclusively on gathering those. As a side note, the General Knowledge skill that Haruka had didn’t mention anything about this aspect of herbs either. In a way, that made sense. For example, I knew chameleon plants could be used as herbs, but I didn’t know how to use them as herbs. That was probably the difference between common knowledge and specialized knowledge.

While we were silently gathering herbs, Touya suddenly lifted his head. “Nao, do you notice a signal, kind of like a ping on a radar?”

Signal?

“Oh!” I totally forgot! Like, yeah, it was Touya’s job to be on guard, but even so, I got way too absorbed in what I was doing! I hurriedly used my Scout skill to look for the signal Touya had found. There was indeed something approaching us. I didn’t know what it was, but it definitely wasn’t a small animal. The skill didn’t seem to identify it as hostile, but it didn’t feel like a harmless creature either.

“What should we do?” Touya asked. “Should we confront it?”

“Well, if it’s not a strange creature, then it’ll be our lunch. Haruka, can you fall back a bit towards the highway?”

“Okay. Be careful.”

Haruka stopped gathering herbs right away and took shelter atop a tree about ten meters away from us. The way she hopped up that tree with ease looked quite natural for an elf, but it still seemed kind of weird to me, since it was Haruka. She had been decently athletic before, but she had never been the type to climb trees.

“Nao, get ready. What should we do?”

“Hmm. I’ll also take shelter up a tree. Good luck, Touya!”

“Wait, you’re telling me to do this alone?!”

“I mean, I don’t have a weapon, so yeah. I’ll back you up with my Fire Arrow if things start looking bad. It doesn’t seem to be a monster, so you’ll probably be fine, right?”

Touya seemed shocked, but I ignored him, and following Haruka’s example, I climbed the tree that was closest to me. I had only climbed trees a few times in the past, but my elf body seemed to know what to do and led me to a sturdy branch. I stood on that branch and looked down. I could feel a presence approaching, but I couldn’t see what it was even from this vantage point; the forest was too dense. Just to be clear, I didn’t run away because I was scared, nope. I had no choice, since I don’t have a weapon.

“Fine, leave this to me,” said Touya. “It’s time for action! Oh, but make sure you help me out if things really get bad, okay?”

“Yeah, relax, I got your back. Even if you get injured, Haruka can heal you, so take it easy.”

“I don’t want to get injured...”

After having said that, Touya hid behind a bush. We waited for a while in silence, and eventually, something appeared on what seemed to be an animal trail. It looked like a wild boar. At least, I thought it was probably a boar. How was I supposed to know? I had only seen boars at the zoo before! They weren’t interesting to look at, so back then, I’d only ever taken a glance and then ignored them. This boar was a bit less than two meters tall, and it had fifty-centimeter tusks curving upward from its jaw. Wait, do boars have tusks that large? Oh yeah, I can check with the Help Guide. Let’s see... “Animal (Edible)”...?

What the hell?! That’s way too ambiguous! I almost shouted at the top of my lungs, but I managed to restrain myself. It was a natural reaction. Well, the Help Guide said it was edible, so at least that means it would be good for lunch. The boar continued walking forward normally regardless of what I was thinking, but it stopped near where Touya was hiding and started to snuffle. As soon as the boar started doing that, Touya jumped out of the bush and swung his wooden sword at the boar’s head. A dull crack vibrated through the air when the attack landed.

“Tsk!”

It looked like Touya had gotten a clean hit in, but he clicked his tongue in frustration and fell back. The boar shook its head lightly and snorted angrily, and then it glared at Touya. We probably didn’t have to worry about the boar running away, but at the same time, it didn’t seem like it had taken any damage. If a clean hit like that didn’t do anything, then maybe this was going to go badly...?

“Touya! Do you think you’ll be okay?”

“I have no idea! I’ll just do my best!”

I guess that was all he could say, since it was his first time in combat. What should I do to back him up? Heavy Weight might slow the boar down, but it also might increase the damage Touya suffers if the boar rams him. Maybe Slow Time would be a good idea. It’ll be my first time using it, but thankfully, I’ve recovered most of my mana by now. Besides, even if I fail to use Slow Time properly, it probably won’t do too much harm.

“Slow Time!”

I extended my hands out towards the boar and cast the spell. The boar glowed dimly for a moment. Its movements seemed a bit slower than before—or well, I hoped that was the case.

“Touya, I think I slowed the boar down a little! Don’t expect too much, though—give it everything you’ve got!”

“H-Huh? Well, thanks!”

Touya responded with a doubtful expression to the weird way I described it, but he still thanked me for the help. I mean, come on, how am I supposed to tell if there’s a difference when the boar hasn’t actually done anything yet? It’d be easier to tell if it was in the middle of charging or something like that.

“All right, let’s give it a go! Charge!”

The moment Touya yelled those words, he blurred out of visibility from pure speed and then appeared in front of the boar with his sword stabbed deep in its eye.

The boar screeched in pain and writhed in agony as it collapsed to the ground. Touya pulled out his wooden sword and took a step backwards before the boar collapsed. The boar continued to writhe around for a bit, but eventually it stopped. Soon its only movements were muscle spasms. I see. He aimed for the brain via the boar’s eye sockets since its skull was too hard to break through. That’s quite logical, yes, but I can’t believe you managed to pull it off on your first try, Touya!

“Is it dead?”

“Probably?”

I remained on top of the tree while I asked Touya. He didn’t sound very sure. He moved closer to the boar and poked it with his wooden sword.

“Yeah, it looks dead to me.”

The boar was motionless aside from the spasms in its legs, so I hopped down from the tree now that I knew it was safe.

“Well, that’s our first victory,” I said.

“Yeah, but like, how do I put it? I’m happy about this, but at the same time, I don’t feel too good either...”

“Mm, we’ve never actually killed another living being with our own hands before.”

It almost goes without saying, but most people who lead normal lives rarely get in situations where they have to kill another living being. If one doesn’t count things like insects, then the closest thing would be killing fresh fish, but most people don’t experience that either, unless they go fishing for food. Touya and I fell silent as we stood before the dead boar.

“Stop spacing out and get to work, you two. We need to drain the boar’s blood.”

“Oh, Haruka.”

Haruka suddenly appeared right next to us. She took out a knife as she approached the boar.

“We’ve already indirectly killed animals for our meals back on Earth, remember? There’s no reason to consider that any different from this, right?” Haruka stabbed the boar in its neck and started to drain its blood as she said that. She checked the flow of blood with an expressionless face and then cut open the boar’s stomach to extract its internal organs.

“It would be easier to do this if we strung the boar up first, but oh well. You two better watch closely, okay? You both need to be able to do this eventually.”

Ugh, do I really have to do this...? An acidic taste welled up in my throat at the sight of the large puddle of spilled blood on the ground and the pungent smell of the boar’s internal organs. I glanced at Touya standing next to me, and he had gone pale at the sight. I probably looked just like him.

“Oh, I messed up. We don’t have a tool for digging a hole.” While she looked around, Haruka explained that the boar’s corpse might attract other wild animals if we didn’t bury it. Eventually, her eyes landed on Touya’s wooden sword.

“N-No, please! Not my sword!”

Touya quickly hid his sword away when he noticed Haruka’s gaze, but Haruka shrugged and shook her head.

“I would’ve snatched it right away if it was a broadsword made out of metal, but your sword isn’t much different from a stick.”

Broadswords were basically a blunt weapon, so one wouldn’t have to worry about a broadsword losing its edge even if one used it to dig holes. Japanese swords, on the other hand, wouldn’t fare so well. Touya seemed a bit unhappy that Haruka was treating his wooden sword as nothing more than a stick, but he kept quiet in case she changed her mind and decided to use it after all.

“I’ll leave the hole digging to you two while I work on this boar. As for how... Well, good luck.”

“Okay.”

It would probably be quite difficult to dig a hole large enough for the boar without a proper tool, but Haruka was doing the hard work of gutting it, so we had to contribute somehow. Touya and I gathered branches and rocks from our surroundings and then attempted to dig a hole using those. We were in the middle of a forest, so the ground wasn’t very hard to dig into, but it would take quite some time to dig regardless, since we didn’t have the right tool for the job.

“If there were a river nearby, we could chill this meat, but I guess we’ll have to make do with just rinsing it off instead.”

While Touya and I were struggling with our assignment, Haruka continued hers smoothly. She skinned off the boar’s fur, then she sliced the meat into even pieces and lined them up on the ground. After that, she rinsed the pieces of meat with water that she created via magic. By the time we were done burying the boar’s entrails, Haruka had already finished stowing the fur and meat in our leather satchels.

“Um, Haruka, sorry about this,” I said. “Actually, let me rephrase that. Thanks a lot.”

“Yeah, we’re really grateful,” said Touya. “Thanks a lot.”

We bowed our heads in gratitude, but Haruka shook her head with a bitter smile.

“It is what it is. We have to gut animals to survive in this world, and I’m the only one who knows how to do it right now, so yeah...”

In spite of her words, Haruka looked a bit pale. While she did have the Disassemble skill, it was her first time doing something like this, so it was only natural that she would feel queasy about it. However, she was still way more levelheaded than us. We had frozen in our tracks the moment the boar toppled over, but Haruka was different.

“Well, just try to learn and remember how to gut animals as soon as possible. We’re going to be adventurers in this world, so we’ll end up getting used to seeing somewhat grotesque scenes even if we don’t want to. There are going to be situations that are a lot messier than this one too.”

“Y-Yeah, that’s true!” said Touya. “Well, in a way, we can think of this as similar to grilled offal, right? Livers, hearts, and omasum are a perfectly normal part of that kind of cuisine.”

“I mean, yeah, if they’re cut up for that purpose,” I said. “Wholesale markets back on Earth also sold stuff like frozen pig feet, nose, and ears.”

Touya and I were trying to look at this from a different perspective to convince ourselves not to squirm the next time we saw something like this. However, even if the organs looked the same as they would in a market, it was still shocking to see actual blood flowing out of an animal. Regardless, we needed to get used to this somehow. There were monsters in this world too, not just regular animals, so we would be failures as adventurers if we got shocked by just the sight of blood.

“Don’t actually eat offal, okay? Especially digestive organs,” said Haruka. “It’s probably fine if you grill them first, but it’s not worth the risk.”

“Oh yeah, I remember hearing about people dying as a result of eating liver back in Japan,” said Touya. “Food poisoning in this world sounds like a scary prospect.”

“There are probably no disinfectants in this world either,” I said. “For example, alcohol wouldn’t work against norovirus, right?”

If I remember correctly, it took chlorination to kill that virus. It would have to be something with hypochlorous acid in it, like a mold killer. I guess that means something like chlorine bleach would work. But I don’t know how to make chlorine bleach, so it doesn’t matter.

“For now, we should try our best to avoid any danger or unnecessary risks until we get used to this world. This is very important,” said Haruka.

“So is grilled offal not edible in this world?”

“No, it is edible, but the meat goes bad easily, so it requires a lot of care.”

I didn’t have any qualms about eating grilled offal, but it also wasn’t something that I was dying to eat if regular meat was available. Offal would take a long time to prepare as well. It was different from buying offal at a supermarket that was ready to cook.

“Oh yeah, Touya, did you use your Appraisal on the boar?” I asked. “My Help Guide only displayed a window that said it was an edible animal.”

“Hmm, in a way, I guess that’s useful information? We can figure out whether or not animals are edible before we actually hunt them down. My Appraisal told me it was called a ‘tusk boar.’ It said that the boar’s meat was edible, and that its tusks and fur were useful materials.”

“Oh, the tusks are usable too? Let’s see...”

I picked up the tusks that Haruka had removed and left on the ground, and then I took a good look at them. They were heavier than they looked, and they seemed to be solid based on the sound they made when I tapped them. “These tusks seem to be pretty solid.”

“Solid? Are boar tusks normally hollow?” Haruka tilted her head in wonder as she asked that, and I nodded in response.

“Yeah, I remember boar tusks being hollow. These tusks also look larger than normal, right?”

“Mm, they definitely look quite large and thick. In terms of just the length, though, I remember there being some species of boars back on Earth that had tusks this long.”

According to Haruka, the tusks of Japanese boars weren’t very big, but there were other species of boar around the world that had longer tusks. Some had tusks that were too long, to the point that they could curl back and stab the boar in its own head. That seemed like a weird trait for an animal to have, but that was just one example of the different kinds of boar back on Earth. It meant that it was probably normal that a species with tusks this size would exist in this world. Besides, it was good for us that boars like this existed, since their tusks were actually usable, so we could sell them for money.

“Yo, it’s about time we got back to gathering herbs,” said Touya. “Should we move somewhere else before we resume?”

“Yeah, it would be bad if other animals got attracted by the smell of blood from the dead boar,” said Haruka. “Let’s get a bit away from here first.”

We walked through the forest for almost twenty minutes, away from the spot where we had felled the boar, and then we resumed our herb gathering until noon.

★★★★★★★★★

“Okay, let’s take a break and eat lunch,” said Haruka.

I had been completely focused on gathering herbs, but I stopped and raised my head when I heard Haruka’s words. I looked up at the sky. I could see the sun through the gaps between the trees.

“Yay! It’s finally time for food!”

Touya, who was gathering herbs next to me, whooped for joy and plopped down on the ground. I rubbed my belly and exhaled a deep breath. I had been trying not to think about it, but I was quite hungry as well. We had done our best to stuff down bread earlier, but it had been quite early in the day when we had had breakfast.

“Were you that hungry? You could’ve mentioned it earlier.”

Haruka sounded a bit surprised when she said that, but Touya responded with an awkward grin. “Well, it would be kind of awkward to complain after all the hard work you did, Haruka. We’ve been relying on you so much, after all.”

“It’s not like you were slacking off, so don’t worry about it. Well, let’s all gather some firewood first and then move somewhere close to the highway. That’s probably safer than staying here.”

“Okay.”

It seemed like this wasn’t an area where people often cut firewood; there was enough that it didn’t take us very long to gather what we needed. We then moved to a spot next to the highway. I got ready to light a bonfire while Haruka began to prepare the meat.

“All right, it’s time to light things up with my Ignite spell!”

I piled up some firewood and used Ignite on it. The blowtorch flames from my fingertips lit up the twigs, and the thicker branches started to burn right away as well.

“I mean, you definitely lit things up, but is that more useful than a lighter?”

Touya didn’t look very impressed. Oh come on, don’t be so harsh. The cheapest tool for lighting fires that was available back at the general goods shop was a flint. There was a magical device that could be used as a lighter too, but that one was very expensive. You’d need combustible material to serve as tinder, and the process of actually starting a fire would be a very slow and tedious one. In contrast, my Ignite could start a fire in no time, so it was quite useful!

I said essentially the same thing to Touya, but his opinion was that—although he did agree it was useful—it was lame and not very impressive for magic. Sure, flashy offensive magic was exactly what I thought magic was and should be based on fiction and games, but it was quite different if you were to use magic in real life. As far as I was concerned, practical magic like Ignite was way more important for daily life. Besides, the total time we’ll spend in combat as adventurers will be nothing more than a fraction of our whole lives. Magic that can help us survive combat is important too, but that’s not the point here.

“All right, I’m done preparing the meat. The bonfire looks like it’s ready as well, right? Okay, let’s all cook our own meat individually.”

After we were done throwing more firewood onto the bonfire, Haruka handed us some meat on skewers. Each piece was a bit smaller than the palms of our hands and about three centimeters thick.

Haruka gave us some warnings and advice while she started to cook the meat on her own skewer. “It’s up to you how you want your meat cooked. However, make sure you cook it all the way through. Don’t cook it just to rare. If common sense from Earth also applies here, then you need to cook meat to seventy-five degrees Celsius for about a minute for the meat to be well done.”

“What about the common sense in this world?” I asked.

“Cook thoroughly with fire. There’s no science to this, but it’s the same concept.”

I don’t have a meat thermometer, and I’ve never actually cooked food over a bonfire before, so maybe I should cook this for a bit longer than normal? I cooked the meat on my skewer for several minutes, flipping it periodically, and eventually juice started to ooze out. It gave off a delicious smell and a sizzling sound.

“Damn, this looks like it’ll taste good! It’s my first time eating meat like this!” Touya said happily, gazing at the meat on his skewer. He seemed like he couldn’t wait to dig in, since he kept flipping the meat frequently while he looked at Haruka as if waiting for her permission.

“Yeah, even for barbecues, it’s normal to eat off the cast iron griddle or a grill net,” I said.

Oh yeah, I’ve never eaten meat off a skewer at a barbecue before. You’d think that’d be the standard way to do it, but grilling meat on a barbecue net is more common. Actually, wouldn’t you end up burning the food a bit if you put both meat and vegetables together on a skewer to grill? I remember that it was fairly common to see charred cabbage or crispy onions at regular barbecue joints.

“I hate to say this, but don’t expect too much,” said Haruka. “Our only seasoning is salt, and as far as meat goes, this is probably a cut below regular pork.”

Touya and I had been a bit excited to try the meat out, but Haruka was very calm as she continued to watch it cook. Actually, aren’t pigs basically just domesticated boars? So does that mean this is a grilled pork skewer?

“Don’t worry, it’s the context that matters! It’s like how even watery curry tastes good if you eat it while out camping! Uh, Haruka, is the meat ready to eat yet?”

“Calm down, Touya. You’re not a child; don’t be so impatient. You can’t just cook the outside of the meat. The inside needs to be cooked well too, or else it’ll be dangerous to eat.”

We continued to wait for a few more minutes, and then Haruka finally gave us permission. We dug into the meat on our skewers right away.

“It’s hot! But it’s also delicious!” Touya exclaimed.

“Well, this tastes better than I thought it would,” I said.

The juice and fat in the meat overwhelmed us. As Haruka had said, salt was the only seasoning I could taste, so that probably meant the fat itself was tasty. The delicious smell and taste of the meat combined with the dripping fat gave it a crispy texture that I couldn’t really describe well. The meat itself was a bit tough, but not too tough, so it gave me the satisfaction of really tearing into a piece of meat.

“I thought this would be harder to eat, but it actually tastes better than I thought it would,” said Haruka. “Is it because the meat itself is high quality?”

“Back on Earth, weren’t there special breeds of pig that were fed acorns?” I asked. “With that in mind, wouldn’t wild boars that roam around eating good food end up with high-quality meat?”

“Hmm, I guess that’s one way to look at it. The taste might also depend on how you prepare a boar. If we made some incisions in this meat and soaked it with some dipping sauce, then this meat would be really delicious. Sadly, we don’t have anything like soy sauce or miso...”

Touya was completely absorbed with consuming the meat on his skewer, while Haruka just took small bites as she commented on the meat.

“Yeah, I feel the same way. I can do without rice, but soy sauce and miso are extremely important. I used one or the other for seasoning all the time. The only condiments I didn’t really use much were mayonnaise and ketchup, I think?”

As I thought of different seasonings and condiments, I tried to remember what I had had in my fridge. I especially liked using soy sauce as a dressing for salad. Things didn’t feel complete with just oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

“There’s also Worcestershire sauce,” said Haruka. “I personally didn’t really use it that often, but still.”

“Well, soy sauce and miso are the most important seasonings for the food I like, as well as for dipping sauce to go with grilled meat. Are there any shops that sell them in this world, Haruka?”

Dipping sauce would help me put up with meat and vegetables that didn’t taste good on their own. In fact, it would be more than enough to make any meal go down smoothly.

“I’m not sure. There might be some similar seasonings, but I doubt they’d be made from rice, wheat, or soybeans.”

“I don’t really care as long as the taste is similar. Can you make seasonings yourself, Haruka?”

“Well, I know how to make them, since I learned from my grandma in the past. However, we were using dried koji rice at the time, so that’s a bit different.”

“Koji rice? Ugh, yeah, there’s no way a shop will have that for sale.”

I don’t remember seeing koji rice even in supermarkets back in Japan. This is a different world, so there’s no way I’ll find it here.

“Well, I do know how to inoculate koji mold, so I can try it out when we have more spare time once we don’t need to worry about money,” said Haruka. “I’m not sure if I’ll succeed, though, so you’ll have to wait a few years at the very least.”

“I see... Oh well, at least there’s some hope for the future.”

We would probably get weary of meals with just salt and culinary herbs as our only seasoning eventually, but that was a problem we could only try to solve once we had the luxuries of free time and spare cash. The meat in front of me was tasty enough anyway, and if we could somehow create something similar to Krazy Salt with just culinary herbs and salt, then I would be fine for a while.

“Whew, that was a good meal! Oh yeah, I was wondering something. You’re both elves, right? Would elves tend to dislike meat or anything like that?” As he was talking, Touya stared at the remaining meat that was sitting on the ground near Haruka.

Haruka gave him a scornful look in response. “What, do you want to eat more? There’s still meat left if you want to cook more yourself.”

“Nah, like I said, I was just wondering. But I’ll still eat some more meat!”

Despite the fact that he said no at first, Touya took the meat that Haruka handed over to him, skewered it, and started cooking it. Both pieces of meat on his two skewers looked as large as a pound of steak. Is it because he’s a beastman? I don’t remember him eating this much before. Touya would eat about the same amount I did back on Earth, so there was definitely a difference, especially since I had already started to feel full when I was no more than halfway done with the meat on my second skewer. As for Haruka, she seemed to have sliced smaller portions for herself before even putting them on a skewer.

“I don’t feel any different in terms of my taste in food,” I said. “Is there a difference in taste between humans and elves, Haruka?”

“Well, common sense in this world is that elves like vegetables. It’s somewhat similar to the stereotype back on Earth that Japanese people love fish.”

“I see. In a way, that makes a lot of sense. But it’s good that we don’t have to worry about elf taste making it hard for us to find food we like.”

“Yeah. Okay, let’s head back to town once Touya’s done eating.”

“Huh? Already? The sun is still up, though!”

It had taken us some time to prepare the bonfire and to cook our food, but it wasn’t that late in the day yet. Sure, the walk back to town would take at least an hour, but it still felt a bit too early to stop here.

“Generally speaking, there are no lights in town after dark, so we need to finish our daily business while the sun is still up. That includes things like turning in our herbs, along with a lot of other stuff we have to do. It’s our first time doing all of this, so we should make sure we have some leeway with time.”

“Okay, that makes sense. Sounds good to me.”

We waited for Touya to finish eating and then took a short rest. After that, we headed back to town.

We reached town just a bit before sunset, so we rushed towards the Adventurers’ Guild to turn in the herbs we had gathered. The guild staff member who helped us was the same lady from yesterday. She seemed to remember us, since she noticed and waved at us as soon as we entered the guild. We went towards her, and Touya placed a bag on the counter. The staff lady appeared to be very surprised when she took a look inside.

“Wow, you managed to gather quite a lot of herbs! Please wait for a bit as I assess them.”

The lady took the bag with her to the backyard. After a few minutes, she returned with an empty bag. She smiled as she returned the bag to Haruka.

“Okay, the herbs were all acceptable. Please wait a bit longer for the other staff to finish calculating the total amount of money. I was actually a bit worried, since you all are rookies.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. The guild does offer a simple tutorial on request for people taking on herb gathering quests for the first time, but many adventurers don’t bother to listen, and they often bring back useless plants or parts as a result, such as the leaves of weedbane.”

“I-I see...”

Weedbane was the name of an herb from which only the root had medicinal value; we had found that out earlier thanks to Touya’s Appraisal skill. His skill had saved us from being labeled as rookies who didn’t ask for or listen to advice. Haruka averted her eyes slightly when she heard this from the lady, of course.

“Well, I thought it would be a good lesson, so I didn’t mention it beforehand.”

I’m glad things went well for us! We might’ve been forced to sleep outside without a roof if we hadn’t learned this lesson!

“It looks like your party managed to avoid that common mistake, though. Elf lore is quite impressive. Oh yes, now that I think about it, you didn’t gather any weedbane, did you?”

“No, we didn’t have any tools to dig up the root of weedbane, and even if we did, it would have taken a long time to do so. We’ll aim for weedbane in the future, once we’re ready.”

“I see. Perhaps you already know about this, but if you manage to gather weedbane with roots thicker than a thumb, those will go for a decent amount of money. However, if you only manage to find thin roots, then it might be a loss instead if you factor in the time required to dig for them.”

We hadn’t known about this at all. In fact, we wouldn’t even have known it was the root of weedbane we needed without the Appraisal skill.

“Thank you very much for the advice. Are there any other specific materials that you would recommend we gather at this time of year?”

The staff lady paused in thought for a moment, and then she took out a book from below the counter. “Hmm, at this time of year? Oh, there’s a fruit called dindel that would be a good choice.” She opened the book to a page and pointed at a picture while she told us more details. “You’ll have to venture deeper into the forests around here to find dindel, so it’s not something I would recommend that rookies search for. That especially applies to people who don’t have a firm grasp of their own capabilities.”

She smiled at us as if she was saying “You understand what I mean, don’t you?” and we all nodded in response. Things had gone well for us today, but we weren’t reckless enough to venture deeper into forests the very next day. Well, as long as Haruka was in charge of things, that is. Touya might just be reckless enough...

“As you can see from this picture, dindels are somewhat valuable red fruits that are about the size of a fist on average. They’re edible as is and also work well as a dried fruit.”

The picture in the encyclopedia was a fruit that looked like a cross between an apple and a tomato. The text below the picture mentioned that the fruit grew on trees that were at least five meters tall. That five meters minimum wasn’t exactly a good benchmark, however, since apparently most dindel trees had a height of several dozen meters or more.

“However, as you can see from the description, dindels grow near the top of tall trees, so it’s hard for people who aren’t skilled at climbing trees to harvest this fruit. Luckily, your party has two elves in it, so this fruit will be quite profitable for you if you can climb up to harvest it. One dindel fruit goes for anywhere from one hundred to three hundred Rea.”

Wow, that’s quite a lot of money! If that was the amount we could get by selling them to the Adventurers’ Guild, then the market price could be more than five hundred Rea per dindel fruit. It looked no larger than a small apple, and yet it was worth that much! It was basically the equivalent of a high-quality mango in terms of price. If we could harvest a large number of dindel fruits in a day, we’d make more than enough profit. Perhaps it was worth a try.

“Oh, the other staff members seem to be done calculating the total payout for your herbs.” We looked up from the encyclopedia when we heard the staff lady say that. We saw another person approach from behind the counter; he handed the staff lady a tray with some coins on it.

“Let’s see, the total amount comes to 8,730 Rea. That’s impressive! It’s very rare for someone to earn this much from herb gathering alone.”

“Really?” Haruka seemed to be a bit doubtful despite the staff lady’s surprise.

The Help Guide function had been a great help to us when we gathered herbs, but it wasn’t like we were knowledgeable about herbs or their value. If rookies like us could earn this much money our first time gathering herbs, then people who had more experience would surely be able to earn way more.

“Yes. Rookies move on to other quests with better rewards by the time they get used to gathering herbs. It’s possible to earn a decent amount of income more or less safely if one aims to become a professional herb gatherer, but many young adventurers dream about striking gold as full time adventurers, unfortunately...”

From the way she described them with a bitter smile, it sounded like those kinds of adventurers were a source of problems for this staff lady, but it was thanks to them that we could earn money gathering herbs. In a way, it was a good thing for us that such adventurers were common.

“So does that mean it’s fine to turn in more herbs in the future? We gathered quite a lot today.”

“Yes, it’s fine. Most of the herbs are dried and preserved for use, so they can be stored for quite a long time. Also, as I mentioned earlier, there aren’t many adventurers who primarily focus on gathering herbs.”

“I see. We’ll give it our best tomorrow as well. Also, we managed to hunt down a tusk boar. Can we turn in some of the materials we got from the boar here?”

“Yes, you can. The guild will purchase the fangs and fur. As for the meat, you’ll get a slightly better price for it if you bring it to a butcher shop. The guild will also purchase the meat, however, if it’s more convenient for you.”

“We’ll just turn in the fangs and fur.”

“Understood. Please wait for a few minutes.”

I obeyed Haruka’s instructions and placed the bag that had the fangs and fur onto the counter. The staff lady then took the bag with her to the backyard again and returned after a bit with some money.

“Okay, the assessment is complete. The materials were of good quality and quite large, so the total amount comes to 3,500 Rea. Is that fine with you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, here’s your money. This was very impressive indeed. How did you defeat the tusk boar?”

The staff lady seemed skeptical based on the way she looked at Touya and me as she handed over the money to Haruka. Her gaze seemed to indicate that she was impressed we had managed to defeat a tusk boar without proper equipment like an actual sword. Yeah, we don’t look like proper adventurers at all. All we have are plain clothes, and our only weapon is Touya’s wooden sword. Well, this is basically like the starting equipment in a generic roleplaying game. Now that I think about it, it’s really weird to start off with nothing more than this, but that’s games for you.

“Well—”

Touya suddenly butted in and showed off some moves with his wooden sword. “I stabbed the boar in its eyes like this, and then I finished it off just like that!”

Dude, why did you start speaking all of sudden? Look, the staff lady’s really surprised—we haven’t said anything at all until now, since we were leaving the talking to Haruka. Like, yeah, the staff lady is a nice and charming person, but she doesn’t have animal ears, so what gives?

“It only went well because you had Nao to back you up with his magic, remember? Oh, I apologize for not having introduced my party members yet. The person here who’s weirdly proud of having defeated a mere boar is Touya, and the elf behind me is Nao. Our party formation usually has Touya in the front, while Nao and I back him up from behind. As for me—I’m Haruka—I’ve been and will probably continue to be in charge of negotiations for our party, so I look forward to a long and amicable partnership.”

“Nice to meet you. My name is Nao.”

“I’m Touya! Pleasure to meet you!”

When Haruka introduced us, I bowed and tried to put on the friendliest smile I could. As for Touya, he grinned and raised one of his hands in the air in a casual gesture. Touya, is that the character impression you’re going for? I mean, it fits you, but aren’t you being a bit forward?

Despite my doubts, the staff lady smiled at us as she bowed in response. “Thank you for taking the time to introduce yourselves. My name is Diola. I primarily work here in this guild as a receptionist, so we’ll probably see each other quite often. I look forward to a long and amicable partnership as well.”

She must have been an experienced receptionist, since her smile didn’t falter at all despite Touya’s attitude. Touya, there’s a difference between being friendly and being rude, okay? I better make it clear to him later. It’ll directly affect our chances of survival in this world if we leave a bad impression on the receptionist lady due to Touya. We’re clueless about this world and need all the help we can get.

After introducing ourselves, we asked her about which butcher she would recommend. On our way back to the inn, we stopped by the butcher shop to sell the remaining tusk boar meat. The meat had been quite delicious when we’d eaten some back at the bonfire, so it was a bit sad to part with it, but we didn’t have the ability to preserve the meat, so it was better than ending up with food poisoning from eating it at a later time. Haruka had dressed the meat skillfully, so we had a decent amount, and it sold for a fairly good price. The butcher even told us that he would buy more if we ended up with spare meat again in the future. We headed straight back to The Slumbering Bear as soon as we were done with that, and then we paid the fee for a few days. That meant we wouldn’t have to sleep outside for that duration. It was comforting to know, and we all let out a sigh of relief once we entered our room and sat down on our respective beds. Man, if only the evil god had given us more than just barely enough money at the beginning!

“Now then.”

After we had rested in our room a while, Haruka took out the bag that had our money in it and held it up high, smiling.

“We managed to earn around 18,000 Rea without any mishaps! Okay, start clapping!”

Touya and I looked at the bag in Haruka’s hand and applauded loudly.

“This is proof that we can survive in this world!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, we earned this money by ourselves!” Touya exclaimed.

We couldn’t live off of just this amount of money, of course. Regardless, it was still proof that we could earn money by ourselves, and that was very reassuring to know.

“Man, I kinda feel really happy about this. Or rather, it’s an exciting feeling. Is this how it feels to receive your first paycheck as a responsible member of society?” Touya beamed with a huge smile as he said that, and I probably had a similar expression on my face as well.

It was also the first time since we’d arrived in this world that I had seen Haruka smile from the bottom of her heart. She hugged the bag with our money in it as she voiced her thoughts. “I have no idea what it might feel like, since I’ve never had a part-time job before, but I don’t think the sense of accomplishment would come close to what we achieved here. After all, our lives are actually at stake here in this world, so surely this feels better than it would back on Earth!”

“Oh yeah, I guess this also counts as my first paycheck,” I said. “The only money I’ve earned in my life was just small amounts of allowance from my parents for helping them out with chores.”

As a general rule, we were forbidden from taking on part-time jobs as high school students, so none of us had any work experience. In a way, that meant this was the first paycheck any of us had ever gotten.

“Well, we sure earned more than I thought we would. This was like, what, the equivalent of 180,000 yen in a day’s work? Our current cost of living is roughly 1,000 Rea per day for the three of us combined, so that’s not too bad. Maybe life in this world is easier than we thought it would be, eh?”

Touya seemed blissful as he speculated about our future prospects, but Haruka gave him a harsh look as soon as she heard his words.

“Naive! That’s naive thinking, Touya! That haphazardness of yours will make the difference between life and death!”

“R-Really?”

Touya looked a bit scared and nervous after Haruka shot down his ideas. Haruka nodded in response and then started to explain in more detail.

“First of all, there’s no social security system in this world! There’s no unemployment insurance, social insurance, health insurance, or welfare programs either! Nobody will help us if we get injured and end up being unable to work, and the same goes if we can’t work due to age. There’s no such thing as a pension in this world, so we’ll deeply regret it if we don’t plan ahead and save money for a house or land while we can still work!”

“I-I see...” Touya seemed overwhelmed by Haruka’s forceful explanation.

“I mean, I get what you’re saying, Haruka, but can’t we at least dream about our future?”

I tried to back Touya up, since I felt bad for him, but Haruka crushed my opinion as well.

“Dream? Do you really think we can survive off of dreams and hope alone? Look, I don’t want to see you two starve to death tucked away in some seedy corner of town.”

Just the two of us? I notice you didn’t include yourself, Haruka. Well, I mean, Haruka can probably take care of herself just fine. I guess it is true that women are more realistic than men.

“I’m not saying you can’t chase dreams, okay? For example, you’re free to chase your dreams of finding an animal-ears wife or even a harem of girls with animal ears, Touya. However, a safe and stable life comes first. Both of you need to keep in mind not to get ahead of yourselves, okay?!”

“Okay!” we said in unison.

It was dangerous to go against Haruka when she was like this. Touya and I exchanged a glance to communicate that thought to each other, and then we both nodded in assent to Haruka’s words.

“Good! Realistically speaking, it’s not possible to work as full-time adventurers for very long. Our physical energy will start to deteriorate by the time we hit our thirties, and it’ll get even worse once we’re in our forties. The ideal plan is to spend about twenty years as adventurers earning enough money to save up for our living expenses and medical fees for the next forty to fifty years after we retire.”

Whoa, that’s not what I thought our lives would be like in this world. What happened to dreams?

“Nao and I can probably continue working as adventurers for a longer period of time, but we’ll also live longer, so we’ll have more years of old age to save up for. If we want to be safe, then we need to earn and save plenty of money before Touya retires. You need to earn twice as much money if you plan to get married, Touya! If you want to build a harem, then you need to earn even more!”

“Now that you mention it, life does sound like it’ll be a struggle. Should we also think about how to earn money after retirement...? Will I actually be able to get married...? Or rather, can I even manage to live by myself in old age...?”

The Touya I saw in front of me now was not the man who had once boasted with shining eyes about how he would get married to a girl with animal ears. What I saw was a man whose eyes were dead and empty at the thought of his future. Is this the type of anxiety that comes with not having a steady job? Freedom came with self-sufficiency. There was no social safety net in this world, so if you failed in life, then you would end up either in the slums, as a slave, or outright dead.

“Oh, while we’re on this topic, what’s it like for ordinary adventurers?”

“Huh? Ordinary adventurers? Um, do you really want to know? You might regret asking.”

It was just a random thought that had come to my mind, but Haruka averted her eyes and answered hesitantly.

“The way you worded that makes me want to know even more. Go ahead and tell me, please.”

“You sure? All right, then. There’s no such thing as retirement for ordinary adventurers!”

“Huh?”

What do you mean—they never end up retiring?

“They die way before they even get close to old age!”

“Seriously...?”

“Yep, seriously.”

There seriously wasn’t any room for hope or dreams! Well, according to Haruka, adventurers who became somewhat successful led comfortable lives in old age with the money they had saved up. Some of them would buy a house and land in a village and spend the rest of their lives peacefully as farmers. Adventurers who had no talent got weeded out naturally. Some would die in the middle of quests. Others would run out of money and end up in the slums or as slaves. Clever adventurers would manage to find a steady job eventually and then retire from adventuring. Ordinary adventurers who earned enough that they didn’t have to struggle with daily life were the ones who weren’t able to find a proper time to retire. They would keep on adventuring even as their stamina deteriorated over time, and, as a result, eventually die before old age. That was the average life of an ordinary adventurer.

“So yeah, our goal is to achieve a decently successful life. If we wanted to get by like ordinary adventurers, though, we would probably be fine even if we went through life carefree—like Touya was just now, not thinking about the future.”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure people like you who plan for a safe and steady living are in the minority, Haruka,” I said.

In fact, most young people didn’t plan things out at all. If it was possible to save for retirement and also earn enough to get by in daily life just fine, then there wouldn’t be so many advertisements back on Earth for things like consumer credit and credit cards. If I ever ended up carelessly thinking that I would be able to earn way more money in the future, then that mentality would make me the very definition of what Haruka described as an ordinary adventurer.

“So yeah, we shouldn’t spend money recklessly just because we have some on hand right now. Also, since we do have enough to survive for a while now, let’s discuss some short-term goals.”

“Huh? Goals? Isn’t the plan to save up money for retirement, Haruka?”

“That’s our long-term goal, Touya. I guess a medium-term goal for you would be to get a wife with animal ears, but the path towards achieving that isn’t exactly very clear. For example, it’s somewhat similar to someone saying that they’ll eventually become very successful in the future. That’s a long-term goal, but it’s not exactly a good one without a clear definition of exactly what counts as success.”

“Look, my goal isn’t the same as a pipe dream like that, okay?”

Touya pouted to express his discontent at the way Haruka described his goal, but it had definitely been a pipe dream a few days ago, before we got reincarnated into this world. However, that dream of his was now something that he could actually pursue. You never know what will happen in life, I guess.

“Well, what Haruka mentioned as an example does sound like something a NEET would say,” I said. “They might also say, ‘I’m just resting to charge up my energy for the next step!’ or something similar.”

“Yeah, for sure. A classic response to that would be like, ‘Charging for what? You haven’t used any energy yet,’” said Touya. “Why would someone possibly need to rest at full energy?”

“Mm. They might also talk like a tryhard.”

“Oh yeah, definitely! Things like ‘I’m destined to succeed—just watch me!’ or something like that.”

Of course, Touya and I were talking this way because we were completely biased against NEETs. One thing was for sure, however: how “hard” each tryhard tried would vary from person to person.

“Well, I do agree with Haruka’s opinion that we need a short-term goal. Like, yeah, I want to get a wife with animal ears, but I have absolutely no idea where to start.”

“Mm, it’s important to plan out how you’ll approach your goal, and to make sure that goal is a concrete one with a clear definition for success,” said Haruka. “To put it in tryhard terms, ‘We need to share an agenda, prioritize the tasks we need to tackle, assign resources accordingly, and then commit to the plan that best fits our goals!’”

“Ha ha ha, that definitely sounds like something a tryhard would say!” I said.

“Whoa, for sure, ha ha!” said Touya. “Those words made absolutely no sense to me, but still!”

Touya and I both started laughing uncontrollably when we heard what Haruka said. She was chuckling a bit herself. As Touya had said, it made no sense to me at all. In fact, I could probably understand a different language better than the words I’d just heard.

“In simpler terms, I guess it would be something like ‘Let’s decide on a course of action and what to do first, and then lay out goals based on what we’re capable of,’” said Haruka.

“Mm, that makes more sense,” I said. “So, is our goal going to be to save up money for living expenses to some extent?”

“Yeah. We earned a decent amount of money today, but that’ll disappear in no time if one of us gets gravely injured or can’t work due to sickness.”

If we included all of our expenses—rent at the inn, the fees for lunch and hot water, and money for consumable goods—then we would need to spend roughly 1,000 Rea per day. The amount we had earned today was enough for eighteen days. It was possible that the Robust skill wouldn’t be enough to protect us from things like diarrhea or bone fractures, so ideally we needed to save enough to live at an inn for at least two to three months without difficulties. That meant we would need to save anywhere between 60,000 to 100,000 Rea.

“We also need to buy new equipment and general goods,” said Haruka. “That includes things like weapons, armor, clothes, and knapsacks for all of us.”

“Yeah. How much do we need for all of that?” I asked.

“Weapons are expensive, so ideally something like at least 500,000 Rea in total?”

“Ugh...”

“Life isn’t that easy for adventurers, eh?” said Touya.

Even if we managed to earn as much daily as we had today, it would take at least a month to save up that much money. However, Haruka was right about our needs.

“Well then, for the time being, let’s do our best to achieve that goal!” said Touya.

“Yeah, I want a weapon as well,” I said.

I wanted to at least look like a proper adventurer; otherwise, it wouldn’t feel like my life as an adventurer had actually started.

“Also, I’ll be in charge of our money for now,” said Haruka. “Is that fine with you two?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I don’t mind, but it’d be nice if we could get some pocket money from time to time. Right, Nao?”

“Yeah, there’s no point in splitting our money until we have a decent buffer in terms of savings. Maybe I should think of my own life plan eventually as well.”

“Hee hee, that’s a good idea. An elf’s life plan will be quite different from a regular human’s from back on Earth, so feel free to discuss it with me if you ever feel like doing so.” Haruka smiled at me as she said that.

★★★★★★★★★

“Oh yeah, by the way, is it just me, or do the Third Eye and Appraisal skills seem a bit different from other skills?”

We had eaten dinner and bathed and were chatting before bedtime when that thought suddenly hit me.

“What exactly do you mean by different?” Haruka asked.

“Well, uh, I don’t really know how to describe it...”

The other skills we had were basically numerical representations of things that one could learn through training over time, but Third Eye and Appraisal, along with the Help Guide, felt a bit different. These skills gave us information via an augmented reality display window, even though it was information that we wouldn’t know normally. Our status windows also appeared in the same way, but we’d received that information before we were reincarnated, so it made sense if it was just another freebie from the evil god; the status windows contained information we already knew.

On the other hand, the Third Eye skill could pull status information from elsewhere, just as the Appraisal skill could pull item information from elsewhere. If the evil god hadn’t been lying to us when he said this world was a gamelike one with level systems, then that wouldn’t be weird at all, but the very existence of a status system wasn’t common knowledge in this world, so ordinary people didn’t know how to check their status. It was the same for the item information window. With that in mind, these skills were unique “gifts” to us from the evil god, which felt like it went against his warning that there were no cheat skills. I mean, if it’s only me and my classmates who have these skills in this world, then isn’t that basically cheating?

“Well, perhaps there actually is a skill system in this world, and the residents of this world can learn the Third Eye and Appraisal skills, except that they just don’t know about all of this,” said Haruka. “Maybe augmented reality display windows are actually normal in this world too. What do you think, Nao?”

“Hmm. Oxygen already existed before man discovered it, and the Earth moved around the sun even back when the Ptolemaic model was still accepted as common sense, so yeah.” I guess that means it’s possible to know the numerical values of one’s stats and experience points if someone discovers a way to see them in this world. “However, that still leaves the question of where the Appraisal skill pulls information from. Is there a database like the Akashic records that the skill can access?”

“Come on now—is there any point in questioning a game system, Nao?”

“This world isn’t a game, Touya!”

Touya was acting like it was all a joke. He shrugged and shook his head, but I rebutted his words firmly. Actually, though, would it be better to treat skills as if they were like a game system? The evil god did say that this was kind of like a game world, but I don’t know how much I can trust an “evil” god’s words...

Haruka brought up an idea while I was still racking my brain. “Hmm, I think it could be an external database version of the General Knowledge skill.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Basically, the Appraisal skill provides you access to a certain block of information. You can then tap into that block and freely withdraw information from the database as long as the information you want is in that block, and it gets broken down to a visual medium like an augmented reality display window for easier access.”

Huh?

“Sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

Touya straight out admitted that he didn’t understand anything, so Haruka rephrased her words after some thought.

“What I mean is that it doesn’t rely on external references. To put in more practical terms, you can’t level up the Appraisal skill no matter how much you use it, and you won’t suddenly become able to use the skill on things you can’t currently use it on. If you want to increase the number of different types of things you can use Appraisal on, then you’ll have to learn and absorb new knowledge from sources like encyclopedias.”

“Oh, I get it now. So what that means is that my current Appraisal level is something similar to an EIKEN Grade 2 English Proficiency qualification, and I’ll have to study more if I want to achieve Grade 1, right?”

“Yeah. Also, the way you can instantly access information you know with complete accuracy is probably thanks to a function of the skill itself.”

For example, once you remembered certain words from vocabulary flashcards, that information would get registered in the database, and if you came across those words again and thought to yourself that you wanted to look them up, an augmented reality window would appear with the information you wanted. In a way, it seemed like a type of memory improvement skill. That made it sound very useful, but if Haruka’s theory was correct, it didn’t really seem like a cheat skill.

“What about the Third Eye skill, then, Haruka?” I asked.

That skill was different from Appraisal, since it wasn’t like learning different types of herbs from an encyclopedia.

“Hmm, well, have you tried it out yourself, Nao?”

“Yeah, a few times back at the guild.”

Most of the time, the skill had only told me whether or not the person I used it on was strong, but it did list skills for some targets.

“If Appraisal isn’t anything like an Akashic records system, then how does Third Eye work?”

“This is just another theory, but if it works like I think Appraisal does, then it’s possible that the information displayed by the Third Eye skill isn’t actually accurate.”

“Huh?” What’s the point, then?

“What I mean is that the information displayed might be based on a variety of sources. For example, the skill might evaluate a person as having a Level 2 proficiency with swords and display that.”

“So the information that the skill puts into words is just based on things like the user’s own experience, knowledge, or intuition?”

“Yeah. It could be visual cues, like whether the person has a sword or calloused hands or whether they carry themselves in a way that makes them seem like an expert fighter. It might just be things we can judge based on our own experience that the skill puts into words.”

After she finished theorizing, Haruka emphasized again that everything she said was just speculation, but I felt like her theories were actually on point.

“Hmm. The evil god said this was a gamelike world, but so far there haven’t really been many gamelike elements,” I said.

“Yeah, we can’t even check to see what our stats or experience points are,” said Touya. “The only time it actually felt like a game was back during the character creation process before we got reincarnated here.”

“Well, it was thanks to that character creation process that we managed to survive here,” said Haruka.

“Oh yeah, you’re right. We would’ve probably died to that boar today if we had faced it in our previous bodies.”

“Mm. In a way, maybe we should thank the evil god for what he’s done for us?”

When Haruka said that, we all looked at each other. After giving it some thought, we shared a bitter smile. Yeah, I don’t really feel like saying thanks to the evil god since he left so many gimmicky skills as land mines in our path.