Chapter 5 – Search for Food and Strange Forest

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T/N: One little note about Chiyu. She’s expressionless as mentioned more than once, but she’s also quite taciturn. The typical character type that doesn’t show much emotions and doesn’t talk much. However, Japanese is much more suited to a curt, abbreviated way of speaking than English, making it easier to depict such a character in written text.

For example, she can say いい to express that it’s fine and there’s no need to further worry about something. The explanation already gives away how wordy it is in English, and just writing “OK” would be most of the time too unspecific.

I’ll try to cut her speech down where possible, but well, please keep it in mind that it doesn’t always work.

“Base next?” Chiyu asked after drinking some water.

She wiped her lips, which were shining glossily as they were wet, with her fingers.

“Yeah. Having said that, it doesn’t look like it’ll be necessary for us to search for a cave or some such.”

“…Oh, can you build a house with your ability as well?”

“Yep! I got a huge amount of wood not only for making barrels, but also because I wanted to build our base.”

“What about the recipe? Got one?”

I opened the recipe screen.

“Let’s see…yeah, it says 『Hut』 here…”

At present, the conditions for releasing new recipes seem to be 『Discovering a certain amount of a material』 and 『Discovering the material and imagining something that could be made out of it』. But, given that it’s not showing me any log houses or other wood buildings, despite my imagining them, something must be missing.

Maybe the recipe for a log house will be released once I have obtained the necessary number of logs.

While I felt dejected, Chiyu gave me a thumbs-up.

“No need to feel so down. Securing a shelter that can protect us from the weather on the first day after getting stranded on an uninhabited island is pretty amazing.”

“R-Really? But you have a point. We’ll handle everything step by step, I suppose.”

It was her way of encouraging me, but at the same time, it’s also a fact.

“Yep. We might be able to build a nice house, if we fell several trees. If we go at a rate of one tree per day, it should become possible in around a month.”

“A-A month…?”

A month on an uninhabited island sounds like a very long time. I feel like such a TV show ran during my childhood…

“Until then, it seems we’ll huddle together and live in a small hut,” Chiyu said and bumped her shoulder against mine.

“…That’s…right, I guess. Umm, are you okay with that, Chiyu? If you like, I can cut another tr――――”

“No problem.”

“…Seriously?”

“…Dense guy.”

“S-Sorry.”

Hmm…maybe the affection from my childhood friend is much higher than I thought. In that case, I’d be very happy as a healthy, energetic male high school student. Well, so far as it goes, she doesn’t seem to hate the idea of sleeping together with me in a hut.

“It’s fine. Childhood heroines of all ages and places always have it difficult. Good grief,” she shrugged her shoulders.

“Heroine, you say…”

That’s yet another word that can be easily misunderstood.

“No good?”

“…It’s not no good, but still…”

“So you finally noticed my charm as well, Sou-kun.”

It’d be great if I could drop a single conceited line at this point; this much was already the limit for me.

“Ah, sure, sure…! Rather than that, it’s time to go look for food.”

“Aww, so bashful.”

“I can actually make a harpoon as well, but I’m an amateur in this regard…and the same also applies to diving into the sea to fish.”

When I tried to force a topic change, Chiyu eventually went along with it.

“The ocean over here looks clear, but I’m also against dive fishing. Free diving is dangerous.”

“Aye.”

Given our current situation, danger was lurking all around us. Thus, it was indispensable to tread carefully.

“Let’s explore the forest for starters?”

“Sure, I’ll take the lead. Even if you find something, please don’t touch it and inform me first.”

It’s possible that some of the things in there could be dangerous to touch, too. If I suffer an injury, I’ll just have Chiyu heal me, but it’ll be a big issue if she loses consciousness or becomes so tired that she cannot use magic anymore.

Besides, I’m worried about her.

“Understood. As expected of Sou-kun, you’re reliable.”

“Men will only get carried away if you praise them too much.”

Even so, I felt slightly happy. Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m a simple guy.

And thus we entered the forest. As a safety measure to not get lost and be able to get back to the ocean, I used the stone knife to mark tree trunks.

“Oohh, yet another cliche makes its appearance.”

“I’m doing it because I don’t want to get lost, but they’ll also be visible to others…”

It’ll also result in others learning about our actions.

“It’s fine as long as we’re together, no?”

“Those of our classmates, who used to be good people back in Japan, might turn into dangerous folks under these circumstances. And we don’t want to encounter such people, do we?”

“And what if your animal nature rears its head, Sou-kun?”

“…What do you plan to do if that happens?”

“I’m but a poor lamb, so I won’t have any choice but to let myself be eaten. Unfortunately. Veeeery unfortunately.”

Since she was saying it in a way that made clear she didn’t consider it unfortunate at all, I could only stay silent.

Anyway, we were talking about our other classmates. Of course, I can understand the feeling of wanting to gather in a group, given the situation. But Chiyu and I don’t lack anything to survive in our current composition.

Well, even if I stretch it, the only thing we really lack is a reliable method for securing food. Also…combat power?

I can create various items, including clothes, using my Crafting Ability.

We had been walking silently for some time while I was pondering about this.

“Chiyu, don’t you somehow feel something is off?”

“Mmh, we’ve entered a forest, yet you haven’t played holy-sword-wielder with a tree branch at all.”

“Please don’t bring up this story from elementary school.”

Childhood friends are people who know a lot about each other. In short, they’ll also know each other’s dark history and childish behavior.

“Just kidding. The absence of bugs…is bothering me, I’d say.”

“Yeah, the general idea in Japan is that they’re annoying and cause your skin to itch at times, but mosquitoes and such are actually dangerous, you know?”

Those kinds of bugs carry diseases. So far as it goes, it’s not like there are no insects at all, but…

“Besides, this forest is cool.”

“And go even further, it’s ridiculously easy to traverse.”

A completely untouched forest usually prevents intrusion through various means, such as uneven, tiresome paths, a ground riddled by protruding roots, bad visibility, and similar. However, this forest is very easy on the feet and relaxing.

“Kind of like an artificial environment?”

This is one of the standard elements of stories. The mysterious blackboard might have sent us to an uninhabited island that it created itself. High school students would face significant challenges in an overly rigorous environment. Even a normal forest would be dangerous, as you could twist your leg by tripping or get injured by branches and bushes.

“We’ll only end up worrying about the objective of the mysterious blackboard and the scale of its power, so let’s stop thinking about it for now.”

We had decided to postpone this matter just a little while ago anyway.

“Mmh. Okay, Sou-kun, I found mushrooms.”

“Oohh! As expected of you, Chiyu! Leave it to me to pick them up.”

After she told me where the mushrooms were, I picked them up by myself. According to the inventory, they were edible.

“Looks like these are edible.”

Now that we knew they’re edible, I picked up around half of the whole bunch. I’m not all that knowledgeable about mushrooms, but it’d be a problem for us if they didn’t grow back anymore.

Well, it might not be the right place to talk about matters in such a patient, nonchalant manner, though.

Afterward, we discovered a variety of edible mushrooms, poisonous mushrooms, wild grass, medicinal plants, and edible berries, among other things. Nothing of this counts as hearty food, but it’s still very welcome.

After getting Chiyu to clean our hands with Purify, both of us munched on the berries.

“Incredibly tasty. Hunger is the best spice.”

Chiyu was walking while her big boobs wobbled in tune.

“Let’s grill the mushrooms and eat them in a bit.”

“What about fire?”

“We have wood and ivies, so I can make a firestarter tool with my Crafting Ability.”

“Sou-kun, you’re a cheat.”

“Ahaha, I can’t really deny that, can I?”

Although I mistook it for a dream, it’s good that I gave my answer without going with the flow.

“Hmm? That’s…”

What we found while continuing our exploration was――

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