Chapter 39 – Fenrir Hut and Steak
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“Shouko, could you please check whether everyone has returned?”
“Okay!”
Just as Shouko was about to head to the entrance door, someone came out. Silver hair and blue pupils――my childhood friend Chiyu.
“Here’s a Heal as a welcome back.”
A white light engulfed Shouko and me. I felt very grateful for my exhaustion vanishing so suddenly. But thanks to this, my vitality has recovered as well.
“Thanks for the Heal, Chiyu-cchi.”
“Thanks from me as well. It looks like your group came back faster, huh?”
“Nn, after the two of us got back, I had Shio-chan start with the steak grilling. That’s okay, right?”
“Yahoo!”
“I’ll join you as soon as I’ve built Mashiro’s hut.”
Chiyu nodded and went back inside the house.
“Ah, now that we met Chiyu-cchi, is it okay for me to watch you?”
“Sure.”
It’d be good for the Fenrir hut to be visible from Shouko’s room. With that request made, I moved a bit. I created a hut and deployed it.
All of a sudden, a stone building with a wooden roof manifested in front of us. Its entrance was big, as typical of dog kennels, but at a glance, it had the majestic appearance of a warehouse.
“Oohh, so it’s different from our house?”
“It’s similar, but without a foundation. But, if I had created it in the same way as our house, the floor would have given way due to Mashiro’s weight, right?”
“Ah, you’re right!”
Basically, it’s stone walls with a roof placed on top.
“It’d be great if Mashiro liked it, but…”
“Mashiro! Your new home is done!”
Called by Shouko, Mashiro immediately came near. He’s a big fantasy wolf with his white, fluffy fur shining radiantly. He entered the Fenrir hut right away, flopped down inside, and barked happily.
“He says he likes it!”
“That’s great to hear.”
As both of us were laughing, a nice smell hit our noses.
“Oh! This is…the smell of meat!”
Because I had put the meat in the kitchen before heading out this morning, Shion was able to cook it without me being present.
“It sure smells nice.”
Shouko and I headed towards the entrance door. Once we entered the living room, the others were in the middle of placing the dishes on the dining table.
“Oh, welcome back you two. Just as promised, we’re going to have steak for lunch,” Shion, who had tied up her hair, greeted us while carrying a plate.
By the way, I gifted her a linen apron. Currently, she was wearing it above her uniform. Chiyu and Minori were helping out as well.
“Welcome back. Did you manage to complete Mashiro-san’s new home?” Minori asked while setting the table.
It looks like Shion and her have been told about Mashiro’s hut by Chiyu.
“Yeah, he was quite happy about it too.”
“That’s nice.”
“I’m hungryy! It all looks so delicious! Let’s eat! Hurry, hurry!”
After everyone took a seat, we started our meal. The menu for lunch was boar steak and mushroom-herb soup. We ate those with stone knives and forks.
“It tastes awesome…!”
The chewy texture of the thick meat and the bouncy meat juices were a dream.
“Yes, it’s incredibly tasty!”
“Hehe, thanks. But, I think I’ll need other ingredients for our meals to get any better than this.”
Even when just using salt, it’s delicious, but I definitely feel like eating steak after putting some sauce on it.
“Nn, I’d like to have some seasonings. For starters, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, and miso, in addition to salt.” 1
Hmm, now that she mentioned them, I kind of want to get those as well.
“Also, veggies and staple food, I guess. We explored the surroundings, but we couldn’t find any of the vegetables usually used in Japanese cooking, right? Though I’d be really happy if there were some sort of rice plants or wheat growing on this island.”
“Shouko and I talked about it a bit as well, and we suspected that there might be a tendency for things that we frequently used in our normal lives or which everyone knows, not to be deployed on this island.”
Minori nodded at my words, “In the dream, we’re pressed into choosing between two options, and one of them will be added as an 『Update』, right? That’s why it seems quite plausible that they avoided deploying the 『things we would want on an uninhabited island』 initially in order to use that two-choices game instead, just as Kuno-kun says.”
“It feels like they’re constantly testing us. Even when it came to the question of what we’d take with us to an uninhabited island, they never told us that taking abilities was acceptable as well, for example.”
“Mmh, this island does have quite a bit of edible stuff, but if you don’t know about them or don’t possess an ability like Sou-kun, you’ll find it hard to judge whether something is edible or not.”
“Yeah, no kidding. If we didn’t meet up with Sousuke, this would have turned into a hardcore survival.”
We chatted while eating our lunch. Eventually, the topic shifted to yesterday’s dream. Having said that, Chiyu, Shion, and Minori seemed to have already talked about it during their exploration.
“Maybe this is a measure to restrict conflict between the players?”
I nodded at Minori’s guess. Everyone had no choice but to be careful of the 『Death Penalty』. After all, you’d get 1825 minus points if you killed yourself or murdered someone else. If you then leave the island without having acquired any points beforehand, that number will lead to the person being in a coma for five years after returning.
The shock of your remaining youth evaporating like that would be quite devastating. I think this will serve as a strong deterrent.
“Also, they might have the intention to make us face living on this uninhabited island positively.”
You can guess as much from them not only being able to return us to the time when we left, but also them having prepared special rewards. Depending on the 『Survival Bonus』, the rewards, in addition to an increased life span, could be manifold, such as taking back the memories of this island or the abilities to Earth with you.
“Yep. If I can go back home while bringing Mashiro with me, I’m totally pumped to do my absolute best. Then again, I’ve been motivated to begin with, I suppose.”
“It’s a bit hard to believe their story, isn’t it…? If a mythical beast suddenly appeared in modern Japan, it’d trigger a huge panic…”
Minori’s concern was reasonable.
“Yep… What stories, which feature ‘Mysterious powers existing in modern society,’ often use is a device or technique to tamper with the cognition of the people around the protagonists, I think.”
“That’s a very typical plot point, yeah. If they rewrite the cognition of everyone around us so that they view a Fenrir as a regular 『dog』 and Sou-kun’s ability as 『DIY』, it’d be possible to retain our abilities, no?”
Shion’s ability to see through lies could be 『an excellent observation skill』 and Chiyu’s healing magic could be explained away as her 『having knowledge in medical treatment』. I feel like Minori’s magic would be a bit trickier, but…in short, they’d just need to add a 『Matching-consistency function』 to her ability. I think the mysterious blackboard should be able to handle that much, but who knows…
“I-I see. If we consider the special abilities and the transfer to this island, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if something like that happened.”
“Personally, I’d be happier about retaining my memories of this island. Rather, I’ve become scared of losing them when escaping this place normally…,” said Shion while looking anxious.
That makes sense. Even if we forget the events on this island, Chiyu and I have been childhood friends, and Shouko and I have been friends from the start. But we only managed to get close to Shion because of this situation. I’d also hate to forget all about it.
“I feel the same as you, Shion-san. We don’t know what the 『Special Conditions』 they mentioned might be, but I’d like to meet those conditions before leaving this place.”
“Also, you see, if possible, I want to escape the island together with all of you.”
All of us nodded at Shouko’s comment.
“So, it sounds like we’re going to aim for 『escaping together with everyone』, 『retaining our memories』, and 『keeping our abilities』 for the time being, I guess.”
It kind of pisses me off that this feels like we’re dancing on the mysterious blackboard’s palm in this regard, but it cannot be helped. Then again, my fury at the absurdity of being simply tossed onto an uninhabited island exceeded my current anger. Now that I know that we can extend our life spans and aim for other privileges, it functions as a 『reward』 for all the 『trouble』, and thus my anger has faded somewhat too.
Even the people who initially thought they wanted to go back as soon as possible should be planning to hold out a bit more if they know they can potentially take back their abilities to Earth.
“Phew. That was quite a feat, Shio-chan.”
After we finished lunch, we thanked our cook for the delicious food.
“Hehe, no problem. I’m glad you liked it.”
Cleaning the tableware was straightforward; I simply stored it in my inventory and redeployed it in the kitchen afterward.
Still, I gotta say, it’d be super handy if I could just bring back this ability to Earth…
“Minori, we’re planning to do your magic training in the afternoon, but would it be fine to show the result of both teams’ exploration before that?”
“Yes, let’s do that.”
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