Aiming for a Cozy Life in a Dangerous Forest in Another World! - Chapter 17
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- Chapter 17 - Assessing Achievements and Problems
Chapter 17: Assessing Achievements and Problems
It has been about two weeks since I started living with Kaito, Pola, and Rin.
We have been exploring the area in a circular pattern, centered around the rocky mountain where the cave is located.
Our current range of activity is a straight line distance of about 15 minutes on foot from the rocky mountain.
As a result of our explorations, we discovered several other edible fruits besides 『Amaju Fruits』 and 『Cell Fruits』.
The one that made me the happiest was the 『Shen Fruit』.
It’s a fruit, but the size of a watermelon and yellow in color.
It grew at the base of a tree called a 『Shen』, which was about as tall as my waist and grew near the riverbank.
At first, I didn’t even realize it was a fruit and didn’t pay much attention to it, but a 『Stone Bullet』 I fired at a Fangrabbit went astray and shattered the hard shell of a 『Shen Fruit』.
Then, a spicy, chili pepper-like aroma drifted from the remains of the 『Shen Fruit』, stimulating my appetite.
I quickly finished off the Fangrabbit and went to check out the 『Shen Fruit』. I licked the inside and found it to be extremely spicy.
I harvested a few and brought them back to the cave to experiment with. By the way, Kaito didn’t know anything about 『Shen Fruits』.
After some trial and error, I discovered that if you crack the shell, scoop out the flesh, add water, and grind it, it becomes sticky and paste-like.
I tasted it and found it to be quite spicy, but delicious. It was like chili paste from my previous life.
I could handle spicy food relatively well, so this paste I made from 『Shen Fruits』 was exactly what I had been looking for.
We were still mainly hunting Fangrabbits for food, but after a while, I started to get tired of the constant salty flavor.
…Thinking back to when we didn’t even have salt, it felt a bit luxurious to complain, but I couldn’t say I was satisfied with the food here compared to what I was used to in Japan.
And now I had a spicy condiment.
From that night on, my staple food became spicy Fangrabbit, not salty Fangrabbit.
…By the way, I let Kaito and Pola have a taste since they seemed curious. It was too spicy for Kaito, and he immediately chugged down his water.
Pola, on the other hand, seemed to like it, and from that day on, her staple food also became spicy Fangrabbit.
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Kaito and Pola have both been practicing their magic.
Pola, as expected, had more magic power and was better at using magic. She had already reached level 3 in the three types of magic listed on her status: 『Fire Magic』, 『Water Magic』, and 『Light Magic』.
『Dark Magic』, on the other hand, was still at level 0. She hadn’t been able to use it at all.
…And I still didn’t understand anything about 『Dark Magic』.
Pola was now in charge of preparing the fire and water for our meals and lighting the cave.
She also prepared our baths.
It wasn’t a real bath, of course. We just filled a large container I made with 『Earth Magic』 with water using 『Water Magic』, heated it with 『Fire Magic』, and then used small buckets to scoop the water and pour it over ourselves.
We had considered bathing in the river, but we gave up on that idea because magical beasts kept coming and going, making it too dangerous.
…I really wanted to take a proper bath, but we didn’t have a way to drain the water, and there wasn’t a suitable place to set up a bath.
Kaito was practicing his 『Physical Enhancement』 skill more than his magic.
He had told me, “I want to be able to fight too.”
It seemed like he wanted to protect Pola, and even me.
He was so young, but so admirable.
I often went into the forest to hunt while Kaito and Pola stayed behind, so it would be good if Kaito could learn to fight.
…But honestly, I didn’t want to see Kaito or Pola fighting.
I had gotten used to fighting myself, but the thought of them fighting made me shudder.
I considered myself their guardian, even though they never asked me to be. And as their guardian, I would protect them with everything I had.
I didn’t want them to be in a situation where they had to fight, but we needed to be prepared. I was getting used to it, but this was still a dangerous forest.
I told Kaito about the 『Physical Enhancement』 skill I had seen on his status screen.
When activated, 『Physical Enhancement』 caused magic power to flow over the surface of his body, hardening his skin. At the same time, it stimulated his muscles, dramatically and instantly increasing his physical abilities.
When Kaito activated 『Physical Enhancement』, he jumped – a standing long jump – about 10 meters.
However, the effect didn’t last long. It felt like it wore off after about 5 minutes. And then he would run out of magic power.
Even if you could use a skill, that didn’t mean you could fight a magical beast right away.
To fight a magical beast, you had to overcome the fear of facing it, observe its movements, dodge or block its attacks, and then land a hit of your own.
It was something you just had to get used to, but it was difficult.
The way I hunted was to find a magical beast, keep a safe distance, and then snipe it with a powerful 『Stone Bullet』. If it hit, it would blow off the head in one shot, ending the fight quickly. So I couldn’t really teach Kaito how to fight.
We also had a few problems.
First, Kaito and Pola’s clothes.
When I first met them, they were wearing the tattered hemp clothes they had been given in the village, but they were full of holes and falling apart.
Considering they were going into the forest with me, we needed to find them new clothes, but of course, there weren’t any clothing stores here.
Right now, they wore those tattered clothes around the cave, and when we went into the forest, they wore pieces of Fangrabbit fur tied around the holes in their clothes and their legs for protection. But we needed to find a better solution soon.
I tried to use my 『Physical Armor』 skill to create clothes for them, but it didn’t work.
The next problem was the declining number of prey.
The magical beasts had almost completely disappeared from our area of activity.
I didn’t think we had hunted them all.
Actually, ever since Rin started coming with me to hunt, I had been using Rin’s 『Magic Box』 skill to bring back the entire Fangrabbit, or whatever we hunted, to the cave. I had Kaito butcher it back at the cave.
This meant we were able to bring back more meat, and we had plenty stocked up, so we weren’t hunting as much. By the way, Rin ate all the leftover parts after butchering, so we didn’t have to burn them, and we didn’t have to worry about Rin’s food. It was a win-win.
One time, we ventured outside of our usual range of activity and found plenty of Fangrabbits and even Forest Tigers roaming around. It seemed like they had only disappeared from our immediate area.
So, life was becoming more comfortable, but we were also facing new challenges.