Aiming for a Cozy Life in a Dangerous Forest in Another World! - Chapter 26
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- Chapter 26 - Let’s Build a Base 4
Chapter 26: Let’s Build a Base 4
Now that Rin had acquired its new abilities, 『Acid Generation & Projection』 and 『Venom Generation & Projection』, we resumed working on the area around the rocky mountain.
Initially, my plan for the area around the rocky mountain was to level the ground and build a fence along the treeless areas.
But that would require us to build a very long fence, which wouldn’t be very useful for us since we didn’t need that much space, and I was stumped.
And then Rin leveled up.
…So I decided to change our plans.
First, I had Rin use its 『Venom Generation & Projection』 to rot the roots of the trees within a 50-meter radius of the rocky mountain, causing them to topple over.
Some of the roots were still stuck in the ground, but I could easily dig them up with 『Earth Magic』 later, so I put that aside for now.
I had Rin immediately store the fallen trees in its 『Magic Box』.
Come to think of it, when I checked Rin’s status earlier, its 『Magic Box』 had changed from “Minor” to “Intermediate.” It probably meant the capacity had increased.
Rin had already stored over 20 trees, and it was telling me, “I can still fit more!”
…Did 『Magic Box』 grow stronger the more you used it?
Well, I would think about that later.
There were so many things in this world, like magic and skills, that my previous knowledge couldn’t explain. I had to experiment and analyze a lot of things, but I was actually enjoying it.
In my previous life, I had loved solving puzzles and doing experiments in science class.
And the results of my experiments and analyses here directly affected our living conditions and safety, so I was motivated.
But I needed to get back to work…
I used 『Earth Magic』 to level the ground where Rin had felled – well, rotted and toppled – the trees.
I used 『Fire Magic』 to quickly burn the remaining roots and stumps.
Burning such a small amount wouldn’t cause a forest fire.
Kaito and Pola joined me partway through, so I had Kaito dig up the remaining roots and stumps with 『Earth Magic』 and Pola dispose of them with 『Fire Magic』.
We took breaks as needed, and after about three hours of work, we were done clearing and leveling the area around the rocky mountain.
The only trees remaining were the 『Cell』 trees which produced 『Cell Fruit』.
The sun was starting to set, so we decided to call it a day and head back to the cave.
I went to the pantry to prepare dinner, but it was already neat and organized.
“Pola, thank you. It’s so organized.”
“Uh huh! Pola worked hard!”
Asking Pola to organize was the right call.
The treasure room, though sparsely populated, was also clean.
We had dinner and went to bed.
♢ ♢ ♢
The next day, we continued working on the area around the rocky mountain that we had cleared yesterday.
First, I used 『Earth Magic』 at full power to create stone walls encircling the cleared area after the trees were felled.
The walls were about 1.5 meters high and 30 centimeters thick. I’m 164 centimeters tall, so I could just barely see over them.
If I couldn’t see outside the walls at all, we wouldn’t be able to see approaching dangers, but if they were too low, they would be pointless.
I made them this high to prevent Fangrabbits from jumping over them.
They were the size of large dogs, but surprisingly, they weren’t very good at jumping.
Or rather, they weren’t good at jumping vertically. When they ran and jumped forward, they could cover a decent distance. One time, one of them jumped at me. That had startled me…
I didn’t know how strong the walls were since I couldn’t test them.
But I had made them as strong as I could, so this was the best I could do.
I would make sure not to rely too much on the walls.
I created five 2-meter wide gaps in the walls.
One for each of the four directions — north, south, east, west, with the cave entrance facing south — and one facing the 『Amaju』 grove. These were our entry and exit points.
I used earth walls, which weren’t as strong as the stone walls, to block these gaps. It was difficult to make them the same strength, considering we would be opening and closing them every time we went in and out.
But earthen walls alone weren’t reassuring enough.
So, I dug 5-meter by 5-meter holes, 2 meters deep, outside each gap, and filled them with water. When we wanted to go in or out, Kaito or I could just create a bridge with 『Earth Magic』.
This should make it difficult for anything to get a running start to ram into the earthen walls.
…Of course, if something like that Forest Tiger shot magic at it, it would break, but there was nothing I could do about that.
We couldn’t create a perfect defense system with our current abilities.
……Actually, I had considered filling the moats with acid or venom instead of water. But I decided it would be too dangerous, especially if Kaito or Pola accidentally fell in.
They were both decent swimmers, and it shouldn’t be too dangerous if they fell into these shallow moats.
Installing the walls went as planned.
Now, the only thing inside the walls, besides the rocky mountain, were the 『Cell』 trees.
For now, I planted some 『Shen』 seeds near the 『Cell』 trees.
I had tilled the soil when leveling the ground, so planting them was easy.
Other trees had grown in this location before, so it shouldn’t be a problem in terms of nutrients, but just in case, I sprinkled some ashes from the roots and stumps I had burned earlier.
Then, I created some water with magic and watered them.
…Come to think of it, I had never seen it rain in this forest. Maybe it didn’t rain in this region, or maybe it was the dry season…
♢ ♢ ♢
Once the area around the rocky mountain was finished, it was time to work on the path to the 『Amaju Fruit』 grove.
This one had me stumped too.
I had considered enclosing the entire path to the grove with walls, just like I had done for the area around the rocky mountain, but I didn’t know how large the grove was. It wasn’t a realistic option.
So I decided to level the ground, creating a straight path, and to cut down some of the nearby trees to improve visibility.
This should make it safer.
Rin was storing the trees I cut down, as before.
However, it seemed like Rin’s 『Magic Box』 didn’t have enough capacity to hold all the trees we had felled around the rocky mountain. There was now a pile of trees in the open space inside the walls.
The strange thing was that there were no signs of rot on the trees. They had all been rotted with Rin’s venom and then toppled over, so the points where they broke should have been rotten, but they weren’t.
Did going into the 『Magic Box』 cure the rot? But time flowed normally inside, and wasn’t there some kind of preservation effect? Another mystery to solve.
Well, I would keep the wood for now, just in case we learned how to use it someday.
I continued to work, lost in thought, and eventually, the path to the Amaju grove was complete.
This marked the completion of our base construction project.
For now, I would just live with it and see how it went.
We could always make adjustments as needed.
From now on, we would call the area within the walls our “base”.
It was our home, our base of operations, centered around our cave.