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Chapter 35: A Change in the Gathering Process
Hii, gyah!!
The black devils have appeared!
I can’t do this! I really can’t get used to this!
I didn’t know if this feeling was fear that had etched into the depths of my soul, or if I was just disgusted. Either way, it wasn’t going away that easily.
As soon as we set an onion down, a swarm of roach slimes gushed out from all around.
Don’t look, don’t look…
「Heave-ho!」
We threw the plank over the mob, stomped on it, and then quickly gathered up all the potions that were dropped.
We set another onion down in a different spot. While we waited for the roach slimes to gather around the second trap, we took the potions we gathered outside. We did this process roughly ten times.
We gathered enough potions so that each person got ten. Originally, we had it limited to five per person from using this technique, so we could level up properly. However, now that we have to secure as many losing potions as possible, we increased the potion count.
Sigh. I was getting tired mentally.
「What should we do with all these losing potions?」
All the winner potions we gained were kept in our own rooms, but we never decided what to do with the losing potions. Would it be better to split them evenly and have everyone take care of them?
No, if we did that, then it would accumulate over a long period of time, and we’d run out of space.
「Why don’t we store them in the food storage?」
Kurtz-kun suggested. Bryce-kun gave it some thought.
「That shouldn’t be an issue, since nobody knows what the value of the potions are. However, if by any chance, somebody were to see us storing a large amount of losing potions, they might get suspicious and try to figure out what we’re doing.」
Would anybody see us though…? The rooms are registered to a single person, and only that person can enter their own room. However, anyone can enter the hut… In other words, strangers could come in freely!
Bandits? Thieves? Robbers? …How scary! Will we be fine without Bryce-kun…? *shiver*.
Wait, I was the oldest person here, and also the only adult. I have to protect Kurtz-kun and Kirika-chan! This was no time to shake in fear.
「How about we put them into an empty room?」
Kirika-chan said. Bryce-kun clapped his hands together.
「That’s a good idea. Let’s try it out.」
Everybody grabbed as many losing potions as they could and brought it to an empty room in the hut that was the farthest in.
Hmm, if only we had a basket or something to carry the potions in. If we carry them by hand, we can only bring a few at a time, and there was a risk of us dropping one.
「Everyone, take out your card.」
We placed the bottles on the floor. Bryce-kun then took out what appeared to be his adventurer card.
Kirika-chan and Kurtz-kun did the same.
I pulled the string around my neck to take my card out as well.
「I’ve never tried registering multiple people to a room before, but let’s try it.」
All four of us held out our card at the door. Amazingly, it worked, and instantly too.
This system was so useful.
The room was the same layout as mine, with a bed, a desk, and a dresser.
「If we get more potions, we’ll probably need to put in some shelves.」
「Why don’t we use boxes? When Rofas-san collects the potions, he carries them away in a box, right? Something like that.」
I nodded in agreement to what Kurtz-kun said.
「That’s true. If we use boxes, we can stack them on top of one another, and it’d be easier for us to bring them over from the dungeon as well.」
「Okay, let’s ask Rofas-san for some boxes then.」
But if we’re going to ask for boxes, I’d like to ask for some boxes to put a bento into as well.
~~~
Now that we have finished our morning work, I began preparing the bentos.
But I already made the pork-wrapped onigiri, so what exactly should I do?
The mountain birds that Rofas-san caught for us were being butchered by the other three. They were going to do one each, apparently. Really, I should be learning how to do it as well, but that’s… I might be able to set traps to catch animals, but once it’s only me, Kirika-chan, and Kurtz-kun living together, would we even be able to catch the birds ourselves? It seemed rather difficult with only the three of us.
Besides…
「Yuuri-san, please focus on making the bentos.」
「Yuuri-neechan, leave the birds to us!」
「Yuuri-oneechan, we’re going to bring the bento to the lake for lunch, right?」
There was a lot of expectation on me to make those bentos…
I had some vegetables that were gathered from the field sitting in a shaded area of the kitchen.
Hmm, when I think about it, pork-wrapped onigiri was lacking a bit in the vegetable department.
When it comes to vegetables, I think of the colors associated with them. Pumpkins are yellow, carrots are orange, potatoes are white…
「I know! I’ll make a kyara-ben (*1)!」
Since this world didn’t have the concept of bentos, then naturally, it meant they didn’t have kyara-ben either. But if I fed the children a kyara-ben first, would they expect all bentos to look like a kyara-ben? But still, I wanted to see them smile.
Of course, that was merely an excuse.
The truth was that I…