Chapter 5 — Country of Hot Sands
Episode 67 — To the New Continent
～ Part 2 ～
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Walked, walked and walked, yet only a wasteland without a single piece of grass was spreading. Exactly like 3 months ago, the time they wandered the wasteland in the western part of the Continent, Kyousuke recalled. What different from that time, was that now, they no longer knew where they should return to.
The sun was high, indicating that the time was around noon. The scorching sunlight blazing the ground never got to steal any stamina from Kyousuke who was a skeleton, but Rin’s condition was worrying.
Rin didn’t do anything like combing with Kyousuke, she was moving by slowly creeping on the ground.
“…Are you all right?”
“Ehh, yup. Completely heal~thy~!”
She moved her flabby body as an answer.
“Kyousuke-kun for sure, are you all right? There’s no damage left in your body?”
“There’s no such thing. I’m fine.”
Rin who was always lively, obviously had too few words. Surely, she wasn’t «completely heal~thy~!» at all. But how should he pursue the matter here? As he was hesitating, Rin had changed to another topic first.
“I wonder where everyone is~?”
Certainly, that was the thing bothering them the most.
“There’s also the question about where on earth we got ourselves to as well.”
The clash of Akai and the Rook woke up onboard. The collision of their power was the cause that teleported Kyousuke and the others, there was no doubt about it. Kyousuke didn’t understand the detailed mechanism, but perhaps, Akai had acted after anticipating to some extent that it would turn out like this. If she fought with the Rook at full power, the ship would break. The teleportation was probably intentional.
But perhaps, it was impossible to adjust up to the point of where they would be sent to. This situation where not a single other classmate could be found, testified that well.
“Uunn…. Kyousuke-kun.”
Rin let out an animalistic voice and said.
“What?”
“I’m, hungry~.”
“Ahh, speaking of which, we haven’t eaten anything…”
This place wasn’t so far from the sea. If the cardinal direction could be confirmed by some means, at that time, the course of action from now on would change depending on which way the sea really was.
Suppose the sea was to the North, it was very likely that this place was further south from Albadanba. That is to say, the so-called New Continent. Since he heard that the northern part of the Old Continent had cold climate, as expected, it wouldn’t be this place.
Anyway, food, is it?
“Edible things? I wonder if we can find any in this kinda place.”
“Even if we find any, can we even cook them…. There’s no one who can make a fire, no cookwares, no Aya-chan either…”
While saying so, his feet naturally headed to the sea. At least, the possibility seemed higher than looking in the wasteland.
The sandy beach spread out, few plants were growing in this area. They were fern-type plants he had never seen before. Rin stretched her flabby body, pluck a leaf and try to swallow it. But immediately after that, she spat it out.
“Pe–! Pe–! Ba–bad!!”
“Is that something the guy who ate even shrimp shell can say?”
“Did, did I do such a thing…?”
Kyousuke also picked up a fern leaf and threw it into his mouth. Fierce bitterness and sourness spread in his mouth. He tried to spat, but since he didn’t possess the spitting function, the plant just smoothly passed through his throat and dropped to the ground.
“Certainly, this is not edible.”
“I guess?”
“Having said that, it doesn’t look like we can fish either…”
No food.
Perhaps, this is quite a bad situation, is it not?
Due to the fact that they hadn’t suffer in destitute for close to 3 months, it took some time for Kyousuke to reaffirm how bad this present situation was. Still, they were blessed at that time. If try thinking about it, it would be natural. That dungeon was a stage set up by the vampires to let them play a survival life.
This place was different. Not only their true survival ability would be tried, there was even a luck factor of whether there would be any food here. Kyousuke fully worked his brain to find anything that seemed usable from the contents of books he had read in the library before.
“(I have no brain though)”
Since he still had time to come up with stupid joke, his heart probably still had enough composure.
“Anyway, we have no choice but to dig up the sand to find shellfish, crabs or something…”
“Unn, it’s salty life…”
Kyousuke decided to use his bone fingers instead of a rake and steadily dig up the sand.
“Kyousuke-kun, perhaps, now is ebb tide, isn’t it?”
Rin pointed to a barnacle-like thing sticking to a rock on a slightly higher place and said.
“Ahh, so it seems.”
“Which means, the shellfish in the sand should have made holes to put out water pipe.”
“Ahh, that’s right. It’s clam eye.”
That was the knack to clam hunt. At high tide, the clams underground opened holes in the sand and put out its water pipe in order to breathe. But then, when it came to a prosperous clam hunting ground, the human footsteps would be too many and the ‘clam eye’ would immediately withdraw.
“You, you’re as knowledgeable about strange things as ever.”
“Ehehe~h. Praise me more–.”
One problem: this place was another world. Would shellfish such as clam truly exist?
On their way to Albadanba, the Uozumi siblings and Sugiura had caught plenty of marine products, among them there were also quite a lot of fishes that could be seen on earth. Which is why, he felt they could have some expectation about clams as well.
“Kyousuke-kun, clams live gathered around sloping seashore!”
“You, why are you so rich in that kinda trivia…”
According to Rin’s words, Kyousuke tried looking for places with more inclination in the sand or places that was gouged out by the wave, then he could confirm a full of holes place on the beach.
“Himemizu-sensei, is this place good?”
“Umu, very well. Dig it.”
Since Rin was a slime, she couldn’t dig. Kyousuke had no choice but to dig with his rake arms, but still, if he was to dig about 5 cm down, the clams would come out.
There was no guarantee that these were clam breathing holes though.
As Kyousuke dug and dug, small bivalves started being excavated here and there.
“Ooooh–!!”
Rin raised a deeply moved voice.
“It’s shellfish! Shellfish, is this clam!?”
“I wonder about that. There’s also the possibility of it being other world unique poisonous shellfish.”
“But its appearance is clam, isn’t it?”
Picking up the shell that came out, the two people seriously pondered.
At times like these, if Okumura or Gofunkawahara were here, they would poison testing for the class. Species such as orc and goblin were born with very strong stomach, simply eating poison would never be enough to ruin their body.
If speaking of sturdy body and bad eating habit, in fact, Rin would be quite a good match for them. Only, the poison she ate would be absorbed straight into her body, so if that was to be a lethal poison, there was fear that it would suddenly threaten her life.
Nevertheless, Kyousuke tried asking what to do.
“Rin, eat?”
“Eh!? Hey, it’s raw … I hate it!”
“Even though you ate shrimp shell?”
“Uunn…. I wonder why…”
He felt a tiny sense of discomfort to Rin’s conduct. It doesn’t mean that he felt as if she was another person. Only, Rin seemed just a little too negative about food considering that she even got the nickname of Triangular Corner.
Well, the nickname Triangular Corner itself wasn’t an honorable title, so she might just be conscious of a maiden’s heart and took up the attitude to take in more humane meals. Trying to pursue this matter was too lacking in delicacy, so Kyousuke didn’t do that either.
“The problem is how are we going to remove salt from this.”
“If only we have a bucket.”
With lots of gathered clams in hands, Kyousuke and Rin muttered together.
“Something else that seems capable of containing water…. Ahh!!”
“What?”
“Kyousuke-kun’s skull!”
“Don’t joke around!”
Kyousuke shouted back as a conditioned reflex.
“In the first place, there’s holes like eyes or ears, don’t you think!?”
“I, I will plug those up…”
“Rin, if you can do that, then you should turn into pool-shaped, we’ll be able to pour more sea water in that way.”
“Yes…. I hate salty…”
Presently, Rin’s whole body seemed to have become her taste bud. Besides, when she soaked in sea water for extended period, it would also become life risking to her as a result of osmosis. It would be safer to give that up.
“Well, even without removing the sand, you can still eat it if you try.”
“Uuwaa–. It seems terribly gritty…”
“The problem is how are we going to make a fire…”
As a matter of fact, in the class, the number of students who could make a fire was limited. After Kogane was gone, it was mostly Ryuzaki’s responsibility. Other than that would be Akira, Sakuma, and Kaoruko?
In this situation without tools or abilities, it would be difficult to make a fire.
“Ah, that’s right. Since it’s extremely sunny and all, how about making it dried food?”
“That’s not bad, but we’ll be skipping dinner today.”
“That’s right…”
Well, it’s not all bad as a choice. In that case, I want to dig up more and dry them in large quantity.
At that time when Kyousuke was thinking hard about the treatment of the clams.
From a place not so far away, he heard sound like a big explosion had occurred. Startled, he raised his face and looked over. Following that, screams and angry roars gradually approached. This was the sounds of battle.
“This is Azu-nyan’s voice.”
“Mitarai!?”
Rin nodded to Kyousuke’s voice.
Attendance number 37, Mitarai Azuki. Member of volunteer club. Her home was a laundry shop. She was just a little of a clean-freak, an unusual girl whose hobby was to collect detergent. In the class, she didn’t stand out too much, a docile girl.
The monster she reincarnated as was Azuki-arai (wiki). It was a Japanese youkai. She wasn’t the type with too much fighting strength. Was she getting rolled up in a battle or something?
“Let’s go, Rin!”
Kyousuke abandoned the clams on the beach and was about to run off.
Naturally, «Yup!», Rin shouted and was going to follow him, or so he thought.
But in fact, it needed a slight bit later before he got a response from her.
“Nn … yup, let’s go. Kyousuke-kun.
Slightly hesitating, Rin combined with Kyousuke. By means of Stream Cross, Kyousuke and Rin who obtained wonderful physical ability, kicked up the sand and hurry to the direction of the sound.
To be continued…
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