Volume 2 Chapter 1.1 (1/2)

Chapter 1.1

「Found the river！」

One week after the infiltration of the forest. Hiroshi had identified the sound of water about 30 minutes ago before returning with good news of the river they had been searching for.

「How far away is it?」

「’Bout 20 minutes if ya go around all the obstructions. But we could probably cut straight through in 10 minutes.」

「Just a bit more, then.」

If it took 10 minutes to go straight there, then that meant it was about a kilometer away. This explained why they could not hear the murmuring of the stream.

「But wow, it took us a whole week to find the river～」

「Which river would have been faster to travel upstream?」

「The closest place was 200 kilometers on the other side, so I’m pretty sure you’d get lost before you arrived here.」

You could tell just by listening to Haruna and Makoto’s conversation how cumbersome it was to find a settlement within a gigantic forest like this.

「But don’t you think it’s weird that there are traces of people moving through this deep forest?」

「Teres told me that adventurer-like merchants come ’round once a month. Maybe it’s them?」

「But can you make this much progress in a single month?」

「Even the elves git out twice a month to buy various things. The merchants prolly come ’round then.」

Even with plenty of salt, water, and food supplies, sometimes it was just easier to travel along the road to nearby towns to buy things. Maybe harvests didn’t always go as planned. The elves generally bought things based on how quickly they could get them or how much they had, so they hadn’t quite reached regular trade with humans, more content with supplying themselves as much as possible.

「Anyhow, now that we know people were wandering around here and that there’s a river, it can’t be much longer. Let’s give it our all.」

Everyone nodded at Haruna, trudging onward with hardly any space. Incidentally, the greatest reason for taking a week to get to this point was because they had messed up their directions several times. Teres had said it would take as much as 4 days, so you can imagine how much of a blunder they made.

Usually, wasting as much time as this would sow discord within the group, but as none of them were actually good at recognizing this fact, no fights occurred. At most, they grumbled about wanting to eat fish or how they had grown tired of the forest. Despite searching for an indistinct road on foot, they were still as nonchalant as ever. It was doubtful that they’d run into any issues.

「……I hear a stream.」

「Just a lil bit more.」

Hiroshi responded to Tatsuya, and 3 minutes later they saw a river. It was fairly big, with a width of 10 meters.

「Whoa～」

「What a pretty river～」

「Welp, this is a good time for lunch.」

Everyone agreed with Hiroshi and got to spreading sheets and preparing food.

「Think we should git some river fish?」

「If you can, yeah. I don’t want birds, snakes, rabbits, tanukis, or bugs anymore.」

「Alright. After lunch then.」

No one was concerned about how much time they had lost. Sure, there wasn’t any time limit per say, but couldn’t they be a bit more anxious?

「Wonder what we’ll find.」

「Doesn’t seem like y’all want bugs used as bait, so I’ll try ‘n make a lure.」

「I don’t think we’ll ever get out of this pattern, will we……」

Hiroshi had a habit of making things from scratch no matter the situation. You could tell how passionate he was, reflected in his handicraft. In all honesty, maybe him and Mio should stay in this world.

「We could even swim. That sounds fun, but……」

「It’s still a bit cold. I advise you don’t.」

「Yeah.」

Everyone figured they might as well fish. After finishing a tanuki sandwich, the Japanese gathered around the river holding the fishing rods Hiroshi had made off the cuff.

「Some of these fish have colors that don’t seem very tropical……」

Makoto blurted out after fishing up a metallic blue fish. It was quite the catch, with a size of 80 centimeters, but its color made her question if it was edible and she couldn’t really celebrate.

By the way, the thread Hiroshi had used to make these poles with was spirit thread. Despite being a legendary material, there was tons of it, so he slovenly used it for things like this even though there were probably better uses for it.

「Shocking pink is still passable, but I sure as heck ain’t seen lavender fish.」

「Think it tastes good?」

「Won’t know till we eat it.」