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Chapter 138 – Day 30 of the Strategy Life
The next morning, it was drizzling as I left the cave.
I could hear frogs croaking in the direction of the swamp.
“Are there going to be a lot of frogs again? Good morning.”
Chel was baking bread, and Sylvia and Hel were stir-frying meat and wild herbs. It seemed like they were going to mince the meat and put it on the bread. The aroma of herbs filled the air.
“Good morning. If it’s frogs, it doesn’t matter how many there are; the monsters will eat them.”
“Th-Th-There are cases where it’s better if they appear…”
“Makyo, if I collapse, will you drag me and carry me? These two have been making a lot of noise since early morning.”
With that, Hel spread butterbur leaves over the bonfire to use as a tarp.
“Don’t worry about it. They’re just bored. Anyway, can you move?”
“Of course. If I couldn’t sleep after something like that, I wouldn’t be able to live in the demonic land.”
“Makyo, carry me to my bed, too. I can’t plan our route.”
Chel said in a spoiled voice, teasing me.
“Okay, fine.”
I picked up Chel and threw her in the opposite direction.
“Hey! What are you doing? Oh, the bread, the bread!”
Chel landed gracefully on a tree trunk and hurried back. She seemed concerned about how the bread was baking.
“Never mind that. It’s breeding season in the demonic land, so be careful. The other day, the Midgard ruins were noisy with migrating monsters. Ka-Ryu, have any other monsters appeared in large numbers in Yggdrasil?”
Ka-Ryu was sitting on a stump, getting drenched in the rain.
“There have been locust and rat outbreaks, as well as an Arachne outbreak. However, I think the last one was bigger. However, outbreaks haven’t happened this frequently before.”
“That’s right.”
“Normally, outbreaks depend on factors like climate, the absence of predators, and the availability of food. But in the demonic land, all those conditions are easily met.”
Hel explained. The decrease in predators due to the giant magical beast’s attack might be causing the outbreak.
“We should explore the area around the giant magical beast’s footprints. Things might have changed over time.”
“Makyo, I want you to get some granite.”
“Chel, are you building a road?”
“Yeah, it’s raining, so I’m going to experiment with building a tunnel.”
“Wh-What about the bag in the warehouse?”
Sylvia was probably referring to the bag of magic stones collected from Big Moth yesterday.
“I want to make staffs for the trainees who will come to the demonic land in the future. Big Moth magic stones are perfect for that. Sylvia, could you make some wooden staffs? There’s no rush.”
“I-I got it.”
“What about you, Hel?”
“I want to make a pot, but with this weather, I’ll help Sylvia.”
Ka-Ryu said she would also help the two of them.
“The rain makes my body feel like it’s melting.”
She said this and showed me her clay body, so I poured some extra magic into it.
Just then, Jennifer and Lipa woke up.
“Lipa, is your arm okay?”
“Yes, it’s fine. Is there anything I can do?”
“I want you to check out the footprints of the giant magical beast.”
“Got it. Is it raining today?”
Lipa looked up at the rain clouds.
“If it gets dangerous, come back right away.”
“Got it. I’ll just focus on surviving.”
“Aren’t you going to ask if I’m okay? My whole body is sore.”
Jennifer joined the conversation between Lipa and me.
“You should be fine if you put some healing medicine on it. Since it’s raining, it would be helpful if you could go with Lipa.”
“Sure. I’ll look for some wild herbs, too.”
Once everyone had made plans, we all ate breakfast together.
“””Delicious!”””
After breakfast, I wrapped a long vine around my shoulder, put on my coat, and headed northwest.
Since I was alone, I kept a close eye on my surroundings and headed straight for the place where the granite had been quarried.
The path I had taken before was blocked by plants, so I used my back fist again to clear a way. The closer I got to the mountain, the more the types of monsters changed. There were many I had never seen before.
I ducked under branches and leaves and quickly sketched their characteristics on paper with charcoal. I thought P.J. would have done the same, so I did, too.
The monsters were wary of me, but as long as I didn’t enter their territory, they let me observe them freely.
The wolves, whose fur was as sharp as a sword, were called “Kenzan Okami,” and the wildcats, which were twice the size of green tigers, were called “Bai Neko.” My naming sense was as terrible as P.J.’s.
[T/N: Kenzan comes from ken 剣, meaning sword, and zan 山, meaning mountain. Together, they evoke the image of a “mountain of swords,” referring to the sharp spikes. As for “Bai Neko,” it’s taken from “Bai” (倍), which means “multiple” or something, and “Neko” (猫), which means “cat,” referring to its size, which is twice that of green tigers.]
As the trees grew shorter and we entered the mountains, the herd of black goats that had been clashing horns earlier huddled together under the branches of low trees. With few branches to cover them, they were soaked to the skin.
I climbed the mountain and reached the place where I had mined granite. In the hole that I had dug with the magic cube, a white rabbit was taking shelter from the rain.
I dug another hole beside it. While I was tying a vine around a granite rock larger than a person, a rock ptarmigan flew in and entered the hole. Perhaps there aren’t many monsters that dig caves around here.
I carried the granite on my back and descended the mountain.
On rainy days, monsters are quiet. Maybe their body temperature drops when they get wet.
At the foot of the mountain, a large salamander monster was also camouflaged as a rock. It felt soft and sticky to the touch. It glanced at me but did not attack.
I descend into the lowlands and head straight for the tunnel where Chel is conducting her experiment.
As I approach, I hear the croaking of frogs.
“How’s it going?”
I call out to Chel inside the tunnel.
“Did you get it already? It’s no good today. The palm sap has hardened, so we can’t do the experiment.”
The inside of a palm tree is usually kept at a high temperature, but on rainy days or when it’s cold, the sap becomes muddy and hardens immediately after being cut. She showed me a palm leaf that was as hard as a rock.
“Why don’t you just warm it up?”
“I’ve tried, but I can’t get much out of it.”
She said that she was heating the leaves in a pot but couldn’t get much out of them. However, the mixture of sand, gravel, and sap was hard and seemed usable as a building material.
“Also, if it’s too black, it will absorb heat when exposed to sunlight, so I want to make it whiter.”
“Dye, huh… Should we go to the East Coast and collect seashells?”
“Or eggshells, maybe?”
As the demonic land develops, does the amount of things to discard decrease? For now, since no one steals granite, I left it by the tunnel.
“Still, there really are a lot of frogs, aren’t there?”
“Maybe. I saw a few monsters heading toward the swamp through the tunnel.”
“They might be gathering at the swamp. It’s daytime, so let’s head back for now.”
When we arrived home, as expected, the slope leading to the swamp was swarmed with deep green, fist-sized frogs, and monsters gathered around them. As far as I could tell, Lamias, Field Boars, Hell Beetles, Blue Snakes, and Swimmer Birds were preying on the frogs.
“Did Big Moth’s corpse become food for the frogs?”
“That’s possible.”
“I-I-I prepared grilled blue snake for lunch.”
Hel and Sylvia were wearing leather aprons because they had been working on the staff. When did she make those leather aprons?
Lunch was bread, grilled blue snake, and wild herb soup. Snake meat isn’t bad every once in a while.
While we were eating, Jennifer and Lipa returned.
“Eating a snake that eats frogs is like being part of the food chain.”
Jennifer said this as I was gobbling up the snake meat.
“How were the footprints?”
“The plants have already started to recover. The vines were growing, and all the plants had buds.”
“Some of the Imps and Forest Rats have big bellies. There were also a few Vespa hornets building nests.”
Once the buds bloom and bear fruit, the food supply will increase dramatically.
“It seems like the conditions for an outbreak are coming together.”
“What should we do?”
Jennifer asked.
“We don’t know what the outbreak will be, so maybe we should just leave it alone. I plan to leave the frogs alone, too.”
“If the Forest Rats swarm, the damage might come this way.”
A swarm of rats would definitely be scary.
“Should we set some traps?”
“Are you going to poison the cam fruits?”
Lipa asked while eating snake meat.
“That’s not a bad idea. It should be a magic circle that can be used multiple times…”
Explosive magic circles are dangerous, but the others seem usable.
“How about trapping them in water balls?”
“That’s not bad. If they’re in water balls, we can suffocate them and let the balls float away.”
“What about bells with emerald monkey magic stones inside?”
“They have a confusing effect, right? That might work.”
“Why not whirl them up with a tornado?”
“Let’s try everything.
There are many magic stones, so there are many things we can do.
There are also many monsters around the house that we can experiment on.
In the afternoon, everyone gathered their ideas. Except for the night owls, everyone started making traps.
It continued to rain, and the constant croaking of frogs could be heard.
We were so focused on our work that we didn’t notice various monsters gathering around the swamp.
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Thanks for the treat
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