Research (7)
I waited a long time, but the young master and Sister Mary still hadn't returned. Bored, I started wondering whether there might be some use for the deer's antlers and bones.
"We've got the hide, too…"
If I threw all these animal byproducts in together and combined them the way I made wooden planks, something might come out of it, right?
I was a little curious. Back in the village I'd never had the chance to try — monster hide and bone were too valuable to waste on experiments. But these bones and this hide were just dead weight right now. What did it matter?
"Unnie, get out the big pot."
"What for?"
"I'm going to try combining those."
"Sure. Do what you want."
My sister pulled a pot from her bag and handed it over. I took it to the campfire, stacked stones around it so I could set the pot on top, rinsed the inside clean with water, and filled it halfway.
"Hide."
"Mm."
She passed me the hide as instructed. About a quarter of it for a first try? It would be a waste if it failed and became unusable… but I put it in anyway.
"Bone."
"Mm."
The massive leg bone she handed me looked like far too much.
"Split this into two pieces for me."
She took the bone and brought her hand down on it. Mana flooded her palm — and she cleaved the bone clean in two with the edge of her hand.
"Doesn't that hurt?"
"No. I used mana, so it's fine."
Well, if she said it was fine, it was fine. I dropped one of the halved bones straight into the pot.
Then I picked up my spear.
The pot was too big to stir with a stick, so I swirled the spear through the contents while channeling mana into them. Pouring my overflowing holy power into the mix as I stirred, the materials melted down into a thick slurry.
No way it worked on the first try?
Finding prey so quickly, succeeding at a combination — why was my luck this good? What kind of disaster was about to hit me? Or… was this compensation for the way that village had treated us?
Think positive! I hummed cheerfully as I kept stirring.
Fifteen minutes? No, maybe twenty? A rainbow shimmer bloomed over the pot, signaling a successful combination.
"Yes!"
"It worked?"
"Yeah."
I lifted the pot off the fire, set it on the ground, and inspected the contents. Inside was hide — clean, finished hide.
"This is tanned…?"
Tanning leather was no simple task. Stripping fat and hair, the endless tedious steps, the chemicals you needed…
"So this actually works…"
It was a mystery beyond words. And where had the bone gone? Had it served as the chemical agent? Either way, looking at the finished hide left me thoroughly pleased.
I'd also gotten a rough sense of the proper proportions.
"Unnie! Bring me the rest!"
"Mm."
I kept combining hide until the young master and Sister Mary came back.
Even after I'd finished every last scrap of remaining hide, there was still no sign of them — not even word.
"Did they not find any game? Or maybe they got lost?"
We already had the deer we'd caught, so food wasn't a concern.
"Should I call them?"
If I used the prearranged signal spell, they'd find their way back on their own. My sister nodded with a completely blank expression.
"You thought about that before nodding, right?"
"Sorry…"
She really hadn't thought about it at all! We already had food — no reason to drag this out.
"Ugh, fine. Let's just call them."
I prepared the magic. A fireball in my right hand, a Thunderstorm in my left. Thunderstorm was a hybrid of lightning and wind — a spell that used wind to scatter bolts of lightning across a wide area.
"Cover your ears."
I launched the fireball straight overhead first. Watching it climb into the sky, I fired the Thunderstorm after it.
Then I clapped both hands over my ears.
The two spells collided high above. The fireball, shattered by the Thunderstorm, scattered its force in every direction. Flame and lightning painted the sky as a sharp, ear-splitting boom rolled out across the forest.
"That should bring them."
Even with my ears covered, the sound was so piercing it made them itch.
"My ears hurt…"
"I told you to cover them."
"Ugh…"
The pitiful look on my sister's face made me laugh.
"I'll handle the cooking."
I scrubbed the pot clean of any alchemical residue, set it back over the fire, and filled it with water. The flames looked a little weak, so I added more firewood to build up the heat. Once the water came to a boil, I tossed in mushrooms and bone for a soup. Being deer bone, I wasn't sure how well it would render… but it should still make a richer broth, right?
As the water boiled hard, the broth gradually turned a milky white.
"Now if I just add the meat and some spices…"
A simple meat soup, done! And of course, beyond what went into the soup, we had plenty of meat left — that we'd roast.
I was still hard at work on the soup when the young master and Sister Mary finally appeared.
"You're back?"
"Yes…"
The young master looked thoroughly dejected. A glance at his empty hands told me the hunt had come up dry.
"We caught a big deer, so don't worry about it."
I said it to cheer him up. So why did his face darken even further?
"Come on, come on — you've had a hard time. Sit down and rest."
"We can have wild strawberries for dessert."
Sister Mary held out the strawberries she'd foraged. They were well past peak season and overripe, but they were still something.
"How much meat would you like?"
"Ah — pardon?"
Where was this man's head at?
"I'm about to start grilling the meat."
The soup just needed a final taste check, so it was the perfect time to get the meat going.
"Meat would be wasted on someone as useless as me."
"Huh?"
What on earth was this man talking about?
"That's not funny."
The slight edge in my voice made him flinch, and he snapped back to himself. While my sister and Sister Mary handled the grilling, I finished the soup, seasoned it, and ladled it into bowls.
"Here. Eat something and pull yourself together."
"I'm sorry."
"You can fail a hunt. Getting this gloomy over something that small — what are you going to do?"
"Haha…"
The young master ate the soup I'd made and perked up almost immediately.
"This is truly delicious."
I'd tasted it while seasoning and it wasn't anything to make a fuss over. Still… at least the cooking hadn't been a total waste.
After the soup as an appetizer, we moved on to the real event — the meat. Some we grilled over open flame, some we seared on a hot plate, some we ate boiled…
"Ahh, that's good."
Meat really was the best! Compared to what I'd eaten in my previous life, this stuff had a stronger gamey smell and was tougher — but I'd lived fifteen years in this world. I was used to it by now.
"Eat your fill. There's still plenty."
Everyone stuffed themselves until they were bursting…
"There's still a lot left."
We hadn't even managed a tenth of it. Meat always produces a lot of unusable parts once you dress it. But butchering a deer that weighed over a hundred kilograms still yielded about a thirty-percent return. Normally, thirty percent would be considered low. But with a deer that heavy, thirty percent already meant over thirty kilograms — and that was pure meat, heavy bones excluded.
"There's so much meat left…"
There was enough that making jerky was worth considering. The problem was we barely had any spices, so we'd have to smoke it or just dry it plain.
"We'll need to store it carefully."
Sister Mary checked over the remaining meat as she spoke.
"If we had enough salt, we could just cure it."
What salt we had was nowhere near enough. Carrying it like this, it would spoil — so how were we supposed to keep it?
"Wouldn't freezing it be the most convenient method?"
"Oh…"
We could freeze it with magic!
But freezing alone wouldn't solve every problem. Once time passed and the ice melted, moisture would form. The meat inside would be fine, but the water would be a nuisance for us.
"Even frozen, it's hard to carry around."
No matter what you put it in, condensation would form…
"Still, it'd be a shame to just leave it behind."
He had a point.
"Let's clean up from the meal first."
Following Sister Mary's suggestion, we started with the cleanup. She handled the dishes alone with a magic tool. When I offered to help, she told me to rest — I'd already hunted the deer and done the cooking.
Then we stacked the leftover meat carefully into the large pot.
"First, fill it with water…"
I used ice magic to freeze the water solid. The meat submerged in it gradually froze through. Once it was locked in ice, we lashed the pot to the outside of a pack with rope.
"Are you sure about this?"
Between the meat and the water, the weight was considerable.
"Yes. A pathetic fool who couldn't do a thing should at least carry something like this…"
Why was this man acting like this? Someone who was always brimming with confidence, suddenly like this — it was unsettling.
But if it made him feel better, there was nothing I could do about it…
We cleaned the campsite thoroughly and set out again.
The problem was how much time we'd already lost.
"At this rate, making the next village today looks pretty unlikely, doesn't it?"
"Even so, we should cover as much ground as we can."
I checked the pot constantly, re-freezing the ice whenever it started to melt. Maybe it was the mild climate — every twenty or thirty minutes the ice would thaw and water would trickle out.
"Isn't that getting you wet?"
"The pack keeps me dry enough. I'm fine."
We pushed hard — really hard — but there was still no sign of a village, and the sun was sinking.
"Well. That's that."
"Yes. We should find a place to camp for the night sooner rather than later."
Camping out was unfortunately decided. We stopped traveling and went looking for a place to rest. Luckily we found a stream before long, with flat ground nearby — perfect for a campsite.
The moment we reached the clearing, we started setting up for the night.
The young master and I would handle the tent and bedding; my sister would prepare the campfire; Sister Mary would make dinner.
Once the duties were assigned, everyone got moving. While I cleared the ground with magic, the young master set up the support poles and prepared the tent.
"Ugh. All because of that damn village."
If we'd had food, we wouldn't have wasted time hunting. We could have covered more distance. Not that it would have guaranteed we'd reach the next village, but still…
"Still, this is a decent spot, isn't it?"
"I… suppose so?"
I swept the stones and gravel off the ground with wind magic, spread out the mat, and set up the sleeping bags. Then I weighted the corners with our packs so the mat wouldn't blow away.
By the time we'd finished preparing the beds, dinner was more or less ready.
"At least the weather's good. That's a blessing."
If it had rained, camping would have been miserable — we might even have ended up traveling through the night in the wet. Or would we have left the village at all if it had been raining?
"How shall we handle the night watch?"
"We'll need to set a rotation, won't we?"
The young master started in on some nonsense about taking the entire watch alone, so I shut him down. We roughly worked out the order and ate dinner.
Having eaten so well at lunch, I didn't have much appetite… and the meat was dry, maybe from being frozen and then grilled. The flavor seemed a little off, too. A shame.
After dinner and cleanup, it was still too early to sleep, and with nothing else to do, everyone sat in a circle around the campfire.
"It's quiet…"
Should we have kept moving after all? I stared blankly at my companions.
"Isn't this a kind of romance in its own right?"
More to the point — why was the young master watching Sister Mary so carefully? It bothered me a little. Even from my perspective as someone who'd once been a man, Sister Mary was an attractive woman.
She had a full figure, but her height — well over a hundred and sixty-five centimeters — made her look slender. And her face? There was a reason nobles had made passes at her. She was genuinely beautiful.
So of course a man like the young master would notice a woman like that.
But wasn't he a decent catch himself? Given Sister Mary's age, people would already be calling her an old maid.
By my previous life's standards she was still young, but in this world, twenty-five was late for marriage.
I had no idea what the future held, but as a companion, I hoped Sister Mary would find a good match. And in that sense, the young master was clearly a solid prospect…
"Hmm."
"Is something the matter?"
"No, nothing."
What was this feeling? I couldn't place it…
Too good to give away?