15. Survival Rule #3: We Are All Friends (1)
15. Survival Rule #3: We Are All Friends (1)
"What an absolute shitshow."
My Zombie Coaster Tycoon operation was even more effective than I'd expected.
Zombies and skeletons poured out endlessly.
The snakes suffered as they tried to hold them back.
The seven-headed Hydra eventually came out and began dissolving them with acid, but by then the pond was already packed with zombies. If it wanted to stop me, it should have acted while I was building the walls and leading them toward the pond.
The once-clear blue pond began turning the color of food waste mixed into water.
That pond would soon become a hellhole where a single drink meant death.
The snake bastards would realize what it meant to have no water, too.
For me, it was one hell of a show. There was so little entertainment on this island that even this felt thrilling. I chewed jerky atop the newly built watchtower as I surveyed the snakes' territory.
It was a little disappointing that the Hydra bastard's intervention kept me from dealing the snakes a direct blow, but keeping them too busy to pay attention to us for a while was already a substantial gain.
Reni needed time to recover, and this had also left the snakes with no spare capacity for sabotage, such as poisoning the well.
"Now I can focus on nursing for a while..."
Since I wasn't the one doing the nursing, I planned to go about my usual business while monitoring the snakes' movements.
Reni should recover enough to fight in about a week. Before then, I planned to make her a weapon. Calling it a weapon made it sound grander than it was; all I would be doing was carving one of the Alpha Bear's bones into a sword. Even so, it was more tedious and difficult than it sounded.
I climbed down from the watchtower and started home. Grass brushed my ankles and tickled them as I walked. Come to think of it, making sandals for Reni and Karina wouldn't be a bad idea. Karina had no other shoes and was wearing dress shoes ill-suited to an uninhabited island. Apparently they were durable enough because an artisan had made them from high-grade leather, but...
A few days earlier, I'd seen the blisters on feet that looked soft enough to feel like a baby's skin. I'd been too busy assessing the island's rapidly changing situation to pay attention then, but the memory returned now that I had room to breathe. Whatever my reservations, I needed to get closer to Karina, and I planned to use this opportunity to narrow the distance between us.
"Material's at home, and I'll check the traps on the way..."
Caterpillars were the island's best source of nutrition, but I couldn't live on caterpillars forever. Today, I planned to catch and roast a rabbit. Rabbit didn't taste as good as pork or beef, but meat was meat, and it was one of the few kinds available on this island.
Now, had one of the traps caught a rabbit today or not...?
I walked to the western part of my territory, where I'd laid a large number of traps. Rabbits had once lived scattered across the island, but after realizing my territory was safe, they'd migrated here. Wild animals really were quick to notice anything that affected their survival.
Their insane breeding rate meant their numbers never seemed to shrink, no matter how many I trapped, making them an excellent food source for me.
Even more so because every other kind of meat had its own problems.
Fish were easy to catch, but they had a bitter, mackerel-like taste that made them nearly inedible. Bear meat simply tasted bad, while snake meat was decent but troublesome to prepare because of the venom. Naturally, rabbits had become the island's main source of protein.
Bears ate rabbits, snakes ate rabbits, people ate rabbits.
Just how many babies did they have?
I knew rabbits could reproduce on par with rats, but it was absurd that they could support the food supply of all three factions. What the hell did they live on? There was plenty of grass, but was that really enough?
Musing on pointless questions as I walked, I began to see the spot where the traps were laid. I immediately started swiveling my head to check the surroundings.
Hm. Two of the traps had sprung. One was too young, so I'd let it go...
After scanning the area, I picked up the rabbit caught in a trap. This one was fairly large.
Naturally, the rabbit thrashed wildly in an attempt to escape. It wasn't as though it could break free of my grip. I might as well make it easier to carry before taking it home.
Crunch.
The rabbit went limp when its neck snapped. Now it'd be easy to carry.
In Korea, doing this might have gotten me labeled a potential murderer, but this was an uninhabited island. To survive, a person needed to know how to snap a rabbit's neck with their bare hands. Anyone who couldn't do that would starve. Humming, I headed home with the limp carcass in hand.
What song was this again? The memory was hazy now. Maybe it was one song, or maybe several had blended together. Either way, it didn't matter. As long as it lifted my mood, that was enough. It was still sad that I could no longer remember even the title.
Someday, I might even forget this jumbled melody.
Even the most vivid memories faded with time.
My parents' faces were already blurry after ten years without seeing them.
...No more thinking about that. It would only make me sad.
I let the bitter thoughts drift away with my humming.
After twenty minutes of walking and humming like that, the house came into view in the distance.
It was the house I'd spent years busting my ass to build. Karina stood in the yard, gazing down at the water container beneath the purifier. She sometimes watched the drops trickle through the cylinder as though she found the device fascinating, although she was probably only there to collect water for the meal.
"Karina."
"Ah, you're back? That is..."
Karina's gaze turned toward the rabbit in my hand.
Come to think of it, this was the first time she'd seen me bring back a rabbit.
I casually hid the rabbit behind my back. Women probably wouldn't like this sort of thing. Even after ten years without contact with the opposite sex, I remembered that much. I hesitated for a moment, then spoke.
"Today's lunch."
"I'm looking forward to it."
"You're not very surprised."
"...I lived in a rural village when I was young. So I'm used to scenes like that. Would you like help dressing it?"
"Ah, no."
Was that part of her backstory? I couldn't remember; I'd only skimmed her setting on Shut-It-Down Wiki once. I did remember that she had been orphaned around eight or nine and entrusted to the temple, but... I wasn't sure. Whatever. I just needed to dress the rabbit.
"I'll go dress it."
I squeezed out the reply and moved to the backyard, where I kept the tools for dressing meat.
I laid the limp rabbit on the workbench and picked up the knife.
First, I had to skin it.
My knife moved toward the wide-eyed rabbit's head.
----------------------------
I could feel a hostile stare boring into my back.
A murderous glare had followed me the entire time I ate and worked inside the house, so of course it bothered me. When I glanced at Reni, Karina looked back and forth between us with a puzzled expression.
Reni immediately turned gentle eyes on Karina as if nothing had happened. Watching her transform from a savage beast into a docile puppy was absurd.
Wasn't that contrast way too extreme?
No, considering what I'd done, she had every right... but did she remember? I couldn't tell whether she remembered or not. If we were left alone, I could ask, but... Karina practically never left Reni's side.
So I hadn't had the chance to ask yet. Well, I could just ask once she was back to normal. Tearing into a rabbit hind leg, I recalled what I knew about Reni.
Reni.
No surname.
Commoner background.
An orphan who wandered the streets as a child until a mercenary captain recognized her talent and took her in, starting her mercenary life. Earned the nickname "Mad Dog" due to her exceptional talent and reckless nature.
She distinguished herself in the mercenary company that had taken her in, only for the company to fall into a trap that left her the sole survivor. Karina found her and nursed her back to health. After Karina was chosen as the Saintess, Reni endured grueling training, received a knighthood, and became her Escort Knight.
What else was there?
Depending on her affinity with Karina, she joined the party. As a party member, she was more trouble than she was worth, but on the Traitor Route she was one of the strongest bosses in the game and got cursed to hell and back. I remembered that much. I used to curse her too, calling her a motherless bitch.
I wasn't even playing on Hard, let alone Nightmare—the highest difficulty—and she still took me seventy-two attempts. Of course I cursed her out.
Still, she had a certain popularity.
What was it? Maybe people liked how her whole vibe did a complete 180 between ally and enemy. Some even wanted a Reni Route.
To summarize, even if she wasn't a massively popular character, she had a decent fanbase.
...How long was she going to keep glaring?
A fierce-looking woman kept glaring at me with such hostility that it left me uneasy. It seemed wise to talk to her soon. That fiercely loyal Mad Dog clearly regarded me as a threat.
Otherwise, why would she stare at me so hard that she looked more like a sentry than an Escort Knight?
At least, it couldn't be that she'd fallen for me.
"Yohan?"
"...Why did you call?"
The unfamiliar formal tone felt awkward in my mouth. When would I be able to speak naturally around her? Talking to Karina made me understand how a fan felt when meeting a celebrity face-to-face.
Karina called my name and then hesitated a moment before speaking, her cheeks slightly flushed.
"Um, I have a brief personal matter to attend to... In the meantime, please look after Reni. You only need to watch her, so..."
Personal matter?
"Uh, well, I'll be back!"
What did she have to do?
The door opened and shut with a scrape of its hinges. I did not dwell on it and looked at Reni instead. With that intense stare boring into me, I could hardly ignore her.
Our eyes met, and we stared each other down as though probing for an opening.
A pointless contest of nerves with nothing to gain.
At a distance close enough to touch if I reached out, the fierce predator with blazing eyes finally opened her mouth.
"...Are you some kind of pervert? Why the hell aren't you wearing a shirt?"