20. Hunting Requires Preparation (3)
20. Hunting Requires Preparation (3)
"Heavy armor? All of a sudden?"
I nodded instead of answering.
Even thinking it over myself, it seemed like a pretty solid plan. If we couldn't cross a forest full of poison pools, why not just make ourselves able to cross it? What clearer solution could there be?
If I made clothes out of material that could withstand the poison, stepping in a few poison pools wouldn't kill us. Yep. A perfect plan.
I gripped the handle of the shovel on my back and drove it into the ground.
Dirt kicked up where the blade struck and scattered at my feet. This much dirt should work, right? Should I run a test first? If I skipped it because it was a hassle and then lost a key fighter, that'd be a real headache.
Even if it was a hassle, testing first was definitely the better call.
What should I use for materials?
Dirt, the groundwater flowing beneath it, and rocks. That should be enough to start with.
"Craft."
The moment I finished speaking, dirt began clumping together from the spot where the shovel was buried. The mass of dirt soon transformed into a square block just big enough to encase a person's head, and I lifted it.
The block had condensed a fair amount of dirt, making it about as heavy as a sack of rice. Even with the pretty solid musculature I'd built up scrabbling to survive on an uninhabited island for ten years, lifting more than three blocks like this was tough.
"Reni. Try lifting it."
"This? Gimme it."
Reni accepted the block with a look that said she had no idea what was going on, then stared at me as if asking what it was.
"Heavy?"
"Not really?"
"Think you could carry about ten of them?"
"Ten? Probably could. But why?"
I took the block back from Reni and strode over toward the boundary line. The sight of the violet earth spewing sticky purple currents like a wary cat was chilling. An ordinary creature would be done for the instant it stepped in. So there was no crossing that place by ordinary means.
I hurled the block underhand toward the violet ground. The dirt block, formed from assorted materials by my Skill, landed with a splat in the middle of a poison pool. Watching it gradually shrink amid the fumes, I clicked my tongue.
This composition wasn't going to cut it.
"What are you doing?"
"Figuring out a mix that can hold up against those poison pools."
"Sounds like a headache."
Of course it was. It was giving me a headache too. But unless I found a mix that could endure those poison pools, scouting would be impossible. Just pacing back and forth along the boundary like a coward was meaningless.
I returned to the same spot and adjusted the ratio slightly to make another block. This time, I pulled in soil tangled with tree roots and shaped it into something like clay. How would this one fare? I approached the boundary again, threw the block, and checked it. It melted more slowly than the first one, but it still melted. If it dissolved that badly, was the poison practically on the level of hydrochloric acid?
There was magic in this world, along with monsters, so I had no idea whether its scientific laws were exactly the same as Earth's. Take the knight yawning in front of me: when she was healthy, she had possessed the monstrous strength to take on five hundred people by herself. The thought still sent a chill down my spine. If she'd been in perfect condition, I would literally have been reduced to chunks of meat.
I'd gotten really lucky. Of course, if she'd been in good shape, there'd have been no reason to fight in the first place. No matter how violent her temper, she wouldn't try to kill someone out of nowhere.
"Craft."
How about this mix? This time I peeled bark off a nearby tree and covered the outer surface with it. It was the bark of some nameless tree commonly seen in this forest. No idea if it'd be effective, but it was worth trying at least. I tossed the bark-wrapped block into a pool.
"...Oh."
The block melted far more slowly than before. Was there some component in the bark of this tree that could resist the poison? An unexpected find. And here I'd just scraped up whatever materials were handy and chucked them in.
I stroked the tree whose bark I'd stripped away, exposing its white inner wood. My hand came away sticky. Sap must have been flowing beneath the bark. The trees in my territory had not been like this. Looking more closely, this one did seem slightly different from them.
It was not as though I'd ever paid attention to such things. I was not a botanist, so how was I supposed to know one tree from another?
Nothing else on the island had spewed acidic poison besides the Hydra, so I'd never had to deal with anything like it before.
Anyway, finding a lead was a huge gain. Not just for immediate scouting—this tree bark could prove pretty useful in the decisive battle against the Hydra, too. I started moving around the area, stripping bark from every tree in reach.
"Why're you suddenly tearing bark off trees?"
"You strip some too. This stuff seems pretty resistant to the poison."
"Ah, got it."
That was right. At least she understood immediately this time. Watching Reni tear bark off nearby trees with her bare hands, I slid my shovel blade between the layers of bark.
With two of us working, the job was done in no time. I paused to catch my breath, looking at the pile of bark that had already stacked up to my height. Reni, who'd finished working and was leaning against a rock, abruptly spoke up.
"We've stripped pretty much every tree in the area naked. So what're you making with this?"
"I'm planning to make armor out of it."
"It might hold up against the poison pools... but isn't it way too weak? Even if it resists the pools, it's still just tree bark, right?"
Reni's point was valid. No matter what qualifiers you slapped on it, as long as the base material was tree bark that could be torn off easily by hand, at best it would only have slightly better physical defense than ordinary clothing—even if it could somehow handle the poison.
So I couldn't make armor purely out of this bark.
I'd have to mix in other materials.
I ran through usable materials in my head. Things I could obtain in this forest. It was time to start gathering stuff I hadn't bothered with before, since it hadn't seemed necessary.
"Leave this here. There's something I need to go get."
"What kind of thing?"
"Bones."
"Bones? Wouldn't those melt just the same?"
"There's one set of bones that probably won't."
If it was those bones, they ought to hold up well enough. I stood up and brushed the dirt off my ass. More time was slipping away than I'd expected, so retrieving them quickly would be best. I took Reni with me and moved deeper into the bears' territory.
--------------------
"What the hell is this?"
"The bear whose head you smashed."
"Me? Must've been a dumb brute with a big body, then."
No, you were just fucking strong, you bitch.
Did this bitch even realize how strong she was?
Probably not. After all, she had nothing in her head but Karina.
I circled the Alpha Bear's corpse, one side of its skull crushed and rotting brain matter oozing out, and examined its condition. It had decomposed somewhat, but this creature had effectively been a boss monster, so its hide and bones would be more useful than an ordinary bear's. Its insides had rotted and were giving off a hideous stench, but I was used to that. This was exactly what zombies smelled like.
"I'm going to strip the hide. And pull out the bones too."
"I'm not exactly great at this kind of thing."
"It's fine. I'll do it myself."
I began skinning the reeking Alpha Bear and extracting its bones. Some parts had rotted, so there wouldn't be all that much usable material, but this much was enough for now. Instead of helping with the skinning, Reni neatly stacked the bones and hide I passed her to one side.
Ugh, the smell was all over me.
I'd hidden in piles of shit to survive before, and this was worse. Nothing was quite as foul as the stench of a rotting corpse.
"Urgh. It's seriously hard to breathe..."
"I'll go wash up once before we head back."
"Yeah. Go wash up quick. If you go back in that state, we'll die from the stench, not the poison."
I shook off the rotted entrails clinging to my body and headed for a pond. Fortunately, the pond on this side hadn't been contaminated and was still clear and clean. It would've been a real pain if this one had been polluted too. Anyway, there sure were a lot of rabbits here as well.
I glanced at a rabbit drinking water, then dove into the pond. As the cold pond water soaked my whole body, my overheated frame from the hard labor cooled right down. After swimming and scrubbing myself for quite a while, I climbed out of the pond and returned to where Reni was. Reni stared blankly at me, completely drenched, then spoke.
"You came back soaked. Doesn't it feel gross?"
"I'm used to it."
"Ah, right, of course you are..."
I walked over to Reni, who was trailing off, and lifted the rolled-up hides beside her with both hands.
"Let's head back. You carry the bones."
"All of them?"
"...Just bring the two shinbones and the skull."
"Yeah, yeah. Will do."
Reni answered playfully, then did as I said: she hoisted the shinbones onto one shoulder, grabbed the skull with one hand, and followed me. The skull dragged along the ground, but it was never something an ordinary person could have carried alone.
For now, I had gathered all the necessary materials.
Alpha Bear bones and hide. Tree bark resistant to acidic poison. If I wove them together properly, I could make heavy armor—no, a protective suit.
When we arrived back at the pile of bark, the harsh sunlight greeted me. The spot had no shade, so the midday sun tormented my eyes without mercy. I set the hides down beside the bark and watched as Reni put the bones down next to them.
"Agh, my arms... Can I rest a bit?"
"Yeah."
With my permission, Reni sprawled out on a nearby rock. I glanced at her, then turned back to the materials. I figured I'd make one first. I probably had enough material to make five or six suits...
I closed my eyes and envisioned the armor that would cover my body.
An outer layer of hide wrapping the body, with bones and bark layered over it like scales. A protective suit that thoroughly blocked exposure from the crown of the head to the tips of the toes. Once my thoughts were organized, I activated the skill.
"Craft."