Finding Food (5): The Noose
The noose. It was the absolute basic of knot-tying. Because it tightened further the harder it was pulled, it was used in all sorts of situations. Naturally, Chester's father—who had taught him the knot—used it most frequently for traps.
"First, tie a small knot at the very end of the rope."
Chester tied the end of the rope to form a stopper knot, then made a loop with the rest of the cord.
"Hold one side long and the other short, make a loop, pass the long end through to form a slipknot, and then hold that while pulling the short end."
Chester's fingers moved fluidly, without a single hitch, quickly fashioning a noose.
"And that's a slipknot. Not too hard, right?"
"...I got it."
"Yeah. Nice job."
After checking Monia's knot, Chester chopped a nearby branch of decent thickness with his axe to make a wooden peg.
"The trap we're making next is incredibly simple, as long as you have this wooden peg and a slipknot."
Chester tied the finished noose to the wooden peg.
"And we're done."
"What?"
"You tie several of these nooses to the peg like this, then lean it against a tree."
Chester set up the peg and pointed upward.
"When a small rodent climbs up this peg and gets caught in the loop, they just slip."
Chester, who had been pointing at the noose, suddenly snapped his finger downward.
"They fall, get strangled by the noose, and die. Simple, right?"
"...Can you really catch anything with this?"
"Who knows? But when we were passing through the forest earlier, I spotted a squirrel-like rodent up in the trees."
It had a remarkably bushy tail.
"That's what gave me the idea. Since there are tree-climbing rodents around, we'll probably catch one if we set this up. If we don't, well, too bad."
Chester and Monia made a bunch of nooses and set up similar traps here and there.
"Is this all?"
"No. We're going to make something that can catch slightly bigger game."
This time, he tied several ropes together to make a longer cord, then fashioned a larger noose. Once the noose was ready, Chester roamed the forest, searching for a suitable spot to set the trap.
"See this?"
Chester pointed to a small opening in the underbrush.
"Paths like this are animal trails. Earlier, we set traps slightly off the path, but this time, we're setting it right on the trail."
"Is there a reason for that?"
"Animals are less wary of snare traps because they look like something they can easily pass through."
Saying so, Chester approached a young sapling near the trail and began trimming it with his axe.
"We could use the tree as it is, but stripping all the branches reduces air resistance, making the trap spring much faster. It lowers the chances of the prey escaping."
After trimming the sapling, Chester took a thick branch and began carving it into a long peg.
Once he finished carving the wooden peg, he drove it into the ground, hammering it down with a stone. After driving it in to a certain depth, he stepped on it to secure it firmly, then used his stone knife to carve a shallow notch on one side of the peg. He then lightly drove another peg nearby and carved a notch into that one as well.
Next, Chester bent the young sapling down and tied the long cord extending from the snare to its tip. He then carefully pulled the snare, hooking the cord into the notch of the shallowly driven peg, and hooked one side of the snare into the notch of the deeply driven peg.
"Done."
"How does this work?"
"The elasticity of that young tree is what powers the trap. See this shallowly driven peg?"
"Yes."
"The snare is balanced precariously right here. But the moment an animal passes by and triggers the snare..."
Chester lightly tapped the snare, releasing it from the deeply driven peg.
Without the support of the deep peg, the shallow peg could no longer hold the tension on its own and popped out of the ground. The sapling instantly snapped back upright to its original position.
"I told you that the harder a noose is pulled, the tighter it gets, right?"
"Yes."
"What do you think would have happened if an animal had been inside that loop just now?"
"..."
Monia gulped, imagining the grim fate of any animal caught in that snare.
"If it's small, instant death. Even if it's a bigger animal, it won't be able to escape, so we can just come back later at our leisure to finish it off and collect it."
Having finished his explanation, Chester reset the snare trap.
"An even simpler trap is just tying the snare directly to the ground."
"Tying it to the ground?"
"Yeah. You tie the snare to a tree trunk and leave the loop on an animal trail. Once the beast gets caught, the loop tightens so it can't escape. Then you just wait for the animal to tire itself out before going to collect it."
Unfortunately, they couldn't set any more traps.
"Let's gather some leaves and bark on our way back."
"Okay."
On the way back, Chester and Monia focused on harvesting bark and leaves to make ropes and cords. By the time they navigated the forest and returned to the Beach Villa...
Ah, I'm so hungry.
Only then did Monia remember the hunger she had temporarily forgotten.
Chester, who had extinguished the campfire with a bit of sand before they left for the forest, poked through the ashes with a wooden stick.
After clearing away the sand and rummaging through the remains of the fire, he found embers still glowing beneath the hot sand. Seeing the flickering embers, Monia tossed in the kindling she was holding. Once the kindling caught fire, she slowly fanned the small flame with a piece of stiff bark to feed it oxygen.
"Now, do as I taught you."
"Y-Yes!"
At Chester's command, a tense Monia carefully brought a thin twig toward the flame.
"Eek! Hot! It's hot!"
Startled by the heat of the fire, she dropped the twig.
"Bear with it a little."
"Ugh..."
Chastised by Chester, Monia carefully placed the thin twigs over the fire once more.
Fed with proper fuel, the fire devoured the dry twigs and flared up instantly. Monia then added slightly thicker branches on top.
Step by step, just as Chester had taught her, Monia slowly built up the fire until she had a stable, roaring campfire.
"Yeah. That's pretty good."
Seeing the campfire Monia had built, Chester patted her on the back in approval.
"Ehehe."
Smiling softly at the praise, Monia gazed at her very first campfire with a look of immense satisfaction.
"Alright, let's eat."
"Yes!"
"You're eating the meat this time."
"No way!"
"Good grief."
A few pieces of plant pith they had found while roaming the forest, meat from an still-unidentified creature, and tea brewed from medicinal herbs. That was the dinner Chester and Monia shared that evening.
"..."
"How is it?"
"Ack! Blegh!"
"Even the tea is a no-go, huh?"
"My tongue! My tongue hurts! Poison! It's poison...!"
"No, it isn't."
Chester drank his tea, watching Monia make a fuss. As the hot, astringent tea slid down his throat, a grassy aroma filled his mouth and nose, instantly warming his body.
"Not bad."
He chewed the plant pith and meat together, washing them down with the tea. Fortunately, they had plenty of water, as he had fashioned several bamboo canteens while they were out setting traps.
"Ugh! Ack! Urgh!"
While Chester enjoyed his meal in relaxed comfort, Monia was struggling with the meat he had cut for her. Since Chester was glaring at her to make sure she ate it, she tried her absolute best, but...
"Hnnngh!"
Before she could even worry about the taste, she couldn't even chew it, so she gave up.
Do nobles have weak jaw muscles too?
It made sense, considering she had eaten nothing but soft, refined food her entire life.
After finishing their meal, Chester brought over the basket and began doing something with the tree bark.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm thinking of filling the gaps in the basket with bark. Since we couldn't carry leaves properly, we had to stuff them into our pockets, right?"
"Yes, we did."
"I figured that was a bit inconvenient."
Chester wove the bark in and out of the bamboo slats of the basket, tying it off at one end. After repeating this a few times, the gaps in the bamboo basket were easily sealed.
"Alright, that works."
Chester tried folding the bamboo basket. Because he had left plenty of slack while weaving the bark, the basket still folded perfectly even with the gaps filled. Since it could still be folded, it would be easy to carry through narrow paths, and now they could use it to carry smaller things like leaves.
"You do it too."
"Okay."
While Monia followed Chester's lead and began weaving bark into her basket, Chester pulled out the wooden block he had brought back.
"What did you bring that block of wood for?"
"Well, thanks to the baskets, we can carry all sorts of things now. And we can make thin cords out of the leaves."
"..."
"So, I'm thinking of making a proper hunting tool."
A proper hunting tool? Monia eyed Chester's current arsenal. Two harpoons lying on the ground beneath the Beach Villa. A sling Chester always kept hooked to his belt. A stone knife and a stone axe. While the stone knife and axe were utility and survival tools rather than hunting weapons, they could still be used as weapons, which made them no different from hunting tools in Monia's eyes. To her, what he already had seemed plenty proper and legitimate.
And yet he wants to make a "proper" tool?
"What is it?" Monia asked, stopping her work on the basket.
"Hmm?"
Chester looked up at Monia as he split the wooden block with his stone axe.
"Curious?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's nothing major."
Chester began carving the split wood into a specific shape.
"I'm going to make a bow."