Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included. 037

Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included.

ACT 2: UNION
037: A Meal in the Isekai

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It had been a while since we’d eaten fowl, and it was just as delicious as I remembered. My only complaint was that the Cotas were hard to eat since there were so many tiny bones.

I also finally had the chance to compare Haruka and Yuki’s cooking, and while Yuki’s cooking was delicious, it was markedly different from the taste of Haruka’s.

Well, I was sure that once Yuki unlocked the Cooking Skill, her food would probably start to taste just as delicious.

“This Kuuras bird is a little tough, huh?” Haruka asked.

“Yeah. While it’s easy to eat because there are less bones, it’s still not as good as Cotas meat…” Natsuki agreed.

“Really? I like the chewiness of it,” Tohya added.

“Maybe it depends on how we cook it? Maybe the Kuuras is not meant to be eaten grilled,” Yuki mused.

Seemed like opinions were divided 50/50 over the bird I’d caught, though Yuki’s opinion could go both ways. As for myself, I agreed most with Tohya’s assessment. I guess the girls preferred something more tender, so maybe making the Kuuras into minced meat or slicing it super thinly like beef tongue would help.

“But I’m glad we managed to meet up with you all. Thanks to that, we can enjoy all this great food,” Natsuki said with a happy smile.

“Yeah!! I just don’t understand why all those customers came to our inn to eat that rotten food!” Yuki huffed.

That would be because you girls were working there, right?

It was hard to imagine every other inn also serving up the same lousy food. If it was true, I didn’t even want to imagine it, since it would signify just how bad food tasted on average in this world.

“Our first meal in the city was gross too,” I shared.

“Yeah, it was such a betrayal of my expectations. I thought black bread would taste amazing,” Tohya sighed.

“And the ale too. Having it once was enough for me,” I added.

“Sounds like everyone had a hard time as well,” Natsuki nodded sagely, but Haruka just smiled and shook her head.

“Nope, we only had one bad meal, so we definitely had a much easier time than you girls.”

“True. We were lucky to stay in an inn that serves delicious food,” I said.

All thanks to that nameless young gatekeeper, I’d already forgotten his name, who introduced our inn to us. Secretly, I hoped we never met with him again. I was sure he didn’t have any good intentions towards Haruka. And now that Yuki and Natsuki were with us too, we had to keep all of these cute girls safe.

“We had no choice. With only 100 Reas per day of pay, we didn’t have enough money to buy any food…” Yuki sighed.

“Exactly. We could have taken some risks and earned more money, but it’s hard to do that safely when it’s just us two girls.”

“I know. I was lucky because I had Tohya and Nao with me. It’s tough being a woman in this world.”

In the past month, there were some men who’d tried to hit on Haruka, but due to Tohya and I always being around, she’d never had to face any serious trouble from those guys. Maybe it was also because Tohya’s a beast-hybrid, so he appeared stronger and more buff than the average man.

“I’m so envious of your friendship, that all three of you managed to transition together.”

Yuki said with a smile, though it made me feel a little uneasy inside. I mean, I wasn’t the one who managed to tell my friends apart from the rest of the classmates. Was it because I was just slow on the uptake? I really didn’t know. Damn that evil god, making me doubt my own friendships!!

“By the way, I was just wondering when we were dissecting the boars. We don’t actually get a lot of edible meat from them, right? Maybe about 50% of their total weight?” She continued.

“I guess. There’s really not a lot of edible meat, since most of it is fat and bone,” Haruka replied.

We also discarded all the boar’s innards, and kept only the hide and tusks for sale. If we had no space in our backpacks, we threw away the head and all of the fat as well.

Luckily, Tohya would just shake some salt on the head, grill it up and chomp into it happily, so it technically wasn’t a waste… But that scene could be a shock to witness.

…Nah, I was sure it was delicious for him, so it all works out in the end.

“We’ll try to bring the fat back to the city to sell, but they don’t fetch as much money.”

Fat was useful for cooking, as well as being fuel for lamps, but that didn’t matter as much to us since we had magic. Besides, lighting a lamp using pork fat would just create a delicious aroma, and we’d be hungry again in no time.

“You mean the lard, right? I think we can make tempura with that. The taste may be a little more oily than if we used salad oil, but…” Natsuki mused.

“Tempura? Sounds good. I’d like some! Even if it’s just salted, I’m sure it’ll taste great,” Yuki said with a huge grin.

The thought of it made me salivate too. If only I could have some tempura now.

“We can make pork cutlets too! Even if there’s no rice to eat it with, we can still make cutlet sandwiches.”

“Ooh, how about some fried chicken…?”

“Alright everyone, back to reality!”

Haruka clapped her hands, bringing all of us back out of our food fantasies.

“We can make pork cutlets, Tohya, but we’ll have no sauce to eat it with. Besides, we don’t have any space to cook at the inn.”

“I guess so… But we’re such good friends with the innkeeper now, maybe he’ll let us borrow his kitchen?”

We were currently already renting a part of the inn’s storehouse, so asking to use the kitchen might not be impossible, but it might be hard, since the staff would need to use the kitchen daily to cook and serve their customers.

“Do you think we can rent a house, Haruka?”

“A house? Well… I’ve only been focused on keeping us safe and meeting up with Yuki and Natsuki thus far, so I never thought about that…”

“How much can we sell those two boars for?”

“Maybe about 15,000 Reas?”

“Yeah, maybe a little more, since they’re huge?”

“15,000! That’s 150 days of my daily wages!”

That was because you were paid peanuts, Yuki.

“Divided between the five of us, that would be 3,000 Reas each, or around 30,000yen. It would be great if we could keep up such earnings consistently to secure our future,” Haruka shared.

“30,000yen… I guess that would be enough to tide us over once we get old and weak, but without any social security, maybe it’ll be good to save up more,” Natsuki suggested.

We could earn over 10 million if we worked all year without stopping, but that didn’t sound fun. I wanted to take days off and vacations.

“We can earn more if we bring more stuff back from the forest. Race aside, do you girls think you can carry as much as Nao?” Tohya asked.

“Maybe?”

“Possibly. I’m physically weaker now compared to Tohya, even if I’m much stronger compared to my previous body.”

Among all of us, the one with least physical strength would be Haruka. Tohya was the strongest, of course, and could probably carry twice as much stuff as Haruka. I was in the middle, and stronger compared to before. If the same was true for Yuki and Natsuki, a female in this world would probably be just a little stronger than a male in the previous one.

“I’m slightly weaker now compared to before, but this elven body is tougher and I also have Skills, so it’s really hard to make a fair comparison…” Haruka explained. “Anyway, when we get back, I’ll have to make backpacks for you.”

“Oh, you mean you made these yourself?”

“Yep. There’s a Sewing Skill. You can learn it too, Yuki.”

“Uuh…! Alright, I’ll try.”

Yuki could only nod at Haruka’s encouraging smile.

“Hahaha! I’m envious that you’re getting so many new Skills, Yuki.”

“Well, if you really think so, then stop teasing me, Nao. Haruka, can’t the guys help out too, even without the Skill?”

“Oh, but we have to-”

Just as I was about to say that Tohya and I had busy training schedules, Haruka cut in brusquely.

“No, they’ll just be in the way.”

“Uhh!”

It was true. I had nothing to contribute in terms of backpack-making. Haruka had made the first backpack after lots of trial and error, but without any materials to make templates, the only thing I could do was cut patterns out of the cloth after Haruka had sketched them out.

Maybe I could help with processing tougher material like leather? But if Yuki could do that, then I’ll really be useless.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I can help out too, so leave the sewing to us girls,” Natsuki assured me.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Natsuki smiled kindly. I wish I could say something cool in return, like ‘you can leave any heavy lifting to me’, but since we probably had the same level of physical strength, I couldn’t even offer anything like that.

“Haruka, did you choose to make these backpacks to save money?” Natsuki continued.

“No. It’s because they don’t sell backpacks like these here. Besides, if we make it ourselves, we can make something that’s most suitable, right?”

Haruka then proceeded to happily show off all the details on her backpack to the girls. I understood how she felt. She’d put so much effort into making the bags, so it must have been sad that she had nobody to show her work off to until now. I mean, if you accomplished something, you’d want to tell others all about it, right? And though we’d been the ones to suggest making these backpacks, Haruka had been the actual person who made them into reality, and while she could show it off to Tohya and I, I guess it just didn’t have the same impact.

“Hmm. If they don’t sell backpacks like these, maybe we can make some to sell?” Yuki asked.

“Sounds good. It’ll be great for adventurers,” Natsuki agreed.

Considering the prices of backpacks on sale in the city, entering the backpack-making business might be a good choice. Before, Haruka was the only one who could make the bags, but now that we had Yuki and Natsuki to help out, it seemed like a viable option. We’d just need somewhere to sell the bags.

“I’ve thought about it, but it’s not so feasible while we’re staying at the inn…”

“So it comes back to renting a house again. How much money do we have right now, Haruka?”

“A little more than 250k Reas, I think…”

“250k! More than 250k!?” Yuki yelled in shock.

I didn’t tell her that we actually had about a million Reas just a few days ago.

“But if we use the money to rent a house, we can’t get any equipment for Yuki and Natsuki.”

“Do you think we can find a place for 100k? Back in Japan, we could rent a house for a year with that amount of money, depending on the neighborhood.”

I didn’t know how the rental market worked in this world, but since Rafan could be considered a big city, maybe we’d be able to find a good place in a village on its outskirts.

“Maybe… Land in this world is cheaper than in Japan, so we may be able to find something.”

“Yeah, so we’ll still have 150k left to get chain mail for the girls, a spear for Natsuki, and for Yuki… What do you use, Yuki?”

I looked to Yuki, unsure of what weapon Skills she had, but she just avoided my gaze.

“…I didn’t get any weapon Skills.”

“Oh, erm, I see. Well… We’ll still try to get something for you.”

“Something!? Well, I have the means to obtain any weapon Disposition Skill! …As long as you guys have it, that is.”

Yuki’s vehement protest trailed off into a soft grumble, but she was right. As long as we had the money, we could buy any weapon for her and she could easily learn the Skill to use it from us…

“Oh! How about the Pole Skill?”

“Pole?”

“Yep, the Pole Skill. Tohya, you still have your old pole, right?”

Aside from Tohya, none of us had the Pole Skill, and it did seem like a sturdy and useful weapon.

“Oh, the one I was using when I gained the Skill? But that’s just a metal rod. You want Yuki to use that?”

“She’ll be able to fight with it once she gains the Pole Skill, right? It’s something I can’t do.”

It was true. I didn’t possess the physical strength needed to wield a metal pole, and without the Skill, the most I could do was swing it around. But once Yuki gained the Skill, maybe she’d be able to use it like a real weapon.

“Well, I’m already planning to learn all the Skills I can and try them out anyway…”

“You can focus on Earth Magic as your main attack, and leave the metal pole more as defense. Right now, all of us except Haruka can take on roles as a vanguard or tank, so you can pick whatever you want to be, Yuki,” I added.

“Exactly, and since you have lots of Magical Dispositions, you can work on those as well.”

Though she could only use Earth Magic now, Yuki had gotten the Dispositions for Fire, Water, and Space-Time magic as well. According to her, Dispositions were like innate talents, and if she didn’t get them, she’d never be able to learn them later on.

Personally, I felt she did the right thing. Since Magical Dispositions had no levels, she wouldn’t be able to get them using Skill Copy, so she’d be unable to learn any magic at all, as far as I knew.

“Yep, we have Tohya and Natsuki as our vanguards, so I don’t really need to fight. I guess I’ll focus on learning magic for now, then,” Yuki concluded with a nod.

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