Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included. 046

Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included.

ACT 2: UNION
046: Getting Ingredients for Sauce!

←PREVIOUS

NEXT→

——

The next day, we left to pick Aera up right after breakfast, and we all headed to the East forest. Since I was the only one in the group who knew the location of the Dindle trees, I led the way as we entered the forest.

Aera had equipped herself with some leather armor, a bow with arrows, as well as a pouch. In fact, she looked much more like an adventurer than Yuki and Natsuki.

The two girls were dressed in under armor we’d hurriedly bought yesterday, chain mail, and some baggy clothes on top, together with their new backpacks. We also had them measured for their own set of chain mail, which should be ready in a few day’s time.

Thanks to my Enemy Awareness, we managed to reach the closest Dindle tree without engaging in any battles.

“So, this is the first tree… Let’s have a look.”

I used Hawk’s Eye to look towards the top of the tree, and while there weren’t many, I could still see some fruit hanging from the branches.

“It’s really a tall tree… Seems like there’s still some fruit too,” Aera commented.

“Oh, you can see the fruits, Aera-san?”

“Yes. I have good eyesight,” she said with a smile.

Did Aera have the Hawk’s Eye Skill as well?

Wait, I have Intuition! Let’s take a look!

——————————————————————————-

Name: Aera
Race: Elf
Condition: Healthy

Skills:
[Bow Skill Lv.2]
[Hawk’s Eye Lv.1]
[Aura Detection Lv.2]
[Stealth Lv.1]
[Disassembly Lv.2]
[Farming Lv.2]
[Plant Knowledge Lv.3]
[Food Knowledge Lv.4]
[Cooking Lv.3]
[Wind Magic Lv.2]
[Water Magic Lv.1]
[Cleaning Lv.2]
[Flute Lv.1]

——————————————————————————-

…Hey, she’s quite a strong character? And with much more life experience than us as well.

And Intuition. What an amazing Skill, since I hadn’t expected to be able to glean such details. The only thing that I couldn’t see was her age. Oh well.

In any case, it was a relief to know that Aera had such reliable specs.

“Erm, I can’t see anything, so I’ll have to trust you guys. Are we gonna climb up?” Yuki asked.

“I don’t think I can do that…” Natsuki murmured.

Oops. I guess I should have informed the two girls beforehand. I’d become so used to scaling tall trees that I’d forgotten that it would be near impossible for others to do the same.

“Don’t worry, I’ll go… How about you, Aera-san?”

“Of course I can go too. The tree’s a little tall, but I’ll be fine.”

“Great. You girls can wait for us on the lowest branch.”

I took out a length of rope and secured it to the lowest branch. Thanks to much practice, I managed to do it quickly. Using the rope, I climbed up onto the branch and soon, Yuki and Natsuki were up beside me as well. Aera, on the other hand, managed to get up onto the branch without the rope’s help. She was a true elf, indeed.

“Aera-san’s pouch won’t be able to hold much, so let’s take Yuki’s backpack instead. You OK with that, Yuki?” I suggested.

“Sure. Here you go, Aera-san. Do you know how to put it on?”

“Yes. This seems very convenient. Now I have both hands free.”

“Yep, it is a great item. You can use it to carry heavy things easily.”

By the way, the Guild had recently put out ads for the backpack, stating that it would be available for sale soon. And while it wouldn’t be essential for a chef like Aera to get one, it might come in handy when she went shopping for ingredients.

“So, shall we climb?”

“Yes. I’ll go first.”

Adjusting Yuki’s backpack to sit better on her shoulders, Aera gave us a nod and started climbing upwards. I tried to follow after, but her speed was just too quick. It was only because I’d had so much practice with climbing that I managed not to fall too far behind. If this was my first time, it would have been totally impossible to keep up.

“You’re amazing, Nao-san. I know I’m a great climber, but you’re actually keeping up with me,” Aera looked down at me with admiration.

“I-I guess so. That’s because I’ve climbed this tree so many times,” I panted.

In truth, I was barely keeping up. I prayed hard that she wouldn’t take this as a cue to speed up.

In the end, I reached the top of the tree just after Aera.

While I felt a little upset at losing out to someone who was climbing this tree for the first time, it was worth it just to see Aera smiling as she started harvesting the Dindle fruit.

Also, I was glad I hadn’t panicked and slipped. If I had, it could have been my death? Of course, I would probably have caught myself on a branch before I hit the ground, but it was still a scary prospect.

“You doing good, Aera-san?”

“There’s not as many as I thought, and they’re a little overripe. There are some more out there on the tips of the branches, I’m gonna try to get them.”

Thus far, Haruka and I had been hesitant to harvest the fruits which hung out on the tips, so it was nerve-wracking to watch Aera as she climbed out onto a slim branch to harvest more fruit. Though we usually took care to have one hand and both feet firmly on branches as we picked the fruits, Aera had no trouble using both hands at once. In one instant, I even saw her step out, leaving only one foot on the branch as she stretched for a fruit…

Nope, I could never do that. And so, I limited myself to harvesting the fruits within arm’s reach.

In the past, we could stay in one spot and harvest several fruits, but now, the fruits were so sparse that we had to move around quite a bit more, which made the process much more inefficient.

In the end, we spent about 30 minutes up on the tree, and my backpack was still barely half full. It didn’t seem smart to continue.

“Shall we head down soon, Aera-san?” I called out.

“So soon? But there’s still more to harvest…”

Aera gave a graceful twirl on the branch to face me. Whoa, please don’t do that again! It’s just too scary for me.

“It’s not very efficient, though. There are other trees around, so I think we should move on to those.”

“Alright. Let’s head down, then.”

With that, Aera spun around and jumped… Wait, whaaaat!?

Ignoring my shout, Aera continued on her way down the tree, hopping lightly from branch to branch.

“…Seriously. I’m not gonna do that.”

I might follow in her lead if we’d been 2-3 meters off the ground, but we were tens of meters up high, so it was just impossible. Fear kept me immobilized.

“I don’t care if I’m slow, but I’m descending the normal way…”

It wouldn’t take long anyway, maybe just five minutes, so I didn’t need to stress myself out.

When I finally made my way back down, the girls were in the process of transferring some of the Dindle fruit from Yuki’s backpack to Natsuki’s. And while we could fill all three backpacks with Dindle…

“Aera-san, we’re planning to hunt Tusked Boars on our way back, so let’s leave some space for that, OK?”

“Huh!? Y-You want to put the meat in my pouch?”

“Of course not. It won’t fit anyway.”

Aera’s pouch fitted her well, which meant that it was small like a child’s bag. There was no way a 100kg boar would fit inside.

“The meat goes into leather pouches, right, Nao? We’ve made those too, so we can fill the backpacks with Dindle fruit,” Natsuki explained.

“Yep, there shouldn’t be any problems,” Yuki confirmed.

Ooh, so Yuki, and even the serious Natsuki, were in agreement with getting more Dindle? Even though it was so sweet? Oh well, I didn’t mind eating more of the fruit. The girls were probably just excited since this was their first time harvesting them.

“Hmm, but if we manage to hunt a huge boar, it’ll be heavy to lug everything back?”

I mean, imagine carrying a pouch with 20kg of meat inside, from the forest all the way back into the city.

“No problem!!”

The girls yelled in unison, and I could only nod.

“…Alright. Guess we can try.”

Well, if it didn’t work out, we could just empty out some fruit later, wasteful as it seemed. Either way, it was better that than try to go against these three ladies and their sweet tooths. Yep.

——
←PREVIOUS

NEXT→

If you liked the chapter, please consider supporting me at Ko-fi! :)