Dual Cultivation

The next day.

I’m awake now, so I might as well make breakfast.

Last night I made camp by digging out a part of the cliff. I built an entrance and a lobby, left of which is a narrow passage that leads to the kitchen, washroom, and further in, the men’s sleeping quarters. There’s a stair right next which leads to the female sleeping quarters.

There’s no difference in their design, I just segregated them. The rooms are reinforced by stone columns made by my ‘Hardening’. There’re also windows so we can see what’s going on outside, and enough ventilation so that we don’t suffocate. Finally, Holy Space was used to ensure that the undead don’t attack our camp.

I’ve already been living in this world for 6 years. If you exclude the time I’ve spent travelling, that’s 5 years that I’ve spent living in caves, so naturally, making something like this is a cinch for me. It only took me an hour to make camp, and I even had enough time to make tables and chairs. Naturally, no one was unhappy with my work.

“Fuffufuffufuffu, fuffufuffufuffu, fu~fuffufufuffu, fufufufufu~tto.” [Ryouma]

I hummed a nostalgic song from my previous life to myself as I wrapped ham and vegetables in fried light wrapping, and poured hot water into a bowl of powder and hard food stuff. With this the Crepe and the Instant Soup was finished.

Crepes are delicious and easy to make. As for the instant soup, I made it by freezing it with ice magic, and then moving it into a clean vessel, and then sealing it in a vacuum. A magical freeze-dry, so to speak.

Freeze-dry can preserve food and medicine for a long time as long as one takes care with stuff like moisture.

Hmm… Breakfast is ready. I wonder if Elia and the others are too?

I take a peek at the living room, and I find that everyone’s ready. With that I bring out the food. The four adults are just as always but the girls aren’t as lively as usual.

“Good morning, are you still tired?” [Ryouma]

“Good morning, Ryouma-san. We were able to rest well thanks to you, so it’s no problem.” [Elia]

I asked Elia that while I set the table, and when she answered, the other girls agreed with her. It didn’t look like she was putting up an appearance, and she is eating well, so she’s probably telling the truth. Since that’s the case the reason they look so tired must be because they’re still not used to the undead. I end up gloomy looking at those things too, so it’s not like I don’t understand. Anyway, I hope they do their best until then.

As I encouraged them in my mind, I began eating my portion.

After eating and making sure all of our equipment and luggage were ready, we went deeper into the Trail Canyon. The girls fought the undead as we travelled, but the deeper we went, the more undead came. The least they’d fight would be about 10 to 15 at a time, and the most at about 40 at a time.

“ ‘Fire Storm’!” [Elia]

“Elia, is your mana still ok?” [Miyabi]

“I’m fine. Though if possible I’d like to conserve them for a bit.” [Elia]

“We’re almost at our next camp site, so just brace yourself until then.” [Miyabi]

There were about 43 zombies, so Elia had to start with Fire Storm. It’s good that we chose to rest in a place where it’s easy to avoid being surrounded. We can easily beat them as long as we react quickly. But this sort of tactic puts a lot of burden on Elia. She has a lot of magic power, and the magic in the air here is thick, so she can quickly recover her magic. But if it were anyone else, he’d long have exhausted himself. The adults seem worried too.

“Isn’t it about time we joined?” [Shiva]

“Those kids should still be able to handle it. Why not wait for a bit?” [Remiri]

“Well, it’s true that they still seem to have some leeway, but…” [Rheinbach]

“It might be best to join before things get more dangerous.” [Sebasu]

“Harris Crows will start appearing just a little further. We can join then.” [Ryouma]

Lately, monsters other than zombies have started appearing in the Trail Canyon. Harris Crows, crow-like magical beasts, are one of them. I’ve seen plenty of them drop down from the sky in murders to feed off the zombies. That’s probably the reason why they’ve started appearing here. There are much more of them now, and they are bigger as well. The girls won’t be able to handle it if the undead attack them with the crows.

While we were talking, I suddenly felt someone staring at me. Immediately, I looked behind me.

“Someone’s coming.” [Shiva]

“A member of the bird tribe.” [Sebasu]

“Just one?” [Remiri]

When I heard that, I focused my eyes. What I saw was a familiar face.

“That man is an adventurer from around here.” [Ryouma]

“An acquaintance?” [Remiri]

“A familiar face, but that’s all. I’ve traded with him countless times whenever I’ve had to feed my grave slimes here. I don’t know his name.” [Ryouma]

We’re not even close enough to be called acquaintances.

The bird tribe is one of the many tribes of the beast tribe. They look similar to humans, but

they have wings behind them that let them fly. I hear there are also birdmen who have wings

for their arms, but because there’s not a lot of birdmen in this country, I’ve never seen one. In fact, this guy is the only birdman that I know.

Sharp eyes and falcon-like wings, yeah, that’s definitely him.

He spread his arms as he descended to indicate that he meant no harm.

“Greetings, my name is Oslo. I am patrolling these parts for the missing people.” [Oslo]

So his name’s Oslo. I didn’t know.

Apparently, he’s heard about Elia’s group from the other adventurers.

We’ve passed a lot of people, so of course, we’ve been noticed. Apparently though, he didn’t hear anything about us. All he heard was that there were five girls frolicking. He thought the place too dangerous for five girls, so he went to look for Elia and the others.

It’s like that game, Chinese Whispers. Somewhere along the way the story changed, and now we have this version of the story.

The Fire Storm caught his attention, and he found out that the girls weren’t alone, so the reason he showed up was just to make sure we don’t misunderstand him or anything.

“Sorry for the trouble.” [Elia]

“I did everything on my own accord. You don’t have to blame yourselves. And besides, I have business with him too.” [Oslo]

When the girls apologized, Oslo turned to me.

Eh? What does he need from me? But before I could ask, he spoke first.

“I’ve already exhausted the supplies I’ve brought for the search. Would it be possible to purchase some food from you?” [Oslo]

Oh, a customer. Didn’t expect him to remember me.

“I understand. How much will you be needing? I also have goods other than food.” [Ryouma]

“There’s 11 all-in-all in my team, myself included. Would it be possible to purchase enough food supply to support that? I’d also like to buy more of that salve I bought last time. It was quite effective.” [Oslo]

“I can give you enough to last for a week. I have potions too aside from salves.” [Ryouma]

“…In that case, I’ll have to rendezvous with my team first. I can’t carry that much by myself.” [Oslo]

So he can’t fly when he’s over encumbered. Oslo-san brought out a map, and we talked from a bit. From that it was decided that we’ll meet again at our next camp site.

It’s not that far from here, so he should make it by night fall.

After we went our own ways, we went deeper into the canyon.

As expected, the fights from here on out was a lot harder, so we finally had to join the fight. We joined alternatingly but sometimes we also had the girls take a breather while they watched us fight in their place.

It sure is a pain having to fight these many undead. The girls seem to know it well. Especially, the magicians among them. I decided to talk to them for a bit.

“This place is crawling with undead. We’re here too but you should still be careful.” [Remiri]

Ah, Remiri-Neesan also advised them. The reason she said that is because it would be a problem if they become negligent and forget their surroundings… It’s a good topic to discuss so I threw in my two cents too. But because the girls were holding their head, the atmosphere didn’t have any sense of urgency at all. Well, it’s better than being too nervous.

We continued like this, and when it was past afternoon, we finally reached our next camp site.

A rocky area several hundred meters wide with no cover could be seen extending up a full kilometer. The area beneath that was level and wide, so there was plenty of room. There’s a valley nearby and there’s also a river below the cliff, so we can get water even without magic. The magic jewels I’m going to excavate are also nearby, so it wasn’t a hard decision to make.

Speaking of which, everyone knows that I have a map pointing me to a magic jewel dig site. Of course, I kept the part about a goddess giving me this map a secret, so everyone just thinks that I marked some place that’s likely to have magic jewels.

“I’ll make camp now, so please wait a bit.” [Ryouma]

I looked up the sky as I said that, and I noticed that the sky was dark. It looks like it’s about to rain. I should hurry… There’s no cliff I can dig out this time around, so I’ll have to do something different.

“ ‘Earth Wall’ “ [Ryouma]

Somewhere near the valley, I started creating rooms using Earth Wall. I filled the wall joints with earth, and used the magic ‘Rock’ to cover them. Then I cut out doors and windows using ‘Stone Cutter’, while I used ‘Hardening’ to reinforce the structure. Finally, I covered the rooms with a plank cut out from a boulder to serve as the ceiling.

The floor plan is roughly the same as last night’s. What’s different is that the second floor is now situated to the right, and there’s now a fireplace and chimney. Next is to cast the magic, Holy Space, to keep the undead from attacking. Oh, and I should also put up a fence with my earth magic to serve as a barricade and land slide protection.

“It’s done!” [Ryouma]

It was mostly just me putting the pieces together, so the whole place looks like a prefab hut. It took me 30 minutes to finish everything.

Everything’s done. I should call Elia and the others…

“Fast as ever, I see… The camp is ready!” [Rheinbach]

When Rheinbach-sama saw my work, he called out to everyone. Remiri-neesan and the girls we’re talking when he called out, while Shiva-san and Sebasu-san we’re keeping watch. In any case, when called out to them, everyone gathered.

I was about to ask what they were talking about when a cold drop of water fell on my head.

“Rain…” [Elia]

Elia and the others also noticed the rain, so, we all hurried into the camp. Gradually, the rain grew stronger. And in less than a minute, what seemed to be some light evening rain turned into a full downpour of bullfrogs.

I peeked through the windows, and I saw the sky covered in dark coulds. The world was dark, and not a thing could be seen.

“I’m glad I hurried, but what about Oslo-san? Hmm… Maybe I should at least put up a sign.” [Ryouma]

Closing the window through which the cold wind and the sound of falling rain entered, I took out my rain gear made out of waterproof cloth from my Item Box, and left the shed.

I quickly installed a glowing magic stone onto a pillar of stone modeled after the lamp posts in my previous world, and put it up. Then I hurried back into the shed.

“Good work.” [Kanan]

“Ah, thanks.” [Ryouma]

Kanan poured me a cup of hot tea.

As I sat in the living room, I took a mouthful. The honey and the ginger entered my body, and warmth filled me. I continued to drink tea like that as I spoke to the girls about the things that could be improved on in their tactics.