Volume 3 Chapter 2 The Journey to the Village – Part II
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
When I opened my eyes, Ms. Nina’s face was right beside me.
The tent was blurry-bright, about the same time I usually wake up.
Crawling out of the tent, the morning mist was fading away under the dawn sun.
It’s chilly and cool around now, but it’ll probably get hot soon.
The giant eel I left swimming in the big pot was gone.
Looks like it crawled out and escaped during the night.
I feel bad for Ms. Ant who caught it, but I don’t really like eel that much, so whatever.
Ms. Ann was busy digging up wild yams all night and gathered quite a bit.
This girl absolutely loves gathering stuff.
We got a big mortar and pestle from the capital in our gear.
Maybe I’ll make tororo (grated yam) rice here.
It’s a little different from Japanese yams──less sticky.
It’s closer to nagaimo yam, but since the yam itself barely has any flavor, it should still be tasty once grated.
I showed Ms. Ann how to make tororo with the mortar.
It’s a hard task that takes strength and patience, but for Ms. Ann, an Antfolk, it’s just like playing.
Leaving the tororo-making to Ms. Ann, I prepared the broth and rice.
No soy sauce sucks, but I boiled dried meat and added salt to make a kind of broth.
Tororo with a consomme-ish broth… I don’t think it’ll taste bad.
I decided to cook rice mixed equally with barley.
Rice is precious, but I want everyone to taste how good it is.
Before I knew it, Ms. Ann made a huge pot full of tororo──definitely too much.
I left it all to her, my bad. I didn’t expect her to make that much tororo so fast.
The broth I prepared wasn’t nearly enough, so I added salt directly to the tororo to balance the taste.
Because there was way less barley rice, it turned into a tororo porridge, but it actually tasted pretty good.
Since there’s no soy sauce, it tastes a bit different from regular barley tororo rice, but if you think of it as a different dish, it’s totally Ant style.
With this, it might not have mattered much if I’d used 100% barley instead.
Everyone was surprised at how squishy it was at first, but it looked like they really liked it, ’cause they ate it all up.
Ms. Joa still seems like she hasn’t had enough.
That was some serious volume for breakfast, I think.
* * *
We were chowing down so much that, before we knew it, the sun was high up in the sky.
Well, we’re not in a rush, and it’s important to enjoy these happy morning times, too.
Once we’re done cleaning up after the meal, we’ll pack up the tent and head out, making sure to properly put out the campfire, of course.
As we walked along the canal path, the river kept getting narrower and narrower.
Clearly, it had turned into a little creek that boats couldn’t pass through, and even though it felt weird, we kept going until it ended in a tiny pond.
”Looks like we followed a tributary that feeds into the canal.”
Ms. Nina is calm.
Come to think of it, there was a spot where the canal split off along the way.
I didn’t pay attention ’cause the road kept going, but we were supposed to cross the river there.
But there wasn’t a bridge or anything, was there?
Still, what should we do?
I know we should turn back and go all the way to the town’s fork in the road.
That’s the right path we’re supposed to take.
But I don’t wanna go back, now that we’ve come this far.
If we walk around the pond and head down the other side of the creek, we should be able to rejoin the main canal.
It’s like that rule about always turning right.
Even if it’s a detour, I think we’ll still make it to Toyata village.
We’ve got plenty of food, and with the strength of the Antfolk, we could take down a wyrm with ease.
Let’s just keep going like this.
After walking a bit more, we hit another tributary that was wide enough to cross.
Even though it goes against the right-hand rule, let’s just get over this little waterway and keep moving.
The Antfolk’s brute strength will force the cart to the other side.
After a bit more walking, we could see the wide water of the canal up ahead, and that was a relief.
It wasn’t something to worry about that much, really.
”No, please turn back!”
Ms. Claire, who was walking ahead, suddenly stopped.
It looked like her feet were caught in the mud.
Right before our eyes, Ms. Claire’s legs started to sink a little more.
”Don’t come near! It’s a bottomless swamp!”
Ms. Claire tried to rush over to stop Ms. Joa.
The tales of the bottomless swamp are told over and over in Toyata village.
They say that the wetlands north of the canal are riddled with bottomless swamps.
Once you sink into the hard mud, you can’t get out, and the more you struggle, the more you lose your strength and just sink down.
If someone who doesn’t know any better tries to help, they’ll just end up in trouble too, and everyone will die──it’s a bit exaggerated.
If you think you’re stuck in a bottomless swamp, you should calm down, lie on your back, and call for help without moving too much.
You can be safely rescued using a flat-bottomed boat made for the swamp, but if no one notices the person in trouble, they’ll be stuck there forever.
The kids in Toyata village are raised hearing they should never go near the swamp.
They say there’s a town of the dead deep in the swamp, and ghosts wander at night──one of the spooky stories that even the brave Ani-Ani won’t go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
”Master, please help Claire.”
Ms. Joa pleads through tears.
This whole mess is because of my mistake in the first place.
”Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.”
Even though it’s a terrifying bottomless swamp, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.
I figure the light-bodied Antfolk won’t sink in the bottomless swamp, their exoskeletons acting like life jackets.
I could ask the Ms. Ants to rescue her, but let’s try summoning High Slime Ms. Lime instead.
Oozing from the ground, the slime slowly takes the shape of a person, and a village girl in her Sunday best appears.
Sorry, Ms. Lime, even though you worked hard to recreate the details down to the frills on the cuffs, we don’t need any of that this time.
The job’s simple.
All High Slime has to do is solidify the mud to make a platform.
Ms. Claire should be able to crawl up onto it on her own strength.
And Ms. Lime can clean up mud-covered Ms. Claire while she’s at it.
This is gonna be a pain, the goal’s right there but we gotta go way around the swamp.
Looks like we’re already stuck in the muck, but we can’t tell which spots are weak, so Ms. Lime, in human form, will lead the way.
We really should turn back here.
But we’re almost at the village if you look at the distance.
If we crank the Radar Scan to max, we can pick up Mr. Zenom and Ms. Lyra’s signals from Toyata village about 4 kilometers ahead.
Breaking through the swamp shouldn’t be a problem.
It’s been sunny lately, so a lot of places are dry enough to walk on.
The Radar Scan shows no monsters, and with Ms. Lime here, even the bottomless pits don’t matter.
Am I getting cocky and making the wrong call?
This should be the right call.
”I can see the village!”
Ms. Claire’s eyes are sharp, I can see the village far off too.
From Toyata village’s hill, you could see a bunch of other villages around──this one’s gotta be one of them.
We got lost a bit, but we found a lot of new stuff this trip.
I guess you could call this a success?
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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