I learned that the Storage spell was even more useful than I had first thought. Its capacity changed based on the user’s total amount of mana; Reina, whose mana was among the highest on the continent, could fit an entire house inside. She could carry a larger payload by herself than a merchant with many horse-drawn wagons.
The skill seemed so useful that I soon thought, I want to use it.
When I did, the space in front of my eyes began to waver slightly.
“Huh?!” I exclaimed.
“Listen, I’ll make a meal for us with the ingredients I have today, so just sit tight,” Reina said, oblivious to what was going on behind her.
Could this be a Storage spell?
I had a feeling that when Reina had produced food out of thin air earlier, she’d been putting her hand into a hazy mirage like the one that had appeared before me.
I carefully brought my fingers closer to it, and they were swallowed up into the space. My fingers encountered no particular resistance—it felt as though there was a wide-open area on the other side. It was a mysterious sensation, but for some reason I felt certain that this really was a Storage spell.
Is this my ability to copy someone’s magic by watching them?
“Hey, are you still there?” Reina said, turning around.
Surprised, I yanked my fingers out, and the space dispersed. Everything suddenly went back to normal.
“What were you doing?” she asked, looking at me curiously as she held a small pot in her hands.
“N-Nothing,” I said, lying without thinking. For some reason or another, I had the feeling that she’d get angry at me if she saw what I had been doing. I was acting like a child who was hiding a bad test score, and even I was fed up with myself.
But then, I was distracted by the captivating sight of the red soup she’d made.
“Wh-Whoa! That looks good!”
“It doesn’t look good, it is good. I’ll put a table down, so hold this for a moment.”
The pot she handed me was full of vegetables. Judging from the smell, it was tomato soup or something similar.
We had entered the forest past noon, and now it was already close to sunset. I hadn’t eaten anything since the day before. Even my god-given body was seemingly not immune to hunger, and my stomach made a loud noise.
Reina giggled. “You’re such a kid, Arata,” she said, apparently finding something funny.
With a wave of her hand, the ground swelled and produced a neat set of chairs and a table. She then took out some dinnerware from her Storage spell, completing the picnic scene.
“Well, there it is.”
“Wow,” I said, impressed. I placed the pot in the center of the table then clapped.
Although Reina had the air of a young lady from a well-off family, she apparently also carried the qualification of an S-rank adventurer in addition to her title of Celestial Archmage, and she was used to eating outside like this.
Moving briskly, Reina even summoned some bread. If we hadn’t been outside, I could have mistaken the scene for a high-class dinner.
“All right, there’s some bread too, so why don’t we eat?” she said.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Yep!”
We were silent. Just as I was about to dig in, both Reina and I froze. At some point, without either of us noticing it, a small girl had sat down in the chair I was about to sit in and was already dipping a piece of bread in the soup.
Is she a beast person?
The girl had twitching, gold-furred ears on her head and a fox-like tail growing from the small of her back. If she weren’t in this other world, I’d have thought she was nothing more than a child doing cosplay.
“DE-LISH! Miss, this is tasty!” she said, her ears and tail perking up.
Reina and I were dumbstruck. The girl continued to cheerily gobble up our food, but I had no clue what to say to her. As I wondered who she was and where in the world she had come from, I looked to Reina.
She was trembling with fear.
“Reina? What’s wrong?”
Reina started. “I-I’m fine. Yeah, fine...”
“You don’t look fine at all.”
Her eyes were fixed on the small fox girl who was steadily consuming all of the food she had prepared. At this rate, even Reina’s portion would be completely eaten. I didn’t know who this girl was, but I knew that I had to stop her, so I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and lifted her up.
“Wah!” she exclaimed.
“Hey, you know you shouldn’t eat other people’s food without asking,” I said.
As she dangled from my hand, the girl looked at me with confusion on her face and a red soup stain on her mouth.
“A-Arata, it’s all right! If she wants to eat, then we should let her have as much as she wants!”
“No, Reina, we can’t do that. She’s still a kid, so we need to teach her proper manners.”
The small girl licked her lips, seeming intent on not letting a single bite of food go uneaten. That in itself wasn’t a bad thing, but with her ears and tail together, I couldn’t help but see her vivid resemblance to an animal.
“Ah ha ha!” the girl laughed.
“A-Arata! Let her go already!” Reina said.
Although Reina sounded panicked, the girl seemed to think I was playing with her. Unlike the wolves that had attacked us earlier, she had pretty, golden hair that was in a ponytail, and her large, round eyes were the color of jade gemstones. Reina’s appearance had led me to assume that this was a Western-style fantasy world, but the girl’s clothing looked just like a shrine maiden outfit. While her atmosphere didn’t contain even a trace of holiness, the outfit curiously suited her, and she looked good in it. She had to have been about middle-school-aged, but in contrast with her appearance, she acted strangely young. Even though she was dangling from my hand as I gripped the scruff of her neck, she seemed like she was having fun.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Luna!”
“Okay. All right, Luna. We were about to eat dinner, but you already ate my portion...”
“Oh...” Luna must’ve finally realized what she had done, because her face clouded over somewhat. She at least seemed to understand that she had done something wrong, and she looked repentant. When I let her down, she looked up at me with worry in her eyes.
“You shouldn’t eat other people’s food without asking, okay?” I said.
Luna whimpered, then said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s good that you apologized,” I said, tousling her hair. She looked a bit flustered, but she didn’t seem to dislike it. Her perked-up fox ears were unexpectedly soft, and it was a mysterious feeling. I’d lived a life that had little to do with animals up until now, but perhaps this was what it would have felt like if I had kept a dog as a pet.
“Hey, Reina?” I asked.
“Y-Yes?” she replied, looking at me with a mystified, somewhat rigid expression.
“Do you still have a lot of food left?”
Reina nodded. “I expected it to take more than half a year to conquer the Furthermost Lonely Isle, so I brought enough to last.”
“Okay, that means we’ll be all right for the time being. In that case, sorry, but do you think you could make a portion for her too?”
“Of course I can.”
On an uninhabited island, food was precious. Despite that, Reina agreed without hesitation. As I watched her go back to cooking again, I thought, She really is a kind person, even during such a difficult time.
“Mister, is it really all right?” Luna asked as she watched us.
“Yeah. Reina says it is, so it is.”
“Yay! Thanks, Miss Reina!” Luna broke into a sunny smile.
Looking at her, I felt at peace. But I knew I couldn’t just let things go on as they were. Both before and now, Reina didn’t seem to have any qualms about sharing her food. I was very grateful for that, but at this rate I would become completely reliant on her.
“I’ll end up a leech,” I said to myself.
“Is ‘leech’ your name, mister?” Luna asked.
“No...it’s Arata.”
I wanted to live a relaxed life on this island, not mooch off a beautiful girl. According to the god I’d met, this place had everything I’d need to survive on my own. In other words, I was in an environment where I could be self-sufficient. It was unclear how long it would take to reach that point, but I knew I had to quickly become less of a burden on Reina.
Then, I had a sudden suspicion: This island was supposed to be a place without any people, so why was Luna here? Unlike Reina, who had arrived here after a shipwreck, Luna was clearly a native. Unless the god had been mistaken, she simply shouldn’t have been here.
I looked at Luna, sitting on a chair. She was happily kicking her legs and watching Reina’s back as she cooked. “I’m looking forward to Miss Reina’s food.”
“Hey, Luna. Can I ask you something?” I said.
“What?”
“Are there more people living on this island?”
“Yep!” Luna said, smiling from ear to ear. “There’s us Divine Beastfolk, the Fierce Ogrefolk, the Ancient Dragonfolk, the True Ancestor Vampire, and all sorts of others!”
“I see...” I said. The fact that none of them were humans told me everything. And I had a feeling it was the god’s fault that every single one of those races had such intense names.
“Hey, god lady? Are you really this careless, or is this actually all on purpose?” I said.
In any case, I realized that while there were no humans here, this was a place where some truly unbelievable beings lived.