“Silkworms?” asked Shion with an expression that suggested even she didn’t think so.
“Nn-nn, silk is nice and soft on the skin but not resilient enough.”
It was one thing for clothes to be able to survive some wear and tear, but no one else was entirely sure if they needed to be “resilient.” Frau, oblivious to the thoughts of the others, began to describe in detail just how resilient the clothes she gave Renya were. Taking her claims at face value, the clothes apparently conferred a moderate amount of resistance to heat and cold while also being capable of self-cleaning and self-repair. Despite being cloth, it could guard against sudden impacts through an automatic and reversible hardening process. In addition, it could trap blades and significantly blunt their edges. Basically, it had long abandoned its identity of clothing and crossed over into crazy magical armor territory.
“Doesn’t that mean this is really valuable?”
While the source of the materials was a concern, what worried Renya more was whether Frau had put herself in any danger in the process of making the clothes.
“Nn-nn,” replied Frau with a smile. “No worries. If they’re gone, Frau can make lots more.”
Hearing that Frau could make more of the things, Shion and Rona gave each other troubled looks. If she really could, she’d be sounding a death knell for every last tailor in town.
“I see. Thanks then,” said Renya as he patted the fairy on the head, pointedly ignoring the juxtaposition between Frau’s blissful smile and Shion’s gnashing of her teeth.
Though Frau had sent them off with a smile, after arriving at the scene, they were hard pressed to share her good cheer. Disappointment set in as they realized that the sheer number of people in the forest would make it very difficult to earn much reward. Adventurers all loved money; few would pass up an all-you-can-hunt event that rewarded every kill. They had only just entered the forest and there were already parties squabbling over claims to the spoils of dead monsters, which only worsened the commotion.
“It’s going to be tough to hunt anything on the edges of the forest,” said Shion as she glanced at a group of people arguing beyond the trees. They stood over the dead body of a kobold — a dog-headed monster that walked on two legs. They were weak creatures that produced manastones inferior to even goblins, and there was a certain despair to the sight of people arguing over who got the kill.
“Anyone have any idea as to where forest octopuses might live?”
“I heard they’re generally near water.”
“They’re amphibious?”
“I don’t know what that means, but they apparently don’t like it when their body dries out.”
Why’d they leave the water in the first place then?
Shortly after his mental quip, Renya reconsidered. If they hadn’t, he wouldn’t be able to catch them; he’d have to ask fishermen.
“There’s a small swamp in the middle of the forest, so we can set up camp somewhere nearby.”
“A swamp, huh…”
He imagined a gloomy bog, filled with muck and goop. It was a strangely depressing thought. They wouldn’t be able to use it as a source of water, and any food they procured would be dirty and tainted with the stench of mud. He was not going to enjoy being there.
There were no obvious paths in the forest, and traversing it without a map proved to be extremely difficult. Normally, trying to walk forward in a straight line would always result in some deviation to the left or right. Shion, however, seemed to have an odd knack for keeping them on track, and she did actually manage to point them straight forward. Rona whispered an offhand comment about how boars charged in straight lines, which earned her a loud and aggressive complaint in the form of a spinning backfist.
For about an hour, Shion led them forward through the dense undergrowth. When they got very close the center of the forest, they happened upon a clearing that contained a swamp, its water tinted green. Renya kneeled at the edge and put a finger in the water. He grimaced at the slightly thick texture. He then put his finger to his nose and found that it didn’t smell that muddy. The water was cleaner than he’d thought. Still, he doubted the thickness and smell would go away even if he boiled and filtered it. The water was definitely not drinkable.
Above him, a hole in the forest canopy allowed him to see the blue sky beyond. It was a change from the dense overgrowth they had walked under for the past while. Though he couldn’t see the sun, the blueness of the sky told him that they still had some time before sundown.
“The plan was to spend a night here, so we’ll have to set up camp… I sort of want to do a bit of hunting first, though.”
“That might be tough. Thanks to all the adventurers who rushed in here, the monsters all ran away,” said Shion with a frown.
They were deeper in the forest now, which shielded them from the noise at the fringes. The widescale hunting of monsters, however, sent said monsters fleeing for cover. They were probably all in hiding now, waiting for the storm to pass.
“Rather than hunting a bunch of little things, it might be more efficient to aim for a big one,” said Renya, remembering when he defended the settlers’ village against goblins. His kill count had reached triple digits that time, and he was not exactly swimming in money afterward.
“Famous last words, Renya. Especially for adventurers,” cautioned Shion.
Renya paused and awkwardly scratched his neck.
Touché.
He took a small stone from the ground and stood up. Shion gave him a questioning look. With a quick action of the wrist, he flicked the stone into a patch of grass. There was a low, dull thud followed by a soft, shrill cry. He took out a knife and approached the patch of grass. A ball of brown fur, just about big enough for one to get their arms around it, was squatted on the ground. Its eyes were spinning after being hit on the head by the stone. He stuck the knife into what he thought was its neck, and it stopped moving.
“A giant rat, huh. Pretty big catch.”
Dangling it by its legs, it looked to be a mouse-like creature about 50 centimeters in length.
“Is this a monster too?”
“Nah, that’s an animal. You won’t find a manastone inside.”
Apparently, monsters and animals were differentiated based on whether or not they had manastones inside their bodies.
“And what about forest octopuses?” Renya didn’t really care either way, but asked just for the sake of it.
“Also an animal, also no manastone. But it’s pretty aggressive and sometimes attacks people.”
It was something that he, a stranger to this world, might never figure out just by looking.
He lowered the giant rat’s body onto the ground and began taking it apart with his knife. He had considered having a taste of his first catch, but then he remembered all the food he brought with him from town. Since there was no need to eat it, the best use for its body was probably as bait for forest octopuses. The adventurer at the guild had told him that goblins were best, but those goblins were unfortunately busy being slaughtered by a bunch of Renya’s money-starved colleagues. He could have asked them to give him the corpses, but he didn’t want to deal with people giving him weird looks and guessing at what he was scheming.