Chapter 31: Step 31 to Greatness: Having Salt Is Essential To Carry The Tribe
After bathing and cleaning, everyone retreated to the fire pit for more skewers. Adrian set things up, and while the skewers cooked slowly, he took Sera away to discuss about the attack before.
However, he didn’t take her far and kept her in Amika’s line of sight, or else her jealousy would flare up, and he wouldn’t be able to talk to Sera face to face.
Because of the contract, Sera was bound to tell Adrian the truth about their little group of newbie hunters. The more he listened, the more he wanted to smack the shit out of Sera for once joining them.
Essentially, they lured newbies over to a hiding spot, like they did with Adrian, and killed the males while offering the females to join them.
When it was Sera’s turn, Junito became infatuated with her and took her in, forming a new group. However, despite being in a ’relationship’, they never shared any intimacy... A claim Adrian found hard to believe.
For someone who could kill people without any regrets, he didn’t think they would have a moral compass to wait for ’consent’ and true love like Sera told him.
Either way, that wasn’t important.
Adrian just wanted to know their numbers and the location of their base. Sera knew the numbers, around fifty men and women, but wasn’t sure about the base’s location, as in her words, they traveled a lot to hunt other players.
"You still didn’t tell me how they found you," Adrian asked, before remembering she couldn’t tell what he was saying and send her a message.
"...I don’t know," Sera shook her head. "From what I could hear, they had found others’ corpses near the stream to the north but didn’t find mine."
She continued, "They thought I had betrayed them and that’s why they were dragging me with them to let Juan decide what to do with me..."
Adrian nodded, looking back at the tribe. He knew the people he killed today weren’t the same ones whose footprints the others saw.
How? Because the people they killed today were wearing shoes. They couldn’t leave ’footprints’. Which meant he now had two groups of enemies to look out for.
One, the newbie hunters, and the other tribe.
I need to improve everyone’s strength as soon as possible.
He nodded towards the fire, gesturing Sera to go and eat. After a minute, he followed her and sat near the fire, waiting for a skewer to get ready.
However, he didn’t have to wait long, as Amika sat next to him and put several pieces of meat on his plate from her own.
"Eat," she said, before shyly looking away. "Need energy for the night..."
Once again, Adrian almost choked at her brazenness. He didn’t think she would be the one to initiate ’love-making’ talks like this, that too in the middle of dinner with everyone around.
Thankfully, Freki and Huginn came over to him, distracting him. He took two more leaves and put some raw and roasted flesh for each of them to eat.
However, instead of eating from their plates, Huginn took all her food and put it on Freki’s plate, and the two began eating together. At times, Huginn would also put some meat on Adrian’s plate.
Adrian was confused till the notifications appeared.
[Freki’s Bond +5.]
[Huginn’s Bond +5.]
Adrian smiled and patted both of them. With Huginn being smart, he didn’t have to worry about increasing their bond, leaving him free to focus on other things.
After eating, it was time to clean up. Even if they had a fence and a guard dog, it was still wise to clean things up. Once again, Adrian wasn’t allowed to assist with it as Nixa forbade it.
"You already work too much for the tribe, leave this to others."
Those were her exact words.
Adrian didn’t argue either. He already had too much work to do.
He first walked to the pen and noticed the chickens were asleep... other than the one the rooster was jumping on.
The little guy was more active than he was, even though both of them were in the same situation.
There was only one rooster with other hens, and Adrian was the only male in the tribe surrounded by women. Yet, the rooster was the only one actively fulfilling his natural duty.
"..."
Adrian ignored the squawks and used the pen expansion card. The moment he did that, the pen got covered in white light briefly before the fence expanded outwards and at the same time a small section appeared inside.
"A burrow? I can keep rabbits in the pen now?"
Adrian wasn’t surprised. Since the world had chickens, it was only natural for rabbits to also be there. The only thing was that he hadn’t encountered them yet.
"Oh well, I’ll think about it later."
After saying that, he walked to the cave and took out another card. This time it was a blue one.
[Supporting structure detected nearby. Use item: Rock Salt Quarry card?]
"Yes."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the card in his hand glowed bright blue, and something strange happened.
Instead of enveloping the structures like the pen expansion card did, the quarry card turned into glowing particles that flew into the cave like a bunch of fireflies.
Adrian stepped back as the ground began to shake slightly. A low rumbling sound filled the air. A bright light burst out from inside the cave, forcing him to cover his eyes for a moment.
When the light faded and the shaking stopped, Adrian opened his eyes and stared in amazement.
The ordinary rocky cave had completely transformed. The rough stone walls were now covered with thick veins of a shining white and pale pink substance.
Not just that, beautiful crystals burst out of the walls and the ceiling of the cave. At the same time, the floor of the cave had become flat and smooth, with several natural pits filled with smaller chunks of the same material as the crystals.
"Male!" A voice called from behind.
Adrian looked back and saw that all the women had gathered there. It wasn’t surprising, as the flash had been way too bright to ignore.
"What is this smell...? It’s drying my mouth." Amika complained, stepping backwards.
Only then did Adrian notice that there was indeed a salty smell in the air around the cave.
"Male, what is this... thing?" Nixa asked, pointing at the familiar-unfamiliar cave.
As for Adrian, he was stumped. The women there had clearly never tasted or seen salt. So how was he supposed to explain to them what it meant?
"It’s something that will make our food better. I’ll show you later," Adrian said, walking inside the cave.
He immediately noticed the wooden support beams that were placed along the walls, making the cave look safer and more like a proper mine. There were even a few stone tools like pickaxes scattered near the entrance to help mine the salt.
He reached out and touched one of the salt veins. It was hard but slightly crumbly. He broke off a small piece and licked it. It had a strong salty-earthy taste that hit him like a truck.
"It seems I’d have to find a way to purify the salt first before using it," Adrian mumbled, remembering the earthy taste. "But it’s good! We can use the salt for preserving meat or to make the food taste better."
Just then, a new notification appeared in front of him.
[Rock Salt Quarry has been successfully built!]
[This quarry will produce low-quality rock salt daily.]
[Current daily production: 5 kg of impure rock salt per miner.]
[Note: Production can be increased with better tools and more workers.]
