The time was a little past noon.
The group quickly ate the sand bread prepared at the forward base and walked toward their next destination.
“That sand bread was good. Totally different from hardtack and jerky.”
“Looks like it wouldn’t keep long, though. How is it?”
The sand bread was extremely well received.
For the most part, what adventurers ate in the forest was long-lasting hardtack, jerky, and nuts. After that, wild greens or fruit gathered nearby, and whatever small animals they dressed.
Being able to eat properly seasoned sand bread even on the first day seemed, apparently, revolutionary.
“Hm.”
Search.
“Because the fillings contain a lot of moisture, it is not suitable for storage. It would be different if it could be refrigerated.”
“Refrigerated?”
“Keeping it chilled.”
“Ah...”
Incidentally, in the United Kingdom of Aphrasia, the concept of refrigeration almost didn’t exist.
It was a region with high temperatures year-round, and it almost never snowed, so there was no culture of icehouses either.
Spring water was cold, so it seemed there were cases of using that to chill things.
If the culture had advanced a little further, they might have developed refrigerators that used spring water.
But since <Paraiso> fully intended to contaminate the culture, regional cultures like that would, going forward, almost never have the chance to grow.
It was a sad thing.
“Still, being able to load our baggage onto that <Backpacker> is great. The burden’s completely different.”
“Seriously. It’s ridiculously easy. Only thing that’s a shame is we can’t take it into the deep forest...”
What they were walking through was a flat area with relatively few trees.
<Backpacker> was a small multi-legged machine, but it stood about as tall as an adult’s chest, and its width and length were around three meters. It could traverse some rough ground without issue, but places where trees were packed so tightly that there wasn’t even room for the chassis to pass probably wouldn’t allow it to follow.
“So <Backpacker> won’t be very useful?”
This temporary party was a touchstone for <Paraiso> to explore the <Demon Forest> on their own.
If <Backpacker>, or machines like it, couldn’t go deep inside, then they would need to revise the plan from the ground up.
“No. If you’re going into the deep areas, you’ll be advancing while building base camps. With that <Backpacker>, you can increase your load by a huge margin. It’s worth bringing, even if you have to fell trees to do it.”
“I see. A carrier for base-camp supplies. For long-term exploration, you operate centered around a base camp?”
“Yeah. Every few days, you decide whether to go back or push forward. Alliances with lots of people do things like making a path as they go deeper. We’ve never done it to that extent, though.”
Reidas’s party mainly did solo exploration.
It seemed they almost never cooperated with other parties. Apparently, the last time they had allied up, they got into an ugly fight over shares, and after that they basically operated as a solo party.
Even so, it seemed they could secure enough income to live modestly as three.
“If you’re doing a large-scale exploration, you can consider that method. But it’s commonly said that if you make too much noise, you draw monsters. We don’t know what’s safe and what isn’t. So we act as quietly as we can.”
“Understood. Still, first we must learn how to move through the forest. Your guidance is extremely useful.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. Though for people who say that, you seem to be walking just fine—do you have experience?”
“We train. ...Reidas is coming back.”
“Huh?”
Reidas, who had been ahead as the scout, came running back from the front.
Since Sulfa was panther-based, her hearing was good.
“Stop here for now. There were traces of monsters.”
“He came back, so is it slimes?”
If there was a monster that actively attacked them, the rule was that Reidas would instead call everyone to him.
Monsters had strong presence-detection ability, and if they found one, it was said the monster almost certainly already knew they were there.
So the moment you turned your back, there was a high chance you’d be attacked—meaning the best move was to call the attacker over.
“Yeah. It’s a slime colony. It’s like a low-density hot spot. Last time there wasn’t one in a place like this, so it probably formed recently.”
And among the monsters that appeared around here, slimes were the most harmless—and the least profitable.
The existence called “slime” was known within <Paraiso>’s intelligence network.
But beyond the name, not much information had been gathered.
Where there were lots of slimes, there were lots of monsters.
They needed to be sufficiently careful.
“Do hot spots increase?”
“Ah—who knows. Sometimes they increase, sometimes they disappear. Places that have been around forever don’t seem to disappear, though.”
New hot spots apparently formed and vanished frequently.
That was why Reidas, as the scout, seemed to constantly check the mana meter.
“This is the first time we’ve seen monsters today. That’s a slime.”
Following where Reidas pointed, they could see something like a shapeless jelly moving slowly.
By rough estimate, its size was about five liters. A bucketful was an easy way to picture it.
“Like that—there are a lot of them all over this area. They’re basically harmless, but when there are a lot of slimes, monsters gather too. Normally we’d either purge them or just avoid getting close in the first place. But since I’m your guide... around here, strong monsters don’t show up, and I figured it’s a good chance.”
“Can you purge them?”
“Yeah. They don’t die if you cut or smash ’em, but if you make ’em small, they disappear on their own. Let’s see—if you can get ’em down to about a handful with both hands, that should do it.”
So, Nadira and Graver, along with <Paraiso>’s three, ended up handling the purging. Reidas stayed on watch.
“A stick or whatever’s fine—just hit or cut and split them up. If it’s a small one, you can even stomp it. Then it’ll burst and disappear on its own. Even if it gets on your hands or whatever, it’ll disappear eventually, so don’t worry about it.”
As Nadira explained, she actually stomped the slime at her feet hard.
With a wet SPLAT, the slime burst, scattering around.
“...Its volume is decreasing.”
Chris, who had been watching intently, murmured.
The scattered slime gradually grew smaller. Small fragments vanished as if evaporating.
“What you have to watch out for is a slime that’s absorbed something. They’re omnivores, and they take anything into their bodies. If you crush one that’s absorbed a corpse like you just did, it’ll be a disaster, so be careful.”
Even if the slime’s body disappeared, whatever it had absorbed would remain as-is—that seemed to be the idea. That really would be catastrophic.
“I’ll try it.”
Using a fallen tree branch, Sulfa struck the slime at her feet.
She had impact weapons like an electromagnetic baton, but those had too little reach for hitting the ground.
Struck by /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ the improvised club, the slime tore into two parts. This one was somewhat large, and even split in two, it was still active.
When she brought the club down a second time, the slime stopped moving and began to shrink little by little.
“Interesting.”
“Yeah. It’s weird, isn’t it.”
“Slimes are the most incomprehensible monsters of all. The other famous ones actually have bodies. Slimes disappear. Even when you kill ’em, nothing’s left—yet they draw monsters. They’re a pain in the ass.”
“If you use ’em right, they can be monster bait, too. But most of the time, they draw way more than you want, so I recommend purging or avoiding them.”
They continued purging the slimes, then confirmed there were none left within sight.
“There were a lot. But with how it feels, it’s probably only been here about a week. The medicinal herbs... well, there’s basically none.”
“With only about a week, even if something’s growing, it’s a rounding error.”
“In about two more weeks, it’ll become a good gathering spot.”
Medicinal herbs mutated as wild plants grew in hot spots.
In that case, it was only natural that a newly formed hot spot had almost no medicinal herbs.
“Alright. This is about the limit for a day trip. Is this good for today?”
“It is enough. I learned a great deal. I will be relying on you again starting tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Well, we’ll talk about that after we get back safe. I’ve got a feel for your strength now, too—next time, we can go deeper and even stay overnight.”
“I will consider it.”
And so, the group ended their day-trip adventure.
