Chapter 6: Don’t expect too much from the so called heroes, please!
The atmosphere felt tense as the six inhabitants of the settlement exchanged uneasy glances.
After much discussion they reached an agreement, although neither party was satisfied.
It has been just over a month since they came to this world, thanks to a benevolent god who allowed them to travel in here just moments before their last breath.
Each of them came to this world for different reasons, but they all have the same goal: to save humanity.
However, so far, they have not seen a single human being. They even began to question whether there were any humans in this world. They haven’t seen many animals either.
The god who summoned them into this world, placed them in the safest place on this entire planet. They have fresh water nearby, lots of fruits and a pleasant climate at their disposal. This allowed them to survive without problems up to this point, but at the same time, it made them comfortable.
So comfortable they completely forgot that they are in a hostile world dominated by magical beings, beasts and all sorts of danger. They get up late while hardly doing just necessary tasks for the day to day necessities, and after a month has passed, the only one who still trains daily is Bob.
.....
The decision they made was to allow the strange young man to stay in the settlement for a while, but he will not be able to join their party, meaning he won’t be a part of their group.
But this decision was not unanimous, three people wanted the man to immediately join the group, mainly motivated by their sense of duty to save humanity. The remaining three members, wanted to kick the man out right away since they didn’t trust him, and they also realized the difficult times ahead of them.
Until now they have been consuming fruits and berries they found at the forest. Although nature is generous, it’s not, by any means, infinite and little by little it’s running out. Without a sustainable source of food they cannot afford to feed another mouth.
Story would’ve been different if they at least had the chance to hunt some animals.
When they first arrived there were quite a few animals, finding them was not an easy task, but thanks to the abilities they received from the god who brought them, they were able to catch some animals.
Now there are no animals anywhere, from time to time they can find some traces indicating that there are animals nearby, but they have not been able to find them. It’s different when it comes to fishing, but even working together, they have only managed to catch one fish.
.Their main problem is that, in order to catch prey they use their abilities which, in turn, cost them mana. They only regain a small ammount of mana consuming food and resting, and since they spent it unwisely, now they can’t afford to use their abilities to fish since they spend more than they get, forcing them to save as much energy as they can.
But this only worsened their situation and they grow weaker by the day. If they don’t find a solution soon, they’ll have no choice but to find a new place to live.
****
“I think the best thing would be for us to introduce ourselves first. my name is Helena, You’ve already met Anne”
A small giggle escapes her lips
“The one next to me is Ayumi, and this is her husband Hiraku. Bob is the one who brought you to our village and the blond boy who went to fetch firewood is called Luke, he used to be our leader.”
Suddenly, the man who I just learned is named Hiraku interrupted her.
“Luke used his considering skill on you, Ryu, that’s why we know your name, I hope you don’t mind.”
Ryu? So that’s my name. It’s a good thing I didn’t come up with a pretend name, they would’ve believed that I was lying to them even though I just didn’t know it myself. I don’t think they’ll buy I lost my memory so I’ll keep it a secret for now.
“There’s no problem, it really doesn’t bother me. Did you manage to decide something?”
“Yes” says Anne “we don’t trust you, pervert, but we know you’re harmless. A native like you wouldn’t stand a chance against us so don’t get any weird ideas, got it?”
“What do you mean native?”
Anne sighs heavily as she extends a hand out as if it’s obvious.
“That’s what you are, a savage born in these lands. We are heroes summoned from another world.”
I look at the others to confirm if what she says is true. They all nod their heads.
So they’re heroes, I guess it wasn’t such a bad idea to come after all. Perhaps my days of struggling to survive are over.
“Well, then, is there a condition for me to stay or something? I lost my belongings in the woods, but I can be of help”
Helena steps forward.
“Even though we would really like to help you, truth is our situation is not as good as you may think. We are quickly running out of food ourselves.”
Helena fell silent, so Ayumi says
“You see, Luke said you only have 10 maximum health points, since you are that weak we can’t just leave you alone and defenseless. we’ve decided to protect you and send you home, but we can’t feed you so you will only be able to stay for a limited time.”
“We can’t have someone who can’t even pull their own weight joining us in our current situation. Three days, that’s the maximum time we’ll allow you to stay.” Anne says with an expressionless face.
“Thank you very much, I appreciate your generosity. That should be enough time to prepare. Also, like i said before i could be of help”
Ayumi walks a bit closer as she says “I’m sorry things have to be like this, we don’t have much to offer either. But I’m glad to meet you, you’re the first native we met! if you could maybe lead us to a town we could work something out”
“There will be time to talk” says Hiraku, to which bob responds
“Yeah! there’s still a little light left, let’s make the most of today!”
“I got plenty of rest thanks to you, I can go look for firewood or berries.”
“Okay, let’s go together”
Helena walks into one of the tents and pulls out a wicker basket.
We walk together in the direction of the forest. I don’t know how much stronger than me they are, but the difference must be overwhelming because they allow me to carry my weapons carelessly.
Anyway, It’s not like I’m going to try to do anything inappropriate, they don’t seem like bad people after all. Even Anne, who has an unpleasant personality, showed some concern for me, a stranger. Also, if they really are summoned heroes from another world, the least i can expect is for them to have good intentions.
“That spear you carry, did you get it in your village?”
“Not at all, I live alone. I made it myself”
“Wow! That’s awesome! We’ve been trying unsuccessfully to make tools for a long time. The only thing we have are some sticks. It’s a shame because Bob has a skill that allows him to double his strength for a while, if we had an axe we could get firewood much easier”
Helena is quite more talkative than I thought. She seems like a shy girl, but she’s not afraid to give her opinion in front of others, she also seems to be respected by her peers. It’d be a good idea to approach her in a friendly manner.
We take a short walk talking animatedly about unimportant things. She seems to be trying to teach me basic things, it’s a bit annoying but I can see her good intentions. We pick up some branches and when they start to get heavy I start heading back.
“Ah! We’re not done yet, don’t worry, I’m carrying the firewood, i may not look like it but I’m quite strong.”
She says while flexing her arm, then takes the firewood out of my hands and starts walking like it’s nothing, she really is strong. I pick up the basket from the ground and start picking berries, mushrooms, nuts, some tubers and even some leaves from redberry bushes so I can chew in case I need to drink river water.
In a few minutes her basket was full of useful things.
“hey Helena, this basket is quite sturdy, I tried my best to craft one but mine doesn’t look anything like this one. Did you make it by chance?”
“I did! I used to love arts and crafts so I’m in charge of crafting baskets and weaving plant fiber. That’s precisely the reason why i wanted to come along, because I dont get many chances to leave our village”
“I don’t mean to offend, but why do you call it village when it’s clearly just some makeshift tents put together?”
“well, we’ve had so much trouble in here you wouldn’t imagine. We come from a place where most people didn’t need to know any survival skills so even building this tents took us a while, so we try to remain optimistic”
“But this basket... if you were to make a tent with the same material it’d be a lot better.”
“That may be so, but it does take a while to gather the right materials, dry them and then crafting it into something else. Hey, since you like my basket that much i’ll let you have it”
“Oh! that’s great! i’ll find you something nice tomorrow!”
There’s little daytime left so we hurry back, if they woke up earlier things would’ve been a lot smoother. I can’t help but feel I wasted this entire day.
After arriving at the ‘village’ Ayumi welcomes us with a smile.
“Welcome back! I see you did pretty well, hehe, why did you take so long?” She says coquettishly while covering her mouth with one hand. Helena blushes and looks down at the floor in embarrassment.
This warm welcome invades my heart. This whole time I’ve been quite happy after accomplishing things, but what I regretted the most was not having anyone to share them with.
“It’s my fault, we went by a few more rounds to gather food”
Bob approaches me and asks for the basket while rummaging the contents.
“Wow! It’s an excellent booty! You’re quite skilled! I think we could depend on you in the future, hahaha”
It takes me a little to realize that he’s actually a good guy, I’ve only been here a short time but I’m already starting to grow fond of him. No, no, it must be the lack of human contact. Although they are somewhat nice, they’re still incompetent and i can’t let them drag me down.
Anyway, I’m joyful as i’ve been longing for company, just not being alone makes me happy at this point. It’s been a whole month all by myself.
Just when I thought things were looking bright for the future and everything would be okay, Luke walks up.
“What do you have there Bob?”
“These are the things the new guy collected”
“Let me see” says Luke reaching for the wicker basket as he begins to rummage through the contents just like Bob did before.
“But what kind of garbage is this!? There’s almost no food in here! why did you collect useless things? And these things? This even smell bad” he says as he starts to throw the tubers on the ground “why pick mushrooms? What if they are poisonous? Do you want to kill us? I knew you were worthless the minute I saw you but i didn’t expect you to be at this level.”
The others looked at his arrogant attitude with some discomfort. They clearly wanted to stop him, but it was their partner afterall.
Iit seems they already knew he was troublesome and that’s why they asked him to go get firewood earlier, so that he couldn’t make a scene when they talked to me.
To make matters worse, although they did’t seem to agree with his attitude, they also noticed that many of the things I brought are not edible.
They probably didn’t want to belittle my efforts and so they kept quiet about it.
So far I’ve been trying to lay low, but if I let this guy get the better of me now I’ll probably get in a lot more trouble afterwards.
Although it’s an unpleasant moment, I may be able to use this opportunity to my advantage.
.....
I walk slowly over to him and start picking the tubers off the ground.
“I’m sorry, I really don’t want to cause any trouble. I’m just worried about being offered your food when it’s so hard to come by, that’s why I wanted to collect some, to lift my own weight.”
I say the last part looking directly at Anne because she said I wouldn’t be able to pull my own weight.
Then Hiraku, Ayumi’s husband, a man who looks mature, but also very young, clears his throat.
*cough cough*
“Young Luke, you don’t have to go as far as to knock over what he gathered, after all the new guy worked so hard to get those things. I think the fairest thing for everyone would be that, since Ryu is not a member of our party, everything he collects belongs exclusively to him, and we split up among ourselves what we gather . However...”
“Well, for once I agree with you old man” interrupts Anne “then we won’t share our food with you at all, if you want something you’ll have to trade with us, if you have nothing then you’ll have to work”
Trying to leave the awkward situation behing, we all approach the campfire. Everyone talks in between laughs, they talk about their past in the other world and memories of when they first arrived. Even if I wanted to talk to them, I can’t find the proper time.
I’m just sitting next to Helena, although she used to be very talkative, now she’s just sitting next to me in silence a little blushing, I think she really felt uncomfortable.
As I’m trying to figure out what to say in order to break the ice, Hiraku approaches us.
“Helena, do you mind if I steal young Ryu from you? It’ll only be a minute. I just want to talk to him a bit”
I don’t know why, but his serious attitude makes me nervous. From what little I know of them, Hiraku is the most mysterious of them all. Perhaps he is the leader in the shadows of the group. Not only is he the oldest, he is also the most composed and appears to be the most cautious.
“No problem, just let me do something first”
I throw some tubers into the fire as I stand up to follow Hiraku, the atmosphere is dense and my anxiety rises. His eyes say he knows something i don’t and it’s unsettling me.
“Don’t worry young Ryu, I just wanted to apologize to you in name of our group”
He says as he leans slightly towards me
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Luke... he isn’t actually a bad guy, once you get to know him that is. Truth is when we first arrived I didn’t quite understand anything about this situation and Luke was the most helpful, he took the time to explain us what does it mean to be a summoned hero. You need to understand that I was living a normal life just a while ago and then got pulled out by someone calling himself a god, who put me in this place. It’s been hard, but I’ve come to accept it.
Luke’s case is different. You see, although we all came from the same world, we only met when we came to this place. He didn’t even look surprised, he started saying from the beginning that he was the chosen hero as if he always knew this would happen. Then he tried to take control of the group and we just let him, we all agreed because no one else had interest in taking that responsibility, after all no one knew what was going on but him. We just recently realized the difficult situation we faced, I think you will also you noticed right?’
“It must be something similar to what happened to me, resources are limited and there’s nothing to hunt”
“That’s right, and when we noticed it we started looking for solutions. But Luke didn’t really bring much to the table. We naively believed that he knew what all this was about and that he would somehow help us, unfortunately the only thing he cared about was giving orders and ranting about the demon king”
“Well, every group needs a leader”
“That’s right, that’s true, it doesn’t even need to be an outstanding leader, we just needed someone to make decissions so we wouldn’t waste our precious time arguing. But, what kind of leader is one who gives impossible tasks and then blames others for his own failure? Our situation became untenable that we recently adopted a voting system, although that presents it’s own issues at least we dont fight all day anymore.”
Hiraku looks directly at me, he has a penetrating look. I don’t know what he means by saying all these things to me.
“I don’t want to be a jerk, but why are you telling me all this?”
Hiraku clears his throatand looks me in the eye, his gaze is piercing and it gives me the chills.
“We are newcomers, I think the others are under the false impression that you are the one who needs help when in fact, the opposite seems to be the case. We don’t know each other well yet, but if you give us a chance, you’ll see everyone here is good people and their intentions are not bad. What I meant before Anne cut me off is that, while it would be fair if everyone kept what they harvested, it’s not necessarily in our best interest. In a group everyone performs various tasks and can’t spend all their time harvesting. We need to light the fire, explore, gather firewood, improve our tents, and many other chores. But Luke and Anne failed to realize something, most likely the things you collected are not useless, after all you live alone in the woods and your knowledge of this world must be much better than ours.”
“Now I understand where you want to go, but what do you expect me to do? I can’t come and propose myself as the leader of your group, can I? I see you guys had it difficult and did whatever you could to survive, and I did notice that they are good people too, but, here’s the thing... why is it my problem?”
“That’s true, that’s true” laughs Hiraku “well, let’s go back to the campfire, it’s cold and I’m not old enough to stay outdoors”
For some reason, even though there’s something about him that unsettles me, it’s easy to talk frankly with Hiraku. His sincerity comes across natural and is somewhat contagious. I think that if he had been chosen as their leader, these self-proclaimed heroes would have been in better shape, he’s certainly the most competent among everyone.
I sit down next to Helena again. I take some nuts and crack them open with some difficulty. I haven’t found any near my cabin so I want to take as many as i can when i get back, but now I’m hungry and i need to be at my best in case i need to make a run for it tonight.
I happily start eating, even though they are not that tasty, they’re big as a fist and it’s still something other than fish. At least they seem to be nutritious since one is enough to keep hunger at bay. I throw the hard shell into the fire with a crackling sound.
“What’s that fruit? are they good?” Helena asks me hesitantly.
“Yes, well, no... I mean, I just found out they are edible so it kinda makes me happy to taste different food from what i’m used to”
Silence again. Why does it have to be so uncomfortable?
I’m not entirely sure about this, but it seems that before i lost my memory I was a bit awkward around people. It just gives me that feeling whenever I’m talking to someone. Also, my first instinct was to avoid trusting strangers, so I may have had some bad experiences previously.
There’s no use in trying to find more about myself this way and I need a way to get closer to them. Hikaru’s words are floating by on my mind, he seems to want me to lend them a hand in some way, and i also need people to help me back at my place, so... I’ll sacrifice some of my hard earned harvest in hopes of building trust with them.
,”You can take one if you want, they are very difficult to peel barehanded but since it’s dark already I couldn’t find any rock”
“Oh! no, I couldn’t take them from you... we just made an agreement after all”
“Don’t worry, Anne said it’s ok to trade right? so, if you want we can consider it your payment for lending me the basket... though I’m still going to keep my promise and look something good for you tomorrow. After all you’ve been so nice to me”
“Yes!”
With a cheerful smile helena grabs one, with a loud crunch she begins to peel it with ease.
“Oh! It’s so good! It looks like a walnut but it’s the size of an apple! I can’t believe we never thought of eating them!”
“I want one too! Give me one!” Ayumi says with bright eyes and a watering mouth.
“You’d need to ask Ryu”
Helena says as she looks at me.
I distribute one to each. Bob took the walnut between his thick fingers and looked at it in the light of the campfire. It looks really tiny in his hands, it’s both funny and sad, he must be starving.
Cracking sounds can be heard at the same time as everyone, except Anne, start eating with a huge smile.
“Take a few more, don’t hold back, I got quite a few”
“woa, thank you!”
Bob grabs a handful, wich in his case is about three. The first one he open ends up completely in the ground and the nut is wasted. How strong is this guy?
“Don’t think we owe you anything, we already did enough for you by welcoming you into our village” Luke says as he grabs some nuts.
“Anne, aren’t you going to try it?” Helena says somewhat worried.
“I don’t want anything coming from that pervert” *jum*
We stayed a while longer by the fire. Hiraku and Ayumi went to their tent. Bob also retired, rubbing his belly and humming a tune. Finally only helena, anne, luke and me were left.
“Come on Luke, but don’t get any ideas, if you dare to touch me I’ll kill you”
Luke seems dazed but gets up and follows Anne to another tent.
Helena moves her legs shyly.
“What’s going on?” I ask
“It’s just... the thing is... well, Ayumi and Hiraku are married and it’s the usual for them to sleep together. Bob is too big so he sleeps alone and, until now, I’ve always slept next to Anne while Luke sleeps alone. And we only have four tents so... well” Helena ends her sentence stuttering, her breath hitches and some steam comes out of her mouth “do you... do you, maybe, do you want to sleep with me?”
Charisma+1