Chapter 250: Very Easy Outdoor Survival

“Here you go.”

“Nn……”

I handed a piece of the raw firewood to Elma, who was sitting on standby beside me, and she quickly chucked it toward the burning signal fires. They should be pretty heavy, but she was strong enough to throw them with one hand. Just where was she getting all that power from those slender arms of hers?

Eh? Why was Elma who was supposed to be building our temporary shelter, in charge of throwing firewood into the signal fires now? Uh, it seems the rest of the girls booted her out eventually, so she ended up sulking here.

Oh, and by the way, Mimi and the others have already completed building the first iteration of our temporary shelter. Well, it looked like a giant tofu block, but it was functional, so yay!

“This thing’s interestin’.”

“I’m next, Big Sis.”

“Un, after trying out all sorts of things like this, the first shelter does look a bit too plain.”

Tina, Whisker, and Mimi were now busy making shelter model No. 2. Apparently, they wanted to do away with the tofu design and produce a dome-shaped one. They broke down the chopped trees I set aside for materials, reconstructed them, and repeatedly made use of trial and error.

I tried to touch a wall that was made through the molecular composition device earlier and found it somewhat strange.

Its appearance was akin to a pitch-black and slightly glossy plastic-like material. Apparently, the wall was hollow inside, or at least, a part of it was. I tried knocking on it with my fist and found that it felt quite light. But it didn’t seem like I would be able to punch a hole through it even if I swung at it with all my strength. There might be parts inside the hollow structure that serve to absorb strong impacts, and the black material seemed pretty tough as well. Are these actually some kind of those so-called carbon materials? I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to encounter carbon materials back on Earth, so I couldn’t tell the difference. Well, they were made out of wood, after all, so they probably weren’t the same as those.

“Learning to kindle a fire like this is sort of a rare and valuable experience too huh.”

“Really? Uh, it’s my first time doing something like this too y’know.”

“Is that so? You seem pretty used to it so I thought you’ve done this sort of thing on the regular.”

“And what sort of era did you imagine I was living in that makes it necessary for me to raise smoke signals regularly? The warring states period or something?”

“Isn’t that the case where you’re from?”

“Of course not. We had electricity, gas, and water available to most households, there was the internet, online games where tens of thousands of people could log in and play simultaneously, and orbital space stations where astronauts performed scientific research and experiments. At the very least, our society was more advanced than the Grado clan…… I think. Anyway, we had a fair bit of technology available to us.”

“Hee, it’s a lot more advanced than I thought. Well, I guess it’s no wonder you could adapt to life here so quickly.”

“Yep. I mean, people living in an age where you’d have to regularly make use of smoke signals won’t be able to make heads or tails of a portable data terminal for starters.”

“It’s ironic that the data terminal you just mentioned is practically useless here.”

After saying so, Elma shrugged and threw another piece of firewood at the bonfires. There were three of them, so we were pretty busy.

“Will help really come for us?”

“I’m sure they will. Even if the elves of this planet don’t, there’s still Mei.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

She’s our trustworthy Mei after all. Even if the elves of this planet were in the middle of an internal spat and may put our rescue as second on their priority list, Mei will surely rush to rescue us instead. Krishna’s loaded with various advanced sensors, and with Mei’s computing power, it should be easy for her to triangulate our crash site. It might be necessary to perform recalibrations in order to allow Krishna to fly smoothly within the atmosphere, but Mei will surely do well in that area too, and if push comes to shove, she’ll probably sortie forcibly if the authorities here take too long to arrive at a decision. I’m sure Mei will ignore any sort of opposition in order to rescue us. There’s no doubt about that.

“All things considered, we were still pretty lucky even if we got wrapped up in a crash since we’re all mostly okay. Well, we did panic when we found you bleeding from the top of your head though.”

“Yeah. Fortunately, we didn’t fall from too high an altitude, and the cars hit quite a few tree branches on the way down which cushioned much of the impact.”

“You make sure to take a medical check once we’re back on the ship, okay? An injury to the head is pretty dangerous you know.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

Thanks to the emergency medical nanomachine unit, I felt no problems so far, but it can’t hurt to be too careful when it comes to head injuries. It seems medical nanomachines are also capable of healing cerebral hemorrhage and contusions to a certain extent though. So far, I haven’t experienced things such as fuzzy memory and physical difficulties, so I was probably fine.

“Well, right now, all we can do is wait. Wanna grab something to eat?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, this is surprisingly tasty.”

“Yeah. It’s a darn shame we don’t have alcohol to go with it though.”

“Maybe I should have packed some. This has a subtle scent of liquor coming from it, so it kinda makes me want to have a drink more.”

“Wow. Dwarves sure are amazing for thinking of drinking even in this situation.”

We entered one of the shelters Mimi and the others made and started eating the rations I brought with me. This time, the food rations I brought with me were the same as the ones I had during my stint on Comatt IV. Yep, it’s the one resembling a pound cake that was fairly filling. If I remember correctly, these were the main military rations of a galactic power called the Penitence Kingdom.

Some of the rations I brought had their packaging torn open during the crash, but some were still okay to eat. So, for now, we divided them among ourselves and ate them. Of course, those weren’t enough for all of us, so we also ate the ones that didn’t have their packaging torn open but were squished flat as well.

“These’re rations from another country, right? Why’d you get these anyway, Boss?”

“Uh, they were kinda cheap, so I just went and bought them. It seems they have a surplus of food in the Penitence Kingdom, so they sometimes sell them off to other countries to earn foreign currency. At least that’s what the store clerk who pushed these to me told me.”

“These are actually pretty nice as snacks.”

“Don’t even think about it. Military rations have a monster-load of calories y’know? If you ate these on the regular, you’d get fat in a flash.”

“Uu, that’s a bit…… I always work out, but it feels like I’m not able to get any thinner after all.”

After saying so, Mimi put her hands over her tummy and sighed.

That’s actually because I was meddling with her workout menu without her knowledge, but I’ll just keep quiet about that. I personally think Mimi’s current build was the best. Mimi has the ideal glamorous Coca-Cola body after all.

“Us too. We can’t seem to get any thinner no matter what we do.”

“Yeah, my hips are just…… It makes me really envy Elma-san.”

The dwarven sisters can certainly be said to have the so-called ‘ideal child-bearing hips’. Their waists, buttocks, and thighs all had just the right amount of plumpness to them. And, although they weren’t noticeable when they wear their work jumpsuits, they had pretty decent chests as well.

“It’s because I train often.”

After saying so, Elma displayed a slight smirk. Yeah, Elma’s certainly slender alright. But she wasn’t overly slender, but instead had a well-proportioned body earned through constant training and workouts. How do I put it? She had virtually flawless physical proportions.

I’ve already seen her naked lots of times of course, but I feel like I’d be enchanted no matter how many times I witness her beauty.

“What sorta body do ya prefer a woman to have anyway, Boss?”

“You’re asking that in this situation?”

It kinda feels like someone will get angry no matter what answer I give them though.

“Right. First, let me reiterate that I don’t discriminate between chest sizes. Small ones and big ones are equally wonderful.”

“Wow. This guy’s actually answering.”

“It kinda feels like he’s put up a solid defense right off the bat.”

“It’s because this stuff’s important you know. Men are creatures who see dreams and romance when it comes to boobs, okay? Them being big or small is just something trivial. I just want you guys to be aware of that.”

“I see. So?”

Elma prompted me to continue.

“……”

Now then, how should I continue? Should I just honestly blurt out my preferred body type? Mimi has her own charms, and so do Elma, Tina, and Whisker after all.

“Come to think of it, you were the one who designed Mei-san, right, Big Brother?”

Hahaha, Whisker just managed to hit the nail on the head. But how will the situation proceed from here? How will the girls react? I can’t tell at all.

“Now that you mentioned it, that’s right. Hm, I see……”

Mimi looks like she was convinced about something. Stop, don’t think about it anymore.

“So, if Mei’s body shape is his ideal type, I guess it won’t do to be too thin, right?”

“Right. So that’s it huh?”

“I see. So Big Brother doesn’t like it if we’re too thin.”

“Stop analyzing me, guys. Please.”

Dammit. I was now under the scrutiny of four women I was close with. Was this a new form of torture or something?

“Okay, this topic is over. How about discussing something more meaningful, guys?”

“Even if you say meaningful……”

“In this situation?”

Whisker cocked her head while displaying a troubled expression while Tina shrugged. Yeah. Meaningful discussions aren’t really of use in our current situation.

“Okay. Then do you guys wanna bet on how long it would take until rescue arrives?”

“Is betting actually something meaningful?”

“There’s a lot of room for argument on whether or not that’s actually meaningful.”

Mimi cocked her head and expressed her doubt, and I agreed with her. It’s not like I’m against betting though.

“It’s about 2:30 P.M. right now, so…… How about betting between now and six P.M., and intervals of six hours after that?”

“The heck? You’re really pushing ahead with betting?”

“Mmm, isn’t six hours a bit too long? How about cutting it down to three hours? I think it would be more interesting that way.”

Whisker-san’s actually going along with it. Are we really doing this?

“Yep. Okey-dokey. I’m gonna go with sometime between 9 P.M. to 12 midnight today.”

“Ah, how sly, Sis. Alright then. I’ll go with between 9 A.M. to 12 in the afternoon tomorrow.”

“What are you betting on in the first place…? Or rather, what are you guys planning to do after having our meal? I’m planning on continuing to clear out this section of the forest and building some walls in order to keep the wild animals out.”

“Since we can’t bet with money, how about owing the winner a favor instead? Oh, and I agree with building a wall.”

“A favor!? What are you planning to have us do anyway?”

“Ain’t it fine as long as it’s within reason, Boss?”

And so, we continued to eat while talking about bets and development plans for our temporary shelter.

By the way, I choose to bet on the period between 6 P.M. and 9 P.M. today. I think that time frame is reasonable as long as the incident report, rescue planning, preparation, and execution all proceed without a hitch. Anyway, it’s a contest against time. I’m sure the correct action to take in this situation was to mount a rescue as soon as possible.

I hope nothing goes wrong.