Volume 8.5 - CH 7

Fishing 

On that day, Milim couldn’t keep her cool since the morning. Or rather, she had come to my room at the crack of dawn to hurry me up. 

“Don’t worry, even though I won’t get mad since I don’t need to sleep in the first place, but you’re really pushing it with your antics this time.” 

“What are you talking about! I also only needed a little bit of sleep. That’s all fine, so can we get going now?” 

“Calm down you, that’s not the problem at hand! We may be good to go, but it’s still the middle of the night. Even if we go out this early in the morning, Mister Fish may still be asleep.” I’m trying to persuade Milim, since tomorrow, or rather today, we had made plans to sneak out of town and go fishing. Milim has been looking forward to it way too much, and the only thing she could do was to come looking for me, to get things started. 

The way she acts barely resembles the staidness one expects of a demon lord, instead she’s quite the stubborn brat. To be honest, I’m not sure whether Mister Fish is still asleep or not, but either way I was able to convince Milim to stay. 

Two hours later, it was finally time to set out as planned, accompanied by a happy Milim. Having a body that does not require sleep really helped me when coping with the overly energetic Milim. We snuck out of my room and exited the building. Outside of town, we found Gobta waiting for us as promised. 

“You’re pretty early, I also just arrived.” 

“Yeah pretty much, though Milim has hurried me many, many, many times…” 

“I… see…” 

Gobta nodded and seems to be able to sympathize with me. 

“WHAAAA! Come on, let’s set out now. I’ll show you guys my real power in this thing called fishing.” With Milim making such a boisterous statement, I get the feeling she may have misunderstood something? I’m a bit worried about what would happen if she gets annoyed and starts to make a scene. 

Milim – I suppose it will be fine if she catches anything, but if not, she may get bored easily. 

“Is there really no problem?” Gobta seemed to express the same concern. 

“Probab…ly. There isn’t much use to think about it, if it doesn’t work we would just have to call it early.” 

“Sounds about right. Then we should be on our way.” 

And so, we set out to the sea for the main event – Fishing. 

*** 

By that time the sun shone with a bright smile. We had reached the seaside. It is my first time seeing the sea in this world, it appears to not be notably different from the earth’s oceans. Apart from some additional sea creatures, the ecosystem seems to differ slightly as well. But it’s basically the same. We found a stone bank and set up our spot for fishing. 

“What do we do with this?” 

“Ah, so you need to combine it like this, and then hook the bait on it.” 

I decided to teach the first-time fisher Milim, who was very excited for what’s to come, the basics of fishing–from rod composition to bait hooking. Gobta took out his own fishing rod but was immediately halted by me. It’s a self-made fishing rod, consisting of a short branch with some fishing line tied to the end of it. This crude thing is hardly fit for use in the sea. 

“Wait a second, that is for river fishing right? It would probably be too much to be used in the sea. Try this one instead.” I handed over the rod broken by Milim during the prep phase while saying so. 

“Yahoo~! This one is the real deal!” Gobta exclaimed, excitedly holding the rod I handed to him. 

“If you like it you can keep it. I still have one more ready.” 

“Really! Superb!” 

Gobta started fishing happily. Milim also threw her bait, not wanting to be defeated. This must have sparked her competitive spirit to face off against Gobta. 

— Let’s see how it works out… 

A few hours later, 

Milim was astonishingly more patient than I expected. It’s probably because she caught two small fish and had her interest bolstered. 

“You guys must be hungry? It’s about time to make a meal.” Thus I declared it to be time for a break. As soon as I said this, the (ungodly) sight of Milim rolling the bait used for fishing into a ball and eating it, was burned into my memory. 

“Ugh, it’s disgusting.” 

“No shit!” 

“I was under the impression that it must be delicious because it’s made by Rimuru, but…” Milim scowled at me resentfully while saying so. 

What a preposterous thing to say! Why would I bother to season the fish bait?! I promptly prepared the sandwiches before Milim could get mad and distributed them among our party. After that we continued fishing until three in the afternoon and enjoyed a long-overdue vacation. 

By the way, I caught the highest amount of fish. Originally Gobta was supposed to take second place, however I gave Milim 10 fish out of courtesy, reversing their final ranking. 

“This is supposed to be my first time fishing in the sea…” Etc. etc, Gobta bemoaned sadly. At least this outcome is way better than Milim throwing a nasty temper tantrum. Well, at least that’s what I though— 

“WHAAAA! Well then, let’s step it up next time!” 

“Exactly what I had in mind!” 

Milim and Gobta already made promises for a rematch. 

*** 

And so, we returned to the town after a fun day. But the situation in the town seems a bit strange, everyone appears to be out looking for someone. 

“They seem to be looking for someone, could it… be us??” 

“Hmm, that would be strange. I remember leaving a memo so that they don’t get worried…” 

“—Memo? Speaking of forgetting stuff. Look, here’s the thing you dropped, Rimuru sure is easily panicked!” Milim responded to me proudly while holding what is undoubtedly my memo. Milim, for crying out loud, what have you done!? We were just supposed to sneak out… 

“Hey!? That’s exactly it!!” 

“Wait, this is a terrible situation! Who could blame everyone for panicking!” 

I stared at Gobta, both of our faces turning white as the color drained out of them. Not only did we sneak out, we didn’t even leave any method for them to contact us… We are definitely getting scolded… 

And after that— 

Shion and Shuna scolded us all harshly with bloodcurdling expressions on their faces once they found us. 

And after that, for a while, going out without informing others was prohibited. But that’s a story for another day.