CH 10

Chapter 10: Town Discovered

They exited the forest, and approached the buildings with anxious excitement.

What they saw at first was a small Watch Tower. Was it a Watch Tower to see who’s coming in from the forest?

But……….

Ain: “Looks like no one’s using it.”

Sia: “Uuuuuu”

Below the Watch Tower, there was also a wooden shack, but there were no doors, and the walls and roof had holes in them.

The Watch Tower was in okay shape, but the ladder had rotted away, and you couldn’t climb it.

Ain: “Let’s go a little further.”

The stone road continued on.

Beyond the Watch Tower was a grassy field or maybe it was originally just a plain……...but there’s tall grass growing everywhere now.

And beyond the tall grass, a few hundred meters ahead (～¼ mile), they saw several buildings.

They could see it……...but even from here, we can tell that the buildings are decrepit and in severe bad shape.

Ain: “By the looks of it, I don’t think anyone will be living thereー”

Sia: “AUu.”

When they arrive at the town, it was as they expected.

There were no signs of human beings in the area, and most of the buildings were crumbling to the ground. Among those, there were some buildings that were completely diminished.

Ain: “Let’s look to see if there’s a building that can still be used.”

Sia: “UNyuuuuu”

Ain: “Are you hungry? Then do you want to go ahead and cook the meat?” Sia: “UUu!”

I place the package on my back down on the ground and cut up the meat into blocks.

I place the axe inside the [Alchemy BOX] and separate it into iron and wood. I place the iron back into the BOX, and make thin stakes to shish kabob the meat.

Ain: “I’ll place the meat on these iron sticks, so Sia, can you sprinkle salt on the meat?”

Sia: “GAU.” I thought we might need it later, so I brought the salt that I got from the ocean water.

And now, we just need…….yeah, that broken down wooden house will supply the firewood.

I don’t even have to take anything apart, and just pick up the pieces on the ground, and I set it on fire.

Ain: “Okay, we can cook the meat now. Let’s see now……...oh, that’ll do.”

I pick up the stones and bricks from the wreckage, and I start placing and stacking it on the left and right of the fire. I place the stakes on the stacked bricks so the fire tickles it from underneath.

Ain: “It’ll take some time before the meat is cooked, so I’ll go check out and see if there are any houses we could use around here. I’ll leave the sword here. If anything happens, yell as loud as you can, okay?” Sia: “GAUu”

Sia isn’t looking at me at all. The Meat. She’s only looking at the meat cooking.

But she reached out and took hold of the sword I was handing to her, so I know she was listening.

I’m a little worried, so I’ll make sure to not go too far.

Along the stone road, the buildings were erected on each side, and it looked like a small town from this view.

The buildings weren’t too close together, but it didn’t seem like it was built randomly either.

The residential house-looking ones were at the front, and the further you go, there were bigger and taller buildings.

In a building that was in relatively good shape, the entrance had a sign with a symbol of a bed painted on it.

In other words, it’s an inn.

Ain: “This area has more buildings made from stone, and they look serviceable. I don’t know if we’ll be staying here on the island long term, but we can use this building as our base for now.”

Even if we wanted to know if there were other residents living on this island, we won’t get far if we just recklessly search for them in random directions.

First, we need a place to avoid the wind and rain, and some place where we can rest in peace and security.

In that sense, this inn will be a good location.

As I enter, I see a receptionist counter. Beyond the counter, I see a hallway that goes deeper into where the inn’s rooms are.

Ain: “There’s a bed too…...but the legs are rotten.”

I pushed the mattress slightly, and I heard the distinct <SNAP> of the bed's legs breaking.

Butー at least we can still use the mattress.

I marked the house’s door with coal, so that I could return here with Sia.

As I walked, the sweet, blissful aroma of cooking meat was filling the air. The smell alone made me drool.

Ain: “I found a house where we could sleep inside. Let’s go back to the beach later and grab our supplies and coats and bring them here.”

“GAUu”

When Sia turned around, her mouth was equally flooded with overflowing drool.

<<<<>>>>

We carried out the bed mattresses we found to the outside and hung them out to dry against the sun before we headed to the beach.

It’ll be too much trouble to try and carry the small boat all the way over here, and we can’t use a boat on land anyways. We brought everything else though with us and came back to the abandoned town.

After that, we hurriedly looked for other things we could use.

If there are beds, there are also sheets.

We grabbed all the sheets we could find even from upstairs, and we found a total of 6.

Ain: “With the size of my BOX, I could fit one sheet inside it at a time.”

We went to the back of the inn and to the well, but the water we drew up was cloudy and dirty. It’s probably because it hasn’t been used in a while.

But, with my Alchemy BOX, there shouldn’t be any issues cleaning the water.

We found a broken bucket nearby, and I threw it into the BOX to fix it.

Then we dumped the dirty water into the BOX, and after cleaning the water, we stuck the sheets in. Now, I just imagined it working like a clothes washer and spinning at high speeds. Using something akin to a centrifuge, I separate out the sheets with the water.

When I opened the BOX, there was dirty liquid separate from the sheets.

Ain: “I wish we had soap or somethingー We might find some if we look, but we don’t know how old that would be…….”

Sia: “GAUGAUGAUu”

Ain: “Let’s wash it one more time.”

Even after the second washing, the water was dirty, and after the 3rd washing, the water remained clean.

Once we were done washing the sheets, we placed it inside a dry wash basin and carried it to the inn.

Before the sun went down, we carried the mattress back in, and with two sheets on top, we made a simple bed.

In the inn, there is also a dining hall.

They probably took most of the small cooking and tableware when leaving the island, but we were grateful to find a steel frying pan.

If I place this inside the Alchemy BOX, I can take the rust off and re-use it.

On the roundtrip from the beach shores to here, I placed several vegetation into the BOX and assessed them like crazy. As a result, there were a few that were edible.

Tonight, we will use those vegetables, cook it with the boar meat, and flavor it with salt to make a stir fry.

I’m really glad that we were able to find edible grass. In this case, grass = veggies.

We looked around the inn and found some candles. They were all discolored, but you could still light them.

We found a clay plate and placed the candles on top of it, and with a few around the room, we were able to have some light.

Ain: “Tomorrow, let’s explore the town and the surrounding area. If people were living here before, there might even be the remains of a farm or something.”

Sia: “Uguh. Ummuu, AUGAUu”

Ain: “I hope we can find some vegetablesー”

Under the small light of the candles, we had a slightly more extravagant meal than usual.

<<<<>>>>

CHONKY Notes LiT (Lost in Translation)

Washing Basin (arai-oke) (洗い桶)

<<<<>>>>