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Rir created a small clearing by cutting down the surrounding trees with the axe she used as a weapon.

“Well, that’s about it, Master! Though it’ll only serve as a mere consolation, I’ll try to craft a fence.”
“Gotcha. Now that you mention it, you do have that Lumber Processing skill, don’t you? Please do, I’ll make us some food meanwhile.”
“Alright!”

With that being said, I started cooking, while Rir went to work on the lumber.

Now, the menu this time would be salt-grilled Misery Bird meat. Sadly, we only brought very little vegetables and stuff with carbs, so these currently wouldn’t be enough. This left us with meat. A ton of meat.

As a pubescent high school boy in the middle of his growth period, this sure makes me happy.

First, I gathered wood suitable as fuel, piled up stones and other stuff around it until it looked fine, and set it alight with magic. Then, I took out a frying pan from my bag and placed it on the fire.

Looks fine.

Finally, I coated the frying pan with fat from the Misery Bird. Once I threw in meat, which I had sprinkled with salt and pepper in advance, I was done.
Well… with the amount we have, I’ll have to fry four pans worth, won’t I?

“Mhh… This smells good…” Rir reacted to the savory meat.
“It sure does.”

Well, she is a wolf, ain’t she?
So, she healed up far enough to say somethin’ like that? That’s great.

Some time later, I finished roasting the amount of meat I expected us to eat. It should taste good, even though I only used salt and pepper.

“Rir, food is ready.”
“Hm!”

She stored away the knife and other tools in her bag, and came my way. I handed her a plate with meat stacked up on it.

“Sorry, there’s only meat.”
“That’s fine, Master. I prefer meat to bread or vegetables by far, since I am of the wolf tribe.”
“True enough. Then, let’s dig in.”

After exchanging a short “thanks for the food”, Rir and I speared the meat with our forks and sunk our teeth into it. It was delicious… even tastier than Child Dragon meat.
Why is meat in this world this tasty… even though vegetables and bread are normal¹?

“This really feels like top grade meat.”
“You’re right! *Nom*, it’s so good, Master!”
“Yup.”

It felt ironic, that I’d eat the most delicious meat since coming to this world while being in the middle of a crisis.

Once the two of us finished eating the Misery Bird meat, we each did some stuff that needed to be done. I washed the plates and then went to work on dismantling more Misery Birds. And Rir ceaselessly crafted tools and other stuff from wood.

We currently had a few too many Misery Bird corpses, so I was swamped with dismantling work, but once I had some time on my hands, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have her teach me Lumber Processing, so I could help her.

Our surroundings turned completely dark, and after a few more hours had passed, Rir showed me the stuff she had made.

“Master, I gave up on the fence, after all. Instead, I made chairs and a table.”

For only using an axe and a knife for tools, this stuff is well-made, ain’t it? The craftsmanship seems quite good. Looks like she made the chairs by shavin’ down logs, but how was she able to craft a table without any nails or glue? I don’t get it.

“That’s awesome. I also just got done with dismantlin’. Then, let’s take a bath and…”

I came that far until I realized.
We ain’t have no bath, do we?

Still, there was the bucket (which I had bought at the beginning for Rir’s sake), so we could use some towels together with my water and fire magic to wipe down our bodies. However… while this wouldn’t be an issue for me as a boy… y’know?

“A bath, huh? We don’t have that, so let’s just wipe our bodies with towels soaked in water.”
“O-Oh, r-right. That’s true. Yep.”
“Is something wrong, Master?”
“Nope? N-Nothing, n-n-n-nothing at all.”
“Then, will you go first, Master? Or should I?”
“T-Then m-m-me first! Yep…”

I took out the bucket and towels from our magic bag, put water in the former and then heated it with fire magic.

“Erm… Then I’ll go over there.”
“…Master, going off on your own in the dead of night is dangerous, you know.”
“Where am I supposed to wipe my body, then?”
“Right here… oh… ah!”

Finally, she had finally noticed.
You’re sometimes strangely unaware of these things, Rir.

“In any case, I’ll go over there and wipe off, so if somethin’ happens, just shout for me.”
“Y-Yeah…”

I went to a place about four to five trees away, hid myself behind one of them, quickly wiped off my body, and then changed into a different set of clothing.
In such a situation, it helps to be quick.

“Uhm, I’m done, Rir. You can go over there and do it, too.”
“Yeah. Understood.

Rir disappeared into the same direction I had just taken.
It’s super dark, can’t see damn a thing.

Still, for the time being, I turned my back to where she was. I then decided to wash the clothes I had worn earlier. Unless something happened to her, I absolutely wasn’t about to turn her way.

I took care of the laundry with a focus on speed, so I was able to finish quickly and then use the remaining time to dry them with magic.
I’m already pretty good at controllin’ my magic. Guess I got used to it.

“Master, I am done.”

Rir had returned. I had been worrying what to do, if she came back buck-naked, like on the first day, but it looked like there had been no need for concern.

“Alright. Then wash your clothes, too, will you? Here’s the water… and this torch should have the right temperature to dry ’em. As for me… right, I’ll get stuff ready so we can go to sleep.”
“Alright.”

I turned my back to her once again.
There’s no way I’m gonna peek at a scene of her washin’ her underwear and the stuff she’s been wearin’. I’m not some pervert.

I brought out two sleeping bags and spread them out on the ground.

“Hey, Rir.”
“Hm? What is it? I’ll need a bit more time with my laundry.”
“I see. By the way, in what order will we sleep? One of us has to keep watch while the other sleeps².”
“…I’ll stay awake the whole time. I’m not very tired.”

The hell is she sayin’…? No way she can keep up with that, she’ll be too tired.

So, I had to explain to her that sleeplessness would only make her weaker.

“Nah, if you don’t sleep, you’ll have a hard time.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Nah, you won’t… This here ain’t the place to take these risks³, y’know?”
“Take risks…? I don’t think it’s a big risk, but… understood. I’ll sleep. You should sleep first, Master. It was mostly you, who defeated the magic beasts.”

If I’m the first to sleep… won’t she just not wake me up? I’m a bit worried… guess I should drive home my point.

“Alright. Then let’s switch five hours after I’ve gone to sleep. Still, you gotta wake me up, alright? If one of us doesn’t sleep, it’ll put both of us in danger.”
“Gah…! I-I see. Understood. I will make sure to wake you.”
“In five hours, y’know? Also, it’s fine if you keep the fire like this.”
“Yeah, understood. A good night to you, Master.”
“Yup, good night.”

While Rir started drying her laundry, I crawled into my sleeping bag.
This kinda feels like goin’ camping. Moreover, with such a cute girl… Nah, our survival is at stake here, ain’t it…? A single mistake could kill us.

As I was thinking about our plans for tomorrow, I fell asleep.

TL notes:
And with this, we’re starting volume 11. As mentioned last time, this volume, which will be the longest so far with 48 chapters, focuses heavily on the Yggdrasil cast. I fact, only six of those 48 chapter will be in Mephilad.

From how it sounds, Shuu and Rir aren’t doing too badly on their involuntary camping trip. With how sport-focused Shuu is, I’d expect him to have some prior camping experience, and Rir likely also had her share of times when she had to survive in the wild.

Looking back, Alim got really lucky that he was never attacked in his sleep. At least the weasels back then should’ve been nocturnal, though seeing the author called them “rodents”, it’s possible they didn’t know that.

1. From common light novel tropes, I’d guess it’s the magic in the meat.
2. The original is “One has to keep watch while the other is awake”. This is likely a typo.
3. The original is 遠慮 (“constraint”, “holding back”, “refraining”). I guess it means like she’s showing consideration for him, but it didn’t seem to work well with the sentence, so I used “risk” instead.