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With that, we left the guild and moved on the main street. The people were looking at me, startled. Norn was standing out too much!

“I thought it was a figurine with fur, but it was actually the magic beast you tamed.”

Maricle had been interested in Norn since we were talking in the reference room. Arle was frightened and took a little distance from Norn. Kuro was running around, trying to touch Bell.

“I think I would have died without these guys.”

Let’s go with that story. To be honest, I didn’t think I would die. But without them, I think I would have to face unthinkable hardships. I really loved Norn. So be more fluffy, my goddess.

On our way moving together with Norn, we stopped by a stall to buy skewered meat. This seemed to be our lunch. Other than that was a hard brown bread.

I couldn’t help looking them in speechlessness. Noticing my gaze, they explained to me.

“I was always hungry until around half a month ago, but now our income has increased and we can eat as much as we want!”

“Last time, we only can eat this damned hard bread. But now we can buy one or two more dishes every meal. It’s all thanks to you teaching a lot of things to Triela. I’m grateful.”

“You’re already smart when you were still in the orphanage, but I think it’s strange that Ren is this amazing! It’s only been a little over a year, yet you’ve learned so much. What did you do?”

Arle, aren’t you too cruel? But well, I did a lot of things. Yeah, a lot. But there were many things I couldn’t explain. I just answered her with my best vague smile.

After that, we went outside the gate while chatting. Then we started munching on our lunch as we walked. We have bad manners, you say? No, we were trying to save time, you see. The reason they didn’t eat when we were moving around the town was because they didn’t want to bump into someone and drop it…

By the way, I had been wondering this since before. Let’s just ask. Maricle carried a wooden board on his back. Why a wooden board?

“Ah, this was a substitute of shield.”

Oh… a wooden shield. But I could see a handle attached to the board. Was that a broken door plate? It seemed like it would break if he took a slightly stronger blow.

“Even if it looks like this, I’ve been able to escape from the goblins thanks to this. My body is the biggest from the whole party, so I’m thinking of becoming a tanker in the future.”

For the time being, everyone had discussed and decided their future role in the party. Hmm.

By the way, Maricle, who had the best physique, initially thought of using a two-handed sword or a heavy weapon, but since all of the three fools wanted to use a sword, he decided to be in charge of the defense. To be fair, the tanker should be someone with tough body.

Under the current plan, the vanguard would be reinforced by the boys. Maricle would defend with a shield. Boman would use two-handed sword. Ryuu and Cain would use one-handed sword and a small shield. Also, Cain would also become the commander of the vanguard.

The girls would be in the rear guard, but their weapons were still undecided. Since throwing weapons were consumable items, the cost would be high, making it hard. The candidate for searching enemy would either be Triela who was skillful in everything or Kuro from the agile black cat race. Since Rico had learned magic, Arle and Kuro had been really troubled about what they could. Even so, it had been decided that Triela would become the commander of the rear guard no matter what.

We talked about a lot of things while eating the bread and skewers, but it looked dangerous even just by watching them. Kuro was about to fall down even now.

“Can you give me a minute?”
“Hm? Ren?”

I asked them to lend me the brown bread and cut it sideways with a knife, dividing it into two pieces. Next, I took the skewers and removed the meat from the skewer and put it between the bread to make a sandwich. I also add some vegetables I had with me. Since the meat already had sauce from when they bought it, it should be okay if I didn’t add anything else, right? A pseudo simple hamburger was ready to serve.

“Okay, please have a bite. This should be easier to eat now. Be careful not to drop the meat.”
“Ren! Amazing! Delicious!”

Ohh, what a nice smile. I’m healed~

“Hey, Ren! It’s unfair that you’re only doing that for Kuro! Do it for me too!”
“…Sorry, can I ask you to do that for me too?”

I also did Arle and Maricle’s share. When I did Triela’s share at the end, she gave me a bitter smile.

“I don’t know if you come up with an idea as usual or are just very attentive towards us.”
“This is just my nature. Triela and Maricle are also very attentive, right?”
“Even if you said that…”

I chatted while eating the sandwich. I also tried the meat sandwich.

“Oh, this is delicious! Maybe we should ask the stall owner to put the meat between the bread next time. The skewers might fall down along the way if we walk around the town after all!”

If they asked the stall owner to do that, that stall would probably start selling this kind of food, though. Well, I didn’t really care… But I should tell them just in case.

“Hmmm, so they’ll make a business out of this? This is too hard!”

Arle wanted to save money after she stopped becoming an adventurer in the future and try to use it as a fund to start a business. She realized that she couldn’t be an adventurer forever.

“Still, the foods Triela brought before was Ren’s food, right? It was delicious.”
“Delicious. Thank you, Ren.”

Kuro, don’t hug me when you haven’t done eating. You have to eat properly, okay?

“…Ren helped us so we can eat meat once in a while like this, but we have to do our best if we want to eat more. After all, those three fools are noisy.”
“Right! I want to eat more meat!”

Triela turned away her face in guilt. Ah yes, sometimes I fed Triela my dishes. Sorry about that. But meat, huh…

“You’re not hunting horned rabbits, are you?”

“Yeah, we don’t hunt them. We don’t have weapons and armors. If we can stabilize and start hunting, we will be able to provide meat by ourselves. But when we were in the orphanage, the uncles working in the farm always got injured every year and died once in a while, right? So we plan not to overdo it, even though Ryuu and Boman are very persistent.”

“They are really stupid, what a troublemaker. They should learn from Rico and Kuro!”

Since they had small kids in their party, they were taking safety measures. Ryuu said something like, “This is why I don’t want to bring these small kids along with us!” It seemed like he didn’t have the self-awareness that he was one of the “small kids.” Really the king of idiot.

Hm, okay. I came up with an idea. This might be troublesome, but all the people here were important to me, so let’s eat meat together. However, the three fools were excluded, I should make sure to make Rico’s portion later.

We arrived at the area I had decided in the forest. First, I had to prepare. Let’s have everyone collect herbs until I finished the preparation.

I took out my usual tent.

“W-what…!?”

I felt bad for making them speechless because I suddenly took out my tent, but I still had more things, you know.

“All four of you, please gather here. I will give you a dagger.”
“Eh? Is that the same one as Rico’s sharp dagger?”
“Cain and his team have been coveting it…”
“Wait, Ren, are you the one who made that!?”

Since everyone only had tattered knife, I gave them the dagger for collecting herbs. Also, I gave them grindstone.

“Ah? Me too?”
“Triela should take this too. You’re collecting herbs with that sword, right?”
“That’s… Yeah.”

It should be hard to collect herbs with that sword. But I was the one who confiscated her knife when I forced her to take the sword before, though.

“This dagger is a gift for everyone. I won’t give this to the three fools. If they say something, please just tell them that you all received the daggers from a kind adventurer.”

“…Ren is still harsh on those three people.”

Those three fools weren’t my friends or anything at all!

“I thought of doing something to do, so you all should collect the herbs. I’ll call you when I finished preparing. Norn, Bell, knock all of the monsters around here and keep everyone safe, okay?”

“Woof!”
“Woof~!”

All good. Now I should start working.

This time, I would make two shields and several spears. I had to make sure that everyone could safely hunt for rabbits. What’s important was that the weapons should be easy to maintain and the kids could make it themselves in the future. It would be even better if the manufacturing method was simple.

First, the spear. The material was the horn of the horned rabbits and solid timber. I had a large quantity of both materials in my [Storage].

I chose rabbit horns because it was easy to secure materials if they wanted to make it themselves. The target of their hunting was horned rabbit, so the more they hunted it, the more materials they would collect. Basically, since this was a consumable item, they could make a new one when it broke. Above all, the rabbit horns were hard and durable. These horns were also used as a chess piece. Just perfect to become a disposable weapon. By the way, some of my chopsticks were also made from this.

I made some tools similar to pin vice with the horn to drill a hole later on. Once I scrapped the sturdy timber into a cylinder shape so it could be easily gripped, I made a rope hole at the tip. After also making a hole on the base of the horn, I tightly tied a sturdy rope through both of the holes. I raised my strength using [Body Enhancement] and firmly tie it to make sure it wouldn’t loosen.

I tried shaking it around lightly and stabbed it on a tree. Yeah, it felt sturdy. Looking at the length, this was similar to a short spear, I guess? It would be hard to use if they were too long anyway. Since the tip were horns, they could only use this to stab. Even so, it should be okay as long as they aimed for the vitals or attacked with a large number of people.

Around the time when I made the third one, Maricle was looking over my shoulder with great interest. What happened to collecting herbs, hm?

But he came at the right time. Taking this opportunity, let’s teach Maricle how to make this for the future.

“…They’re unexpectedly easy to make.”
“Do you remember how to make it? Then try making one.”
“Me?”
“You’ll have to make this on your own in the future. You should be able to get the materials from now on. Maricle, you can dismantle horned rabbit, right?”
“Ah, so that’s what you mean. Leave it to me.”

It seems like he understood my idea. I handed over my tools for drilling.

“You don’t have to return the tools to me. Just take it.”
“Is it okay?”
“You can’t make the spear without it.”
“Right, I understand. Thank you.”

Maricle wouldn’t refrain in this kind of thing, so it was great that we didn’t have to make this unnecessarily long.

“…Like this?”
“Try comparing it with the one I made. If you think there’s no problem, then it should be fine.”
“…Seems like this is okay.”

Maricle tried to check the usability by swinging it around and stabbing a tree with it. Feeling like it was okay, Maricle nodded several times.

“Make sure to use sturdy, hard, and tough timber. If you are stingy on the materials, it can easily break and you may die.”
“Okay.”

Next was the shield. Let’s make two shields including the spare. I called it a spare, but… it’s annoying to do this, but it would be more efficient to hunt with two teams. Someone from the three fools had to use this. They irritated me, but I would resign myself here. I had to make sure the girls wouldn’t get hungry.

I prepared several suitable wooden boards, cut them into rectangles, and connected them with a string to make a shield with several layers of woods. I pasted orc’s tanned leather on the surface and made sure it wouldn’t loosen. Next, I stacked three more layers to strengthen it even more. On the back, I attached a belt and handle to make it easier to carry this around. With that, the shield was completed.

Maricle’s eyes widened when I completed the shield in no time. Both of my [Woodworker] and [Leather Processing] were LV8, so of course I would do it quick.

“Maybe it’s something like this… Try putting it on.”
“For me? Why are you making two?”
“The other one is a spare. …Well, I won’t complain if someone uses it.”
“Sorry…”

It seemed like Maricle could tell what I was thinking. Anyway, Maricle equipped the shield and moved his arm around.

“How is it?”
“This is amazing. It’s not light, but also not too heavy. I can sense it just by looking at you making it, but this is pretty sturdy, right?”
“I intend to make them sturdy, but wooden shields and leather shields are consumable items. If they break, don’t force yourself to use it and buy proper shield at the store next time.”
“Okay. What are you going to do next?”

Well, I saved some time since everyone had gathered before I called them, but I felt a bit complicated.

“All of us will hunt rabbits from now own. Now you will be able to secure meat by yourself.”
“Meat!”
“Meat~!”

Arle and Kuro’s eyes were scary…

“Maricle will become our defense. You will stop the horned rabbit’s charge. But don’t just stop the blow, but try parrying the rabbit or even push them with the shield”

“Shield bash and charge, right… So other than securing our meat, I should also learn how to handle the shield?”

“It’s really helpful that you’re quick to learn. Since you’re going to become the tanker in the future, you should learn how to handle it now. Rather than getting used with a heavy metal shield’s weight and learn how to handle it at the same time later on, it’ll be easier to learn how to handle it now and get used to the weight in the future.”

“You already think that far… Sorry.”

“Once Maricle stopped the rabbits or make a chance to safely attack, the other three have the role of stabbing and killing them with this spear. Please discuss the turn of attacking and your positions first.”

“The tip of this spear is a rabbit horn?”

“I chose this to make it easier for you guys to prepare the weapons to secure meat on your own in the future.”

“Ren…”

Triela and Arle stared at me with wet eyes. They didn’t have to worry about it that much, okay?