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Volume 1 Chapter 5-1: Art of Negotiation

 

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In the end I slept peacefully until the sun was pretty high in the sky. Sistina, who should’ve been sleeping next to me, had clearly gotten up earlier. What a shame.

I stretched my body which had stiffened up from sleeping on the hard wooden carriage and stepped outside.

I had slept until I woke up naturally so I felt my condition was excellent.

「Good morning Master. I hope you rested well. Breakfast has been prepared so please come and eat.」

Maybe she was remembering yesterday, but Sistina’s cheeks were blushing slightly as she moved about camp briskly. She was stirring the pot while working on some kind of sewing. She looked at my face before giving a cute smile and serving up some food.

I stepped forward and sat down as Sistina handed me a bowl. This seemed to signal my stomach as it let me know that I was really hungry. I didn’t say a word as I gulped down what seemed to be a similar soup to what we had had last night.

Huh? Delicious…this soft meat…I’m sure there wasn’t something like this hidden away inside the carriage…

「Sistina this is?」
「Fufu, I was surprised as well. It seems that Hotaru-sama w….」
「Ah! Where’s Hotaru-san?」

I was still half-asleep and spacing out. I had nearly forgotten about Hotaru-san that had kept watch for us.

It was thanks to her that I was able to sleep so peacefully so I had to thank her properly.

「She is over there.」

Sistina pointed and I saw Hotaru-san with her katana in hand doing something.

「What’s she up to?」
「Skinning I’d imagine.」

Skinning? I temporarily put down my bowl and headed over to Hotaru-san.

「Oh, Soujirou you’re awake? Umu, looks like you slept well. Your complexion looks much better ja.」
「Un, thanks for keeping watch Hotaru-san. Thanks to that I was able to get a great night’s sleep.」

As I thanked her I approached closer and saw the things piled up in front of her.

「Eh? Did you kill these Hotaru-san?」

In front of Hotaru-san was a pile of four-legged wolf-like things.

「It seems that grass wolves attacked us while we were still sleeping.」

In this world monsters apparently changed their bodies within a short amount of time to adapt to their habitat. That’s why there were grass wolves that changed to run more quickly and forest wolves that changed to move more agilely. Most of these creatures were labeled using their habitat.

「Many were probably drawn here from the scent of the dead bandits, then when things started to clear up our scent probably drew them even further.」
「And Hotaru-san killed all of them by herself…this number…as expected of Hotaru-san.」
「There were times when I was wielded by people who moved poorly…it was really refreshing to be able to move as I wanted jano.」

The grass wolves she had killed were well into the two digits. This morning Sistina had woken up earlier and told Hotaru-san which parts of the wolves could be sold when stripped.

Fur could be sold at a clothes shop, fangs could be sold at blacksmiths, secondhand shops, and ornamental shops.

The meat should be dealt with as soon as possible while it was fresh. That means the meat in the soup should be from these grass wolves.

「Ah right. Soujirou, apparently this place has a higher concentration of oxygen. Your physical improvements and stamina should be greater thanks to both the lower gravity and the air composition ja.」

I see! No wonder I felt like the air was so refreshing. This environment made it seem like I had constantly been doing high-altitude training on Earth for all 17 years of my life.

These factors were the secret to my movements. Now that I knew the secret behind it I fully understood…

I wasn’t given a sweet cheat after being sent to another world.

「Listen Soujirou. We need to plan properly so that your body does not acclimate to this lower gravity state.」
「I see….my body will slowly adapt.」

It was similar to how an astronaut in the space station would grow used to zero gravity and his muscle strength would drop prodigiously.

If I allowed my body to fully adapt to the conditions in this world I would immediately become a man no different from any normal citizen.

「Indeed. For the oxygen difference I do not believe that the constitution of your body from birth will change easily so you should be able to continue benefiting from it…but the gravity issue is different. For that I had the girl prepare something.」
「Hotaru-sama, please don’t call me girl. Call me Sistina please.」
「Fumu…then why don’t you stop calling me -sama? Our Master is only Soujirou is it not Sistina?」
「Surely that is the case…I understand Hotaru-san. Here is the thing you asked for.」

Sistina pulled out the object she had been working on.

It appeared to be a cylindrical piece of cloth that could be filled with sand or stones.

「Weights huh…?」
「Umu, we won’t attach them to you upper body for now since it would get in the way of swinging your katana. From now on you’ll be wearing weights around your ankles. Also, since I have obtained a human body I can teach you sword arts from scratch if you so wish ja.」
「Really!? I’ll do it! Please teach me!」

For me whose sword style for 3 years consisted of only knowing how to swing it randomly, this was a wonderful gift. My greatest desire was to be able to wield my beloved katana freely and easily.

Perhaps she was happy because of my instant answer, but Hotaru-san gleefully laughed.

Ahh, Hotaru-san’s smile is so nice!

「Alright then Master. I’ll be attaching them.」

Sistina crouched down by my legs and attached her carefully produced power ankles. Ohhh, pretty heavy….

「I also need to attach the straps to your hips.」

Sistina said and wrapped her arms around my back as if hugging me. The number of times a woman hugged me back on Earth was a grand total of ZERO. Even since yesterday these opportunities had skyrocketed.

I held back my sudden desire to hug her with an iron will as Sistina finished attaching it and stepped away.

「How is it?」

I walked around a bit, jumped, and felt that it was alright. Certainly this was around the amount of burden I had felt when I was still on Earth.

「When I move the weights shake a bit making it a little hard to move, but the weight is no problem.」
「Alright. Later we’ll have to think of a different method to attach weights, but in regards to the weights shaking…it’s because you make too many useless movements Soujirou dazo. If you learn to move while reducing unnecessary vertical movement then this issue should disappear.」

Is that so?…sounds a bit difficult. But since I had such an amazing teacher I had to put in the effort to learn.

「For now we’ll put the training on hold until we reach town. The priority right now is to move as quickly as possible.」
「We took it pretty easy today, but if we hurry a bit we should reach Mikrea at around noon on the third day.」

I see, just a bit further and we’ll reach town…finally I can get to a place with plenty of people. Before we get there I had to learn various manners and behavior from Sistina.

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