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Chapter 234: Sowing in the Forest

It’s fine weather today, so we’re going pear picking. I did say fine weather, but Canum rarely gets rain during this season anyway.

「It’s so hot and yet you’re quite lively, huh. 」
Retze seems worn out so early in the morning. Yeah, it’s really hot, but it’s not humid so this weather is absolutely easier for me as a Japanese guy used to sweltering humid days.

The sun is shining so brightly that the grass plains look washed out, maybe a little close to faded white color. There is nothing that can provide shade along the path we trekked as we made our way from Canum to the woods.

「Ah, that doesn’t mean I like staying under the sun, so let’s hurry up to the forest. 」
「Mm. 」
Khan solemnly nodded.

Khan did agree to come with us, although I’m not sure if it’s because he’s interested in broadening his knowledge about the woods. It’s just that fruit picking doesn’t seem to match Khan’s image.

We also invited Tina and the twins, but the children already have other plans for the day, so three grown men are off to the woods to do fruit picking. Monsters appear in the forest, so it’s normal for adults to venture here, but I can’t help but feel this outing is a little bit drab.

It’s a bit hard to invite Ash — no, it’s actually Dean’s fault, he told me his pick-up line for seducing girls is ‘let’s pick some fruits in the Magical Woods’ so…!!

He said they don’t venture deep into the forest where the stronger monsters appear, but he’d take her to the spots that are a bit dangerous for ordinary people to be in. Their goal is to pick some rare and expensive fruits. The girl, being with a promising Silver rank guy, will also seductively scream whenever he defeats a horned rabbit, apparently.

And that boosts his confidence to talk to the girl.

「Whoa, got one! 」
A horned rabbit with a wrinkled nose bit hard on X-Strick when I poked him into a hole so I ended up catching the rabbit.

The head of the horned rabbit, which is still biting X-Stick, fell to the ground when I raised him high up. Oh, it’s the body that fell, I mean.

「Hey, stop poking every hole you see, will you? 」
Retze said, seemingly fed up with me.

「To think a guy managed to solve a millennium-old problem that’s been plaguing us and did it on a whim… I don’t know what to feel. 」
Khan, the guy who slashed the rabbit, said while putting his sword back into its scabbard.

「His awareness and ability to distinguish things really does leave a lot to be desired. 」
「Yeah, the number of『King’s Bough』will shoot up if you take your eyes of this guy. 」
Subtle bewilderment crossed Khan’s face after Retze replied to him.

「Hey, I do know how to be wary, but yeah, just barely, I guess. Besides, I already have a place where I can run off to in case of emergency. 」
I removed the rabbit’s head from X-Stick and tossed it away. It’s probably gonna be fodder for its fellow rabbits, huh.

I picked the torso up and pulled the innards out in less than five seconds while squeezing the abdomen. The limbs were then cut off. I made a small cut on the fur then pulled it off with a satisfying rip, and that’s the end of the dismantling.

The blood and muscles are sterile as long as the animal is healthy, so the carcass doesn’t stink, actually; you can even use it for cooking. Blood becomes stinky because it’s quickly contaminated.

Microbes thrive the most when the temperature is 35 degrees Celsius. There’s no river around here, the rabbit is small, so the easiest method to lessen contamination is to pull the innards out to lower the body temperature.

I tie the rabbit with a few blades of grass then hang it on X-Stick. Not much blood had been drained since the heart wasn’t pumping anymore, but it’s better to hang it up. It’ll be a waste not to cook it so I’ll grill it for lunch later.

「Whoa. That’s fast. 」
Khan seems surprised.

「My teacher is good. 」
Retze taught me how to dismantle rabbits.

I have 【Complete Cookery】, but not everything is written in books and there’s also tricks and skills that aren’t recorded. I can use something as long as I have knowledge about it, but experience is still necessary when learning a method to make things easier that’s tailored for myself.

「You’re faster than me now, and way better at it too. 」
Ah, that’s only because of my cheat strength.

The breeze feels so cool inside the forest.

「The forest here is considerably different from the one in my kingdom, but I can’t deny having forests around lets one enjoy abundance. 」
Khan mutters while gnawing a piece of yellow colored gourd. Hey King-sama, mind your manners. Oh right, I’m also nibbling on one.

「Does this gourd grow in a place hotter than this? 」
「Who knows? Why don’t you bring some seeds and try to plant them? They’re pretty low maintenance plants. 」
Retze shrugs at Khan’s question.

「Yeah, I’ll do that when the place is ready. 」
Khan probably wanted to plant them in the desert.

It will probably take a long time before that place will be ready. Khan’s going to create a forest someday and he also wants to revive his kingdom. He’ll do that once he returns River Es’s flow back to how it used to be, apparently.

The yellow gourd is a little bit on the small side and it’s quite long. Retze found it, and he divided it into four slices and picked the seeds with his knife. It’s juicy, slightly sweet and surprisingly cold. It’s perfect for such a hot day like this.

It resembles a melon rather than a gourd, I guess? Oh, melons are also a variety of gourds, huh. There’s still a lot of food I don’t know about.

Retze teaches me again how to traverse the forest. We reach the deepest area uneventfully. Well, Canum will probably be in grave danger if something did happen to our trio in the first place.

「Whoa! Pears! And peaches too! 」
We saw pear trees and peach trees — it’s the flat peach variety common in this world — after passing through a slightly precarious terrain. Ah, I found some round peaches too.

The ones I grow in my mountain home are far more scrumptious, but there’s a certain novel feeling in fruits found within the forest.

「Isn’t this too unnatural? 」
Khan scrunches his brows in contrast to the overjoyed me.

「I just scattered the seeds randomly. 」
Retze takes a bundle out, pinches the edges so that it’ll open and tosses all the contents out to the ground. The seeds of the yellow gourd we ate just a while ago flew out and scattered.

「So there’s a reason behind the abundance, I see. 」
Khan’s expression turned to that of understanding.

「I don’t tend to them, though. 」
Ehh, so this must be Retze’s secret fields! How many years did it take before they started bearing fruit, I wonder? Mm, I wanna grow gourds in the mountains too.

「Yeah. There’s still some left, you can have it. They’re wild plants originally, so they’ll grow well as long as the environment is suitable. 」
Retze caught me staring at the scattered gourd seeds so he handed the bundled cloth to me. It still has a few seeds clinging to it.

「Thanks. 」
Let’s wrap something before returning it to him later.

There’s a campfire spot that Retze’s must’ve used before. I fixed it and lit a fire, set the horned rabbit on it for our late lunch then started picking fruits.

The pears may be small, but the trees are overloaded with the tiny fruits. They’re plumper and chunkier than the pears I know and they’re red from the stem to half of the fruit. Plus they’re hard.

I’m not sure if it’s because the animals ate the fruits on the lower branches or maybe because of the environment, but there’s more fruits higher up the tree. Khan reaches out, pulls a fruit and takes a huge bite.

「That one right over there! 」
「Roger roger, Master! 」
I’m not tall enough to reach as high as Khan, but I have a partner named X-Stick.

「Hey, don’t go overboard enough to make Butler cry, alright? 」
Retze muttered, as if almost heaving a sigh.

「Are the red ones sweeter? 」
「Those with a deeper aroma. 」
I ignore his comment about Butler and ask which fruit to pick, to which Retze replies.

I can’t smell the scent of fruits that are overhead so I have to leave that to X-Stick the Picker, huh.

「…WaiTa sec, doesn’t this mean Jean is using two 『King’s Bough』to pick fruits? 」
Retze’s mumbling something again. Anyway, let’s pick lots of fruits and bring them home as presents.