Alright. I"ve finished packing all our things and got all my weapons in order.
Nanom wanted to check Cleria"s injuries, so I had to make her know. I explained my intentions through gestures like usual and had her sit down.
I removed the prosthetic, unwound the cloth wrap and peeled off the bandages. The wound already had a thin layer of skin covering it. The bones aren"t sticking out like before, but I could still faintly make them out under the uneven skin layer.
(She isn"t feeling any pain, right?)
[Her pain receptors around her injuries are now currently cut off.]
The part of the injury in immediate contact with the prosthetic was a bit swollen. It seems I need to learn how to wrap cloth around injuries better.
(How much can you restore it?)
[Cannot confirm. Regeneration rate varies greatly depending on the efficiency of nutrient acquisition and the availability of enough suitable material.]
That"s right, huh? You can"t regenerate body parts without enough materials to work with after all.
[Currently, the process is being accomplished by gradually breaking down the cells in other parts of her body in order to compensate.]
(If we could somehow obtain a considerable amount of nutrients and materials, how long would it take?)
[Three weeks.]
(How long would it take if her leg is given priority?)
[Two weeks.]
That"s fairly fast enough. Let"s prioritize regenerating her leg then.
Normally, even if a person consumes a lot of food, the amount of nutrients he or she can absorb in a single meal is limited, and most of the excess nutrients are expelled out from the body instead. That"s because the human body is designed not to take in nutrients more than necessary to achieve normal bodily functions.
However, if Nanom interferes with this natural process, it can make it possible to absorb the maximum amount nutrients and store them in the body. Utilizing said nutrients, it would allow Nanom to perform body regeneration by causing accelerated cell division.
(What food materials are suitable?)
[Meat, mock-potatoes and other food items rich in vitamins and minerals.]
Hm. That"s a broad way of putting things. But I guess it can"t be helped because we don"t know much about this planet"s food items. Looks like I need to search and gather some food again. But I don"t think there"s any mock-potato patches in this particular area.
Hmm? Wait up? If her foot starts gradually regenerating, then she won"t be able to use the current prosthetic leg anymore! The disastrous flag I avoided is rearing its ugly head again!
(Can"t you develop another prosthetic for her?)
[We can only make this type using the current available materials.]
Nanom displayed the prosthetic leg design on a virtual window. The design was far too basic – only leaving the suspension to support Cleria"s entire weight after fixing it via the belt. It doesn"t look like it would be able to support her weight properly and would disrupt her center of gravity. She won"t be able to walk all that much with this.
But she could at least hop around a bit with it. In any case, I"ve managed to avoid the worst case scenario once more. In other words, Cleria won"t be able to walk properly for quite some time until her leg gets fully regenerated.
(Have we gathered all the necessary materials for this new prosthetic leg design?)
[They are inside the bag.]
Alright, that"s good.
I don"t know how far we needed to travel, but it may be necessary to prepare another camp depending on the number of days it would take to reach our target destination. I"ll confirm it with Cleria later.
Let"s put the prosthetic leg back on her for now. I re-wrapped her leg with the bandages and cloth strips.
(Please access Cleria"s sense of touch and deduce the optimum bandaging method according to it.)
I re-wrapped the cloth and put the prosthetic on. I re-wrapped the cloth and put the prosthetic on again. I went at it for several tries until I finally got the most optimal wrapping method down pat.
Next would be her arm. It was also covered in a thin layer of skin, like with her leg. There doesn"t seem to be any problems.
(Prioritize regenerating her leg.)
[Acknowledged.]
After displaying his skill with the sword, Lor Corinth lowered the sword and bowed his head. He seemed to be thanking me. I"m glad. I thought I might have been to presumptuous earlier, but it doesn"t seem to be the case. I think that with Lord Corinth"s exalted status, he would be able to obtain as many high quality swords as he wanted easily. But he may not be carrying one because of some sort of circ.u.mstance.
He seems to want me to show him my wounds next. He may be intending to diagnose them. I also wanted to see what had become of my severed arm and leg.
When the prosthetic and the bandages were removed, what appeared before me was a miserable stump for a leg. I was nearly in tears. Lord Corinth displayed a troubled looking face as he observed my cut off leg. Was it actually worse than expected? He wrapped the bandages and put the prosthetic back on again, but ended up redoing it many times. He finally seemed satisfied after a few tries and gestured for me to try and stand up.
Ah, how wonderful! It was a bit painful earlier whenever I took a step. I thought it was natural because my foot had been severed, but I do not feel any sort of pain right now. It seems I would be able to step more firmly with it from now on.
He took a look at my arm next. It had also turned into a stump. When I took a look at it myself, I saw that a thin layer of skin had formed over the wound instead of a scab. Impossible! I got these injuries just yesterday, and now they were already covered with skin?!
Did Lord Corinth use something more than just simple healing magic?
Lord Corinth was not particularly surprised when he saw the state of my arm, and re-wrapped the bandages like normal.
Next, he pointed towards the ground and drew a circle on it. He then pointed to the road ahead and drew a line from the circle towards the road. He drew an X mark after reaching a certain point. He placed two fingers above the line and moved them as if mimicking a person walking.
Is he asking me how long it would take to reach our destination? It should take about twenty days, so I raised all five of my fingers in front of him and thrusted them out four times. Have I transmitted it properly?
Lord Corinth again preoccupied himself with thinking. Was something the matter?
He seems to be inviting me for a meal. He peeled another one of those metal wrapped sweets and handed it over to me. It truly was delicious! It was quite immodest of me, but I still ended up finishing it all in mere moments.
We were finally set for departure. I put on my greave and vambrace. Unfortunately, the ones for my severed limbs could only be discarded.
When Lord Corinth saw me attempting to do so, he stopped me and started putting them inside a bag. I gestured several times that they were not necessary, but he still insisted on making s.p.a.ce for them in his luggage. It would have been better to make the bags as light as possible.
Well, they are certainly made of mythril. So we could attempt to sell them in the future. But with only part of a pair, I do not think they would amount to much.
We carried our baggage and finally set off.
Time to leave. There"s lot of things to consider, but for now it"s dangerous to remain here. Let"s leave for the time being.
Cleria was wistfully stroking one of the dead horses. Maybe it was her personal steed? Man, it"s good I didn"t end up butchering it for meat last night.
I put the sword on my waist and shouldered my backpack. I pulled the straps of the shoulder bags over my head and made it so that I would be carrying one on each side. I had the blankets sit on top of my backpack. My rifle was slung on my shoulder. There were quite a lot of stuff, but I could still handle them easily.
Cleria also equipped her sword on her waist and slung her shoulder bag on one side. The bag looked quite loaded, but it shouldn"t be that heavy.
Alright! I"ll properly learn the language on the way as well. I"m getting a bit tired of gesturing around. I"ll need to search for foodstuffs as well.
I pointed at myself and said ‘Alan". Then I pointed at Cleria and said her name. Next, I pointed at the fallen carriage and waited for Cleria to speak. She answered with ‘Canter".
So a carriage was called ‘canter" huh? I"ll have Nanom record it. Once it records enough language data, I"ll have it update the current language database.
I pointed out to a lot of things one after another. It may inconvenience Cleria a bit, but I"ll still need to have her do it for me.
(If there are any new plant species, please highlight the inedible ones with red and the edible ones with blue.)
The only edible ones I"m familiar with were just the mock-potatoes, the unnamed herb and those leafy salad-use veggies.
The entire area was suddenly dyed red. Looks like I had to do it manually after all. I reminded Nanom to only inform me if we manage to find something edible and started to persistently rub leaves once again.
But now that I think about it, I still haven"t managed to ask about her age. Would asking her directly seem a bit rude? Nah, she still looks quite young, so I don"t think she"ll mind too much.
I pointed at myself and raised two fingers, immediately followed by all five. I then turned to Cleria and raised one finger on my left hand. When she saw my gesture, her expression turned a bit sad for some reason. Oops, looks like it"s a miss. So she"s at least older than 15.
When I counted to seven while still keeping one finger raised, she nodded happily. So she"s 17 years old huh? She"s still just a teenager, as expected.
Oh. I found some mock-potatoes. Let"s collect them. I put the mock-potatoes on a small bag I kept empty in order to hold my collected food items. This was something Cleria needed. Let"s gather a bit more. It seems to be called ‘poto" when I inquired Cleria about its name.
[Suitable as food.]
Yeah! It"s been a while since I found something new. I finally found something after kneading plants for two hours straight. It was a plant mainly consisting of a white colored stem. When I tried a bite, a crunchy texture spread throughout my mouth. It should be delicious if properly cooked. I"ll collect some of this too. It would be a waste if we couldn"t finish all these, but we could just throw the excess ones away later.
Looks like Cleria doesn"t know its name. Maybe it was just a minor wild vegetable.
It was now about three in the afternoon. It can"t be helped because we started travelling late, but we"ll have to make camp after two more hours.
Suddenly, something jumped out in front of the road. It was a fang boar like the one I encountered previously.
However, it seemed about two sizes smaller than the boar I killed. I stopped myself from taking aim with the rifle. This seemed like a good opportunity, so let"s defeat it with a sword.
The energy reserves of my laser gun and rifle were limited. They could be considered my trump cards, so I want to reserve them as much as possible.
This boar looked like the first monster I killed in the RPG I played before. It was perfect for practice. If things got too close for comfort, I could still just finish it off with a rifle.
I pulled out my sword and took a stance. Somehow, the boar seems a bit too excited. It repeatedly pawed the ground. Do I have enough time to put down my luggage? When I thought that, the boar suddenly lunged forward.
I didn"t panic and slashed its side right after avoiding its charge just like how I did it in the game.
Hm? That"s it? It"s over just like that? Did it make for good practice?
Then, three wolves appeared from the side of the road next.
This fang boar was apparently chased out to this place by these three.
Nice timing. I happen to be lacking some practice opponents guys.
I"ve already locked on to the wolves. If it looked dangerous, I just needed to put the rifle up and pull the trigger. I need to make sure they don"t get to Cleria who"s out back.
The wolves seemed to be angry that their prey was taken from them. They attacked immediately.
They jumped up and pounced from above, but that was a bad move.
I slipped from the side like with the wild boar from earlier and slashed out with my sword. One wolf"s head easily got separated from its neck and flew out. This sword sure cuts well.
Seems the other two learned from the earlier clash and attacked me simultaneously from both sides. Naive! I threw my electromagnetic bladeknife at the one on the left before it managed to jump. The knife accurately pierced the wolf"s throat. Throwing techniques are actually one of my strongest suits. I cut the head of the one on the right just like earlier. I then finished off the wolf who got struck with my knife.
That was honestly a bit of a let-down. Well, even if they"re wolves, they"re nothing more than big canines. When I turned to Cleria to see how she"s doing, I saw her gazing at me with a blank expression. Oh well.
Anyways, I got us some meat! And the timing"s perfect too. I didn"t have that much items packed inside the food bag. The only meat we had was of the dried variety. I wanted Cleria to eat some proper meat for her recovery after all.
Let"s butcher these guys right away.
I had Nanom indicate the parts I should secure. I dismantled them according to Nanom"s instructions.
Oops. Can this tendon really be eaten? I see. Let"s secure a lot then. Oh boy, even the innards huh?
Alright! We now have both meat and vegetables. We"ve also got cooking tools and salt. It"s a feast tonight!
We started walking again after I collected the meat. I threw bodies of the defeated wolves below the valley.
I finally spotted a river after sometime. Been a while since I saw one. Hey, that"s it! How about camping near the water? Maybe we could even bathe in it.
Looks like we could easily go down the river. And it was relatively shallow, so there should be no dangerous creatures within it. I made my intentions known to Cleria by gesturing. It looks like she"s in high spirits as well. I wonder why?
Although we already went down to the river, I made sure to chose a spot where we couldn"t be seen from the road. This should be a nice spot. The sh.o.r.e was nice and wide. There was also a small pool formed due to the flow of the river being slow.
I made a simple stove using some stones I picked up from nearby. I also had to gather some firewood. Cleria also helped by taking out ingredients with her only remaining hand.
The cooking utensils available were just a saucepan, frying pan and a small cutting board. The only seasonings were salt, pepper and herbs. There were only a few types of seasonings, but the amount was decent, so I could use them up without worrying.
As per Nanom"s earlier instructions, I managed to secure some rib meat, thigh meat, liver and tendons. The liver goes bad easily, so I"ll cook it all up tonight.
First of all, I need to drain the liver of blood and remove the smell. Since there"s no strainer available, I divided some small stones on the river shallows and placed the thinly cut slices of liver on them, exposing them to the water. I"ll leave them like that for a bit.
I went back from the river and found that Cleria had started a fire already. What a sensible young lady.
The tendons were best when boiled well, but since there"s no time for that, let"s go with yakiniku instead. They would be too tough to chew if they were cut thickly, so I sliced them thinly instead.
The main dish for tonight is vegetable stir fry with rib and thigh meat. The vegetables I"ll be using are mock-potatoes… err, potos and the stem vegetable from earlier. They were still covered in some soil, so I headed towards the river once more in order to wash them.
Hey, there"s something in the water! I threw my knife at it.
d.a.m.n! A salmon-like fish broke the stone part.i.tion I made earlier to wash the liver and ate a good portion of the slices. There was only about half of it left. Well, I was actually thinking there was too much of it earlier to be honest, and I kinda wanted something other than boar meat too.
I pulled out my knife and pushed my finger inside the open wound.
[Suitable as food.]
I"ll have Cleria consume this thing as well. I cut this large salmon into three after washing the vegetables.
(Can this be eaten raw?)
[It is possible.]
This is nice! I had some hard bread stuffed inside the food bag, so let"s make a thinly sliced salmon canape. The rest of it would be grilled with salt. It seemed to have quite a bit of fat, so it should be delicious.
The appetizers are salmon canape, grilled liver slices and tendon yakiniku. The main dishes would be salt grilled salmon and stir fried meat and veggies. It"s quite a lot.
There were only cooking pots and pans but there were few serving plates, so let"s prepare one dish first, eat it all up and serve the next dish afterwards.
First, let"s prepare the salmon canapes. Cut the hard bread into slices and place the thinly cut salmon strips seasoned with salt and herbs on top of them. Then let"s put them on the only available wooden serving plate.
When I checked out the herb container, it seemed to be a mixture of different types and had a rather complex scent and flavor. Was this a type of versatile seasoning?
Now that it"s done, I encouraged Cleria to eat. Her gaze was fixed on the plate.
Yeah, it"s good. I actually wanted to add some cheese as well, but the salmon was quite rich in natural fat, so it"s fine as is. The crispy texture of the bread also served as an accent, making it more tasty.
Cleria was eating up like a storm. It"s good that she likes it.
Next would be grilled liver. I seasoned them with salt, pepper and herbs inside the saucepan. Since the slices had a gamey smell, I added more of the herbs to counteract it. I grilled them on the heated frying pan. Since the slices were thin, I only needed to grill both sides. If grilled too much, the slices will harden up and shrink, so you need to watch the timing.
I also put it on the wooden plate after cooking it. I tried some together with Cleria. Yup, these are good too.
A slight odor remains, but the rich taste of the liver spreads inside the mouth. The crucial point is how much you grill it after all.
Cleria also ate this dish without reserve. Rather, this was a menu prepared for Cleria, so I did want her to eat a lot.
I didn"t use the herb mixture for the tendon yakiniku. If you ate meat dishes with the same flavor over and over, you"ll quickly get bored of the taste.
This stuff was also delicious after being thoroughly cooked. It"s a bit tough, but that chewy and crisp texture offers a unique sensation inside the mouth.
Cleria also ate it with gusto. She"s been eating so much since earlier. Will she be able to finish eating all the dishes? I feel like she"s eaten twice as much as me?
The next one is the main dish – salt grilled salmon. I also flavored this with salt alone. Cleria still seemed raring to go, so I grilled some more portions.
You need to pay attention to the grilling process here. I"ve already removed the scales, so I need to make sure the skin would taste great. First, grill the skin until it is lightly singed and gains a nice and crispy texture. Grilling it any more than necessary would ruin the dish.
Hm. This should be enough. I really do prefer the skin more rather than the fish meat. Cleria seems to share my opinion and finished off her portion in a flash.
The last dish is meat and vegetable stir fry. I cut the potato-like Poto into two portions each and the stem veggie into seven pieces. I cooked the Poto first. I added the thinly sliced rib meat and thigh meat next. I added the stem veggie cuts last, since I wanted them to retain that crisp texture. I seasoned the dish with salt, pepper and a dash of herbs. It would be best to cook this dish quickly.
I tried it immediately after it was done. Delicious! The first thing you"d taste was the rich meat juices of the rib meat. The thigh meat was also similarly delicious. But it"s main draw was the fresh and crisp texture of the stir fried veggies. This was a dish which makes people think food with only meat on them just won"t do.
I made quite the amount of stir fried meat and veggies, but we managed to finish it all anyway. Cleria seems to be quite satisfied.
(Cleria seems to have eaten quite a lot. Is she okay?)
[No problems detected. Today"s quota has been cleared.]
I see. So that"s the case. Cleria"s increased appet.i.te was most likely the result of Nanom stimulating it so that it could obtain the necessary raw materials to regenerate her foot. It must"ve stimulated her a lot. Otherwise, her appet.i.te was abnormal.
What should I do? Of course I could chose to stop Nanom from regenerating her limbs. But that would be a last resort.
I can"t possibly prepare this amount of food while traveling. We were just lucky today. And travelling long distances using a prosthetic was a tall order to begin with. No matter how easy it was to walk with a prosthetic, it still poses some risk if used to walk for a long duration. If possible, I want to prioritize the regeneration process first.
Considering all this, our next course of action is decided. Let"s find a place near the river to serve as a base and stay there – at least until Cleria"s leg finishes regenerating. I also want to continue learning the local language.
Well then, how do I tell Cleria about my plans?
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