episode_0015

***

Thud!

At the sound that reverberated once again, my shoulders trembled.

“Lania, have you been hearing this sound since earlier? Do you know why?”

“It’s probably because of that.”

Lania pointed with her index finger. Following where she pointed, a strangely shaped man was twisting his body.

“Whoa…! W-when did he get like that?!”

“He was like that before I arrived.”

“Whaat?!”

“Guh, cough, cough!”

The man, whose arms were grotesquely strong, was rolling on the floor, making a creaking sound.

“By the way, where did you hide the cookies? I’ve been smelling something delicious for a while now.”

“Oh, I’ll bring them right away with some tea.”

“Just give me a few to eat on the way.”

“Would you like that?”

I took out about five cookies from the shelf and handed them to Lania. I grabbed a plate, piled the cookies on it, and then picked up a teapot.

“I’ll bring the tea right away.”

“That gu…huh?”

As Lania answered with a mouthful of cookie, she widened her eyes upon seeing the teapot I was holding.

Crunch, gulp.

Swallowing the cookie in an instant, Lania spoke in disbelief.

“Am I being poisoned today or what?”

“What?”

“The thing you’re holding is poison ivy.”

“What?!”

I immediately dropped the teapot I was holding.

Clatter, thud!

The teapot rolled on the ground without breaking, as it was made of thick glass.

“That…that was poison ivy?!”

“You didn’t know? It’s extremely toxic. Of course, it probably won’t affect me much.”

Lania pushed another cookie into her mouth as she replied. Suppressing the urge to cry, I said,

“What should we do then? We don’t have any tea leaves at home…”

“It’s fine. I don’t like that kind of stuff.”

“But… Oh! Come to think of it, Mia gave us some fruit!”

When Mia came back with vegetables and meat, she remembered that she had also bought a few fruits. I immediately took out some cold fruit from the refrigerator and said, “I’ll make juice and bring it to you.”

“Oh, that would be great,” Rania replied with a twinkle in her eye as she raised a plate piled high with cookies.

“Then I’ll leave now. Oh, what about that?”

“Ah…”

It was then that I remembered the strange man who had been rolling on the floor. Before I knew it, he was lying unconscious with foam at his mouth.

“Well, it seems like I should show this to Mia first…”

“I can take care of it.”

Rania shrugged and casually drew a magic circle in the air, causing chains to shoot out from the circle and bind the man tightly.

“Uh, gah, huff.”

“Yes?”

“Ugh, gulp. Be careful from now on. These kinds of people might come in again.”

“Oh, then we should prepare some security tools.”

Nodding, Rania left the kitchen.

“Phew… It’s a relief that there wasn’t much of a problem.”

After breathing a sigh of relief with a hand on my chest, I searched through the kitchen to find tools to make fruit juice.

“Huh?”

Before the juicing tool came into view, I noticed the tea leaf jar that I had dropped earlier. It seemed that while dragging the man, the jar had been knocked over, and the lid was open, spilling tea leaves.

“Oh… It’s going to take a while to clean that up. It’s poisonous, so I can’t leave it like this, ugh…”

With no other choice, I set the fruit aside and fetched a broom. I stood the half-empty tea leaf jar upright and used the broom to gather the spilled poison ivy into one place.

“I don’t know what kind of poison ivy it is, but since Mia might use it, I’ll leave what hasn’t spilled and discard what has.”

Since there was no separate dustpan, I looked around. Not finding any suitable tool, I reluctantly gathered the poison ivy with my hands and threw it into the trash can. After repeating this process three times, the poison ivy was neatly gone.

“Phew, all done—…ugh!”

The moment I habitually wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, a dizzying pain struck. My palm had swollen unexpectedly, as if wearing a large glove, possibly due to the application of the gag filter.

“Oh, I thought it wouldn’t be very effective unless I drank the dried herbs directly.”

I sighed, shaking my throbbing hand.

“This will take quite a while.”

It would be difficult to handle delicate tasks until the swelling subsided. However, simple tasks were not a problem. First, I closed the lid of the glass bottle and set it aside.

Then, I took out the cutting board and knife. Despite the throbbing sensation in my palm resembling a tropical heat, it wasn’t painful enough to prevent me from cooking.

Just in case there might be poison on my hands, I washed them thoroughly with cold water and placed the fruit on the cutting board.

“What kind of fruit is this?”

The fruit, shaped like a donut, was composed of several layers of husk-like corn peel. The only difference from corn was that the peel was slightly tougher.

Slice.

As I cut one side with a kitchen knife, red liquid oozed out. The cross-section of the fruit was so pink that it reminded me of raw meat. Even the flowing juice seemed redder, intensifying the impression.

“Is this… really a fruit?”

It emitted a slightly metallic smell, reminiscent of raw meat, naturally arousing suspicion. To be sure, I cut the fruit into tiny pieces and tasted it. It enveloped my tongue with a sweet and sour flavor.

“Wow!”

“Despite its appearance, it’s incredibly sweet and delicious! Can I use this in cookies or cakes later? Or just make juice and let the kids drink it?”

Muttering to myself, I peeled off the tough husk and extracted the flesh, then chopped it all up and poured it into a pot large enough for five servings.

“It’s so ripe that I could crush it with my hands.”

Since I didn’t have a blender or juicer, I had no choice but to wash my hands again and start crushing the fruit by hand.

“Oh, this is convenient!”

The palm was swollen enough to easily crush the fruit. Using the skill of “living positively in any situation for survival” learned in the comedy world, I joyfully crushed the fruit.

“Phew… done.”

I took out two cups, neatly poured the juice, and left one on the side. I was planning to tidy up the kitchen and bring it over.

“This is a mess…”

Too much juice had spilled, turning the kitchen table as well as the floor into a pink juice mess. Even my beige clothes were not spared. They were stained pink as if they had been dyed.

“It looks like a crime scene.”

It’s said that when you spill pomegranate juice, it looks like blood. The floor was exactly like that.

“Let’s clean up quickly.”

The floor and table were made of hard tiles that didn’t absorb water well and were easy to clean, but the cutting board was wooden, and the knife handle was also wooden, so they could easily get wet.

After quickly washing the basin, cutting board, and knife, I wiped the table first with a towel. The towel quickly turned red. After wiping the table to some extent, I knelt down and started wiping the floor.

“The towel is quite worn out. It’s time to throw it away.”

After absorbing the spilled juice from the floor with the towel and squeezing it in the sink to extract the juice, I knelt down again and wiped the floor. When the juice had disappeared to some extent,

“Lian, our meal is -”

“Oh, Noah. Sorry, something came up. I’ll just finish cleaning this up and get ready.”

Smiling awkwardly at Noah, who was standing at the entrance of the kitchen with a stern expression, I finished wiping the floor. There were only faint reddish marks left.

“I just need to wipe it a couple more times.”

Thinking so, I got up from my seat and squeezed the red-stained towel in the sink.

Splat, splutter.

The pink liquid spilled inside the sink.

“Oh, am I going to get my hands wet like this?”

Looking at my juice-covered hands, I sighed and was about to kneel down again when Noah walked up to me.

“What’s this?”

“Huh?”

Noah grabbed my hand holding the towel and raised it. The swelling had improved slightly as the pus was gradually subsiding, but it was still swollen.

“Ah, um…”

I felt embarrassed to say that I got like this from foolishly touching a thorn with my hand.

‘Should I say I got it while catching bugs carelessly? No, let’s say I got bitten by a mosquito.’

It’s not a foolish thought. This is the land of the demon king where dreadful monsters live! If a terribly large mosquito had bitten his hand, it wouldn’t be strange at all.

“I, I got bitten by some bug-like creature. It’ll go down soon, so don’t worry.”

Knowing Noah’s anxious nature, I said with an awkward expression. Then, Noah grimaced fiercely and spoke.

“Is this… from being stung by a bug? Then where is that bug?”

“Well, and this… what’s this bloodstain?”

Noah pointed at the juice that had soaked into my clothes with a trembling gaze.