episode_0022

A sigh escaped…

After a heavy effort, I moved the jar, now significantly heavier with the stone weight placed on top, to a shaded, cool corner of the workshop. I let out a light sigh and lightly shook out my stiff arms and shoulders.

“Good job.”

Killua, who had been watching me from right beside me, tapped my waist lightly with a bright smile, seemingly satisfied that I had finished the job cleanly, just as she intended.

Yes. This kind of relationship suited us.

She would guide me with her knowledge and wisdom, and I would simply move my body to fulfill her will without any doubt or thought.

“The work finished earlier than I thought?”

Killua checked the sun’s position through the workshop window and realized that not much time had passed.

“What should we do now?”

“Hmm… good question?”

Killua also tilted her head, pondering, as if she hadn’t expected the work to finish so early.

“Ah… that’s it!”

She lightly clapped her hands as if an idea had struck her. And just as she was about to say something…

“Hellooo!!”

Bang!

The workshop door burst open with a loud bang, and a booming greeting drowned out the words she had just uttered.

“Ah… it’s the Hero.”

The person who suddenly appeared was none other than the Hero.

Killua, who didn’t have a good impression of him, frowned slightly and moved half a step to the side, putting distance between them.

Whether he understood Killua’s feelings or not, the Hero simply grinned foolishly, awkwardly setting down the basket he had carried on his back.

“It’s a gift of apology!”

“A gift of apology?”

Killua, looking at the basket the Hero called a “gift of apology,” gestured to me with her eyes.

It was probably a look that implied she still couldn’t trust the Hero.

Understanding her actions, I moved Killua behind me and stepped forward to open the basket the Hero had set down.

“This again…”

The basket he brought was filled with green slime mucus.

Although it was a clear green mucus with a strong grassy scent, to my eyes, holding the preconception of it being slime excrement, it simply looked disgusting.

“This is mucus… and it’s in surprisingly good condition?”

It was clearer, more transparent, and darker green than the mucus we had collected.

As Killua let out a small gasp of admiration at the nearly perfect state of the mucus, the Hero shrugged his shoulders grandly and replied proudly.

“I brought the item my comrade needs most! Will this forgive my mistake?”

“Ugh… um…”

At the Hero’s confident plea for forgiveness for his mistake, Killua looked at the grinning Hero with a complex, subtle expression.

“If I need more of this in the future, can you get it for me?”

“Of course!! Quests from a comrade are always welcome to a Hero!”

The Hero energetically gave a vigorous thumbs-up, his thumb plump like a small sausage.

At his excessively self-centered enthusiasm, Killua couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle.

Perhaps her smile pleased him immensely. The Hero, who already had a naturally smiling face, burst into a full, bright smile.

“A-and… this is a gift!!”

Perhaps feeling too happy, the Hero fumbled hastily at his waist and handed her a small leather pouch.

“What is this?”

Killua, her wariness towards the Hero having lessened, took the leather pouch he offered.

“It was my snack! But now it’ll be my comrade’s snack!”

How good must he have felt for even that stout Hero to hand over his own snack pouch to Killua?

Killua, smiling at the Hero’s simple yet amusing actions, carefully opened the pouch.

From within the opened leather pouch, a rich, earthy scent of grass permeated the air.

“Wow… you carry better snacks than I thought.”

At Killua’s genuine admiration, I subtly peered inside the leather pouch she had received.

The leather pouch was filled with root vegetables of various colors and strange shapes, sliced into pieces.

Among them, some roots glowed with an ominously red light.

“Are these edible?”

Worried for Killua, who had suffered greatly due to the Hero’s mistake, I narrowed my eyes and glared at the Hero, my concern for Killua evident.

“Yes. For now, they’re all fine.”

As if she knew the identity of all the root vegetables in the pouch the Hero had given her, Killua fastened the leather pouch and hung it on her waist.

“Hehe. I’m so happy you accepted it and are pleased.”

At Killua’s action of happily accepting his gift, the Hero burst into an innocent, childlike laugh.

“Then I’ll be going!”

Having finished all his business, the Hero slung his logging axe over his shoulder and vigorously swung his thick arms from side to side, creating a sound like wind.

And perhaps pleased that Killua was satisfied with his gift, he returned to his home in the forest with light steps, unsuited to his burly physique.

“Isn’t he just completely unpredictable?”

I glared at the retreating figure and warned Killua, who had accepted his gift without suspicion or caution.

“Hmm… But at least in his pure eyes, I saw no malicious intent or ill will towards me.”

As if refuting my warning, Killua slowly shook her head.

“That may be true for now. But when someone like that loses their temper… they can be incredibly frightening.”

Purity meant that one could also be corrupted astonishingly quickly.

“Hmm…”

Even Killua couldn’t ignore my warning, as she seriously furrowed her brow in thought.

“Anyway, what should we do with the mucus the Hero brought? Should we mix it with sawdust again?”

Now, the mucus the Hero brought needed to be dealt with.

Normally, mucus in its natural state slowly dissolves and is absorbed by the ground or living organisms, disappearing.

However, mucus contained artificially in baskets or jars like this couldn’t naturally decompose and would instead stagnate and begin to rot.

“Put that in that jar over there and store it on the shaded edge of the workshop. We’ll have a use for it later.”

“Ah, understood!”

Relieved that I wouldn’t have to knead the mucus with my bare hands again to mix it with sawdust, I replied in a cheerful voice and poured the mucus from the basket the Hero had brought into a perfectly sized jar on the edge of the workshop.

“Alright… then how about we do some village service today?”

“Village service?”

I looked at her with bewildered eyes at her unexpected suggestion of serving the village.

Killua, then, triumphantly opened the workshop door and stepped out, looking around the small Ethen Village visible at a glance below the hill.

“Since this is the village I’ll be living in from now on… I should put in some effort to make it a place where people can live properly.”

“The village Killua-nim will live in…”

Sensing her firm resolve to settle in this village, I looked at Killua-nim with a complex expression.

But whether she didn’t feel my gaze… or simply ignored it, she was merely surveying the village with a serious expression.

“My… this village has a lot that needs fixing.”

Originally, Ethen Village was a small village of about 800 people, but after the Lime Forest was devastated, many people left, and it became a community of barely 80 people.

Thanks to this, most of the houses in the village were abandoned, left vacant and dilapidated as no one lived in them.

“What was the biggest problem in the village right now?”

Killua, who had taken a wide look around the village, asked me about the village’s biggest problem, as I had lived in the village longer than she, who had been unconscious from her injuries inflicted by the wolf.

“Drinking water.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, I told her the village’s biggest problem in response to her question.

Among the necessities of life—food, clothing, and shelter—Ethen Village met the minimum standards for clothing and shelter.

However, the biggest issue was eating and drinking.

Fortunately, food supplies could be secured to some extent by selling usable timber or medicinal herbs collected by villagers to merchant caravans that arrived at regular intervals, and through hospitality.

But drinking water was not easily resolved.

“I knew it…”

“We’re heating and using the water from the river, but… the disgusting fishy smell doesn’t go away.”

Most of the village’s drinking water came from the river flowing through the Lime Forest, which had been ravaged by slimes.

As it was river water flowing from a forest devastated by slimes, it was considerably contaminated with slime residue.

Fortunately, heating the water could disinfect it from dirty impurities and toxins.

However, the repulsive fishy smell remaining in the water wouldn’t disappear, to the point where people had to pinch their noses while drinking or spray a lot of incense each time.

“Alright. Then the first thing we need is a water purification facility.”

“A water purification facility?”

Certainly, in large cities or capitals, I had seen water purification facilities that used large magic circles or equipment to purify vast amounts of water with many purification spells.

But I couldn’t help but be surprised by Killua’s declaration to build such a facility, given that she had no mana whatsoever.

“There’s surprisingly a lot you can do without magic. Could I ask you to guide me to the village elder’s house?”

Having lived in the village longer than Killua, I naturally knew the village elder’s house, as he served as the leader of this small community.

Killua, needing the villagers’ consent and help for the construction of the water purification facility, asked me to guide her to the elder’s house.

“Ah, yes. Understood.”

I took the lead with Killua, heading towards the village elder’s house that I remembered.