Chapter 78

Just in time for the release date of Volume 2!

It was supposed to be posted on 5/29, but I succumbed to sleepiness.

This short story is based on the illustration that tenmaso-san published on pixivFANBOX in April.

I am most grateful to tenmaso-san for granting permission to use the illustration!

Before her, the forest was dense with thick-trunked trees with lush foliage and undergrowth so thick it was hard to find a place to step.

This forest is within a one-hour walk from the border village.

Since it is far off the main road, even adventurers do not venture here.

With fierce beasts and monsters lurking everywhere, it is a place where even humans find it difficult to approach.

They think that if the prey is human, they can easily make a meal of it, regardless of the level difference, and attack without hesitation. For the prey, it is an extremely troublesome situation.

Even experienced adventurers would not venture this far unless there was a very pressing reason.

"Hmm..."

In such a place, a person stood in the forest for no particular reason, not even an emergency.

At first glance, she did not seem to be wearing armor.

Her light equipment suggested that the only weapon she had was a dagger at her waist.

Well, there was no need to make a big deal out of the explanation.

She was Kena, a High Elf with the strongest power in the forest.

Whether or not the fierce beasts and monsters sensed her as a threat...

She was currently looking around and slowly advancing through the forest.

Her eyes were not on the sky or the changing scenery between the trees, but on the plants growing on the ground.

After looking around, she would crouch down, pick up a leaf to check, and mutter, "Nope," before looking around again.

She would find a leaf she had never seen before and check it again, repeating this process.

She looked like a suspicious person wandering around the same spot, examining the ground.

Looking at her back, which lacked any sense of crisis management, it seemed that a fierce beast might sneak up on her.

However, the area around Kena was quiet except for the rustling of leaves as she moved and the whispering of branches in the wind.

The reason for this was the beast that followed her at a certain distance.

It was digging the ground with its nose or gnawing on tree trunks without any tension.

Kena would occasionally look back and smile at the beast's behavior.

After a while, Kena, who had been observing the grass growing on the ground, seemed to be convinced that there was nothing in the open area nearby, and stood up, stretching and saying, "Hmm."

She twisted her waist, stretched her arms, and called out to the beast behind her.

"Pee-chan, did you find anything that looks like it?"

"Pee?"

Pee-chan, the Crimson Piglet, tilted its head in response to Kena's question.

Its mouth was still full of the tree bark it had just gnawed on.

Kena, putting her hand on her forehead and letting out a dry laugh, turned off her natural empathy with the environment, which had been floating in her mind.

Instantly, the whispers around her faded away like the tide.

From the angry and sorrowful voices mixed in, she was a little grateful for this feature.

"Well, well, can I find it in this state?"

"Pee!"

Pee-chan, walking behind Kena, made a carefree declaration of determination.

It was unclear what it was determined about.

The reason why Kena was walking in the forest with Pee-chan, looking for something, goes back to the early morning of that day.

That morning, mashed potatoes with butter were served as a side dish at Kena's house.

Luka, who had recently developed a taste for it, was smiling, and Kena and Opus, seeing her, were also smiling.

The cooks, the Sirens, felt a sense of fulfillment at the sight.

Originally, Kena's household, which consisted of six people, half of whom were maids and a butler, was strange, but no one cared about that anymore.

Occasionally, travelers who came to the village's public bath would look at Roxane and the others moving around the village with a puzzled expression, but the three of them were accepted as part of the village, and it was often the travelers who were identified as suspicious by the villagers.

Now, the "mashed potatoes with butter" were actually steamed sweet potatoes with butter.

There were no potatoes in this world, and such things were generally called yams.

Once the poisonous sprouts were removed, they could be boiled or baked, making them a common ingredient for the common people.

They were also used generously in the soups and stews made by Marele, Kena's favorite.

The name "mashed potatoes with butter" was given by Opus, not Kena.

Now, it had spread throughout the village, and people came from far away to the inn run by Marele just for the mashed potatoes with butter.

Butter and cheese were luxury items, so they did not flow into the border village in large quantities.

Kena could get them if she asked the merchant Kerrick directly, but the original price was high, and the villagers could not afford them easily. That was supposed to be the case.

But Opus turned that around.

He acquired dairy cows through Kena from the merchant and taught the villagers how to raise them before starting to make butter.

Opus's ability was to "connect," but it could also be said that its opposite, "separation," was also a specialty.

Separating the cream from milk was a piece of cake.

After that, he kneaded the cream into a solid form with a mysterious theory, "a little this and that," and managed to produce a large amount of material on his own despite the lack of proper equipment.

Within a month, the border village had become a butter-producing area.

Opus distributed the butter almost for free to the villagers and sold it at a high price to travelers.

The merchant team led by Aeline also listened to Opus's various small orders and, after more than half a year of effort, finally received permission to handle it, jumping for joy.

However, to avoid putting other butter producers out of business, he adjusted the amount he sent out.

So far, so good, but the main issue was different.

One day, while casually eating mashed potatoes with butter, Kena thought about a food that was close yet far from it.

"By the way, I haven't seen any sweet potatoes, have I?"

"...They don't exist in the Riedale ingredient recipe, do they?"

"Huh? Is that so?"

When Opus said that, Kena, tilting her head, opened the recipe list of her "Cooking Skill."

She scrolled through the list of recipes and the ingredients needed, checking each one.

To others, it would look like she was reading a newspaper front page in a second.

For Kena, with her unconscious extraordinary ability, it was as easy as a morning routine.

"Yeah, they're not there."

"...As always, you waste resources on things that interest you..."

There was a scene where Opus shuddered at the sight of his master's cheat ability, which he could see as a familiar, and this was the reason Kena ventured into the unexplored forest.

Should she be ashamed of her gluttony, or should she be glad that no one said, "There are other places to look"? It was a difficult judgment.

Opus kept silent about Kena's wasteful actions.

On the other hand, Siren, the elf maid who used to be under Opus, started looking for someone who might know in the village.

The ones who would be her hands and feet were the cat people under Kena's command, the maid Roxane and the butler Roxilus.

After half a day of inquiries, Roxilus and the others found that no one in the village knew of such a root vegetable.

Siren, who was lounging at home, kicked Opus's butt and asked him to go on an errand to the merchant in Felskeiro.

"Hasn't your treatment of me become more and more careless lately?"

"Oh, since Kena-sama is moving to give Luka-sama something delicious, it's only natural that Opus-sama should move, isn't it?"

Siren, who was smiling innocently, was radiating a tremendous pressure towards Opus.

Opus, who was forced to avert his gaze by the pressure, saw Roxilus and Roxane nodding in agreement, and bowed his head to Siren like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Meanwhile, Kena, unaware of the scene at home, headed west from the border village.

She thought that if she followed the Edig River and asked the trees, she might find what she was looking for.

However, her plan was quickly thwarted.

The trees and plants only recognized themselves as plants.

They had no way of knowing the names humans had given them to distinguish them.

After asking a few times, Kena gave up on her strategy and summoned a Crimson Piglet (juvenile) with a summoning spell.

It seemed that in her mind, something she had seen on a TV program about truffle pigs had combined with the idea that "a wild boar might be able to find ingredients."

As expected, the Crimson Piglet had no such ability.

As an adult, it was a bold creature that could eat a tree down to its roots.

Kena, who had summoned it, did not even know if it could detect such fine smells.

She was amused and exasperated by Pee-chan, who followed her playfully.

Kena was not completely idle.

She used the "Search" skill to examine the plants, but unlike in the real world, not every weed had a name.

Most of them were only displayed as "Plant: Unknown."

For Kena, who had set out with high hopes, this was a complete dead end.

"Hmm. I can't even find anything that looks like it..."

For Kena, who had only participated in kindergarten potato digging when she was human, identifying sweet potatoes was a challenge.

While thinking about how to proceed, Kena noticed that Pee-chan, who had always chimed in with "Pee" to any of her mutterings, was not responding.

When she turned around in puzzlement, she saw Pee-chan bound and gagged by countless lumpy vines.

"Eh? What, what, what?"

Pee-chan was shaking and stretching, and it seemed to be making a muffled "Pee" sound, so it was definitely the Crimson Piglet (juvenile).

The vines surrounding it were thickening as if they were crawling out of the ground.

Kena rushed to Pee-chan and tried to pull the vines off.

However, just as she was about to touch the vines, she was caught by the lumpy vines that burst out of the ground.

Thanks to the Key, she was not directly touched, but the defense wall was quickly covered.

"What is this!?"

'It doesn't seem to have the power to harm my protection, but what should I do?'

It did not seem to have the power to harm the target, but it was probably considered food.

Since the "Search" skill only displayed "Unknown" when used, it seemed to be a new type of monster.

Checking the connection with the summoned creature, the Crimson Piglet (juvenile) seemed to be barely manifesting.

However, the magic power infused at the time of summoning was gradually fading, so it would not be able to manifest for long.

This was a point of frustration for Kena.

"Really. For a plant, you should be more considerate..."

Just as Kena was about to cast a "Flame Circle" to turn herself into a burning fire elemental, a loud, barking-like scream from Pee-chan echoed through the space.

"Pe-eeeeeeeee!"

The scream, which seemed to reverberate endlessly, gave Kena, who was inside the defense wall, an earache from the air vibrations, and even the surrounding trees shook, dropping a large number of leaves and twigs.

Kena also felt a mysterious sense of loss.

"What! What is it?"

Something was forcibly pulled out of her, and she shuddered from the feeling of consuming a considerable amount of MP.

Almost immediately, a tremendous weight landed nearby, causing a vibration in the ground.

Her sense of balance was thrown off as if the ground to their right was tilting, and Kena looked up through the vine-covered defense wall.

The moment she heard a rumbling snort, a red wave burned away the vines.

Kena, who had instinctively raised her hands to protect her face, opened her eyes when nothing else happened.

"Pee! Pee pee! Pee pee!" Pee-chan was expressing joy as if it would burst from looking at something.

Looking in the direction of its gaze, Kena saw a massive body like a small hill.

"Wh-What? No way, really?"

There stood an adult Crimson Pig in a majestic pose.

The flame mane that ran from the top of its head to the tip of its tail was burning like a solar prominence.

It seemed that the red wave earlier was a heat wave from the adult Crimson Pig's area attack.

The vines were completely burned away, leaving only a few lumps.

More than anything, the fact that the adult Crimson Pig had appeared on its own in response to the child's cry, without being summoned, was a shock to Kena.

Checking the summoning skill in her status screen, the words "Crimson Pig (adult)" were indeed gray, indicating that it was fully summoned.

"Well, it's okay, I guess."

Pee-chan, jumping around, rubbing against the adult, and running around in circles, seemed to be expressing the joy of meeting its parent with its whole body.

After running around for about ten minutes, Pee-chan finally calmed down and started to nuzzle the parent's nose.

The parent looked at it with a gentle gaze, but suddenly turned a sharp eye towards Kena.

It seemed to be saying, "Listen, don't interfere with our time," and urged Pee-chan to change direction.

Then, the two of them, keeping a certain distance, disappeared into the depths of the forest.

"...Um..."

It was a touching scene.

Kena knew that much, but she also felt that there were things she needed to point out.

After struggling with how to vent her mixed feelings, Kena decided to swallow everything.

If Opus had been there, he would have been the target of her frustration.

Taking a deep breath to regain her composure, Kena picked up a lump that had fallen to the ground.

She was fascinated by the lump, which had survived the heat wave that had inflicted considerable damage on her.

There was a large, bowl-shaped hole in the ground, apparently dug by the adult Crimson Pig.

It was probably the underground stem of the vines.

From the absence of any remains, it seemed that the underground stem had been eaten.

When Kena saw the inside of the hard outer skin, which was similar in color and smell to the ingredient she was looking for, she couldn't help but shout, "Yay!" and was very happy.

She then picked up the scattered lumps and took them back.

She managed to secure enough for the villagers, but she did not encounter the vine monster again.

As a result, the lumps, which tasted like baked sweet potatoes, were recognized as a mysterious sweet treat.

However, according to Opus, "It might have been here from the beginning," so Kena kept her eyes open every time she went into the forest.

At the same time, she released two Crimson Pigs into the forest for a few days at a time.

"Pee pee!"

"Rumble..."

If you hear a joyful cry and see a massive body, do not approach.

A Crimson Pig with a child is a very dangerous creature.

Somehow, the story turned out to be completely different from the atmosphere of the illustration.