Chapter 253: Mysterious Glowing Object

Mimi and I finished taking a short break after eating a kokiri fruit, which resembled a mini-sized muskmelon and continued searching the Grado clan’s forest territory in order to procure food.

“The wild animals aren’t approaching us huh?”

Mimi, who was walking about while scanning the area, commented as she peered up at me.

“Unless they’re carnivores, they probably won’t dare to attack us. Just as we’re wary of animals, they are wary of us as well.”

“So that’s how it is.”

Of course, I’m not so sure that would continue to be the case if we end up mistakenly entering a wild animal’s turf. We had no way of telling if we were walking around an animal’s territory after all. There are some animals that had strong territorial awareness. It’s possible they might try to approach us in order to threaten us even if they don’t attack us immediately.

“Well, I’d like to avoid fighting with any wild animals as much as possible even if we do encounter some.”

“Why? We’d be able to get meat from them, right?”

“That’s true, but no one knows how to butcher animals in our group, right? At least, I can’t.”

“Butcher?”

“Uh, let’s see. Um, remember the time when we visited that cultured meat factory? You saw how they had to butcher those mystery creatures in order to turn them into meat, right? We’d have to do the same thing to wild animals if we did hunt some. But, of course, wild animals don’t only have meat in their bodies. They also had internal organs and bones, and if we mess up and handle the internal organs poorly, bodily fluids and waste might spill out onto the meat, and the carcass would be completely ruined. And we also have to drain the blood and cool the meat down to prevent it from spoiling quickly. Depending on how we handle the carcass, we might get drenched with blood, so we need a lot of water to wash it off and then cool the meat down.”

“I see…… It sounds really hard.”

“It is. Anyone who knows how to properly handle weapons might be able to kill prey, but it takes specialized skills to turn the hunted prey into edible meat. Well, we can probably still get meat even if we just did things haphazardly. But–”

“But?”

“The meat we’ll end up with won’t be drained of blood properly and would be poorly processed, making the taste stale and unpleasant.”

“……That would feel unfair, especially since we’d be taking a life to feed ourselves.”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m not really thinking of hunting animals for meat.”

And besides, if we handled it poorly while butchering the carcass, we might attract other wild animals that were carnivores. It’s too dangerous to attempt something that you’re completely unfamiliar with.

“You really are amazing, Hiro-sama.”

“Hm? Well, I think it’s just the difference in the environments we were born and raised in.”

“I don’t feel that’s all it is though. Um, I think you have this sort of innate disposition……”

“No, no, of course not. I merely have some miscellaneous knowledge. After all, I’ve only ever heard about the things I told you regarding hunting and butchering animals, and it’s not like I’ve experienced them myself.”

It would be unusual for Mimi, who was born and raised in a space colony, to have knowledge regarding hunting and butchering animals after all. In a controlled environment like a colony, there aren’t really any other creatures freely living inside them apart from humanoids, with races like elves and dwarves included of course. There weren’t any stray cats or dogs. Heck, there even weren’t any rats or cockroaches.

Mimi, Tina, and Whisker were genuine space colonists, so they might know the existence and appearance of popular creatures such as pets like dogs and cats, but it’s not like they’ve seen them in person.

Well, I guess Elma was an exception since she was a noble lady born in the imperial capital. And as a mercenary, she’s been to various places due to her previous jobs.

“Is that so……”

“Yeah. You’re still young after all, Mimi. In time, you’d probably be able to accumulate enough experience to become an even better starship captain than me.”

“A captain huh…… That might be a little interesting. I can search for grandma and stuff.”

“Yeah. I kinda want to meet her as well.”

Mimi’s grandmother, Celestia huh. She’s the younger sister of the current reigning emperor, Geppels, and was said to have escaped the royal family and became a renowned mercenary. Her current whereabouts were unknown, but according to Mimi, she remembers meeting her when she was young. If that’s the case, then she might still be living somewhere in the wide universe.

“……By the way, what happened to the battle last night?”

“Um, we weren’t able to hear any more sounds when we woke up. Since the sounds of battle stopped, they must have settled it sometime last night. Since there are no signs of sporadic fighting afterward, we think the system garrison won out in the end……”

If the system garrison lost, even Black Lotus won’t come out unscathed. That would include Krishna that’s parked in one of its hangars. I really hope that wasn’t the case.

By the way, the reason the girls were able to come to a conclusion that the system garrison won was that if they really were completely annihilated, reinforcements from the garrisons of neighboring star systems will be immediately dispatched here, and hostilities would erupt once more. Once the reinforcements arrive, they’d immediately mount attacks on the pirates who should have worn themselves out from the effort of wiping out Refill system’s defense forces.

No matter how large the Red Flags were as a pirate organization, they still do not have the required strength to take on the combined forces of garrisons from neighboring systems as well as imperial military patrols. That’s why their usual modus operandi was to scatter their forces in order to avoid being taken out all at once.

“Well, depending on the extent of the damage, a rescue team should come for us by today or tomorrow.”

“I sure hope so.”

As we walked and chatted through the forest, we suddenly caught sight of something shining in the distance. Eh? Light?

“What the heck?”

“Is it a river or spring?”

“Nope, it doesn’t seem that whatever’s out there is merely reflecting light from the sun.”

I hacked the bushes in front of us as we proceeded ahead. Wait, that’s–!

“What the heck is this?”

“I wonder?”

It was something incomprehensible.

No, hold up a bit. Allow me to explain why we’re so bewildered. What was in front of us was an object that clearly had no place within an untouched primeval forest. Its structure was obviously not that of a natural object.

“No, really. What the heck is this thing? A drill bit or something?”

“It does look similar, but isn’t it a bit too big?”

“Yeah, it is, huh…… The heck?”

Yep. It was a shining pointed object. Judging from just the part that was visible, it was at least 1 meter in length. It was just thick enough for me to clasp with both hands. It was white in color and kept emitting light. As for its shape, I can’t really confirm since it was buried in the ground, but it had a sharp tip and somehow looked similar to a spiral-shaped drill.

It really didn’t feel like something natural, but it also didn’t seem to be a completely artificial object. Somehow, the texture of the material it’s made of was similar to wood.

“Anyway, shall we try to pull it out?”

“Is that really okay? Aren’t you worried the light it’s emitting is actually radiation of some sort, Hiro-sama?”

“I don’t think it’s Cherenkov radiation, but yeah, it might really be dangerous huh.”

It’s best not to touch something unfamiliar. It’s one of the basics in order to avoid danger. Certainly, it does make good sense to not carelessly touch an unknown object such as this one.

“Maybe it was dropped by a destroyed pirate ship or some part from one of this planet’s aerial vehicles.”

“In any case, I think it’s still better not to touch this mysterious shining object, Hiro-sama.”

“That’s true. Okay then. Let’s just leave it here–”

After declaring my intent to leave the thing alone, the mysterious object started to flicker intensely. What!? Was it gonna explode!? I immediately shielded Mimi behind me and took a distance from the object. And then, the flickering subsided all at once. What the heck? Why did it even flicker in the first place?

“This thing’s starting to get creepy.”

“We really shouldn’t touch it.”

Then it started flickering again. Huh? Don’t tell me–

“Uh, do you, err, actually understand what we’re saying?”

“Eh? T-There’s no way that’s……”

Mimi tried to deny my words, but the mysterious object flashed once as if to reply. Mimi immediately swallowed the rest of her words.

“……If you really understand us, please flash twice.”

It really did flash twice. I see.

“As I thought, this thing’s creepy. We better just ignore it.”

“I agree.”

The two of us turned on our heels and started walking away, and the mysterious object started flashing intensely once more. It was as if it was desperately trying to hold us back. Uwaa, what the heck? What should I do about this?