CH 87

Chapter 87 – Collecting Junk Is A Survivalist’s Specialty

“How’s it?”

“Very good.”

After finishing my meal with a hamburger and water from my inventory and serving Gizma meat to the slime girls again, I was lying on the bed today.

This red bed is smooth and comfortable, and it pushes back against my body in a way that is no less comfortable than the bed I crafted… no, to be honest, it’s definitely two steps better than the bed I made.

“What about the pillow?”

“Excellent.”

The light blue pillow that supports the back of my head is a bit softer and plumper than the bed. But its elasticity and the way it conforms to the shape of my head will provide me with better sleep than a low-resilience pillow.

“So, how do you like it-nodesu?”

“The texture is wonderful…”

The green mucus covers my body to the fullest extent. It’s as if I’m taking a warm bath, and there’s nothing unpleasant about the way it feels against my skin. It is quite strange to call it a blanket, but it is as comfortable as falling asleep in a warm bath.

Although this is a dangerous thing that can lead to drowning, there is no way I could drown in this situation. In other words, I can enjoy that dangerous feeling to the fullest at this moment.

The bed, made up of three different kinds of slime, each with a different texture, continued to give me irresistible pleasure. And now I was completely naked. I felt guilty about treating the slime girls in such a state.

“Is it the same even if you’re naked?”

“It’s less of a hassle to take them off from the beginning since we can penetrate your clothes and touch your bare skin anyway.”

“You should take the clothes and clean them-nodesu.”

What about using the slime girls as a bed in the first place? I said that, but then again, do I have to sleep on the stone floor with just that flimsy blanket? I certainly don’t want to do that.

The wood I had on hand was already insufficient to rebuild a bed, and I didn’t have enough fiber to make a futon. Would I rather be naked in a bed made up of slime girls or wrapped in a flimsy blanket and sleep on a stone floor? Which would I choose? I was conflicted, for about three seconds.

You don’t want to sleep on a stone floor, do you? I don’t like it. So I apologetically and embarrassingly took off my flimsy, shabby clothes and underwear and left them to the girls.

“Do you want me to clean you up while you sleep?”

“I’ll make sure your body is clean.”

“We’ll make sure you have a pleasant sleep with a pleasant scent-nodesu.”

The smell of Poizo’s body drifted softly from the blanket, and my consciousness rapidly became distant. If I get used to it, I won’t be able to sleep in a normal bed; I thought as I let go of my consciousness.

☆★☆

“Umm…?”

I feel like I had a very strange dream, but I can’t remember anything because it was just a dream. I think it was a dream in which I was licked all over by many puppies or kittens or something…

“Kosuke, are you awake?”

I was a little startled when someone called out from above me. The next thing I knew, Lime was looking into my face and smiling at me. I’m sure slime doesn’t have a lap or anything, but it’s as if I’m on her lap.

“You are awake. Good morning.”

“Good morning-nanodesu.”

Beth and Poizo look into my face as well. My body is still wrapped around theirs, and it’s very comfortable. I’m tempted to go back to sleep, but that would not be good for them. I’m sure they have things to do.

“Good morning, you three. It was a very comfortable sleep.”

“That’s a relief.”

“That’s just natural.”

“Yes-nodesu.”

With Beth and Poizo’s help, I slipped out of their bodies and stood on the stone floor. Completely naked.

“Can I have my clothes?”

“Yes-nanodesu.”

Poizo handed me the clothes and underwear that had been floating around inside her body. The clothes and underwear I received were strangely not wet, and I had no problem wearing them and feeling comfortable in them.

“I’m feeling light… and I feel refreshed all over.”

“We’re massaging and detoxing you, you know?”

“You look pretty tired.”

“We’ve absorbed it all-nanodesu.”

“Absorbed…? T-thank you?”

I don’t know what they absorbed from me… I think I slept really hard, but what did they do to me while I was asleep? My whole body is definitely feeling better, but… I’ll try not to think about it too much, yeah.

“What are you going to do today-nodesu?”

As I finished getting dressed, Poizo asked me what I would be doing today. I thought about it for a while before answering.

“First, I need to gather some materials. I think I can convert some of the junk into materials, so I’m wondering if there’s a place where large amounts of garbage and such are gathered?”

“Yes, there are. Sometimes people dump that stuff in the sewers.”

“Wouldn’t it be awful if it got stuck?”

“That’s true. It’s a lot of work for us to move it, you know?”

“Once we get a certain amount, we just digest it all at once.”

“That’s a lot to digest, isn’t it?”

“The three of us can digest almost anything-nodesu.”

I don’t know what kind of junk it is, but I’m sure it’s something made of wood, iron, or ceramic. The fact that they can digest such things is frankly incredible. But in this world, broken iron products would be recycled, right? No, what about iron that has been recast so many times that its quality has degraded? I’ll have to take a look.

“I’ll be your guide today.”

“Eh, I want to go too.”

“We can’t afford to neglect the royal guard and patrol-nodesu.”

“Mmm, okay.”

Beth is going to accompany me today. I thought that I would be accompanied by a duplicate like Lime yesterday, but it seems that her main body will come with me as is.

“Let’s go. Ah, do you want to eat breakfast first?”

“No, I’ll eat as we walk. What about you?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ve had enough-nodesu.”

“Me too.”

“I see.”

I never think about why they don’t need breakfast. If they don’t think about it, I won’t think about it either. There’s no point in thinking about something that doesn’t make sense. I don’t want to sleep on a stone floor.

Beth shows me the way, and I start walking through the sewer. Even though it’s sewage, there’s hardly any unpleasant smell. I asked her about it, and she told me that it was because the sewage was being processed by the slime girls further upstream.

“Isn’t it going to smell bad downstream?”

“It’s designed to prevent the smell from flowing back that way.”

In short, there is a sewage tank where the sewage from the castle is pooled and treated again, and the sewage from the city is located beyond that, so the smell of the sewage from the city does not flow back into this sewage.

“In other words, the castle’s sewage system is always clean because Beth and the others are maintaining it?”

“Yes, that’s right. We’re doing a good job, aren’t we?”

“By the way, how’s the sewage treatment in the city?”

“Ordinary slimes are in charge over there. They can take in and digest pretty much anything, and there are also small rat and insect-shaped monsters in the area, so it’s pretty dangerous.”

“That’s scary. Are there any such things here?”

“Sometimes there are, but we get rid of them. Why do you ask?”

“I need the skins. The skins are used to make furnaces and stuff.”

“Hmm. If I find one, I will hunt it down and keep it for you.”

“Thanks.”

Beth is a little high-handed, but she’s basically a nice, kind girl. No, all the slime girls are nice and kind. Poizo is the only one who seems to have an ulterior motive or to have some sort of scheme in mind. But Poizo doesn’t seem to have any hostility towards me either. I think it’s best just to let her do what she wants.

“The three of you are quite different in color and texture, is there anything unique about you?”

“Characteristics. Well, I’m the best at magic out of the three. Not only can I use water magic, but I can also use light magic and fire magic. I specialize in magic. I’m also resistant to magic attacks.”

Beth made an expression of pride and stretched out her breasts. Her breasts, which are a good size, swayed. Hmm, it’s not actually the boobs, but it does attract my eyes… and that’s what men are supposed to do.

“Is that so? Come to think of it; you do use light magic with great dexterity. And what about the other two?”

“Lime specializes in the ability of slime. She can change the viscosity and hardness of the slime, and she is the one who can produce the strongest physical force. Also, if it’s just water magic, she’s as good as me.”

“Hoho… what about Poizo?”

“Poizo is skilled in healing magic and in the use of poisons and medicines. She is also the best at digestion. She can synthesize various ingredients from the food she has digested so far to create medicines and poisons. Poison gas, for example.”

“Oh… that’s great too. Specializing in magic, physics, medicine, and poison, huh? Since you are a slime, physical attacks will probably be ineffective, which will be extremely troublesome for the people of the Holy Kingdom.”

“In the last two decades, our defenses haven’t been breached. I’m reasonably confident. For the first three years or so, we went at it pretty hard. The damage on the enemy side was so great that they gave up by the time ten years had passed.”

“That’s great.”

The Holy Kingdom probably doesn’t want to let the blood of the Elven royalty slip through their fingers, so they put in a good amount of effort to try and capture them. The three of the slime girls must have incredibly high fighting skills to beat that.

We walked for a few dozen minutes while talking about this. We probably hadn’t walked for more than an hour.

“Here we are.”

“This is pretty amazing!”

I looked up at the piles of stuff in the room I was shown and couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration.

Shattered wooden boxes and barrels, rusted metal objects, dirty cloth-like objects, hardened metal chunks that were probably coins, discolored leather bags, and so on. Anyway, there was a lot of junk piled up.

“Can I have all this?”

“Yes, but it’s all junk.”

“It’s like a treasure trove for me.”

With permission granted, I began to take more and more of the junk into my inventory, dismantling it one by one into materials. Shattered wooden boxes and barrels are turned into wood and scrap iron, rusted metal objects are turned into scrap iron, dirty cloth-like objects are turned into a fiber, hardened metal chunks that may have been coins are turned into unrefined copper and silver, and discolored leather bags are turned into leather.

The junk in my inventory is being transformed into useful materials.

“It’s amazing. All that junk has disappeared without a trace.”

“That’s quite a collection of treasures. There were a lot of leather goods, so all I need is some clay to make some iron products… Oh, and I need fuel.”

The problem is clay and fuel. Clay can be obtained by digging a hole in a wall somewhere, but I don’t know where to dig… The fuel shortage is even more serious. There is no hope for an abundance of fuel underground. Without fuel, there is no way to make steel.

“Fuel. I have a lot of oil in my body, so why not use it as fuel?”

“Eh…? Are you sure about that?”

“Of course, there’s a limit. But since I’ve been around since the last generation… I’ve already got three hundred years’ worth of sewage treatment. I don’t think it will be a problem for Kosuke to use it by himself.”

“Is that so…? No, but it can’t just be burned. It has to be at least as hot as charcoal.”

“You can do whatever you want, you know. It can be done if you put fire magic into it.”

“I-is that so…?

Magic is amazing! I mean, it’s still a bit unethical to burn Beth’s body, but if she doesn’t mind, it’s gonna be okay, right…? I’ll take that as a yes. Yeah.

“And then the clay… Do you have any idea?”

“Hmm, I have no idea. I think Lime knows more about that kind of thing since she patrols the sewers as well as the underground tunnels. She has a wider range of activities than Poizo and me.”

“I see. Well then, let’s go back.”

“Yeah. Oh, and next time I find a piece of junk like that, I should bring it to Kosuke, right?”

“That’d be great.”

Whatever it is, it’ll be used as some kind of material. I think I’ll go back and ask Lime about an excellent place to mine. I was worried about whether or not I could gather materials in this underground place, but it looks like I can manage!

The question is whether or not it’s safe to operate a simple furnace or blacksmithing facility underground like this… I’m afraid of dying from carbon monoxide poisoning or something. At any rate, I actually need to try that out to know for sure.

I’ve heard that Poizo is well versed in handling medicines and poisons, and I wonder if there’s anything she can do about it. Maybe she can neutralize or absorb the carbon monoxide generated… Yeah, I’ll ask her about it when the time comes.

First of all, the clay. I feel like I’ve been digging for clay ever since I came to this world… Clay is a friend of civilization, isn’t it? Yup.