CH 4

Chapter 4: Picking up a dog in a post-apocalyptic world

Translator: yuzu

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This dog!! It has fleas!

Luya was horrified, and she shot off the ground like she was scalded with hot water. After distancing herself from the Shiba Inu several steps, she stared at it fearfully.

???

The Shiba Inu immediately turned its head towards Luya. It scratched itself with its hind leg two more times, apparently not understanding why the girl had run away.

…Why do I feel like I’m cursed with dogs?

Luya scratched the back of her itchy hand, feeling depressed. Fine, it wasn’t unusual for feral dogs to have fleas. In her former world, stray dogs needed to be taken to the veterinarian for health screenings. Although there was no Avermectin1 for pest control here, at least there were volcanic hot springs. Sulfur springs were bactericidal, so a couple baths would probably be enough to eliminate the fleas.

However, the temperature of the water coming straight out the springs was too hot. A person would get burned if they took a bath directly. But it would probably be fine if they indirectly used the draining water.

Luya considered building a hot spring pool. The main reason she wanted to was because her body was smelly, and her hair was oily and practically full of knots. She really needed a bath. However, it would take a lot of effort to build a bath on her own. Besides, the most important thing right now was securing food and water.

After thinking about this, she decided to return to the dragon’s lair. The sky was already dimming, and the memories from her original body told her that it was absolutely necessary to have a fire after nightfall in the Dark Age. If there was no light, the undead would appear and harass the living. The evening hours were the most dangerous, and the dead tree that the dragon set on fire was about to burn out. It was much safer to sleep close to the dragon.

Although she hated how the dog was covered in fleas, she couldn’t just leave the Shiba Inu outside. After all, the undead did not distinguish between humans and animals, and they also attacked domestic animals. Therefore, before it was completely dark, Luya combed her hands through the Shiba Inu’s fur twice, and pulled many visible fleas off of its body. For whatever reason, this dog hated being touched and struggled fiercely, although it did not bite.

Luya also felt some bumps on the dog’s pelt. At first, she thought it was some kind of fungal skin infection2, but after careful examination they were actually healed scars from all kinds of different wounds.

No wonder why this dog was so vigilant. A dog that was capable of surviving so long in a post-apocalyptic world definitely wasn’t an ordinary dog.

“Such a poor doggie, such a poor me.”

Luya sympathized with the dog’s situation, so she patted the dog’s butt and spoke. “I won’t hurt you. Let’s live together as a team, and survive as long as we can.”

“…”

The Shiba Inu looked at Luya in disgust. It still appeared to have no interest in others, but this time it did not bark or protest for some weird reason.

However, when Luya picked it up to bring it to the Dragon’s lair, it suddenly became uncooperative. It struggled frantically, unwilling to go inside. It broke free of Luya’s arms and barked in alarm. It even rushed at Luya and bit the leg of her pants, preventing her from entering.

“But the undead will attack if there is no light, and you’ll die if you don’t go inside. The red dragon is a high-level magical beast, and the undead won’t approach this place, so calm down a little. The red dragon doesn’t want to eat us right now, and it even found some food for us.”

Luya sighed helplessly. She remembered that even the places where monsters gathered were lit up with lights at night. Even monsters were afraid of the undead. As long as the fires weren’t extinguished, the undead wouldn’t approach the living. This was the most basic rule of survival in this post-apocalyptic world, regardless if you were human or monster.

Of course, the undead would also appear in human cities, so the cities of the Empire never turned off their lights at night. In this universe, it seemed that humans had already discovered a clean energy source that was more efficient than nuclear power. As long as a city’s core reactor and manufacturing plants remained intact, a self-sufficient cycle could be sustained perpetually.

The Shiba Inu must have been traumatized when it was caught by the dragon, so it adamantly refused to enter the dragon’s lair. After trying to coax it to no avail, she also tried chasing after it with no success. Finally, she glared at it in frustration and said, “Fine! Suit yourself! I’m not saving you if you get gobbled up by the undead!”

The Shiba Inu made a miserable whining sound at Luya. This dog was seriously difficult to understand. Now that the sky had turned dark, Luya finally gave up on catching the dog and hurried inside the dragon’s cave.

The inside of the cave was much brighter than she imagined. The walls were lined with many stones that glimmered with a faint red light. Luya had no idea what kind of ores these were, but she followed the illuminated corridors and gradually drew closer to the sounds of heavy breathing. She was a little nervous. However, there were no unpleasant odors in the dragon’s nest, nor any corpses of weird animals. It seemed like this was a pretty hygienic dragon, and at the very least it wasn’t voiding excrement around its own nest.

When she entered the dragon’s resting chamber, she was blinded by a massive pile of gold and treasure behind the dragon.

It was filled with ancient gold coins, golden chalices, glimmering gems and all sorts of dizzying treasures. She knew it! She knew it!! As a western dragon, there was no way that it hadn’t hoarded a ton of treasure!

Luya stared at the pile of treasure in amazement, to the point that she was entranced. The red dragon was a little surprised that Luya had entered its lair, and it slowly sat up from its lying position. It couldn’t help but stare at Luya, seemingly curious about what she would do.

“Can… can I look around?”

Luya timidly pointed at the mountain of treasure.

Right now, her impoverished figure was covered in filth and grime. Her hair was clumped up from grease, and she didn’t look the slightest bit cute. Surprisingly, the red dragon agreed very easily. It shifted its body to the side, allowing Luya to approach its treasure.

This dragon was seriously too nice to her. It was even letting her snoop around its treasure?

For a moment, Luya thought that she must have activated a cheat code somehow, or perhaps the original owner of this body had some hidden backstory with dragons. For instance, suppose that once upon a time she had saved a baby dragon, and now the grown dragon was paying back the favor? She couldn’t help but let her imagination wander. After seeing that the red dragon had no objections, she climbed up the small mountain of treasure and picked up a golden cup to examine.

It was heavy in her hands and possessed a dazzling golden luster. The quality was off the charts…

“— (Dragon language).”

The red dragon suddenly said something to Luya.

Luya immediately turned her head. She couldn’t understand the dragon language, but she could guess what the dragon meant. Guiltily, she pointed at the golden cup she was holding. “You3 don’t like it when I touch your treasure?”

The red dragon suddenly stood up when it heard her. It gave Luya a long stare, but then shook its head.

Luya sighed in relief. She hesitated again and then summoned the courage to ask another question: “If that’s the case, can I borrow this?”

She pointed at some treasure that was shaped like various household implements. Truthfully, she was eyeing some silverware embedded with precious stones. There was a full set, including dinner plates, knives, forks, and chopsticks. The jewels were secondary. For these types of things, it was pointless to have so many gemstones on them. The main thing was that she didn’t want to eat with her hands anymore.

This time, the red dragon simply nodded its head. Luya’s eyes lit up, and she smiled happily at the red dragon. “Really? That’s great! Thank you!”

The red dragon opened its mouth and yawned. It laid back down and started to doze off.

Luya was extremely excited. It turned out that this place wasn’t as barren and primitive as she expected. At least some of the things in the treasury were useful, such as this set of golden tableware, which was basically hers now!

She also found a finely woven Persian rug, some high-grade silk, and extremely old-looking wine. She had no idea where the dragon had gotten these things, but they were all useful to her. She could drink the wine until she figured out how to distill the sulfur spring water. There was also a big sword laying around in the corner of the room that was made out of some unknown kind of metal, and its shape was very strange. Who knew what its creator was thinking. It was obviously a greatsword, but the tip was curved like a hook. Basically it was like those cool-looking but ineffective weapons in video games. Wouldn’t it be hard to slice someone with it? The sword was also exceptionally light, and Luya could even lift it up.

Its original owner and history were a mystery, but Luya felt that could be useful as a digging implement. As a result, she collected the sword as well.

When she was fussing around with the sword, the napping red dragon suddenly opened its eyes. Luya was scared out of her wits. She was afraid that the red dragon would misunderstand her intentions and get angry. She hurriedly pointed to the sword and explained, “Uh! It’s not what you think! I want to use it for chopping trees and digging. I’ll unearth some clay, make a few pottery jars to collect rainwater, and definitely not anything bad!! I… I wouldn’t hurt the person who saved me!4”

The red dragon was on guard only for a moment. It looked at Luya, and she didn’t know if it believed her. However, it simply closed its eyes again, and went back to snoring and breathing steadily.

…Luya was starting to think that cliché story she made up earlier was actually true.

This red dragon was way too nice to her! Wasn’t it a bit too relaxed…? Or did it think she was too weak, so the red dragon didn’t consider her to be a threat?

In either case, it seemed like she had escaped disaster.

If the red dragon was willing to continue bringing her food like today, then the main issue that she needed to solve was drinking water.

That’s right! Even though hot springs were great, you couldn’t drink from them!

She could be like the Romans and drink wine instead of water, but that wasn’t a long-term solution. Humans still needed clean water, and she didn’t want to become an alcoholic. It wasn’t safe to drink from sulfur springs directly. Collecting rainwater with homemade pottery was an option, but who knew how long she’d have to wait before a rainy day. Luya thought that making an improvised water distiller would be best.

Luya was a little worried, because she wasn’t a great craftsman. Even though she previously worked as a graphic designer, she was a total klutz with her hands. She couldn’t even sew buttons onto clothes straight.

But right now, there was no choice if she wanted to survive. There was always a first time for everything. Tomorrow at dawn, she would figure out some way to build a distillery.

Author’s notes:

Answering a few questions that everyone keeps asking:

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Our otherworld wasteland village-building5 project has begun!

The tutorial is now over. The red dragon currently is at 5/10 affection points. You can rank up after reaching 10 points. After ranking up, the red dragon will hunt for you every day.

By purchasing a monthly pass, you can get three magic stones, two shards every day, a bowl of water, and two slimes.

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Thanks to all the little angels who voted for me or bought me fertilizer!

Thank you very much for your support, and I will continue to work hard!

Translator’s Notes:

This story has four arcs. The first arc is the “crafting” arc, where the heroine makes a bunch of stuff and gets started in her life living with the dragon on a volcano. However, after the first arc, the “crafting” parts go away and the drama/action (and romance) picks up… I love all of it though~ XD