– Splash
Coupled with the sound of splashing water, I felt the coolness of the water.
I proceeded through the water, fighting against buoyancy and the cold.
As I was doing so, the thing I was looking for entered my field of vision.
It was – a fish.
I couldn’t help but grin. It was quite big, and swam along gracefully with aid from its fins.
Having acquired a target, I readied my impromptu spear I had made out of a piece of wood, and –
– stabbed it!
With the feedback of success running up my arm, I made my way up to the surface, exploding with joy.
“I got oneeeeeeeeee!”
“Oooh! Amazing!” answered nobody.
I just wanted to turn the excitement up a notch. This was the first time I had gone diving in my life. In fact, if someone had been watching, I wouldn’t have done something like that.
I put an end to the fish still struggling on the pointy bit of my “spear” and placed it in the basket I had prepared next to the river beforehand.
“Oooh… Quite a big one you have there, looks delicious. Can I try taste-testing them?”
“Haha, just make sure you don’t eat too much.”
I jumped into the water again, and – stood up hurriedly.
“………Who’re you?”
There was a girl eating the fish I had just caught with gusto.
Perhaps it was a sunburn? Her skin was slightly brown, but left the impression that she was in good health.
She had glossy, black hair that reminded me of my sister for a moment. The colour of her dress was a pale version of that of her hair, and she was about the same size as Eris.
She munched on the fish I had just caught, her mysterious golden eyes narrowed in happiness.
She munched the fish.
She was munching. The fish. My fish. While it was still raw.
“Erm… that’s mine, y’know,” I said, and her golden eyes looked up at me, puzzled.
“Is that so… good work!”
That convinced me. She wasn’t someone I wanted to associate with.
‘Still, just one should be all right, right?’ I thought to myself.
She was probably a kid from one of the villages nearby.
“It’s pretty dangerous to walk around on your own here, y’know?” I said, and she grinned.
“Seco–”
– I jumped into the water.
So, it was the first day of the training camp. I had decided to put our base near a river, so it would be easy to procure water.
Athena and Luna were probably resting in a crude house made out of tree branches and pelt.
Meanwhile, I had gone downstream to a place that looked like it would have fish in order to procure food, and had succeeded in catching one.
I had, of course, set up barrier magic around our camp while I was gone. I had asked Alice to use it and had just imitated what she had done, but it would be enough to keep low-rank monsters out.
“…Oh.”
Having found a group of fish happily swimming together, I swung my wooden spear upwards.
Doing so created a violent new water current which carried the fish and a large amount of water upward and into the air.
“I feel bad for doing it this way, but…”
I positioned my spear under the landing site of the fish and waited for them to begin falling back down.
I speared the fish glittering in the rays of the sun as if in slow motion, managing to get exactly eleven.
This many would be enough for both Athena and Luna.
As well as–
“Here. Eat up.” I handed a fish to the girl who was watching me with shining eyes.
“Ooh! I was waiting for that! Nom nom”
I unconsciously smiled at the sight of her wolfing down the fish.
It’s not like it had been hard to get, after all. I could go along with her until she was full.
Then, right as I was about to jump into the water again–
“– Well, I guess that’s enough.” said a beautiful voice like a bell.
“Eh?”
– A violent wind attacked me.
“Eh… hey…”
It was so strong I had to cross my arms in front of me and hold my eyes shut.
Then, when the wind finally died down–
–the girl had disappeared without a trace.
“…”
Hmm.
With that strange experience under my belt and having lost the mood to hunt any more fish, I returned to base camp with the ten I left over in hand.
“Welcome back, Yuno-san!” Athena said, running up to me as soon as she noticed me, her crimson eyes shining.
“I’m back!”
“Welcome back!”
…This is nice.
My exhaustion was melting away just by looking at her smile…!
“Welcome back. You took less time than I was expecting.” Luna said, stepping out of the crude house and smiling as soon as she saw the fish.
“I have returned, my lady. I thought this much would last us till nightfall.”
“Yes, I agree.”
“No magic beasts?”
“None. There weren’t any problems… actually, maybe one?”
I froze.
“Eh? And umm, what was it?”
“Well, while no actual harm happened, something big was glaring at us resentfully. From around there, I think?” she pointed at the opposite bank of the river.
As she did so, Athena turned to me hesitantly.
“Umm… Yuno-san. I think it might have been…” she said, proceeding to say something unexpected.
““The Divine Beast?”” Luna’s voice and mine overlapped.
“Yes… I felt divine energy… so it was probably…”
Hmm. Well, if she says so, then that’s how it is.
Still, the Divine Beast, huh…
It did have a forest named after it, so it actually existing wasn’t that big of a surprise, but that still left me with some doubts.
We had no reason to be resented by it.
The only reason I could think of would have been that it lived around where we had set up camp.
I observed our surroundings closely.
As I did so, I found a cave a person could just about fit into.
“My lady, how big was it exactly?”
“Let me think… at least as big as those trees over there?”
Whoa. It’s huge.
“I-I see.”
“Ufufu… well, nothing happened in the end,” Luna said, turning her attention back to the fish.
She had a point. And I was nearing my limits too.
“Well then, I’ll get everything ready in a jiffy, so please wait just a bit more!”
“No, that won’t do at all.” Luna said, taking a dagger out of her pocket and rolling up her sleeves.
“Erm… my lady?”
“Whaaat?”
“You want to do the cooking yourself?” I asked, and Luna nodded with an expression overflowing with confidence.
Luna’s cooking, huh. Well, she could handle almost anything smoothly, so I decided there wouldn’t be a problem.
“All right then. Understood. Then, Kami-sama and I–”
Athena had also rolled up her sleeves and was looking at me with eyes overflowing with motivation.
“…All right then. I look forward to both of your cooking!” I said, quickly putting together a worksurface and then placing some stones in a circle and lighting a fire in the middle.
Watching the two of them having fun as they stared intently at the fish made me think that I was glad I had come to this training camp.
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