"Nao, it's done!

　With that voice, he tapped me on the shoulder, and I looked up with a start.

　There in front of me was Haruka's face.

　The slightly dumbfounded look on her face suggested that she had already called out to me several times.

　When I looked up at the sky, the sun was almost in the middle of the sky, and before I knew it, it was time for lunch.

"Oh, sorry, I'll be right there.

　I stood up and tried to slap my ass, but Haruka held up a hand to restrain me, and then applied 'purification' to clean my hands, including the dirt on them.

Thanks.
"No, no.

　When I followed Haruka to the others, a simple table was set up with deep plates of food on it, and everyone was already around it.

Sorry for the wait.
Hey. How are you doing, Nao?
Almost there. Here.

　I threw the object in my hand, and Toya caught it well.

"Are these dice ......?　Six-sided die, eight-sided, is that ten-sided?
I can make an eight-sided die, but a ten-sided die is hard.

　I threw him several dice made of hardened earth.
　Each side has a number carved into it and is hardened so that it will not chip easily.

　I managed to make a six-sided die with a perfect square and an eight-sided die with two square pyramids, but a ten-sided die with a pentagonal pyramid slightly shifted and attached to it was quite difficult.

　However, the 10-sided die, which consists of a pentagonal pyramid slightly displaced and attached, is quite difficult to make.

Hey, hey, hey, aren't you losing sight of your goal?
"...... No, no, no, no, no.

　Of course, it is an exercise in magic control.

　Of course, I was practicing magic control. I was just taking a break from my boring training to make a few dice, and I got a little carried away. Yes, just a little.

"Come on, let's eat. It'll get cold.

　What Haruka and the others made seemed to be the udon noodles Yuki had made on the second morning of the fishing trip.
　The ingredients may be a little different, but the warm steam and delicious aroma of the food is very appetizing in this chilly weather.

I was waiting for Nao. ...... Well, let's eat. Simon, please eat too.

I'll take it. --Oh, yum!　It's so good!
It's so good, man. It's so good!
I bet there'd be a line out the door for this!

　Apparently, our taste buds were satisfied with Simon's taste buds too.
　They didn't seem to mind the noodles, and ate them without hesitation.

　I tried it myself, but it tasted a little better than what I had eaten at that time, probably because there were fewer restrictions than in the camp. However, it is a little less tasty than the one I had after the second day, when I added crab to the broth.

You guys are really good at cooking, aren't you?

No!　No, wait!　I'm sure you'll agree.　Did you guys ...... go up the Noria River to catch the Great Salamander?

You know what I mean?

I heard there are always requests to catch them. Not many people go out to catch them, though. It's the only time fish come into town.

　It's true that when I've gone shopping, I've never found any fish for sale.

　I don't remember eating fish in this town either, since it's never served at Aera's store or the Bear Pavilion.

I asked Simon, "Is it because the Great Salamander is so hard to find that so few people go out to catch it?

　When I asked Simon, he smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

I don't know much about them, but you need to camp in a forest with demons, right?　I don't know much about it, but you need to camp in a forest where there are demons, and sometimes even orcs. I guess it's not worth it to spend days camping out in a place like that, looking for a Great Salamander you don't know if you'll ever find.

　We just happened to find one and killed it with a single thrust, but since then we haven't seen any more except for the ones that were caught in traps.

　Perhaps the Great Salamander is nocturnal and difficult to find in the daytime.

　If you look for them at night, you may be able to find them, but of course the danger is high.

　Without lights, they can't see what's going on around them, and if the lights are too bright, there is a risk of attracting demons.

But I don't see any fish in this city. Are they not coming in from Sahlstat?　It's so close.

　It takes a wagon a day to get there.
　The carpenters all shook their heads.

No one's coming in.
"It's too bad, the fish in Sahlstat. It's not even cheap.

"Even though it's close to the city, if it's raw, you need to freeze or cool it with magic.　Or dried or salted like we do when we transport them to faraway places. It will be more expensive, but the taste will be better. ......

"Oh, .......

　Simon and the others said this with a bitter look on their faces, and we all shouted in agreement.

　If it's made from the same fish we ate in Sahlstat, it's certainly not very tasty. If it was expensive, it would be better to buy meat.

　I wondered why the people of that town were not afraid to eat such fish, but I wondered if it was some kind of regional delicacy.

"If it has fish in it, I can't serve it at a stall.
"We're adventurers, after all. We are adventurers, just like Simon and the others are carpenters.


There's a difference!

　That's what Simon and the others laugh at.

We can't sell it, but we made a lot today, so please eat a lot.
"Oh!　We don't get to eat it often. We don't mind!

　As he said, Simon and his friends continued to eat without hesitation, and the cauldron was emptied in no time.

　　　　I'm not going to go out of this gate.

It's the first time you've been out of this gate.
"That's right. I've been around here a lot.

　Just outside the south gate, there was a field.

　Most of the food consumed in Laffan is imported, so it's not a huge area, but it's still pretty big.

　It was quite a sight to see vegetables growing there, but I had never been here before, so this was the first time I had seen them.

　Even though the Adventurer's Guild building is located near the south gate, we have always used the east gate to go out, and the land we purchased is located behind the guild to the east, so we never passed by the gate.

Some people are working as farmers. Is it safe to go around here?
The visibility is good. If it looks dangerous, they'll run into town.
You can see all the way to the forest.

　Even from the gate, you can see people working in the forest, far beyond the fields.

　If the lumberjacks are cutting trees there and the adventurers are guarding them, it's unlikely that the demons will be able to get past them and come to the field.

　If that is the reason for the layout of the field, it must be very safe.

　As we walked along the path, the closer we got to the forest, the more we heard the "cone, cone" sound of axes chopping down trees.

　Considering the amount of noise and the frequency of the occasional tree falling, it seems that there are quite a few lumberjacks cutting wood.

　In the work area that came into view, there were only two or three adventurers for every lumberjack. Because they were cutting down trees, they were spread out over a wide area with a certain distance between them.

　In addition to guarding, the adventurers' work includes collecting branches and carrying logs.

　It is doubtful that they would be useful as guards if they were fatigued from such work, but I guess that is not a problem in this area.

...... Oh, you don't cut down all the trees from the edge, do you?
Yeah, it's more like thinning.

　As I got closer, I noticed that the lumberjacks were only cutting down the biggest trees in a certain area. The rest of the trees are left behind and moved from place to place.

Is this to maintain the forest resources?
Is there a rule?

　Considering that the city of Raffan is built on wood industry, the disappearance of resources is a matter of life and death.

　In light of this, Yuki was right, it would not be surprising if there were some sort of regulation.

　However, in this case, the remaining trees would get in the way, and it would be very difficult to cut them out from deep in the forest.

　Even now, a number of adventurers were coming out of the forest carrying a log, but their steps were slow because there was no proper path.

They look more like day laborers than adventurers.
That's part of the Adventurer's Guild. We've never had one.
Oh, Tommy did, did he? Men's work.

　There may be some fighting against goblins, but from the looks of it, the work of adventurers in this forest is mainly manual labor.

　They've been training diligently day in and day out, so it's probably not impossible for us to take on this job, but I'm a little hesitant to let Haruka and the others take on this job.

　There are almost no female adventurers in the area. The reason I say "almost" is that there are some male adventurers who might be women, but I can't tell. And he's obviously a lot bigger than me.

...... For now, let's go around them without getting in their way and enter the forest.
"Right. We'll be in the way if we stay here.

Ahh!

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