Escape From a Deserted Island With Enemy Female Soldiers

41 – Let’s Make It (3)

Sleeping in the same bed as Su-in.

It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought.

[‘Oh, my god.’]

[‘Heavens! I have lost a junior today!’]

First off, the smell I’d been most worried about was almost nonexistent. The idea that Su-in would stink was just prejudice, it seems.

And it was a bit cold, but not unbearable. All in all, a satisfying sleep.

“Hwaaam.”

The fox engineer let out a deep yawn, still clutching her own tail. As soon as she woke up, she rubbed her eyes and stretched.

Like a cat, she arched her back, once forward, once back. Her two tails sway like reeds.

“Kkuaaaeaeueuhhaaangkkihyaaang!”

The craziness is a given.

“This bed was really good. 140 out of 100 points. And 40 of those are for the wilderness bonus!”

I’d been worried that the engineer might have bad sleeping habits, but it was pointless. She slept calmly, unlike what I expected.

The Saint and the Valkyrie also woke up. Both had their hair a mess.

“Major Brokenheart, how do you feel?”

“Much better than yesterday.”

“Let’s keep an eye on you until today, just in case.”

A new day begins. We loosened up lightly, then decided on what to do. Truth be told, all we had to do was find food and make a plan to escape the island.

“It feels like there’s a leader on this island too.”

The Saint spoke to me.

“If you take down the leader, you’ll be able to go to the next island.”

I nodded.

The leader.

After taking down the ghoul on the last island, we got a bundle of ancient texts.

Deciphering those texts revealed information about entities called ‘gatekeepers’ on each island.

From experience, taking down a gatekeeper opens the path to the next island. That’s how it was with the Siren, and with the ghoul too.

[‘I wonder why.’]

[‘It does seem intentional.’]

The Saint, true to her religious nature, interpreted it as karma. She reasoned that defeating the gatekeeper would dispel that much evil energy, clearing away the fog.

It wasn’t something I cared to delve into. All I wanted was escape.

“How should we arrange the teams for today?”

“The fox and I will move together.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Is there a problem?”

“No, there isn’t, it’s just…”

The Saint hesitated.

“I know what you’re about to say. Mages despise beastkin, they only see them as animals, not humans. That kind of talk is pretty famous, so isn’t that it?”

“…Yes, that’s right.”

“Truthfully, it does bother me. But I don’t hate them that much. They’re different, not wrong.”

The saint’s lips press shut.

“In this environment, what does race matter? If we can cooperate, they’re allies and comrades.”

I brushed off my uniform.

“I’ll go first.”

I bowed to the saint and turned away. Before leaving with the sapper, I looked at her eyes one last time; they were yellow.

Lumina’s yellow is a color that represents positive emotions like joy or affection.

Looks like the saint is in a good mood today.

*

Another of Tiria’s prejudices shattered today.

The mage didn’t discriminate against or hate the beastkin. It wasn’t that he wasn’t showing it, either.

He simply didn’t have prejudices. Just yesterday he shared a stone bed with a beastkin, which is proof of his open-mindedness. Typical bigots would rather not even share a table with a beastkin, let alone the same bed.

“He’s consistent.”

After the mage and Riyo departed into the forest, Tiria pondered his words.

“If we can cooperate, they’re allies and comrades, huh.”

Right now, there’s neither the Holy Spirit Nation nor the Magician Nation on this island.

In other words, there’s no need to consider positions, for the moment.

She was not the saint of the Holy Spirit Nation, but Tiria Kasten, and the man was not a mage of the Magician Nation, but Erich Ronstein.

Similarly, Rachel was Rachel, and Riyo was Riyo.

The man must surely think the same way.

“So, what’s important isn’t magic, but the attitude of the person using the magic?”

Focusing on the essence.

Believing in things as they are.

Even in the original texts of the scriptures, the phrase to love and respect others for who they are is emphasized dozens of times. The man, though not a believer, seemed to have grasped that essence.

Perhaps *he* is the saint, not I.

Surging up was shame, and also a willing acceptance.

“Is this… enlightenment?”

Tyria picked up a yellow fruit and mumbled. The mage had picked it yesterday; too much would be poisonous, but in moderation, it was a berry with painkilling properties.

The sourness followed by a rush of sweetness.

It was like the pain and pleasure that came from dismantling and rebuilding the scriptures she had read so far.

“I will thank you, Erich.”

It was the moment a naive girl was reborn as a true seeker.

*

It’s hardly a novel revelation, but I and the beastfolk just can’t communicate.

I’ve started to grasp a bit of the Ascalian language, but I’m still pretty clumsy. I barely talk to the Valkyrie, and my main conversations have been with the saintess, in the mage kingdom’s tongue.

Let’s be logical. If you’re speaking your native language to a foreigner, how would your foreign language skills improve?

For that reason, my Holy Spirit Kingdom language is still pretty rough, and when I need to communicate with the fox engineer, I have to resort to gestures and body language.

However.

A hero recognizes a hero.

“Wow, these pebbles will be so useful!”

The engineer took off her top and wrapped it up like a bundle. She began collecting stones like a village girl harvesting potatoes.

It’s not like I’m just grabbing any old rock.

Only the good ones, the ones easy to shape into magic stones, are getting picked.

I was sure of it.

This guy, he’s an intellect.

“I’ll make a water purifier with these, and reinforce the stone bed too. Hehe.”

Look at that grin, he’s lugging a bucket of stones instead of potatoes. How utterly innocent is that? If you just took away his ears… no, even with his ears, he’s cute.

[‘Senior?’]

[‘Junior?’]

“Ah.”

I slapped both my cheeks.

I also started picking up rocks that looked useful, while looking around. Besides that, I did all sorts of things, like chopping firewood and setting traps, slowly making my way deeper into the forest.

And then.

“Huh?”

At some point, the atmosphere of the forest changed.

If it was a broadleaf forest a moment ago, this was now a bamboo grove.

[“How dare you set foot in our territory.”]

Thwack, thwack, thwack.

Flowers holding bamboo spears appeared.

Not the kind of flowers you’d find in a fairy tale. These were the type with finger-shaped, ivory-colored petals. They dragged their frail roots as they walked.

[“It’s been a while since we’ve seen a human?”]

[“We should tell Alraune.”]

[“She probably already knows. Just eliminate the intruders.”]

The flowers whispered amongst themselves, a rustling hiss.

My response and the sapper’s, upon facing them, was singular.

Prepare for battle.

[“Capture them!”]

[“Turn the females into fertilizer, and use the males as studs!”]

[“Our bamboo tribe will finally achieve something!”]

The flowers hurled bamboo spears. We each ducked behind different bamboo stalks. First, we needed to assess the enemy’s numbers and formation. Five on the left, eight on the right.

Unlike the scattered left flank, the right was clustered together, making them prime for a swift wipeout.

“Fox!”

I signaled the sapper. She nodded, drawing her axe.

*Tap tap tap!*

The fox beastkin’s agility was on par with a valkyrie blessed by the goddess of war. Just because she was part of the sapper squad didn’t mean her combat senses were dull. Foxes were, fundamentally, hunters.

The sapper’s axe connected with the first flower. The flower’s base was cleaved clean in an instant.

*Keeeeeek!*

I pulled a mana stone from my pouch.

The mana stone I’d crafted yesterday.

A secondary magicka reactive agent, of the igneous rock family: heliolite.

Heliolite was also known by the alias ‘sea fire’. Because once it ignited on a target, it would swirl like a circulating sea current, incinerating *only* that target.

After agonizing over how to deal with the monsters without setting the forest ablaze, I combined the igneous rocks I’d picked up yesterday and made this magic stone.

The effect was better than expected.

Finding a moment, I tossed the sunstone into a gathering of eight, and they all went up in flames at once. The flowers, with their damn mouths, were screaming from all over the place.

“Hoo.”

The burning smell is worse than garbage. Once the flowers were completely charred, I stomped them with my boots to make sure the fire didn’t spread.

“This side’s done. What about your side?”

“Done!”

The engineer came bounding over like a dog. No, more like a fox here, I guess?

“Yesterday we got jumped by those oak and chestnut-looking things, today it’s bamboo.”

“There’s a huge variety of lumber on this island. The soil looks really nutrient-rich too. Maybe there was some volcanic activity in the past?”

Whatever.

Bamboo is incredibly useful stuff. We could use it to make all sorts of weapons and tools.

“Hmm, is there no way to move it in bulk?”

“Hmm, we can’t carry too much at once, can we?”

“Making a cart could help in the long run.”

“Even a wheelbarrow would be useful.”

Our eyes met as the engineer and I muttered to ourselves.

Yeah. Heroes recognize heroes.

Similarly, gearheads recognize gearheads.

Without a doubt, we were thinking the same thing.