Chapter 202

Returning the Favor (2)

The sight of a dragon effortlessly chewing through mithril made me wonder whether an accident might happen soon.

Tyranno might think he was biting gently, only to tear off chunks of flesh.

The risk was especially high because Tyranno often played with Wonmo.

Fortunately, Wonmo had already learned to control his strength while playing with the raccoons.

For both their sakes, Tyranno needed to learn the same lesson.

"Tyranno, bite me here."

"Bebi?"

With Tyranno perched on my shoulder, I pointed at my forearm.

He closely examined the spot I was pointing at, seemingly focused.

"Bite down slowly until I say it hurts. Like this. Chomp!"

When I mimed biting my forearm, Tyranno tilted his head.

Rather than explaining it verbally, I decided to demonstrate.

It was fine if he wanted to nibble us as a sign of affection, but his bite was far too powerful.

He needed to learn how to bite gently before an accident occurred.

In other words, I needed to teach him restraint and drill it into him.

"Pii!"

Tyranno apparently understood what I meant, because he smiled brightly and bit my forearm.

Crunch!

"Aaaaaaargh! No! No, that’s not it! Let go! Let go!"

"Pipi?!"

The moment he bit down, my bone nearly snapped.

I hurriedly stopped Tyranno, and he immediately pulled away upon hearing my scream.

When I examined my forearm, I found a distinct set of teeth marks.

How did it leave only marks? It wouldn’t have been strange if his teeth had pierced straight through.

My bone hadn’t broken, but the area was badly bruised.

I would probably have to inject some elixir into it soon.

"See? Your bite is that strong. You mustn’t bite your friends so hard."

"Piiii...."

"It’s okay. It’s okay. Mistakes happen. Come on, let’s try again."

Through consistent repetition, Tyranno quickly learned how to control his strength.

His intelligence was so high that he seemed to grasp exactly what I wanted.

Now that I no longer needed to worry about any accidents, only one concern remained.

How am I going to manage our food?

With another mouth to feed, our food shortage had become an urgent problem.

Largo could survive on leaves, but the other animals couldn’t.

Every last one of them is a glutton.

To make matters worse, winter was just around the corner.

I needed to stockpile enough food to survive it.

Potatoes were one of the most obvious foods to store for winter.

GrowGrowGrow had given me seed potatoes, so I only needed to plant them.

...Should I make kimchi too?

The pointless thought crossed my mind, but I immediately dismissed it.

Who had time to make kimchi in a situation like this? I didn’t even eat much kimchi to begin with.

It seemed best to search through the Gallery.

If I couldn’t find the answer, I could always ask someone.

Oh... Bread is an option too.

I quickly found several foods suitable for winter storage.

There was the smoked meat I had previously made by salting it, as well as salted vegetables.

Rice and wheat were said to be particularly suitable for surviving winter. Both simply needed to be stored somewhere cool.

For now, I planned to ask GrowGrowGrow for help.

If they didn’t have any, I would have to search the auction house for seeds.

There are also cabbages, spinach, radishes, and potatoes, but....

Trying to store too many different foods might only make things confusing.

Let’s survive this winter on wheat, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. In that case....

I needed to learn how to harvest wheat.

Rather than searching for the information myself, I asked GrowGrowGrow. That seemed much faster.

GrowGrowGrow: Once you’ve harvested the wheat, you need to dry it within four hours. Otherwise, its quality will deteriorate.

Wild Grylls: What happens if I don’t?

GrowGrowGrow: It’ll either rot or grow mold, won’t it?

Wild Grylls: ;;

I had originally planned to make bread from wheat flour.

However, after hearing the explanation, I gave up.

There was simply far too much work involved. Noodles would be much easier than bread.

Even producing the flour itself took a long time.

Come to think of it, bakers exist, but there isn’t a profession dedicated solely to cooking rice.

Since I had cooked rice at home every day, I had assumed making bread would be just as manageable.

But just as turning rice into rice cakes was difficult, baking bread was no simple task either.

So I changed my plan from wheat to rice.

GrowGrowGrow didn’t have any rice seeds, so I planned to ask someone else.

I can ask the Heavenly Demon, right?

Since the Central Plains came from a martial-arts world, there was a high chance that rice was available there.

I handed some soil over to GrowGrowGrow and contacted the Heavenly Demon.

Heavenly Demon: You are asking this one for rice?

Wild Grylls: Rice seeds, to be precise. I’m planning to grow it myself.

Heavenly Demon: Very well. This one shall have a close aide procure some for you.

Wild Grylls: Thank you.

Now that I would soon receive rice seeds from the Heavenly Demon, I decided to dry the wheat first.

I needed to thresh it before drying it, but removing every grain by hand would be incredibly difficult.

Therefore, I needed a threshing tool.

Since I would soon be harvesting rice as well, it wasn’t optional but essential.

A threshing tool is one thing, but I’ll also have to remove the husks.... Did farmers really do all this work by hand?

My respect for farmers suddenly began soaring.

I searched the auction house for threshing and husking tools.

"Isn’t this a comb?"

I found a threshing tool that looked somewhat like a comb.

More precisely, it was a comb-shaped piece of iron.

I purchased it and examined its construction. It was roughly the size of a person’s head.

I insert the heads of the grain between these teeth and pull, right?

One look was enough to understand how it worked.

So, what should I do next?

Make Ludwig do it, of course.

Before that, I spread a cloth over the ground.

Then I placed a chair at its edge and secured the threshing tool on top of it.

"Come on. Let’s get to work."

"Mm."

Rattle-rattle-rattle!

We inserted the wheat heads between the densely packed teeth and pulled.

Plump, appetizing grains showered onto the cloth.

Lick. Lick.

"Hey, Tyranno! You can’t eat that!"

"Pii?"

Tyranno tried licking up a few grains in the middle of our work, but I barely managed to stop him.

Afterward, we diligently threshed all the wheat we had harvested so far.

We gathered the separated grains and placed them somewhere that received plenty of sunlight.

Drying them like chili peppers should work.

I didn’t forget to apply insect repellent either.

The birds... won’t come back, right?

The birds had fled from Tyranno’s intimidating presence long ago.

At least while Tyranno was here, they probably wouldn’t return.

So, what should I do while waiting for the grain to dry?

"Ludwig, I’m going out to scout the area."

"Mm."

I headed out to hunt while conducting reconnaissance.

Ludwig should be more than capable of defending the shelter.

Besides, Kkobong was there with him.

Kkobong was also diligently using the threshing tool.

After all, we couldn’t survive the entire winter on nothing but rice and noodles.

I had originally intended to leave Tyranno behind as well.

"Piiii! Piiii!"

"I told you, I’ll only be gone for a little while."

"Piiii! Piiiiii!"

But he clung to me, demanding that I stay—or take him with me if I insisted on leaving.

He was ridiculously strong.

Left with no choice, I decided to bring Tyranno along on the scouting trip.

Fast Sloth was already clinging to my back.

"Do you really have to sit there?"

"Pii!"

"Fine. Do whatever you want."

Tyranno settled on top of my head as though it were a nest.

He was slightly heavy, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was better than letting him wander around and get lost.

Moreover, bringing him along produced an unexpected benefit: his reactions.

"Pii."

Tyranno raised his head and cried softly, as though sensing something in a particular direction.

I was slightly skeptical, but I headed where he wanted me to go.

"Oink."

"Oh...?"

There was a wild boar.

A wild boar comparable in size to a bus.

Its enormous, movie-monster-like body and sharply protruding tusks were particularly striking.

...I saw something like that in the military once, didn’t I?

The memory remained vivid even now.

A wild boar had wandered over while we were working.

There had been a jeep right next to it, yet that miraculous boar had somehow made the vehicle look small.

"Oiiiiink!"

A boar far larger than that one charged at me.

I had more or less expected this, so I was about to calmly move out of the way when—

"Piaaaaaak!"

Tyranno released an adorable roar from atop my head.

It had worked on the birds, but I wondered whether it would work on a wild boar.

"Oink?!"

Screeeeech!

It worked.

Extremely well, in fact.

The moment the boar heard Tyranno’s roar, its eyes widened and it slammed on the brakes.

I didn’t know whether it had recognized him as a hatchling or whether the fear of dragons was simply engraved into its instincts.

One thing was certain: a tremendous opportunity had presented itself.

Seizing the moment, I charged at the boar.

Crunch!

The Heavenly Demon’s sword sank directly into the boar’s forehead.

With its brain reduced to mush, the boar convulsed for a while before collapsing limply.

Thud!

Its body was so enormous that the ground trembled slightly when it fell.

I released the breath I had been holding and stared at the fallen boar.

It was so massive that this one carcass might be enough to last us through the winter.

Of course, I would need to build a large storage room.

Fortunately, I had plenty of ice.

"...You’re incredible, aren’t you?"

"Pii!"

When I stroked his chin and praised him, Tyranno proudly raised his head.

He seemed to be boasting, See how amazing I am!

It was still adorable, though.

I tightly bound the boar with the rope I had prepared.

There was no way I could carry something this large, so I planned to drag it back.

Still... this is pretty heavy.

That was inevitable, considering its size.

I just had to think of it as our winter food supply.

Just in case, I placed Tyranno on top of the boar and had him keep watch in every direction.

There were far too many thieves in the Forest of Four Seasons to do otherwise.

"Kyu?"

When I returned while dragging the boar, Wonmo greeted us after waking from his nap.

Ludwig and Kkobong were still threshing the wheat.

Despite having left only a short while ago, I had returned with an enormous haul.

"Mister! You know how to butcher animals too, right?"

"#%$#"

"Then please help me."

Butchering this thing alone would take far too long.

Considering its sheer size, I wasn’t even sure I could butcher it properly.

Fortunately, Ludwig appeared quite skilled at it.

Perhaps his countless missions had often forced him to survive on his own.

"One, two! Pull!"

"Hup!"

"Gwoong."

Despite preparing ourselves, even the preliminary work was difficult.

It reminded me of the saber-toothed tiger.

Butchering normally began by hanging the carcass upside down, which made it easier to drain the blood.

The problem was that the boar was so enormous that even suspending it upside down was difficult.

We enlisted Largo’s help.

He was remarkably strong and managed to hoist the boar to the desired height.

He was essentially a living crane.

I had never expected to use him this way, though.

Trickle, trickle—

Draining all the blood would take some time, so I began constructing a storage room while we waited.

It wasn’t a traditional icehouse, but something closer to a freezer.

It wouldn’t be used to store tools or miscellaneous supplies. It was exclusively for food.

My ability allowed me to produce a nearly unlimited supply of ice, so sufficient insulation would be enough.

I need to make sure the heat can escape properly... Wait, I’m short on sand again?

Whenever I obtained one thing, I discovered that I needed another. Then, once I acquired that, something else would be missing.

It felt as though I had fallen into an endless cycle.

Still, this was only natural.

It might have been different if I lived alone, but as our numbers increased, so did the number of things we needed.

I have enough time. Still, I should hurry.

I traveled downstream to gather sand, returned, and continued building the storage room.

After thoroughly coating the interior with soil and straw for insulation, I resumed butchering the boar.

I wanted to make Kkobong do it, but unfortunately, he was a gorilla.

The structure of his hands made them poorly suited to delicate work like butchering.

Crackle!

Once we had made sufficient progress with the butchering, I placed ice inside the storage room.

After filling it with ice, we stored the butchered boar, grain, vegetables, and everything else that could serve as food.

I’ll cover the entrance with cloth for now. I don’t have enough time to install a proper door.

By the time we finished everything, it was four thirty in the afternoon.

If I had worked alone, I wouldn’t have finished today.

An extra pair of hands truly made an enormous difference.

"Good work. Would you like to wash up?"

"Mm."

I prepared bathwater for Ludwig, who had worked harder than anyone else today.

For the record, I planned to wash all the animals, including Kkobong.

Surprisingly, Kkobong was perfectly capable of washing himself. As long as I prepared his bathwater, he took care of everything on his own.

Largo only needed to be brushed and wiped down with a damp cloth.

Finally, there was Tyranno.

"Piiii! Piiii!"

"What’s wrong? You don’t want a bath?"

"Piiii! Pii! Piiii!"

As if he really were a cat, he vehemently refused to wash.

But for the sake of cleanliness, there was no helping it.

I had to bathe him.

He might not have fur, but there was no telling what kind of ticks might be hiding on his body.

"You won’t get dinner if you don’t take a bath."

"...Piiiing."

Fortunately, the threat of withholding food made him obedient.

And so, another uneventful day came to an end.