Jujutsushi 280.1

BGM: Punishing Grey Raven - Endless Path

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Chapter 280: The Exiled Folks
TL : Cnine
ED/PF :
R1[1-3], R2[4-6], R3[7-9]

Part 1

「Honestly, this place really is blessed.」

　The table was lined with a number of appetising dishes. Moreover, they were all very familiar Japanese cuisine.
　A bowl of white rice, miso soup with rising steam, grilled fish resembling fatty salmon, rolled omelette, pickles… It was the kind of menu that made me wonder if I was dreaming.
　Yet it was all real. This was the breakfast Futaba-san had prepared for us.

「Honestly… It was so good I nearly cried.」

「I’d usually say you’re being dramatic, but… no, I get it. After tasting it myself, I felt my eyes sting too, brother.」

　Everyone felt the same way. That nostalgic taste of Japanese food, something we thought we’d never have again, struck straight at our hearts.

「There’s still loads in the storeroom, so we can eat it again tomorrow!」

　Takanashi-san said, smiling like she was about to burst.
　The storeroom we’d found in the fortress worked just like the treasure chests. Everything inside was perfectly preserved, completely untouched by time.
　Thanks to that system, the rice and all the other ingredients were still perfectly edible.

　Momokawa had once found flour in a fortress hidden in the darker part of town, so I’d assumed this world leaned toward a bread-based food culture. I never expected they’d have rice as well.
　Still, if their ancient civilisation was advanced enough to rival our modern one, collecting ingredients from all over the world wouldn’t be strange. The storeroom was full of unfamiliar and mysterious food items we couldn’t even name.

　It was huge, packed almost to the ceiling. With only eight of us, we could probably live off it for years.
　We didn’t intend to stay here anywhere near that long, of course… but at least we didn’t have to risk going outside to hunt while hiding from the gorma.

「Ughh… honestly, I kinda wanna just live here forever.」

「Don’t say stupid things. We don’t have enough resources to stay here for life.」

　Natsukawa-san said it while spooning blueberry yoghurt into her mouth, and she actually sounded pretty serious.
　The Class Rep wasn’t wrong, but with such a sumptuous meal before us, I couldn’t really blame her.

「Anyway, as long as we’re here, we’re safe and we’ve got everything we need. What we don’t have is a plan to get through the goma kingdom.」

「Yeah. Even if we find Himeno-san’s group, if we’ve got no way to move on, we’re still stuck.」

　With a safe base and a stable living environment, it felt like we were finally able to calm down and think things through.
　Getting to this fortress was basically a miracle, and the only reason we could use any of it was thanks to Takanashi-san’s 『Sage』 ability. Without her, we wouldn’t have opened the food storeroom, and the water and baths would’ve been off-limits too.
　Even if the systems still worked, without someone who could operate them, the place would’ve been nothing more than a dead ruin.

　Honestly, we owed her big time.
　In a situation as hopeless as this, having a place where we could actually feel hopeful was all because of her…

===

「..Oi, is this really edible?」

　Mary said, sounding completely fed up as she stared at today’s hunting results.

「It’s not about whether we can eat it. If we don’t eat this thing, we’re not having dinner tonight.」

「Welp, only one way to find out. Cook it and see if it kills us.」

　“Yeah, alright, let’s do it,” Ueda and Yamada said, nodding at each other before getting stuck into butchering the game.

　At first glance, it looked like a pig. No tusks, not that big, pretty standard.
　The problem was the enormous mushroom sprouting from its back, and the four worm-like tentacles writhing around its base.

　Was this just what the monster normally looked like, or had some grotesque fungus taken over a pig?
　And if they ate it, would they end up parasitised themselves? The thought alone was enough to make anyone uneasy.

　But if they didn’t eat, they’d end up starving. They still had a little preserved food left, but that was something they wanted to save for a genuine emergency.
　If they could turn this mushroom pig, which they’d managed to kill without being spotted by any gomas, into food, they could at least get through today and probably tomorrow without going hungry.

　Even if the game looked questionable, they had no choice but to try. Bracing themselves, they set about butchering it—

「Whoa!? Oi, it’s oozing green blood!」

「God, that reeks! What the hell is wrong with this thing!?」

「I knew it, there’s no way we can eat this…」

「Hey, even if the meat’s a no-go, the mushroom bit might actually taste good, yeah?」

「Oi! Stop! Back off, all of you! This mushroom’s poisonous!」

　“Uwah—!”
　The five of them fled in a panic as the pig-mushroom began spraying green toxic spores everywhere.

　In the end, the verdict was clear. Completely inedible.
　The parasitic fungus was far too harmful. The pig itself might have been edible, but once infected, its flesh had mixed with the mushroom’s toxic components and could no longer be eaten.

　They’d gained one more piece of knowledge about the monsters of this world.
　That was the only benefit they got.

「So… what are we doing about dinner now?」

「...Hold up. Quiet for a sec.」

　Even as they slumped in disappointment after abandoning the mushroom pig, Nakajima’s unusually sharp voice cut through the air.
　Since none of them were new to fighting or survival, they instantly shut up and went on alert.

　Nakajima pointed.
　There, completely carefree, was a lone bird pecking at the dirt as if it didn’t have a worry in the world.

　A new prey at last. Everyone’s hearts united as one.

「Leave it to me. I’ll take it down with magic from here.」

　Holding their breath, the other four watched Nakajima closely.
　The bird had a dull mix of grey and brown feathers, about the size and shape of a chicken.

　However, its body was far plumper than any chicken. In fact, it was completely round.
　A perfectly spherical bird, with a chicken’s head and legs sticking out. It practically begged them to imagine just how much meat it must have on it.

　From the look of it, the round bird wasn’t a monster but simply an animal.
　No strange mushrooms parasitising it either. Almost certainly edible.

「————『Ice Sagita(Ice Arrow)』」

　The ice arrow released from Nakajima’s magic sword, the 『Cool Cutlass』, struck the round bird squarely.

　“Kwaaa—!”
　It squawked in the dumbest voice imaginable, then flopped over. A perfect hit.

「Hell yes! Good job, Nakajima!」

「Haruma-kun, you were soooo cool! I love youuu!」

「Stop. Seriously, don’t kiss me.」

　While Nakajima was being harassed by Himeno, the other three wasted no time retrieving the bird, cutting off its head, and draining the blood.
　While they happily chatted, thinking, “Looks like we can actually eat well today,” they started plucking the feathers——
　That was when the next wave of despair began.

「Oi, what the hell is this? There’s barely any meat on it!」

　Once plucked, the bird revealed a pitiful, crane-like thinness.
　It had the sleek, bony build of a crane, without a scrap of extra meat on it.
　It turned out the bird had only looked ‘round’ because it was basically ninety percent feathers.
　Remove those, and the thing was what, half the size? No—maybe only a third the size of a normal chicken.

「Oi… so what’re we doing about dinner now…?」

　With nothing else to do, the five of them chopped up the sad, skinny fake bird and split the scraps, wrapping up the day’s meal.

===

　The fortress didn’t just have plenty of food. It also stored a large number of objects that looked like ancient weapons and pieces of equipment.

「Well then, Takanashi-san, we’re counting on you.」

「Yep! Leave it to Kotori!」

　Takanashi-san rolled up her sleeves with full confidence—Right, I’ve got this!—and prepared to work on our gear upgrades.

　We’d already upgraded our equipment as far as the School Tower could manage in preparation for the Yamata-no-Orochi fight.
　Without super-rare monster drops, a massive core, or a ridiculously bright lightstone, there wasn’t much left we could improve.

　However, the ancient relics here were made from materials that represented the peak of technology of their age.
　Even if the weapons themselves no longer functioned, the substances composing them remained unchanged.
　No rust, no cracks, no signs of wear.

　In short, we weren’t going to repair the ancient weapons.
　We were going to use them as high-grade materials.

　Now that I could finally use the 『Simple Alchemy Formation』, and with Sakura and the Class Rep having gained some experience thanks to Momokawa’s constant demands, the three of us joined Takanashi-san to assist her.

　Our job was to dismantle the weapons she selected as thoroughly as possible.
　When reusing them as materials, there was a huge difference in alchemical precision between feeding in an intact weapon and supplying neatly separated parts made from the same substance.

　Since this was a fortress, it also had fully equipped facilities for maintaining and processing weapons.
　We had no idea what most of the devices did or how to use them, but Takanashi-san seemed to understand some of them.
　She said that certain pieces of equipment could even outperform the Fairy Plaza fountain in terms of advanced alchemy functions, clearly making them genuine, high-grade machinery.

　With both materials and facilities in place, and with Takanashi-san fired up, she began upgrading our gear.

　Meanwhile, Natsukawa-san and Asuna, who weren’t participating in the alchemy, went outside to search for our five missing classmates.
　We had to stay wary of the Goma army, so the search didn’t make much progress.
　Even so, we couldn’t afford not to do it. Finding traces of a campsite, or anything that showed they were still alive, would have been worth it.

　In this way, we spent about a week in the fortress, and Takanashi-san’s equipment upgrades were nearly complete.

『Holy Knight’s Divine-Iron Sword』:
　From the ancient weapons, we collected fragments of the exceptionally rare metal known as 『Orichalcum(Divine Iron)』 and used them to reforge my sword.
　The finished blade, now an orichalcum alloy, emitted a delicate, mystical glow even more striking than before.