Pioneering the Apocalyptic World - Chapter 8

Chapter 2: When you think it’s kelp…

Even if I say that I’m looking for a resident, my movement range was narrow because I limited it to the range where I could return in half a day, but so far I haven’t been able to find any traces of people.
So, without any hints, i’m going to have to search for them by guesswork, but for the time being I decided to head downstream along the river.
There are several reasons for this. First of all, not only the player, but also the residents cannot live without water. So it is very possible that they live along the river.
And if you go downstream, you will eventually reach the sea. Based on my experience with the game, there were quite a few fishing villages along the coast. I can expect good items from them too.
Even if the area don’t have any villages, you can make salt in the sea, and there are plenty of food such as shrimp, crabs, shellfish, and seaweed, and you can make glass from sand, and if you’re lucky, you can get gold dust. There is many benefits in the sea and no reasons to not go there.

“Well, I can’t move through the grasslands and forests without a compass. In that respect, the river is convenient because all you have to do is follow it.”

The compass is an item that points to the nearest creator god statue, but there weren’t enough items to make it… The ores are lacking…
Even if I get lost, I can return with the return stone, but I don’t know where the places that the search has been completed, so I’ll have to go to that direction eventually, but I’d like to refrain from doing so at the moment.

Not too fast to avoid losing SP more than necessary, and not too slow to avoid wasting time, I keep walking at a constant speed.
Even if the footing is somewhat bad, it is helpful that i can’t sprain my feet or felt muscle pain caused by fatigue. Is it because this world is Asteria or because i am a miko… I wonder how far this world is similar to my original world.

On the way, if i find a wild bird i hunt it with a bow, if i find a new type flower i collect it.
If the statue of the creator god have more flowers around it, it will cause a positive effect. Well, of course, the flower from the statue are also a material.
I had a faint desire to find a mountain to mine or something, but in the first place there is no mountain here*¹. Although there is a possibility that ores are buried in places other than mountains, as expected, if i use all my time digging for it, my original purpose will be lost.

“Hmm… it still looks like it will take a long time”

After walking all day and with the time approaching evening, the river hadn’t thickened yet, and the mouth of the river seemed far away.
Even if i force myself to continue walking the probability of finding a resident is low and having to keep moving around an area i’m visiting for the first time at night, that is to me a pass, so i began the preparations to camp for night.
I set up a tent (if i wanted to build a house, i could do it, but it’s a waste of time and SP) After sprinkling holy water, i roast the wild birds that i hunted in the way over an open fire and in the meantime i put fishing lines in the river for additional food.

“When i was in the game, the size of the map was an attractive point… but when it comes to the real world, the time used to travel is just troublesome”

I sprinkle salt on the grilled chicken and take a bite of it while complain to myself.
Of course, even in the game, there were times when I thought it was troublesome to move around. Although it can be solved later with various methods such as carriages and golem carriages, however, at first, i had no choice, but to walk on my own feet.
While thinking that it might turn out to be more difficult than I thought, I put the fish I caught in the item box and crawled into the sleeping bag attached to the tent.

“Good night”

“That is… a bridge!”

When my mind, not my body, began to show fatigue from the unchanging path, i was finally able to find something different.
There’s something brown on the river, is it a fallen tree? That’s what i thought, but as i got closer, i gradually began to understand the details, and realized that it wasn’t a fallen tree, but a bridge.
The reason bridges are built is, of course, for people to use them. Not created by animals or monsters. I was hoping that there might be a resident nearby, but…

“……It’s broken……”

Is it deterioration over time, a disaster or a monster? I don’t know the cause, but the bridge was collapsed from the middle to the other side and it wasn’t in a usable state.

“Hmm, just because the bridge is not in a condition to be crossed don’t means that there is no residents in the other side, if I can’t find someone after searching in this side for a while, let’s go over the other side.”

While avoiding became dispirited at the state of the bridge, I think positively, just worrying over it won’t change anything.

“Well, searching this side….there are no visible traces to follow, let’s just follow the river like this.”

Where people pass, roads naturally form. If I search for it, I might find traces, but since I don’t have that kind of ability, I decided to go straight to the sea as originally planned.

Then it became night again, and by the next day around the noon.
I finally arrived.

“It’s the sea!”

I was so happy that I unintentionally spread my hands wide and started running while screaming. It was just a charming mistake that i got my foot stuck in the sand and fell over.
Even though my LP(Life Points) have decreased a little, I still have a big smile on my face.

“Haha, of course it smells like the sea!”

Even though my whole body is covered with sand, I take a deep breath without wiping it off. Even the sticky wind from the tide doesn’t bother me now.
However, I didn’t come here to sunbathe. After taking a break and enjoying it for a while, I get up and go to the coastline.

“Okay, okay, there is a lot of shellfish. With this, i’ll have more recipes for the meals.”

Roughly capture it with a shovel. In addition, or rather, this one is far more important, I collected a large amount of sand, this also turned into a block after using the normal process.*²
The most eye-catching item that can be created from sand is glass.
With this, i will be able to make glass windows, and i will be able to make glass bottles, create recovery potions that are the high version of wound medicines, and advance my alchemy skill.
For items higher than that, i’ll need a distiller and a cauldron, so it’s still impossible in to go all the way to the top.

“I really want to build a salt manufacturing system where there are people.”

Since the amount of rock salt that i have is small, i would like to be able to stably produce salt from seawater, but i would need a fairly large facility.
It would be inconvenient to build such equipment in a place like this. There is the option to make this place a second base, but let’s use it as a reserve means when we can’t find a fishing village.
Well, i don’t have enough material to make it in the first place.

“Wait, let’s make only the statue of the Creator God and leave.”

It’s like a save point that can be used by making return stones.
However, it is not possible to make as much as wanted. I can’t create Returning Stones unless there is a certain distance between them and if i create them in an uninhabited area and leave them untended for a long time, i will get penalties, so i can’t create them without thinking. Also, if i make it in a place where the power of the God of Destruction is strong, it will break immediately.

“Thank you very much, God of Creation…… Well, I wonder if there’s a fishing village somewhere?.”

After making a stone statue of the creator god and an altar, lightly praying and creating a return stone, I look around restlessly.
I couldn’t find anything that looked like it, so I decided to walk along the coast. Don’t forgetting to watch my steps, i search the shore.
Various items may wash up on the shore. There are many cases of being just ordinary items, it can be a message bottle containing a letter that doesn’t have any particular meaning or on rare occasions a starting point for an event.

“The kelp is also washed ashore like that.”

Ahead of my line of sight, a thick black mass had fallen.
Konbu*³ is, of course, an ingredient item and depending on the dish, it may taste better or be more effective, so it is definitely a must-have item.

“Hmm?”

If I look closely, i can see a white stuff wrapped around the kelp.
It’s looks like a piece of cloth or like a human arm…

“Eh? that’s not kelp, it’s hair… it’s a person!!!!!?”

*¹Translator note: mine(??) is a word made of ore(?) + mountain(?) so this phrase could be considered a pun: let alone ores, there is not even a mountain, as the original sentence didn’t make much sense translated, so i modified it from :
“I had a faint desire to find a mine or something, but there is no mountain in the first place”
to
“I had a faint desire to find a mountain to mine or something, but in the first place there is no mountain here”

*²Translator note: in this phrase is used the expression (??????????) that could be roughly translated to (inserting one cushion) and is used in to describle words that are used to avoid speaking direct to the point, to avoid being blunt.
searching a equivalent expression in english was too troublesome so i just substituted as : using the normal process (that is basicaly collect it as sand pile, stack the sand in the inventory and take it from the inventory as blocks).
here is a explanation direct from a jp site(by google translator 50%):
Description: Even in ordinary conversation, we say, “Excuse me, but…”, “Um…” and casually use catchwords like this.
These words are called ( inserting one cushion) by using them, we try not use straight words(being blunt) and express subtle nuances.

*³Translator note: Konbu is a type edible kelp that is commonly consumed in japan, it is normally used in soup or stew recipes to give flavor and is not the thing that onigiri is wrapped with, that is called nori.