Monogatari Series - Volume 29 - Chapter 1.13

013

There may have once been an era of happy endings in which a school dropout would put their uniform back on and once again return to attending school, but now wasn’t that era. Not to mention, I had already moved out of the area covered by my school district, but in the end, my school uniform was able to materialize almost infuriatingly well.

It was the summer uniform, by the way.

I had assumed I would need to repeat several iterations of trial and error, but without even needing to carve an image into the boulder, just by tracing it out with seawater, the school uniform appeared on this uninhabited island just as I remembered it.

On this island, where not a single man-made object had existed.

Of course, the uniform of my school—rather, my former school—was the one-piece type that was rarely seen these days, meaning that it was somewhat smooth without many wrinkles and thus easier to draw and easier to recognize compared to sailor uniforms or blazers. And though there were those sorts of technical reasons for my success, it didn’t mean that I didn’t have a lot of feelings regarding the fact that I was able to so easily activate my “Skill of Snake Legs”.

I couldn’t bear my feelings of shame.

Weren’t you a little too regretful for someone in the middle of their youth, Sengoku-san? But seriously, I didn’t think I would reach my goal with just a rough draft. Was I some kind of manga where the storyboard was more interesting than the finished product?

Because even the underwear, socks, and school shoes that I hadn’t depicted had manifested as well, it was something I could only laugh at—though it was very Sengoku-san-like that a bag containing textbooks didn’t come as part of the set.

When I tried putting it on—for the first time in over a year—there was absolutely no sense of discomfort. Since I was still in my growth period, there should have been some changes to my physique (and I’d also lost a ton of weight thanks to my life on this uninhabited island), but it was almost as if the uniform had been made-to-order… Maybe it had been, for it fit me perfectly. This really was it, the school uniform that I’d worn on a daily basis until midway through my second year. It made me feel a kind of affinity that really got me motivated.

Back in that class, among those classmates.

Back when I was one of them.

I could say it had been by chance, or I could say it had been by some mysterious force, but after stepping down from my position as god, my hair had been turned into a very short cut (it really wasn’t that my hair had been “cut”, and it really did give off a “shorn” feeling), but with enough time passing, and with my wild life on this uninhabited island, my bangs had grown to be just the same length as they used to be back then.

Well, my hair was left completely uncontrolled because of the sea breeze and the sand, so it wasn’t exactly the same, not like how my materialized uniform was the same as what I’d worn before, but returning to my standard character design at the very end, after all that had happened… It unexpectedly raised my excitement levels, as though I had entered the climax of a long-running manga series.

If I had a catchphrase, now would be the time to say it.

Except I didn’t have a catchphrase.

Though I almost wanted to say something with a posed look… Regardless, my acquisition of the clothing that I’d been wanting meant that I’d finally achieved success.

Now, mountain girl.

It was time for mountain hunting.105

I was feeling a bit flustered, but I didn’t have the leeway to take a break here—this feeling of satisfaction was not the same thing as having a satisfied stomach. I felt like a mangaka with an impending deadline, but I absolutely needed to procure food from the mountains before I collapsed from hunger.

And it would be the best-case scenario if I could find shelter, too.

Of course, it would be perfect if I could meet up with other survivors on top of that—since I was no longer stark naked, it was now possible to meet others without feeling ashamed.

Or perhaps other survivors who’d washed up on this island had holed themselves up somewhere for the same reason—it wasn’t as if anyone had the magic ability to materialize clothing at any time, nor would anyone be overly attached to their school uniforms.

Well, no matter. If they didn’t have any clothes, I could just make some for them.

On one hand, if they were hiding themselves, then it would be pretty laborious to try and find them, but, well, I had better start with food, which could neither run nor hide—it was pretty likely that I was overwhelmingly deficient in pretty much every reasonably important nutrient.

It was possible that I could encounter some wild beast like a boar or a bear (far from neither running nor hiding, I would end up being chased by those), so I had better carry a weapon with me—as ignorant as I was, I was well aware that I couldn’t escape from such predicaments simply by pretending to be dead.

Since I couldn’t really imagine them very well, hunting guns were out of the question, but making a simple melee weapon was probably doable for me. And I could have materialized it using my “Skill of Snake Legs”, but I figured my handmade harpoon was fine—it was thrilling to think that my harpoon, which had not once borne any fruit in the ocean, would be useful in the mountains.

I’d dropped it in the ocean, but making a second one was no trouble. It would probably be faster to make it than to draw a picture of it.

Well, whether I had a harpoon or not, I would prefer not to encounter a wild boar or bear at all, if possible… I’d heard that wild game had a great taste, but it was more likely that I would be the one to be deliciously eaten.

One might think that it would be easier to make a spur-of-the-moment decision to make a run for it if I wasn’t carrying a weapon with me, but even if I didn’t use it as a weapon, a long stick could be useful in many ways on a mountain trail.

I wasn’t going to use it as a selfie stick, all right?

Though, if there were any trails on this uninhabited island, they would be animal trails… But anyway, let’s do this.

It would be troublesome if I couldn’t make my way back to this nudist beach (I didn’t expect to discover a cavern in a single mountain hunting trip), so, following the story of Tyltyl and Mytyl, and as a former user of stone, I began leaving rocks in the path behind me as I ventured into uncharted territory—or was it Hansel and Gretel?

If only I could actually find a house made of candy—imagine how many problems that would resolve, all at once!

I entered into the brushwood, and instead of remaining there, I proceeded even further, bravely going beyond my previous range of activities. And, as expected, there were no real path-like paths, not even any animal trails, so my harpoon came in handy pretty quickly—while sweeping away grass and branches, I headed deeper and deeper in.

There hadn’t been a squall yet today, but as I continued, the humidity increased rapidly—as though it were midsummer.

I had only just put on my uniform, but it was already soaked in sweat.

Since the sunlight was mostly blocked by the trees, I figured it would be better not to come at night—no matter how brilliant the starlight was, the darkness would probably be jet black in the mountains.

Well, even if my footing and field of vision were slightly worse than the beach in which sunlight or heavy rains poured down on me, the mountains were certainly my area of expertise—as someone who’d regularly visited the mountains, and even lived in the mountains, it was a place where Sengoku Nadeko could shine.

Though, at the time, I didn’t go mountain climbing while offhandedly wearing my school uniform, and I did actually have some level of hiking gear… But school shoes were better than being barefoot, at least.

It wasn’t like I was aiming to reach the summit, so I was going to end up aimlessly wandering around… As a matter of fact, it didn’t matter too much to me in what order I wanted to discover food, a home, or survivors, but going back to the basic principle of preserving my own life, it would be nice if I could find some fruit first.

Fruit was a bit vague of a term, but I couldn’t say I was knowledgeable about what weeds, er, what wild plants106 were edible… My knowledge of foraging was completely nonexistent. Whether it was the seven herbs of spring or the seven herbs of autumn or the seven herbs of summer or the seven herbs of winter, I wouldn’t be able to tell you a single herb.107

In the first place, did the seven herbs of summer or the seven herbs of winter really exist?

So, it would be a big help if there were some easy-to-recognize (also, easy-to-eat) fruits like apples, pineapples, or bananas—oh, but there were some mushrooms.

While I was taking care of where I stepped so I didn’t slip and fall down, I had almost stepped on them—but hmm, mushrooms…

My intuition told me that eating them carried a high risk.

I read in a book (manga) somewhere that among all the different kinds of mushrooms, poisonous ones were only limited to a few—or was it the other way around? Was it that edible mushrooms were only limited to a few varieties, out of all the different kinds of mushrooms?

At the time of Gao, Kui, Ji, Qi, what books did they read?108

It was dangerous to rely purely on books, after all.

If push came to shove, perhaps I would have no choice but to go for an all-or-nothing gamble on this, but as long as these mushrooms were not easily identifiable like shiitake or matsutake, it was probably safer to not try them—even enoki mushrooms might be a bit scary if I saw them growing in the wild. Of course, if I did find matsutake growing in the wild, I would need to figure out a way to monopolize this island.

Incidentally, how pragmatic was it to suck on the roots of trees, as opposed to mushrooms? Would I get some nutritional value out of tree leaves if I ate them? In the grass, there could be herbs or mint or mugwort or basil… If I could boil some water, I might even be afforded the luxury of getting to drink some tea.

However, I just wasn’t sure if a human stomach was capable of digesting tree roots… I had a smattering of knowledge that nori was only digestible by Japanese people, but right now, I would prefer food over knowledge.

Looking for fruit, and perhaps so I wouldn’t be tempted by the mushrooms, I turned my gaze upwards to look in the trees, only enough to make sure I didn’t fall over, but I wasn’t able to see anything of the sort. Thinking about it, not all food will hang from the branches of trees, right?

Yes, aside from fruit, there were root crops, which didn’t just grow underfoot, but were cultivated underground and hidden from view. Perhaps I needed to remodel my harpoon, DIY-style, into a shovel… If I could dig out some mountain yams without smashing them—well, it was fine even if they got smashed up a bit.

I wasn’t too concerned about the shape.

I would be fully satisfied even with imperfect yams.

I had put on this detestable uniform so as not to be injured while strutting around on this steep mountain, but ultimately, before I knew it, my fingers were chafed and bleeding lightly… It really had been correct to not recklessly challenge the mountains while stark naked.

Well, my hands had already become battered from pitching practice, so a few new injuries weren’t too much of a concern… However, I still needed to be careful. Even before the fruit, the plants themselves could be as toxic as poisonous mushrooms.

Plants that could irritate my skin if I carelessly touched them.

The lacquer tree was probably the most well-known, but there had to be others—and so, the mountains were full of hazards. And even if they weren’t poisonous, there were also plants like roses that were prickly with thorns.

I couldn’t let down my guard in any direction.

Perhaps I should have made some work gloves.

In any case, there were no pigs that could sniff out truffles for me, and I didn’t have the skill necessary to uncover root crops growing in the dirt, so I returned my gaze once more to the trees above me, but oh! In the distance, there was something like a beehive.

A beehive…!

A beehive, and not referring to the internal organs of a cow…!109

There was the daring option of knocking down the hive with my harpoon for the sake of beeswax, but I was not that foolish—I was able to tell that it wasn’t a hive of honeybees.

There weren’t any bees around the hive, so I wasn’t certain, but it seemed more like a hornet’s nest…? I had begun to unconsciously back away. Since entering the mountains, I’d been on guard for bears or boars, but apparently, the leading cause of death in Japan due to wild animals was not actually any carnivore, but hornets.

They really gave it a cute name like “sparrow bee”, didn’t they?110—Kaiki-san had once made an oddity possess Karen-san before, but what kind of a bee was that, again? The kakoi-hibachi?

I’d heard that Karen-san had also gone mountain climbing. Or rather, she’d secluded herself in the mountains for training.

If those were actually hornets, then someone with a gluttonous mindset might wonder if the larvae would be edible, and I couldn’t say that the thought didn’t come to mind, but from what I could tell after careful observation while maintaining a safe distance, it seemed that in that beehive, neither honeybees nor hornets were in residence.

Perhaps they’d moved someplace else.

Even bees were fussy about where they lived, and yet I’d spent as much as two weeks burying myself in the sand… How pitiful I was. And I still hadn’t discovered any caves or caverns yet.

Assuming this uninhabited island really was in the Okinawa region, it wouldn’t really be a story that was too good to be true if I happened to find a natural cave here… I would be fine with a hut, too.

And that wasn’t totally just me being delusional.

It shouldn’t be a totally impossible proposition.

Even if this was an uninhabited island, it wasn’t necessarily the case that it had always been uninhabited—it was just like Ononoki-chan had mentioned, back on that nostalgic plane, right? Assuming I didn’t fabricate those poor memories because of my mental toll from living on this island.

Right, it wasn’t a fabrication. Ononoki-chan had certainly said that Yubu Island, in the town of Taketomi, had once been at risk of becoming uninhabited—if so, it wouldn’t be entirely unusual if there were once inhabited islands that never ended up being revitalized.

And this island could be one of them.

However, considering that I hadn’t seen a single man-made object after coming this far along this pathless path, those hopes were short-lived—though I would be extremely grateful to come across even a single empty plastic bottle.

No, no. I had to be appreciative of Mother Nature.

Since I was no longer stark naked but equipped with my uniform, it was hard to say that I was still one with nature (“Get out of the forest, human!”), but as I pushed deeper into the mountains, I could feel my once-dormant senses becoming sharpened.

If I listened closely, I could hear signs of life from all around me—I really could hear it all, the shaking of trees, the chirping of insects, the murmur of a stream.

The murmur of a stream… Was it a mountain stream?

Okay, if this wasn’t just an auditory hallucination that I fabricated, then a mountain stream was a huge find. Of course, what my body desired right now was not hydration but nutrition, but a mountain stream could cover for the fact that I’d recklessly plunged into the mountains without even a canteen.

Wasn’t this discovery of a watering place essentially a gold rush after striking gold? With the amount of overwork I had to do before to secure such a tiny amount of water—like hornet, or rather, sparrow tears111—I was filled with so much gratitude that my value system was plummeting.

As though I’d succeeded in cultivating matsutake mushrooms.

Furthermore, when it came to a mountain stream with flowing water and not salt water, the surrounding nature had to be abundant with things to eat… Surely it would be there, the fruit parlor that I’d been dreaming of! A southern resort, instead of a nudist beach!

And I had the mental image of freshwater fish being easier to catch than the fish in the sea—I didn’t expect that this harpoon, which I’d brought for self-defense, would become useful like this! Although I was going to use rocks, anyway!

Apparently, the advice stating that you should find a stream and follow it if you are lost on a mountain is not always correct, but regardless, I changed course, heading in the direction from which I could hear the sound of water.

Though it wasn’t on the level of going down cliffs, the slopes were pretty steep. Still, it wasn’t something I could turn my back on, and you couldn’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs—though that wasn’t a good saying for my empty stomach.112 I found myself crawling on all fours, in order to obtain my water rights.

As I thought, even if I put on my uniform, I was still a wild beast.

To start with the conclusion, there was no mountain stream at my destination—I could imagine that monotone voice saying, “That’s Nadekou for you, same as always,” but what was actually there was something beyond what I’d expected, something beyond a mountain stream.

There was a shogunate.

The Kamakura shogunate, or the Edo shogunate?

No, it wasn’t that I reincarnated into a different world.

At such a crucial moment, I’d gotten the kanji wrong. I really did need more education, didn’t I? Incidentally, due to my lack of education, I had no idea where Muromachi was supposed to be located. What I wanted to say was not bakufu as in “shogunate”, but bakufu as in “waterfall”.113

Complete with a waterfall lake—it wasn’t anything small-scale like a mountain stream, but a massive watering place, one where I could feel the spray of water just by standing nearby.

Could this be Niagara Falls?

Had I drifted all the way to Canada?

This waterfall probably wasn’t on that level, but from the perspective of my emotional state, that was how impressed I felt—what exactly had I been doing all this time, licking at the underside of leaves?

To think there was such a magnificent shower, not even an hour’s walk away—although, the height difference was such that if I tried to directly take a shower, it would turn into something more like waterfall meditation.

I could even be crushed flat.

But I couldn’t keep myself from entering the water.

Stripping out of my uniform and becoming naked once again, I leapt into the depths—up until now, I’d been washing my sweat and dirt away in sand bathing or sea bathing or the squalls, so if there was an opportunity for me to soak in fresh water, I would return to my wild state without a moment’s hesitation.

Of course, I gulped down as much as I wanted, too.

I wanted to fill all of my internal organs with water if I could.

For hygienic reasons, it would probably have been better to sterilize the water by boiling it, whether it was fresh water or spring water, but I hadn’t been able to think of that before my instincts took over.

For this moment, it was fine if I got a bit of a stomachache.

It truly felt like I was coming back to life—was this how immortal oddities felt when they were reviving? The water currents also felt extremely good. I found myself thinking that, even if I were to return home alive, I might never need to heat up another bath for the rest of my life. Even in the middle of winter, I would take cold baths.

“Haah—”

After settling down a bit and regaining my senses, I recalled the merciless rule of uninhabited islands that catching a cold would prove fatal, so I decided to revoke my pledge of cold baths, clambered out of the depths, and sat down on a comfortable-looking boulder in the vicinity for a short break.

I was sopping wet, but without the basic necessity known as a bath towel, the only way I could dry myself was to wait—since the canopy was a little more open around these parts, the sunlight was coming down to a certain extent, so I was sure I’d be dry pretty soon.

Thus, I’d underrated my little intermission, but while my body dried pretty quickly, my hair, which had grown quite long from my life on this uninhabited island, would just not get dry.

I’d erred in my estimation.

Even though I’d gotten used to that when I’d had a very short cut.

Instead of a bath towel, I suppose I should have been seeking a hair dryer—while I was drowning myself in the cold water (just a metaphor. My feet could reach the bottom), I hadn’t really been paying attention, but just from looking at the surface of the water, I could make out the silhouettes of several fish, small as they were. Even in the worst case, it didn’t seem like I would be dying of starvation here—I might as well make this location my new base.

Because of all the fond memories, I was very, very reluctant to have to leave the nudist beach, but if food and water were all but guaranteed here, I couldn’t waver. After that, there would be nothing more to say if I could find a cave that seemed easy to live in, like a home that was close to a station—now, hold on!

There really might be nothing more to say!

The narrator might be stunned silent!

I looked towards the waterfall in the hopes of there being a cave of treasure hidden behind it, but of course, there naturally was nothing of the sort, but I did find something similar on the opposite side of the lake.

It was neither a cave nor a limestone cavern.

But—there was a hollow.

A huge hole that had opened up within the trunk of a giant tree that could be at least a thousand years old—the storyline of looking for a great many things and discovering only the emptiness of the blue sky was not about Hansel and Gretel, but in fact about Tyltyl and Mytyl, but this sort of real estate was something I would have never have found on the mountain in my hometown.

It was basically a cave that had been dug into the trunk of a tree.

It couldn’t exactly be called a pleasant place to live, but perhaps that hole could at least serve as a nice reading nook for me…? As far as I could see from this distance, it appeared to be large enough to shelter me from the rain, wind, and sun.

Though it seemed difficult to lie down flat, I might be able to sleep inside while curled up… That’s how it looked. I wouldn’t be able to stretch out my body like on the empty beach, but if I had to bury my entire body in the sand to get some sleep just for the sake of stretching my body, the difference was like heaven and hell.

Rest was important, too.

If I hadn’t been sitting like this, with my point of view physically lowered, I probably would have missed this dwelling at a different angle… Though it was a result of coincidence, it really proved that the mountains were my territory. A territory that was easy for me to grasp.

The problem was… How was I going to cross the lake to reach the “nearest station”, the opposite shore…? The lake was shallow enough for my feet to reach the bottom, but ultimately, there was a waterfall. Considering that riverbeds could suddenly get deeper somewhere, and that the waterfall lake could swallow me up, there was indeed a risk to my life.

Thinking about it composedly, bathing and drinking water the way I did was something I definitely shouldn’t have done, especially with that much vigor. The desire for survival could be quite frightening.

I figured there weren’t going to be any alligators here, but there was still the possibility of leeches—if I were to let my guard down, this water current could end up being the Sanzu River for me.

If anything, I’d rather it became the Rubicon River.

I could create a raft to cross to the other side, but I felt that that would be a waste of effort. It would be like using a steak knife to cut chicken meat. Or rather, it seemed likely that a raft made using my handicraft skills would disintegrate at the molecular level midway.

That was even riskier.

Perhaps I could attempt to make a guide rope—one level above the safety rope I’d used when going into the ocean. By stretching a rope to the opposite shore, I would later be able to use it to go back and forth, like a handrail. Or the lanes of a pool… I could tie one end of the rope around a rock and throw it, and if I could get it to wrap around a branch of a tree on the other side—it would be my final mission as a user of stone.

It was time to use up my thousandth stone.

If it were two weeks ago, I might have complained about the distance I needed to throw to reach the opposite shore, but after the endless pitching practice I’d done on this uninhabited island, Sengoku Nadeko was both mentally and physically prepared.

Speaking of which, Okinawa was the prefecture that pro baseball teams went to for their campgrounds, wasn’t it—with that in mind, it was as if the entirety of my survival life was coming down to this very moment.

I could have returned to the nudist beach to retrieve my safety rope, but it would be the absolute worst if I lost my way, so I decided to make a new one here. There was plenty of ivy, which I could use as the materials, around me. This sort of knitting was the perfect activity to keep my hands busy while I waited for my hair to dry—so that I didn’t fall back in the water and get my hair soaked again, I was going to sit still and quietly knit.

As though knitting a scarf for my lover.