The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 1 - Chapter 40

Chapter 40:

The Perfect Tent

THE NEWS ABOUT RATOMI’S CHIEF honestly surprised me. He took over the year I was born. I think…it was because the last chief had suddenly fallen ill and passed away?

“Um…thank you for telling me all this,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it! Are you an adventurer now, hon?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That must be rough for a kid your age,” the man chimed in. “Here, take these.” He brought two zaro fruit out from the back. “They’re overripe, so we can’t sell them anyway.”

“Thank you.”

When I took the zaro, I got a whiff of their sweet-sour scent. I didn’t have good memories of anything from back home except the fortune-teller, but it was still a nostalgic smell. I bowed my thanks to the couple and left for the plaza.

Come to think of it, the village where two chiefs had been arrested for embezzlement was declining now, too. Would Ratomi end up like that? I doubted the village would hold up without the zaro crop. I’d thought the chief who stole money and hurt his own people was bad enough, but it was strange to think that my own village’s chief was even worse. I was glad I found out what happened in Ratomi, at least. From now on, I’d tell people that I had run away. It was the truth, wasn’t it?

When I got back to the plaza, I showed the guard my permit and went in. The person at the gate had changed again. How big was the guard force in this village, anyway? I was amazed.

I cleaned up the stuff I’d left to claim my spot and cleared a space to pitch my tent. For some reason, I couldn’t stop grinning as I took it out. This was something I could never have imagined buying—with money I earned, at that!—when I first ran away. It was a dream come true!

I patted the tent and took a moment to ground myself. It really was nice how I could set it up by myself with ease. And once I drove stakes into the ground and secured it, it was complete.

I kicked off my shoes, crawled inside, put my stuff down, and closed the entrance. Then I took Sora out of its bag. It looked around and started bouncing up and down. My friend seemed happy, too.

“Sora, you have to be quiet in here, okay?”

It stretched upward and quivered a little. That was probably a yes?

“It’s a nice tent, isn’t it?” I mused.

I put the mat on the bottom of the tent and sat down. Combined with the thick floor of the tent, it was the comfiest place I’d ever sat. I didn’t even have to worry about eyes on me now. Since I had no work to do, I decided to have an early dinner, get ready for tomorrow, and go to bed. Yep, time to enjoy my new tent! Oooh, and I’d love to make some traps. Yeah, let’s do that, too!

I took out twenty potions and put them in front of Sora. As it digested each one in a sea of bubbles, I bit down on some dried meat. It was wild rabbit meat, thicker than that of field mice. The field mouse might have been more savory, though? Not that the rabbit meat was bad. Once I was finished with the dried meat, the zaro was next. I ended up eating them both, savoring the nostalgic scent all throughout.

“Mmm…that was delicious! Let’s go hunting tomorrow, okay, Sora?”

Sora glanced at me, bobbed a bit, and then resumed its meal. I took a book from my bag and looked up how to make wild rabbit traps. They looked like something I could manage, and since they were the set-and-forget type, I could hunt safely. I didn’t need any more materials for traps right now, either—I had everything I needed. If I could put together a few today, I could set them tomorrow. I’d spent all that money on a tent, so it was time to start making it back. Catching a few rabbits would be a good start.

When Sora finished its dinner, it sat on top of its bag, bobbed, and closed its eyes. Huh. Why is its body still bubbling even after it finished eating? I looked on curiously, but after a while, it stopped. What was that about? Usually, the bubbles only happened while it was eating. I poked Sora. It opened its eyes and stared at me.

“Are you okay?”

Sora stretched up and shrunk back down repeatedly, apparently showing off how energetic it was. Seeing it do something new surprised me, but my friend seemed fine. Maybe I fed it too much?