The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 7 - Chapter 340

Chapter 340:

Trouncing Trauma

“Look, Mr. Druid! There’s an obitsune in this trap, too!”

“Seems like all the traps we set today worked.”

We were two weeks into our trapping experiments, and after much trial and error, we finally had the knack of it. You double over the cages, tie them together with rope, and paint them with wax. 

You had to use cages that were as new as possible and very thick rope. It took us two weeks of toiling to finally figure this out.

“All that information about obitsune in books didn’t help much at all,” Druid remarked.

“Yeah, they especially didn’t say how strong their fangs were.”

Our early cages had been destroyed not by obitsune magic but by their fangs. Their sharper-than-expected teeth cut right through the cages, allowing them to escape. But the books didn’t talk much about their fangs; they simply weren’t seen as all that important. And because of this, it took us a while to figure out how the obitsune were escaping. But when we happened to use a cage with wax and an obitsune didn’t escape, we finally realized that wax was their weakness.

“Let’s kill and butcher them right now,” Druid suggested.

Since we had set four traps, we’d caught four obitsune. Today was going to be a good day for butchering.

“Okay.”

Mrrrow. Ciel ran ahead, cradling two obitsune in its mouth. Druid and I carried one obitsune each and followed along.

“Thanks, Ciel.”

Ciel’s tail wagged softly in reply. The adandara had been using its tail to communicate quite a lot recently. So as long as I didn’t anger it, it wouldn’t body-slam me anymore. Even now, its tail was contentedly swirling to and fro, but it wasn’t stirring up a miniature dust storm like before.

When we got to the river, Druid pulled a magic item out of his magic bag. When we learned that obitsune corpses took a long time to bleed, Druid had bought an item that aided in draining blood. It was a mystery how the thing was constructed, but if you left it activated on top of a corpse, it would drain the blood for you. I’d watched it do its thing many times, but I still didn’t know how it worked. One thing was certain, though: It was very useful.

“All right, Ciel, do your stuff.”

Mrrrow.

Druid skinned the obitsune while I cut the meat into portions. Since Druid had no free arm to keep the obitsune steady, that was where Ciel came in. Ciel would hold down the obitsune and Druid would use a knife to skin them. Over the past couple of weeks, his form and speed at skinning had improved greatly, so I had to be quick when I cut the meat up.

“Okay, all done. Thanks, Ciel.”

Mrrrow.

Druid’s voice signaled me to look up from my butchering, and I saw two skinned obitsune right in front of me. Yup, they were too fast for me.

“I’ll help you, Ivy.”

“Thanks. You guys are just too fast.”

“Well, Ciel knows the right spot to hold onto, so it’s easy to do.”

Meowww, Ciel sang proudly as we finished up the butchering. We wrapped the smaller pieces of meat in bana leaves and stuck them in our time-stopping magic bag. Then we were good to go.

“We’re finally done!” I sighed.

“It does take a long time when you have four obitsune.”

“Yeah, but your magic item made the bleeding go faster, so we still did the job pretty quickly when you think about it.”

“I guess you’re right. But still…”

On our way back to town from the river, I picked up on a familiar aura coming toward us.

“Mr. Druid, Mr. Ashley is coming.”

“Pu! Pu, puuu.”

During the past two weeks, one thing had changed: Whenever Ashley had any time off work, he always came to visit Ciel.

“Hello,” he greeted us.

“Hi,” we replied.

The day after he first met Ciel, he came to see us in the ­forest asking for a favor. Since he had been attacked by monsters in the past, he always froze up whenever he saw ones that were big, highly magical, or both. Even before then, just the sight of a monster in the distance would make him tense all over, but he was able to convince himself it wasn’t an issue. But fainting at the sight of Ciel—an unfair surprise though it was—had finally gotten him to admit he had a problem, and he came to us begging for help to overcome it.

“Did you get off work at noon today?” Druid asked Ashley, who was already dressed in civilian clothes.

“Yes, sir. Um, I have this for you.” Ashley brought us something to eat every time. We always told him we didn’t need anything, but he insisted he thank us for letting him interact with Ciel.

“Thanks, you’re too kind,” Druid said.

“It’s the least I can do after all your help.”

At first, Ashley had been curious about the powerful magic energy he sensed from my bag. But just as Druid had predicted, he had figured the bag was so small that whatever monster was in it couldn’t be too dangerous. The fact that I, a child, had this bag built up his false sense of security even more. But the great power of the magic compared to the small size of the bag made him nervous, and this nervousness had made him obsess over the bag. Startled, Druid had asked, “So you were staring at it not out of curiosity but out of anxiety?”

When we made the first move after we noticed his staring, he hoped we would show him that everything was indeed safe. But then an adandara—a giant monster with great magic powers—was standing right before him. And that led to an inevitable result: He fainted. With an uncomfortable grin on his face, Ashley had confessed to us that this had finally gotten him to confront his past trauma. Incidentally, his memories of the day Ciel shapeshifted into an adandara were vague. That was intriguing to me since he’d still been able to talk and answer questions that day.

“How was your hunt today?” he asked us.

“A big success! Every trap we set caught an obitsune.”

“Wow, that’s great. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Anyway, today I’ve brought you the latest pastry creation of the year: Kerpow.” Ashley opened the bag, so I peeked inside and saw that it contained some baked pastries. I thought their name was quite extravagant, but then again, a lot of Hatahi’s pastries had grandiose names. Apparently, this was meant to make them stand out at the festival.

“Let’s take a little break,” Druid suggested.

We found a spot to sit, and we all had a rest. As soon as Ashley settled down on a stump, Sora came dashing up to him.

“Pu! Pu, puuu!”

“Agh! Sora, not again!”

Sora had decided Ashley was a good playmate, and that meant it body-slammed the watchman every time he came to visit. Though if you asked me…I felt Sora did this because it thought Ashley’s flustered reactions were funny.

“I imagine things will get busy at work pretty soon, right?” Druid asked him.

In just a little over a week, Festival Eve would begin. I was shocked to hear the eve lasted five whole days, and the main festival itself also lasted three days. What’s more, many people stayed awake the entire three days. According to Druid, this made people start acting very strange on the third day. I was looking forward to the festival…but it also scared me a little.

“Oh, you bet,” Ashley answered. “Festival visitors started ­arriving in Hatahi a little while ago, and fistfights are on the rise. Breaking up those fights really has been quite a tough job.”

“Well, we thank you for your service,” I said.

Mrrrow, Ciel chimed in, rubbing against Ashley’s thighs. His body tensed up for a moment, but then he slowly let himself breathe and gave Ciel’s head some gentle pats.

“You’ve gotten a lot better,” Druid remarked.

“Oh, yes. I really do owe Ciel a huge debt.”

At first, just sitting beside Ciel would petrify Ashley, but he worked hard to conquer his fears. Noticing this, Ciel would inch in closer and closer, little by little. Thanks to Ciel’s gentle patience, Ashley was no longer petrified even when their bodies were touching.

“Thanks for everything, Ciel.” Ashley slowly petted Ciel’s head, and the adandara closed its eyes and purred contentedly.