Chapter 64
“Garuwaoa, guanoa garuoh!” (Then, I’m leaving the hunting party to you, Buster!)
“Woooh, gurua!” (You can count on me, Chief!)
Buster grouped the young kobolds into hunting parties with four members each. After instructing each group to head in a different direction, he led the groups and disappeared into the forest.
I had to be with the three cat people during their stay, but we also needed to provide food for the settlement, so I had placed Buster in charge of the hunting group and saw them off.
“Guru, guruoaon…” (Now then, we should head out as well…)
We led the blacksmith and the carpenter down to the river in the south. Meanwhile, the cat kin with the Farmer job called Joseph stayed at the settlement and planned to make a small potato field in one corner of the village which had been cleared to some extent.
Joseph said that he would have to burn the dead trees and fallen leaves and mix the ashes with the soil to fertilize the area, so he had to go separately to pick up what he needed. I assigned two armed kobolds to go with him as escorts just to be safe.
I expected that we would be carrying clay soil and iron sand back to the settlement, so I recruited several of the 1-year-old kobolds and Knuckle’s group of floppy-eared kobolds to come with us.
“Alright, first, let’s pick up some quartz.”
(Quartz? Weren’t we taking some clay?)
Wondering what he was going to use it for, I tugged on Grimer’s clothes, and took out the slate pencil from my pouch after clearing the ground of rocks and crouching down. Grimer followed suit and also crouched down to read what I wanted to say.
“What are we going to use quartz for?”
“Quartz can be found rolling in the riverbanks, but that stone is excessively hard, you know? If you strike it against other rocks, then we can break those down and process it.”
… We had also processed obsidian before, but we did not care which material was best to use for it and just pounded it with the stones around here. I wonder if it would be easier to work with if we did it with that material instead?
“So I was thinking of making a stone axe since I don’t think the tools I brought would be enough… I’m sure Barrack is more adept at this than I am though.”
He searched by the riverbank for a bit and picked up a fist-sized piece of quartz and a flat basalt rock. While everyone’s attention was focused on him, he used the quartz as a hammer to crush and scrape the basalt rock into shape.
Tonk! Tonk! Tonk!
The sound of hammering echoed in the surrounding area, and after a while, a sharply carved hatchet was in Grimer’s hands.
“… You’re a hell of a lot better at it than I am, Mr. Grimer.”
“Ga, gauo! Guruguaan!!” (A-amazing! It looks so easy!!)
One of the small, floppy-eared kobolds looked very excited and his eyes shining after seeing Grimer’s creation. It seemed like he also wanted to try making it by himself, so he ran to the riverbank in search of a suitable stone after watching the completion of the stone axe.
“Hmm, like this, I guess? Try using it for a bit.”
Grimer handed me the boomerang-shaped stone axe. [1]
One half of the boomerang-shaped axe was the handle, while the other half was the blade which was thinned out and sharpened along the edges. The whole thing was decently balanced and looked like it had great cutting power.
Translator’s Notes:
[1] Boomerang shaped – The original was “くの字型” (ku no jikata) or shaped like the hiragana letter く (ku).
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