A few hours of tilling later, I had a ten-meter-square field. I sat myself down and put my canteen to my lips.
”…Man, I’m hungry.”
The food I brought was basically gone.
Well, strictly speaking, I’m saving the solid curry roux as my final ration.
They say even the worst food can be salvaged if you curry it, and as a seasoning it’s my ultimate trump card.
I’d been scouting the area for food, but the only wildlife around here is snakes.
“Seriously though, I am STARVING.”
I popped my true final travel ration — the chocolate — into my mouth.
Which leaves my lifeline as… bean sprouts and carrots, harvest date unknown.
“But man, nothing but snakes out here…”
Recalling the snakes I kept spotting around the rocky area, I sighed deeply.
If only they were edible— and there I sucked in a breath. “Ah…!”
—Wait. Snakes ARE edible, aren’t they?
I’m pretty sure snake meat is supposed to taste like mild chicken… or so they say.
Out came the smartphone. Instant net search.
“I see, I see.”
The snakes I’d been seeing everywhere are probably an edible kind.
They look a lot like what we call a Japanese striped snake back home.
“Next up: how to catch a snake…”
A few minutes of swimming through the net later, I muttered, “Oi oi, seriously…?”
Apparently, snakes gather if you burn human hair.
But why hair, of all things?
My head filled with question marks, so I looked up the reason, and the mystery dissolved.
The sound of burning hair is nearly identical to the sound snakes make when mating.
So, yeah. I took out my knife and started cutting my overgrown hair.
Less “cutting,” honestly. Closer to yanking it out in clumps.
Hair bagged, I set off for the rocky area where the snakes live.
On the way, I happened to glance at the field—
“It’s already sprouting…”
Not even half a day had passed… The terror of a farming cheat skill, demonstrated.
—For the record, the snakes came easy. Caught two.
☆★☆★☆★
Noon, the next day.
“The sprouts look ready to eat… snake hot pot it is.”
The bean sprouts matured in ONE day.
The growth rate is honestly so absurd it’s mildly off-putting.
Anyway — snake supposedly tastes like chicken, so my ruling was that it’d work in a hot pot.
Boil water. Toss in harvested sprouts, snake meat, salt and pepper.
Simple mizutaki-style. Taste test.
It was a little bland, so I hit it with more salt and pepper after pulling it from the broth — pretty decent.
Like chicken mizutaki you eat with salt and pepper, I guess.
More importantly, the sprouts were unbelievably crisp and delicious.
“If the MOYASHI are this good… now I’m really looking forward to the carrots.”
Curled up in my sleeping bag in the cave, wondering what vegetables to grow next, I drifted off.
・The Palm-Top Rabbit
So, the next day.
“Carrots should be about ready today too.”
Today’s menu: snake, sprouts, and carrot hot pot.
…Also, I’m about to run out of salt and pepper.
Without seasoning, boiled or grilled, food stops being “meals” and becomes pure nutrient intake…
Well. For now I’ll just be grateful there’s anything to eat at all.
And so, the first-ever taste test of my carrots.
“Whoa. It’s SWEET.”
The boiled carrot had a sweetness like nothing I’d ever eaten. Insanely high sugar content.
The kind of level where, processed right, I might legitimately be able to make sugar from these.
And the sprouts were, once again, incredibly crisp and delicious.
Right as I was being moved to tears by the deliciousness of cheat vegetables — a small animal appeared in front of me.
—A small animal… no. A tiny person.
Height-wise: about the length of a grown man’s open hand, middle fingertip to the base of the palm.
In numbers, maybe fifteen to twenty centimeters?
Dressed like a picture-book fairy, if the picture-book outfit showed a bit more skin — plus rabbit ears.
Silver hair down to her waist, blue eyes, and a Western-style face so pretty it was startling.
”…Incredible… it’s FANTASY.”
I’d met the monster kind of fantasy already, but this was the cute kind of fantasy.
The righteous kind of fantasy.
Ahh, so I really did get transported to another world, huh… the thought hit me with strange depth.
And then my eyes met the tiny rabbit’s.
“W-w-wah! I-I’m not a bad rabbit who steals carrots, I promise~!”
She waved her little hands frantically, shaking her head hard enough to blur.
The comical movements were criminally cute.
“Well, you don’t look like a thief… but you DO want the carrots, right?”
The rabbit nodded, big and repeated, as if to say thank you for asking!
“We’re a rabbit tribe that lives in the forest~. The big people call us palm-top rabbits~♪”
“Palm-top rabbits… And?”
“When a palm-top rabbit comes of age, there’s a ritual~♪”
“A ritual?”
“You go on a journey alone… and you’re recognized as a full adult by bringing treasure back to the burrow~♪ In short, I have to carry a splendid carrot home to the village~♪”
I see.
So carrots count as precious goods among these guys.
But calling a carrot “treasure” — what’s that about? I thought about it and then nodded. “Ah…”
Fair enough. You don’t exactly hear about wild carrots growing anywhere.
“Okay, I get the situation. …Uh, you alright there?”
Looking over — she’d spotted the bundle of carrots at my side, the ones I’d just harvested, and the palm-top rabbit was drooling. Profusely.
”…”
”…”
Ears and tail twitching, the palm-top rabbit stared holes into the carrots.
“Hauu… I’ve never seen… such magnificent ones…”
I took the leftover boiled carrot from breakfast and set it down in front of her.
The palm-top rabbit sniffed at it — and the drool volume doubled, cascading like a waterfall.
“Go ahead. Eat.”
She bit in at Mach speed before I finished the sentence.
One nibble, and the palm-top rabbit’s eyes flew wide open.
Then — she began devouring it at ferocious speed.
“D-d-delicious~! I’ve never had anything like this~! It’s so — SWEEEEET~!”
Well, yeah. It’s sweet enough that I was considering sugar production.
That carrot honestly surprised me too.
Finishing the boiled carrot, the palm-top rabbit slid her gaze back to the carrot bundle at my side.
”…If I could bring home such a magnificent carrot… I could return to the burrow in triumph, a hero~♪”
She said it with the least subtle puppy-dog eyes imaginable.
“Want to take them?”
“Eh?”
Her eyes went wide with disbelief.
“You’d share such magnificent treasure… and it’s not even leftovers~?”
Carrots really are legitimate rarities to these guys, huh.
“So — do you want them or not?”
The palm-top rabbit nodded and nodded and nodded.
Tail wagging the whole time. Genuinely adorable.
And so — with three carrots bundled in vines strapped to her back, she headed home to her burrow wearing the biggest smile I’d ever seen.
☆★☆★☆★
That night, I was at a total loss.
—Not good. The snakes aren’t biting.
Did I use too little hair for the lure?
Either way, not a single one showed up.
Sprouts and carrots alone won’t sustain a human forever.
I’ll be catastrophically short on protein.
“So… what’s the move…”
Beans are supposed to be protein-rich. Shelve animal protein for now and start growing some fast beans, maybe?
I was chewing boiled carrot and mulling it over when—
“Eh?”
Ten palm-top rabbits burst out of the bushes.
“It’s the big person~♪”
“Is that them~?”
“The big carrot person~?”
“The carrots~?”
“The SWEET carrots~?”
Ten palm-top rabbits, every one of them gorgeous — actually, they all have the exact same face.
That aside — I was speechless.
“A wild boar… seriously?”
The palm-top rabbits were marching toward me hauling wire lines — and what they were dragging on those wires was the incredible part.
A boar. Estimated weight: tens of kilos, possibly north of a hundred.
These things are way stronger than they look.
“What’s with the boar?”
“It’s a thank-you~♪”
“A thank-you for the sweet carrots~♪”
“For the thank-you’s thank-you, we get carrots~?”
“That’s right~. We get carrots~♪”
Ah. In short: they want to barter.
“But how did you guys even catch a BOAR…?”
At that, one palm-top rabbit puffed out her tiny chest, full ehhem.
“We are a hunting people~!”
Ears standing proud and straight. This species is legitimately too lovable.
…Although, now that my eyes adjusted to the dark — about half these rabbits are armed with tiny spears, and the boar has been stabbed into a scene from a horror film.
“Wait. Aren’t rabbits herbivores? You wanted carrots and everything…”
“Carrots are strictly a luxury item~. We’re carnivores at heart~♪”
I see. Rabbits in this world are omnivores, apparently.
Also, “carnivorous rabbit” is one heck of a phrase.
“And so~ we’re going to live here now~. From now on, it’s boars-for-carrots at fair exchange rates~”
And just like that, my housemate count exploded.
And the animal-protein problem, apparently, solved itself in the same stroke.