“Thank you for the meal!”

“You’re welcome. Now get out there and hunt, and don’t come back until evening!”

“Okay!”

Everyone looked more cheerful than they had yesterday as they climbed into Filo’s carriage. I wasn’t letting Filo go crazy with the speed, so I hoped that the slaves wouldn’t get the usual motion sickness common with her carriage rides. It would be good if they reached around level 20, on average, by the time they got back.

Securing food supplies would need to be our immediate focus. There was always that . . . But if I used it and it mutated again, who knew what might happen. Even so, it had helped us out of tight spots before, and it looked like the time to rely on it had come once again.

Chapter Seven: Employing the Bioplant

“We’re back!”

The whole lot of them had smiles on their faces despite being covered in mud when they got back. They were definitely livelier than they had been yesterday. On the other hand, Rishia looked utterly exhausted. Raphtalia and Filo didn’t really show any signs of being worn out. Then again, they were both pretty strong even with the curse’s effects in place.

“I see that! Did you all do your best out there hunting again today?”

“Yeah!”

“That goes without saying!”

The adaptability of children really was an amazing thing. It was only the second day and they had already adjusted.

“Alright then. Dinner is ready, as promised.”

“Yaaaay!”

They shoveled the food I had prepared into their mouths.

“Now then, Raphtalia.”

“Yes?”

“After dinner, I’m going to do something . . . something that might make you mad.”

“Umm, and what is that?”

“It’s jungle time. It helped us out back in Kizuna’s world, too, right?”

Raphtalia seemed to understand what I meant. Her face turned pale.

“Are you going to plant that thing?”

“Yeah. This place is just a barren wasteland, anyway. It’s perfect, right?”

“But still . . .”

“It may very well cause problems with the soil down the road, but I did ask the slave trader to choose monsters that could be used to work the land.”

“Umm . . . Understood. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.”

“I’m glad you understand.”

“Considering efficiency, it really is the only choice.”

Raphtalia was all about efficiency. But she also kind of worried about keeping up appearances. Now that I thought about it, L’Arc and the others had gotten on to me about her upbringing. She had picked up my habit of haggling over prices. Being told about it about it objectively like that did make me feel a little bad about it.

“I also wanted to take this chance to do a little bit of research. I’m thinking, maybe I can get it to grow some medicinal herbs, too.”

“Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you plan to modify it even further?!”

“I do. I want to grow something that can make us some money, if at all possible.”