It’s too late to be asking this, but what is Totaro anyway?
There are monsters that aren’t friendly but are capable of understanding me, and monsters that can’t have a conversation but are friendly.
Totaro fits the latter.
A monster like Totaro… No, stop. Totaro isn’t a monster. It doesn’t look like a person, but it thinks, feels, and expresses those things. It’s not some monster that attacks on sight.
From their point of view, we humans might be the monsters. Monsters that harm those who live in the dungeon.
Thinking that makes me feel a little cold. It’s to make a living, but the many lives I took are never coming back.
Maybe seekers like me are just butchers.
I shake my head and get that out of my mind.
There’s no point in thinking about it. If I’m going to leave, I’ll have to keep killing. That won’t change. Regretting it now is just playing the hypocrite. Nothing will change.
“Brr.”
Fuuma approaches with its face, like it knows what I feel.
I’m sure it’s comforting me. Fuuma has good qualities like that.
Hn? Food? Hurry up because you’re hungry?
Go eat grass you idiot!!
Should I take this horse down? It doesn’t care about people’s feelings one bit.
I start preparing food while feeling like an idiot for thinking seriously. And Fuuma isn’t the only hungry one, Hinata and I are too.
Lately, Hinata has been joining me when I cook. One of the few things I can teach is how to make the best out of the edible ingredients we have. It’s a kind of creative cuisine, but all the food and flavorings were taken from the forest, and are edible as long as I have the flower vase. Meat is different, but Totaro offers fish.
The ingredients from this forest are dangerous.
I’ve noticed recently that I’ve eaten all the vegetables and fruits that can be found here. Everything is edible if you’re prepared to be hurt, but that’s not the point
If these ingredients are properly prepared, they don’t release a foul stench, explode, or go crazy in my stomach. That means this forest is a treasure trove of food.
Well, even knowing that, I don’t want to try it again.
Those experiments were hellish.
If you told me to do it again, I’d cry, prostrate myself, and commit seppuku ten times.
I’m good with what I know how to cook. If you want more, you take it.
The first thing I taught Hinata was how to prepare the ingredients.
Don’t peel carrots, wash and cut. Peel what look like potatoes, and soak them in water. Cut the core of cabbages. Etc.
“Kyukyu!”
Hey, stop you idiot!
Hinata tries to peel a cabbage without removing the core, and the carnivorous plant bites its hand.
“Kyuha!?”
Hinata is surprised, and ejects light from the hand to fling the cabbage away.
It would be fine if that was all.
“Kyuoh!!”
Hinata seems mad that the vegetable scared it, so it cuts a potato, something that looks like a dikon in two, along with the cutting board, and starts cutting vegetables left and right.
A big explosion follows immediately, and a foul stench hangs in the air.
I pick up Hinata and jump back, but being so close to the explosion means we’re blasted near the lake.
We dive with a splash, and Totaro looks exasperated underwater. It has a frog face, but we’ve spent enough time together that I can tell its expression.
I say sorry and go back up, to see that the field was blown away, and part of the mansion was destroyed. There’s also a terrible stench in the air, which Fuuma tries its best to clear by controlling wind, but it can’t keep up.
Hinata tries to go back to the lake to run away from it, but I don’t let it, and take it back to land.
“Kyah!? Kyah!? Kyah!!”
Hinata struggles trying to get away, but I show it what it did.
That’s what happens when you let emotions take control, I say as I walk through the stench and try not to vomit.
Fuuma is clearing it with wind, but can’t handle it and is on its last breath. I make wind blow strongly, but even that can’t compete against the smell.
Oeeh…
I can’t take it anymore, and throw up.
The struggling Hinata stops suddenly, and when I turn to look, see it passed out like Fuuma.
This isn’t good, I think as I pass out too.
When I wake up, I see Totaro nursing me with an exasperated expression.
Iluminsule staff
A sapling left by the World Tree Iluminsule. A sapling that gathered hatred and did not grow. Negates magic, and attacks with pure magic energy. Boosts the power of magic and magic circles. Controls vegetation, and can be generated from plants that control the user’s abilities. Can regenerate, and instantly heal the user.
Has a will of its own, and chooses the user.
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