Strategic(?) Meeting And Breakfast

Hey, Shun here!

Did you know? My current dimension's Earth use Hydrogen and Thorium as its main source of energy?

My past life's Earth could also utilize Hydrogen and Thorium as a source of energy but, for some sort of reason, they were so fixated in using coal, fossil fuels, solar, wind, hydroelectric, and Uranium as their main source of energy.

No wonder Earth was dying. One of the first world countries like China are still stuck on using coal as their main source of energy, despite its obviously high carbon emissions.

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(Shun's POV)

For the majority of the night, Kaede-san stayed sleeping on my lap. The only sounds that accompanied my quiet time in the forest was the soft sounds of the crickets from a far distance and the soft breathing of the person sleeping on my lap.

I gotta say though, staying in this position made me feel that sort of numbing sensation on my thighs, like, seriously. I quietly proceeded with busying myself, enjoying the quiet experience that I'm having all by myself.

Well, I'm technically not all alone but Kaede-san is asleep so I think this counts as me being alone? Sort of?

Well anyway, while Kaede-san was asleep, I did what any teenage guy would do when they have a cute girl sleeping on their lap…

Yes, I poked her… cheeks… a lot!

There was a few times when she was about to wake up due to that but I managed to somehow avoid the urge to poke her again to wake her up. Once I regained control of myself, I stopped and decided to distract myself with some other stuffs like checking out the places that we managed to map out yesterday.

Through that, I found out that north is mostly composed of mountainous terrains, presumably filled with ores and stuffs that our Guild's blacksmith, Magi-san, and probably, to a lower extent, Mutsuko-san, would like while the south mostly have lakes and rivers in it. We don't know much about the east and west side since we never really explored it that much yesterday.

Heck, we don't even know much about what monsters live in the locations that we briefly explored as we only did it for a few hours and with some other objective in mind. We sure need to scour our surroundings more.

An hour right before the sun was about to rise up from the horizon, someone from the girls' log house came out and, seeing only me doing the night watch at first glance, couldn't help but ask.

"Oh, did Kaede-san sleep early? Why are you the only one who's—" It was Magi-san who woke up early.

She approached me while I was busy looking through the things in my inventory and saw Kaede-san who's peacefully sleeping on my lap.

I was just about to greet her and reply to her but she suddenly gasped loudly.

"—*GASP*!"

Because of that loud gasp, Kaede-san who was probably having a pretty good sleep was woken up.

"Hmm~? What happened? Who's there, [Admin] Shun-san?"

She was still feeling sleepy and the things on her surroundings wasn't registering yet but she did hear some other person's voice earlier. She was sleepily rubbing her eyes and, that's when she suddenly noticed that something was wrong.

"Good morning Kaede-san. Did you sleep well?" Me greeting her while looking down at her probably didn't help either.

"Eh? Eeeeeeh—?"

In her confusion, she turned to her left and saw a patch of grass, along with my legs and feet.

What? You think I'd give her a lap pillow with my legs and feet folded, with my whole body weight crashing down on it? No way.

"Eh? Why am I in [Admin] Shun-san's lap!? Eeeeeh!?"

She was extremely confused. If I didn't throw my head backwards, our heads would've bumped due to her suddenly getting up.

"Hey, that was dangerous Kaede-san! Also, you were sleeping in my lap because your sleeping position earlier seems very uncomfortable to me. That's why I decided to let you sleep on my lap."

Hearing me calmly explain to her what and why this all happened, it seems like she finally calmed down.

"Also, good morning Magi-san. Why are you up so late?"

"Eh? Ah… I wanted to see if I could make Rikka a kitchen knife."

"Heeeh. A kitchen knife huh. Is that even a weapon?"

After that, the next hours before the sun came up was very awkward. Kaede-san would become very red up until her neck whenever I talk to her and, although I know that she was feeling embarrassed, I wouldn't even be upset if she starts ignoring me or something due to that for a few days, she still talked to me in a relatively normal manner.

It was like we three formed an unwritten agreement not to talk about what happened.

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After almost everyone was awake, the girls insisted that they would be the ones who will make our breakfast, possibly because they wanted to impress the little animals who are still sleeping with their little owners. Rikka-san is already awake, yes, but Wafuryuuku is still fast asleep on his little crib, similar to the other three young beasts.

Speaking of sleeping inside the game, it wasn't much different than sleeping in real life, which I found really amazing. Even a little bit of sleep felt really refreshing.

Also, I don't know what I was expecting when I slept for a few hours yesterday in-game but, it felt rather anticlimactic to me…

With majority of the girls, namely; Kaede-san, Mutsuko-san, Satania-san, Lucato-san, and, surprisingly, Toutobi-san, busy cooking, there were only a few people left, gathered around the huge wooden table that Lyly made yesterday. Miu and Hino-san were too busy discussing about where they could go to encounter rare mobs while Magi-san and Cloude are immersed in their own crafting world.

Lyly, Tsuka, Fenny, Pochi and Tama were the ones who are still asleep in our group.

"Good morning Shun!"

"Morning Rokuko. Seems like you had a good sleep?"

Rokuko was at first in the makeshift kitchen but it seems like it was overcrowded and she voluntarily left so that there will be more space there.

"It was really good! This game world thing is really magical. It's just like when we're inside my Core Room, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is. The only difference was that your real body is still outside, sleeping."

At my remark, Rokuko nodded her head vigorously while smiling from ear to ear.

"Hey Shun. Do you think you could help me find a little animal too? I already have Fenny so I don't need any other rabbit."

"Of course. If I managed to find one again, then sure." Rokuko was so happy that she gave me a bear hug.

"Thank you Shun!"

"No problem. You could also probably befriend someone yourself though? Don't you have [Taming]?" When she heard me ask that question, she was like, "Eh? I do?"

"You… You forgot that you have [Taming]?"

"Ha-Hahaha… Yeah…"

We then both looked at each other silently before bursting out in laughter. Not long later, the others who heard our conversation also burst out in laughter.

Hey Cloude, trying to hide your laughter with a cough won't work. See, everyone knows that you're trying to suppress your laughter.

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Since everyone was mysteriously all awake, the moment that the breakfast was cooked, I decided to start some kind of strategic meeting.

"By the way everyone…"

My first sentence gathered everyone's attention immediately, even the little beasts were looking at me attentively. Oh, why is it that everyone from my group seem so attentive today?

Was there something on our breakfast that made them like this?

"E-hem. First of all, you all should check out your menus. There's something important there that you all should see."

Everyone was like, "What was this about?" as they curiously looked at the menu. Aside from me though, it seems like Cloude have already noticed what I was talking about.

"Are you talking about the [Information Board]?" He asked while adjusting his spectacles.

"Yup. That's the one I'm talking about. I saw it earlier while I was in my nighttime watch with Kaede-san."

Kaede-san became red to her ears when I suddenly said that but she didn't say anything. She was just quietly looking at her own menu screen.

"It's just a speculation, but it seems like the appearance of this menu was either because of the death of many players or some player managing to open it up for us. The latter theory is rather unlikely since no one could possibly do so without completing a chain of quests, which was impossible during this short time frame."

I paused for a few seconds to let everyone take in the information before continuing.

"This [Information Board], like it's namesake, is filled with threads where we can glean some information with others."

Majority of its content is filled with the rant of incensed players but there's a minority who genuinely just want to help others with the information they found out so it's still a good idea to check it out.

"Through the sacrifice of those, let's just say, 'heroic' players, we finally have information about the East and West. There are ruins to the East and what seems to be underground caves and such at West. In the middle of each area there are high level enemies and materials, as well as a number of players who work on the peripheries of nearby safety areas."

I looked at everybody's faces and, while I didn't mean to create a tense atmosphere, I somehow did.

"Now, the real question is, which place do you guys want to go? Depending on where you want to go, we could divide our group accordingly…"

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※~To be continued~※

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Author's Remarks:

※ Whew. Done, finally! I really hate it when people disturb me when I'm writing.