Camping And Exploring (2)

Hey, Shun here!

Have you experienced giving a lap pillow or being on the receiving end of one? Let me tell you something that the romance novels never told you…

LAP PILLOWS ARE REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE! Don't get deceived by how comfortable the protagonist or the main heroine looks, it's not what you think it is.

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

(Shun's POV)

At a makeshift kitchen where I, Mutsuko-san, Satania-san, and Kaede-san are cooking, four kids and four young beasts were watching us intently.

"Fire, we need to light up some fire here!" Mutsuko-san shouted.

In response to her call, Fenny stepped forwards and told the baby bird within her arms to conjure fire.

"Fire…? Phi-chan, fire…"

"Pii?"

While that would've been quite the tall order for a regular chick, the one Fenny called as Phi-chan is not any ordinary bird. It's a bird that could spit fire out of its beak.

Following Fenny's orders, Phi-chan, full name being Phenex, leaned back slightly and, after it's beak lit up slightly, a ball of flame came out of its mouth.

*Swooosh*

You could tell that Fenny, similar to Tsuka, are not great when it comes to naming stuffs. Whether it is something that every individual from the bunny race possess is debatable.

"Now I'll need some water on this pot."

"Do your best Fuyuku! You are the chosen dog of mine! Give Mutsuko-oneesan some water! Show off you POWER!" Rikka dramatically raised the blue colored puppy.

"Wafu! Auuuu!"

As if it was trying to play along with its owner's antics, it tried to howl, which it ultimately failed to do, before small blocks of ice slowly dropped from on top of the heated pot. It then started to melt before gradually turning into water.

The full name of this pup is Wafuryuuku. Rikka said that she came up with the name "Wafuryuuku" with "wafu" coming from waffle, "furyuu" from the mix of "fuyu" which means winter and "ryuu" which means dragon.

As for the "ku"? Well, it came from "niku" since Fuyuku likes meat. Fuyuku was a nickname that the kids came up with since Wafuryuuku is such a mouthful to say.

As for the other two young beasts, well, they're playing with Pochi, Tama, and Tsuka who seems to like the two kittens. It seems like we just didn't notice it earlier but the two are pretty similar to each other.

The black one have a white colored paw, while the white one have a black colored paw. The two could emit differing colors of lightning from their paws, a jet-black one and a pure-white one respectively.

According to Pochi who seems to have been electrocuted by the two kittens' lightning, it seems like the power was just enough to make her feel ticklish?

Time passed and, after we were done cooking, we served the food for everyone before we all separated by gender and went to our respective log houses. The girls went to the larger log house while us dudes went to the smaller log house.

Lyly was understandably extremely tired due to the work that he had to put in today, assembling all of the furnitures and the log houses itself by himself so he immediately fell asleep the moment his face touched the pillow. It didn't even take him one second to enter deep sleep.

As for me and Cloude? Well, we were still awake and we couldn't fall asleep just yet so he, the second most talkative person amongst us guys, the first being Lyly, decided to strike a conversation with me.

"You think you could become a model for my shop once I finish making your whole set?"

That's for sure a little weird of an opener to a conversation but since I'm feeling pretty bored myself, I feel like I don't really have the energy to make a retort.

"Sure. As long as you endorse my channel a bit, I don't see why not?"

"Oh, I see that you're also a content creator, huh. Well, you got yourself a deal then."

"Speaking of my armor, when do you think you could finish it?" I asked, remembering that I've commissioned him to create my armor.

"I could finish it by tomorrow." Tomorrow? That's quite fast.

"Alright. We could then talk about the model stuff after that then."

"Sure…"

After that brief conversation, we both became silent…

That… I'm feeling a little… sleepy… now.

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

(Girl's POV)

Outside of the two log houses, three girls could be seen awake. The first one is starting to doze off, sitting on a wooden trunk that was made as a makeshift chair while the other two are busy hammering some metals and crafting what seems to be potions.

"Fuaah~! Why did we have to stay up for the night for a night watch? I'm feeling really sleepy…"

"Well, we won't really be awake for that long, Rikka-chan. It's going to be Shun-kun and Kaede-chan's turn to watch out for monsters until early in the morning so our shift is easier than theirs…"

The one who said so was Mutsuko who's busy diluting some [Condensed Potions] that she brought with her. She's also experimenting with the new types of grasses and herbs that lher guildmates harvested while she's at it.

"You just want to sleep immediately because you don't want us to pester you about Shun-kun calling you without honorifics, aren't you?"

At Magi's teasing, the sleepy Rikka is now fully awake as she vigorously waved her hands to deny the claim.

"As I said! Our friendship just advanced a few steps, that's why he started to drop the honorifics! There's nothing wrong with that, right?"

"Well… There really is nothing wrong with that but…"

"You're acting a teeny tiny bit suspicious, you know? That's what's making us curious."

The two older girls were ganging up on the much younger Rikka. In truth, they were just curious about what happened between Shun and Rikka during their trip that Shun decided to drop the honorifics when calling Rikka.

As far as they know, it's only Tsuka, Miu, Rokuko, Fenny, Pochi, Tama and now Rikka who Shun calls without any honorifics. While he insisted that they should call him without honorifics, he wasn't really doing the same with them so some of them are stuck with calling him with a suffix while the others called him with an affix.

"I'm just curious… Who do you guys think is the closest person to [Admin] Shun right now?" Either because she was really curious or she just wanted to divert the older girls' attention to something else, Rikka asked this question.

"Closest? Well, I think it's either Miu-chan, Rokuko-chan, or Tsuka-chan." Mutsuko replied.

"I haven't really seen Shun interact with everyone as much but I think he's closest with Tsuka-chan. I feel like they have this kind of weird bond between them. As for the second closest, I think Miu-chan wins by a short margin against Rokuko-chan."

"So we thought the same, huh. You think [Admin] Shun is a lolicon?"

"That… It's hard to say…"

"I don't think he is. Shun-kun reminds me so much of my little brother Yu. Yu and Shun-kun tries to hide it but they're both a proper boy in the middle of puberty alright?"

"Well, you can't really blame Rikka-san to think of it as such. Shun-kun is really close to many young girls after all…"

"Isn't that because he's aiming to become the harem king?" Mutsuko remarked jokingly. When the two other girls heard what she said, they couldn't help but raise their voice a bit.

""Eh? HE IS!?""

"Haha, I was just kidding~…"

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

(Shun's POV)

I was woken up by a light slap on the cheek and the still energetic voice of Mutsuko-san who came to wake me up. When I came outside while feeling dizzy, I saw Kaede-san who was a bit wobbly as well.

"Yo, Kaede-san. It's like we're both from a drinking party, aren't we?" I remarked jokingly.

"Yeah… Fuaah~! I'm feeling sleepy even though I got to sleep for a few hours."

Instead of sitting down on the makeshift chair/tree log, we sat on the grass beside it after laying down some cloth on it. Then, we used the tree log as some sort of back seat.

"Fuuaaah~! So sleepy~…"

"You could sleep if you want to? I could watch out for any upcoming monsters or thieves for us two since I have [Hawk Eyes]."

"Really…? Then, thank… you…"

The moment she finished her words, Kaede-san immediately fell asleep. Since her head was leaning back and sleeping like that wasn't really comfortable, I decided to just let her sleep using my lap as her pillow.

"Well, it seems like I have to distract myself with something or I will also fall asleep. Tomorrow, we'll go exploring in earnest."

Kaede-san suddenly moved her head slightly while I was talking to myself so I looked down to see what happened. It seems like she's knitting her eyebrows, probably dreaming about something unpleasant, so I patted her on the head slightly.

When it seems like she's finally back to her deep sleep, I stopped patting her and instead began to rummage through my inventory. This is going to be a long and boring night…

Well, I guess it wouldn't be so bad since there's someone here with me?

◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

※~To be continued~※

Shameless Promotion:

Consider supporting me back on my ko-fi page: ko-fi.com/jadepanda0031! It's got up to 20 advanced chapters for you to read.

Author's Remarks:

※ End of Slice of Life. Next chapter, we will proceed on talking about some other things like maybe the battle against rare monsters? As always, thank you guys for reading!