Chapter 62 – Chili Fruit
At first, Jun thought that after dealing with the giant bear and setting up camp, the next few days would be full of happiness and love with these beautiful girls.
But in reality, it wasn't that simple.
He felt like the girls were starting to isolate him.
He always slept on the farthest side of the bed and was never invited when they went fishing.
Even Utaha and Ginko, who used to always look at him to get ideas, were no longer that close to him.
Lately, the food had also become more "nutritious."
There were bear kidneys, swamp eels—especially his little sister, who even found a kind of wild vegetable similar to chives.
All of those were clearly ingredients that... increased male vitality.
Jun felt like his body was getting weaker, not stronger.
"Swamp eel again... Just give it to Jun-kun. I can't cook this kind of thing."
Yukino looked at the eel in Yui's hand and felt disgusted.
"In that case, Katō-kun~"
Yui gave the eel to Jun.
"Just put it in the wooden bucket for now. I'll help grill it later."
Jun noticed that Yui was holding the eel.
For some reason, that scene always made him think in a sexual way.
The girl also tied her hair into a bun with the last piece of T-shirt.
Jun didn't ask if Yukino still had some left.
Yukino had made it clear from the start that everything was gone. If he insisted on asking again, she would likely bite him.
"Okay! Then I'll go back to fishing. Don't slack off, Katō-kun!"
Yui threw the eel into the bucket and waved her hand before running back to the river.
This part of the river was quite shallow, and so far, Jun hadn't found any large creatures here.
"Don't slack off, huh..."
He said something under his breath, looking at the clay stove in front of him and breathing out slowly.
Recently, in addition to drying salt, he has been burning limestone.
He felt like a factory worker.
Luckily, raw lime had been successfully produced.
When burned at high temperatures, shells and natural limestone would decompose into carbon dioxide and calcium oxide.
"Why burn limestone?"
If anyone asked why, the answer was simple: Kato Jun needed soda ash (sodium carbonate).
He found a mineral similar to mirabilite in a large rock near the ice pile. After burning it with limestone and charcoal, he successfully created dark-colored ash powder—that was soda ash.
This chemical is important.
Soda ash is used to purify coarse salt made from seawater.
Substances like magnesium and other impurities would be removed.
Soda ash had many other uses in addition to that one.
With soda ash, it's possible to start over and rebuild civilization from the ground up, even in a faraway place.
| Notice: even though I'm a science student, my chemistry grades rarely passed 30, so don't take this part too seriously… |
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The point is, Jun could now purify sea salt and also obtain quicklime—an important material for building a house.
"Did it work?"
Yukino looked closely at the black powder that resulted from Jun's burn.
It had been almost two months since they lived on this island, but there were still no signs of a search and rescue team or a rescue ship.
After realizing they might be stuck in another world, everyone started talking about how to survive long-term and live better.
They worked together to create this soda ash furnace.
"Yes, with this, we can do a lot more in the future."
Kato Jun gathered all the results of his burning.
Now, it was time to think about building a house.
He looked at the big tree in front of them.
If they could build a treehouse twenty meters high, that would be very romantic.
"You still want to build a treehouse?"
Yukino saw where Jun was looking.
"Yes, it's harder than building on the ground, but I still want to try."
For over a week, Jun had been collecting a lot of wood.
He only needed two hours per day to cut down trees, and thanks to his skill, he could keep all his body parameters the same to stay stable.
This ability made it easier to gather wood in the forest.
"In that case... okay. The others also agreed."
Yukino had just finished one coat made from bear skin.
"Try wearing this."
With a hint of pride, she handed the bear coat to Jun.
"So warm."
Jun immediately put it on. The bear hide was very thick, but also quite light and would clearly be useful when winter came.
"Thank you, Yuki... With a coat this thick, winter won't be a big problem."
Yukino looked at Jun and saw that he was wearing her handiwork. She smiled.
"Onii-chan, are you really planning to build a house in a tree?"
Actually, Megumi didn't like the idea of a treehouse.
It took too much time, and winter might be coming soon.
The plants growing around the island looked like they weren't growing normally.
"Starting tomorrow, I'll build the pulley system first."
Jun had a plan to make a wooden pulley at the top of the tree. He would use the pulley and slippery vines to pull items up.
"Starting the treehouse, huh? Wow, that sounds so fun!"
Yui and Ginko looked very excited.
Sleeping twenty meters high, surrounded by the night sky and twinkling lights... how delightful.
"In that case, don't wait. The temperature has been getting colder lately. It might get very cold very soon..."
Yukino felt that once they decided on something, they had to finish it quickly.
The new member, Nanako, was still learning to read and count with Yukino.
When she heard their conversation, she sometimes repeated some words in her innocent tone.
"Onii-chan, you promised to go with me to pick chili fruit tomorrow."
Megumi reminded him with a plain face.
"Ah! That's right!"
Jun remembered that they had promised to do that.
Chili fruit was a kind of fruit that was similar to chili—it was spicy and sweet, and it was very suitable for cooking.
So far, that fruit could only be found in areas with a lot of bee nests.
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