Leon Greyrat: The Second Son - Mushoku Tensei OC

Chapter 27 - Sleepless Nights

— Leon Greyrat —

Taking a sip of the stew, my lips curled into a frown.

"Damn... it isn't good, but it's edible. Aisha and Norn have eaten Father's cooking, so they should be able to stomach this."

Having spent the entire night awake, making sure no monsters came to visit us and slaying the few that did, I tested the meat of the other two monsters I had killed to see if they were edible or not.

Luckily, or perhaps, unluckily, the first one I had tried had been the only one that was harmful to the human body, a snake-like monster that tried to strike me from behind a rock, only to meet its end with a blade of wind.

The next one I tried was a sort of wolf-like creature, and while it wasn't necessarily harmful to the body, with how bad it tasted, it might as well have been.

I decided to keep a small portion of the meat for emergencies, but honestly... I hope we never got to that point.

Let's just say it wasn't a detoxification spell that made me puke out that one.

And lastly, there was some sort of bird monster that tried to swoop in for the snake's corpse, only to be dispatched by a flick of my sword.

This meat was safe, and most importantly, edible.

While it wasn't good by any stretch of the word, it would have to do.

Since I didn't have any spices or herbs to mask the disgusting aftertaste, I decided to make a stew, not only to get all the nutrients I could out of the meat, but also to make it tender so it was easy to swallow down.

I really wish there was some sort of plant magic.

Rudy always wondered if there were some derivatives like that and shadow magic, but our experiments never proved fruitful.

A shame, considering the current circumstances.

As there was no firewood or brush to be seen, I originally began cooking the stew with a constant application of fire magic, but soon enough, I realized that I could superheat the rocks to the point where they glowed red to provide a constant heat source until they naturally cooled off.

And so, with my hands free from heating the pot, I crafted a set of necklaces, one for a sister each.

With the string made out of the lace from my shirt and the pendant made of a flat stone, overall... it looked quite ugly.

But I wasn't making these for beauty, but rather for practicality.

"Mmm... I just hope it lasts long enough," I mumbled to myself, letting my fingernail finish the final few lines of the magic circle.

I'd need to replenish the mana a few times a day, but it should be good enough to keep the two safe.

Letting the blood dry onto the rock, I then poured my mana into both of them, and upon lightly touching myself, I felt no resistance.

Okay, that's good.

Would be bad if I couldn't pick up my sisters, after all.

I then took out my sword, and as I tried to bring down the blade onto my hand, I was stopped just beforehand by a translucent barrier, the motion of my sword halting in midair.

Perfect.

This was the spell Auto Shield, an Intermediate-rank protection spell that blocked any incoming attacks on the user, but still allowed harmless things to pass through it.

It was also what I cast around the hut, as I would still want to go in and out when I needed to.

I could understand how barriers worked.