Chapter Thirty-One: The Problem of Spoiled Fresh Meat

[Inferior Crossbow] Attack 25, Accuracy +2, Range 270 meters. Requires crossbow bolts to equip.

He wasn’t sure if real crossbows could actually shoot that far, but at least that was the game’s setting. The inferior crossbow alone had 25 points of damage, far surpassing the combined attack power of all his current equipment. Naturally, he decisively abandoned the bow and switched to this more powerful ranged weapon.

The following days became monotonous, spent hunting. Using traps, he captured large numbers of creatures from this other world, and his stockpile of raw meat grew steadily. However, he soon faced a significant problem: the weather had been hot, and the meat was spoiling rapidly. Each day, the warehouse stored large amounts of fresh meat, a sizable portion of which threatened to rot. Without a refrigerator, the shelf life of raw meat couldn’t exceed three days!

For example, today nearly five hundred pieces of meat were close to spoiling.

“This can’t go on!” He worried that the rapid spoilage would make it impossible to hire werewolves on the night of the full moon. The research lab wasn’t unlocked yet, and the complex prerequisites for manufacturing a refrigerator hadn’t been met, so it was simply impossible. “What should I do?”

“Keen~~kin!” Tina gently poked his back with her slender finger. She understood what was troubling him.

Tina’s accent was difficult to correct, so she always called him Keenkin, and he could only accept it.

He turned around to look at her, his eyes questioning, “What is it, Tina?”

She could understand this sentence, so she pointed toward the eastern mountains, “Mushiu!”

“Huh?” He looked bewildered.

“Mushiu!” Tina repeated, and seeing that he didn’t understand, she led him to the classroom where they studied Chinese.

“Why bring me here?” he asked, puzzled. “Are you going to teach me your world’s language now?”

“Mushiu!” Tina had him sit down, then picked up a piece of charcoal and began drawing on the billboard.

She drew a mountain, with wavy patterns at its peak, shading the lower slopes in black and leaving the summit white.

“Well—Tina, I never knew you were so talented at drawing!” His eyes lit up. “That mountain looks great!”

Tina pointed at the white part of the summit, “Keen~~kin! Mushiu!”

“Huh?” He still didn’t understand.

“Meat!” Tina said the simple word.

“Meat?” He looked at her intently.

“Meat!” Tina raised her left hand, miming holding meat. She raised her right hand as if grasping, brought it to her mouth and blew, then joined it with her left, “Mushiu!”

“Ah!” He finally understood, clapping his hands and standing up in delight. “The snow on the mountaintop!”

“Mushiu!” Tina nodded vigorously.

“Mushiu!” He echoed her pronunciation, then swept Tina up in his arms. “Tina, you’re amazing! I can’t believe I didn’t think of this. There’s plenty of snow and ice at the mountain peaks. If I can collect enough and build a cellar, it’ll be a natural refrigerator! Meat stored there will spoil much more slowly. Tina, you’re wonderful—I adore you!”

He planted a kiss on Tina’s delicate cheek.

Tina hung from his neck, giggling with joy.

“But climbing the mountain… who knows what dangerous creatures we might encounter.” He frowned. “And how do we transport so much ice and snow? I can’t just carry a chunk up and down myself. Even if I send kobold miners, they’d have a hard time collecting enough, and might get eaten by wild monsters… Wait, I’ve got it!”

A sudden inspiration struck him—he remembered the beast pen. Since the kobold nest had appeared, he could directly hire kobold miners. So Little Gray and Little Black, the two tamed kobold miners, weren’t so useful anymore. Now, those two and the kobolds tethered outside the beast pen all slept in the kobold nest at night, and probably had been assimilated by it, even if released.

In that case, it made sense to free up space in the beast pen and capture two otherworldly creatures—ones not too strong, but with excellent carrying capacity—to use as beasts of burden.

With mounts, transporting ice and snow would be much easier.

As for targets, he already had something in mind. He’d hunted a type of tangma before—a medium-to-large creature, easy to catch and very capable of carrying loads.

Though its name included “horse,” this creature had nothing in common with horses. Its back had a natural concave hump, used to store large quantities of water after bathing in lakes. That let it roam long distances without returning for a drink—very convenient!

It would be a waste to let the meat rot, so he used the almost spoiled meat, plus some fresh meat to make up five hundred and ten pieces, and hired a kobold chief.

The kobold chief wasn’t necessarily powerful, but with Tina, that made two magic users capable of casting fireballs.

The kobold chief had another advantage: a whopping five thousand points of health. Many times, it could serve as a meat shield, excelling at tanking monsters.

[Kobold Chief Cook]—the new leader of the kobolds, whom all kobolds obeyed without question.

[Skill] Small Fireball

[Weapon] Ebony Staff

[Armor] Beast Hide Armor, Beast Hide Boots

Unlike other kobolds, the chief had an equipment slot! He experimented by removing its gear—it worked! He tried giving it a crossbow—it could use it! Swapping other equipment caused no issues either.

However, as a mage, the crossbow was less useful than the ebony staff.

So he crafted a full set of leather armor for the kobold chief to boost its defense.

Then, he set out with Tina, Cook, eight kobold warriors, twelve kobold slingers, and a kobold patrol, heading into the forest.

The patrol led the way. After half an hour, they found a herd of tangma feasting on some unknown wild fruit in the dense woods.

“Attack! Remember, capture two tangma alive, kill the rest!” He gave the order, and all the kobolds—led by Cook—charged forward with howls, swiftly entering the tangma herd.