Chapter 38
* * *
"It still feels a little uncomfortable to wash with just water."
Kang Seoyun said as she came out of the shower.
The average hygiene standards of modern people were far too high for a deserted island.
I hadn't realized shampoo, body wash, soap, and the like would run out so quickly.
"Maybe I should've used them more sparingly. I underestimated how common they were among the washed-up supplies."
"It's not like we can even shower whenever we want."
"Mmm… I guess I was being spoiled."
It was a spoiled thing to say, but this was the first time we'd faced this problem since getting stranded.
Since magic meant we didn't have to worry about water, we'd gotten lax and all washed as we normally would.
If our shower supplies ran out quickly… well, that'd be a shame.
We'd been too busy worrying about food and a place to sleep lately, anyway.
Kang Seoyun came over beside me and dried her hair with the drying Wind Pocket we'd set up near the platform.
Fwoosh.
I felt like I'd watched Seoyun dry her hair like this before; it felt familiar.
It was a little like seeing the back of my live-in girlfriend sitting at her vanity.
Had we gotten too used to living together on this deserted island?
"Oppa~ I caught some fish!"
Luka, who'd been swimming in the stream, raised both hands, clutching something.
"Let me see. How big are they?"
She sure was having fun splashing around.
Hm?
When I went over to Luka, I saw a surprisingly decent amount of fish and shrimp trapped in the crevices between the rocks.
What was this, a naturally occurring fish trap?
"There's something like this here?"
"There's some in the pools nearby, too?!"
"Pools?"
Could they be fish stranded after the heavy rain? I checked their condition with detection magic.
They were in surprisingly good shape. The pollution levels among the wildlife on this island were strangely low.
Following Luka's lead, we managed to gather quite a lot of fish and shrimp.
So the downpour hadn't only wrecked our settlement.
"Luka did great, right? Didn't I say Luka was lucky? Hehe."
"You did great. Good eye."
To find such unexpected good luck first thing in the morning…
It made me happy.
Nature had two sides.
It could batter you mercilessly, then offer you shade where you could rest.
It wasn't enough to gorge ourselves on, but if we gathered a handful at a time, it made a good soup.
We put the things Luka had gathered into the wooden food storage box with Preservation cast on it.
"So rain pouring down isn't always a bad thing."
Kang Seoyun said as she watched us.
"That's true."
This was the first time we'd gotten food so easily.
"It'd be nice to store these by category, too. Right now, we just put everything edible in one place."
The Assistant Manager was meticulous, as expected.
She pointed out that the jumbled state of our food storage was unsightly.
"Then, should I make a few more boxes?"
"That would be great!"
Seoyun's pretty reaction made me want to get to work.
I couldn't say that to her, though. I'd be embarrassed.
Making food storage boxes wasn't all that difficult.
There wasn't much design work to worry about, like keeping moisture or contamination from rising up through the floor.
That was all thanks to the Glyph of Preservation.
The more I used it, the more ridiculously powerful it seemed.
It kept the wood from rotting and the food from spoiling.
Being able to store more food with confidence in Preservation meant we could escape the extreme pressure of survival.
The mana of 「Preservation」 wrapped around our precious food like a thin film.
It was truly mysterious.
Magic and the island's nature were both mysterious.
When I returned to the platform after finishing the morning's work, Seoyun was doing something.
"Mr. Woojin, what do you think this is?"
A yellow fruit.
It was the thing we'd gathered yesterday but never figured out what to do with.
"I'm not sure."
"Should we try eating it?"
"I don't think we should."
Detection magic said it was harmless.
But when you rubbed it, it kept oozing this slippery juice…
What on earth was I supposed to call this?
A love-gel fruit?
Hmm. Had all that lewd stuff last night melted my brain?
"It doesn't seem… irritating to the skin, at least."
What in the world was this thing for?
We laid it out on the platform and puzzled over it.
Just then, the Manager, curious about what we were doing, came over.
"Assistant Manager Kang, Mr. Woojin. What are you doing?"
"Oh, Manager. This is a fruit Mr. Woojin and I found yesterday."
"A fruit? Is it edible?"
"We don't know. We have no idea what it's for."
It had a decent amount of mana, so it seemed a waste to throw it away just because we didn't think it was edible.
The pandanus fruit had looked useless at first glance, too, but it had turned out to be useful once we'd thought it through.
"May I take a look?"
Han Jia climbed onto the platform on all fours and touched the yellow fruit.
"───."
Honestly, I didn't expect the Manager to know anything about it.
Not that I was looking down on her; it would be stranger if she recognized some nameless fruit we'd randomly found on a deserted island.
"Could you give me some water, Mr. Woojin?"
"Oh, yes."
The Manager lightly touched a Water Pocket to let out a stream, then rubbed the juice she'd applied to the back of her hand.
It foamed.
I'd seen that sight somewhere before.
"It might be a soapberry?"
"Ah! Why didn't I think of that? I think the Manager's right."
Seoyun reacted right away.
"Huh? Soapberry? Soap grows on trees like fruit?"
Seoyun's contemptuous gaze briefly swept over me.
Shivers.
"Of course not. There are fruits that contain ingredients used to make soap."
So that's what this soapberry was?
That meant it was natural soap!
"Hehe."
The Manager laughed as she looked at Assistant Manager Kang and me.
It was a little embarrassing.
"That was a pretty funny joke, wasn't it?"
"For a moment, it sounded like you were serious…"
"No, I really was."
Actually, I was about 30 percent serious.
No, there was a time when I thought pineapples grew on trees, too.
I was so shocked when I saw them growing in a field!
Anyway…
"So, can we use this?"
There was a time when our camp had even considered doing laundry with lye.
Was this actually a huge find?
We could completely improve our hygiene standards.
We'd already realized that the yellow fruit was common.
"It seems to have a lot of saponin."
"Saponin?"
The Manager seemed different now.
No, she'd been an elite I couldn't measure up to even back at the company. She just hadn't had a chance to show that side of herself until now.
"It's a natural surfactant. Like soap, it gets between water and oil, letting water wash away sweat and grime stuck to your skin."
In other words, it did pretty much the same job as the shower products we knew.
"Then we can wash with this."
"We can, but be careful not to swallow it. It'll sting quite a bit if it gets in your eyes. Natural doesn't mean gentle."
"Mmm~~ I felt like I was almost remembering it, too."
"But you didn't remember, did you?"
"Grr…"
The Assistant Manager couldn't argue and pouted.
It was fun teasing her.
Kang Seoyun rarely showed this childish, competitive side of herself at the office.
"We can use this when we do laundry today, too. Shall we try washing clothes with it? The sun's out nicely today."
"That's right."
Hmm──.
Now that we had some breathing room, I was starting to think our settlement wasn't so bad.
A wide-open clearing with plenty of sunlight.
Natural shade from the broad leaves overhead, right above the platform.
And now that I could block sudden squalls with the Glyph of Wind, we wouldn't get drenched anymore.
A campfire burned off to one side, and the area swept by the downpour had left us fish and little shrimp to catch.
Maybe we should just stay here.
A lot of things had started to feel like a hassle.
"Shall we take our time looking for a candidate site?"
Flop!
"Oh no, Mr. Woojin's lost his motivation. When that happens, he spends three whole days and nights lazing around without a break."
"Am I really that kind of person in your eyes, Assistant Manager?"
"Maybe I overestimated you. Four days?"
"I don't laze around according to a set schedule."
Smack!
The Assistant Manager lightly tapped my back as if to say, Is that something to brag about?
It was a light flick, but her palm stung.
"Hehe, you two are just like a married couple!"
"So I'm the henpecked husband?"
"Who said anyone was henpecked? Who? And what married couple…"
The Assistant Manager blushed and hurriedly left.
"She's cute, isn't she, Manager?"
"She was always weak when it came to that kind of thing~. She didn't even have a boyfriend she was going to marry back in society."
"Mm-hmm. Why are you telling me that?"
"You two look good together, too…"
The Manager circled around the subject as though she had something to say, then watched my face and spoke.
"Mr. Woojin. About what happened yesterday…"
I straightened up and stood.
"Yes. I'm listening."
Seriously──
As seriously as a person could possibly be!!
"You don't have to take it so seriously. I mean── yesterday, I was just being an embarrassing old woman."
"Pardon?"
"I'm not trying to get between you and Assistant Manager Kang or anything. You don't have to worry about it."
"Do you want us to pretend it never happened?"
Before even defining what 「Assistant Manager Kang and I」 were, I first tried to figure out what the Manager wanted.
Was she drawing a line because she didn't want things to develop into a relationship after what happened yesterday?
"That's…"
Jia turned away, fiddling with the finger wearing her wedding ring.
"Not pretend it never happened exactly… I just don't want us to attach any special meaning to it."
"Saying it meant nothing makes it sound even sleazier."
"I-is that so~?"
It'd make me sound like some young guy who got horny and slept with her.
"Don't worry."
Whatever the Manager was anxious about, I had no intention of making the situation complicated.
"I won't demand money or a divorce by claiming to be your lover, or show up in front of your kids in some soap-opera scene saying I'm your new daddy~."
"You're already imagining all that…"
"When the rescue team comes, you can go back to your family. We should let what happened during a disaster stay mostly in the past."
"Let it stay mostly in the past… Mm. Right?"
In an extreme situation, people could act strange in any number of ways.
Who could blame someone for doing things they normally wouldn't?
The especially lewd side of the Manager I'd seen yesterday was like that, too.
It was an eruption of pent-up feelings, with stress finding an unfortunate outlet.
It just so happened that we were a very good match at the time.
"So don't worry. I touched both Assistant Manager Kang's breasts and yours, too, Manager."
"That's true. Once you had permission, you really did touch them a lot, Mr. Woojin."
"Are you going to report me to the police?"
"No~."
"That's all there is to it. I don't plan to drag it out, either."
I hated troublesome things.
What reason did I have to act like Manager Han Jia's husband?
Unless I had kids with her, the Manager loved me, and we had sex every day.
Were we really going to stay on this island that long?
"Thank you for talking it through with me."
I was just saying what Kim Woojin, who always took it easy, would say.
I didn't mind if our relationship remained ambiguous. We'd just go with the flow…
Someday, the right time would come.
* * *
Life on a deserted island was surprisingly busy.
There wasn't even time to nap or let my mind wander.
……Wasn't it just like when I was an office worker?
There was one reason for that.
"Mr. Woojin, Mr. Woojin. Can you help me with this?"
The Assistant Manager kept diligently finding things to do and bringing them to me.
She was the sort of person who had to keep doing something to stay in good shape.
In that respect, she was the complete opposite of me, who only did what absolutely had to be done.
"What's this?"
Inside the laundry net in Seoyun's hand were bits of yellow fruit peel.
"I'm going to make a soapberry infusion. But I don't want it to spoil or start smelling, so could you cast magic on it?"
"I'll cast a spell for you. Sha-ra-rang."
I focused on a sensation only I could understand.
The Glyph of Preservation floated before my eyes at my will, but Seoyun couldn't perceive it.
As a wizard, I could touch its meaning.
I traced its boundaries with my fingertips.
Wet things dried, warm things cooled, and living things eventually fell apart.
But I drew a fine line over that natural flow and gave it meaning.
Don't change yet. Don't scatter.
Kiiiing.
「Preservation」 was complete.
"Now make me a Water Pocket, please."
"Am I some kind of magic vending machine, Assistant Manager?"
"Mmm. Hurry up, please. You're the only one who can do it, Mr. Woojin."
I had no idea just how badly she wanted shower products.
Plop.
When I made a Water Pocket, the Assistant Manager put the soapberry pouch she'd made from the laundry net into it and kneaded it.
"It might be too harsh to use as is, so I'll extract the ingredients like this, mix them with water, and put them in a container."
"That's a good idea."
Casting 「Preservation」 didn't mean we couldn't extract the infusion.
If it made things completely immune to physical changes, we wouldn't have been able to cook in the first place.
Now we could shower as much as we wanted.
Yellow fruit was a must-gather item now, too.
It might not be as specialized for washing different parts of our bodies as modern shower products, but just having natural soap would greatly improve our hygiene.
Washing up and eating well in a jungle like this was practically a miracle.
"We should make a lot of this today!"
"Then I'll be lazing around."
Flop.
We had food today, anyway.
I lounged around, completely within my rights.
The weather's nice……