Chapter 20

While I was pondering the treatment of the idiot who had come to the Somalia Dungeon packing only underwear, live streaming equipment, and adult toys into a backpack, the sun had already climbed high.

The person in question was tinkering with her smartphone inside my tent, constantly ego-surfing and grinning.

“Look at this, Morokoshi! Akane is in Twittor’s overseas trending rankings! Thousands of people are calling me a bitch!!”
“Good grief… Are you happy about that…?”
“As long as I’m trending, I’m happy no matter what!!”

A performer’s thought process really is simple. As long as it buzzes, anything goes, it seems.

“Akane, you’re staying in the Somalia Dungeon for a while, right?”
“Of course! Elite adventurers from all over the world are about to come here, right? I’m gonna hanky-panky my brains out and become a multi-millionaire!!”
“Don’t use brainless made-up portmanteaus. So, where do you plan on sleeping?”
“Eh, right here, obviously.”

Akane replied with a “well, duh” face. How brazen… It was giving me a headache…

“This tent is for one person. And on top of that, I have a big build. You get what I’m saying, right?”
“……Does that mean you’re not letting me sleep tonight…!? “
“Shut up, idiot! It means there’s no room to let Akane sleep here!”

Opening her eyes wide, Akane snapped her mouth open and shut.

“Making a face like that won’t do you any good. For now, I’ll build you a shelter just about capable of blocking wind and rain, so sleep in there. Or else go back to Japan.”
“Oooh, you’re actually kind of nice after all, huh~? Could it be that you’re aiming for me?”
“Wanna camp out in the open?”
“My bad~. I’ll pitch in too, so let’s build the shelter! This is starting to feel kinda exciting!”

This girl is positive to a fault… She might actually be suited for survival.

Pulling out a Mora knife and a hand axe from my backpack, I stepped out of the tent.

Akane, dressed in hot pants and sneakers, followed after me.

“What should I do?”
“Go gather some vines we can use to tie up the wood with this. Don’t go near the river, though. There are crocodiles.”
“Got it!!”

Who knows what she’s finding so fun. Akane started hopping around, looking for climbing vine plants.

Now then. Where should I build the shelter? If I put it too far from my tent, there’s a risk she’ll get targeted by wild animals. I’m not too thrilled about it, but building it nearby was the safest bet. Thanks to the effect of [Naked], ordinary animals wouldn’t approach.

I designated a spot about three meters away from my tent as the planned shelter construction site. I picked up a large boulder, smashed it against the ground, and compacted a three-meter-square area.

“Well, this should do it.”

For the shelter, I just needed to build walls in a “U” shape and put a lean-to roof over it. By attaching a spare waterproof tarp to the ceiling section and the entrance, it could keep out wind and rain.

Wielding the hand axe, I tracked down a decent tree and chopped it down with brute force. What I wanted were logs about ten centimeters in diameter. They could double as stakes and serve as walls.

There was also bamboo growing that could be used for the roof. Finding some around ten centimeters in diameter as well, I chopped them down, split them in half, and removed the nodes.

After spending an hour gathering wood, I set to work building the walls. Using the hand axe, I sharpened the tips of the stakes and drove them into the ground.

I built the walls by sandwiching logs between two stakes. The gaps could be filled in later with clayey soil—that was Akane’s job.

Once the walls were finished, it was time for the roof. I first stretched out a waterproof tarp, then lined up the split bamboo pieces alternately on top of it.

All that was left was to bind the joints with vines, and the shelter was basically complete. Digging a drainage trench would keep rainwater from pooling.

As for the crucial vines, Akane was awfully late—

“Morokoshi! I gathered all sorts of vines that can be used as string and stuff!!”

Akane came skipping over happily, wrapped in climbing vines coiled around both shoulders like a belt and holding something twisted around her right hand.

“Should we use this little snake as string too?”

She showed me the snake on her right hand.

“That’s a venomous snake! It’s a black mamba!”
“Eh? Really? But it was totally fine?”

What an utter stranger to fear…

I grabbed the head of the black mamba coiled around Akane’s right hand and tossed it far away. It slithered away, hissing.

“If you get bitten by that thing, an ordinary person dies in thirty minutes, you know?”
“Akane’s gonna be fine! I’m the number one superchat earner!”

She genuinely seemed to believe it, which was terrifying.

“Besides, isn’t Morokoshi amazing? The shelter’s already done!”
“It’s only natural for an adventurer. Hand over the vines.”

Using the vines Akane gathered, I securely fastened the logs and bamboo. In the meantime, Akane kept running in and out of the shelter, making a fuss.

“Alright, it’s done for now. Fill the gaps in the walls with dirt and grass to seal them yourself.”
“Got it! Thanks! You can come over for a midnight creep anytime, you know!”
“Not happening.”

With that, Akane dragged her backpack out of my tent and moved it into her own shelter.

She installed a small solar panel for battery charging on the roof and began praising herself, saying, “This is a genius idea!” What a blissful idiot.

“Sleeping directly on the ground will rob you of your body heat, so you should lay something down on the shelter floor. You might have trouble sleeping until you get used to it.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine! Being able to sleep anywhere with anyone is Akane-chan’s specialty!”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Exhausted from dealing with Akane, who replied to everything with dirty jokes, I retreated back into my own tent.