NOVEL NEXT chapter 22
22 – Finding Food (5)
Make sure to read from noble mtl dot com
Lasso.
This is the basis of knots.
It is used in all kinds of places because of the property that the more you pull the knot, the tighter it becomes.
Of course, the father who taught Chester about the lasso most often used it in traps.
“First, lightly tie the end of the rope.”
Chester tied the ends of the rope together to make a bundle, then made a circle around the rope.
“Take one string long and the other short, make a circle with the rope, pass the long end through the circle, make a loop, hold it, and pull the shorter string.”
Chester’s fingers move like water without clogging, and he quickly creates a snare.
“This is a noose. Isn’t it difficult?”
“… … That’s Okay.”
“yes. That’s great.”
After confirming Monia’s noose knot, Chester cut a nearby twig of suitable thickness with an ax to make a wooden block.
“What I’m going to make from now on is a trap that can be easily made with just this piece of wood and a noose.”
Chester tied the noose he made to the block of wood.
“End with this.”
“Yes?”
“Tie the noose to several pieces of wood like this, and then lean it against the tree.”
Chester set the block of wood and pointed up.
“If a small rodent climbs this block of wood and gets ensnared, it’ll be there.”
Chester, pointing at the noose, snapped his finger down.
“You fall down and get caught in the noose, and you die. Isn’t it simple?”
“… … Are you really going to get caught with this?”
“Well? I was passing through this area in the woods earlier and found a rat in a tree.”
It was a rat with a thick tail.
“I decided to make it after seeing it. There are mice that climb trees, so if you install them, you will catch them. There’s nothing you can do if you don’t get caught.”
Chester and Monia made a bunch of nooses and set similar traps here and there.
“Is this the end?”
“no. I will make something that can catch a little bigger one.”
This time, I made a bigger noose after connecting the ropes together to make them longer.
After making the noose, Chester roamed the forest looking for a suitable place to set a trap.
“You see this place?”
Chester pointed to a hole in the bush.
“A place like this is also a path for animals. I set the trap a little while ago, but this time I’m going to set it right at this corner.”
“Is there a reason?”
“The snare trap is less vigilant because it looks like an animal can pass through it,” he said.
Saying that, Chester approached a sapling near the road and began trimming it with an axe.
“You can just use this tree for a trap, but if you cut all the branches off, the air resistance will decrease, so the trap will go much faster. The chances of missing it are reduced.”
After all the trees were trimmed, Chester grabbed a branch and began clipping it into a long stake.
Chester cuts a tree branch into a long stake and hits it on the ground with a stone.
After driving a stake to some extent, step on it with your feet to fix it deeply, and then use a stone knife to dig a shallow groove on one side of the stake.
And on the other side, lightly drive another stake, and make a groove there.
Next Chester pulled down the sapling and tied a long piece of string from the noose to the end.
Then, carefully pulling the noose, he put the string through the groove of the shallow peg, and hooked one side of the noose into the groove of the deep peg.
“done.”
“How does this work?”
“The elasticity of that sapling is what activates the trap. See this shallow stake?”
“Yes.”
“The noose is hanging precariously from here. But the moment the beast passed by and touched the noose.”
Chester wiggles the noose, and the noose hanging from the deep stake is undone.
When the help of the deep stakes was gone, the shallow stakes, unable to hold the noose on their own, were pulled out, and the sapling soared upwards in an instant and returned to its original shape.
“Didn’t I say that the more you pull the noose, the stronger it gets?”
“Yes.”
“What would have happened if the animal had been caught in the noose earlier?”
“… … .”
Imagining the words of the animal caught in the noose, Monia gulped down her saliva.
“If you’re a small guy, you’ll die instantly. Even the big ones don’t die, but they can’t escape, so we can leisurely catch them and retrieve them later.”
After the explanation, Chester set the lasso trap again.
“A simpler trap is simply tying the noose to the ground.”
“Are you tied to the ground?”
“yes. Tie a noose to a tree trunk and leave it in the animal passage. If the beast gets caught, the noose tightens and it becomes impossible to escape, so wait until the bound beast gets tired and take care of it slowly.”
But unfortunately, they couldn’t set the trap anymore.
“Let’s grab some leaves and bark on the way home.”
“Yes.”
On the way back, Chester and Monia focused on gathering bark and leaves to make rope and string.
And when I went through the woods and returned to the villa.
‘Ah, I’m hungry.’
Monia finally remembered the hunger she had forgotten about.
* * *
Chester, who had put some sand on the fire before leaving for the woods to extinguish it, used a wooden stick to dig through the remains of the fire.
After clearing away the sand and rummaging through the remains of the bonfire, surviving embers remained under the hot sand.
Seeing the flickering embers, Monia threw the tinder she was holding in her hand, and when the tinder caught fire, she slowly shook the hard bark and blew air into the small fire.
“Now, do as I have been taught.”
“Yes, yes!”
When Chester said this, Monia became nervous and carefully carried the slender twig to the flames.
“Hick! hot! It’s hot!”
I lost a branch in the heat of the flames.
“Be patient with that.”
“Oooh.”
Hearing Chester’s bruising, Monia again carefully placed the thin branches on the fire.
The fire that received the fuel to burn burned up in an instant by eating dry branches, and Monia put a slightly thicker branch on it.
As Chester taught me, Monia completes a stable bonfire after slowly increasing the size of the flames step by step.
“yes. Pretty good.”
Chester, who saw Monia’s finished bonfire, patted her on the back and praised her.
“Ehe.”
After being praised, Monia quietly smiled and looked at the first bonfire she had lit with satisfied eyes.
“Okay then, let’s eat.”
“Yes!”
“Eat the meat this time.”
“I do not like it!”
“Ugh.”
A few plant flesh found while wandering the forest. The meat of a still unknown creature. and tea brewed from medicinal plants.
It was dinner with Chester and Monia that day.
“… … .”
“how?”
“Eugheek!”
“I can’t even drive.”
“The tongue! My tongue hurts! poison! It’s poison… !”
“no it’s not.”
Chester drank tea while watching Monia make a fuss.
The hot, astringent tea water went down my throat, the scent of grass drifted in my mouth and nose, and my body instantly became warm.
“Not bad.”
Chew plant flesh and meat together, drink tea, and pass.
Fortunately, water was plentiful, as I had made several buckets of bamboo on the way around to make traps.
“Ugh! urg! Ugh!”
While Chester relaxed and enjoyed his meal, Monia was wrestling with the meat Chester had cut up.
Chester glared at him to eat it, so Monia did her best to eat it too.
“Hi-ying!”
I gave up because I couldn’t chew before the taste.
‘Do nobles have weak jaw muscles?’
I ate only soft things my whole life, so that was the way to go.
after eating like that.
Chester got a basket and started doing something with the bark.
“What are you doing?”
“I was thinking of filling the gaps in the basket with tree bark. You couldn’t get the leaves, so you had to crumple them in your pocket, didn’t you?”
“Yes, it was.”
“I thought that would be a bit inconvenient.”
Chester crosses the bamboos that make up the basket, inserts bark, and binds them at one end.
After repeating it a little, the gap in the bamboo basket is easily blocked.
“yes. That’s it.”
Chester folded the bamboo basket.
Thanks to the bark being inserted with a margin left for a long time, the bamboo basket was folded well even after the gap was filled with the bark.
It still folds well, so it’s easy to pass through narrow streets, and I can pack things like leaves.
“You do too.”
“Yes.”
While Monia followed Chester and inserted the bark into the basket, Chester pulled out the piece of wood he had brought along the way.
“What did you take care of that for?”
“Thanks to the basket, you can pack your things, right? I think I can make thin strings with leaves.”
“… … .”
“So, I’m thinking of making some serious hunting tools.”
A real hunting tool?
Monia inspected Chester’s hunting tools.
Two harpoons lying on the ground under the cottage.
A catapult that Chester always wears on his belt.
Stone knives and stone axes.
Stone knives and stone axes are not hunting tools, but living and survival tools, but in that they can be used as weapons, they are no different from hunting tools in Monia’s eyes.
Even that alone seemed like a full-fledged and proper tool to Monia.
‘But it’s a full-fledged tool?’
“what is that?”
Monia also stopped her hands from filling the basket and asked.
“yes?”
Chester looked at Monia as he split the wood with his stone axe.
“I’m curious?”
“Yes.”
“yes. It’s nothing.”
Chester said as he carved the split wood into certain shapes.
“Because I’m going to make a bow.”