I Got a Gallery in the Wild - Chapter 202

The bite force of a dragon delightfully chewing on Mithril.

Watching that made me think: wouldn’t an accident happen sooner or later?

From Tyranno’s perspective, he might give a gentle bite, but flesh could get ripped off in chunks.

Tyranno played with Wonmo often, making the chance of an accident even higher.

Luckily, Wonmo had already learned the concept of controlling his strength while playing with the raccoon.

For everyone’s safety, I needed to train his awareness.

"Tyranno-ya. Try biting here."

"Ppi?"

Perching Tyranno on my shoulder, I pointed to my forearm.

Tyranno stared intently at the spot I pointed to, looking focused.

"Bite slowly until I say it hurts. Like this. Nom!"

When I even mimicked biting my forearm, Tyranno tilted his head.

Rather than explaining with words, I decided to show him through action.

Biting us as an expression of affection is fine, but your bite force is way too strong.

Before an accident occurs, you need to bite with a moderate amount of force. So follow my lead.

I needed to teach and engrave this into his mind.

"Ppiii!"

And then, as if realizing my intent, Tyranno beamed brightly and bit down on my forearm.

Crrak!

"Kgaaaaah! No! No! Not like this! Let go! Let go!"

"Ppi-ppi?!"

My bone almost snapped the instant he bit down. I hurriedly stopped Tyranno.

Tyranno also hastily backed off as soon as he heard my scream.

Looking down at my forearm, clear tooth marks were left behind.

’How did it only leave marks? It wouldn’t have been strange if it pierced straight through.’

Though the bone didn’t break, a severe dark bruise formed instead.

It seemed I’d need to load a syringe with an Elixir and inject it soon.

"S-See? Your strength is this powerful. So you must never bite your friends hard."

"Ppiiiii..."

"It’s okay. It’s okay. Mistakes happen. Come on, let’s try again."

Through consistent repetition, Tyranno quickly mastered controlling his strength.

Given his high intelligence, he seemed to grasp what I wanted right away.

Now that there was no worry of future accidents, only one issue remained.

’How should I manage our food supply?’

With more mouths to feed, the food situation had become urgent.

Largo only needed to eat tree leaves, but the other animals were a different story.

’Every single one of them is a big eater.’

To make matters worse, winter was fast approaching. I had to stockpile food to prepare for winter.

A representative crop suitable for winter preparation was the potato.

I had already received potato seeds from Grow Big and Tall, so all I needed to do was plant them.

’...Should I make kimchi for the winter or something?’

Such a useless thought popped into my head, but I brushed it aside.

What Kimjang in this situation? I barely ate kimchi myself anyway.

It seemed best to browse the Gallery.

If I really couldn’t find anything, I could just ask.

’Ooh... surprisingly, there’s bread.’

I was able to quickly find foods suitable for winter preparation.

Starting from the smoked meat cured in salt I made previously, to salted vegetables.

In particular, rice and wheat were said to be perfect for enduring winter. Both of those were to be stored in a cool place.

For now, I planned to ask Grow Big and Tall.

If he didn’t have any, I’d have to look for seeds in the Auction House.

’Besides those, there are cabbage, spinach, radish, and potatoes, but....’

Storing too wide a variety might just cause unnecessary confusion.

’Let’s endure this winter with 3 things: wheat, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Then....’

I needed to look into how to harvest wheat.

Rather than searching one by one, I asked Grow Big and Tall. That seemed like it’d be faster.

[Grow Big and Tall: If you harvest wheat, you must dry it within 4 hours. That’s how you keep the quality from degrading.]

[Wild Grylls: What if I don’t?]

[Grow Big and Tall: It’ll rot or get moldy, right?]

[Wild Grylls: ;;]

Originally, I intended to make bread out of flour.

But after hearing the explanation, I gave up on that too.

There were just way too many steps involved. Noodles were far better than bread.

Even producing flour took a long time.

’Come to think of it, while bakers exist, there’s no job specifically dedicated to cooking rice.’

Since I cooked rice every day at home, I thought bread would be easy too.

But just as making rice cakes out of rice is difficult, bread was the same way.

So I pivoted my route to rice instead of wheat.

Grow Big and Tall didn’t have rice either, so I planned to ask someone else.

’I can just ask Heavenly Demon, right?’

Since the Central Plains is a Murim setting, there was a high chance they had rice.

Handing soil over to Grow Big and Tall, I initiated a chat with Heavenly Demon.

[Heavenly Demon: Are you asking for rice?]

[Wild Grylls: Seeds, to be precise. I plan to harvest rice.]

[Heavenly Demon: Understood. I shall have my close aides provide them.]

[Wild Grylls: Thank you.]

Since I was set to receive rice from Heavenly Demon soon anyway, I decided to dry the wheat first.You are reading on novelping(.)com, the official source.

To dry wheat, it had to be threshed first, but shaking each head out by hand was extraordinarily difficult.

Therefore, a thresher was required. Since I was scheduled to harvest rice soon as well, it was a necessity, not an option.

’A thresher is one thing, but removing the husks too... did farmers do all of this manually?’

Respect for farmers welled up inside me anew.

I checked the Auction House to see if there were threshers and husking tools.

’Isn’t this a comb?’

There was a thresher that looked somewhat like a comb. To be exact, it was a piece of iron shaped like a comb.

I purchased it to see what it looked like. It was roughly the size of a human head.

’I just insert the grain heads in here and pull back, right?’

Just looking at it gave me an idea of how to use it. So what now?

Put Ludwig to work, of course. Before that, I laid a cloth on the ground.

Next, I set up a chair at the edge and fixed the thresher onto it.

"Alright. Let’s get to work."

"Mm."

Tududududuk!

Inserting the grain heads into the dense thresher, we pulled back.

Thanks to that, appetizing grains fell out in showers.

"Lick, lick."

"Ehei. Tyranno-ya, you shouldn’t eat that!"

"Ppi?"

Tyranno tried to lick up a few grains along the way, but I barely stopped him.

After that, we diligently threshed all the wheat harvested so far.

The threshed grains were gathered together and laid in a sunny spot.

Drying them out would be much like drying chili peppers. I didn’t forget to apply bug repellent either.

’Birds... won’t come, right?’

Birds had long since fled at Tyranno’s majestic presence.

At least as long as Tyranno was here, they wouldn’t come.

What to do while waiting for the grains to dry?

"Ludwig-ssi. I’m going out for a quick reconnaissance."

"Mm."

I set out for reconnaissance and hunting. Ludwig should be more than capable of defending the Shelter.

Besides Ludwig, Lackey was here too.

Lackey was also hard at work using the thresher.

It wasn’t like we could eat only rice or noodles during winter.

Originally, I intended to leave Tyranno behind as well.

"Ppiiii! Ppiii!"

"I said I’m just going for a bit!"

"Ppiii! Ppiiiii!!"

But he clung to me, telling me not to go, or to take him along if I went.

And boy, was he strong.

Having no choice, I decided to take Tyranno along on reconnaissance.

However, Speed Sloth was currently clinging to my back.

"Do you really have to sit there?"

"Ppi!"

"Fine. Do whatever."

Tyranno settled onto my head like a nest.

It was slightly heavy, but nothing uncomfortable. Better than him wandering around and getting lost.

Furthermore, there was an unlooked-for advantage: Tyranno’s reaction.

"Ppi."

Tyranno lifted his head and let out a soft cry, as if signaling that something was over there.

Though slightly doubtful, I headed toward where Tyranno wanted for now.

"Kguik."

"Oh...?"

There was a wild boar.

A giant wild boar comparable to a bus.

Its size looked like something straight out of a movie, and its sharply extending tusks were impressive.

’...I saw something like that back in the military, didn’t I?’

The memory came flooding back clearly.

The memory of a wild boar sauntering over while we were working.

A miraculous wild boar that made the Jeep right beside it look small.

"Kguiiiik!!!"

An even larger boar than that one charged straight at me.

Having roughly anticipated the situation, I was just about to move my feet without flustering—

"Ppiaaaaaak!!!"

Tyranno atop my head let out a cute roar.

It worked on birds, but I questioned whether it would work on a wild boar.

"Kguik?!"

Kagagagagak!

It worked. Extremely effectively, at that.

The moment the wild boar heard the roar, its eyes widened as it slammed on the brakes.

Whether it realized Tyranno was a hatchling or responded to terror etched into its instincts, I couldn’t tell.

What was certain was that a huge opportunity had presented itself to me.

Seizing the moment, I dashed toward the boar.

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The Sword of the Heavenly Demon pierced precisely into the boar’s forehead.

Its brain turned to mush, the wild boar trembled uncontrollably for a moment before slumping down limp.

Kwoong!

Because its body was so massive, a slight tremor reverberated as it fell.

Exhaling my held breath, I looked down at the fallen boar.

Given its gigantic size, it felt like we could get through the entire winter on this alone.

In exchange, I’d have to build a large storage unit. Fortunately, there was plenty of ice.

"...You’re amazing, aren’t you?"

"Ppi!"

As I stroked his chin and praised him, Tyranno puffed his neck out stiffly.

It was as if he was boasting, ’I’m this awesome!’ Cute, nevertheless.

I bound the wild boar tightly with ropes I’d prepared in advance.

Carrying this was out of the question, so I intended to drag it back.

’Still... it’s heavy.’

Given its size, it couldn’t be helped.

Still, let’s view it as winter survival rations.

Just in case, I placed Tyranno on top of the boar to keep a perimeter watch.

Since there were so many thieves in the Forest of the Four Seasons, it was unavoidable.

"Kgyuu?"

When I dragged the boar back, Wonmo—who had just woken from a nap—greeted us.

Ludwig and Lackey were still in the middle of threshing wheat.

Not long after setting out for reconnaissance, I returned with a massive harvest.

"Ahjussi! You know how to butcher, right?"

"#%$#"

"Then please help me out."

Butchering this alone would take far too long.

In the first place, with a size this huge, it was uncertain whether I could even butcher it properly.

Fortunately, Ludwig seemed to have expertise in butchering too.

Was it because carrying out numerous missions often required self-sufficiency?

"One. Two! Pull!"

"Hmph!"

"Kgueng."

Even though I prepared myself, the preliminary work was tough. It reminded me of the Saber-toothed Tiger incident.

Normally, butchering starts with hanging the carcass upside down. That makes draining blood easy.

The issue was that the boar was so huge, even hanging it upside down proved difficult.

Here, we enlisted Largo’s help. He was quite strong himself, pulling the boar up to the desired height.

He was practically a biological crane. I never thought he’d be used like this, though.

Trickle-trickle-trickle-

Since draining the blood took time, I built the storage unit in the interim.

Not a traditional Stone Ice Storage, but roughly similar to a freezer warehouse.

Not a place to store tools and miscellaneous odds and ends, but a place exclusively for preserving food.

Since I could supply ice near infinitely with my ability, proper thermal insulation would be enough.

’Make sure heat can vent properly... and we’re short on sand again?’

Gain one thing, and another is needed; get that one thing, and yet another is lacking.

It felt like falling into an endless loop. But this was normal.

Had I lived alone, it might be different, but with more members, necessary supplies naturally increased.

’The time is fine. But I still need to hurry.’

Heading downstream to fetch sand, coming back to stack up the storage house again.

After meticulously plastering mud and straw inside for good insulation, we resumed butchering.

My heart wanted to assign it to Lackey, but unfortunately, he was a gorilla.

His hand structure being what it was, he wasn’t suited for delicate tasks like butchering.

Jjeojeojeojek!

Once butchering progressed to a certain degree, we loaded ice into the storage room.

After filling it with ice, we put in the butchered boar, grains, vegetables, and so forth.

Anything that could serve as food was packed inside.

’Let’s just patch the door with cloth. Time to attach a real door is tight.’

By the time all the work was finished, it was 4:30 PM.

If I had done it alone, I couldn’t have finished within today. Extra hands really make a world of difference.

"Great work. Are you going to wash up?"

"Mm."

I prepared bathwater for Ludwig, who suffered the most today.

For the record, I intended to wash all the animals, including Lackey.

Surprisingly, Lackey washed himself quite well. Once bathwater was set up, he took care of everything on his own.

Largo just needed brushing and a wipe-down with a wet towel. Lastly, Tyranno was...

"Ppiiii!!! Ppiii!!!"

"Ah. What’s wrong? You don’t wanna take a bath?"

"Ppiii! Ppii! Ppiii!"

Refusing to bathe—he really acted just like a cat.

But for hygiene’s sake, it was non-negotiable. He had to be washed.

Even without fur, who knew what kind of ticks might be lurking on his body.

"If you don’t wash, no food for you!"

"Ppiiing...."

Fortunately, threatening him with food made him obedient.

Another uneventful day drew to a close.