Chapter 181: Fishing
Link: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n7583de/
Author: Hirukuma
Translated by Zzonkedd
Edited by Gumihou
Hyurumi whittled at a long, flexible branch with a knife, quickly fashioning the stick into a makeshift fishing rod before attaching the fishing line to it.
She skewered the gruesome-looking bait onto the hook without a moment’s hesitation. As expected, women of this world are mentally strong.
I would like to have given her a reel, but since I don’t sell these things, the makeshift fishing rod would have to go without. There was a wooden pier on the beach where she let down her line.
It was nice and relaxing to gaze out at the sea and take things easy. Speaking of which, I am actively fishing too, with my special line wound around a plastic bottle, all of which were controlled through telekineses. In fact, I don’t even need the plastic bottle to reel the line in, but it’s all about the atmosphere.
Being able to enjoy vending machine products and fishing at the same time is rather nice.
“Hey, since Hakkon can fish too, how about a fishing contest?” said Hyurumi.
“Sound great! I get to have fun with Hakkon!”
“Welcome”
I had no objections. I never thought the day when I would go fishing with friends as a vending machine would come, but please bear in mind that I won’t go easy on any of you if it’s a competition.
“It’d be too boring if we just fish normally… how about this, the one with the biggest fish can order the loser to do whatever?”
“Awesome! I won’t lose~”
“Welcome”
Isn’t this fun? I wonder what I’ll have them do if I win. I’ll look forward to it.
We decided to fish until Hevoy came to pick us up. Before heading this way, we had a staff member pass along a message about where we were heading towards. I expect he will come to find us once he’s done speaking with the Director.
“Alright then, let the fishing contest begin!” Ramis cheered.
And just like that, the fishing contest started.
I used to find fishing with my father rather a pain. As I grew older, I found the sensation of zoning out while fishing was kind of relaxing and fun.
This is why I never had any interest in sports fishing, such as [1] bass fishing, which required me to throw the fish back into the water later. My father had always been of the opinion that it’s only common sense to eat the fish that you caught.
“Oh, I got a bite!” Hyurumi exclaimed.
Her rod bent quite a lot, it must be a large fellow.
“Nuoohhh! Hiyaa–!!!”
With a roar, she jerked the rod and a lively fish leaped out of the water. It was a Pacific saury-like fish but abnormally large. It was as long as two normal Pacific sauries.
“Awesome! It’s a Silver Fish! A big one at that!”
It was rare to see Hyurumi so happy, I should record this sight.
“Nununu, I won’t lose either!”
“To wi-n” I said, not planning to lose to either of them.
Anyway, since it’s important to yield to ladies first, I shall graciously allow Hyurumi the first catch. However, the next one shall be-
“It’s heeere!”
Now, it was Ramis’s rod that was bending at an alarming degree. It looked like it was about to break.
“Grab the line, Ramis! Grab the line!” Hyurumi said excitedly.
“Ah, right!”
Ramis grabbed the line. Since she was wearing her reinforced gloves, there was no risk of cutting her hand against the fishing line.
No matter what kind of fish was battling on the other side, there was no way it could win a tug-of-war contest against Ramis. Soon, it burst out of the surface in an explosion of water and flopped helplessly onto the pier. What an amazing… fish? No, wait, is that… a mermaid?
A classic mermaid from Japanese folklore that is…
Its overall form was like a tuna with a mouth that split wide open like a shark. In a way, it could still pass as a fish from another world, except for its two arms.
That’s right, this ‘fish’ thing has two arms sticking out from its side. The arms were humanoid-ish, except for the webbed fingers. It was currently pushing itself along the pier trying to get back into the sea. I was not quite sure what to feel about this thing.
“Hey, that’s a Fish-Arm Demon, right? Don’t let it escape. I heard that it’s pretty delicious!”
“Got it!!!”
Ah, so, it’s a monster. Well, Fish-Arm Demon certainly describes it nicely.
I watched as Ramis and Hyurumi tied the fish demon’s arm behind its back, with the ropes looping around the dorsal fin. So, that’s how you tie down a fish demon with arms…
Once again, I was struck by the reality that this was indeed an ‘other world’. while I was busy pondering over this thought, there was a tug on my line.
The pull was quite strong, to the point that my plastic bottle creaked. I tried reeling the string back with <Telekinesis> but it refused to budge. It felt like I was trying to pull up the seabed.
Could my line have been snagged against some rocks? If so, any more pulling might break the string, but there’s also a chance that I had snagged a super large fish.
“Did Hakkon catch a fish?” Ramis asked interestedly.
“Welcome”
It could be stuck, but let’s pretend it’s a fish for now.
“Need help?”
“He-lp”
“Okay!”
With Ramis, I will have the power of about a hundred men in terms of strength. So long as the line can withstand it, she could probably rip up the seabed itself, if she wanted to.
Ramis stepped forward and grabbed the strong and started pulling with an energetic ‘Tooouuu!!’. The next thing I knew, the surface of the sea exploded once more and a brown object was dragged up from the bottom of the ocean.
Isn’t that… a clam?
The clam looked big enough for a person to fit inside, if they hugged their knees tightly to their chest. Under all that mud, I caught a metallic sheen… which, while odd, was not outside of this world’s logic.
“That’s a pretty big shellfish. I don’t think we have monsters like that, it must just be a mutated shellfish.”
“I wonder if it’s tasty?”
“I’d like to know too, so let’s cook it.”
It looks like we were all pretty happy with a single catch each and were ready to grill up our spoils. By the way, since my catch was not really a fish, we decided to postpone our little game for another day.
Ramis’s super personable ability meant she managed to borrow firewood and grilling nets from nearby fishermen. After collecting some large stones, Hyurumi quickly built a simple stove and lit a fire.
The Silver Fish and Fish-Arm Demon were cut up and pierced with stakes and cooked as they were. As for the giant clam, a second large campfire fire was lit for it. Since it was so huge, [2] there was a debate on what to do about it before the girls simply placed it on a ring of stones. I guess the plan is to just put some embers underneath and see what happens.
“Master Hakkon! I’ve been looking for you, what are you doing?”
Is that Mishael running down the beach? Speaking of which, he was followed by several women who thought they were being subtle…
“Welcome”
“Oh, what a splendid fish and… is that a shellfish?”
It looked like Mishael had never seen this kind of clam either. It reminded me of the clam from that famous painting called The Birth of Venus. Only, I think this one’s even bigger than that. Also, it was unusually round for a bivalve, a perfect circle that’s almost disk-like… anyway, I look forward to knowing what the inside’s like once it’s cooked.
Let’s prepare some soy sauce for this. A splash of soy sauce once the shell pops open would be perfect.
“Come and eat, Mishael,” said Hyurumi.
“Yup, yup, it’s seriously big, so we won’t be able to finish it all~” said Ramis happily.
“That said, if Shui’s here, well…”
Indeed, she would probably try to devour the Fish-Arm Demon and the giant clam all by herself.
“You called?”
“Uwah!”
Everyone jumped. I was shocked too.
I had been too preoccupied with seeing Mishael to pay attention and she just popped up out of nowhere. In fact, she was standing by the first campfire, eyes fixed on the fish that was being grilled.
“You really shouldn’t look at those things with such covetous eyes,” said Hevoy.
Oh? He’s here too? Well, since everyone’s here, let’s have a proper seafood barbecue.
Seafood alone won’t do, let’s have some vegetables. Onions, for example, are great for a barbecue!
“That’s an unusually large shellfish… hm?”
“Yeah, lots to eat… eh?”
Hevoy and Shui were acting oddly as they stared at my clam. Did they recognise it?
“Shui, does it look familiar to you?”
“You’re thinking what I’m thinking-su.”
Hyurumi was in the middle of starting a second fire under the clam.
“Ah, Hyurumi, don’t light the fire please!” Shui gasped, but Hyurumi had already gotten a cheerful fire going on.
Hyurumi frowned at her. [3] Shui looked ready to throw herself onto the fire to put it out when the shell trembled.
“This is dangerous,” Hevoy pulled out his morning star and struck the shell off the fire. It rolled off the ring of stones and onto the beach.
Was it some kind of monster? Does it react badly to fire or something? However, neither Shui nor Hevoy looked particularly wary as they stared at the clam.
“What’s going on, Hevoy?”
“Please excuse me, I believe I have seen that shell before. In fact-”
Just then, the shell slowly opened up right before our eyes.
“Hot…”
We watched in fascination as a green-haired woman crawled out of the clam. The long bangs that covered her eyes were the colour of fresh spring leaves.
[Gumihou: At this point, I’m convinced the author must have some kind of dice that he rolled to get the characteristics of his characters]
[1] It’s unclear what バス釣りといったスポーツフィッシング or ‘bass fishing’ and ‘sport fishing’ really meant, but I found this youtube of a guy fishing in Toronto and he really put the fish back after catching them. You could also catch a glimpse of the ‘green worm’ here too.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=q_26NjPl8ok
[2] Add detail [3] Adjust detail
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