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“I’m screwed…” (Tougo)

　At any rate, I’m in trouble. Deep in trouble.

　I’m suddenly in a place I don’t know. This is something that absolutely cannot be explained by science. I was knee-deep in trouble.

　And to make matters worse, I have no memory of how I got here, so I don’t even know how I got here.

　In that case, I can’t say that I can go back by doing the opposite of hoe I came here. So, I have no clue how to get back to where I came from.

　It’s a hopeless situation, but…

　…Well, never mind. I don’t know why I came here, but I can’t help what I don’t know. I don’t know how to get home, but I can’t do anything.

　If I don’t know anything, I will have to do what I can.

　Otherwise… I feel like I’m going to die from stressing out.

　First, check the situation.

　I am in a strange forest. The greenery is beautiful. The air is very fresh.

　I see the occasional strange plant, but there is no lack of plants that look vaguely familiar. The plants seem surprisingly normal. What is happening?

　And as far as the eye can see, there is nothing but forest. I’m not even sure how far this forest goes, so I guess I should start by walking through it.

　For now, I should first look for a human settlement. If I find someone, I will ask for help. I am not very good at talking to people, but I would like to think that I can manage.

　Even if I can’t find people, I will still need food and water. This area looks like a forest, so I might be able to get some spring water or nuts.

　And if I can’t get out of the forest by the end of the day, I might as well find a place to sleep. I don’t want to stay in the open if I can help it.

　…and my plans for the immediate future are decided.

　For now, I will walk and leave the forest. If there is food and water, I will secure it. If I don’t find a way out of the forest after a certain distance, I have to be prepared to stay in the field. All right.

　I walked. I kept walking.

　And all I found is nothing.

　I couldn’t find any water or nuts. There’s nothing I can do about that.

　I was getting a little hungry and thought about trying the dancing flowers I saw earlier, but it was telling me “I am not delicious don’t eat me,” so I decided not to try them.

　I came to this world and the first person I talked to was a flower. I wanted to talk to a human being if possible.

　Well, thanks to the dancing and talking flowers, I finally understood that this is a different world, so maybe it wasn’t a total loss at all… maybe.

　No, but I wanted a better harvest.

　After that, I walked around the forest, but I couldn’t find any food. And of course, I can’t find a way out of the forest. Did I walk in the wrong direction?

　…And then I got really hungry. It is often said that hunger is the best spice, but it is the presence of food that made spices popular, not the presence of spice alone. It is just a stimulant.

　When was the last time I ate something that looked like food?

　I don’t know where my memory has gone, but the last time I ate…

　…I can’t remember. No, I really don’t know when I ate anything. If I was careless, I might not have eaten anything for more than a day. No, I don’t think so. This hunger I am feeling is probably not that.

　I’ve been told to buy lunch on weekdays and sometimes meals on weekends, so I’ve been using the money to buy art supplies, of course. I don’t have time to buy food. Brushes and paints are expensive. And paper too. So, two meals a day is normal for me, and I’m used to it. If I was spending my time as usual even during the blank time in my memory, I probably skipped meals at random as well.

　Maybe I had some mochi, soumen noodles, or udon noodles from my teacher during that time, but I don’t remember, so I don’t know if I ate them or not. I mean, if it was just a mochi, I’d eat it and digest it right away, so I’d be hungry sooner than later. They are pretty much pre-chewed rice…

　At times like this, water alone can satiate it. I do that at school. But… unfortunately, there aren’t any faucets around.

　We have no choice but to look around more.

　At least water. Food if possible. I wonder if there is any food somewhere.

　It was night and I still couldn’t find any food or water.

　I picked some glowing flowers and tried to walk around using them as lights, but in the end, I could only see my feet, so I gave up searching and decided to camp in the open.

　Under a tree, I placed a glowing flower and got a little bit of light. It reminded me of when I am at my desk in my room, so I calmed down a little bit.

　…Usually, by this time, I had just finished studying so that I would be exempt from nagging, and then while pretending to be studying… I would have opened a notebook that served as a sketchbook while pretending to be studying for the rest of the time. I think I was doing pencil sketches or something with it.

　It seems strange when I think about it.

　Day after day, I never stopped drawing. My parents didn’t like me drawing, but I continued to do it in secret, even when they were angry with me or stopped me. Even after they threw away my art supplies, I continued to draw using only paper and pencil. After entering high school, I used my lunch money to buy art supplies. When I couldn’t paint at home, I went to my teacher’s office to paint.

　I drew all the time. I drew because I wanted to. Even if I was hungry, thirsty, tired, or sleepy, I drew.

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　Now I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am tired. Sleepy.

　…Even before when I can satisfy them. If anything, even if I can’t satisfy them.

　There is something I have to do.

　I looked in the inside pocket of my school jacket and found a few sheets of folded-up copy paper, maybe I was going to doodle on them later. In addition, there was a pencil stuck in my breast pocket. There was also an eraser in the breast pocket.

　And on the ground, a large stone that could be made into a desk.

　…The rest was easy enough. I started drawing.

　Then I just kept on drawing. I couldn’t sleep in this situation anyway, and I didn’t feel like resting, so I just kept on drawing.

　While I was drawing… my hunger and thirst vanished. I could just lose myself in drawing.

　Copy paper and pencil were not good drawing materials, but that was okay. It was enough to focus my attention.

　When I thought about what to draw, the first thing that came to mind was the mochi and barley tea that I had eaten at my teacher’s home some time ago.

　The unimportant food and unimportant drink, given to me at my teacher’s house, were something I was now inexplicably nostalgic for.

　For a while, I was absorbed in drawing. I kept drawing the food I used to eat, this food that was worth more than food.

　I was drawing pictures of food in a situation where there was no food. It is a kind of ridiculous joke, but what I needed now was to draw pictures of food rather than food.

　Soon the drawing was finished.

　I drew it on a piece of copy paper using only a pencil, and it turned out to be reasonably satisfactory.

　I looked at the finished picture, forgot about my hunger and my current situation, and just enjoyed the sense of accomplishment and happiness that the picture was complete.

　It was at that moment…

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　The lines on the paper seemed to move.

　As I stared at it, wondering if my eyes were getting foggy, the lines seemed to shake and tremble like a living thing… and then,

　With a squeak, they shrank to a point. then, with a pop.

　It came out of the paper…

　…Yes. The mochi came out.

　It was abrupt. It was so sudden that I don’t know what happened… but somehow, in front of me, on the paper, under my hand holding the pencil, a mochi appeared.

Yes. A mochi. A real mochi.

　A mochi appeared.

　What was in front of me was a mochi. Just steamed (or rather, heated in the microwave with water), just like the ones I saw at my teacher’s house that day.

“… the mochi I drew became a mochi.” (Tougo)

　But the most important thing is that what I have just drawn has now become a real thing and is appearing in front of my eyes. Why did the mochi I drew become a mochi?

　Is it an illusion? According to my teacher, “When a person is in an extreme situation, he or she will have a hallucination or two,” so I wondered if I might be having one. Maybe I am. However, I’ve never had a hallucination before.

　…No, this is finally getting weird, right?

　It was crazy, but I didn’t hesitate. I was that hungry. And above all, all, human beings are creatures that will die if they don’t eat.

　I ate the mochi.

“A mochi…” (Tougo)

　It was a mochi. It was an ordinary mochi. It is just a mochi.

　The mochi that I had drawn became a mochi. It’s a mochi. A real mochi.

　It was a phenomenon so mysterious that I am not able to understand it in any way. …At any rate, the mochi I had drawn tasted delicious.

　Hunger is indeed the best spice. There is no seasoning or anything, it’s just a mochi, but it tastes irresistible.

　…But what on earth is this?

　I kept eating the mysterious mochi, vaguely thinking, “My hallucination is delicious.”

T/N: This is a new series that will replace Friendly Reincarnator. Louis has been a bit difficult to follow. I like lone-wolf protagonists but something about Louis made me dislike him, unlike Rook from All-rounder Healer.

I don’t know how Tougo will make/end his journey, but I like him even until the next volume. I hope we can have fun reading about Tougo.

T/N: If you like the series rate, review and add on your reading list on Novel Updates. You can also donate through Paypal or Ko-fi, or subscribe on Ko-fi. Thank you!

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