Shodai never imagined Kaito's cooking skills could be this outrageous!!
Sayuri hadn't lied to her!
Not only was Kaito exceptionally good at math, his culinary skills were also remarkable!
None of the others had ever tasted Kaito's cooking. Now that she alone had savored it, she was so full she couldn't move, stuffed to the point of immobility.
"I won't come see you for a few days."
Rubbing her belly, swollen from being full, Shodai said with somewhat vacant eyes.
She had arrogantly assumed Kaito wouldn't be all that impressive.
As Eromanga-sensei, what scene... oh wait, what knowledge was there that she didn't know?
But the dishes Kaito made were just too delicious.
Tears were literally streaming from her mouth.
She had never eaten such wonderful food before; she just kept eating and eating without stopping, and ended up like this.
Dammit!
"What's wrong? My cooking didn't satisfy you?"
Kaito turned his head, propping his face with his hand as he looked at Shodai lying on the banana leaf, unwilling to move.
'Ha, even Baal hasn't had the chance to taste it, and now you're complaining?'
"No, no, no, no. I'm just too full, completely satisfied! Really!"
Scared, scared. Shodai indicated she needed to recover.
If she didn't take a break, she might never be able to leave Kaito for the rest of her life.
To capture a woman's heart, first capture her stomach. Kaito hadn't just achieved that, he had done so to an absurd degree.
"Alright then, I'll clear the dishes."
Hearing this answer, Kaito smiled knowingly.
After tidying up the area, he also lay down on the banana leaf.
Late-night snack was done, time to sleep.
"Good night."
"Mm..."
Shodai had already started feeling drowsy. Hearing Kaito's gentle good night, she finally fell asleep properly.
…
The next day, the one who woke up revived wasn't Shodai, but Kaito.
He brought her out again, lit the campfire, and let her warm herself by it.
Kie had also risen early and greeted the two when she saw them.
"Oh? I didn't expect Izumi-san to be up this early too?"
"Mm... yawn, I originally wanted to use the bathroom, but I saw Kaito was already up, so I figured I'd just wait here."
Shodai looked up drowsily, replying weakly to Kie. Kaito was in the simple kitchen area, preparing ingredients.
Because he had calculated the time; Kie always got up around this time, and after washing up, her first task was always to come over and make breakfast.
He was in a good mood today too.
Sayuri and Shodai were different. Shodai knew a lot of things. Even if her practical skills weren't great, she could comment intelligently on his cooking, which satisfied Kaito greatly.
"Kaito-san, you really shouldn't be doing the cooking."
"It's fine, it's fine. Let's do it together. Oh right, the fish Irisviel froze yesterday, I've already thawed it. Let's make some fish soup later. We can't waste those wild vegetables we found yesterday either."
"Alright then. We're really troubling you, Kaito-san."
"Not at all. If anything, we've all been relying on you all along. We're the ones who should feel embarrassed."
"Not really... I'm just used to it. If you all didn't let me do these things, I wouldn't know what to do instead."
Kie shook her head, rolled up her sleeves, and began expertly handling the ingredients.
Kaito watched her from the side, pondered thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded in agreement with this point.
Everyone has their own way of life, their own habits.
Before finding something else to do, suddenly being told to stop doing these things might actually cause some anxiety.
It's like asking a woman who's done housework for years to just relax and enjoy her time. If you tell her to go for a walk, she wouldn't know how to walk, wouldn't be interested, and might even feel compelled to come back.
If the housekeeper did a poor job, she might even proactively help, etc.
Kie was exactly that kind of person.
People like Irisviel were either young ladies or not accustomed to doing housework, so they didn't have such habits.
Only Mika and Shodai were somewhat better and would proactively help with chores.
After everyone got up and finished breakfast, they set out early again to explore, this time for food supplies for the following days.
This time they headed left, the direction Misuzu and the others had taken on the first day.
After spotting a few coconut trees, they began exploring the forest from that point.
Unfortunately, aside from some wild vegetables and a few fruits, there wasn't a single edible wild animal to be found.
There were, however, plenty of insects, all kinds. Eventually, Kaito found a beehive, retrieved the honeycomb, and simultaneously smashed a large slab of rock down to kill all the bees.
"Trouble. This might be all the food available in our area."
Back at the rock house by noon, Kaito didn't dare let everyone eat and drink heartily again. If they didn't want to eat fish every single day from now on, they had to conserve the existing food.
Furthermore, oil and salt were also dwindling. There wasn't much to begin with, and in a few more days, they might be gone.
"Sigh, what should we do?"
Misuzu asked worriedly. This trip's haul was completely unsatisfactory. The area near the stream had also been pretty much cleaned out. Finding more wild chickens or rabbits would be very difficult.
"Well, no need to panic yet. We can also explore the other side of the island."
The entire island was large, yet food was scarce. This wasn't normal.
The difficulty seemed low, and finding food seemed simple, but the actual quantity was just insufficient.
It was as if, despite the low difficulty, they were deliberately made to experience a sense of 'hardship'.
The point was to let you experience wilderness survival, not go on a picnic.
These past few days, what Kaito and the others were doing was practically a picnic.
To determine if there was food on the other side of the island,
In the afternoon, Kaito decided to cross the mountain to the other side by himself. The rest would continue learning to swim.
Time was running out; if they didn't learn to swim soon, they'd lose the points.
Besides, this time Kaito was just scouting ahead, checking the situation, and also looking for the cave for the Day 8 mission and any stray wild boars.
Climbing the steps to the mountaintop, passing by the hot spring, he reached in to feel it. The temperature remained the same, and the spring water seemed to have been refreshed.
Passing the hot spring and reaching the other side of the mountaintop, Kaito's expression turned helpless.
If the side in front of him was lush and picturesque, this side was barren and desolate.
It was hard to imagine that while everything was abundant on one side, here it was mostly rocks and sand, with only sparse trees.
"Could it be that the parent-child activity deliberately wants us to experience the hardships of survival, which is why it's set up this way?"
Indeed, the first few days were joyful, but the later days would be incredibly difficult, possibly even leading to early elimination.
Maybe that was it. The parent-child activity itself had a certain degree of danger, and it was never stated that this was a simple outdoor trip; it was wilderness survival!
Survival, survival. If there was plenty of food, what would there be to survive for?