Before Jhin's right hand could make contact with Pecorine's soft chest, a silver ring of light materialized at her sternum. His hand passed cleanly through it and sank into her body — and Pecorine, utterly stunned by the impossible sight unfolding before her, instinctively let go of her greatsword. It hit the ground with a resounding clang.
Why can Jhin's hand go inside my body? Is this another one of those special abilities of his — something completely separate from his Hero powers?
Kokkoro closed the distance in a series of rapid leaps and arrived at their side. She was intensely curious about what Jhin was doing, but right now, keeping them safe was what mattered.
She leveled her crystal spear crosswise in front of her.
"Please hurry, Master."
"I know!"
His hand pushed deeper. His arm had sunk most of the way into Pecorine's body before his fingers finally brushed against something. He didn't stop to think — he spread his hand wide and closed his fingers around it.
A faint electric tingle ran from his fingertips straight to his brain. Both Jhin and Pecorine let out a startled "Huh?" in the same breath.
To Pecorine, it felt as though something deep inside her heart had been gently touched. A warmth enveloped her from within — the same peaceful, contented comfort of lying on a sunlit meadow after a full and satisfying meal.
Jhin felt nothing of the sort. The instant his hand closed around the Void within her, every piece of information about the weapon flooded into him all at once. Meanwhile, the Deep Forest Boars were shouldering aside their fallen comrades, their scarlet eyes blazing with mindless, savage fury.
A silver-white greatsword wreathed in flowing, shimmering light was drawn from Pecorine's chest. She recognized it instantly — aside from its color, the shape was identical to her own weapon, down to the very last detail.
Handing Pecorine off to Kokkoro's steadying grip, Jhin raised the greatsword. The light swirled around him like fireflies drifting on a summer night.
This Void weapon would allow him to use any technique Pecorine knew — and though she hadn't demonstrated a single one in front of them, Jhin already understood every detail with perfect clarity.
"Hah."
He exhaled slowly. Both hands closed around the hilt and brought the blade before him. His body shifted forward slightly. An elaborate magic array blazed into existence beneath his feet.
"Princess Assault!"
Jhin's silhouette blurred — and then vanished entirely. A single silver thread flickered into existence among the boar herd, like a brushstroke of silver paint drawn across a photograph: vivid, immediate, and completely out of place.
Every Deep Forest Boar along that silver line split cleanly in two. It was as though an invisible, impossibly sharp blade had swept through them all at once — uniform, unhesitating, surgical. They didn't even have time to squeal.
"You've got to be kidding me — abilities like that on top of everything else..." The Cat-eared Figure had been thoroughly rattled by Jhin's bizarre assortment of powers. She made the decision to fall back for now.
His body felt like a wrung-out rag with not a single drop left to give. Jhin released his grip, and the Void weapon drifted upward on its own — weightless, defying gravity — before dissolving into scattered motes of silver light.
"Master!" Kokkoro, still supporting Pecorine, frantically scanned the area for him.
"Kokkoro — I'm fine." Jhin's top speed at that particular moment was somewhere in the neighborhood of a slow crawl, and his stomach was making itself known with a deep, resonant, ongoing groan. "Could you do me a favor and grill some of that meat? I'm about to starve to death."
"Of course."
Once Kokkoro located him, she simply built a campfire on the spot and got to work. The cleanly bisected Deep Forest Boars were scattered all around them — getting to the meat was hardly going to be a problem.
Pecorine was in considerably better shape than Jhin, who had been reduced to complete combat incapacitation. She could at least stay on her feet and move, unlike Jhin, who had been downgraded to a humanoid noise machine continuously broadcasting hunger complaints from his stomach.
"Jhin, what exactly was that attack just now?"
"Ah... that one was the Hero ability. It lets me draw a weapon out of someone's body." Dizzy with hunger and running entirely on fumes, Jhin managed a brief explanation. "Let me eat first and I'll give you the full version after."
"Alright, then I'll go lend a hand."
"Sure."
The Deep Forest Boar meat more than lived up to Pecorine's passionate recommendation. The flesh was tender; the fat was rich but never greasy; and there was a subtle, pleasantly woody fragrance woven through every bite. According to Pecorine, the boars spent their lives deep in the forest and had an enthusiastic fondness for a plant called the Thornfruit Wood — which was apparently the source of that distinctive, lingering aroma.
Jhin started out eating skewer-style, but as his strength gradually returned he set up a proper large grill and began cooking whole slabs at a time. The fruits and spices sitting in his Storage Space were soon pressed into service as well, each contributing their own flourish to the feast.
The sizzling slabs were showered with chili powder. Jhin didn't bother waiting for them to cool — he picked one up, took an enormous bite, and made sure the other two weren't being left behind.
"Miss Pecorine, Kokkoro — yours are ready too. Eat up."
When it came to food, Pecorine was not the type to stand on ceremony. She grabbed a slab exactly the way Jhin had and sank her teeth into the blissful, flavor-packed result.
"Mmm~ With chili powder on top, it's a whole different experience — amazing!" The lone ahoge on Pecorine's head first transformed into a perfect exclamation mark, then quivered like a rippling wave. She was clearly in a state of absolute, uncomplicated happiness.
Kokkoro was not the type to match these two — who ate with all the restrained dignity of legendary gluttons made flesh — bite for bite. She cut a modest piece from her slab, tasted it carefully, then drew out her notebook and began recording the flavor profile, already thinking through how it might pair with other ingredients in future dishes.
From the short time she'd spent with him, she had gathered that Jhin genuinely loved good food. As his dedicated guide, ensuring he had access to delicious meals was very much part of her duties.
"Mmm~" Pecorine rose to her feet and stretched lazily, her slender waist betraying absolutely nothing of the four entire Deep Forest Boars she had just consumed. "I haven't eaten this well in such a long time!"
Jhin wiped the grease from his mouth and nodded in wholehearted agreement. "That really hit the spot."
He had, quietly and without fanfare, worked through three boars' worth of meat himself. His condition had fully recovered — right back to peak form.
"There are still a dozen or so Deep Forest Boars left. Let's process them and pack them up."
"But will your Storage Space actually fit all of that?"
"Don't worry — it'll fit."
"Then there's no risk of waste at all. That's wonderful."
After chopping all the boar meat into portions and washing it clean, Jhin retrieved wax paper and rope from his Storage Space and wrapped up the bulk of it. The remainder was left unwrapped once the wax paper ran out, requiring a different solution.
He loaded the wrapped cuts into his Storage Space, then tossed out the capsule house and waved Kokkoro and Pecorine over. "Come on — let's get the rest into the freezer."
"Wh — what kind of magic item is this?! It just produced an entire house."
"Hero — do you really carry this many strange and unusual things around with you?"
Pecorine and Kokkoro stared in wide-eyed astonishment, then dutifully carried the remaining boar meat into the long rectangular box that seemed to breathe cold air.
It was a good thing he'd had the foresight to ask Nymph to install an extra freezer in the capsule house when planning for food storage — otherwise there genuinely wouldn't have been room for all of it.
The corner of Jhin's mouth twitched. Who could have predicted that his first full day in Another World would net him close to a metric ton of wild boar?
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👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
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