Anthropology Isekai Ch. 04

But the strong do what they would and the weak suffer what they must.

"Gya!" Katya gushed as they walked over the bonfire that Mark had been working on. Despite the rain, it was going strong. The machete was in his hands again and Katya sat down on his coat turned cushion.

They were both sweating on that cold and frigid day, and Mark couldn't help but throw the goblin an annoyed look that she returned with a cocky smile.

"Machete!" she demanded, pointing at his blade again, beaconing with her hand.

"No," Mark immediately said. Heaven help him, she was never going to get her greedy little hands on it again.

"Machete," she said again, this time with a pleading expression.

"I said no," Mark rebutted her.

"..Machete?" she pouted, looking at him with her wide eyes. Mark would have never guessed how much emotion you could pack into hour-glass pupils, but it assaulted his resistances.

Ok, maybe "never" was a little too harsh.

"I swear to god, if you try gnawing on this again," Mark growled but in the end, against his better judgement, relented.

He passed her the machete and Katya shot him a victorious smirk.

He got ready to pounce on her but, instead of putting it in her mouth, the goblin reached into the pile of mushrooms that he had forgotten about.

And started peeling them.

"Yota," she commanded him, pointing at where he was sitting, "Yemen a to."

She quickly made the mushrooms lose their fuss and outer layers as she took piece of wood and started laying them on top of the fire. She put them far enough from the flame that they didn't immediately catch on fire as she lined up thin pieces in a row.

And then she started putting the peeled mushrooms on top of them.

The smell of grilled mushroom wafted into the air and Mark found that he was, point in fact, hungry.

"I don't know that using something I killed five people with as a peeler is a good idea," Mark drily said, but Katya happily ignored him as she continued her task.

"Listen I, um, I have more things we can put in the fire. For lunch, I mean," he told her, because it felt wrong for her to be the one to provide food when he had so much. He pointed at the foundation of his house where his cellar was, though he doubted Katya understood him.

"Yono," she made a shooing motion and he took that as an excuse to go and grab some tubers.

He also had some jerky that the goblin hadn't managed to get. Point in fact, the cured, potted and preserved meat that he brought he carefully stashed away in places where even moles wouldn't know to get to if they happened to break into the cellar. Turns out, that worked for goblins too.

He had his flashlight on him as he walked down into it this time. There was a pip in his step and it took Mark a moment to realize that he was not, hmm, miserable?

Of course, it only took a look at his cellar to remind him what the situation truly was.

Messy, depleted and, what was that again? Ah yes, unsafe.

Not worth keeping and not worth protecting. Best to get what he can and get out. Get out and go back to town to live and work, work and WORK until he broke under pressure.

There was nothing else to life.

Nothing.