Lunch was roast venison.

At Shion’s request, I created a stone oven and set it in place.

I adjusted it so the smoke would be carried outside through a chimney.

...Come to think of it, even now, nobody had ever approached us by following rising smoke.

And conversely, we had never once seen smoke from another group’s fire either.

Was that just chance, or was there some reason for it?

In any case, it was lunchtime.

“This is insane, Shii-chan... it’s way too good...!” 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The venison had been seared on the outside with butter made from sheep’s milk, then slowly heated all the way through in the stone oven, turning it into something fragrant, moist, and full of juicy richness.

The sauce was based on wild grape wine, and that was delicious too.

I couldn’t stop eating.

“Even back on Earth, I never ate anything like this at home.”

Minori sounded genuinely impressed.

She had a point. Freshly hunted game like this wasn’t exactly something an ordinary high schooler ate in daily life.

Though on the other hand, this island didn’t have any normal pigs or cows at all...

But Shion’s cooking was so good that it hardly even mattered.

“This is so good that going back to Japan and not being able to eat Shion’s cooking anymore would be a real shame.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them, and Shion twitched.

“...! I-if you’d want me to, Sousuke-kun, then even after we go back to Japan, I could still cook for you.”

Shion said that with an embarrassed little smile.

“So-kun. When we get back to Japan, your childhood friend will make you lunchboxes.”

Chiyu threw that in, probably out of rivalry.

“F-fufu. In that case, Chiyu-chan, should we take turns making them every other day?”

Shion refused to back down either.

“You’ve got it good, Sousuke. I’d pay money to eat Shii-chan’s lunch.”

“She’s right. It’d be worth that much.”

“Y-you’re all praising me too much. Then... I’ll make some for everyone once in a while, and we can eat together.”

“So Sousuke gets one every other day, and the rest of us only get one sometimes?”

“Female friendship really is fragile.”

“E-eh...?”

While Shion made a troubled face, Shouko and Minori let out quiet laughs.

Apparently they were joking.

They all still had their original friends too, but the girls had been growing much closer very quickly.

The hugely successful lunch finally came to an end, and I cleaned up using Storage & Replacement.

Then my childhood friend stood up and /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ came over to me.

“So-kun, give me the weeds and vegetable scraps.”

“Hm? Oh, for the chickens.”

Apparently they liked grains, beans, and bugs, but unfortunately we didn’t have any of those.

Still, Minori had told us that chickens would also eat weeds and leafy greens.

I Placed the weeds, along with leftover vegetable scraps from cooking, onto a vine-woven colander.

“Want help?”

“Really? Even though I’m the one who caught them?”

“We’re all eating the eggs, aren’t we?”

We had all been active that morning, and with lunch just over, we decided to take a short break.

Two people were enough for feeding, so we let everyone else do as they liked.

“Th-then I’ll use the paper and feather pen Sousuke-san made for me to write down everything that’s happened so far...!”

Looking restless with excitement, Minori headed to her room.

While waiting for lunch earlier, I had created paper, a feather pen made from chicken feathers, and ink from soot and glue.

“I’ll work on planning menus, then.”

“As for meee... um... right! I’ll try thinking of fluffy creatures other than Mashiro!”

“That’s a good one. If it’s a real animal, ask Minori. If it’s a fantasy creature, ask me.”

That finished, Chiyu and I headed outside together.

We went over to the chicken coop, and once we gave them food, the chickens immediately started pecking away as if they were starving.

“When we get beans and grains, we’ll feed you those too, so just wait.”

Chiyu actually spoke to the chickens.

“Yeah. Well, they’re things we want too.”

If we could get rice, wheat, or soybeans, our diet would improve a lot.

Actually, it might reach the point where there was almost nothing left to complain about.

Though if we started getting picky, there would always be more things we wanted too.

Fruit, vegetables, that kind of thing.

“So-kun, over here.”

We had been watching the chickens eat for a while when Chiyu suddenly took my hand.

I didn’t resist and let her lead me away.

She brought me over near the stone wall surrounding the bath area.

It wasn’t somewhere you would notice right away even if you stepped out through the entrance, and beyond that, the tall outer stone wall blocked the view from the forest too.

Why had she chosen a place like that?

“Chiyu...? No, wait, don’t tell me.”

“Energy Up.”

“I knew it!”

Chiyu cast her enhancement spell on me.

For a moment, my crotch actually lit up, producing an unbelievably stupid visual, but fortunately it disappeared right away.

Th-thank God... if the thing had kept glowing the whole time the spell was active, the sheer absurdity of it probably would have killed the mood completely.

No, wait, that wasn’t the point.

“It’s my spell, so I have the right to be the first one to experience it.”

“Experience it—ah!”

She stripped my pants off with quick, efficient hands.

Chiyu swiftly took off the top of her uniform and removed her bra.

The sudden appearance of her overwhelming chest struck with such destructive force that my body reacted before I could do anything about it.

“Big...”

Chiyu let out a quiet breath.

“W-what is this...?”

I couldn’t hide my own shock either.

It wasn’t just that I was thicker, or that everything felt exaggerated by the buff.

The effect was obvious enough that even I could tell something had changed.

“So-kun, you really are turning more and more into the protagonist of those books you kept hidden in your room.”

“And whose fault is that...?!”

The increase in how often I could recover was obviously because of Chiyu’s Basic Heal, and this new transformation could only be because of Energy Up too.

“It’s my fault, so I’ll take responsibility.”

Chiyu pressed herself against me with the largest chest out of all of them.

The heat of her skin, the softness, the way she acted like this was only natural—

It all hit me at once.

“C-Chiyu.”

“I know.”

What followed after that crossed the line into the kind of thing we’d already agreed not to linger on.

The two of us stole a heated, reckless little break there in our hidden corner by the bath wall, driven partly by curiosity about the new spell and partly by the same intimacy that had always existed between us.

By the time it was over, Chiyu looked completely satisfied with having “tested” her new magic first, and I was left both exhausted and absurdly aware that her competitive streak had found yet another direction to run in.

We used Purify to get ourselves back into presentable condition, fixed our clothes, and returned before the others had any reason to get suspicious.

At least, that was the official story.