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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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Do you know the three most important things on a deserted island?
Water, food, and shelter.
Without these three, whether you’re an elderly person who can’t walk on their own or a human capable of taking down a bear with their bare hands if they put their mind to it, death comes equally.
Without water, you die from dehydration in three days.
If you don’t consume food, you die within a month.
If you don’t have shelter, your chances of falling ill increase from exposure to rain, wind, or tropical nights.
Therefore, in life on a deserted island, these three are the most crucial.
If these three are not adequately met, regardless of safety, your life gets a countdown of mere days. That’s why I always made great efforts to secure these three stably.
I made a shelter with skills, created traps and walls to prevent monsters from invading the shelter, and even prepared a hideout just in case. For food, I caught fish from the beach and rabbits from the forest, and supplemented nutrition by catching larvae.
And water…
I had been using a well I dug a few years ago.
It was a well I had finally managed to create after thoroughly searching the forest to find a spot with groundwater. Finding groundwater turned out to be more challenging than I thought. You had to dig deep into the ground. Still, at least I found it.
Before making the well, I had replenished drinking water by boiling seawater to obtain both salt and water. Naturally, back then, I couldn’t even bathe properly. Why would you use precious drinking water just for bathing? It was better to simply wash with seawater if necessary. Although it wasn’t a pleasant feeling to be pickled in saltwater like cabbage, I wasn’t one.
Anyway, I had come to the well early in the morning to draw water.
But here’s the thing.
Why was the well water purple?
Not an earthy color, not yellow, but purple? The well water had changed to a color that looked like it would fuck you up if you drank it.
“These fucking bastards…”
These fucking, goddamn bastards. Who else but those snake bastards would do such a thing? I threw the carcass of the two-headed snake that had been caught in the bucket onto the ground. I was in a fucking foul mood.
Do they really want to see this through to the end?
Putting poison in the well?
Is that hydra bastard really determined to have a showdown with me?
I will turn all those snake bastards into snake jerky in the near future. Just wait until Renny, who was beaten up by the bears, fully recovers. I will tie up those snakes and grill snake meat right in front of them!
“…Phew, for now, I need to calm down. I have to secure water again first.”
For now, securing drinking water comes first. I roughly placed a plank over the well and picked up the shovel leaning against the entrance. Now that it had come to this, it was time to use the traditional method of hydration again. But before that, I needed to inform them.
I opened the door and looked at Renny, who was lying unconscious on the bed, and Karina, who was nursing her.
“The snakes put poison in the well.”
“What? Poison?”
Karina’s eyes widened in surprise, looking cute… but that’s not the point. I tried my best to remain calm and continued speaking.
“We won’t be able to use the well for a while, so don’t go near it.”
“Then what about water…”
“I’ll get some. We’ll have to conserve water for a while, so it’s best to refrain from bathing.”
“Understood. Be safe then.”
Receiving Karina’s worried send-off, I left the house. Before going, I picked up a suitable basket and walked towards the beach. Even if they put poison in the well, it would naturally neutralize over time. In the meantime, I had to obtain drinking water by distilling seawater.
It was a method that couldn’t be more bothersome.
However, it was one of the most reliable ways to obtain drinking water on this island. If you don’t like it, the alternative is to dig another well, but… since I can’t guard the well 24/7, if they secretly poison it again, it would be a waste of effort and meaningless.
“To think I’d have to do this again…”
I have no idea how much I’ll need to distill. It’s for not just one person, but a whopping three people. I’ll probably need to scoop out four or five basins of seawater to have enough for three people. Renny’s water consumption is still low since she can’t even open her eyes yet, but… anyway, the more water, the better. In the end, water is necessary to maintain minimal hygiene.
“No shipwrecks…”
The beach was clean. The wreckage of a shipwreck that had been stuck in a corner of the beach had been swept away by the waves, as always. Normally, it would remain there for a thousand or ten thousand years until completely removed, but on this island, this was the norm. I didn’t know the exact reason.
Since it’s a game world, could it be some game-like reason? Like resources disappearing after a certain amount of time because they take up too much memory. Or being treated like a common limited-time event. There were several possibilities, but without evidence, they were all just speculations.
It’s not like knowing that would change anything anyway.
If I can’t get water now, we’ll all get a game over from dehydration.
“If only all this water were drinkable…”
It’s so blue and transparent, yet if you drink it, you die. How hopeless and dreamless is that? It’s so frustrating that despite the abundance of water, it’s like a mirage.
…Come to think of it, early in my stranding, I almost died from drinking some seawater out of thirst. If I hadn’t been lucky enough to find a fruit filled with moisture, I would have died from dehydration. I think I learned about it in science class back in the day. Something about osmosis? Anyway, I remember them saying that phenomenon occurs, and it actually robs you of moisture instead. It’s scary how memories of science class, where I always fell asleep, come to mind when I’m about to die.
Phew, enough idle thoughts, I need to move quickly. I don’t have much time.
Distilling seawater to make drinking water was a time-consuming process. Even if I start now, it will take several hours at the very least. It’s regrettable that the actual amount of water I can obtain is small. But now that the well water has been contaminated, this is the fastest way to get drinking water.
Using a nearby tree as material, I made an extra water container and scooped up a full load of seawater. The transparent water sparkled with a brownish hue. Ah, I’m thirsty. I want to drink it right away. But I’m well aware that drinking it will kill me due to that osmosis thing. I have to endure it.
Arriving in front of the house with a water container in each hand, the first thing I did was make a hearth. A small hearth where I could place a pot and boil water. I stacked bricks to create the hearth and made a stand about 50 cm away.
It was the necessary foundation for the distillation apparatus I was about to make.
“Sir Johann. What are you doing?”
“Purification.”
“Purification…?”
As I started making the seawater purification device, Karina asked me with a curious expression. Well, it’s not like you’d see this in society. In the first place, there’s no need to go through such a hassle to obtain water. There are countless ways to supply water on land. Unless it’s a desert region, there’s no place where water is scarcer than here.
By the way, the gaze fixed on my back is a bit burdensome.
It felt awkward to work on something in front of someone. It was like the feeling of being called by the teacher to present in front of the class during school days. All the kids were staring, and you had to give the presentation for the sake of your performance evaluation score. Now it’s a faded memory.
After completing the mini hearth, I brought a large unused pot from the house, filled it with water, and covered it with a lid that had a hole in the center.
Why was there a hole, you ask? It’s a passage for steam. Since I planned to obtain water through distillation, I needed to create an opening for the steam to escape. Of course, I had to block other areas to prevent it from leaking out.
“Crafting.”
I made a long cylinder out of planks, placed it right in front of the hole, and set the other end on the stand. Then, I meticulously sealed the gaps and surroundings of the cylinder with high-quality clay. This way, the steam wouldn’t be able to escape.
The next part required using a skill again.
“Crafting.”
A clay water container appeared on the stand. It was created in a shape that allowed the placed cylinder to pass through it.
The basic work was done.
I brought a new water container and placed it right under the end of the cylinder.
How long had it been since I last made this? I poured the remaining seawater into the container on the stand and lit the hearth.
Hah, my skills haven’t died yet. I went through so much trial and error to make this. Just thinking about that time brings tears to my eyes. It was good that I, who was not a fairy sucking on leaf dew to survive while suffering from thirst, came up with the idea of distillation, but I didn’t know how to do it, so I had to solve it through sheer manual labor.
A few years later, I came up with a way to make a well and got rid of everything.
“It’s fascinating…”
“If you wait a few hours, water will accumulate in this container.”
The amount won’t be much, of course. The water in the pot boils and turns into steam, follows the cylinder, cools down due to the cold seawater in the stand, and falls as liquid again. It’s a principle similar to making distilled liquor, but in the raw wilderness, it’s a method that’s difficult to use unless you have a skill that allows easy crafting like mine.
It’s not easy to make everything from scratch, including pots and containers.
Moreover, the efficiency is poor.
No matter how much you cool it with cold water, about half of the water in the pot evaporates. In the end, the amount of water obtained by boiling an entire pot is at most two cups, if that.
In other words, it’s just a temporary measure.
So I have to immediately execute the next plan, right?
“Karina. Stay here and keep watch.”
“Huh?”
“I have somewhere to go.”
Snake bastards, if you ruin the water, I’ll ruin the water too.
Let’s see who wins, you fucking bastards.
It’s war!
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