While Cider went out into the rain to tie the horses to trees, Esperanza tightly bound a 4-person picnic tarp to pipes with rope in the shade where less rain fell. Then she spread out plywood slightly smaller than the tarp size and placed it on the wet ground. She laid one tarp on top of that. And she looked at the four pipes that somehow seemed unreliable.
"Will this hold?"
"Looks hopeless."
It was a soliloquy, but an answer came from behind her. Esperanza hunched her shoulders.
"Then let's just wrap ourselves in the tarp."
At that point, that would really be the only option. In an inventory that was like a magic lamp with everything, there wasn't even a single umbrella! It was truly like an inventory to have everything except what was needed. Esperanza glared at the status window and got up from the plywood.
The two each held a pipe and stuck them into the ground beside the plywood. When the pipes swayed precariously, Esperanza frantically lifted the pipe high and drove it deep into the ground. When about a third of it was firmly embedded, the human-height pipe no longer swayed.
Watching this, Cider clicked his tongue and drove the remaining pipes to similar depths. When Esperanza looked at him with eyes that said 'You're doing this?', he raised his eyebrows.
"You seem to think of me as some glass doll."
"I didn't think of you as being that delicate."
Esperanza quickly retorted. Cider couldn't even finish his sentence and let out a hollow laugh.
"Do whatever you want, whatever."
Though it was much lower than originally planned, and rain would pour in from the sides if wind blew, it was still livable now that they had at least covered the top. Even if there was only room for two people to sit on the spacious plywood.
What kind of state is this? After catching their breath, laughter burst out. After laughing while facing each other, it was even funnier that they were laughing despite being in this state, so laughter burst out again.
Taking off their outer clothes that were so wet they were heavy made them feel like they could live. Esperanza searched through her inventory again, but couldn't find even a towel. All the fabric Esperanza had were pieces of equipment that anyone could see would never absorb water.
"Use this."
Cider held out a handkerchief folded with sharp edges.
"Ah, thank you."
After wiping her wet cheeks and nape and returning it, Cider also roughly wiped only his face and hands with the less wet side. Then he glanced at Esperanza and wiped her chin where moisture remained with the dry part of the handkerchief. Through the thin handkerchief, she could feel his fingertips that had grown cold.
The quiet sound of exhaling could be heard clearly. The sound of rain soaked in until her ears felt muffled. Esperanza gathered her wet skirt hem.
Once body temperature dropped, it showed no signs of rising again. They broke up the remaining plywood, and Cider lit it with a lighter he had been carrying in his chest despite everything.
"Really, why are we doing this?"
"Is this your first time doing something like this?"
"Wouldn't this be the first time you'd have to do something like this?"
Cider asked back. Esperanza reluctantly nodded while scanning his face that seemed to have 'aristocrat' written from the top of his head to his chin line.
However, for a face that 'looked like it would be doing something like this for the first time,' his hands had calluses here and there, and perhaps because he was skilled with his hands, even though he lacked know-how, he did quite well at things he was doing for the first time.
"What if it gets dark like this?"
"Body temperature will drop further. If that happens, we'll have no choice but to force ourselves out."
"Wild beasts living in the forest might appear too."
"Bandits are fine but wild beasts are a problem?"
When he put it that way, there was nothing to say.
"Well, rather than that."
Esperanza mumbled her words. Generally speaking, that was true, but it was also true that she didn't feel threatened by something like a wolf pack.
"Speaking of wild beasts, haven't you been hearing strange sounds since earlier?"
Esperanza whispered, "Shh."
"Strange sounds? I don't hear any."
"Ah. Wait a moment."
When Cider was about to speak again, Esperanza covered his mouth with her palm. Wide-open gray eyes looked down at the hand covering his lips. Embarrassed, Esperanza rolled her eyes and slyly lowered her hand.
When the hand that had returned to its place obediently hugged her knees, Cider smiled by just slightly raising the corners of his mouth.
When the conversation stopped, something like faint crying could be heard between the pouring rain sounds. Groaning sounds that seemed about to break off. Cider briefly nodded.
"Could there be an injured animal nearby?"
"Just now you were worried about wild beasts appearing, but it turns out you were worried about the beasts that would get beaten by you?"
This was also unanswerable. But if there's an injured beast right in front of you, wouldn't you want to help it if possible? It might be a bit reluctant if it were a predator, but these two were people who didn't need to worry about getting hurt by predators. So they could worry a bit.
"That could be."
"Ah, is that so?"
Cider asked with a chuckle. Just that laugh gave an unpleasant impact like being hit by her own weapon. Esperanza pursed her lips and hugged her knees tighter.
"Or not."
"Esperanza, take out some of my equipment."
Suddenly? He wants to handle metal equipment in a place where it's raining like this?
"Why?"
"You said you were curious."
Cider said while unbuttoning and folding his sleeves. She couldn't understand what he meant at all. Anyway, since there was nothing else to do, Esperanza took out the equipment and also took out the picnic basket while she was at it.
A campfire and picnic basket. If it weren't for the situation of being soaked and sheltering from rain with a tarp, it would have been quite a romantic combination. And adding incomprehensible magical engineering research equipment on top of that. What kind of combination is this?
What came out of the inventory were just a toolbox and several small pieces of equipment. Combinations whose intent couldn't be guessed. Cider began disassembling the equipment with tools.
'What is he doing?'
Esperanza watched while taking out and eating sandwiches from the picnic basket. Cider briefly looked up, then saw Esperanza filling her cheeks with sandwiches and smiled while shaking his head.
"Do you want to eat too?"
"After I finish this."
With that reply, he concentrated on handling the equipment. Gears, springs, and thin small pipes came apart. Cider recombined them with only basic tools on the bare ground with nothing else. He was unhesitating as if he had blueprints in his head.
Sitting together in the center where rain didn't fall in the cramped space the size of one tarp, their wet arms touched and brushed against each other every time their bodies moved up and down. Since body temperature had dropped, the touching parts should have been cold, but the temperature of skin with two layers of cloth between was strangely hot.
Water droplets that hadn't been wiped away, clinging to his golden eyelashes, swayed pitifully like teardrops every time he blinked. Though it would obstruct his vision, his absorbed eyes didn't waver at all as if he wasn't bothered by it.
Somehow she couldn't take her eyes off him. The delicate beauty possessed by the man before her and his extremely calm air. Quiet melancholy that seemed to flow along his intellectual golden hair. The gesture of assembling brass-colored gears didn't have the usual joy or passion. It felt like glimpsing a stripped-away inner layer.
Esperanza thought while pulling her arms that hugged her knees. Cider's inner self is very quiet.
The rain curtain became a barrier that isolated this small space from the world. Somehow she couldn't take her eyes off him.
"It's done."
After a while, Cider put down the machine. Esperanza also emerged from her reverie as if waking from sleep.
"......What is that?"
Long fingers picked up the machine again and wound the spring.
"It needed a spring because it lacked magic power. It's nothing special, just a reconnaissance automaton. Since I made it hastily, it's not neat."
Though gears meshed seamlessly instead of a body's skeleton, the shape could be recognized without difficulty. It was a somewhat squashed-looking puppy.
"Um, you just took about 10 minutes. Can you normally just whip up something like that in 10 minutes?"
That couldn't be possible, right? It's not like she'd been watching magical engineering for just a day or two.
"Others can't."
Cider, who had returned to normal in a way that made all the emotions Esperanza had felt meaningless, breathed out arrogant words as naturally as breathing.
"But you can?"
"As you can see?"
When Cider, who had finished winding the spring, put down the puppy—no, the automaton—it amazingly toddled along and went out into the rain-soaked outside.
"Won't the parts get damaged?"
"It's been chemically treated so it should be fine for a short while. Still, I'll replace everything when we return to Nine Holder."
The puppy automaton, scheduled to turn into a handful of gears by tomorrow, walked energetically and disappeared between the bushes.
"It's cute, but it's a bit regrettable."
"Do you want it?"
"Can you give it to me?"
"I don't have any use for it anyway. You can have it if you promise to only play with it inside the house."
These were precautions that only children under 7 would hear. Esperanza let out a hollow laugh and shook her head.
"Why only inside the house?"
"Because it's too efficient. If you can make something like that, you could make something even better, couldn't you? Like military reconnaissance tools."
If machines instead of people did reconnaissance, couldn't the death rate be reduced? But Esperanza thought she knew what he wanted to say.
"I understand. I'll only play with it at home."
"You can't lend it even if friends ask to borrow it."
Cider said nonsensically. He seemed to have taken a liking to treating her like a child. Esperanza silently fed him a sandwich. Cider understood the hidden meaning and obediently opened his mouth. The sandwich that had been quite warm when taken out of inventory had cooled down after being in the cold for a short while, but it was still edible.
Come to think of it, his hands were quick. Esperanza thought while watching Cider wipe his fingertips with the not-quite-dry handkerchief. And he was smart too.
"Do you happen to know how to do cube?"
"Cube?"