Chapter 33

What is happiness, and how should one search for it?

The children don't know, and Broly isn't very clear on it either.

But it doesn't matter; the direction has appeared, just walk along it.

Led by Broly, the group went in the direction the Imperial Intelligence personnel had left.

On the road, they encountered quite a few Danger Beasts, but the Danger Beasts weren't dangerous, because their team had a Saiyan who was more dangerous than the Danger Beasts.

All attacking Danger Beasts were turned by Broly into the next day's ingredients; compared to the danger brought by Danger Beasts, it was rather those snake and insect creatures hidden under fallen leaves and between vines, harder to guard against, that were the biggest danger.

Fortunately, the team had children who had once lived in a forest environment; although the poisons in the Gifnora Sea Tree Forest weren't quite the same, the methods of detoxification and prevention were partially shared.

After finding some slightly toxic grass and leaves, lighting them, and tying them to branches to fumigate the path ahead, many snakes and insects were driven away in advance.

"Does it have to be like this?"

Broly, smoked by the fumes until he coughed, asked.

"No choice, we aren't like you, Big Bro, unafraid of snake and insect bites."

Rivarina, said to be of the Western Foreign Tribes, living in the Swamp Mangrove Forest tribe, said.

This method of driving away snakes, rats, mosquitoes, and insects was something she made by trying plants in the forest.

She has experience surviving in forests, but unfortunately this place is mostly Danger Beasts.

If she hadn't been rescued by Broly yesterday, she might have already been eaten by Danger Beasts.

"I have a better way."

Broly thought for a moment and said.

"What way?"

The children looked at him curiously.

Broly had Rivarina extinguish the poison smoke, raised his hand aiming at the forest ahead, and with a green energy beam sent out, bombarded the forest before them; a flat, open avenue appeared before everyone.

"This is my way."

Broly clapped his hands, as if he had done a trivial thing.

The children: "..."

This was a road they had never imagined; ahead had originally been a dense forest of numerous giant trees, now destroyed cleanly.

Not to mention snakes and insects, even those originally existing Danger Beasts had probably turned to flying ash by now.

The atmosphere fell silent; Nahashu was an older child with more experience, realized the atmosphere was off, and hurriedly took the lead in clapping.

"Big Bro is mighty, Big Bro is amazing, everyone, clap and cheer for Big Bro too, thank Big Bro for opening such a road for us in the forest."

Powerful strength inspires reverence, but overly powerful strength may make people feel fear; this is human nature, hard to control.

However, under Nahashu's timely intervention and guidance, the children's instinctively born fear gradually turned into even greater respect.

"Broly-san, you're so amazing, how did you do it, whoosh-bang, and the forest was gone?"

Led by Akame, Chikushi, Pony, and a few other girls with thicker nerves, this team of mostly simple children quickly became lively again; only a few older children with more experience looked at Broly with somewhat complex gazes.

"Monster."

Perhaps they didn't say it aloud, but in their gazes toward Broly, there was indeed this layer of meaning.

There is fear, but they endured it.

Although not very perfect, Broly isn't a meticulous person either.

Amidst the children's cries of "Big Bro" all around, he gradually lost himself.

Of course, one could also say he experienced the joy of being the center of attention for children of a similar age, and found some fun in it.

"Just gather Qi in the hand, then, whoosh, bang~"

Broly demonstrated again, blasting a tree into nothing.

Throwing energy bullets was something he could share besides the string game Cat's Cradle.

"Hmm... still no good."

A group of children imitated his movements, trying hard to imagine what gathering Qi was, attempting it against the surrounding big trees.

The result was no one learned it, but this was only natural; the Qi in these children's bodies hadn't filled enough to the degree where they could bring it out and convert it into energy bullets.

However, this world has Danger Beasts, and various strange Secret Techniques and biological modification technologies; letting people fire waves probably is still doable.

After staying in place for a while, the group who failed to fire waves set off again; this time with a flat avenue to walk, the speed was much faster.

The only somewhat troublesome thing was that the big commotion Broly suddenly made scared the creatures in the Gifnora Sea Tree Forest.

Originally a forest with many sounds, in the area near this side of the flat avenue, it appeared exceptionally quiet.

On the subsequent road, the group encountered no more Danger Beasts, nor snake and insect disturbances, but conversely, prey that automatically delivered itself to their door was gone too.

Night fell; by a forest stream, the children prepared for wild camping.

"Walking through the forest is still better."

Broly exclaimed; after blasting out a road, prey didn't come looking for him anymore.

"I don't think so; flat ground is much easier to walk on."

Akame retorted from the side, then lifted her little foot to show the boy.

"At least today we walked a very long way, and my feet didn't get any more blisters."

Saying this, Akame took a thin wooden thorn to help her Younger Sister deal with the blisters on her feet.

Broly lowered his head to look at his own feet; he had never grown those things.

But seeing everyone seemingly doing the business of popping blisters, he felt a bit envious.

"Then how can I grow blisters?"

He asked.

"Ah, why would you want to grow this stuff?"

"Because you all have it."

Chikushi was a bit speechless.

"This isn't anything good." "Right, it grows on your feet, stepping on it hurts, hurts."

Roli also said a sentence.

"If I could, I wouldn't want to grow this stuff either."

The other children agreed one after another.

"Eh, then is there a way to not grow it?"

Hearing it wasn't anything good, Broly changed his mind and asked again.

"Blisters aren't a big deal, pop them, rest a bit and they're fine."

Cornelia said.

"I feel if we could have a pair of soft shoes, our feet wouldn't grow blisters."

A gold-haired girl named Natala said.

"The shoes the slave traders gave us are too hard."

"You still have shoes, the slave trader who sold me here didn't even give me shoes."

These children spoke one after another.

"I didn't wear shoes, but my feet didn't grow blisters either."

"Eh, your soles are so thick?!"

Broly listened at the side and came to a conclusion: most people need a pair of soft shoes.

But how to obtain such shoes, Broly thought of Nappa Star, his own father who was proficient in handicrafts.

He had once made shoes for himself, but he disliked them being stuffy so he didn't wear them, but they were truly soft, after all they were woven from Bay hair.

Thinking of this, Broly had an idea; just right, before exploding the road today, a group of creatures with long, soft hair had been hunted by him.

Broly walked to a long-haired deer corpse nearby, pulled some hair from it, and started weaving.

But by the time someone had handled the long-haired deer meat, he still hadn't woven the soft hair into the shape of a foot.

"What are you doing?"

Chikushi leaned over and asked.

"Making shoes."

Broly replied.

"Can you make shoes just with hair?"

Chikushi didn't quite understand.

"My father made shoes with hair before."

"Really?"

"Just that I never wore them here, otherwise I'd show you, those shoes were so soft!"

Clearly on Nappa Star he hadn't worn shoes many times either, but at this moment Broly could speak so sincerely to the girl.

"Using the same hair as the clothes on your body?"

"Right."

Chikushi reached out and touched Broly's Bay hair clothes; the feel was indeed very soft.

But rather than saying it's hair, it's better to say it's some kind of plant fiber.

"Who among you knows how to weave shoes?"

Chikushi thought for a bit, then asked the other children.

"I do."

A child raised their hand.

"My father was a shoemaker, later he got addicted to gambling, lost a lot of money, I was sold; this kind of handicraft isn't anything much for me."

"Then can you weave these hairs in?"

"Should be able to."

The shoe-weaving child thought a bit, then nodded; his hands were much more dexterous than Broly's.

And he first found some vines, used a knife to scrape off the vine bark, then shaved off the fine thorns, and it became simple shoe-weaving material.

Coiling and twisting, layer upon layer, the vine bark became the shape of sandals in his hands before long.

"Before I always used dry grass to weave, that was more durable and also softer; I haven't tried vine, but if adding hair it should also be able to be a bit softer."

He said, and quickly wove the shoes.

Roughly when the grilled meat was about to be cooked, a pair of crudely made vine-hair shoes was produced in the boy's hands.

Chikushi tried them on, felt they weren't bad, except a bit slightly large, this thing far surpassed the wooden shoes originally on her feet.

"We need more vines and beast hair to weave more shoes."

Broly said so.

"I alone can't make shoes for everyone."

The shoe-weaving boy shook his head; there are seventy-plus people here.

"Then do it together, you just teach us to weave shoes."

Chikushi and some other children with more dexterous hands said at this time.

A group of children gradually gathered together to discuss the matter of weaving shoes.

And before that, still eat full first then talk.

Tonight's staple food is Long-haired Deer and some long, giant Worms; the Long-haired Deer's taste after roasting is somewhat strong, but the giant Worms after roasting have a fruitwood fragrance, texture like cowhide tendons, a bit hard to chew, but the more you chew the more fragrant.

On the Crystal Palace's Exchange page, this thing is called Sea Forest Giant Worm Grilled Meat, exchange price about the same as one share of Katsudon.

The soup is fish soup; there are some small fish in the Forest stream, someone fished them up and cooked them with Yesterday's Marsh Crab Shells.

The small fish have no name, but after cooking thoroughly even if no Salt is added, the soup's umami is fully sufficient.

During cooking the soup, Pony proposed adding some Mushrooms to add some Color to the soup, unanimously PASSED over by everyone.

(Chapter End)