After some discussion, we decided that our group would search the area below the cliff where our old base had been.

The Mashiro group would search the area above the cliff.

There were places where you could climb up and down the cliff, but even with Mashiro’s leg strength, it was still a detour. So the Micron group, which could fly and take a shortcut, was assigned to the lower area.

“My goodness...! Th-this is quite a mysterious sensation...”

Roa said that from Micron’s back as we flew through the sky.

She sounded impressed, but also a little frightened.

“Hehe, I know, right? Don’t worry. Micron won’t drop us.”

I was riding in front, with Shion behind me and Roa at the very back.

Shion’s chest was pressing against me through the back of my school uniform, and even now that we were on Day 7, it still made my heart race.

While I enjoyed that sensation against my back, Micron swam through the sky for a while.

“Ah...! Micron, over there!”

Shion pointed toward one spot.

Below us was an open space that looked like a field.

But the color that stood out was brown.

“Oh my. Could it be withered...?”

“The leaves are. But I think the soybeans themselves are just about right.”

According to Shion, if you harvested them while the leaves were still green, they became edamame.

This deserted island was considerate enough to place every crop at its best eating stage, or in a state suited for gathering, so that was probably why the soybeans looked like this.

Still, as someone who liked edamame, I wanted a field with green leaves too... but I wondered whether one had been placed anywhere.

We landed on the ground, and Shion ran over to the brown field.

I could faintly hear a dry rattling sound.

Apparently, it was the sound of soybeans shaking inside the pods.

“They look perfect...!”

“Good. Then let’s harvest them.”

“How should I go about doing that?”

“We just need the soybean part, so you can cut them near the base, or you can pull them out. Either is fine.”

Shion answered Roa’s question.

Just in case, I handed both of them stone sickles and carrying baskets for harvesting.

I tried both methods myself... and personally, I felt like pulling them out took less effort.

Though that might have been because I was a guy.

“We’ll need these going forward, so let’s gather as many as we can.”

“Okay!”

“Understood.”

Shion carefully cut them down one by one with her stone sickle.

Micron copied me and helped pull them out.

She bit down on the roots with her mouth, lifted her head, and the whole plant came out.

But the truly surprising one was Roa.

Her movements were so quick I could practically hear them going swish-swish-swish-swish-swish...!

The soybeans were tossed into her basket one after another.

By the time we somehow managed to reach the halfway point of one row, she had finished collecting the second row.

She’s fast...! Too fast...!

“W-wow... Roa, that’s amazing. I knew you were efficient from watching you help with cooking and cleaning, but...”

“It is a maid’s basic refinement.”

...What was a maid again?

Now that I thought about it, she had survived alone for several days, and even after encountering a beast at her water source, she had managed to escape. She was a person with extremely high survival ability.

If she was in perfect condition, maybe it wasn’t strange for her to be capable of this much... no, actually, it was still a little strange.

It was possible we had managed to add a superhuman who happened to be called a maid to our companions.

On an island like this, there was no need to explain how useful someone who could improve gathering efficiency would be.

That said, we couldn’t leave everything to her, so Shion, Micron, and I kept harvesting at our own pace.

“Master. I apologize, but my basket has become full, so I would like to ask you to store it for the moment...”

“Ah, yeah. Of course.”

“Thank you very much.”

“No, I should be the one thanking you. You’re amazing, Roa.”

“I am humbled. However, it is only because of your ability that materials can truly shine, Master, and only because of Head Chef Shion’s skill that they can be transformed into wonderful meals. My own work is still far from sufficient...”

Even as she said that, Roa looked happy.

“If we don’t have the ingredients in the first place, nothing can be done. Being able to gather them is amazing in itself.”

“...Th-thank you very much. Then I will clear away the rest with all haste.”

When I handed her the emptied basket, Roa returned to harvesting again.

In the end, the soybean field we discovered disappeared in less than an hour.

“Phew... Th-that was tiring...”

Shion smiled wryly while pressing a hand against her lower back.

I was in much the same state.

“If Chiyu were here, she could use Basic Heal on us.”

Even so, I had more stamina now than before the transfer, so if I rested a little, I felt like I could still keep moving.

As for Roa, she had sweated, of course, but she was still standing with beautiful posture.

I took canteens from my Inventory and handed them to the two of them.

“Thank you, Sousuke.”

“...You can make even such finely detailed things. As expected of you, Master.”

It was a canteen with /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ finely carved grooves and a lid that could twist open and shut.

While stroking Micron to thank her for working so hard, I drank some water too.

It was water I had chilled in the refrigerator before storing, so it was cold and pleasant on my throat.

I also handed everyone hand towels, and we wiped off our sweat.

“Good work, everyone. Let’s rest a little, then resume searching.”

After taking a short break to let our ragged breathing settle, we climbed onto Micron’s back again.

Then we tried to extend our search into a place that wasn’t on the map.

But Micron stopped dead in midair.

“What’s wrong, Micron? Did you find something?”

Micron tilted her head, then moved it forward and back.

The next instant, her head struck something in empty space, and ripples spread through the air.

As if a stone had been dropped onto the surface of a lake.

“...What is that?”

After Micron repeated it several times, I somehow understood.

There was something like an invisible wall there, and we couldn’t go any farther.

Did the mystery blackboard side prepare an area we can’t enter...?

No, if that were the case, there should have been an announcement.

“Which means it’s an ability?”

I remembered the dream from before the transfer.

We had shared information among our companions too.

We had put together the information we remembered about who had given what kind of answer.

“An ability that creates an invisible wall, you mean?”

I had Micron fly around for a while without touching the wall. Apparently, the invisible wall enclosed a certain area like a rectangular prism.

“Was there a girl who mentioned an ability like that...? Ah, c-could it be...”

Shion seemed to realize it.

“Yeah, probably. This is a barrier ability.”

After Shouko joined the conversation between Chiyu and me, the whole thing had temporarily turned into something like an ability comedy routine, and one girl had said this:

“An ability to put up a barrier that insects, beasts, other people, and so on can’t enter.”

We landed on the ground for the moment and tried knocking on the space that seemed to be the boundary.

It was as if a transparent wall had been placed there.

And it was pretty hard.

Despite that, no sound came when we knocked on it.

The scenery on the other side looked like it continued naturally, but we couldn’t set foot in it.

It was like a game.

You could see the scenery spreading out in front of you, but it hadn’t been made so that players could enter.

It was frustrating.

“For now, we have a rough idea of how wide it is. Let’s avoid this barrier and keep searching.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

“Do the two of you have some idea who might be inside?”

“I wasn’t that close to her, but she was in Shouko and Shion’s group, right?”

“Mm... More like Shouko was the one actively talking to her, I think. She didn’t seem to like socializing very much.”

“I see. Leaving aside whether we can talk to her through the wall, if dialogue is possible, it would be better to bring Shouko.”

I didn’t know how many people were inside, but Shouko would probably be happy to find a friend.

And depending on how that ability was used, it seemed like it could be extremely useful as a defense against monsters.

If we could make a deal where we offered food, clothing, or something else in exchange for having a barrier placed around our base, that would be a huge help.

“With Shouko’s communication skills, that may very well be possible.”

The three of us were discussing that as we started to climb onto Micron’s back again.

And then—

From the invisible wall, a slender arm suddenly slipped out and grabbed my hand.

“Wha—!”

I had let my guard down, so I couldn’t put up any real resistance. I was pulled straight through the invisible wall with a soft, slippery sensation.

And standing there was the beautiful girl who owned the hand.

“...Kuno, was it? You were talking about Shouko just now, weren’t you?”

A navy-blue angled bob, a sharp gaze, taller than Chiyu but still on the small side, and with large breasts.

The girl radiating a lone-wolf aura was the very same girl who had wanted the barrier ability.