Chapter 11 - Morning Coffee
Author's Note: We made it into the weekly overall rankings.
Thank you very much.
I woke up to the light streaming through the gap in the curtains.
Although my brain was momentarily startled by the unfamiliar sight, I quickly remembered that this was the bed in my camper van.
This bed... is seriously amazing...
It was almost like a hotel bed, so comfortable it felt like home, and I could easily sleep for hours on it.
If I rolled over again, I knew I’d fall back asleep in no time, but today, I had decided to wake up early and enjoy coffee surrounded by nature. I resolved not to indulge in a second round of sleep and got up.
With firm determination, I pulled myself out of bed.
After washing my face and fixing my bed hair at the sink, I changed out of my pajamas into casual clothes.
When I glanced at the bunk bed, Haku was nowhere to be seen.
I touched the blanket and found it had no warmth left, so he must have woken up earlier and gone outside.
When I opened the door and stepped out, the cool air brushed against my cheeks.
The dewdrops from last night still clung to the leaves and grass at my feet, glistening under the sunlight filtering through the trees.
Taking a deep breath, I let the crisp air fill my lungs. Among the freshness lingered a faint trace of smoke, a remnant of last night’s campfire.
"Let’s make some coffee..."
I walked around the camper van for a bit, then retrieved a chair and table from the external storage compartment and set them up. I spread out a groundsheet and placed a fire pit on top of it.
I added a small amount of dry leaves and a few konroi nuts, then brought out the fire-extinguishing pot I’d used to douse the flames last night.
When I opened the lid of the pot, the firewood from last night had turned completely into charcoal.
I sifted through the contents, extracting the larger pieces of charcoal, and placed them on the fire pit with tongs.
I brought a Fire Lighters match close to the konroi nuts and the charcoal, and the flames gradually spread.
I arranged thin wood and branches to create air passages, then blew through a fire-blowing tube to intensify the flames. After about ten minutes, the fire stabilized, and I placed a kettle filled with water on top.
While waiting for the water to boil in the kettle, I placed a dripper over a mug.
I set a paper filter in the dripper, added one serving of medium-ground coffee, and flattened the surface.
As I prepared the coffee, the kettle began to release steam, so I lifted it off the fire.
I tilted the kettle and poured a small amount of hot water onto the coffee grounds, letting it bloom for thirty seconds.
This process allowed the coffee grounds to expand, enhancing their aroma.
Once the blooming was done, I slowly poured the remaining hot water in circular motions, maintaining a consistent flow and ensuring the coffee didn’t pool around the edges of the dripper.
As the hot water gently saturated the coffee grounds, a rich and aromatic fragrance wafted up.
After about two minutes of extraction, the coffee was ready.
I removed the dripper, gave the coffee a light stir, and immediately took a sip.
"Ahh, delicious."
As I pulled the mug away from my lips, a sigh of satisfaction naturally escaped.
The balance between bitterness and acidity was just perfect.
The warm coffee seemed to gently awaken my chilled body on this crisp morning.
"Why does coffee taste so much better when you drink it outside?"
At home, I’d sometimes use a dripper to brew coffee in the morning, but it had never tasted as good as this.
Camping is a special time, far removed from everyday life. That sense of being out of the ordinary might be adding extra value to the coffee, making it seem more delicious.
"Next time, I’d like to try grinding the coffee beans myself."
Since this was my first morning after sleeping in the camper van, I didn’t attempt anything too complicated. But grinding my own beans and making coffee from scratch was one of those dream scenarios for a camper. Once I got more comfortable, I definitely wanted to try it.
"I’m back."
While I was browsing the coffee mills available through the Shop function, Haku returned, now in his large form, carrying a monster in his mouth.
"Whoa! What the heck is that?!"
"A monster."
Yeah, I could tell that much. There was no way a bird with blade-like wings could be a normal animal. Actually, I hadn’t noticed because Haku was in his large form, but up close, the creature was massive. Just spreading its wings made it span over five meters. Was something like this really flying around in this world?
Using Appraisal, I discovered it was a Level 37 Roar Blade Hawk.
"Did you hunt this for me?"
"Yeah, there’s a pile of other monsters outside the barrier as well."
"Outside the barrier?"
I followed Haku to where he’d walked, and sure enough, there was a massive heap of monster corpses piled up a short distance from the barrier.
"...Did you take down all of this by yourself?"
"Just a little morning exercise."
No, don’t say that like it’s the same as casually going for a morning stroll. Bringing back this many monsters is a bit overwhelming.
Well, I couldn’t complain too much since magic stones served as the power source for my camper van.
"If we have those magic stones, we can enjoy delicious meat, right?"
"Y-Yeah, that’s right."
Haku wagged his white tail vigorously from side to side, his eyes full of anticipation.
It seemed last night’s meal had given him a taste for Japanese cuisine.
"For now, can you extract the magic stones?"
"Understood... but the smaller monsters are your job, Tohru."
"Me? How am I supposed to extract magic stones from monsters?"
"Most of the time, they’re embedded in the chest. You just have to carve them out with a knife."
Haku said this nonchalantly before dragging out a large corpse.
In the blink of an eye, he swung his tail with incredible speed, cleanly dismantling the monster and extracting the magic stone.
"Magic stones, huh..."
I felt uneasy about driving a blade into a creature’s corpse.
However, if I wanted to survive in this world, I needed to keep the camper van running, and magic stones harvested from monsters were essential as a power source. Dismantling monsters was something I couldn’t avoid.
"Alright, let’s do this!"
Steeling myself, I put on work gloves and grabbed a full tang knife.
From the pile of monsters, I selected a familiar-looking goblin and plunged the knife into its chest.
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