Long Story Short, I'm Living in the Mountains: Volume 3 (eBook)

Asagi (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
978-1-7183-4028-2 (ISBN)

Infos

It's been six months since Shohei Sano began living in the mountains with his three chickens. (They are actually chickens, right? They just keep growing...) The scorching summer has faded into a cool, crisp autumn, and the mountainside's harvest is abundant: wild vegetables, chestnuts, and persimmons... Delicious! But with the new season brings new obstacles, like weatherproofing for a typhoon, facing trouble with wild boars, and dealing with the return of the killer hornets! When these insidious insects begin buzzing around Loud Mountain, Katsuragi calls for Shohei and Aikawa to help her exterminate them-by using their pets as bodyguards, of course. What happens when a dragon, three raptor-like chickens, and a lamia attack a nest of killer hornets? Kaiju fight?! Not quite! Can the intrepid mountain trio and their fearsome pets emerge victorious against the hornet menace?

Textauszug

1. This Time It Was Deer

This story happened before the September holidays.

We’d recently held the after-party for the cleanup walks, and I’d gone to the chicken farm with Aikawa-san and Katsuragi-san—Matsuyama-san had also been having problems with illegal dumping, and he wanted some advice.

We’d agreed to wait and see how things fared during the holidays. Though we wouldn’t be holding any events, we figured that Matsuyama-san might ask for help building torii gates.

Also, we’d discussed going over to Katsuragi-san’s mountain to look into the matter of hornet nests—she’d spotted a few hornet nest remains around the mountain, and we weren’t sure whether her dragon had eaten them or if this was a sign of a nearby bear. We were still waiting for her reply. Other than that, it was just the usual stuff: the eternal struggle against weeds, Pochi coming back home covered in dirt, Tama pecking me, Yuma comforting me.

I was enjoying a mouthwatering breakfast with Tama’s and Yuma’s freshly laid eggs when I got an SOS call from Katsuragi-san.

“S-S-S-S-Sano-san! P-P-Please help! T-T-T-Tatsuki’s—! Tatsuki—!”

“Wait, wait, wait, just calm down! What happened?”

I told her to take deep breaths and tried to make sense of what she was saying. Apparently, her dragon had hunted some deer—two of them. He’d dragged them to her house by their legs, and when she’d gone outside to see what all the commotion was, she’d found two live deer lying there.

“Wh-Wh-What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?!”

“So, the deer are still alive?”

“Yes! But it looks like they have leg injuries!”

“Deer are considered pests, right? So what do you want to do? Call a vet? Or eat them? First you need to decide that.” If it were me, I would’ve already called Yumoto-san and asked Akimoto-san to take care of them, but I suppose some people might feel bad for deer, what with how cute they look and all.

“I’d like to eat them, but...I...don’t know how to butcher them and stuff...”

Good choice. Oh yeah, she did say she’s seen Tatsuki-san hunt and eat deer before. She probably doesn’t mind venison, then.

“I’ll give Old Man Yumoto a call,” I assured her. “We’ll talk to you again later—just relax and don’t worry about it. Oh, and tell Tatsuki-san not to eat them.”

“Got it...”

Oh, I guess it’s not a good idea to eat the parts that the dragon already bit into. We can give him those bits after butchering them, I guess.

When I called Yumoto-san, he was enthusiastic about the idea. “What’s that? The dragon caught live deer? Two of them? All right, I’ll call Akimoto-chan! Hang on!”

I’m impressed he can be this lively early in the morning.

I then texted Katsuragi-san, who was probably waiting anxiously: “I talked to Yumoto-san. I’ll let you know what’s up once we work out the details.”

Now, you might think there’s no need to contact her so frequently and keep her updated on every single development. I’d agree if she were a man like Aikawa-san, but this is Katsuragi-san we’re talking about—she called for help because she was worried about having two wild deer lying in front of her house. Probably a good idea to placate her nerves as much as I can. (Wait, who am I making excuses to?)

“Yuma, I’m going to Katsuragi-san’s place later. Wanna come along?”

“Come along.”

“Okay. Just wait a little, then.”

I guess we can check for bears some other time.

Shortly after, I got a call from Yumoto-san. “Hey, I talked to Akimoto-chan,” he said. “I just need to go to Loud Mountain to pick them up, right?”

“That’s right. Is Akimoto-san going too?”

“Nah. If it’s just pickin’ ’em up, I can do it by myself.”

“I’m going too.”

“Got it. I’ll let you know when I leave.”

Yumoto-san and I would be on deer duty. I prepared everything I thought we might need—gloves, ropes, other bits and bobs—and waited for his call. I had Yuma tell the other two chickens we were going out. And of course, I also let Katsuragi-san know about our plans. She might need some preparations of her own.

Not an hour had passed before Yumoto-san called me again, and soon after, I drove over to Katsuragi-san’s. She was waiting for us, teary-eyed, by the wire fence at the foot of the mountain.

“Thank you so much...”

We all greeted each other, Yumoto-san and I drove inside the fence in our respective trucks, and she locked the gate again. Then we all drove up to her house.

Yumoto-san got out and surveyed the deer. “Oooh... Parent and child, eh? It’s okay to butcher and eat them, right?” Yumoto-san asked.

Katsuragi-san nodded. “Yes, I’d like to eat them with everyone.”

“All right. I’ll let Shohei know when we’re done. Should be by tomorrow evening or so. Then we’ll have the barbecue, and everyone can stay over.”

“Okay! Thank you very much!”

Unusually, the dragon was lying there next to his prey. Yumoto-san approached him.

“Um, Tatsuki-san, was it? You can have the innards, but we’ll need some time to butcher them. Come to my place tomorrow with Katsuragi-san, all right?”

The dragon narrowed his eyes and slowly nodded. Guess that’s a yes.

“Jeez, what’s up with these animals? So he can understand us, just like your chickens. They make other animals look stupid by comparison.”

“Ha ha ha...” I chuckled. “My chickens are quite something, but Tatsuki-san’s no slouch either...”

I helped Yumoto-san lash the deers’ legs together, and we loaded them onto the truck. I won’t lie—their big, round eyes did inspire some sympathy in me, but we had to do what we had to do.

“Thanks, Tatsuki-san. We’ve been having trouble with deer—too many of ’em around. Let me know if you catch any more.”

“Thank you very much,” said Katsuragi-san. “I really appreciate it.”

“Two deer to the butcher... We’ll see how much it’ll cost for everything—ask Akimoto tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Katsuragi-san replied.

Wait, what? I didn’t have to pay anything when my chickens caught those boars.

Yumoto-san looked at me and said, “I’ll call you later.”

He’ll probably explain what that was all about. Come to think of it, they didn’t ask me to pay, but it goes without saying that butchering is labor that you’d usually have to pay for. And I was just taking it for granted... Gah, I’m so dumb.

“We’ll be on our way, then. Will you be okay?” I asked Katsuragi-san.

“Yes, no problem!”

Yumoto-san and I left—Katsuragi-san would have to go down with us to lock the gate, so I thought it’d be easier for her if we took off together. After seeing that she’d locked the gate, we went on our way home.

“I’m so naive...” I don’t know how I would manage without all the help from everyone around me, not to mention my chickens.

A short while after I returned home, I got a call from Yumoto-san. I asked him how much it would cost to butcher an animal, and he promptly replied, “Between butchering the animal and dressing the meat, it should work out to around five thousand to ten thousand yen per animal.”

“Um... I didn’t pay anything, though...”

“Eh? It’s okay. I just wanted to eat some boar meat then.”

“But I also didn’t pay for the time my chickens caught one on Mutsu-san’s property.”

“What do you mean? Mutsu-san paid for it—it’s only natural, since it’s his property.”

“But then, doesn’t that mean I should’ve paid for the one they caught on my property?”

“Gah, enough! Don’t sweat the small stuff, okay?! We’ll just ask her to pay for the butchering this time. It should be about five thousand for the two of them.”

“What about dressing the meat?”

“We’re eating it at my place, so I’ll pay for that.”

I sighed. Old Man Yumoto’s a bit too generous with his money... “I’ll pay five thousand too. I was the one who asked for your help, after all.”

“What a pain...” he griped.

“Weren’t you the one who told me that when it comes to money, you have to do things properly?!”

“You guys don’t need to worry about that!”

“We do!”

We argued back and forth over the phone. In the end, we reached an agreement—from now on, when someone caught wild boars or other animals, that person would cover the cost of dealing with it, from butchering to dressing the meat. I think I’ll ask the chickens to go hunting for boars or something when we have the time. Though that feels a bit weird.

That night, I got another call from him saying that Akimoto-san was done butchering the deer and would be dressing them tomorrow. Yumoto-san told me to head to his place tomorrow evening. The innards were already set aside for Tatsuki-san—the MVP of our meal. Old Man Yumoto also...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.10.2025
• Reihe/Serie: Long Story Short, I'm Living in the Mountains
• Illustrationen: Asagi
• Übersetzer: Asagi
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: adult protagonist • farming • Light Novel • monster taming • Slice of Life • Slow life • talking animals
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-4028-1 / 1718340281
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-4028-2 / 9781718340282