03.03.2023
It is I, the Absolute Madman and I'm back with your weekly dose of Stranded, couple of memes and a handful of important things to say! But first, the comments!:
deathdog08 - Quickly becoming a household name here sire! I'm all for it! And I gotta agree, finding great stories that just suddenly die is one of the most annoying things. It's almost as annoying as finding a great story on Ao3 with all of the pairings that I'm looking for only to find out that the story has three chapters where nothing happens... I'm personally a fan of updating the tags as they become relevant, but that's me, people are free to do as they please.
Rebmul - What? No. Did you not see me vehemently stating that this was not at all ARK-related/inspired?
And now, enjoy the chapter! And the memes Jack!:
When Izuku, Momo and Kyouka returned to the camp after almost two weeks they found it… in the same exact state as it was when they left. They knew that Kendo was a very capable leader, but they also knew that Mina and Tooru were a hard to contain duo. Thankfully it seemed that they didn't cause any trouble while the trio was gone.
It was late in the afternoon when they crossed one of the hidden passageways into the valley, just in time to see the other girls enter on the opposite side of their camp with today's forage in hand.
The two groups noticed each other right away and they sprinted to the middle of the camp to greet their friends. Needless to say there was much rejoicing.
Kendo approached the three expeditionaries just as Mina and Tooru were getting done smothering them with their hugs and attention, Izuku getting a premium double-whammy treatment from his girlfriends.
"I take it that you've found whatever it was that you were looking for?" The redhead asked with a smile, glad to see them after worrying about their fate for the past couple of days. It was surely a load off of her mind.
"Exactly!" Momo exclaimed with a grin and fished out a small chunk of ulexite from her satchel. "This is ulexite which belongs in the pentaborate group meaning that its polyanion has five boron atoms! It's sometimes called a 'TV rock' as it has some surprising optical properties not usually found in minerals!" She proudly proclaimed, effectively applying a four-turn stun to the rest of the group.
"I haven't the slightest idea what she just said but it sounded smart." Everyone besides Momo thought in scarily perfect sync.
Momo must've realized that she did the smart-person thing again and with a small amount of embarrassment manifesting in the form of red dusting on her cheeks simplified her presentation.
"We can use this to try and wake Shuusa up." She said simply and was rewarded with a round of applause.
"That's our girl!" Mina and Tooru cheered.
"I suggest that we postpone this till tomorrow though." Kendo cut in. "It's getting late already and we have to set the tent that you took with you back up. Besides, I'm pretty sure that you're tired after spending nearly two weeks marching."
"That's a good idea." Momo agreed right away. "We pushed it today to make it back before the night rolled around, so we are pretty tired. Besides, ulexite doesn't easily dissolve in water so I'd like to leave it submerged overnight and we'd probably be able to administer it to Shuusa first thing in the morning."
Izuku was really excited to have his daughter back today, but he could wait a couple of hours. Besides, Momo was right, they did push themselves today quite a bit to make it back and even his rigorously trained body was demanding rest.
They agreed to follow Kendo's plan and started getting ready for the night. Izuku helped Kendo set up the fourth tent back up and it was standing proudly in no time at all thanks to their combined efforts. They talked a bit during the dinner, although it was mostly Izuku, Momo and Kyouka answering questions about their expedition, before eventually retiring for the night.
After breakfast the entire tribe had gathered around the sled that served as Shuusa's bed for the past few weeks, anticipation killing them as they waited for Momo to administer the boron-rich solution.
"Here goes nothing." The girl mused to herself as Izuku held Shuusa upright so that she was sitting, whilst Momo poured the murky liquid into her mouth.
The anticipation had reached its peak at this moment as the gang waited for something, anything to happen. They imagined Shu to suddenly start glowing or something, but nothing like that happened. Damn you shounen anime for implanting unrealistic expectations in people!
"Well, I expected it to have no immediate effects as we have no idea how Shuusa's absorption ability really functions. Unfortunately I can't even estimate how long it'll take for the effect to kick in or even if it will kick in. There's always the possibility that this entire endeavor was pointless and we'll have to keep looking." Momo stated seriously as she bit her lip.
"So all we can do is wait, right?" Kendo asked.
"I'm afraid so." Momo confirmed with a sigh.
"You did everything you could." Izuku reassured his raven-haired girlfriend. "I'm sure you are right and that Shu will wake up soon. I believe in you." He said with a kind smile that somehow filled Momo's stomach with butterflies.
"Should we leave someone to watch over Shu in case she wakes up when we're still out foraging?" Mina wondered out loud, bringing everyone's attention back to the matter at hand.
"Well, we certainly can't all stay behind, but leaving one person behind doesn't sound like a bad idea. I'm sure she'd be very confused if she were to wake up all alone." Kendo agreed.
"So we are leaving Greenie, right? I mean, it's his daughter afterall." Tokage chimed in.
Mina, Momo, Tooru and Kyouka had to bite their tongues to stop themselves from correcting the seaweed-green-haired girl and accidentally revealing the truth about their relationship.
Izuku was about to argue that he was fine with going out as long as someone that Shu was familiar with got to stay behind, but his complaints were quickly shut down and he was basically ordered by the high command to stay and keep Shuusa company. He thanked the girls with a gentle smile as he sat down on the sled and patiently waited whilst the girls went out into the forest.
Minutes dragged on and quickly became hours, but Izuku kept watch over his daughter like a vigilant guard, not leaving her side for a moment. There were a couple of times where he could've sworn that Shu's fingers twitched or that she wrinkled her nose as if it was tickled.
The twin suns were high in the sky by the time that doubt began gnawing at his hope, but he fought tooth and nail to keep those pessimistic thoughts at bay. He told Momo that he believed in her knowledge and intuition and he wasn't about to go back on his words and start second-guessing everything that she did. He believed- scratch that, he knew that Momo was right. All he had to do was put his trust in her and everything will be alright.
His will became stalwart and unshakeable following his brief moment of doubt and kept strong throughout the rest of the day. Even as the shadows cast upon their hidden valley grew longer and longer he didn't allow himself to feel doubt and his faith was soon to be rewarded.
It started softly with Shuusa slowly wiggling her fingers. Next she began stretching out different parts of her body which surely had gone numb over the past few weeks. Izuku was never in a coma, but he used to be frequently bed-ridden back when he didn't have that good of a grasp on One for All, so he can imagine what a prolonged stay in bed might feel like.
Izuku waited with baited breath as his daughter slowly woke up her body before eventually fluttering her unfocused eyes open. It took her a couple of moments to blink the blurriness away, but her vision was back to normal in no time at all.
Their eyes met and a smile formed on her lips.
"Hi dad." She greeted him simply.
"Miss, you are in so much trouble." Izuku responded with an unexpected amount of seriousness both in his voice and features, which actually caught Shuusa off-guard. The tense atmosphere didn't last however as Izuku soon lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. "I'm so glad that you're back." He whispered with a smile as a couple of happy tears rolled down his cheeks.
Shuusa was taken aback by the sudden shift in attitude but quickly took it in stride and melted into the hug, wrapping her arms around her father in return.
"Don't you dare worry me like that ever again though." Izuku warned with a beaming smile on his face.
"I'll try, but I'm sure that you'd save me again." Shuusa responded with a much gentler smile.
This time it was Izuku's turn to be caught off-guard as he suddenly noticed something about his daughter's behavior. Before she fell into a coma Shuusa looked and behaved like a normal human being, but there was a certain kind of rigidness in the way she acted that Izuku and the others were quick to pick up on. It mostly had to do with her facial expressions which usually lacked that authentic humanity. She was supposedly just a pile of random things a couple of months ago, so the slight errors weren't that weird.
Now though? Now it was a completely different story. Izuku had no idea how or why, but Shuusa's smile almost felt alive. Just by looking at it he could sense that it was genuine and driven by emotion and not just notions of what'd be appropriate in the given moment like Shuusa used to do in the past. This was a completely unexpected and very strange development, but Izuku certainly wasn't complaining. He was too happy to have his daughter back to worry about anything else at the moment.
"I assume that the powder worked?" Shu questioned curiously with a decent amount of confusion thrown into the mix. "Where are we even?"
"After you fell into a coma we managed to find a group of our friends which also were transported to this world and they let us stay with them." Izuku explained with a smile. "They are currently out gathering food, but they've been dying to meet you. I can catch you up to speed while we wait for them, how does that sound?" He offered with joy written all over his features.
"Sounds good." Shuusa responded and Izuku was about to start recalling the events that she missed when her stomach growled like a wild animal. "I guess food would sound a bit better though." She admitted with a sheepish chuckle.
Izuku had no issues with that as he himself had spent the entire day practically glued to the sled and didn't have anything to eat since the morning. They had a quick meal and then decided to start a fire for when the girls came back. Once that was done they sat down near the fire and Izuku began the tale.
He told Shuusa about their journey through the cave system that led them here, how they found Kendo - or rather how she found them - how they settled in the valley alongside the other girls and about the expedition that he, Momo and Kyouka embarked upon to find borax.
Izuku was just wrapping up the end of his story when the father-daughter duo heard some ruckus coming from one of the hidden entrances to the valley, announcing the return of the girls ahead of time.
Those that already were acquainted with Shuusa were elated to see her up and about and wasted no time fussing over her state. The girl from class B had waited for their turn to introduce themselves and were all equally enchanted by how cute the girl turned out to be. They unanimously agreed that her pretty eyes were by far the most captivating thing about her and Izuku - being the proud father that he was - completely agreed, happy to see all the girls he cared about getting along with each other.
After the initial introductions were over the group had sat down around the fire to eat dinner and chat with each other. Shuusa - as Izuku expected - was at the center of nearly all the conversations that evening and he was content to sit by and enjoy the friendly atmosphere that permeated the air.
Now that they'd overcome their last struggle, Izuku was certain that everything would be alright from this point onwards. They had a safe place to sleep, a steady supply of drinking water and an overabundance of foragable food in the surrounding forest. Yup, things were finally looking to be in their favor.
He really should learn to keep his mouth shut. Actually, he should even stop thinking about their situation whenever things start looking up because he always ends up jinxing them into another hurdle that they need to overcome! Well, at least they'll have something interesting to do. But let's go back to the start.
Izuku, Momo and Kyouka were unaware of what was going on during their absence, so they didn't know that their foraging operation had caught up and even surpassed the pace at which the forest kept replenishing its resources. It didn't take long for the trio to realize that however, especially since Kendo made sure to catch them up to speed once Shuusa's awakening became old news.
Neither of them needed much convincing to believe the amber-haired girl's words as they could see for themselves that the berries, roots and whatnot around their hidden valley struggled to keep up with their food demand. They weren't in deep trouble just yet, but it was only a matter of time until they'd be faced with a food shortage if they didn't figure out a solution quickly.
The simplest solution to this hurdle would be to simply expand their forage areas to include the parts of the forest which were a bit further from their base than those that they currently exploited. There was a catch however - the concentration of berry bushes and plants with edible roots worth digging up dwindled drastically the further away from the valley that they strayed. This meant that they'd need to work much harder to bring in the same amount of food, but working harder meant spending more energy which they'd need to replenish by eating or resting more, eventually resulting in only a slight overall profit. It didn't require any additional preparations however so it'd remain as their Last Resort by Papa Roach whilst they thought of another solution to the looming threat.
Shuusa, eager to become useful after being in a coma for over three weeks, proposed a pretty interesting idea, one that seemed sound enough to work. It'd require some resources, tools and most importantly expertise however and they weren't sure if they had all that they needed.
Shuusa proposed that they should do exactly what humanity did when it finally grew tired of chasing its food - say 'fuck it' and plant some grass.
Farming was no easy task however and even Momo, with all of her vast knowledge, wouldn't know where to start. Thankfully there was someone who did. Apparently having vines for hair made you quite adept at cultivating plants and whilst caring for a few flowers was fundamentally different from growing fields of crops, Shiozaki was looking forward to the challenge.
With expertise secured all they needed was tools and seeds.
Momo would be more than eager to create an entire slew of different farming tools like sickles, hoes and scythes but she was currently forgeless so that wasn't an option. At least they had the shovel which Izuku was supposed to use when he was digging up clay for bricks in the past and their trusty Salvaged Icepick so they could always try to improvise with what they had.
Now all that was left to secure were seeds. Easier said than done.
Without proper expertise they could always experiment to try and figure out farming on their own. Without proper tools they could always use their bare hands, ineffective but doable in a pinch. Seeds however couldn't be substituted with ingenuity and hard work, which was a serious issue. The gang was ready to try and gather seeds from the berry bushes to hopefully domesticate them closer to home, but that was ultimately unnecessary as the bullshit rules of this world seemed to shift in their favor in a rare show of compassion.
You see, Izuku and the girls knew exactly what they packed onto their sled when they were fleeing the rapidly rising water levels. They were very meticulous during their preparations, double and triple checking if they had everything important and as little junk as possible. They had gone over the contents of the sled many times before departure.
So how in bloody hell, (does Makarov know you?!) did they miss the suspicious looking linen bag which turned out to contain seeds?!
Even Shuusa - the main suspect on the matter - pleaded not-guilty as she was unable to create organic matter like seeds.
After a small crysis the gang decided to ignore the circumstances which led to this unexpected discovery and simply bask in the stroke of good luck.
Now that they had everything they needed there was only one thing to do - get to work.
They weren't sure what might grow out of these seeds, but they didn't have much to lose so they were more than willing to give it a try!
Is it just me or has there been a sudden appearance of farmer MCs in the last couple of months? I can recall like three right off the top of my head and it got me curious.
Yeah, so, memes are back on the menu boyos, I swear they just seemed to flow today so I had to include them. Let me know what you think about it! Also, you can put down the torches and forks, the daughter is back on her own two feet!
Now, kind of important news - I've been contacted by someone from Webnovel and they were basically offering me a spot there. This seems like kind of a big-big deal, but I'm still asking questions about some stuff, so there isn't much to discuss as of yet. Honestly, Webnovel flew under my radar because I was under the assumption that it was a site for illustrated stories like comics and manhwa, but there is also fan fiction of all kinds! Expanding my work onto yet another site would be great, but I'm not gonna jump into it without knowing all the details. The last thing I want to do is abandon the readers that I've already gathered!
With that said, have a great day and I'll catch y'all in the next update!