Chapter 30: Experiment by the River

The next day, Ren came to the riverside again. He remembered reading in the guild’s archives that magic fish react to blood and magic power, so he decided to conduct an experiment.

“Let’s test what they react to.”

• Water drawn from the well and brought in a canteen
• Water produced by Ren’s water magic
• Water drawn from the river
• Random leaves
• Small stones
• “The Small Box”

When he dropped various things into the river, the ones that triggered a reaction were the water Ren produced with magic and “the Small Box.”

“…I wonder if ‘the Small Box’ is giving off magic…”

If magic fish were drawn to it because they could sense the mana surrounding “the Small Box,” then monsters might be drawn to it too. That felt a bit dangerous.

However, so far, the three-eyed eagles only appeared when he was draining blood—not when he took out “the Small Box.” Perhaps the conditions were different from what attracted magic fish.

When he dipped the long, narrow box into the river, he happened to catch one fish.

After lifting the box onto the riverbank, he looked up at the sky warily before draining the blood.

There were no three-eyed eagles visible by the river, but he never knew when they might fly in. He wasn’t sure if they reacted to magic fish blood, but it was better to be careful.

“…I wonder if I can prevent the smell of blood from escaping.”

Staring at the fish inside the small box, Ren thought about it and narrowed the width of the box until it was just barely wide enough for the fish. It squeezed tight, fitting the fish’s width perfectly.

“If I point the head downward like this…”

Holding the narrowed box, he stood it upright so the fish’s head faced down.

Plop

The fish’s head touched the bottom of the box. The fish flapped its fins desperately.

Ren made a complicated face. He had been certain the fish would get stuck in the middle of the box.

“…Um… I’ll hang it. Tie it with rope… I can do this!”

Taking the end of a rope, he thrust it into the small box. It slipped through without any resistance, the tip entering the box and emerging on the opposite side.

“Yes! It went through!”

When he had caught the horn rabbit, he had only extracted “oxygen” from the small box. The “oxygen” had passed through the box’s walls to the outside. That made him think: if he focused his will, perhaps he could make it so only specific objects could pass through the box’s walls.

He inserted the rope at the position where the fish’s tail was, then threaded it through from the opposite side as if sewing the box itself together. He wrapped the rope around the tail and tied it tight.

When the fish thrashed its tail, it hit the box’s walls, but the rope passed through as if the walls weren’t there. He pulled the rope up, tied a knot above the box, and hung it.

Once the fish was suspended, he aimed at the area near its gills and thrust in his knife. The blade too passed straight through “the Small Box’s” walls and pierced the fish.

Drip-drip-drip

The fish’s blood fell and pooled at the bottom of the box. None of it leaked outside.

“Al… alright!”

Seeing that it seemed to be working, Ren gulped nervously.

He filled a small box—one he could carry—with water. He tried drawing river water, but when he saw all the tiny debris floating in it, he instinctively poured it back into the river. Instead, he patiently accumulated water bit by bit using water magic into the now-empty “Small Box.”