The Tanaka Family Reincarnates

William’s POV

Chapter 38 – The White Bag’s Content

William heads towards the kitchen.

I thought older sister was calling for Mother fuzzily, but her eyes were looking straight at me.

The reason why older sister, who has never taken any monster fighting practice, stayed behind with George nii-sama is because of her talent that we have reaffirmed during this one month.

Observation power and creativeness. We gambled on these two skills of her.

No matter how much we study, no matter how much we train our body, no matter how much experience we have, monsters always remain as a threat.

Every time monsters like slime appear, a precious sacrifice is made.

Older sister’s observation power, which was honed by her love of insects, and her creativity due to her lack of common sense, have come out with various ideas when making karuta.

Older brother was interested and tried out those ideas one by one. Of course, not all, but about 70% showed some results.

Only half a month after the karuta is made, it is treated as a strategy guide.

That’s why, if older sister says so, then it can definitely defeat it.

Okaa-san (Yoriko)

shrug (slug)

osmoses pleasure (osmotic pressure)

slum (slime)

salt (salt)

When Mother (Yoriko) sees a slug, she will definitely sprinkle salt on it.

In short, Emma nee-sama wanted to say that slimes can be defeated with salt like slugs.

………probably.

To be honest, I couldn’t think how slime that has made us suffer so much can be defeated with salt. Any blow doesn’t work. When cut with a sword, it will split and multiply. When we use fire, it will explode. This world’s slime is invincible. To push one slime out of the barrier, at worst one person will be sacrificed as the target prey.

Is it possible to defeat it with mere salt?

Hydrochloric acid is more convincing. But, if older sister, if Emma says so, I will follow it.

In the end, I can’t go against my sister.

I open the kitchen door.

The range of hide-and-seek is inside the mansion. Thanks to Jadwiga’s strictness at playing, I have a grasp of the inside of the mansion.

Just like that, I head towards the inner storehouse without getting lost. I descend the stairs of the semi-basement storehouse.

“Err… What? should we search for?”

The moment the hunters step into the kitchen, they look uneasy.

“Salt! Please look for salt!”

“S-salt?”

“Umm… That salty salt?”

They make a more uneasy face. I myself am also anxious, but I nod surely like I didn’t sense their anxiety and start searching.

Even though I thought we will find it right away, the storehouse is large and full of things.

As expected of a marquis house storehouse. Groceries, oil, tea leaves, etc., lined up on the shelves neatly.

“Maybe it’s around here?”

A hunter calls out.

Colorful paper bags are lined up in a row.

………why is it not labeled!?

In this world, white is the bag’s color for salt, blue is sugar… like that, the color of the bag determines the content. The commoners’ literacy rate is not very high, so it is made easy to understand. But in this unexpected situation, it makes it hard to understand instead.

The unfortunate thing is neither the hunters nor I have ever stood in the kitchen.

“…anyway, let’s try opening it first!”

I take a red bag. It’s wheat flour.

“Wrong…”

A hunter opens a blue bag. Sugar.

“Sweet…”

I open a yellow bag. It’s bread flour.

“I can’t tell the difference from the previous one.”

A hunter opens an orange bag. It’s starch.

I push down my impatience and confirm it one by one, but we just couldn’t get the salt we’re looking for.

After that too, baking soda, breadcrumbs, granulated sugar, white pepper, black pepper, …after we opened a lot of things, finally the last we open a white bag.

“Salty!! This is salt!”

“Ooooohhhhh!!”

“Finally… finally…”

To think it’s the last… Everyone has a complicated look.

I was so tired from checking the too heavy bags one by one.

Even white powder has so many kinds, you know!! …while complaining so, we carry every large bag of salt.

(Nee-sama… this, can definitely defeat it, right? Right? RIGHT?)

I lament over the beyond expected labor.

It’s sinful to be unknowing. I will think about it again another time.

Anyway, when I’m carrying it outside, there’s a crowd.

This area’s evacuation is supposed to be taken care of, though… when I’m thinking so, someone there calls me.

“William!!”

My father, Leonard, and uncle, Arban, come running.

“Father!!”

The crowd is the reinforcement hunters from Palace.

“Is everyone safe? Do you know the local barrier hazard place? The size? The monster?”

I’m being asked in rapid succession.

It’s hard to look at my worried father’s face.

“S-slime, three of them. The hole is about 3 cm. Emma nee-sama is by a water gun…”

“Slime!!!? Moreover three!”

“Slime came out in this kind of place!?”

Before we finish speaking, the hunters make exclamations, and at the same time, their complexions change.

Palace’s hunters are excellent and well trained in the event of local barrier hazards. It was a state of emergency, but they thought that they could probably handle it.

Until they know that the appeared monster is slime.

“I will lead you to the place!”

Oppositely, Father and Uncle sink into silence when they learned that Emma nee-sama had been hit by a water gun.

I start running towards the direction I’m pointing at.

“Uwah! Father!!”

Father easily carries me and the salt bags together and sprints with all his power.

Uncle and the hunters also follow behind.

“……Emma is……?”

While running, Father opens his mouth gloomily.

Hit by the slime’s water gun means she has become the target prey.

Hit by the slime’s water gun means she can’t be saved.

Before I ponder over what to say, we see the cats’ figures.

“Why the cats!? How did they come?? …That is? George!? Isn’t he bloody!?”

Uncle looks at George nii-sama‘s appearance and quickens his speed.

“That is Emma nee-sama‘s blood. Thanks to the cats for coming, we have stopped her bleeding with first-aid.”

“Is she, alive?”

Father’s arm that’s carrying me grips tighter.

We walk through the cats and head towards Emma nee-sama‘s place.

Nee-sama, whose half of her body covered with something glowing in purple, is leaning her body to Koumei-san.

“Father!!”

Nii-sama calls out surprisedly.

“Sorry, I’m late. How’s the situation?”

Father asks Nii-sama while stroking Nee-sama‘s head gently.

I thought Emma nee-sama was sleeping, but she opens her eyes when her head is being stroked.

Father looks a little more relieved.

“Three slimes. The target preys are me, Emma, and His Highness Edward. Emma’s right upper half is wounded by a water gun. The cats are currently defending us from the slimes’ attacks.”

“Meow!”

Kan-chan greeted Father after sending the slimes flying with wind pressure like *fwoosh*, but Father, Uncle, and the hunters were confused with ‘Why even the prince the target?’, they didn’t hear the greeting.

The crucial prince is threatened by the cat and kept away from nee-sama. He is being protected by Valerie hunters at a distance that would not anger the cat.

^{end of William POV}

・・・

“William, what did you bring? How to defeat the slimes?”

Time is valuable… George looks at the bags William and Valerie hunters brought and asks. This is also a man that doesn’t know that white paper bag is salt.

“Defeat the slimes?”

Leonard and Arban are surprised at George’s words.

William explains Emma’s idea.

“Huh? Salt?”

“It’s a slime, you know? Not a slug, but slime, you know?”

“If we could defeat it like that, we wouldn’t have a hard time!”

The hunters voice out their objections.

“…let’s try it! If it’s Emma’s idea, there’s no doubt!”

“That’s right!”

At Leonard’s go sign, Arban responds without a moment’s delay.

The hunters, who thought that such a childish idea couldn’t possibly work, all remember at once.

Right. Our lord is super soft on his daughter. Also, Arban-sama is a niece-con. Even in such a tense situation, they don’t waver.

There’s only a lukewarm atmosphere from the hunters.

“B-but, slime is so fast. Wouldn’t it run away before we can pour this amount of salt!?”

The Valerie hunters that brought the salt point out that the idea itself is hard to carry out.

Unless it’s a target prey, the slime won’t attack, but with its agile movements, it won’t stay still and quietly get poured with salt.

“Hn? What’s wrong?”

Emma pulls on Leonard’s clothes.

Her eyes point at Violet.

“You will lend Violet to me?”

Emma nods slightly.

Leonard puts Violet, that was cuddling to Emma’s side, on his head and smiles.

“Eh? Wait! Eh?”

“Wha? That, eh? Huge— the spider’s huge!”

“Hn?? Hm? Eh?”

The hunters that don’t know about Violet are troubled about what to retort. The lord contently put the oversized spider they’ve pretended not to see due to the state of emergency on his head. More than the fact it doesn’t resolve anything, they doubt his sanity.

“First of all, how about trying it from the smallest one.”

He carries a big white bag of salt on his shoulder.

“L-Lord! Wait a minute—!!”

*zoom*

Without leaving any gap for the hunters to stop him, Leonard disappears in a flash.

At the same time they realized he has disappeared, they heard the sound of pouring salt from afar.

“Eeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh!!!”

*swoosh*

Before the hunters stop exclaiming, Leonard appears before their eyes.

“Eeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Once again, the hunters let out surprised voices.

Ignoring the shocked hunters, Leonard disappears after taking a new bag of salt.

*zoom*

*swoosh*

The three slimes are densely covered with salt in less than 3 seconds.

The hunters froze with their mouths still open.

“Well, well, it’s my first time trying it, but Violet is amazing, huh—!”

Not looking tired at all, Leonard smiles refreshingly.

“Father is the fastest, you know!”

“Violet’s ability accelerates the speed in proportion to the person’s athletic ability, it seems.”

George and William rush over to their father.

“Rather than speed… I feel like my overall physical ability is enhanced.”

The hunters can’t close their mouths.

“Meow?”

Kan-chan tilts its head.

The attacks from the three slimes stop. After being covered with salt, the slimes are wriggling in their place like writhing in agony.

“Eh? The slimes are weird!”

“This, can work!”

At George and William’s words, the hunters with their mouths open turn their necks stiffly to the slimes.

” ” “Huuuhhhhh!?” ” “

Then, again, they exclaim. Their mouths don’t close.

The slimes are suffering.

It is a spectacle that nobody has ever seen in this world.

In less than a few minutes, the slimes stop moving and look like they had melted from the salt.

“…? It really defeated it? The slimes?”

“With salt? …eh? With salt?”

“Er, it’s slime, you know? Eh?”

“F? Fo? For? For real?”

The hunters who can finally move their mouths start rubbing their eyes or wrinkling their eyebrows.

Kan-chan goes to a nearby slime in a pile of salt and smells it.

“Meow?”

When it crush the salt mountain with its forefeet, something gets stuck in its claw.

George and Leonard approaches and looks at the stuck thing.

“……sa**n wrap?”

^{(T/N: Saran wrap, or known as plastic wrap, cling wrap, food wrap.)}

Leonard mutters.

“Ah, I thought that too.”

That, they can only see it as the thin transparent plastic, the well-known sa**n wrap in their world before reincarnation. The other two slimes also become the same sa**n wrap.

The slime that should’ve made the skin melt when touched directly doesn’t melt anything in this state.

It is harder to stick than sa**n wrap.

They couldn’t think that those flimsy transparent things are a monster they fought with their lives just a little while ago.

“Is that possibly, slime?”

William rushes over.

“Emma nee-sama said it may revive if it contains moisture, so roll it up just like that and put it back to the local barrier hazard hole!”

“Eh? What’s that? Scary.”

George hurriedly rolls it into a crumpled slime wrap and stuffs it into the hole.

After all three are rolled up and stuffed into the hole, he covers it with salt so it won’t come out.

The catastrophe that could destroy the country, the local barrier hazard, ended like this.