kscans

Chapter 174 - A Strange Tale of Night Bedding, 1. The Sleeping Bag (Part 1)

On the same day they left End Village, the group arrived at the post town of Han. They stayed one night and departed early the next morning, but after traveling a full day's distance, they had to make camp. The guards, the "Lucky Footsteps," would take turns on watch, while the others, Adon, Old Man Audel, Dona, Yuri, and the driver, would rest inside the carriage. Nagara would apparently join the "Lucky Footsteps" on watch outside.

The nights were still quite cold this early in spring. Adon was well aware of this, so he had prepared plenty of bedding in the carriage. Old Man Audel and Dona, who were accompanying them again, had also brought their own lightweight bedding. Yuri had also prepared his own, but when he went to get it out, he was told that bedding was already provided. So he started to put his away...

"...Hey, Yuri, what is that?"

It was Kudol, the leader of the "Lucky Footsteps," who sharply spotted it and questioned him, his voice a mixture of suspicion and apprehension. The others turned at his voice, their eyes either blinking in confusion or shining with curiosity at what Yuri had taken out.

"Ah... it’s a sleeping bag. I thought it might still get cold at night, so I brought one just in case..."

Yuri answered, his tone slightly sheepish. Adon, Kudol, and the others all knew that Yuri lived alone on Salt-Sour Mountain. So, they had anticipated that he might have some bedding in his Magic Bag. The problem was that the bedding in question was a little different from what any of them had imagined. ...Who would have thought he would bring a Schlafsack, a sleeping bag.

"A sleeping bag?"

Looking at it again, it certainly had the shape of a bag. Considering his previous heroic deeds, they had expected him to bring out some kind of fur pelt...

"Hey Yuri, you’re not... planning on getting inside this bag to sleep, are you?"

"That’s exactly right. It’s warm, you know."

Despite saying this, what Yuri used at home was not a sleeping bag. He slept on a mattress stuffed with cotton he had purchased in Laurenzen, with linen sheets also bought in Laurenzen. His comforter was a down futon filled with Lucca down. He had a straw mat under the mattress, but that was more for cushioning than for blocking the cold from below. After all, Yuri’s house had Ondol-style floor heating. It was warm even if he just lay directly on the floor. Incidentally, his favorite pillow was one stuffed with buckwheat husks.

Thus, Yuri was immersed in a blissful sleep every night, wrapped in bedding that was luxurious by the standards of this country. Of course, Yuri himself did not think he was being extravagant. The only things he had paid for were the cotton and the linen sheets. Everything else was made from materials he had sourced and crafted himself. He considered it a modest, self-sufficient life. ...Well, the cotton was more expensive than he had expected. It seemed that this country, likely located at a high latitude, could not cultivate cotton, so it all had to be imported, making it costly. Still, he had not refrained from buying it, so in that respect, he might not be able to escape criticism for his extravagance.

Now, as for the sleeping bag prepared by this same Yuri, it was no ordinary sleeping bag. Its shape was a so-called "envelope type." However, it had a hood to cover the head, with a drawstring that could be pulled to enclose it. The insulation was Lucca feathers, but not down. Even for a giant bird like the Lucca, the amount of down was limited, and all of it had been used for Yuri’s down futon and down jacket. In fact, Yuri had taken down two more Lucca since his first hunt, but the effort of plucking and processing the feathers was so great that he had simply put them into his Storage as they were. So, what he used for the sleeping bag this time were the normal feathers, not the down. Of course, since the Lucca was so large, its feathers were proportionally large as well, and with a little effort in processing, they could become quite a warm material. Because he was so used to sleeping in a warm room, Yuri couldn’t quite grasp how cold it could be elsewhere, leading him to bring excessively warm gear.