The peaceful settlement was making steady progress again today.
"Brrrrrrrr...."
Correction. It was not actually peaceful.
[Whole Body: Hypothermia (Progressing)]
Marmotte chattered her large front teeth together as her entire body shook.
With a sudden cold snap upon us, she was buried beneath a heap of blankets, unable to move.
"Cold."
[Whole Body: Hypothermia (Shivering)]
Even Green Shark, who was resistant to both heat and cold, had shut the door tight and pulled her collar closed.
And rightly so; an untimely frozen hell lay in wait beyond the door.
"Wasn’t it spring...?"
"Seasonally speaking... ahh. It is late spring.... Achoo!"
When I looked at the thermometer, the extreme temperature was nearly minus thirty degrees Celsius.
Outside the window, the grassland of the vast prairie had frozen completely dead, turning it into a bare plain.
Even the forest visible far in the distance was nothing but skeletal branches, each tree piled thick with blowing snow.
"C-could you make it any hotter...?"
Marmotte asked plaintively.
The electric heater I had hurriedly built when the air first turned chilly was glowing red-hot and giving off warmth, but apparently that was not enough for her.
But asking any more of this old-fashioned heater was too much.
If I turned its output up too high, the circuits might overload and melt. It might be quicker just to start a fire.
Let us save burning down the whole house as a last resort.
"Fur is warm. Come here."
Green Shark opened her arms to Marmotte, whose lips had turned blue and who looked nearly dead.
As though it were a nuisance, Green Shark gathered her into her arms and volunteered to serve as a human heater.
Even the two of them, who usually seemed like mortal enemies, were peaceful when survival was on the line.
"I told you, it’s cramped..."
The problem was that she was already holding me.
It was cramped, but my heart had not frozen enough to shove away a tiny rat shivering from the cold.
With me caught between them, surrounded from the front and back as if we were in bed, and another blanket wrapped around us, it felt reasonably warm.
"Hehe..."
When I covered Marmotte’s large ears with both hands, they felt icy cold. Yet perhaps my touch felt warm against her ears, because she smiled goofily.
That was when it happened.
Knock. Knock-knock...
"Yes."
A strained answer came from within my arms at the sudden knock.
Marmotte seemed to have reflexively responded to the knocking.
She was clever, after all.
Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock...
"I’ll go check."
The owner of the knocking hand must have been shaking badly, because the sound was becoming increasingly technical.
Marmotte had answered, but she was in no condition to go anywhere, so Green Shark let go of us instead.
The snowfall was so fierce that even a raid had turned back because of the cold. If someone was polite enough to knock, there was no need to turn them away at the door.
Creak—
Thud
When Green Shark flung the door open, the person standing in front of it collapsed.
"P-please save me....."
Despite wearing cold-weather gear, her long rabbit ears exposed to the outside had frozen stiff like icicles.
Hmm. A rabbit this time. Got it...
.
.
"How humiliating. To find myself relying on a primitive shack like this...."
The unexpected visitor settled down in front of the electric heater.
When she removed her goggles and cold-weather gear that covered even her face, sharp red eyes were revealed.
White fur and red eyes. If her ear shape had not been distinctly different, I might have mistaken her for Marmotte’s sister.
"Have some of this."
"...Thank you."
I picked up the kettle boiling away atop the heater and poured her some hot water. She gradually began to regain her strength.
The rabbit took some sort of powder from her clothes, mixed it into the cup, and carefully sipped it.
Was it a kind of tea? A fragrant scent of cinnamon lightly brushed against my nose.
"Whew. I never expected a blizzard, you know."
With some warmth returning to her, the visitor’s cheeks flushed red as she spoke.
"Is she your guardian?"
The visitor gave me a quick once-over, then looked at Marmotte, who had become one with the blanket, as she spoke.
With Green Shark gone, Marmotte also gave a subtle nod.
"Pleased to meet you. I’m Lumi Sorena, a free trader from the satellite Palladium. I am grateful that you saved my life. But I will not give you a discount. Business is business, after all."
So after pulling someone out of the water, she was going to charge market price for her wares.
When I stared at her with cold, dead eyes, she read the room and continued in a shrinking voice.
"I’ll... compensate you for shelter at the current market rate."
Lumi looked around the shelter and raised an eyebrow.
Let us not press her over the shape her lips made, clearly saying, ‘It probably won’t be expensive anyway.’
"A satellite?"
"Yes. We Rabbies normally continue our commerce while orbiting near planetary bodies, but planetary capture... ahem. There are also small-time peddlers like me, naturally."
Rabbies... They really did look like rabbits.
That silver-shining cold-weather gear, and the thing hanging from her shabby shoulder strap... was that a gun?
Judging by how well armed she was, it seemed she could procure goods well enough.
"You said your name was Lumi? May I ask what you sell?"
"I sell everything except what I don’t have."
A perfectly practiced mechanical smile settled onto her face.
I was startled for a moment at the swift change in expression, as if this was her real profession.
But there was even a certain sacredness to the way she expertly set up her terminal and brought out a catalog.
[Lumi’s General Store]
"Oh."
As expected of a general store, she had all sorts of things, from food and medicine to raw materials and weapons.
I had wondered where she kept all those goods, but Green Shark was just coming inside after tying up a muffalo outside.
"Whew."
In that short time, snow had piled thickly on Green Shark’s shoulders, and she shook it off.
Turning my attention back to the catalog, I began looking over the things we needed most right now.
We still had plenty of chemfuel to run the generator, and enough raw materials stockpiled as well.
"What are these parts?"
"Miscellaneous gears, capacitors, circuit boards, tubes, wheels, sensors, chips, processors, and other industrial components."
The sales pitch flowed out naturally, like running water.
It had come about by chance, but this was an incredible opportunity.
I had LEDs and coils stripped from the wrecked pod, but I would ultimately need electronic components like these for an antenna and communications device.
"How much?"
"This much."
The pad Lumi tapped showed various figures, including the average price and quantity of each item.
Nod
I did not know the local market prices very well, but judging by Marmotte’s nod, it did not seem like she was overcharging us.
"How will you be paying?"
Fortunately, gold and silver seemed to be accepted as common currency even across planetary systems.
"Do you accept payment in goods, by any chance...?"
"Of course."
Of course, there was no way I had any gold or silver.
-----
Today’s average frontier system.
If a cold snap is expected, harvest first.
Devilstrand freezes to death...
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register