Emm crawled outside and was surprised by the camp's emptiness. Emm didn't see a single person from Earth around. While he was lost so deep in his work, the entire camp had emptied out.

"Hey, is anybody still here? It's an emergency!" he yelled out at the tents close to him. He would have knocked if they didn't look so fragile, but just ended up calling out to them a few more times.

Nobody answered.

It made sense given that it had to be close to noon. They had all left even before he had started upgrading his own house. Emm was so desperate he ended up peeking inside the tents, confirming all four were empty.

The closest person to him was Rasha, the colorful [Shopkeeper]. Emm hurried in her direction, ready for the worst. Talking to a fellow [Hero] would be a million times better, though. He trusted them a lot more than the locals.

She was standing at her stall with a pleasant smile, calmly rearranging her wares while humming along.

She didn't just sell clothes, Emm saw. The table had a myriad of random items. A lantern, a fishing pole, decks of cards, backpacks of different sizes, and a green horseshoe. She even had an ugly wig placed on a mannequin head.

Most of her stock looked completely useless.

Rasha noticed him approach.

"Hello. Come for your clothes?" she asked.

"Actually, I was wondering about the bathroom situation," Emm responded. He felt awkward.

"Oh, right! Did nobody show you? The outhouse is right over there." She pointed at a nearby building.

It didn't look any different than the other shoddy structures the locals lived in.

Relieved, Emm nodded his thanks and started to walk away–

"Wait a minute" the [Shopkeeper] cried out after him. "It's kept under lock, you must understand. The [Cleansing Sponge] is quite valuable."

Emm stopped in his tracks and turned around. He fought the urge to roll his eyes.

"Let me guess, it costs a skull to use the outhouse?" he dead-panned.

Rasha burst out laughing. "You catch on quick, you. It's two skulls! I promise the comfort is worth it, of course," she said.

Emm's eyebrow involuntarily twitched. He smelled another scam.

"And I don't suppose you sell any toilet paper?"

That got a confused look from her, which slowly turned into visible disgust.

"I'm not sure what you mean. Using paper, for– oh no. Why, that would be barbaric. And paper is far too valuable to be used in such a manner. It goes for no less than a skull per page."

Of course, this shithole of a world doesn't even have toilet paper.

Emm accepted his fate. He was being overdramatic– it wouldn't be the first time he wiped his ass with leaves while out in the wilderness. No big deal. No way he'd spend most of his money just to use the bathroom.

"If you must refuse, there's another free one, way down there. I wouldn't recommend it."

She pointed towards the woods. Her disgusted expression managed to grow even more severe.

"Thanks," Emm said, then hurried off. The pressure building up inside him was so intense he almost ran.

The first stop was his tent, where he plucked as many leaves as he could carry from the remaining small pile of branches. He sincerely hoped it would be enough; he wasn't looking forward to going on the whole day with scratchy brown in his pants.

An even bigger worry was the fact that, just like everything else in this god-forsaken world, the leaves had mana in them. Mana in such a sensitive place sounded risky.

But they were probably only [Level] 2, which didn't sound too irritating. After all, he spent all day carrying around a much more powerful spear, and his hands only had a few blisters on them. He would be fine; he had no other choice. He wasn't going to cut up his clothes even further just to get some manaless wiping material.

Emm bunched the leaves up and went searching for the communal toilet.

He left the encampment and continued in the right direction. He didn't see a thing and was starting to panic. Finally, he started to run. If worse came to worse, he'd just do it in the forest. What was wrong with that idea anyways? As long as he didn't stray far enough, he would be safe from [Vinesnakes] popping out while he was busy.

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Emm spotted a single stick stuck into the ground and walked downhill to investigate.

He almost fell into the "toilet" without noticing. It was the pungent smell that gave it away and saved him. Somebody– several somebodies– had already used it.

The "public outhouse" was nothing but a small, though surprisingly deep, hole in the ground. It was hard to find and looked completely out of place. No walls for cover. No seat. No toilet paper, of course. And no water to wash his hands with either. Just a plain old hole in the ground.

Looking around, Emm saw that he was at least standing in a small depression. The mild incline of the hill served to block line of sight from the camp. But he could still accidentally moon anyone coming out of the forest from that particular direction. Or anyone else just crossing the field near the area.

Unable to hold it in any longer, Emm tossed his spear to the ground, pulled his pants down, and crouched.

He did what he had to do and answered the call of nature. Immense relief flooded his senses.

He felt far, far too exposed doing it out in the open like that. He was over at a moment's notice, then rushed to wipe himself off the best he could with the leaves and get dressed again. Luckily for him, it had been a relatively dry shit.

Something's not right…

Emm forced himself to look into the hole to check. Spotting his fresh, steaming addition on the bottom was easy, but what he saw made his eyebrows go up.

The ex-contents of his bowels were not only pitch black, but the quantity was shockingly small. It looked like a small chocolate bar. It might have very well been the smallest shit Emm had ever taken.

Sure, he'd only been summoned about a day before, but the sheer amount of meat he'd eaten in the meantime completely clashed with the end results. He had eaten pounds of monsters.

Emm's bowels now felt completely empty, too. He didn't feel like he had to go again, not even the slightest bit. He poked his stomach a few times and felt little resistance, confirming there was plenty of room in there.

Did all that stuff just disappear into thin air? Matter can't just vanish without a trace. Or was the meat mostly made out of mana? Eating it felt completely real.

He couldn't ignore the growing urge to wash his hands and ended up wiping them on the grass a good distance away. It probably didn't account for much but it managed to make him feel better.

Leaving the rest of the clean leaves behind to potentially save someone else's ass, Emm left the primitive toilet behind. Spear in hand, he approached the closest tree at the edge of the forest.

Moments later, Emm was slashing at it like a madman. Branches rustled and hit the ground left and right, falling prey to his precise swings. He was motivated to collect as much wood as possible.

The tree he had chosen was on the smaller side, on purpose. Its thinner branches made Emm feel like a god mowing down swathes of opponents. The first tree had been too ambitious and too thick for him, which is why it took so long to go through. As long as he didn't punch above his weight, his efficiency would improve by a wide margin. He was getting better at it already.

He paced himself and soon enough the whole tree crashed down in front of him. Its main trunk wasn't as thick as the huge branch from before, but he didn't need it to be. It would only be a hassle. He spent some more time chopping off branches he couldn't get to before, then sat down to rest.

He was sweaty, and his muscles thrummed with exhaustion.

Just looking at a tree would make you wildly underestimate the number of branches it was made of, in reality. He had to go chop off over thirty of them, and the tree wasn't even fifteen feet tall. He wanted pieces of wood that were as straight as possible, so there was a lot of side-branch trimming he had to go through. And little by little, it stopped being so effortless. The spear was starting to feel heavy in Emm's hands again.

Emm took deep breaths. He ended up closing his eyes just to focus on the warm feeling of the sun on his skin. It felt nice.

I can do this. I'll make it all work out. I have to. Slow and steady wins the race.

He could almost feel his heart rate going down with each breath he took. Emm kept up a steady rhythm. He was procrastinating, and he knew it.

All the same, he refused to open his eyes. As long as he kept them closed, he could pretend he was back on Earth, sleeping in his warm bed. Or taking a long, hot shower until his fingers went all pruney. The longer he sat still, the warmer he felt. It was a familiar feeling. He wondered if what he felt was just an aftereffect of the stew he ate a few hours earlier. But he hadn't felt much before, he had worked it off building his tent.

Emm focused on the sensation. After a few more minutes of careful concentration, he was confident it was growing more and more intense. Still, it was far from painful, and wasn't even uncomfortable.

It was different than when he exercised. The polar opposite, in fact. Training had helped the burning pain go away, not grow in intensity if what he felt was mana inside him.

There wasn't much else it could be.

Emm wondered if it was just the sun shooting rays of toxic radiation-mana that was slowly giving him mana burn. If the very air was full of it, the sun could be just as bad. It was nearing noon. Or–

A loud voice interrupted his meditation.

"What [Skill] is that?"

Emm opened his eyes in surprise. She was standing way too close.

The person standing before him was no other than the short-haired [Hero], the only one in the whole group who had been allowed to take a magical weapon. Michael had mentioned her, but Emm couldn't place her name.

She stared at him intently, standing just a few feet away. Feint blue light shone out her eyes. Emm couldn't look away.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm asking which [Skill] you were just using," she replied.

"Uhm, what are you talking about? I wasn't using any [Skill]."

She inched even closer to him.

"Then what, a [Perk]? Do it again. I've never seen mana move like that before."

Oh. Oh. She can see mana.

Emm smiled. Magic girl had immediately shot up to the top of his favorite-people list.