Chapter 32: Tool Bag

[Obtained Damaged Animal Hide x1]

[Obtained Rabbit Fur x14]

[Obtained Small Piece of Meat x12]

After spending some time processing the three rabbits, Su You ended up with two complete hides and one damaged hide.

She looked regretfully at the damaged hide and let out a sigh.

She had originally hoped that with three rabbits, she’d get three hides—just enough to craft a tool bag for carrying her tools, while the hide she’d collected earlier could be used to make a simple pair of hide shoes.

Although she did have shoes now, they were just the most basic straw sandals. Straw sandals didn’t provide any bonuses; at best, they just kept her feet from getting pricked while walking.

Hide shoes, on the other hand, were one of the better pairs of shoes you could craft early on.

They could increase walking and running speed, and also reduce stamina consumption while moving—making them perfect transitional gear for early-game exploration.

But since she’d failed, Su You could only use the two complete hides, along with the one she already had, to make a tool bag.

Compared to stamina consumption, the most important thing right now was backpack space.

Stone knife, axe, pickaxe, shovel… and even whetstones (stack limit: 5).

Once these five items were stored in the tool bag, half of Su You’s backpack space would instantly be freed up.

With that in mind, Su You took out some twine from her portable workbench—also something she’d collected along the way.

When she’d spotted the rabbits, she’d already thought she might be able to craft a tool bag today, so she’d gathered some extra fiber scraps just in case.

With the twine, she now had all the materials she needed for the tool bag.

[Consume Animal Hide x3, Twine x5 to craft Tool Bag?]

[Crafting: Tool Bag. Estimated time: 120 seconds.]

…

[Obtained Tool Bag x1]

[Tool Bag]

Category: Special

Quality: Green

Description: Tool bag. When equipped, allows you to store one of each type of tool (up to five whetstones) without taking up backpack space. Only one tool bag can be equipped at a time.

As soon as the tool bag was finished, Su You equipped it right away.

The tool bag slots appeared just below her backpack—a long row of silhouetted icons, each representing a different tool.

Su You took out her pickaxe and placed it in the tool bag. The pickaxe automatically matched to one of the silhouettes, which then lit up and moved to the front of the row.

A black silhouette meant that slot was empty, while a lit icon meant a tool of that type had been placed there.

As for the order, that was a special feature of the tool bag: to help players quickly find the tool they needed, after equipping the tool bag, players could customize the order of their tools.

By default, lit icons came first, silhouettes after; the most frequently used tools were at the front, and the least used at the back.

Besides that, the tool bag had another handy feature: it could “auto-repair” tool durability.

Of course, the prerequisite for auto-repair was having at least one whetstone in the tool bag.

With a whetstone, you just had to put the tool you wanted to repair into the tool bag, and then you could use the whetstone directly.

All in all, these were just minor features—the tool bag’s main function was still to store tools and save space.

Su You put all her remaining tools into the tool bag, instantly freeing up half her backpack space.

After all that work, Su You was starting to feel hungry.

She glanced at Dory, who was still unconscious, thought for a moment, then took her stone knife to gather some berries nearby, and brought out the rabbit meat she’d gotten earlier.

[Use Small Piece of Meat x1, Berries x2, Leaves x3 to cook Berry Roast?]

[Cooking: Berry Roast. Estimated time: 120 seconds.]

…

The campfire was blazing as the berry roast cooked, while Su You leisurely ate a serving of roasted berries herself.

By the time she finished her roasted berries, the meat was already giving off a rich, mouthwatering aroma.

Roast meat was already delicious, but this time, with the addition of berries, the flavor was even more tempting. The red berries added a tangy note, making the scent even more irresistible.

Even someone who wasn’t hungry would find their mouth watering at that smell.

Let alone Dory, who hadn’t eaten in ages.

Maybe the aroma was just too enticing, because Dory, who had been fast asleep, was suddenly woken up by hunger.

When she woke, she was completely confused.

Dory: …Who am I? Where am I?

“You’re finally awake. Have some water first—the roast will be ready soon.” Before Dory could figure out what was going on, a gentle female voice sounded beside her.

At the same time, a hand reached over, holding a wooden cup filled with steaming hot water.

Dory instinctively wanted to refuse, but when she realized her throat was so dry she couldn’t even speak, she hesitated, then shyly accepted the water Su You offered.

The water was hot, but not scalding—just right to drink, and enough to clear her hunger- and exhaustion-fogged mind.

After finishing the cup, Dory gradually remembered what had happened.

Her name was Dory. She was a member of a merchant caravan, but while passing through the forest, the caravan had accidentally wandered into a beast’s territory and was attacked. In the chaos, she’d gotten separated from the others.

She’d been too scared to rest, afraid that if she fell asleep, she’d wake up surrounded by beasts.

She was also too scared to eat anything from the forest, since she’d once seen someone nearly die from eating a wild fruit.

Luckily, the caravan’s doctor had managed to give that person an antidote in time, saving their life.

But now Dory was alone, with no antidote and no knowledge of which plants were safe—so of course she hadn’t dared eat anything in the forest… which was why she’d ended up so exhausted and hungry.

If she remembered right, just before she lost consciousness, she’d seen the campfire in the distance and headed toward it, hoping for help.

She’d called out for a long time with no answer, and just as she was about to pass out, she vaguely heard hurried footsteps behind her…

As Dory slowly came to her senses, Su You brought over the freshly made berry roast."