Chapter 5

In life, nothing is more important than this.

Water.

I’ve heard that people can survive for over a week without food, but they can’t last more than three days without water. For me, securing drinking water was the top priority in my ongoing pioneering life.

After building a makeshift house and securing a base for living, the next step was to ensure a steady water supply. To water the crops that sprouted immediately for me, my next goal was to obtain water!!

* * *

It was solved.

I’ve jumped to the conclusion, but let me tell the story in order.

First, I tried to get water from the most obvious source.

The sea.

The land where I settled faces the sea.

The mother sea.

The waves that ebb and flow. The essence of those waves is water.

The sea is, in itself, an inexhaustible source of water!

...Some might think, “Hold on a minute.”

Seawater is saltwater.

It can’t be used as drinking water.

I know that much. But to leave the sea, which is so vast, untouched would be a waste.

Is there any way to use the inexhaustible seawater for drinking water or daily use?

With that thought, I decided to try various methods.

The first thing that came to mind was distillation.

Boil the seawater, separate the steam from the impurities, and then cool it to make fresh water.

It sounds incredibly troublesome just to imagine, but it might be worth trying once.

Fortunately, I have a pot among the tools I brought from the city.

I filled the pot with seawater and heated it over a fire...

But how do I collect the steam that boils?

How do I start a fire in the first place?

As I was pondering these questions, my interest suddenly shifted to something else.

The seawater in the pot.

It was just waiting to be boiled, but how salty is seawater, really?

I’ve been to the beach before, but that was a long time ago, and I certainly didn’t drink the dirty seawater from my original world.

But the sea here is, of course, clear and beautiful.

I felt like taking a sip to test it.

So I scooped up some seawater from the pot with my hand and took a sip...

“...Huh!?”

What!?

Is there something wrong with my tongue!?

To confirm, I scooped up another mouthful of seawater and brought it to my mouth.

“...Sure enough.”

It’s not salty at all!

It’s fresh water!

It’s just regular water!!

What’s going on with this seawater!?

“Could it be... in this world, seawater isn’t saltwater!?”

It’s not an impossible idea.

This is a different world, a place entirely separate from the one I came from.

Things that were normal and taken for granted in my original world might not apply here.

As I looked down at the seawater in my hand, I thought:

...Huh?

...Wait a minute.

The water I scooped up with my hand.

This hand has performed incredible miracles since yesterday.

It displayed expert-level skills with tools it held.

It made crops sprout from the soil without planting seeds.

The hand blessed with the divine gift, 'Bearer of the Supreme.'

“What if... it’s the seawater that touched my hand!?”

I tried, without using my hand, to pour seawater directly from the pot into my mouth.

“!? It’s salty!?”

It’s so salty!

I couldn’t help but cough and spit out all the seawater I had in my mouth.

“But now it’s clear...!!”

The one who was unconventional wasn’t this world, but me.

It was my hand.

The 'Bearer of the Supreme' in my hand was changing the seawater into excellent drinking water!

“...How versatile is the ‘Bearer of the Supreme’...!?”

Hephaestus...

Did you put a bit too much effort into creating this skill?

Ah, it’s not just a skill. It’s something beyond that.

It’s a gift, after all. A gift from the gods.

It’s only natural that it’s this versatile.

* * *

So, the drinking water problem was easily solved.

I needed water for the fields, so I scooped the water from the pot with my hand and transferred it to a bucket.

And just like that, the seawater turned into fresh water.

The process was troublesome and difficult, but compared to the idea of boiling water to make fresh water, this was clearly much less troublesome. I shouldn’t complain.

After transferring all the seawater from the pot, a thin layer of white substance was stuck to the bottom.

“...Salt.”

The water and minerals that make up seawater.

The 'Bearer of the Supreme' must have separated them perfectly just by touching them.

Salt is also an essential element for human survival, so this is a great help.

I dried it thoroughly, scraped it off the bottom of the pot, and got the salt.

The watering of the fields is done, and everything is going smoothly.