Before I knew it, three days had already passed.

The sashimi I had after so long was delicious, but without soy sauce, it just didn’t feel quite right. Still, I had my fill of all sorts of fresh seafood, so overall, I was satisfied.

The view of the ocean from our room was breathtaking. Watching the sun set beyond the horizon was nothing short of spectacular. I also saw a few fishing boats heading out to sea, but there were no massive ships like the ones back on Earth. They didn’t seem to venture far offshore, sticking close to the coast.

Now that I think about it, is there another continent across the sea? I haven’t seen any ships heading overseas, but maybe I was too focused on eating to notice.

"I’m starting to get a little bored."

"Yeah, I get that. …How about we focus on ingredients next?"

"Huh?"

I tilted my head at Rio’s suggestion. While I wouldn’t say we had tried everything in these past three days, we had tasted a decent variety of seafood—fish, shrimp, crabs, shellfish, you name it.

But now that she mentioned it, we had only been eating seafood dishes—we hadn’t gone looking for ingredients ourselves.

"Like seaweed, octopus, or fish roe like ikura. We haven’t tried any of those yet."

"Oh, you’re right. We did some sightseeing around the port, but maybe we should try catching some fish ourselves."

I’ve never been fishing before, but this seems like a great opportunity. It’d be fun to catch a big one, clean it myself, and eat it fresh. Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing seaweed in any of the dishes at the inn. I like wakame, but maybe it doesn’t exist in this world?

"Also, we need to make sure we can still eat fish even after we leave this place."

That’s right—we had been eating plenty, but I hadn’t stored any in my dimensional storage.

"Alright, let’s get ready and head to the port."

We left the inn and made our way to the port. It was just before noon, but most of the boats had already returned.

Observing the port up close, I noticed that the largest ships were only about thirty meters in length. I wasn’t familiar with ship classifications, but on Earth, I suppose this would be considered a mid-sized vessel.

We walked down one of the piers extending into the sea and sat at the edge. Rio took a seat beside me, and Nir sat next to her, peering curiously into the water.

From my dimensional storage, I pulled out a fishing rod I had hastily crafted this morning. It was nothing fancy—just a sturdy metal rod with a strand of metal spider silk from my mentor’s collection tied to the tip, with a hook attached.

"I’ve never gone fishing before, but this is kind of exciting."

"Me neither. But—"

Looking around, I noticed something odd.

"Are we even going to catch anything here?"

There wasn’t a single other person fishing along the pier. I had no idea how fishing worked in this world, but did no one fish here because the spot was bad, or was there another reason?

"Well, we won’t know until we try."

"That’s true. There could be monsters in the sea too, so we should watch out for any underwater attacks."

"In that case, let’s set up a barrier from the start."

"Haha, good idea."

A thin but sturdy barrier extended outward, covering a five-meter radius around us, hovering parallel to the water’s surface.

"This should be good, right?"

"Yeah, that should do it… Alright."

Since I had no idea what bait would work best, I just tore off a piece of dried meat and hooked it on before casting the line into the water.

The barrier had an opening where the line entered the sea, so there shouldn’t be any issues. I doubted any large sea monsters that could destroy ships would appear inside the port.

"Looking at it, I don’t see many big fish around here."

Peering into the water, I was surprised at how clear it was. The seabed, about twenty meters below, was perfectly visible. Plenty of small fish swam about, but that was it. I spotted some seaweed swaying in the currents, but I wasn’t sure if it was edible.

"Yeah… I don’t think we should get our hopes up too much."

After five minutes with no bites, Nir got bored and sprawled out on the pier, closing his eyes.

Another ten minutes passed with no action.

By the time thirty more minutes had gone by, Nir had lost patience and started nudging my waist with his paw.

"Hmm, maybe we should call it quits…"

"Yeah, I’m starting to get bored too… The view is nice, though."

Looking around, the sea stretched out endlessly before us. This port, located on the southern coast of the continent, sat within a large bay with calm waves. To the east, a cape extended into the ocean. To the west, the seabed gradually shallowed until it became a sandy beach several kilometers away.

"Gahaha! How’s the fishing going?"

Just as we were about to give up, a voice called out from behind us.

Turning around, we saw a burly fisherman with a ruddy complexion, a bottle of liquor in one hand, grinning down at us.

"Well… not great, to be honest."

"Figured as much."

"Oh, so it really is like that?"

"Hah? You already caught on?"

The old fisherman’s words confirmed my suspicions about why no one else was fishing here.

"It’s hard not to notice when there’s no one else fishing here!"

Apparently, to prevent ship damage, repellent was regularly spread around the port to keep sea monsters away. This also meant that medium-sized fish, which could serve as food for large sea creatures, stayed away as well.

"If you’re serious about fishing, I could take you out to sea this afternoon."

Just as I was feeling dejected, the fisherman smirked and made an unexpected offer.

"Wait, really?"

I hesitated for a moment, wondering what he stood to gain from this.

"Gahaha! Of course, I’ll be expecting some payment!"

He made a money gesture with his fingers.

Well, if there’s money involved, it makes sense that he’d be willing to take us out.

"Alright, we’d love to go."

"Leave it to me!"