"My plan is this."
The smile at the corners of his mouth gradually faded, slowly turning serious. Chiba finished speaking and looked at the three of them.
What met his raised gaze, however, were three pairs of wide eyes and three little faces filled with utter disbelief, even horror.
"Chi... Chiba, you..."
Meeting his gaze, Zong Mi, whose face was full of stunned horror, opened his mouth but could not get a word out.
"You... you're... say... saying... re-really..."
Yu Ze beside Zong Mi was nearly tongue-tied as well, trembling with every word and unable to make himself clear.
"Chiba... you mean... you mean..."
He Yin was not much better than the other two. Her face plainly showed the incredulous expression of someone wondering whether she had misheard.
"Only this can address the root of the problem. Only this will ensure that you never face the kind of hardship you are facing now again, so that you can truly live on."
Chiba was also briefly startled by their reactions. Clearly, he had not expected them to respond so strongly.
His plan was actually very simple. Given the current circumstances, it could be divided into three steps.
The first step was to have them learn how to make these traps before tonight, then teach them some knowledge about setting traps—how to arrange them, where to place them, and how to get results from them. Chiba only knew the basics of this sort of thing. Compared with Hirohiko, he was far inferior, but for these children, it was already enough.
This was also a step Chiba had no choice but to take because of their current predicament. If he had come earlier, if food here had been plentiful, or if things had not yet become this dire, this step would not have