Episode 38

**First Contact** (ファーストコンタクト, *Fāsuto Kontakuto*) is the thirty-eighth episode of the *Dr. Stone* anime, and the third episode of the third season.

## Summary

Senku and his search team continue looking for the Sagara Oil Fields before the snow deadline. Meanwhile, Suika and Francois go truffle hunting.

## Plot Details

The search for oil before the snow deadline progresses a lot faster thanks to Senku reinventing the camera. While examining the pictures, Gen notices a suspicious blur by the big river beyond Mount Fuji and informs Chrome and Ukyo to check it out.

    The fall comes and the Kingdom harvest their first crops of wheat. Ryusui declares the opening of his three-star Francois restaurant and Francois quickly starts working on the menu, starting with "boar rillettes with black truffle", a high-end gourmet protein that preserves well. For the truffle search quest, Francois picks Suika for her expertise of the forests and animals. While trying out the bread, Suika examines Senku's pictures and finds one with a possible boar.

Suika, Francois and Kohaku then head out to capture a boar. Francois proposes to use a trap before Kohaku easily subdues two boars and some piglets, and build the Kingdom's first pig farm with their meat supply. Gen wonders what they will do about the truffles, but Francois explains they can find them even in forests in Japan. Kohaku looks hard at the photos for the black mushrooms until she spots one with something looking like a puddle. Looking at it, Senku realizes the puddle is the Sagara Oil Field, leaving everyone excitedly heading for the exact location.

    Francois and Suika take a young boar for their truffle search. It finds one after digging, but eats it due to its aromatic appetite for the mushrooms. Suika switches Chalk after picking up the truffle's scent and soon enough, Chalk manages to find some. Meanwhile, Senku and the oil field team continue searching but with no success and Senku stops to rethink about a possible fact that was overlooked. Recalling all the events, Senku realizes the boars are the key to finding the Sagara Oil Field, just as its first discovery in 1872 from the boars' love for mud. They hurry back to Suika and Francois just in time before Francois starts cooking their truffle-searching boar only to reek of oil.

    Naming the boar Sagara, Suika asks it to take them to the oil field which Sagara heeds and starts running with the group following. It soon takes them to the oil field where Senku takes a sample and lights it on fire for confirmation. The Kingdom has now obtained oil, and Senku and Francois reward Suika with Sagara which excites her for a new friend (since its covering in oil makes it unfit for consumption).

     Senku builds a Stirling-engine motorboat to test the oil's quality. Taiju shows up and recognizes that the smell of the oil is the same as the "love potion" Senku made for him back in the old world. Senku laughs while admitting it was just gasoline, with the same 5:12 carbon content like the oil in the Sagara Fields. The test run was successful as Senku and gang operate the boat out to the open seas, leaving an excited Chrome speechless. As they wonder about location and navigation, Senku states the next agenda is to make a GPS (leaving everyone shocked minus Chrome) using their lookout tower, now a radio beacon with a hydro-powered antenna. As Ruri and Chrome are about to have a moment on their first long-distance conversation, the signal gets cuts off by some radio noise. Noticing it wasn't a natural phenomenon, Ukyo realizes the noise is a powerful signal emitted from somewhere at the same frequency at the timing of the cell phone tower's activation. Gen notices the signal is actually a Morse code and manages to translate it to "WHY". In deduction of the transmission's timing, Senku concludes the recipient must be the mastermind behind humanity's petrification which gets him really excited.

## Characters

KINGDOM OF SCIENCE:

* Gen Asagiri
* Chrome
* Francois
* Ginro
* Nikki Hanada
* Minami Hokutozai
* Senku Ishigami
* Kaseki
* Kinro
* Kohaku
* Magma
* Ryusui Nanami
* Yuzuriha Ogawa
* Taiju Oki
* Ukyo Saionji
* Suika
* Yo Uei

VILLAGERS:

* Chalk
* Ruri

PICTURED:

* Jasper
* Turquoise

DEBUT:

* Sagara
* Why-man

## Trivia

* The title of this episode came from chapter 95 of the manga.