Episode 16: In Search of Civilization

“Lusine, I’m departing. It’s a shame I can’t go with you, but I was truly happy to meet you. I’ll never forget you. Thank you, Lusine.

…Also, I’m really sorry for using you as… material. Well then.”

I placed flowers on Lusine’s grave and said my goodbyes.

My injuries have completely healed, and preparations for the journey are complete. I’m wearing the pseudo-Tasmanian tiger poncho, holding the halberd in my hand, and have the dagger hanging from my waist. A pouch is attached to my waist cord, containing stones for throwing and pebbles for finger bullets.

My knapsack contains knives, canteens, cords made of vines, and one day’s worth of food, with a fur tied to it to serve as a blanket for sleeping. Preparations are perfect.

I closed the entrance to the cave that was the Goblin dwelling to serve as a base. If I ever come back, I’ve made it usable again. I left the long spears and the two longswords as they were. I might need them if I return, or it would be fine if some other human finds and uses them. I just pray Goblins don’t settle there again.

I set the mountain range towering beside the lake as my first destination. From the laboratory-like place where I woke up, I walked through the forest roughly following the river downstream to this lake, but in the end, I couldn’t find a place where humans lived.

But if Lusine and other humans were brought here, there must be a place where people live or traffic exists not too far away. If I go to the top of the mountain, I should be able to see far into the distance, and maybe there’s a town or village where humans live on the other side of the mountain. It’s wishful thinking, but if there’s even a slight possibility, I have to try.

There is a considerable distance to the mountain range; it looks hazy and blue. I feel it closely resembles the Japan Alps seen from Nagano or Yamanashi Prefectures. There is no snow cap, so it doesn’t seem to be extremely high. The altitude is probably around 2000 to 3000 meters. I think my current equipment is fine, but depending on the situation, I might need to procure furs for cold protection. From here, I think it’s a 3-4 day distance.

It was when I turned toward the mountain range to depart. I saw a black object flying from far away. It approached rapidly, and I could tell it was shaped like a bird. Moreover, it seemed to be approaching me while descending. I instinctively hid in the shadow of a rock, but when it passed over my head, I was dumbfounded by its appearance.

It looked exactly like the ancient flying creatures called Pteranodons or Pterosaurs often seen in dinosaur encyclopedias.

Since there’s no object for comparison, I can’t tell the exact size, but I think the wingspan is over 20 meters. I was simply astonished that such things exist in this world. I thought the ones that once existed on Earth had a maximum wingspan of around 10 meters, so this is nearly double that.

The Pterosaur’s target wasn’t me, but fish jumping in the lake. Flying just above the lake surface, it caught a fish the moment it jumped with its talon-like feet and flew away. The caught fish was also a big one, around a meter long. If I were targeted by something like that, I wouldn’t stand a chance. Looking at the mountain range from which the Pterosaur flew, I got scared wondering if I should really head there.

However, not going isn’t an option. Probably, danger remains no matter which direction I proceed. In that case, I should choose the one with a higher probability of finding a place where humans live. I exhaled deeply, renewed my determination, and started walking toward the mountain range.

Leaving the lakeside, I entered the forest and proceeded. Immediately, annoying insects like leeches and bees approached, but my more powerful Telekinesis drove them away without letting them get close.

My new shoes fit my feet well, and I walked strongly. If beasts don’t attack, I can proceed smoothly, but as expected, that doesn’t seem likely.

There are animals that have been watching my movements for a while. A small pack of about four is definitely closing the distance. I want to avoid fighting if possible, but a swarm of giant ants marching in a line tens of meters ahead of me blocked my advance.

Each ant is about 30cm long, and their shiny black appearance reminds me of cockroaches, which is disgusting. Insects in this world are also large, so they are very dangerous and bad for mental health. Just imagining being swarmed by these giant ants made me want to vomit.

I climbed a tree, moved along the branches, and landed after crossing the ant line. The ants continued their procession without doing anything particular to me. Watching the situation, the four animals that chased me appeared, stranded.

They are red foxes. They look exactly like Ezo red foxes, but they are about the size of large dogs, and since they form a pack, I think they might be closer to wolves.

Long ago, I actually encountered Ezo red foxes several times in the mountains of Hokkaido, but they were only slightly larger than cats and always acted alone. Those foxes ran away immediately upon noticing me, but these foxes seem fully intent on attacking me. Truly a nasty world.

The pseudo-red foxes were stranded in front of the ant line for a while, but it seems they won’t give up on me. Glaring at me, they jumped all at once to leap over the ants. That was the chance I was waiting for.

I threw three stones simultaneously. Without putting much speed into them, I imbued them with Will to hit. When the four pseudo-red foxes were over the ants’ heads, the stones hit the heads of three of them in order from the right. They lost their balance and fell onto the line of ants.

The slowly walking ants moved with surprising speed and swarmed the three pseudo-red foxes. Swarmed by ants until they were no longer visible in the blink of an eye, the pseudo-red foxes screamed in agony as they were bitten all over. They were probably being affected by the ants’ poison, formic acid, all over their bodies. The three immobilized pseudo-red foxes were carried away by the swarm of ants like portable shrines.

I struck the head of the remaining pseudo-red fox, which was watching its companions helplessly, with the hammer part of the halberd. The pseudo-red fox’s head caved in, and it died instantly. A black mist appeared and vanished.

When the pseudo-red fox died, the ants headed toward me at high speed, so I hurriedly distanced myself. The last one was also carried away, and the ants continued their march as if nothing had happened. Truly, numbers are power. I put my hands together in prayer as I watched the pseudo-red foxes go.

If possible, I wanted to attack all four simultaneously, but currently, aiming at three simultaneously is my limit. No matter how many times I practice, the fourth one just flies straight without carrying Will. I have no choice but to practice this as a future task.

On the other hand, the power of the halberd is considerable, and I confirmed I can kill a beast of this level with a single blow. The strength is impeccable, responding fully to my power.

After that battle with the Hobgoblin, I feel my combat power has increased significantly. Having overcome a life-or-death situation, I feel I’ve gotten used to fighting, or rather, I don’t get unnecessarily tense about taking lives anymore.

Of course, fighting is scary, and it’s not like I have no resistance to killing living things, but I feel I’ve achieved a certain level of detachment. Since I stopped using unnecessary force, I feel I can draw out this body’s original power much better.

In short, I’ve probably become dyed in this world of survival of the fittest. I can’t live with the ethical views I had in Japan.

It’s good that my combat power increased, but parallel to that, my libido is also rising. Especially after fighting, I’m driven by an uncontrollable sexual impulse. I want to hold a woman so badly I feel like I’m going crazy.

What on earth is this?

I feel there is a reason beyond just being young. There seems to be some secret regarding this body, but thinking about it won’t give me the answer. Unavoidably, I hid in the shade of a tree.

Whew…

It subsides for just a moment after release, but soon starts itching again. With this, even if I find a place where humans live, can I live decently? Whether I can stay sane when seeing a woman became an unnecessary seed of anxiety.

I proceed through the forest fighting beasts and fighting my libido. Crossing several small ridges and valleys, the forest only grows deeper.

The density of trees increases, growing side by side as if fighting for space or growing entangled. Trees that lost the fight for space have split trunks or are withered. Even plants are engaged in a severe struggle for survival. Also, perhaps the dense forest air affects the animals too; the types of beasts attacking me are clearly changing.

Right now, I’m fighting a pack of wolves. They are fast, about the size of tigers, and covered in jet-black fluffy fur. Moreover, the individual that seems to be the leader is a two-headed wolf with two heads on one body.

When I first saw this wolf, I thought it was Orthrus from Greek mythology and that the fantasy element had finally thickened. However, the tail isn’t a snake and there are no chimeric elements, so it seems to be just conjoined twins. Probably, two bodies fused while in the mother’s womb. Similar cases are occasionally seen in humans and animals on Earth too.

The troublesome part of this two-headed wolf isn’t its appearance, but that it has two napes. In other words, this guy performs Telekinesis and Space Movement worth two animals in one body.

It’s an incredibly troublesome opponent that demonstrates simultaneous offense and defense with Telekinesis, something even that Hobgoblin couldn’t do. Moreover, its leadership of the pack is outstanding, and multiple wolves perform coordinated attacks, making it even more troublesome.

I vaguely feel the level of beast strength has risen. In game terms, it’s like reaching the next stage after clearing one. Good grief, give me a break. Strong enemies appearing one after another… I’m not a manga protagonist!

Wait, a manga protagonist…? Could it be that I’m being toyed with by a god or something? Like a god gave me a young body after death and is enjoying watching my situation in this world…

No no no, that can’t be. I don’t believe God exists, but even if He does, He shouldn’t be bored enough to do this… or so I want to think.

I feel my way of thinking is becoming quite fantasy-oriented. I dismiss the stupid thoughts and concentrate on the fight.

“”” Growl!!! “””

The wolves tried to surround me, so I eliminated the three circling behind with thrown stones to open a retreat path. I sprinted through the wolf pack at full speed, running to find a favorable location for battle.

The dense forest is their territory. The wolves’ attacks, skillfully using tree trunks to change direction, are phantasmagoric, and it’s almost impossible to predict where they will attack from. If surrounded, I’ll be attacked from blind spots, so I want to avoid that at all costs.

I throw stones at the pursuing wolves, but they charge without caring. Since the leader, the two-headed wolf, exerts Telekinesis from the rear to divert the trajectory of the thrown stones, the stones miss their aim just before hitting and fly away.

The two-headed wolf is smart; it seems to have seen through my stone throwing attack after seeing it just once. The subordinate wolves seem to place absolute trust in the leader, running without fear of flying stones. An extremely troublesome enemy.

The chase continues for a while, and I’m caught up and nearly bitten time and again. I repel them with the halberd each time, but I’m definitely being cornered. Fortunately, because the trees are dense, only one or two can attack me at a time. Defeating the lead wolf causes a bottleneck behind it, allowing me to gain distance. I’m barely managing by repeating that.

However, that ends too. Suddenly the forest breaks, and a fissure in the earth appears before my eyes. The fissure is over 20 meters wide, making it impossible to cross. No, if I accelerate my muscles with Will, I might reach it with a jump. However, that applies to the wolves too, so the chase would just continue.

I decided to fight the wolves here. There are several protruding rocks in the fissure; if I take position there, I have no retreat, but I won’t be surrounded and attacked either.

Looking into the fissure from that spot, it’s a sheer cliff of columnar joints over 100 meters deep. There seems to be a river at the bottom, but falling means certain death. Truly a last stand. Come to think of it, Sounkyo in Hokkaido and Umagase in Miyazaki were places like this too, I thought suddenly.

The wolves must have thought they cornered me. Against me standing on a thin rock protruding from the cliff, they took positions facing me in a line. As if triumphant, one after another attacks. Only one can pass at a time to reach the thin protruding rock where I am. So, no matter how many are in the pack, if I deal with them one by one, it’s no big deal.

True, fighting on a thin, narrow rock is tough with bad footing for me too, but since I only have to pay attention to the front, it’s much easier than dealing with many at once. Using the halberd, I stab, cut, and strike the wolves to injure them, then drop them down the cliff one after another.

“”” Yelp……. “””

The wolves fall to the bottom of the valley over 100 meters down, raising screams accompanied by the Doppler effect. Even if they can use Telekinesis and Space Movement, it seems they can’t levitate their own bodies.

The wolf attacks stopped after seven were defeated. They probably realized they hadn’t cornered me, but were lured in by me. The wolves glare at me hatefully. Especially the leader, the two-headed wolf, emits tremendous killing intent and applies Pressure. It’s considerable pressure, but it doesn’t work on me, who has built up some resistance.

Now, the remaining number of wolves is eight. How will they attack next? I wanted to reduce their numbers more before forcing a breakthrough if possible, but with this number, it’s unreasonable. The wolves, losing their means of attack, stand still and glare at me from a distance.

The biggest weakness of this fighting style is being dragged into a battle of attrition. Unable to move from here, I have to stay until the wolves’ numbers decrease or they give up and retreat. But no matter how smart they are, I don’t think wolves, being beasts, can handle a battle of attrition.

Sure enough, the wolves, running out of patience, lost cohesion and started wandering around. The leader, the two-headed wolf, is the most irritated. It probably never took this much damage to finish off prey before. Agitation is visibly apparent.

There is one wolf that snuggles up to it as if concerned. Occasionally rubbing its body against the leader, perhaps to calm it down. Apparently, that individual is the two-headed wolf’s mate.

I read in some book that in the case of Earth wolves, a single mated pair often leads the pack. Wolves are basically monogamous, and only that pair engages in reproductive acts. They are quite affectionate animals. Judging by that appearance, wolves in this world seem to have similar habits.

Those two took their eyes off me and made a gesture of communicating. Not missing that moment, I quickly threw three stones.

One crushed the female’s head as intended. But the two-headed wolf, perhaps having good intuition, moves instantly. The left head dodged the stone, but it grazed the right head, gouging the right eye.

“!” “Yelp!”

Between the left head concerned for its dead mate and the right head suffering in pain, commands to the body seem to have become confused. The two-headed wolf moves unnaturally, jumping and sitting while moving left and right.

I take advantage of this chance to continue throwing stones. Right now, the two-headed wolf shouldn’t be able to use Telekinesis to dodge thrown stones. However, one wolf stepped in front of the two-headed wolf and took the stones with its body.

“Whimper!!!” “What!!!”

This is a surprise. The wolf that took the stones died instantly, but I never imagined a wolf would go that far. What a hot-blooded guy. If you were human, I would have wanted to drink with you.

Touched by the unbelievable action of the wolf, I involuntarily stopped attacking, but in that time, the two-headed wolf regained its posture. Partly because its mate was killed, the two-headed wolf burns with rage and howls. Immediately after, it charges while emitting tremendous Pressure. At the same time, the remaining wolves jump from their surrounding positions to attack.

Truly a suicide attack. Even though they’ll fall straight to the valley bottom if I dodge, they don’t seem to care. You guys are too hot-blooded!

I swept the halberd horizontally to knock the initially charging two-headed wolf sideways. Next, by jumping straight up, I avoided the attacks of the wolves that leaped to surround me.

The wolves try to catch up to me by Space Moving individually, but my jumping power, jumping vertically while disrupting that Field, prevails, and their attacks cut through air. With no place to land, the wolves fell helplessly to the valley bottom.

“”” Whimper……… “””

I landed back on the rock I jumped from, then immediately left that spot and returned to the safe, wide rocky area.

Thinking good grief as the battle ended, I looked down into the valley and saw the two-headed wolf I knocked away bounding up the vertical cliff. This surprised me again.

The columnar joint cliff has almost no protrusions, just a continuous sequence of cleanly formed cross-sections, but the two-headed wolf climbs the cliff as if running on normal ground. It must be using Space Movement continuously, running while pressing its body against the cliff. A technique possible only because it has two Telekinetic Stones. What an outrageous guy.

Having climbed the cliff, the two-headed wolf stands before me, hurling Pressure filled with hatred. It must hate me unbearably for killing its mate and annihilating its pack. Just those three gazes seem capable of shooting me dead.

I felt like exploding with hatred for the Goblins when Lusine died too. I can understand the feeling. It’s always been this way, but since neither of us can back down, we have to fight until one of us dies.

Readying the halberd, I exhaled deeply. I don’t dislike hot-bloodedness, but it’s not my character, and acting on momentum doesn’t produce good results. As seen from the wolves’ actions just now, reckless action only invites self-destruction.

This two-headed wolf is also forgetting itself and fuming, but having used up most of its Telekinesis to climb the cliff, I can see it suffering from severe pain in its napes. Though, I hate that I can see through its desire to take me down with it even if it self-destructs. I have absolutely no intention of dying with you.

After glaring at each other for a while, the two-headed wolf growled in a low voice that resonated with the earth, lowered its posture, and jumped vigorously. I thought it would jump at me, but it jumped to the right, away from me. For a moment, I was caught off guard and didn’t know what to do.

Until now, I could predict the opponent’s actions by the movement of the Field, but I couldn’t with this one. Perhaps one head is doing some kind of jamming so as not to be interfered with by the Field.

The two-headed wolf performed a technique like a karate triangle jump in the air and attacked from the side. Completely caught off guard, I allowed the two-headed wolf into my guard.

The left head bit straight for my throat, but I instinctively let go of the halberd and guarded my throat with my left arm. Fortunately, the bracelet blocked the fangs.

However, the two-headed wolf has another head. Turning my attention there, it was limp and vomiting.

It seems the right head exerted its last strength to use Space Movement to change direction in the air. Thanks to that, both the two-headed wolf and I are covered in vomit.

But it’s fortunate there’s no attack from the right head. I only have to concentrate on the left one. Realizing it couldn’t bite off my arm, the left one scratched with its front paw claws. While pulling the two-headed wolf away, I drew the dagger at my waist and cut off its left front leg.

“Yelp!” “Guaah!”

In the claw attack upon separation, my upper arm was gouged deeply. Damn, this is why I hate melee combat.

We both took wounds, but the battle isn’t over yet. I immediately sheathed the dagger, picked up the dropped halberd, and readied it again. The two-headed wolf stands on three legs, protecting its lost left front leg.

We distance ourselves and glare at each other. Perhaps due to pain, the limp right head seems to have regained consciousness. However, the headache must still be severe as it looks in considerable pain.

Just a little more. A little more and I can defeat it. I’m in pain too, but it must be in more pain. I tell myself that to encourage myself. The wound on my upper arm is deeper than I thought and bleeding heavily. Occasionally, my consciousness flickers.

I muster my strength and unleash a rush with the halberd. The two-headed wolf, having lost its left front leg, shouldn’t be able to make intense movements or dodge my continuous thrusts. However, the two-headed wolf dodged. It uses Telekinesis to deviate the direction of the spearhead from every thrust.

It seems barely able to dodge, but using two Telekinetic Stones, it seems to be dividing the labor: one accelerating muscles to speed up movement, and the other changing the direction of the spearhead. A splendid combination.

I accelerate my muscles to speed up the halberd’s movement too, but pain shoots through my upper arm, and the speed doesn’t increase much. Now it’s a contest of endurance. I repeat attacks, and the two-headed wolf continues to dodge.

How long did such an exchange continue? It felt like it lasted forever, yet also brief. The one who ran out of strength first was the two-headed wolf.

As expected, climbing the vertical cliff took its toll. Both heads vomited blood simultaneously and collapsed. Rolling eyes in agony, its whole body twitching and writhing. It continued to dodge my attacks until the end, but what awaited was defeat by self-destruction.

I thrust the halberd into the two heads to finish it off. The two-headed wolf stopped moving, and the battle finally settled. As expected, two black mist-like things appeared and vanished.

Relieved, I take a breather, but I can’t rest yet. I tie above the upper arm wound to stop bleeding, then wash the wound with water from the canteen. After applying a large leaf, I wrap vine cord like a bandage. Injuries from wild animals are dangerous if not cleaned immediately. No matter how excellent this body’s healing ability is, there’s no guarantee against tetanus. Better to take every possible precaution.

After finishing first aid, I cut open the two-headed wolf’s napes and obtained two Telekinetic Stones. Both were vivid green, clearer in color than the Hobgoblin’s. As I thought, the color seems related to the power Telekinesis exerts.

I offered a silent prayer to the corpses of the two-headed wolf, its mate, and the wolf that used its body as a shield, then dropped their remains to the valley bottom.

Even though they were enemies, I felt bad letting the corpses of opponents I fought such a deathmatch with be eaten by other animals. So, I wanted to pay some respect. Though, I don’t know what kind of treatment awaits at the bottom of the valley…

Anyway, I’m tired. The sun is still high, but I don’t have the energy to move today. I want to find a place to sleep and rest my body.