1-2 Camping In Another World

I continued by making copies of the car.

After making a few, I ran out of MP and leveled up again.

So now it was 10,485,760 MP / Lv6.

This should be enough for the time being.

For the portion where I ran short on the very last MP, the copy failed, and that MP simply dissipated uselessly.

Right.

Next, I should probably pull out something that could be used as a weapon.

I’d brought a bunch of things, but first up was a shovel.

There’d been a rusty one at my old house, but it was too beat up, so I’d bought one of those pointed “spade shovel” types and tossed it into the cargo bed.

This would probably be the most useful.

It was well known that soldiers sometimes used shovels as weapons.

Though with an old man’s stamina, fighting with a shovel might be impossible.

Not “shovel martial arts”—more like “shovel monkey dance,” at best.

Even when I was young, digging holes with a shovel was brutal labor for me.

There was no way I could cut it in the Self-Defense Forces or construction.

Next was a hatchet and a machete.

I’d brought them to make kindling-sized firewood.

The machete was a pretty good Japanese-made one.

Originally, it was a uniquely Japanese kind of blade.

With my build, an 18-centimeter blade length had a nice balance and fit my hand perfectly.

It was a double-edged type suitable for splitting wood properly.

And good machetes weren’t cheap, either.

If an amateur was going to burn fuel, firewood was absolutely easier than charcoal.

And more fun, too.

No matter what anyone said, getting charcoal going was hard.

In summer when it was hot, it caught more easily, sure.

But when I used those fixed barbecue pits you often saw at BBQ sites, I’d do this quick-and-dirty method: burn a couple pieces of firewood first, then dump the charcoal into that to get the coals going.

I was an old man—my methods were all “good enough.”

Personally, I liked the combo of solid fire starters and pinecones.

Then I’d add options like twigs and disposable chopsticks for kindling.

For fun, I’d use a hex-shaped ferrocerium fire starter that threw violent sparks, and try lighting it with only tissue paper as tinder.

I’d brought that properly this time, too.

If things got serious, that would be my moment.

I hadn’t brought one of those “educational” fire-starting kits you’d use for teaching camp skills.

And making a water lens with a five-yen coin was difficult anyway.

These days it was too much hassle, so for emergencies I kept a strong burner-type ignition tool I’d bought at a certain big-box chain—cheap, but powerful.

That thing wasn’t some weak lighter—it was basically a burner, so the flame was strong and it lit instantly, and ironically it barely consumed gas compared to a weak flame.

And you could refill it, too—best cost-performance ever.

My favorite item was a 100-yen gas match from a famous gas appliance maker, bought at a 100-yen shop.

A real brand-name product for exactly 110 yen.

I didn’t want to waste it, so I’d kept it as disaster stock instead of using it.

Though I’d brought it this time.

That one was refillable too, but the manufacturer’s lighter-gas canisters had apparently been discontinued, so I’d stored it together with the 100-yen canisters.

Hatchets were a bit tricky to handle.

You could tell the moment you picked one up in a store—the weight balance often wasn’t great.

It depended on the model, but cheap ones sold at hardware stores weren’t good.

If a worn-out guy like me tried splitting wood with a hatchet, I’d probably chop off a finger by mistake.

A “sheathed knife” was stylish, but handling it was a little harder, so it didn’t suit clumsy me.

I’d probably snap the blade trying to pry it out after it got stuck in a log.

Apparently other people broke them too, so it was a tough item for me.

But knives were a man’s romance, so I’d stocked a proper sheathed knife anyway.

And then there was a hunting-style Japanese knife.

I’d figured a middle-aged man solo camping didn’t need something like that, but while browsing a site I suddenly wanted it badly and bought it on impulse.

Maybe it was the same thing as that shopping urge.

It had a 26-centimeter blade—purely for display.

That kind of thing was a bad habit of older men with money to spare.

I’d only brought it on a whim, but right now I was really glad I had it.

After that, there were practical stainless outdoor knives and kitchen knives.

For the Japanese knife and hatchet, I made 1.5× and 2× enlarged copies, and also made several of each.

I had no idea what might be out here, so I figured I should prepare anyway.

Yeah—better to be ready.

If I’d gained weird skills like this, there was no way this was a normal place.

I’d always been a careful type, but for a mere two-night, three-day camping trip, it was impressive how much I’d brought.

I’d planned to test tools and play around with them.

I’d bought that legendary, triangular fire pit stand—the original style said to be the first made in Japan, an eternal bestseller.

And I’d also bought another bestseller fire stand that, for some reason, despite being a fire stand, was designed with a strange focus on charcoal cooking.

They folded compactly, and they’d be good to keep for disaster preparedness too.

I even had that obsessive, ultra-niche “kamado,” a bestseller shaped like a mini drum can—something people said was the final destination for outdoor stove enthusiasts.

It didn’t fold, but you could store firewood inside it.

You could also use it like an old-fashioned metal can stove and make a fire with it, and for disasters it was supposedly the most useful.

And since it was so simple, it was dirt cheap.

For what went under it, the fireproof sheet wasn’t one of those trendy woven mats—it was an actual fire blanket.

Basically, it was firefighting gear you threw over yourself and rolled around with if your body caught fire.

It came in an over-the-top red bag—maybe it belonged with one of those red emergency axes used to smash windows.

Totally different intended use.

Apparently it wore out fast, too.

Yeah… I was always slightly off in what I did.

The kamado was literally just sitting on two concrete blocks.

As for a regular BBQ grill, all I owned was a mini one that fit in a small backpack, and I’d stuffed it with 100-yen shop charcoal as a set.

I’d bought it for disaster prep, but I’d always wanted to do a BBQ where I went by train and on foot someday.

I also had various alcohol stoves for emergencies: a titanium stove from a famous brand, a 200-yen shop stove, and even a nice-looking alcohol stove from a hardware store.

Of course, I’d also tried making that famous DIY “ashtray stove” from a 100-yen shop.

I was clumsy, so I hadn’t made it perfectly.

But even a sloppy one could still boil enough water for coffee, which was nice.

Alcohol stoves weren’t great for outdoor cooking—wind made the flame wobble and the ground sucked away heat.

But the fact you could cook rice automatically was incredibly appealing.

I’d also bought one of those inner burner parts that controlled the flame and made it easier.

A lot of people made them DIY, and I wanted to try someday.

You could enjoy mess-tin rice cooking by using insulation and a foldable aluminum windscreen.

With my skill level, I couldn’t cook it very well, though.

Mostly it was “kitchen camping gear.”

In other words, disaster gear.

A wood stove was also perfect for playing with fire and boiling water.

Personally, for fuel, those round, net-like seed pods you often found in parks—like they were made by a 3D printer—burned hot and were easy to use.

Everyone played with those, too.

They fell year-round.

Recently, the pressed, punched, foldable mini stoves sold at 100-yen shops were fun as well.

Even those could boil water with just twigs—amazing.

All of that was gear I’d collected for fun and disaster prep.

It had been a long time since I’d gone camping, and I’d decided to enjoy these three days to the fullest, so I’d bought tools like crazy online and at hardware stores and 100-yen shops.

So why had things turned into something this awful?

Either way, it turned out to be a good thing that I’d let the impulse carry me and brought a mountain of supplies into this world.

Now I could just copy everything like crazy.

That “guy inside me”—my Seventh Sense—had been right after all.

For nearly thirty years, that special sense had never betrayed me.

No… that wasn’t quite it.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a “sense.”

It was a “special entity.”

Ever since the day I’d unfortunately encountered a “god,” that “guy inside me” had always stayed with me.

My company had betrayed me illegally.

But even so, you stayed with me.

You were never something that should’ve been turned into novel material.

In the comments, people kept saying all sorts of things about Seventh Sense.

Maybe the one called Ikoma was enjoying even that.

That “guy” was always right.

The one who messed up was always me.

But this time, I didn’t mess up.

Because the impulse had been too overwhelming.

Even for me, it was rare to be driven this hard by Seventh Sense.

At least thanks to that, even here I wouldn’t have trouble eating, and I had water, food, medicine, clothes, cars, gas canisters, a generator, gasoline—an infinite supply of all of it.

I also had a few things that could serve as weapons.

More than anything, being able to keep a car running—protected by a steel box—was the best part.

Back in Japan, I’d completely wasted this troublesome bulk, but here it felt reassuring.

And among Japanese-made off-roaders, it had unusually good off-road capability and reliability, too.

Good grief.

So, what now?

For the time being, I decided to stay here.

With “spirited-away” type incidents, sometimes you could return to the original place after time passed.

I felt like I’d read stories like that.

They might be fabricated, but surely versions of that story existed worldwide.

So for now, I decided I’d squat here for about three days.

I’d come camping in the first place.

At least I had a bungalow to sleep in.

Water and food, stoves and fuel—more than enough, no, infinite.

Since I had the chance, I decided to go enjoy gathering firewood.

Around me was a thick, overgrown forest—or maybe it was better to call it the edge of a mountain.

It was so full of resources you could never pick it clean.

Though the terrain felt a bit strange.

It was an oddly flat clearing surrounded by forest, almost like some kind of enclosure deliberately arranged for a purpose.

It was wide and open, yet the trees around it were so dense it was impossible to drive a car in or out.

They seemed to be mostly broadleaf trees.

If I dried them well, they’d burn for a long time as firewood.

Some leaves were red with autumn colors, and at a glance it still felt like autumn here.

There didn’t seem to be anything like a road nearby.

But I figured I’d get exhausted, so I returned to base camp quickly.

I was a recluse who’d wrecked my body and been shut in for a long time.

All I gathered were some reasonably thin branches.

So I got lazy and copied them to increase the amount.

And anyway, I’d also brought store-bought firewood from the campground.

Combined, it should make a good fire.

Once night fell here, it would probably become pitch black in no time.

In the end, it was just a walk for a change of mood.

Yeah… an old man was no good.

What would a young person do at a time like this?

Would they psych themselves up and go exploring?

If it were a kid here with their parents, they’d probably run all over the place.

Anyway, my “another-world camping” had begun.

This place was probably something like another world.

At the very least, it didn’t seem like the outskirts of Aichi Prefecture where I’d been a little while ago.

I knew that without needing logic.

That was what Seventh Sense was.

So even in this abnormal situation, I could stay relatively calm.

Not that I was doing anything special.

I wasn’t even pitching a tent—just preparing for BBQ.

Though even that, I didn’t feel motivated to do today.

Since I didn’t have to worry about water or food, I felt no urgency at all.

I also had a ton of medicine from the drugstore.

If it came down to it, I had a car and gasoline for long-distance travel.

Though I’d have to walk to wherever there was a road first.

I hoped there really was one.

Being able to store the car in the Item Box was especially helpful.

If I couldn’t, I’d have to clear this forest with nothing but an axe just to drive out of the clearing.

A completely washed-up middle-aged man abandoned by society couldn’t find motivation for life itself, so even in a crisis like this I just sat down and drank beer.

First cup.

That finally made me feel human again.

First, I laid out bedding so I could sleep anytime.

Since the night would be cold, I also set up heating equipment.

I warmed the bungalow with an electric carpet and an electric heater.

For the toilet, I used the Item Box to store soil and make a pit.

The hole formed exactly as I pictured it, and that made me a little happy.

At this rate I could probably dig pitfalls like a guerrilla.

I buried a copied bucket in there.

It was a thick, incredibly sturdy one bought at a 100-yen shop.

It was a great find—I had more than sixty at home for disaster prep.

I covered it with a plastic bag and made it into a disposable toilet.

Then, since I’d borrowed it anyway, I used the campsite’s rented fire stand—not my own—to get charcoal going.

It was my first time doing it like this, so it took me about thirty minutes to get it lit, but in the end, with help from firewood, I got a wonderful blaze going and felt satisfied.

Since it was supposed to be a fire stand, I should’ve just burned firewood from the start.

Charcoal just didn’t catch easily, even with a charcoal ignition burner.

Even after all that intense blasting, it still struggled.

And since you had to preheat for several minutes, it was already a hassle—this didn’t feel worth it.

Even the fire starter blocks didn’t help much.

I tried liquid starter too, but it was still mediocre.

Apparently some charcoal restaurants used a method involving solid fuel blocks.

I heard warehouse-style grocery stores sold big solid-fuel blocks meant specifically for starting coals, and I wanted some.

Though going shopping from here to a warehouse grocery store seemed impossible.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t learned the “Warehouse Grocery Skill.”

Yeah, the best method really was burning wood and dumping charcoal into it.

They said the best way was to use a charcoal chimney starter, but sadly I didn’t have one.

Personally, cooking felt like “charcoal” to me.

Tripod fire cooking wasn’t bad either, but I didn’t have a tripod.

Enthusiasts apparently made tripods by combining branches.

Originally, it was probably done that way, and the tripod product was just a tool version of it.

I had a ten-inch Dutch oven, but if you were going to use it over a fire stand, it was better to have a cooking table that could hold it.

And yet I didn’t have those standard fire-cooking essentials.

I was a beginner, after all.

In the end, a two-burner setup would probably be my main workhorse.

Or a powerful cassette gas stove with a double windscreen.

That was the easiest to use, but if you didn’t shield it properly, wind lowered the heat.

In the old days, people would surround cassette stoves with cardboard, but now cheap foldable aluminum windscreens existed, which helped.

If you blocked it wrong, the gas canister area could heat up and become dangerous, but the foldable aluminum kind let you shield everything while leaving the canister area open, which was good.

Man… it was starting to feel like a proper camp.

Not having other people around didn’t even bother me anymore.

I was a recluse, after all.

It was already past 4 p.m., and maybe because we were in the woods, it was getting pretty dim.

It made the camping mood stronger.

If this were a shrine at night, I’d be terrified, but the only thing here was a bungalow.

If anything, it even had the vibe of a small hidden retreat—exactly my kind of place.

I’d never once had that kind of luxury in my life, though.

Starting a BBQ grill after it got dark was a pain, so I cooked with a camping two-burner gas grill.

And of course it ended up like this.

Just for the mood, I burned a little fire with the thin firewood I’d picked up.

Being lit by the big flames of a fire stand—something totally unrelated to my daily life—felt strange.

I also put a grill over the open flame and tried charring ingredients in a wild way.

I cooked sausages, ham, and even some Japanese wagyu.

I couldn’t control the heat well, so it got a little blackened and was kind of meh, but hey—outdoor food, so maybe it was still good.

Drinking beer, I spaced out, thinking about what I should do next.

Oh right—I was supposed to check that PC-like thing again, wasn’t I.

This lack of motivation was impossible to fix.

It had been like that ever since I quit my job, but even with a situation this far beyond common sense, I was still like this.

I didn’t even have the spirit to be disappointed in myself.

In the “Computer” section, there was an item called “Status.”

So this was the classic status screen.

Ohhh—this looked pretty cheat-like.

Though the title displayed there was downright pathetic.

Still, it was a simple layout.

Very senior-friendly.

And checking everything felt like a hassle.

Good night.