11

Yes, the lone monster standing in front of the basement entrance—that’s me.

You know, it’s great that I found the entrance.

But, well, it’s too small for me to fit through.

I went through all the trouble of finding it and even forcing the door open, only to not be able to get inside? That’s just cruel.

(Alright, let’s break it.)

By this point, I no longer hesitate to make brute-force decisions.

It seemed there was no stopping my gradually developing meathead thinking.

That said, it’s not like I had any other option, so it couldn’t be helped.

I broke away the area around the entrance, widening it until my body could fit, then carefully hooked my hands and toe claws onto the ladder and descended slowly.

There wasn’t anything directly beneath me, but I still took care not to slam my weight down in case it damaged something inside the basement.

Fired up with the thought, “Alright, the treasure’s right in front of me!” I scanned the dimly lit basement—only to find it much smaller than I had expected.

All it had was three shelves, a table, and some chairs—nothing else.

The old shelves, which had probably once been locked securely, had no glass panes, meaning the only way to see inside was to open them.

The chains and locks guarding the doors were already rusted, so a light tug made them snap apart with a crack.

I carefully opened the door so as not to break it.

(…Bottles?)

The shelves were packed full of bottles.

Their contents were still intact, and the labels were in perfect condition, easy to read.

(Hey, “Randīru 1555” and “Fūjī 1619”—these are alcohol!)

A closer look revealed that everything was liquor.

And with all the dates being rather old, this seemed to be a collection of high-end spirits.

Letting out a long sigh—“Gah-haah”—I moved to the next shelf and tore off its chain.

Once again, bottles.

Just as I expected, this shelf too was nothing but liquor.

The last shelf was no different.

There were various glasses alongside them, and even some books—but those turned out to be liquor catalogues.

(…This is taking drinking habits to an extreme.)

To build an entire basement just to indulge a hobby—what an outrageous abuse of authority.

I tried to figure out who had built such a basement, but nothing in the basement itself gave me any clues.

On the surface, however, I found out.

This base once housed a colonel from the “Anti-Seizeria Frontline General Headquarters.”

I couldn’t read the name, but from what I could glean from what looked like an order sheet, this base had been built to transport tanks across the river.

(So that’s why there were tanks here despite the base’s small scale. Come to think of it, I remember hearing something about them trying to build a bridge across a river somewhere, but the bridges kept getting destroyed and the operation couldn’t move forward.)

I thought, “If they’d just chosen a narrower crossing, they wouldn’t have needed a bridge at all,” but the terrain had changed greatly since then.

And the political situation was different too, so there must have been some reason they couldn’t.

In any case, I wasn’t in the mood to drink, nor did I feel like taking any of it, so I resumed exploring the surface facilities.

And in another basement I found—bone after bone after bone.

Judging by their condition, they were all within the past year, making me want to retort, “Just how many of you got eaten by goblins?”

By the way, goblins had no qualms about eating human flesh—men got munched, women got meowed.

I thought I might at least find a usable firearm, but there was nothing worth taking.

I was about to slump my shoulders in disappointment when it hit me.

(Wait, if this many hunters were killed, wouldn’t their equipment and items be lying around somewhere?)

Bullseye.

After a thorough search, I found weapons, armor, and what looked like magical tools clearly meant for humans, all hidden away.

A quick classification looked like this:

Weapons
Swords ×7, Spears ×2, Axes ×2

Armor
Shields ×5, Metal Armor ×2, Leather Armor ×8

Tools
Torches ×10, Unknown ×3

The only things I wanted were the tools.

Metal gear was tempting, but hauling it around would just be a burden.

Among the tools was a mysterious item I already had one of, identical to the ones I had just found.

Now I had four in total, but I still had no idea what this small wand-like object did.

Given that hunters often carried them, their purpose should narrow down naturally.

Since I was planning to return to my temporary base today, I decided to take all of them back and examine them there.

And so, the exploration ended without incident.

The results weren’t as great as I’d hoped, but better than nothing.

Finding only hunter gear at an abandoned military base was odd, but I also gathered useful geographical info, so I decided to head back for now.

I even found a sturdy-looking box perfect for holding my haul, so I packed everything in it for the trip back.

By the time I set out, it was nearing evening, so I explored the surroundings on the way back to adjust my timing.

As the sun began to set, I reached my temporary base without trouble.

It was nice that nothing happened on the way, but finding nothing at all—was that due to my lack of attention, or was there truly nothing?

Just changing my route a little clearly wasn’t enough.

The only change I noticed was a lizard sitting on the crate I’d left behind.

I munched on some hardtack of questionable expiration, drank some water, and grumbled about the saltiness of the jerky.

Since I didn’t know the right portion size, I kept my meal small, given my bulk, and picked up one of the mysterious wand-like items to examine it closely.

(Wooden material, about 25 cm long. The narrow tip is set with an unfamiliar gemstone. No switch.)

I tried shaking it—nothing.

Even shaking it harder—still nothing.

If it needed a keyword trigger, my voice wasn’t going to cut it.

In that case, this stick would be useless.

I went “gaa-gaa” while tapping the stick on a rock, pondering what to do.

(If this is indeed a magical item, and it needs me to use magic power or something, then it’s also useless. What other cases could there be?)

While I was mulling over possible uses, I realized the tip was glowing red.

When I cautiously brought my finger close, it was hot.

Pressing it against dry leaves set them alight—so, it was likely a magical fire starter.

No wonder hunters carried them.

Testing it, I found that tapping the tip three times activated it, causing the temperature to gradually rise.

Thinking “like an electric stove”, I happily accepted that my fire-starting problems were solved.

Fire marks the start of civilization.

“The start of a civilized monster life!” I said, but right now all I could really do was grill meat, so a cultured life was still far off—time to sleep.

Well, I wasn’t sleepy, so I stayed up.

Then I thought—why not use this chance to see what traveling at night is like, and start my northward journey now instead of tomorrow?

After some thought, I decided—yes.

I packed everything into the big box and started moving… only to find it was more trouble than expected.

I discarded the box, packed what I could into two backpacks, and began reorganizing.

Once that was done, I tied my wrapped magic sword to my pack with a rope, slung it over my arm, and confirmed I could run without issues.

It would be nice to have a backpack or bag that fit my size, but where would I even get one?

Wishing for the impossible was pointless.

(Alright, I can run like this. One empty bottle is enough, and the hardtack will be gone soon anyway.)

The hardtack container was bulkier than expected, so I dumped it into another bag—since it’d be gone by midday tomorrow, rough handling was fine.

And so, departure—farewell to the temporary base, and the start of my night travel.

Aside from when I’d been indoors, this was my first time moving around at night—but it went surprisingly smoothly.

With my night vision, plus hearing and smell, I could easily scout my surroundings just by paying a little attention.

I saw nocturnal animals and insects I hadn’t during the day—it was a refreshing change.

Cutting through deep forest was a bit scary at first, but I got used to it quickly.

Running lightly northward to the sounds of wildlife, I sometimes had to adjust my course when the moon hid behind clouds, but generally stayed on track.

Mixing in occasional observations, I kept heading north, until I realized dawn was near.

(After running that much, even I’m a little out of breath.)

I took a deep breath to steady myself and looked up at the sky.

The trees blocked much of it, but I could still see—it would be sunrise soon.

I set down my load and had an early breakfast.

Some hardtack and jerky, followed by water from my bottle.

I’d drunk plenty from the river before, and since I’d felt no ill effects, I figured it was safe drinking water.

As I rested until sunrise, the light filtering through the trees grew steadily, brightening the dark forest.

The sun rose.

At the same time, something large entered my view.

(That’s huge… what kind of tree is that?)

I’d spotted a giant tree, at least 20 meters tall.

It could be even larger, but that was my estimate from what I could see.

Since it was in a good position, I decided to climb it to look around, and headed for it.

I wasn’t great at climbing, but in this body, it shouldn’t be a problem.

It was thick enough that I wouldn’t worry about breaking it by holding on.

Up close, it was truly massive.

Its trunk was as wide as my outstretched arms, making me wonder why this tree alone had grown so large.

I checked it over just in case but found nothing unusual, so I began climbing.

With my strength, supporting my weight was easy.

And when I climbed high enough to see over the surrounding trees and looked back, I finally spotted what I’d been searching for.

A place that had once been a concrete jungle—now a green-covered ruin.

Yes, without a doubt, the ruins of an old Imperial city.

At last, I’d found what I needed to pinpoint my exact location.