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In the end, the answer I gave was to postpone it.

“…So, in other words, all the military facilities and factories producing weapons have been destroyed, so you do not know whether such a thing can be obtained?”

I nodded at Gust’s words as he summarized the long passage written in my memo.

The public reason was that, since it was something I did not know whether I could obtain, it was not an item for which I could guarantee a trade.

If things fit together well, the benefits of handing over a gun would be great, but naturally the risks were equally large.

If this risk steered in the worst possible direction, it could result in the birth of a mass-produced weapon capable of dealing damage to me.

It was not something that could be done quickly, but viewed in the long term, I could not shake the fear that the disadvantages might become fatal.

However, the bait dangling before my eyes was too dazzling to reject.

So for now, I left it pending.

“I have been looking around the forest up until now, but the traces of destruction at military facilities and related sites are clearly different from the others. Since the records say there was war, that is only natural.”

I wrote out something roughly like that and explained.

I hoped it was getting across correctly, but so long as he understood that it was difficult to obtain, that was enough.

To begin with, if it was only something on the level of a musket, the Furon Council-State still used such things even now.

The ideal would be to find an antique of about that level and obtain the magic items I wanted.

That was far more realistic than handing over a modern firearm and hoping they could not reproduce it.

Since I still had not fully grasped the system of technology called magic, and my knowledge of it was shallow, I had no idea at all where the safety line lay.

It probably required specialized knowledge, so thinking about it was likely pointless.

I wrote in my memo, “I will look for it, but do not expect too much,” and Gust, after reading it, looked up at the sky that was beginning to darken.

For a while, one beast and one man sat in silence with the extinguished campfire between us.

Gust stood up, slung his pack over his back, and called out to his guards.

It seemed the negotiations had ended in failure, but at the very end he turned back toward me.

“I will come here again in seven days.”

Saying only that, they left the place.

Watching their backs as they departed, I sat there for a while and sank into thought.

(The trade itself is not all that bad. If I can get the best possible result, I should do it no matter what. The problem is whether I can conveniently find a gun that fits the conditions.)

Depending on the magic items I could obtain, choosing to accept a certain amount of risk was also an option.

For example, let us consider a case where I myself am strengthened in a straightforward way.

A case where my already high defense is reinforced to the point that even if rifles are mass-produced, it neither hurts nor itches.

If the increase in my abilities exceeds the increase in attack power among ordinary soldiers, then the disadvantages are canceled out, and only the benefits of supplying guns remain.

Just as I was beginning to conclude that it depended on what was placed on the table, a question suddenly crossed my mind.

(Do the guns of the Furon Council-State have rifling?)

The performance of a gun differs greatly depending on whether it has that or not.

After agonizing over it for a while, I decided to proceed on the assumption that they did.

Even if the name had changed, it was still a state descended from the Empire.

So it would not be strange if it had at least that much.

And if so, the range of guns I could use in negotiations would also change.

I did not know the degree of diplomatic relations between Furon and Seizeria, but at the very least, considering the forest region and the gathered army of orcs, I ought to assume that their connection was quite thin.

“This is difficult.”

I muttered as I looked up at the night sky.

The trainee soldier who had only just finished student life found himself impressed, thinking that perhaps all merchants wracked their brains like this.

At any rate, if I could not pick anything up, it was all wishful arithmetic.

It had already gotten dark today, so the exploration would be tomorrow.

For now, I would at least decide where to search, and then prepare dinner.

The sun rose.

I finished preparing breakfast while it was still dim, but just as I was thinking I should explore properly today, unfortunately the sky was cloudy.

Today’s plan was to head north along the river and inspect the ruins of the military base a little.

This was the place where I had encountered Boobs Lady, so Seizerian hunters had already been coming and going there.

I did not expect any gains, but this was to confirm how thoroughly it had been ransacked.

At this point my memory was far too vague, and there was less that I remembered than there was that I did not.

In that case, it would be quicker to go and see, so I arrived at the ruins of the military base.

I immediately began investigating the state of the base, but… to put it plainly, there was no need even to investigate.

“This is no good.”

That was right, this was also the place where goblins had nested.

In other words, anything that could be held in the hand was almost entirely broken.

It had already been wrecked in the clashes between the armies of that time, and then there were the metal remains that had likely been handled roughly, as though to finish them off.

Looking at the bent gun barrel half-buried in the ground, I could even imagine from the state of the soil how much wind and rain it had been exposed to.

There was one thing I remembered.

It was that I had let my shoulders slump, expecting to find something and thinking, “Is there really anything left here?”

I decided to give up on this place, and since I was here anyway, I extended my trip as far as Eilqueel.

If there were a gun shop, that would solve things, but unfortunately in the Empire, possession of guns had required a permit.

Even if there had been one, would the refugees who moved south really have left behind guns and ammunition?

Therefore, expecting guns to remain at the police station as well was naive.

Even so, compared to other places, it was more than worth searching.

And so I was walking through the ruined streets of Eilqueel… but I could not find any building that looked the part.

Since I had no familiarity with the area, that could not be helped, I subtly bragged as someone who had lived in the Imperial Capital.

There was no one to hear it, so only emptiness remained.

By the time the sun came directly overhead, the cloudy sky had finally cleared a little.

Just as I muttered, “I am glad it did not rain,” while bathing in the sunlight, I came upon a road I recognized.

It seemed I had come out onto a road I had passed through when exploring here before.

Relying on my unreliable memory, I followed the road, and what I finally found was a shopping mall.

No, that was not it.

I remembered because I had come here many times, but there should not have been any building likely to contain guns in this area.

Since I usually came to the mall from the west side, it seemed the route coming from almost due south had not remained in my memory.

However, the fact that I had managed to come here was almost the same as discovering something else.

That was this—a surrounding area map.

If there was a problem, it was that I could barely read any of its contents.

It had ended in a complete miss, but since there was a place I wanted to stop by for another purpose, coming to the shopping mall was not a detour at all.

“Ah, there it is.”

I had explored the inside of the mall thoroughly, so it remained in my memory.

That was why I had no trouble finding the bookstore.

I could have used an outside bookstore while looking for the police station, but I had a stronger impression that the things here were in better condition.

So, in a space far too narrow for me between the bookshelves, I slipped in my upper body and pulled out a whole pile of maps.

“The ones in good condition are this one… and this one…”

And then I sorted through them little by little.

As a result, I was able to obtain more maps in good condition than I had expected.

Though faded, the Empire of two hundred years ago came back to life.

I was also able to confirm the details of the town of Eilqueel.

At this rate, I should have obtained maps much earlier.

I wanted to punch the me from back then who had been too distracted by manga and porn magazines.

In any case, I was able to confirm the location of the police station as well.

When I hurried there, all that awaited me was a mountain of rubble.

I had known it, but this was reality.

There was nothing to be done, since there were fewer buildings left standing than buildings that had collapsed.

At this point, I headed once to the far-too-crude sleeping place I had made earlier, one too shabby to call a bedroom.

There I settled in and began staring down several maps.

What I sought were the frontline bases on the eastern side and the supply bases that would likely have gathered military materials.

I remembered being taught that gathering supplies together and distributing them from there was basic logistics.

So that was what I searched for, but… as expected, trying to locate military information on commercially sold maps was unreasonable.

I had expected that, so I narrowed my focus to military bases serving as frontline positions.

Places too close to Seizeria were likely to be a waste of time to search, so I confirmed the locations of facilities a little farther inland.

“The ones that apply are… these three, I suppose.”

My hand turning the pages stopped, and I pointed at the places that ought to be explored.

I kept investigating like that until sunset, but in the end there was still nothing that seemed to indicate the research facility I was looking for.

As expected, it seemed that using the maps as a foothold to search for further clues would be the next step.