198

When I came to, I was in an unfamiliar forest.

However, since the forests familiar to me were limited to begin with, this much was not a problem.

(The problem is where this place is.)

I was surprised that I was striving to grasp the situation with a calmness I could hardly believe myself, but that was probably my emotional suppression function doing its job.

When I looked at my hands, there were traces of dried blood, making it clear what I had done.

And since I could tell from how dry it was that not much time had passed, it would be inappropriate to rejoice over this as “a blessing in disguise.”

For now, what I needed to confirm was whether my current position was east of the river or not.

Entering Seizeria’s territory could hardly be called a good situation.

And in order to secure my baggage, the river’s location was important.

In that case, assuming the worst and taking a course west was an extremely reasonable choice.

As I continued forward without neglecting to stay alert of my surroundings, I soon saw the river.

I let out a breath of relief, but it was still too early to relax.

I had to find terrain I recognized from memory and recover my baggage from there――or so I thought, but after going a little north, I easily discovered traces that seemed to be from where the smoke signal had been raised.

There were also corpses that looked as though they had been killed by me, so that confirmed it.

When I crossed the river, I was also able to safely secure my backpack, still in the same state as when I had put it down.

“That takes care of that.”

There was no way it did.

I had done it again.

(I have absolutely no idea what the conditions for the switch are. Considering how much time had passed since the last time, the passage of time is certain, but the timing is far too bad no matter how I look at it.)

It was far too pinpoint to simply call it bad timing.

If that were the case, I would be lamenting, “What is wrong with my luck?”

I suspected there had to be some condition, but… the only common points with the previous time were fighting or magic at most, and as for this time, both were too half-baked to count, so I felt it would not be appropriate to use as an example.

And there was one more point I had to be concerned about.

The fear of “losing my reason” was definitely becoming thinner.

It was probably because the emotional suppression function was making me unable to feel fear, but when I considered the reason for the Nemesis Code’s existence, I could only say it was inconsistent.

Dr. Zeta had assumed that I would rampage.

If so, the emotional suppression function should have been an obstacle instead.

(Which means, then. Was it simply that it was incompatible with the Nemesis Code? The emotional suppression function being added later… does not seem likely. In that case, does this become proof of what Lark said about “leaving the Nemesis Code alone in order to use it for disposing of genetically enhanced soldiers”?)

In other words, it was also convenient in the sense of extending the usage period as a weapon.

I had thought about it at length, but with my ordinary brain, this was probably my limit.

If so, I would handle the next problem.

Carrying my baggage on my back, I crossed the river while checking the number of corpses.

From their positions, I could infer that they had tried to flee separately, so I entered the forest.

Then, after I finished counting the corpses, I muttered.

“The numbers do not match.”

There were bloodstains, but no corpses.

There were nine corpses, including the old man sticking his blood-covered ass out in the river… in other words, two people had survived.

It would be safe to assume that I overlooked one, and the other managed to escape on the sacrifice of an ally.

At this result, I let out a deep breath.

If there were survivors, getting further involved with Seizeria would be difficult.

Then there was only one thing to do.

I would simply proceed with exploring the blank area in the southeastern part of the former Imperial territory.

Depending on how I thought about it, I could say that I had gained a reason to focus on that.

It was a shame that I had not obtained a magic item useful for exploration, but becoming too fixated on efficiency when I did not even know whether it would improve was not good either.

I switched my thoughts and headed for exploration.

Before that, I lightly washed my body in the river, but as expected, it was a little cold.

The possibility that I had fire resistance but not very high cold resistance remained.

As what was probably a non-elemental monster, I wanted to prepare my resistances evenly.

After all, it was better to have no weaknesses.

Several days after that incident, I was exploring the blank area in the south with a map in one hand, but because there had been no results, I realized that I had been going without sleep or rest.

So I decided to return to the underground area I was using as a temporary base in order to rest once.

On the way back, I noticed something faintly visible in the northern sky.

“Smoke signals again?”

What was it this time?

Considering how the last one ended, I did not feel very inclined to go there.

Honestly, I felt it would be fine to simply fade out like this.

In any case, what I needed right now was rest.

Ignoring the smoke signal visible in the distance, I opened the entrance to the underground that I had hidden with a large piece of rubble, slipped inside, put down my baggage, and went to sleep.

Then, when I woke up, I took the clock out of my backpack.

“Oh, I slept for more than half a day?”

The words slipped out at how deeply I had slept.

The time was seven in the morning――I should have gone to sleep before evening yesterday, so I had definitely slept for fifteen hours.

As expected, I did not think I had slept for more than an entire day, so I was probably not mistaken.

That being the case, first was hydration.

I did not feel hungry, but I also needed to replenish my nutrients.

And so, when I left the underground room to secure breakfast, I found it.

“…They are still raising it?”

What I saw to the east was a rising smoke signal.

I was a little fed up by the persistent summons, wondering whether they had been raising it ever since then.

They should definitely have obtained information from the survivors last time, so I could understand whether I liked it or not that this was by no means friendly.

There was also the possibility that it was meant to draw out my intentions, but… considering the national character, “He came, kill him!” was the most likely story.

Thus, just as I decided to ignore it, another possibility occurred to me.

“There is a possibility that because of what I did, Boobs Lady was ordered to sortie.”

For now, I tried summarizing the possibilities that came to mind.

Among them, the ones that seemed highly important were cases where Boobs Lady or Gust was there.

If so, I came up with a very simple solution.

(I will quickly go and see only who is there.)

From here, it would not take that much time.

Through several round trips, “my road” had already been completed, and if I hurried, I would probably arrive at a position where I could confirm it in an hour.

Since I would leave my baggage underground, I should be able to manage that much, so I set off running east.

It was an action I took with the casual thought that if I was curious, I should just hurry up and confirm it.

However, when I arrived near the river and used my telescopic ability to look at what I could see on the opposite bank, I caught my breath.

(Are those… what they call golems?)

Because I was in the forest, there were few opportunities to see their entire form, but as far as I could confirm, there were ten of them.

Judging from the height of the mage-like man standing nearby, it would be fair to say that their builds were about the same as mine or slightly shorter.

(Their color is gray… is the material stone?)

If so, their weight was undoubtedly greater than mine.

I did not know how much they could move, but if these were forces deployed after obtaining information about me, they were certainly something appropriate.

Were they guards?

Or were they meant to fight me?

The presumed stone-built humanoid golems merely stood still and did not move.

Part of it was simple curiosity, but if this was Seizeria’s new fighting force, I should gather a certain amount of information.

Thinking that, I used my mimicry ability and approached the river.

And what came into view was, astonishingly, a ballista.

Without a doubt, it was something those golems would use.

If they were normal arrows, they would not scare me in the slightest, but I wanted no part of carelessly taking a weapon with that much mass.

There did not seem to be any melee weapons, but they had probably not brought any out of fear that I would use them.

Otherwise, there would be no reason for the presumed golems to be humanoid, and no explanation for not bringing them if they could use ballistae.

(In other words, Seizeria has developed magical technology and can properly convert it for military use.)

It was completely different from Canaan.

I did not know exactly how much Seizeria had developed over the two hundred years I had been asleep.

Now that it had come to this, I regretted, though it was too late, that perhaps I should have seen a proper Seizerian townscape rather than a hastily made bridgehead, but I would consider it good that I learned this before falling into a fatal situation.

Since I had gone to the trouble, I slowly closed the distance to get slightly more detailed information.

There was a chance that they were searching with some sort of magical method, so I also made sure not to neglect magic detection.

The more I moved forward, the more information I obtained.

(There is no mistake that there are ten golems, but…)

There were many mages.

There were at least twice as many as the number of golems.

I did not know how high their quality was, but if those golems could perfectly handle the front line, was this not quite a troublesome formation?

Thinking that it should be fine to get a little closer, I slowly advanced while heightening my caution.

And when my field of vision widened further, something unbelievable entered my eyes.

A familiar face was hanging from a standing golem.

Diera, naked and suspended with both hands bound by a rope placed around the humanoid golem’s neck, was only hanging her head.

Likewise, Rena’s figure was beside her, and since the two of them did not move even slightly, whether they were alive or dead was unknown.

Reflexively, I stared at Boobs Lady’s boobs with my telescopic ability――and I felt relieved because her chest was moving properly in time with her breathing.

But what was this situation?

Were mages not respected in Seizeria?

I hesitated before the incomprehensible situation.

Seeing their state, there was no need to say what had been done to them.

If I had not ignored the smoke signal I saw yesterday, could I have saved them?

The regret that crossed my mind kept my feet rooted in place.

But a reason for me to move was born easily.

Humans were the same in every era.