207

When we left our luck to heaven, what we drew was a parking area.

Since the sun was about to set, today’s sleeping place was probably decided.

Because it was a long road connecting cities, the Empire’s traffic situation required relay points.

The problem was that I had always leaned more toward trains for long-distance travel, so I did not know the details of what this rest point had.

As I updated our position information with the map in one hand, the two on my shoulders also peered down at it.

I pointed at our current location with a finger of my free hand and traced it southwest, but there was nothing there.

With that, today’s travel ended here.

“It’s better than sleeping outside,” Boobs Lady said.

It had only barely retained its original form, but if they could sleep somewhere with a roof, it was certainly somewhat better.

After that, it would be fortunate if there were still supplies in good condition left in places like the shop’s back area.

I walked along the cracked road into the parking area, separated from the two who jumped down, and began exploring.

The two of them needed to be cautious, checking the condition of the building before entering, but I would be fine even if it collapsed, so I explored boldly.

The entrances for humans were too narrow, but entering through the collapsed outer wall was easy.

As I had already known from the sign, the first building was a restaurant.

There was a reason I entered this restaurant first.

It was because if the uniforms from this shop were still here, the problem of the two women’s clothes might be solved.

It was absolutely not because the moment I saw the sign, I remembered waitress uniforms that emphasized the chest.

After rummaging through the restaurant ruins for a while, I discovered new uniforms stored in a sealed state, just as planned.

Deeply moved, I carried out the uniforms, case and all, remembering how excited my friends and I had been in our student days, saying, “Let’s go there at least once.”

When I looked around at the surroundings dyed by the sunset, I saw the two of them searching the shop.

They seemed to be doing their best too, so I decided to explore the surroundings a little more as well.

And so, the sun set.

The surroundings grew dark, and from Boobs Lady’s expression as she lit her wand, I could tell that their results had not been very good.

“We searched the wrong place.”

Apparently, she had expected something because there were magazines in the shop, but their harvest seemed to be only the newspaper in her hand and a few small items.

However, they had properly found a place that looked usable as a bed, and Rena, pointing that way, happily explained through the translation that there was a sofa that still seemed usable.

I handed the two of them the case of uniforms and blankets in plastic bags.

In a nap room in a building that looked like an office, I had found blankets that seemed to have been sent out for cleaning and left as they were. These were probably the best finds.

Sure enough, the two who received them both raised their thumbs as if to say, “Well done.”

I took cooking utensils out of my backpack, told them, “I’ll leave the setup to you,” and ran into the forest.

It was a little late, but I ran through the forest in search of ingredients for dinner.

And when I returned, the two of them were waiting in front of the hearth dressed as waitresses.

One had a great deal of cloth left over around the chest, while the other seemed to have lost the top two buttons, which were nowhere to be seen.

It was a scene exactly as expected.

After hearing the translation of, “Do you have something you want to say?” I reflected a little on the fact that I had stared too much while comparing the difference between the two.

After this and that, dinner ended, cleanup was done, and it was time to sleep.

The two of them, having secured a sleeping place where the door could be closed, recommended that I sleep tonight too.

I nodded to that, then decided to sleep a little distance away just in case.

I went to sleep praying that nothing would happen, and when I woke up, I was relieved to see the same scene as when I had closed my eyes.

“I can’t laugh at Boobs Lady’s overprotectiveness, can I?”

Looking at it this way, perhaps I had been hungrier for connections with people than I thought.

Realizing that my emotions had become somewhat unstable, I shook my head and swallowed my weakness.

Before the two of them woke up, I left my luggage and entered the forest to catch breakfast.

Today’s breakfast was salt-grilled rabbit meat with herbs—and please forgive the small number of dishes and the lack of variety.

While glancing sideways at Rena wiping her face with a newly obtained towel, I looked at Boobs Lady throwing away the used hot water.

While confirming that yet another button was gone, I divided up the cooked meat.

“If you have a custom of roasting meat to eat, does that mean you’re a demi-human-type monster?”

At this point, my classification did not matter, but Boobs Lady looked at me as if observing me, so I raised my tail and waved it playfully in reply.

The opinion that I “looked reptilian” came from Rena.

I remembered seeing in an encyclopedia or something that a race resembling lizardmen from games had existed on the southern continent.

When I said that while cleaning up, Boobs Lady, who was wiping the dishes with a cloth, seemed to think of something and said this.

“Come to think of it… I’ve heard there was a period when the southern border became a complete mess due to the chaos during the old Great War. Maybe your original species moved north back then.”

Unfortunately, I was a human-based genetically enhanced soldier with Goliath Lizard genes.

There was no way I could say that by mistake, so I gave an appropriate response and put the wiped cooking utensils and dishes into my backpack.

At the same time, I opened the map I had taken out to the page showing our current location and searched for a place that seemed likely to be our next point.

The two of them leaned in and peered over my arms from both sides.

Boobs Lady made a difficult face when she saw the point I indicated by tapping it with my finger.

“Far.”

Their voices overlapped, so they were probably saying that.

The position I had indicated really was far away.

If I were alone, it was a distance I could reach without issue before the date changed, but… with the two of them on my back, it would definitely take two days.

That meant we would also need to find a place where we could sleep outside along the way.

Luck would be involved, but that was nothing new at this point. I handed the map to Boobs Lady, shouldered my backpack, put the two of them on my shoulders, and started running.

I wondered if I should just use rope to make handholds, but if I did that, I would completely become a vehicle.

Since we were at it, I tried asking the two of them for ideas to increase speed, but they gave the opinion that “going faster than this is dangerous,” so that matter ended there.

It would have been fine if there were something that could protect the two of them, but… in that case, I really would end up turning into a vehicle.

Having no choice, I continued running through the forest with safe driving.

“Come to think of it, I never did end up driving a car,” I thought, remembering a friend who had proudly shown me his license, and I felt like a small laugh slipped out.

How much time had passed since I continued running without even eating lunch?

Normally, I should have been able to tell the approximate time from the tilt of the sun, but… the sky was covered by greenery so deep that sunlight could not reach us, and even when I looked up, I could barely see the sky.

In the midst of that, combined with the dimness, an indescribable atmosphere hung in the air, and I kept looking around more than necessary.

The two riding on my shoulders also grew tense because of my movements.

It was not something I could call evidence, but I felt some kind of wrongness, so I raised my level of caution and ran more slowly.

Without knowing what it was, my ears caught something.

“…There’s something there.”

At the same time I muttered that, I sensed the two on my shoulders readying themselves.

Diera had her wand, while Rena had picked up an iron pipe and was equipped with that.

I slowed down even further and focused my nerves on my hearing.

Multiple bipedal walkers—however, their weight was not that of humans.

As we approached, I also caught the smell of blood, but that belonged to an animal.

In other words, something large and humanoid was eating an animal.

I chased the shadow that entered my vision for an instant and confirmed its form with my telescopic vision.

“Ogres. There’s a red one too.”

At my words, I heard a voice I did not want a beauty to make: “Ugh.”

According to Boobs Lady, it was rare for ogres to form groups.

Because of their huge bodies, they also ate a lot, and they usually fought over territory. At most, they might make goblins or orcs obey them, but depending on the environment, there were apparently cases where a group led by a powerful individual was born.

“An abundant food supply and a wide territory that one individual can’t maintain alone. The conditions are all in place.”

She spoke with the insight of a Seizerian hunter, then asked me with her eyes whether we would do it.

If it were my usual self, I probably would have crushed them as if taking a little detour, but please remember carefully.

In the Furon Council-State I was heading to, I had made statements along the lines of “maintaining the balance of the forest” to delay their northward advance.

Goblins were targets for extermination without question, but ogres were few to begin with.

Therefore, I would let them go this time.

It was better not to take unnecessary lives.

Thinking that, I conveyed this to the women on my shoulders as well, and chose to keep going, pass by them, and run off.

However, when we drew near, I saw one of the ogres point at us and begin laughing loudly.

As if drawn in by that, the remaining ogres also pointed at us and began laughing.

No matter who heard it, that laugh was one of mockery.

I slowly reduced my speed and stopped, then gently lowered the two from my shoulders.

Then I placed my backpack on the ground and began walking toward the group of ogres.

I heard a voice behind me trying to stop me, saying, “Hey, wait!” but I ignored it.

Well, is this the first time since I became this form? I never thought I’d be made a laughingstock by mere ogres.

They had probably mocked me because I was being treated like a vehicle, but I was not so mild-mannered that I would stay silent after being laughed at by mere ogres.

I advanced, intending to teach those fools who had underestimated the Empire’s technology a small lesson, and the group of ogres greeted me with thoroughly contemptuous attitudes.

When I arrived directly in front of the leading ogre, I stopped, stood upright, and looked down at it.

If I stood straight, I was taller than them.

However, perhaps that action looked comical, because the ogre in front of me laughed in a filthy voice, “Gehigehi,” and slammed the club in its hand down onto my head.

I yielded the first move.

So I could teach them despair, and so they could understand whom they had picked a fight with.

The laughter vanished when I took it head-on and did not move an inch.

Since they seemed to have understood the difference in combat power, it was my turn.

First came a full-powered straight punch, moderately restrained so that the target would not burst apart.

The ogre, blown away horizontally, crashed into a giant tree and stopped moving.

The mark of my fist was firmly carved into the muscles of its chest, and the deeply sunken imprint eloquently showed that it had been more than enough to destroy its heart.

The silence lasted only an instant.

The red ogre that controlled the group immediately raised its voice and ordered an attack.

Seven ogres attacked me all at once, but after receiving all of their attacks, I reaped their consciousnesses with one blow each. Then I leisurely walked up directly in front of the red ogre and provoked it with what was commonly called “glaring someone down.”

I let it take the first move, broke its arm with a counter, and, while I was at it, destroyed its right knee with a low kick.

I patted the shoulder of the ogre that was merely red as it collapsed to its knees—and then crushed its shoulder bone with my grip strength.

It gave a pathetic scream and showed me a figure as if begging me for forgiveness, so I left it at that.

Be more careful next time—though I don’t know how many of you are still alive.

It was regrettable that it had not even counted as much exercise, but perhaps because I had been somewhat too tense lately, I felt like it had been a good change of pace.

And waiting for me when I returned to the two women and the luggage were Tiny Chest Girl, who was dumbfounded, and Boobs Lady, who looked exasperated.

“…There wasn’t any need to fight them, was there?”

I admitted that the difference in combat strength had been too great.

Even so, I strongly insisted that “in the wild, once you are looked down on, it is over.”

We had made a detour, so we should hurry a little to make up for it.

Because I increased my speed, the difference in the cushioning performance of the two clinging to my neck and face was, as expected, clear.