26

I swung the sledgehammer once, shaking off the blood and flesh stuck to it.

In the arena that had turned into a land of corpses, I crushed the last surviving leader unit—the Queen—and checked if there were any survivors.

(No movement… this should be all of them, right?)

Since I had exterminated the goblins that filled a stadium capable of holding thirty thousand people, it would not be an exaggeration to call this hard labor.

Though I had introduced the sledgehammer to avoid getting my hands and feet dirty, I eventually ended up using not only my hands and feet but also my tail to clean up the mess.

The number of goblins this time was probably double that of the last extermination, enough to make me feel fatigue.

That said, even if the numbers had doubled, their quality had not changed, so of course I was still unscathed.

It had been a King-and-Queen set, but there was no way that oversized goblins could do anything against me. With one swing of my sledgehammer, I crushed the King’s shield along with his head, killing him instantly.

As for the goblins who kept swarming to protect their Queen, I literally tore them apart and hurled them away, again and again… After turning thousands of them into filth, I smashed the remaining lumps of flesh and finished it.

Fortunately, unlike last time, the stench here had been relatively mild.

Most likely, the half-destroyed roof allowed for some ventilation.

Since the cleaning was over, I decided to wash my body somewhere and then set up a bed in the shopping district I remembered.

Though it could not compare to Aiza’s shopping mall, this was by no means a small town.

Surely I would find something I had been lacking until now.

First, I needed to wash the goblin blood off my body.

I headed for the nature park in search of water, but, as expected, the fountain was no longer working.

The pond that had once been home to waterfowl was murky and dirty, likely due to goblins having used it.

I thought, “So it’s the sewers again this time,” but then I found that rainwater had collected nicely in the ruined greenhouse, so I used that instead.

Since the last rainfall had been four days ago, it should not have been a problem.

Though I could not say I was clean, I at least felt refreshed. I then went to retrieve my belongings and headed to the shopping district.

The major cleaning had taken quite a lot of time, so it was already past noon.

I needed to secure what I needed while it was still light, hunt around the area, and stay the night here.

Lately, I had been sleeping every day, but since I had run all through last night, I wanted to sleep properly today.

And so, I began scouring the shopping district.

While gathering necessities, I looked for a place that could serve as a bed and carried usable supplies inside.

After about two hours of going back and forth through the shopping district, a pile inevitably formed.

(…Just how many scrubbing brushes did I bring? And too much cloth, too.)

It was good that there had been a bedding shop, but since most of it was either unusable or had already been carried away, I had to compromise. Still, I managed to make a decent bed.

When I actually lay down on it, the four-layered mattress held up against my weight quite well.

With an extra futon layered on top, it worked both for lying down and sitting. The downside was that the ceiling now felt even lower.

I decided to adjust the details before sleeping and moved on to food.

I went to the forest to hunt—but since the goblins here had overhunted, I was forced to go quite far.

Truly, goblins were a menace.

By the time I returned, the sun had already set. I butchered the boar I caught and started a fire.

One whole boar was enough to make for a single meal.

Even if I did not feel hunger, I knew from the time I had monitored the elves that this body did feel satiety. Still, this much was not enough to make me full.

I downed a bottle of water and lay down on the bed I had made.

(Not bad. I wonder if I can reach the Imperial Capital tomorrow…)

I closed my eyes and, surprisingly, fell asleep quickly.

The next morning, I woke up, stretched my body, and let out a big yawn.

The building had been damaged a little, but with the owner long gone, there was no one to scold me.

I strapped on even more baggage, now including scrubbing brushes, cloth, and tongs, and departed from Shuval.

My course was southeast, toward Aiza.

The distance was not too far, so I expected to arrive before noon.

Since the trees in this area were not densely packed, I could move quickly.

Nothing happened along the way, and sooner than expected, I saw the town of Aiza.

That was fine, but even from afar I could see that the devastation was worse than I imagined.

(This doesn’t look promising for the shopping mall.)

That fear was spot on.

Aiza was in far worse condition than I had expected.

The reason was immediately clear.

This town had been burned down, no question about it.

The collapsed outer walls still bore burn marks, and there was far too little sign of life—goblins or otherwise.

On top of that, for some reason, there was an abnormally small amount of vegetation.

The other towns I had seen had all been overrun by nature, but Aiza was not green—it was gray.

I explored for a while, but it was impossible to find anything useful.

(Even in war, was it really necessary to burn it this thoroughly?)

Wherever I looked, the remains of burnt-down buildings stood as they were, testifying to the extraordinary scale of destruction.

I wandered through what had once been Aiza for a while, but as expected, there was nothing left to take. My time here has been completely wasted.

What worried me now was the Imperial Capital, though I hoped it had not been attacked to this extent.

(No, wait. Could this be the result of that superweapon I saw before? Is that the punchline?)

I pondered this sudden thought.

My conclusion—possible.

But to burn one’s own city to ash with a superweapon? Even if it were my country, I could not defend such an act.

Still, it was only one possibility.

Perhaps this was simply the result of the war with the elves escalating.

(Come to think of it, elves can live for about three hundred years, can’t they…)

Someday, from the elves’ perspective at least, I might be able to learn what had happened.

Then again, considering I would have to learn the Elvish language, it was hardly realistic.

At any rate, there was nothing left to see here, so I set off for the Imperial Capital.

(It has been two hundred years… I wonder what the capital looks like now.)

Once I thought about it, I realized there were more things I wanted to know and see—like what had become of the house I once lived in. It surprised even me.

Then, as I was about to leave the gray city behind, I saw an unfamiliar sight before me.

No—perhaps I should have noticed it much earlier.

Why had I not realized that there was no forest ahead?

What lay in my path was a desert.

A vast land of sand stretched endlessly.

I tilted my head at this environmental change but stepped into the desert.

Sand.

Though a bit harder to walk on, I could move and even run without issue.

(The Empire had no sea, but is a sandy beach something like this?)

I tried running, kicking up sand.

I was surprised at how slow I was.

Sand restricted movement more than I had expected, and no matter how I adjusted my stride, I gained no speed.

Even so, I pressed onward, almost enjoying this rare environment called a desert.

I did not wonder why it had become like this.

I simply felt that I should not think about it.

And then reality struck.

Deep down, I had suspected it, but I had been hoping otherwise.

(So this is the reason the Empire was destroyed…)

What lay before me could only be described in one word: ground zero.

The sheer size of the crater was beyond what I could even imagine, no matter how much explosive was used.

It had swallowed the capital, burned down farmland, and even reached Aiza.

That was how this desert came to be.

I could only stand there, stunned.

And I understood.

Why the Kingdom of Canaan had abandoned science.

If this was the end result of developing science, anyone would choose to cast it aside.

No—in fact, in this world, a nation that advanced science could itself become a target for attack.

I would not go so far as to say it was my beloved homeland, but still—I had one question for you.

What on earth could you have done to bring about such a disaster?

Had the path the Empire took been a mistake?

I clenched my fists tightly and stood frozen before the sight.

The place I had wanted to return to no longer existed, and I had nowhere to go.

(Feels like those career counseling sessions back in my student days.)

It hit me harder than I expected.

I thought I had accepted it long ago, but it seemed I had been averting my eyes from reality.

This body could not speak the countless words I wished to shout.

So instead, I let out a great roar.

No one was there to hear it.

Turning my back on the crater, I started to walk.