92

After one last check of my backpack to make sure I’d forgotten nothing, I slung it on and climbed up the elevator shaft to the surface.

Since I’d packed some fruit for snacks, the box was already less than half full.

So I transferred the rest into the cooler I kept at the base.

It was sweeter than expected and clearly high-quality—something premium—so I decided to eat it sparingly.

I locked up properly and set out—aiming northeast to enter the Kingdom of Canaan for now.

I roughly remembered the cave’s location.

But I didn’t know the exact spot where I’d killed Spider-man.

I only recalled a general direction and a vague distance; it had been the middle of the night, moon out or not.

I doubted I’d find any familiar landmarks, so I ran through the forest, ready for a difficult search.

Maybe because it had been a while since I’d headed north, my sense for the spacing of the trees lagged a bit.

After eating the second one—the Emperor—my abilities had improved across the board, and I needed to get used to that, too.

“Better slow down for a while,” I decided, running while keeping careful watch on my surroundings.

I might find an undiscovered lab, so scouting the forest mattered.

Crushing any goblins I spotted underfoot, I moved northeast—and came across a monster I’d never seen before.

“Oh… a pack of Forest Wolves. First time seeing them.”

In Imperial days they were rare, but seeing them in a pack took the charm away.

I remembered their faint green-tinged gray pelts being extremely valuable, and that overhunting had supposedly wiped them out within Imperial lands.

They were 1.5–2.0 meters long—bigger than normal wolves—recorded as highly aggressive toward other species, treating anything not their own as prey. I recalled hearing on TV that because they were often culled for that reason, the Empire had eradicated them.

In short—yeah, the wolves attacked.

Counting about seventeen in all, I figured “drop half and they’ll flee.” I snapped the neck of the first Forest Wolf that leapt with a speed-first short jab, then caught the one biting my ankle with my tail and smashed it into a tree.

Its fangs, buried in my leg, snapped with an audible crack as it went.

Naturally I was unhurt—or so I thought, until I later noticed a tiny mark left behind.

I grabbed one of the wolves that kept attacking and swung it like a weapon, knocking out about three. Deciding they couldn’t win, the rest began to fall back.

They withdrew once it was clear I wouldn’t pursue, and with only four dead—clean timing on their retreat.

Well-led packs were considered dangerous even in the Empire, so they’d probably serve as a good check on Canaan’s push south.

With that in mind, perhaps I shouldn’t cull too many monsters up north.

Except goblins. You’re a no.

Humanoid monsters sometimes had just enough brains to use Imperial relics.

And that’s not all.

Some of that trash destroyed things for fun without understanding their value—never mind not knowing how to use them.

So they couldn’t be left alive.

Exterminate on sight.

So I ran while doing pest control and watching the forest, and around sundown my senses finally started to settle in.

The problem was that night was coming, so I needed to slow down a bit.

Even with night vision, until I was fully adjusted, there was no guarantee I wouldn’t crash into something.

(Come to think of it, I always seem to pass through here at night.)

It might be good to scout this whole area once in daylight.

With those thoughts, I kept moving until sunrise.

Which brought me, after a long while, back to the Kingdom of Canaan.

Spotting a familiar highway, I first searched for the cave where I’d run into Spider-man.

At one point I wandered, wondering, “Did I go the wrong way?” but I eventually found the cave from back then—only to see people there.

And not thieves or the like—properly equipped, with a makeshift base of tents and the like set up around them.

(Don’t know the situation. Did something happen tied to that cave, and the kingdom’s doing something about it?)

It probably wasn’t about Spider-man, but it might complicate things a bit.

That said, I didn’t have business with the cave itself.

If they were operating around it, we might run into each other, but it shouldn’t be a problem.

“Right, a lot of people were abducted—they could be investigating that.”

I murmured softly and observed the makeshift base through gaps in the trees.

There was some distance, but I used my mimicry ability just in case, blended into the scenery as I closed in, and tried to pick up conversation… but they spoke less than expected.

Which suggested they weren’t a ragtag bunch—they looked like regular soldiers or something close.

I doubted they’d detect me, but with numbers you never knew what could happen.

I counted seven in visible range—so with people in the cave and tents, I assumed over twenty.

With that many, there might even be a mage.

I still wasn’t used to magic, so caution couldn’t hurt.

Inching closer and listening, all I heard was insects and leaves rubbing in the wind.

Even so, I lay in wait for any scrap of information—until three men emerged from the cave.

They stretched big and took deep breaths, like they were finally getting fresh air.

They seemed to be talking—but there I made a fatal mistake.

“—. ——, ——”

I couldn’t understand a word.

It was definitely the Canaan Kingdom language, but with the accent—and the speed—I couldn’t make it out at all.

(Crap. I caught a few words, but as sentences, none of it made sense.)

I could follow a bit of standard Canaanese, but even accounting for how fast they talked, this was a no-go.

I hadn’t planned for this.

“Looks like I should give up on intel-gathering here,” I decided, and started to slip away.

But then I heard the word “Argos” behind me, and the situation changed.

(No way… they don’t think I did the cave massacre, do they?)

Or maybe they intended to say as much.

Either way, things were drifting into an unfavorable state.

Granted, I was practically an enemy of Canaan to begin with. Still, false information spreading was unwelcome.

(And what can I do now…? Hand over the real culprit—rejected. I’m moving with that as my goal. Turning it over isn’t an option.)

So what then?

I kept my back to them and thought for a moment.

Conclusion—ignore it.

Thinking it through, I didn’t have the leeway to bother with Canaan.

For one, I’d killed that thing by tearing apart its human half and spider half.

Meaning it likely wouldn’t be recognized as the same individual, and nothing I did would clear suspicion off me anyway.

So I abandoned the idea of interfering and focused on my objective.

“Wasted enough time,” I muttered, widened the distance without being seen, dropped my mimicry, and started searching for the site where I killed Spider-man, relying on memory.

Around when the sun reached its zenith, I finally found the place where I’d finished things with him.

There, the word I’d left—“Die”—was still carved, proving this was the spot from that time.

But the key thing—the corpse of Spider-man—was nowhere to be found.

In fact, there wasn’t even a trace that a body had ever been here.