The Home Improvement Store

The next morning, I woke up at the nursery school and looked around. The children were still asleep. Many of them were curled up, looking cold even in their sleep.

“We really need some heating. I wonder if they sell wood-burning stoves at a home improvement store.”

The nearest home improvement store was in Tennoji Town, an area now known as the Beastman Zone. Apparently, Aberrant Beasts that resembled animals transformed into humans, such as Orcs, were called Beastmen.

Breakfast consisted of nothing but a drink made from powdered milk. Apparently, the nursery school had stockpiled a large quantity of it. Elena approached me after finishing the cleanup.

“You’re going to the Goblin Zone, right? I’m coming with you.”

Elena was wearing denim pants and a windbreaker that allowed her to move freely. She also carried a backpack and held something resembling a rolling pin used for making buckwheat noodles.

“Don’t tell me you have the Club Technique skill?”

“You can tell? That’s right. Do you have it too, Maki-san?”

“I do. It’s the combat technique that suits me best, but clubs don’t have much killing power, so they’re not particularly effective against tough enemies.”

“That’s true, but it was the only offensive skill I could choose.”

“I see. Maybe you should practice archery sometime.”

“Archery? I can’t get my hands on a bow.”

“Once we’ve finished transporting the food today, I’m planning to visit a home improvement store. I’ll see if I can find one for you.”

“In that case, I’m coming too.”

“All right. Let’s go together.”

We headed toward Shimojo Bridge. After speaking to Sakuma, who was standing guard at the fortified checkpoint known as Shimojo Fortress, we entered the Goblin Zone.

We encountered six Goblins on our way to the supermarket. Elena said she could defeat a single Goblin, so I decided to let her fight to help raise her level.

Apparently, she had encountered two Goblins at once yesterday and managed to defeat one, but the second had knocked her wooden club out of her hands. This time, I stayed close enough to intervene if things became dangerous, and she somehow managed to defeat a Goblin.

“Looks like you can handle them. Whenever there are two or more, I’ll thin out their numbers, so let’s keep fighting.”

“Does that mean you’re going to help me raise my level?”

“It’d be better if you raised your level enough to explore the Goblin Zone on your own, wouldn’t it?”

Elena’s expression clouded slightly.

“So you really are going to leave for somewhere else, Maki-san.”

Apparently, she had interpreted my words “on your own” as meaning that I intended to leave.

“That’s not what I meant. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do in the future yet. I just want to thoroughly explore the city. If I do that, I’ll probably have to spend some time away from the nursery school.”

“In that case, I’ll do my best!”

Seeing Elena smile as she said that stirred a strange desire to protect her within me. It wasn’t romantic affection, but something more like a protective instinct.

Just before we reached the supermarket, Elena defeated another Goblin.

“Ah, my level went up!”

After saying that, Elena’s face twisted in pain. She was probably experiencing the agony of having her body physically reconstructed.

I caught Elena as she was about to collapse, carried her into the supermarket’s back room, and sat her down on a chair. After a while, the pain tormenting her finally subsided.

“Do I have to endure that pain every single time?”

“No, the pain gradually gets weaker, so you don’t need to worry.”

“Thank goodness. The skills I can acquire are… ‘Heartstone Processing Technique’? Do you know anything about it?”

“That’s definitely worth acquiring. It’s a skill that lets you process Heartstones obtained from Aberrant Beasts into all kinds of things. It’s really useful.”

“Is that so? Then I’ll acquire it.”

I asked her to wait until we returned to the nursery school before actually acquiring the skill, and we began packing food from the back-room storeroom into the Shadow Bag. It became full after I loaded approximately 120 kilograms of rice.

I put twenty kilograms of rice into my backpack, while Elena packed ten kilograms of flour into hers, and we headed back. Carrying our heavy loads, we returned to Shimojo Fortress, where I handed Sakuma and the others a five-kilogram bag of rice.

“That’s incredible! You managed to find rice?”

Sakuma broke into a smile. There were several dozen people in Higashikami Town who made a living exploring the Goblin Zone and bringing back food, but apparently, fewer and fewer of them were willing to share rice, which could be stored for a long time, with Sakuma and his companions.

Incidentally, these people were known as Explorers.

“It’s starting to feel like we’re living in a fantasy world or a video game.”

“Everyone says that too. They say it’s like the whole world has turned into a game.”

Elena laughed. Apparently, she had been thinking the same thing herself.

We returned to the nursery school and tried to put the food in the kitchen. However, we soon realized there was nowhere to put it. The nursery school’s kitchen was small and lacked the space to store such a large quantity of food.

“Let’s ask Director Doi.”

“Good idea.”

Elena and I headed to the area where the cooking hearth stood.

Director Doi was helping prepare a meal.

“Oh my, you’re back early.”

After Elena explained the situation, Director Doi suggested storing the food in the unused infant room. Since there were currently no infants at the nursery school, the room wasn’t being used.

For the time being, we decided to store the food there and cover it with a blue tarp. I took the bags of rice out of the Shadow Bag and stacked them up.

“Leaving such valuable food in a place like this feels a little careless.”

Elena tilted her head and hummed thoughtfully.

“You’re right. But there’s nowhere else to put it.”

“Can’t be helped. We’ll think about a proper storage area later.”

Once we had finished moving the food, Elena began selecting her skills. She seemed to have settled on Heartstone Processing Technique as one of them. Apparently, Elena also received three Skill Points whenever she leveled up. I wondered what other skills she would choose, but she decided to acquire only Heartstone Processing Technique this time and save the remaining points.

After eating lunch at the nursery school, I left Elena behind and departed Higashikami Town. I entered the Goblin Zone, headed a little south through the shopping district, and turned west after about ten minutes. This route was shorter for reaching the home improvement store in the Beastman Zone.

However, there were an absurd number of Goblins along this street. Thanks to that, I managed to kill thirty-two Goblins with throwing knives and collect their Heartstones. Then I spotted the building belonging to the Inuyama Agricultural Cooperative, located in the center of the Goblin Zone.

“What the…? Goblins are pouring out of that agricultural cooperative building one after another.”

The agricultural cooperative building appeared to have become a Goblin nest. At that moment, a chilling sense of fear ran through me. Something terrifying was lurking inside that building.

My Presence Detection skill had picked up something beyond the usual signs of nearby creatures. It was a vague sensation, something like an overwhelming presence, but it felt as sharp as a blade made of ice, piercing straight into my mind.

“There’s something in there on the same level as a Minotaur.”

It seemed wiser to stay away from that building. I decided to avoid the agricultural cooperative and continue toward the Beastman Zone.

I moved onto the next street over from the one where the building stood and continued west. As I did, the number of Goblins I encountered decreased.

“Still, the number of Goblins coming out of that building is abnormal. Is there something special about the agricultural cooperative building?”

I continued defeating Goblins as I entered the Beastman Zone. Apparently, Aberrant Beasts had their own territories. There were no Aberrant Beasts near the boundaries between territories, so it might be possible to rest or even camp there overnight.

After walking through the Beastman Zone for about five minutes, I encountered an Orc. I switched my weapon to a Chinese-style broadsword. Saber Technique would have been the most appropriate skill for wielding it, but there was a problem.

The technique classified as Saber Technique by the Level System involved wielding a blade with one hand. It was a highly sophisticated martial art, and not something that could be mastered in a short period of time.

As a result, my fighting style consisted of swinging the broadsword around using Club Technique. Even so, it was enough to defeat an Orc. After all, Orcs did nothing more than swing their oversized butcher’s knives around with brute force.

I continued onward, defeating Orcs and collecting their Heartstones along the way. Before long, a familiar building came into view. It was the largest home improvement store in Yaso City. The building had three floors, with the grocery section occupying the first floor.

I decided to check the first-floor grocery section, just in case. Everything was gone. I also searched the back room, but there was no food there either. Perhaps the employees had taken everything with them when they fled.

Giving up on finding food, I headed up to the second floor. Toward the back was a section selling sporting goods and outdoor equipment, including an archery shop, so I searched for bows and arrows. This area had also been looted, but not nearly as thoroughly as the grocery section. About half the merchandise remained.

I spotted some bows inside a display case. They were Western-style bows known as recurve bows, and there were arrows and quivers available as well. There were three different models at different prices, but I had no idea which was best, so I decided to take all three.

“That takes care of the bow and arrows I promised Elena-san… Next is the wood-burning stove. I’m pretty sure I saw one here before.”

I remembered seeing a wood-burning stove at this home improvement store about a year earlier.

Relying on that memory, I headed toward the back of the second floor.

“There it is! A wood-burning stove!”

There was just one wood-burning stove left. It was a rectangular stove with a glass window. There were also chimney pipes and firewood. When I tried to lift the stove, I immediately understood why it was the only one remaining.

It was so heavy that even I, whose physical abilities had been enhanced by increasing my Individual Level, would have trouble lifting it.