“Haa…”
It’s cold.
But seeing something like steam being expelled right beside me, it’s definitely a steam geyser, the kind that exists for geothermal power.
Thankfully, unlike in the original game, if I stay right nearby, I probably won’t freeze to death at least—ow, hot.
I almost got burned.
“F-first of all.”
Considering all the deaths I’ve experienced, this may be based on the original game, but it isn’t identical to it.
No matter how much the ground was made of snow and ice, I never got stuck to it before.
Good. For now, I’ve somehow solved the warmth problem, so next I need to mine the rocks I can see around me, turn them into bricks, and build walls!
“…How am I supposed to do that?”
In a game, you can mine and build with your bare hands because of game logic.
Now that this has become reality, how am I supposed to do it?
[Why don’t you try doing something?]
“…”
I head toward a rock nearby.
Then I kick it as hard as I can, but of course, nothing changes.
[What was that?]
“I was trying to break this.”
[I was under the impression that rocks were hard. Were you supposed to be able to mine them just by hitting them?]
“…”
[I didn’t know that.]
Does this fucking bitch attend some academy for talking like an asshole?
It’s beyond inconvenient and honestly an emergency, but what I can’t do, I simply can’t do. Let’s set it aside.
“Do you perhaps have a minimap function or something?”
[Where would I have something like that? You’ll have to find your way yourself.]
“…If this is based on the original game, shouldn’t you at least have something like that?”
[It’s reality to you, isn’t it? Ah, could you mine that boulder with your bare hands in the original?]
“…”
Rage boils up inside me, but I have to endure it.
Who knows what kind of bullshit she’ll pull if I curse at her and she uses that as an excuse?
[I can make some concessions for convenience, but if I give you direct help, even as a god, a price has to be paid. So handle the little things yourself, and if you’re really, truly in a situation where you see absolutely no answer, I’ll help.]
“Ah, yes…”
[You’re not even saying thank you? I guess you don’t need it?]
“Thank you very much. As expected of a goddess.”
In conclusion, it means I’m on my own from now on.
In that case, searching the surroundings comes first.
I head to the right and circle around a rocky hill. There’s a thin layer of ice, but I can see water rippling.
Just in case, I try drinking it, and very fortunately, it isn’t seawater but ordinary water.
“Good. And…”
As I look around, I see something strange.
It’s too small to be called a building, and too much like a proper ornament to be called a stone monument.
Wondering what it is, I walk over and find something a little shorter than me… like an altar? Something like that.
[Wow, fascinating. What’s that?]
“I don’t really…”
Just as I slightly stretch out my hand to touch it, a sensation I have never felt even once in my life runs through my entire body.
How should I put it? A feeling that if I touch that thing, something irreversible will happen. Or perhaps I should call it overwhelming fear.
[What’s wrong?]
“No, nothing.”
If you don’t know what something is, it’s best not to touch it.
Looking around, this time I see an object between the rocks that appears to be an artificial wall.
If something like that is buried in this kind of natural environment, there’s only one possibility.
“…Ugh.”
[What’s that now?]
“Something I shouldn’t touch yet.”
If I had my way, I’d open it immediately, but inside, insect colonies or mechanoids are always standing by, so it’s something you must never open in the early stages.
An ancient ruin.
Warm up near the steam geyser and explore.
How many times did I repeat warming myself nearby and exploring?
I got hungry.
Even if I had avoided the immediate danger of freezing to death, my stomach was churning, as if reminding me for the first time in ages that I was alive.
I need to eat something, but whether it’s sea ice or ice sheet, there are no berries anywhere.
What do I do now?
“What abilities did you say I had?”
[Checking temperature and date, checking status, planting crops without seeds. And regression, of course. Construction, meaning an ability that lets you disassemble and build without much trouble? And the ability to light a tiny bit of fire. Regression.]
“…Fire?”
[Really tiny fire. It only comes out a little from your finger, and it doesn’t last long either, so don’t expect much. You can use it to light firewood, that’s about it.]
“How do I check the temperature?”
[If you shout ‘status window,’ you’ll probably figure it out.]
Following the goddess’s words, I shout “status window,” and an opaque black window with a UI similar to the game’s stat screen appears before my eyes.
The first window contains information on the temperature of my current location, the set room temperature, pollution level, and the medicine and food I have.
The current temperature is 5 degrees Celsius.
I don’t know at what temperature people freeze to death, but wait, it’s summer right now?
And it’s even the second day of summer?!
“This is insane.”
“…”
Set room: none.
Pollution level: 0%
Medicine owned: 0
Food supply: 0 days
…This is seriously empty.
The second window contains information about my stats.
Shooting, 0.
Melee is 10 with double flames. Construction and mining are also high numbers with a single flame attached, and the rest of my stats aren’t bad either, but just as the goddess said, art and research aren’t even active.
[Oh, right. If you want, I can make that possible, but you’ll feel reeeally awful.]
“Thank you for the information. Uh, wait.”
[What?]
Tough, brawler.
Honestly, brawler is only good in the early game, and after a certain point it seems like a trait that might as well not exist, but well, it isn’t a bad trait to have.
The problem is the trait beside it.
Gourmand.
“ ”
[Is there a problem? You don’t have pyromaniac, and you have tough.]
“I don’t, that’s true, but haa…”
It is a negative trait, and it makes hunger drain faster than other people’s.
Honestly, gourmand is a trait that might as well exist or not exist, but the place I’m in is this goddamn place where not even a single plant can be seen.
“No. Seeds. How do I plant seeds?!”
[You see the ground nearby? If you roughly glare at it…]
As the goddess tells me, I glare at the ground, and this time a light-green window pops up.
The place I’m looking at now isn’t ordinary soil, but gravel.
Corn is good for cost efficiency.
When soil quality is good, rice.
When it’s bad, you plant potatoes. That memory comes to mind, so for now, I plant potatoes.
[…]
“This is bad. Wow…”
[Hey, I know I’m not one to talk, but shouldn’t you decide where you’re going to live first?]
“I have to plant them before it gets colder, or I won’t be able to eat.”
[Really?]
“…”
I say that, but in an environment of 5 degrees Celsius, who knows how well plants will grow.
Thinking that if they grow to a reasonable point, I can harvest and eat them right away, I keep turning over the ground with my feet and planting seeds with my ability. Before I know it, it’s dark.
“Haa… ugh.”
They say time flies when you work, but this is too fast.
I don’t know how fast they’ll grow, but I started farming as soon as I began, so it should be fine.
Anyway, considering my whole body got stuck to the ground, that means there’s a chance I could fall into the hole here while sleeping.
If that happened, it would be a disaster beyond disasters, so I carried flat stones over near the steam geyser.
They’re incredibly heavy, but the fact that I can move them at all is a great stroke of luck.
If I arrange them about this much, I won’t slide around while sleeping, and my body won’t fit through either.
And since I haven’t completely blocked it, the rumbling should be less severe, and as a bonus, the stones will get nice and warm, so I won’t freeze to death in my sleep.
Today I farmed, so tomorrow I’ll focus on exploration, and disassemble every building I see.
And then build walls centered around the steam geyser, make a room even if it’s narrow… and… and… the stone is really warm…
“… …”
“…”
“!”
It was cold, but feeling a warmth that was pleasant enough in its own way, I fell asleep.
But my stomach is screaming at me to hand over food immediately.
I want to fall asleep like this to forget my hunger, but I can’t.
It hurts.
Naturally, as I’m wondering what I should do in this space without a single piece of food, I spot a white-furred rabbit digging up the ground where I planted the potatoes.
I say rabbit, but it’s a huge rabbit, shorter than my thigh.
“ ”
I’ve never hunted even once in my life.
On top of that, I wonder if I can hunt such a big rabbit, but just because I’m scared, am I supposed to sit back and watch it ruin the potato field I worked so hard to make?
“That fucking…”
I want to pick up a weapon to hunt that rabbit, but naturally, the only thing I have right now is this body.
The only things I can get my hands on nearby are flat stones and cold snow.
But to relieve this hunger—no, to protect the field—I have to catch that damn rabbit no matter what.
If I don’t, I’ll starve to death in agony nearly equal to freezing to death.
To relieve this hunger that feels like it’ll tear out of my stomach any second, I have to catch and eat it.
To live. Because I don’t want to die, I have no choice.
“Phew…”
I steel my heart and clench both fists.
I am a tough brawler.
It’s a rabbit.
Even if it’s big, it’s just a rabbit!
If I make a sound, it might run, so I approach it as slowly as possible. But perhaps it senses my presence, because it darts away, and I stare after it in despair.
No, I can’t just stare.
If I let it run away like that, if I miss it, I’ll have to starve.
If I want to sleep with a full stomach, comfortably, I have no choice.
I don’t remember how long I ran around trying to catch that rabbit.
Compared to wandering aimlessly over the sea ice, running with a clear goal felt truly good.
I felt like I would collapse from exhaustion any second, but compared to the pain I had experienced, this was no harm at all.
Not meaningless struggling, but flailing with a goal.
I grabbed the rabbit’s fur.
Then I swung my fists wildly, literally at random.
The rabbit, too, wanting to live, kicked at me and bit me.
I am tough, and I’m good at fighting.
A mere rabbit like you cannot dare stand against me, so I will win.
And if it means eating you, I can endure this much pain, so please!
“Die!!!!”
I don’t know how long I punched it, but my hands are numb.
I literally lost my reason and kept punching, and when I came to my senses, the rabbit was already dead, not reacting even when I touched it.
“…”
It’s good that I killed it, but now I don’t know how to butcher it.
My body is aching, and blood is even leaking from my arms, but that isn’t what matters right now.
I don’t have time to butcher it, and I’m hungry.
I blindly bite into the rabbit and tear it off with all my strength.
Seeing how my mouth is full of fur, what I just tore off is probably the hide.
I go to the lake I discovered first, rinse my mouth, and then literally begin tearing into the rabbit’s corpse.
The first food I eat after coming to this rimworld is the corpse of a freshly caught rabbit.
It hasn’t been cooked at all, and it’s a limp corpse. If not for this situation, I would never have eaten it, but…
“It’s delicious…”
It was truly, truly delicious.
Enough to bring me to tears.