Swaaaah—
As if sympathizing with Dawi’s scream, rain fell over the forest.
Splash.
Dawi began walking, stepping through the wet earth.
Splash. Splash.
“…”
Without a word, he left the empty clearing and entered the dense coniferous forest once more.
His eyes were hollow, as if emptied out.
The dream he had pursued after giving up both marriage and money. His romance.
It had been shattered to pieces by the tornado, and even those fragments had been blown into another world, scattering and vanishing entirely.
Drip—
A drop of water ran down Dawi’s face.
The warm droplet was not rain falling from the sky.
Swaaaah—
As if he did not care whether he froze to death, Dawi walked through the forest without even thinking of taking shelter from the rain.
After walking like that for quite some time—
Prrr—
A somewhat familiar sound reached his ears.
“Don’t tell me…?”
Though this was another world, so it could have been an entirely different creature…
Though the time they had spent together had not been all that long,
the thought that it might be the one who had been a pillar of his romance—
Splash! Splash!
Dawi’s steps quickened.
“Ma… Malmari! Are you there, by any chance? Malmari!!”
And at last, a massive shadow revealed itself from among the rough undergrowth.
A rather large brown stallion.
With its prominent musculature, it was clearly no ordinary fine horse.
“…Is that not Malmari?”
Since it did not look like the common brown horse he had bought, Dawi stopped approaching.
Then—
“Neigh!”
The brown horse suddenly cried out loudly and came toward him.
It approached Dawi, snorting as it rubbed its face against him.
“Ma… you really are Malmari!”
Only then did Dawi recognize the saddle on Malmari’s back.
That old saddle was definitely the one that had come with Malmari when Dawi bought him.
“Prrr! Prrrr!”
Malmari, too, seemed glad to see a familiar face in this strange other world, snorting as he rubbed his face against him.
They had not known each other for very long, but a familiar face encountered in an unfamiliar place was a great comfort to them both.
“Haha! Malmari! You were alive…!”
Dawi vigorously stroked the bridge of Malmari’s nose.
Each time Malmari snorted, he could feel the hot breath from his nostrils.
“You came here too..! Haha!”
He had thought he had lost everything in the tornado, but he was not completely alone.
“But you… did you get some kind of injection? Your body is… whew.”
Malmari had become a muscular fine horse.
Even his mane had grown long and splendid.
“Ah… come to think of it, my body changed too. Then… Malmari, did you maybe get some kind of superpower too?”
As if he understood Dawi’s words, Malmari let out one snort—prrrr.
A short while later, Dawi examined Malmari’s flank.
The old saddle was slightly torn, but it had held up.
“Looks like it survived the tornado too…”
Dawi had lost his bandolier bag, but Malmari had not lost his saddle.
Dawi opened the buckle of the bag attached to the saddle and rummaged inside.
Within it were one old matchbox and a small pouch wrapped in cloth.
“What’s this…?”
Dawi opened the pouch.
There was a handful of yellow corn seeds inside.
“The previous owner must have put these in the saddle and forgotten about them…”
Dawi put the matches and corn seeds back into the saddlebag.
Perhaps the fierce rain had been only a shower, for it had stopped before he knew it.
Growl—
Only belatedly did Dawi feel the hunger and cold rushing in.
“For now… looks like I’ll have to spend the night in this forest…”
Dawi searched for dry branches to at least start a fire.
But since it had just rained, they were not easy to find.
“Whew… it’s cold.”
After barely finding a few dry branches, Dawi peeled off bark to make kindling.
“Let’s see…”
Recalling what he had seen on TV, he stacked the branches in the shape of the character “井” and placed the kindling beneath them.
Then he took the matchbox out of Malmari’s saddle.
“It’s really a relief I have this…”
After silently thanking the previous owner who had forgotten it in the horse’s saddle,
he struck a match and lit the fire.
Whoosh—
The flame that caught on the kindling soon spread to the branches and blazed up.
Growl—
The cold had eased somewhat, but his hunger remained.
Dawi crouched before the campfire and felt its warmth for a moment.
“Phew… Malmari, what do we do now?”
He sat in front of the campfire and warmed his hands.
Malmari lowered his head beside him and looked into the fire.
But that peace did not last long.
Crack—!
From afar came the sound of a branch breaking.
Dawi reflexively raised his gun.
“Ah! Load it!”
Dawi hurriedly broke open the barrel.
“Hmm…”
After hesitating, Dawi loaded two slug rounds.
Clack!
Dawi aimed the muzzle toward the forest where the sound had come from.
Gulp—
Just as Dawi swallowed,
“Mwooooo!”
The monster bull appeared. A massive bull with one great horn sprouting from its head.
Its horn gleamed in the moonlight.
“Oh, damn it! You again!!”
Thanks to the language knowledge that old man who claimed to be an archmage had forcibly implanted in him, Dawi knew that this was a wild bull of this world called a “Bighorn.”
Dawi immediately pulled the finger hooked around the trigger.
Bang—!
His aim with the first shot was perfect. However—
Crack!!
It struck the Bighorn’s massive horn and shattered it to pieces, but failed to stop its charge.
“Mwooooo!!”
“Oh, damn it!!”
Dawi pulled the second trigger.
Bang—!
The second slug round fired.
Boom—!
It tore through the monster bull’s shoulder and burst it apart.
“Mwooooo!”
But it only weakened its momentum; it did not stop completely.
“You fuck…!”
Dawi hurriedly summoned two more slug rounds, but there was no time to load them.
Thududududu!
Just before the Bighorn slammed into Dawi—
“Neiiigh!!”
Malmari let out a great cry and kicked the Bighorn in the side with his hind legs.
Kkaang—!!
The force was so tremendous that the monster bull toppled sideways with a heavy thud.
Clack!
In that time, Dawi finished reloading and fired a slug round into the Bighorn’s head.
Bang—!!
The Bighorn’s head burst apart, killing it instantly.
“Haa! Haa!”
“Prrr! Prrr!”
Their rough breathing filled the forest, which had fallen silent once more.
“Ma… Malmari, you got insanely strong.”
Instead of gaining a special ability like Dawi, Malmari’s body had become extremely powerful.
Growl—
When his stomach rumbled again, Dawi realized.
“Th-this…”
What lay before his eyes was not a monster,
“It’s meat, isn’t it?”
but food.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Using a shard of the shattered Bighorn horn, Dawi barely managed to carve off a chunk of flesh.
“Argh..! I should’ve brought a dagger too…!”
After much struggling, Dawi skewered the chunk of meat on a branch and began roasting it over the campfire.
Sizzle, sizzle—
Along with the sound of fat bubbling, a savory smell rose into the air.
Gulp—
Dawi swallowed as he waited for the meat to cook.
After waiting a little longer, Dawi took a big bite of the meat.
Crunch!
The crisp outer layer broke apart, and from within came a juicy, rich flavor.
“Damn it! This monster bastard is delicious!!”
Dawi tore into the meat ravenously.
After filling his stomach like that, Dawi glanced at Malmari standing beside him.
“…Sorry. There’s nothing to eat except meat…”
Dawi felt faintly guilty for eating alone.
Whoooosh—
As the night deepened and the forest grew colder still, Dawi felt the chill despite the campfire.
“Brrr…”
Shivering from the cold, Dawi looked at the fallen Bighorn carcass.
“This won’t do!”
Dawi sprang to his feet and began skinning the Bighorn.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Since he had no blade, he did it roughly with a shard of the broken horn.
“Phew…”
After barely managing to peel off the hide, Dawi wrapped it around himself like a blanket and sat back down before the campfire.
“Malmari, aren’t you cold?”
At Dawi’s question, Malmari merely snorted.
“Maybe because your body’s been strengthened, you don’t feel the cold as much…”
Crackle. Crackle.
Silence arrived along with the sound of the campfire burning.
“Malmari, what are we really going to do now?…”
Leaving the unanswering Malmari beside him, Dawi continued thinking on his own.
The Texas ranch had already collapsed. On top of that, he had been blown into another world.
Dawi’s lifelong dream had disappeared.
He simply had no idea how he was supposed to live from now on.
“Haa…”
Dawi let out a sigh and looked up at the sky.
The moon of this other world was larger and brighter than Earth’s, and there were more stars, shining even more brilliantly.
“The night sky is damn pretty.”
If this had been Earth, and he had simply been looking up at the night sky while camping, it would have been a moment overflowing with romance.
“Romance…”
Romance. The thing Dawi valued more than money. The thing that had collapsed along with the tornado.
Dawi pulled the leather blanket tighter around himself and looked up at the sky again.
Romance was not something born from comfort.
If it were, people would feel romance in their comfortable homes—so why did they feel it while camping?
Why did they feel romance on a countryside ranch rather than in the city?
Romance was an emotion that had nothing to do with bodily hardship or ease.
Perhaps it was something beyond mere emotion.
“Yeah. There’s no reason I can’t feel romance in another world, is there?”
Perhaps, if anything, another world was even more romantic.
The night sky of another world, a campfire in another world.
Wasn’t this a romance that camping on Earth could never compare to?
“Malmari. I guess I really can’t give up.”
My collapsed dream. Romance, my number-one priority.
Dawi took off the cowboy hat he had kept on his head and stared at it for a moment.
A cowboy and a ranch.
Dawi’s dream.
“My romance hasn’t all disappeared.”
A cowboy hat, a classic shotgun, and even Malmari.
If he wore a cowboy hat, held a double-barrel shotgun, and rode a magnificent brown horse, wouldn’t that make him a cowboy?
“The ranch… I can just build it again. Right, Malmari?”
The muscular brown horse snorted once, as if in agreement.
“So what if it’s not Texas?”
There were ranches in Texas, in Northern Europe, and in Korea.
So…
He would build a ranch again in this unfamiliar world.
His romance, in that way, ignited once more.