As they entered the mountain range, Dawi dismounted from Malmari.
Malmari handled mountain paths well, but Dawi was uncomfortable.
Crunch, crunch.
Clop, clop.
Even without Dawi leading him by the reins, Malmari followed him on his own.
“Still, there shouldn’t be any dangerous animals here…”
The moment Dawi spoke in relief,
“Muuuuuuh!”
A Bighorn appeared.
“You again!”
Dawi calmly shot the Bighorn in the leg.
Bang—!
The buckshot buried itself in the Bighorn’s foreleg, slowing its charge.
Dawi fired another round of buckshot at the limping Bighorn.
Bang!
“Muuuuuuh!”
With its left foreleg rendered completely useless, the Bighorn toppled to the side and let out one great bellow.
Clack!
Dawi loaded a slug shell and fired at the Bighorn’s head.
Bang—!
Once the Bighorn was dead, Dawi skinned it with his rusty axe.
The axe blade was thick and even rusted, so the hide did not peel away smoothly.
Dawi struck again and again with the axe blade into the gap between hide and flesh, working the skin loose.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Still, it was far easier than skinning it with a shard of horn.
“If the season really is late autumn right now, winter will be here soon, so I need to get as many hides as I can.”
The Bighorn was not an especially shaggy animal, so its hide was not outstanding for warmth. But it was absolutely better than nothing.
After trying out the Bighorn blanket, Dawi found that Bighorn hide was tough and waterproof, making it seem well-suited for armor or tents.
Dawi cut a long strip from the edge of his previous Bighorn blanket and tied it around his waist like a belt. As for the remaining blanket, he roughly punched two holes in it, slipped his arms through, and was using it as something resembling both a vest and a cloak.
Thus, the Bighorn hide blanket had been reborn as a leather vest-cum-cloak and a leather belt.
After finishing with the new Bighorn hide, Dawi rolled it up, placed it behind the saddle, and tied it down with cord.
“Whew… Malmari, sorry the load keeps getting heavier.”
“Prrr!”
Malmari snorted as if to say it was fine. Compared to Malmari’s size and strength, this much baggage was nothing.
Dawi tucked the rusty axe into his belt and loaded two rounds of buckshot into the shotgun.
Clack!
Loading two rounds of buckshot had now become Dawi’s habit.
Looking at the skinned Bighorn carcass, Dawi muttered,
“I wonder if there are any other furry animals besides Bighorns.”
Just then,
“Prrr! Prrr!”
Malmari suddenly began snorting.
From experience, Dawi knew this was Malmari’s sound of vigilance—or warning.
Slide—
Dawi pulled the axe slightly up from his belt so it would be easy to draw, then raised the shotgun.
He swept the muzzle this way and that, glaring around him.
As if to prove the saying that words could become reality, Dawi saw a furry animal.
“Grrrrrr…”
It was an enormous brown bear.
“Shit…”
In this other world, this bear was simply called a “brown bear,” but Dawi wondered if it might be bigger than a grizzly bear from Earth.
“Why is everything here so damn big…”
The cattle were big, the wolves were big, and the bears were big.
‘Now that I think about it, Malmari got bigger too…’
Dawi swallowed dryly and quietly backed away.
“Prrr. Prrr.”
Malmari’s breathing had grown rough as well, as if he too was tense.
‘Buckshot definitely won’t do…’
Even on Earth, a grizzly bear was not something you could reliably take down with a gun.
Unless you shot it and made it run away, or by sheer luck hit a vital spot, you couldn’t kill it.
In particular, a bear’s skull was extremely thick, so aiming for a headshot was actually a bad move.
However, there was a gun that could shatter even a bear’s skull.
‘A shotgun. The problem is… that only works with slug rounds.’
If he fired buckshot, he might only end up enraging the bear.
Besides, Dawi had never seen a grizzly bear in person, but he doubted one would be bigger than this bear.
At most, it would probably be about the same size.
Therefore, recklessly firing buckshot was truly a dangerous choice.
“Grrrrrr…”
The bear growled low and slowly approached. Dawi and Malmari retreated by the same amount, maintaining the distance.
Perhaps because it was in the middle of preparing for hibernation, the brown bear had also grown wide around the sides.
Just as Dawi and Malmari continued to back away,
“Grrrr…”
The bear stopped in front of the skinned Bighorn carcass.
And then,
Crunch!
It began tearing into it and eating.
‘It wasn’t trying to hunt us…!’
Greatly relieved, Dawi slowly left the area.
Once he felt they were safe, Dawi immediately broke open the gun and removed one round of buckshot.
Clack!
Then he loaded a slug shell.
“Buckshot is more effective against zombies, but…”
As with the bear just now, zombies were not the only threat in this world, so Dawi decided to keep one slug and one buckshot shell loaded at all times.
After changing the ammunition and climbing the mountain again, Dawi suddenly came to a halt.
“Bear hide…”
The hide of the bear he had just seen had looked extremely warm. If he slept under that, would winter nights not be very cozy?
Dawi looked down at his shotgun for a moment, then turned back.
“Could I take it down with two slug rounds?”
If he failed to kill it within those two shots, Dawi would be the one to die.
“…”
After pondering for a moment, Dawi began walking forward again.
For now, he was not confident he could bring down a bear with two shots.
“Not yet…”
.
.
.
“Huff! Huff!”
After climbing the mountain for a long while.
When more than an hour had passed since Dawi’s breathing turned ragged,
“Prrr! Prrrr!”
Malmari snorted and began moving ahead.
“Malmari? What is it? What’s gotten into you?”
Dawi also quickened his pace, following behind Malmari.
“Haaah! Haaah!”
What unfolded before Dawi’s eyes after climbing the mountain was…
“Water!”
It was a small lake.
It was a little small for a lake, but absolutely too large to be called a pond.
Dawi approached the lake and gulped down the water.
Malmari was already drinking.
“Kaaah~!”
Dawi let out a refreshing sigh of admiration and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
Then he examined the lake more closely.
“About half the size of a soccer field?”
The center of the lake was fairly dark in color, making it look quite deep.
There were also fairly large fish swimming here and there inside the lake.
Two small streams connected to the lake: one flowed down from higher up the mountain, and the other flowed out toward the foot of the mountain.
Thanks to these two streams, the lake’s water did not stagnate, but flowed little by little.
“…This is perfect, isn’t it?”
If fairly large fish could be seen from the lake’s surface, there were surely quite a lot of fish living within it.
“Fish are a good source of protein.”
Clop-clop! Clop-clop!
After drinking water, Malmari seemed excited and ran in a circle around the lake.
There were no trees growing along the edge of the lake, so there was enough space for Malmari to run.
“Malmari seems to like it too…”
After running one lap, Malmari grazed on the grass growing around the lake.
“…Good. Let’s start here.”
From that moment on, Dawi’s hard labor began.
Whack! Whack!
Dawi diligently chopped at trees with his axe.
Fortunately, conifer wood was not a particularly hard type of timber. In other words, it was easy to work with.
Dawi chose the area where the stream flowing down from above the mountain met the lake as the site for his home.
By the time Dawi had finally managed to set up the basic framework, the sun was already going down.
For now, Dawi took matches from Malmari’s saddlebag in order to start a campfire.
Then,
Thud.
He accidentally dropped the pouch containing corn seeds onto the ground.
One seed fell out of the pouch and rolled across the soil.
Dawi quickly picked up the pouch and tried to pick up the seed as well. But then,
“Hm?”
The seed had split slightly, and a root was visible.
“No way…”
Crack.
The root grew a little more and dug into the ground.
“No way…!”
That was right. Plants were living things too.
Upon crossing into this other world, they too had undergone a change, just like Dawi and Malmari.
Dawi quickly picked up the seed that had put down roots. Then he looked around, searching for a good spot to make into a cornfield.
After finding a place with relatively few stones and pebbles, Dawi roughly leveled the soil with his foot,
then planted the corn seeds at set intervals.
There were twenty corn seeds in the pouch in total.
Before much time had even passed, they began to sprout.
“Is this some kind of rapid growth ability?”
In any case, Dawi was able to fall asleep comfortably, looking forward to the corn that would appear the next day.
.
.
.
The next day.
“Let’s see, how much corn grew…? Hm?”
Dawi was a little flustered.
“This is… practically a tree, isn’t it?”
The stalks were twice as thick as ordinary corn.
They also seemed to be about three meters tall.
And Dawi was a little disappointed.
There was exactly one ear of corn on each stalk.
The corn itself was not any larger, either.
Just ordinary-sized corn.
“Hmm… Still, this is better than nothing!”
In any case, it was still precious food, so Dawi picked the corn with gratitude.
“And if I plant these again…!”
Imagining the surrounding land filled with corn, Dawi planted the kernels in the ground. Unlike before, however, the corn seeds did not sprout.
.
.
.
About two months passed.
The newly planted corn never sprouted in the end.
Instead, the twenty corn stalks bore twenty ears of corn every day.
Thanks to that, Dawi did not go hungry. Malmari also lived by eating corn cobs and weeds.
Dawi made a roof of wood and Bighorn hides for the small field containing the twenty corn stalks.
The corn stalks remained fine even as the weather grew cold, but he could not be certain they would bear corn the same way if they were hit by snow and rain.
Here and there in the lake, fish traps made by weaving together cords fashioned from Bighorn hide and tree branches had been set up by Dawi.
One wall of Dawi’s wooden house had been built with logs, while Bighorn hides hung on the other side.
For now, he was blocking the wind with Bighorn hides while gradually building up the walls.
Unable to shave during that time, Dawi had grown a thick beard.
Malmari was still healthy.
And…
Drift. Drift.
White specks gently settled on the lake and vanished.
It was the first snow.
***
North of the Allos Mountains, which stretched long from east to west.
Immediately north of this mountain range lay the cold North Sea.
At one point on the northern side of the range was a basin terrain, sunken in and possessing a very small patch of flatland.
Because it looked as though it were surrounded by snowy hills, this land was named Snowhill.
Not many people lived here.
In summer, the wind blew from south to north.
Clouds and winds carrying moisture were caught on the Allos Mountains and could not reach this northern region.
As a result, it was extremely dry, and temperatures rose above thirty degrees.
In winter, the wind blew from north to south.
Clouds heavy with damp, cold air were caught on the Allos Mountains, dumping tremendous amounts of snow on this region.
If there had not been a river flowing down from the perennial snow atop the Allos Mountains, no one would have lived here at all.
Because it flowed down from the Allos Mountains, people called this river the Allos River.
This river, not particularly long, connected directly to the cold North Sea.
Knock, knock.
The butler knocked on the study door.
“Come in.”
A beautiful, clear voice came from within.
The butler soon opened the door and entered.
“I have returned, Baroness.”
“What did they say?”
“…They asked for more food.”
“…Didn’t the dwarves suffer severe damage from the zombies too? They shouldn’t have many mouths to feed…”
The hosts of the zombie virus were all races,
meaning humans, elves, dwarves, and so on.
“They say there are dwarves who fled here along the Allos Mountains. That is why they need more food… And it seems they have not been able to mine much iron ore.”
“…Why is that?”
“They said that, since around two months ago, thunder has been heard from the Allos Mountains, and that the mountain is angry because they mined too much iron ore. They are primitive dwarves, after all…”
The butler was a man with an imperial citizen’s sense of superiority.
The Empire itself had in fact collapsed long ago due to the zombie crisis, and this small territory had only barely managed to survive thanks to good fortune.
The Baroness let out a sigh and said,
“We’re short on food as well… For now, let’s exchange at least a little. To maintain public order, the knights must be armed, and for that we need more iron ore.”
“…Yes, understood.”
***
Meanwhile, the culprit behind the thunder was digging into the ground with a rusty axe.
Thud! Thud!
“In winter, the lake surface will freeze! I’ll store that ice in an underground tunnel and make an icehouse!”
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Before the cold arrived in earnest and the ground froze, he had to dig as deep as he possibly could.