When I woke up at dawn, I immediately started grilling the rest of the meat. After I finished grilling them, I tore the herbs over them and wrapped them up with the leafy vegetables. I then put the finished pieces inside the makeshift food container made of leaves. With this, my meat-wrap packed meal was complete.
The backpack contains the pouch with the processor modules, my military uniform and work overalls, the remaining food rations, 3 pet bottles filled with drinking water and the rare material tablet case.
I heaved the backpack onto my back, carried the blankets under each arm, put the laser gun inside a pocket holster and slung the rifle over my shoulder.
Sporting full equipment, I walked away from the lake sh.o.r.e area and headed towards the river.
(Please highlight them whenever we approach some patches of mock-potatoes.)
This will be useful for quickly discovering mock-potatoes growing along the area since they"d be automatically highlighted in red.
I managed to find some almost right away. I pulled them out and put them inside my backpack"s side pocket. The pockets quickly became full of mock-potatoes, so I stopped gathering them. There"s a long journey ahead, so I can"t spend too much time doing this.
I was able to reach the large river within two hours. I was afraid of bathing in the river tributary near the large lake due to that unknown creature, so let"s look for a place where the water level isn"t so deep.
After about 30 minutes of walking along the riverside, I finally managed to find a spot with a nice, clear view of the surroundings and water depth which felt just right.
The water was deep enough to immerse myself in, but the riverbed still remained fairly visible and there seemed to be no unknown organisms lurking within. I still maintained a level of alertness, but seeing that there were no obvious threats, I finally managed to take a quick bath.
Uh~ya! That"s cold! But I got excited from the joy of being able to thoroughly wash my body after three days. Let"s wash the uniform too while we"re at it.
It was unfortunate that I didn"t have any body soap or shampoo with me, but it was still rather refreshing.
Fu~u, that was great. I put away my freshly washed work clothes after squeezing them dry and pulled out a spare one from my backpack. It was a little wrinkled, but it can"t be helped.
I started walking once more after refilling the pet bottles with water.
Then, after walking along the river for about an hour, I heard a faint gushing sound. I rushed towards the direction of the sound in slight disbelief, but really did manage to see a waterfall in the distance. It seemed to have an elevation of more than 30 meters.
I"ve only ever seen waterfalls on the holobit before, so I was quite psyched to see one in person.
But this was a bit troublesome. I didn"t have a way to reach it since there were no available paths leading towards it. After searching for a while, I managed to find something resembling an animal trail.
The trail continued away from the river, but I have no other choice. There"s no time to carve out another route from scratch, and it seemed to be fine since the path was leading downstream.
I"ve already walked for several hours, so I"ve become quite hungry. I decided to eat my lunch.
Mm. The meat-wraps were delicious even when cold! It"s just around noon huh.
After establishing the length of individual days in this planet, it became possible to indicate the current time on a small virtual window display.
After finishing my lunch, I started travelling once more. And just as I thought about finding a good place to sleep while it was still bright outside, I suddenly found myself arriving near an open clearing.
It continued along towards the distance. I thought it somehow felt like it was purposely cleared out, and when I got a closer look, my suspicion was confirmed.
It was an authentic road!
There were traces of wheel tracks running through it. It was a road made by carving out the side of a mountain, and seemed to be five meters wide.
I brandished my rifle and scanned the immediate area.
There seem to be no problems for the time being.
But this was really a surprise. Did those green colored creatures make this? No, they"re definitely not intelligent enough to make something of this scale.
When I looked closer, I found some indents resembling hoofprints of domesticated horses used for transport along with the wheel tracks. Were there actually horses on this planet? Anyway, it was certainly a hoofed creature.
Was this something like a carriage which appears in stories? There were a lot of hoofprints scattered all over. Maybe it was a carriage pulled by multiple horses or something?
The hoofprints were facing forward relative to my location, so the carriage most likely moved from the direction to my right towards my left. The wheel tracks were pretty deep, so it seemed to be quite a large carriage.
I"ll try chasing after it. This is the first clue I"ve obtained about possible intelligent life. Such a chance may not present itself easily next time.
The tracks look relatively new. They should have been made about two days prior at most. Alright, time to get serious!
(Long Distance Sprint Mode)
[Acknowledged.]
I then started running after the carriage.
Humans breathe in oxygen and discharge carbon dioxide from their bodies.
Under the Long Distance Sprint Mode, the nanoms reinforce the lung cells in order to maximize the efficiency of this bodily process, and also enhance the maximum oxygen intake capacity of ones blood. In other words, it would allow you to run without feeling much fatigue.
This makes it possible to continue running at a considerable speed for a long time, but it can"t be used often because it puts too much strain on the body.
I"ve been running for quite a while now. I should"ve pa.s.sed more than a hundred kilometers already. I"ve kept the same speed since I started running but I still haven"t managed to catch up.
It"s almost evening so it might be time to give up on pursuing them for today. But at this point, my enhanced hearing managed to pick up sounds of fighting in the distance. The road bent and twisted around the side of the mountain, so I haven"t been able to see anything yet.
I stopped running and cautiously approached.
I managed to confirm the source of the sound after moving across the road which heavily bent to the left. It was about a hundred and fifty meters ahead.
The carriage had fallen over, and two humanoids were being a.s.saulted by over fifteen creatures resembling really large wolves.
I quickly zoomed in on them.
“Those are—!!”
What appeared before me were lifeforms who looked no different from your average human. It was a man and a woman; each wielding swords. They were fighting while covering each other with the carriage to their backs.
A number of people and horses were lying p.r.o.ne on the ground all around them.
“d.a.m.n!”
The moment I tried to brandish my rifle, two of the wolves simultaneously attacked the pair.
(I"m gonna save them. I"ll leave the aiming to you.)
[Acknowledged.]
The nanoms promptly replied.
Already expecting their quick response, I immediately began pulling the trigger.
Pulse laser shots burst forth from the pulse rifle. The shots scattered in order not to hit the humans. All the wolves were downed instantly. However, the two humans were already on the verge of collapsing.
Dammit! I started running toward them with my nanom reinforced legs.
I saw how bad they"d had it when I closed in on them. There were ten people in total. Eight men and two women. Each of them were wearing things resembling medieval armor.
Apart from the two who fought until they fell down earlier, all the others had their throats badly mangled and were undoubtedly dead. I hurriedly went towards the two who have already fully collapsed.
The middle aged man was still barely breathing, but his throat was also similarly mangled. A large amount of blood was spilling out from his wounds. It should be too late for him.
The young woman"s throat wasn"t bitten, but her left hand was ripped off from the elbow down and her right foot just above the ankle was also missing. She was bleeding profusely and had lost consciousness.
The man tried to lean on the carriage in order to support himself up. Then, our eyes met.
The man kept his gaze at me for a few seconds, turned it towards the woman and once again brought it back towards me.
When I nodded in acknowledgement of his implied request to take care of the young woman, he slowly closed his eyes and stopped breathing.
I immediately proceeded to aid the young woman. No, instead of calling her a young woman, a young girl would seem more appropriate. I"m guessing her age to be about 16 or 17. She was practically covered in blood. But this was no time for dawdling about.
(What should I do?)
[Please get in contact with her blood.]
I immediately did as instructed.
(How is it?)
[There"s no mistake. Her genetic make-up closely resembles that of humans.]
So that"s really the case. It was a surprising discovery, but basing solely from her appearance, it wasn"t all that strange a conclusion.
[Please tie up her wounds with something to stop the bleeding.]
Something? What “something” should I use?
When I tried to look around, I noticed a dead horse with a leather mask fastened on its mouth. A long leather strap was attached to it, so I secured it with my knife. It was probably used to control the horse.
I tightly bound the area 3 centimeters above where her foot was severed. I also did so for her arm.
[A portion of nanoms have already gathered on your left wrist. Please cut it open and let her drink your blood.]
Cut my wrist?
This guy can be quite harsh sometimes.
How do I actually make her drink up though? I can"t waste my precious nanoms.
That"s it! I remembered the makeshift cups I created out of the damaged pet bottles. Let"s pour some blood into this and then have her drink from it.
I brought out said cup, placed it at the ready, psyched myself up and put my arm over it. Fu~u. I kinda resent the fact that my electromagnetic bladeknife cuts so d.a.m.n well.
[Please cut the vein here.]
The blood vessels were suddenly highlighted in green and the incision point was indicated by a red line.
Couldn"t you have done this for me sooner?! I really was about to cut my wrist without any sort of d.a.m.n guide just now y"know.
It was kinda scary, so I decided to cut myself slowly. Urgh. Huh? It doesn"t hurt.
[Your sense of pain is currently suppressed.]
d.a.m.n you! You"re doing this on purpose, right? The blood started acc.u.mulating inside the cup.
“Oh, that"s quite a lot…… Hey, aren"t we done yet?”
The moment I had this thought, the blood flow stopped. The gathered blood looks to be about 100 cc.
[I also have a blood transfusion function.]
You can even do that kind of thing? That"s amazing man.
I lifted up the upper body of the girl and opened her mouth. Can she really drink this? I slowly poured the blood into her now-open mouth. The blood in the cup drained out little by little.
[That will be enough. Pour the rest of the blood directly on top of her wounds.]
I see. I poured the blood evenly on her open wounds.
[Please take two rare metal tablets. Have her take eight of them afterwards.]
So it"s really that kind of method huh. I took the pill case from my backpack and poured out ten tablets.
I directly swallowed two of them. But how exactly would I make her ingest these?
[There is no need to directly ingest them. It will be fine to just put them inside her mouth.]
Okay, I get it. I put eight tablets inside the mouth of the young girl.
These tablets contained a concentrated amount of rare metals. It was a collection of valuable materials necessary for replenishing nanoms. If someone without any nanoms within his or her body were to ingest these, they would be no better than poison.
However, on a body infused with nanoms, the said nanoms would immediately secure the metals before they could be absorbed by the body directly and would use them in order to replicate themselves.
Usually, nanoms are able to break down and convert rare metals and turn them into other nanom copies in a matter of a few short moments.
[There"s a problem with the sections where her limbs were torn away. Please cut them cleanly with the knife.]
Well, it does look pretty nasty, with the bones sticking out and all.
[Her pain receptors have already been suppressed.]
d.a.m.n, you sure work fast. I quickly took out my electromagnetic bladeknife.
In order to make some clean looking wounds, I"ll have to start cutting a few centimeters above the base of the original injury points.
The electromagnetic blade knife flashed and quickly made vertical cuts above the original bases of the wounds. There was only a little blood that trickled out before the bleeding stopped, but it was still quite the curious experience. I just hope it won"t appear in my dreams or anything.
[There is a need to apply bandages to the wounds.]
Well, that"s certainly true. Problem is, I don"t have some. Looks like I need to search their belongings.
I looked around the area once more and managed to notice something just now. There was a small clearing on the side of the road nearby. Was it a resting spot?
Yeah, seems like it. There"s some bonfire remains there. Some smoke was still billowing out of it. There was a U shaped hitching fence present, and the horses died around it. So that"s it… I"ve managed to piece together their situation when they were attacked.
They were in the middle of a break and may have planned to stay in this place for a while after considering the late hour when they arrived.
They secured their horses to the hitching fence, lit a bonfire and were in the middle of resting when the wolf pack suddenly attacked.
The two horses tied to the carriage were attacked as well, and the carriage was overturned when they thrashed about in panic.
The other horses were tied to the fence, so they couldn"t run away and died. The humans were killed off one by one until only two remained in the end.
It was something like that, I guess.
Maybe there"s something which could be used as a bandage inside the carriage.
I jumped on top of the overturned carriage and peeked inside, but there was nothing resembling any sort of luggage within.
Apparently, all their luggage was loaded on top of the ceiling. There were four large cases made of leather that have fallen about nearby.
For the time being, I carried all the cases and brought them near the girl. There were no openings for keys and they were simply bound by leather belts, so I opened them straight away without much fuss.
Hm, clothes huh? There seem to be a lot of male clothing. I could just cut them up and use these, but with a group of this number, there should be some actual bandages present.
Hm. There"s also some women"s clothing. There"s some items resembling dresses. Could be hers.
Oh. I think I got a hit. There were various things like liquids stored in small bottles and some dried medicinal herbs inside.
Here we go. These are definitely bandages. There were three rolls of thin white cloth. When I picked them up and examined them, I discovered that they really were simply long strips of thin cloth. They had no elasticity, buy they were relatively clean.
(How do I wrap the wounds with these?)
[Please remove the leather strips you used to stop her bleeding first.]
Oh yeah, that"s right. Her blood has long stopped flowing out from her open wounds. I cut the strips off with my knife. Then, a fourth of the virtual window displayed by the nanoms showed ill.u.s.trations about the proper way to use and wrap bandages around a foot.
Lessee here. First, let"s do this (flicks to next diagram), then do that (flicks to next diagram), and finally do this (flicks to last diagram)… Aaand we"re done. Not bad. Not bad at all, me.
[First aid successfully administered.]
Fu~u, I"m finally done. I sat down and caught my breath. After giving it another look, I noticed that the place near the bonfire presented a more open s.p.a.ce.
I better move the girl there. I can"t just leave her in a place filled with corpses after all.
I spread out a blanket over the spot and carried the girl there. It was already evening, so we"ll have to stay here for the time being.
(How long would it take before she can properly move about?)
[She needs about one full day of rest.]
Yeah, guess so huh.
If that"s the case, then it would be better to clean this place up. It"s not a good thing to spend more than a day or two in a place littered with corpses. Guess I"m pulling an all-nighter.
Let"s light a bonfire first. It should brighten this place up and serve to ward off animals as well. Since the bonfire that was made prior wasn"t completely extinguished, I just added more firewood to it in order to reignite it.
I should also light one up on the opposite side of the clearing. I took some of the already burning firewood and arranged them over there to make another bonfire. Next would be the corpses.
When I examined the wolf corpses, I confirmed just how big they were. They should be over two meters long from the base of the head to the tip of the tail. There were thirty five wolf corpses, all in all. I killed fifteen of them, so I guess the rest were done in by the late armed group. But the price they paid for these kills was exceedingly great.
I thought of enhancing my strength and throwing these guys over the mountain valley, but when I got a better look at them, they seemed pretty heavy. They should weigh more than a hundred and fifty kilograms by my estimate.
Let"s just drag them and drop them down the valley then. The slope was pretty steep and the bodies rolled in an interesting way. Alright, let"s keep at it.
I managed to find her severed left arm and right foot while in the middle of cleaning up. They looked pretty messed up. Should I keep them? Oh, and I should secure a pair of boots as well.
Next would be the human corpses. I can"t possibly throw them inside the valley as well, so I"ll have to bury them. But I had no digging tools with me. Is there something like a shovel in the luggage?
It"s already gotten quite dark, but I could see just fine thanks to the nanoms. It won"t work in total darkness, but since I was under the illumination of the bonfires, I had no trouble seeing at night.
I immediately found a shovel as soon as I started my search. It was installed at the back of the carriage. Guess it was part of their supplies.
Let"s gather those corpses first. I couldn"t just drag them either, so I resorted to carrying them one by one. The burial spot I chose was on the opposite side of the clearing where the girl was recovering.
When I lined the corpses up, I managed to observe something. Everyone of them wore things resembling protectors on their arms and legs, but the girl I managed to save didn"t. Why is that?
But well, the wolves probably went for their throats instead because they had these equipped though.
Digging graves for all these people seemed like a real ch.o.r.e. Let"s put some back into it.
After two hours pa.s.sed since I started digging the graves, the nanoms suddenly declared: [The girls has started regaining consciousness.]
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