Strolling Under the Stars

Distant stars flickered, and the morning wind was biting.

On the eastern horizon, a crimson full moon was slowly rising.

The forest seemed to wake up as birds and beasts began their daily activities.

Although this was a world of eternal night, the boundary between what they called day and night was quite distinct.

Feeling the breath of the woods, I stopped among the bushes and gazed up at the sky.

Watching the stars that were twinkling last night quietly disappear one by one, I couldn’t help but marvel at this magical natural landscape.

“So sleepy…”

A complaint entirely unrelated to the scenery.

It couldn’t be helped; I had stayed up almost all night.

After moving all my tools into the storage bag, I had also stuffed all the dust collected from the storage shed yesterday into a pre-prepared device.

It was exactly the kind of dust bomb I had used back on the pirate ship.

While this thing only produces smoke, it can often have miraculous effects if used correctly.

To be honest, dust bombs have saved me more than once.

Likewise, they have also caused me a fair share of trouble.

“I’ll try not to use it unless it’s an emergency… ugh!”

While I was grumbling, a gust of cold wind hit me full in the face.

With this temperature, winter was truly arriving.

“Hah… hah…”

Thick white mist escaped my mouth.

In a world without a sun, winter was much harsher than in my homeland.

Most of the trees in the forest had lost their leaves, except for a struggling few.

The cold wind rampaged through the forest, and every time it brushed past my face, it felt like the cut of a blade.

Fortunately, this level of cold couldn’t get to me for the time being, and the reason for that lay right in front of me.

It was a wooden barrel twice my size.

I had been pushing this barrel forward non-stop until now.

The forest floor was rugged due to fallen leaves and rocks, making this work more physically demanding and time-consuming than I had imagined.

Even in such cold weather, I could feel my body beginning to sweat.

However, thinking about what was to come made me feel that no matter how hard it was now, it was worth it.

“Alright, let’s keep going.”

I did a simple chest expansion exercise and stretched my arms before gathering my strength to continue pushing the barrel.

Yesterday, while performing maintenance on the tools in the storage shed, I found some empty barrels that had once held wine.

I didn’t think this village had the capacity to brew wine, so these were likely bought from the Goblin merchant caravan.

Carefully pushing the wine barrel, I tried to stick to the main path as much as possible.

Although wine barrels were designed to be sturdy for brewing, they would still break if treated too roughly.

I intended to make good use of the barrel’s sturdiness later; it would be a total loss if it broke halfway through transport.

Sweat quietly soaked my clothes, and my skin inevitably began to itch again.

Enduring this irritation that had plagued me for days, I took deep gulps of air into my lungs and focused on the task at hand.

Still.

“I really want to take a bath…”

I let out a long sigh toward the sky as I pushed the barrel.

There was a river flowing directly down from the mountaintop, which was the lifeblood that nurtured this village.

After leaving the storage shed yesterday, I saw some villagers returning with water.

After asking, I learned the exact location of this river.

The road to the river was called a main road, but in reality, it was just a forest path formed by the diligent Nako villagers treading through the bushes.

Come to think of it, my pushing this barrel along was also contributing to the path.

After about twenty minutes, I began to hear the sound of the river.

As I approached the water, I temporarily set the barrel upright and stopped.

The trees receded from both sides of my vision, and a broad river appeared before me.

I could see the water rushing down from the mountain; the speed of the current was evident just from listening to the slightly deafening sound of the flow.

Even though winter was arriving, the river had not yet completely frozen over.

I assumed this was because of both the speed and the volume of the river’s flow.