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Following the main road for a while, the sun started to set. Well, they did say that it’ll take three days so that’s just natural. How do I say this, I obviously am going to sleep outdoors, but… As expected, I’m a bit reluctant to sleep directly under the stars. And so, I decided to make a tent with 【Dream Fabrication】.

I move to the forest, just a bit away from the main road, and set up the tent. For food, I have the jerky I stol… no, received from the bandits, so I took a bite at it.

「…… Hard… Gross…」

Yeah. This jerky is, generally speaking, really hard and salty. Though I desperately try to chew it down, I can’t even leave a mark. Rather, I can’t even cut it. I was going to try softening it with my saliva somehow, but it’s too salty that I even hesitate to just put it in my mouth.

「Uuuu… Hungry…」

Just what have I done to deserve this harsh treatment on my first night in this world? Curled into a ball, suffering in hunger, pain, and sorrow…. Well, there is food inside my 【Dream Storage】, you know? And I can also get food using 【Dream Fabrication】, you know? But the only food in the 【Dream Storage】 are either raw or that gross jerky, and the ones produced from my 【Dream Fabrication】 will turn back into a dream if I eat it. More specifically, when it loses its original form, it disappears. Think of just how painful it is: you take a bite at your shortcake, only for it to disappear in thin air.

◆◇◆◇◆

Curled up in a ball inside the tent, I try to forget my hunger and somehow managed to sleep. But the next morning, perhaps unable to take my hunger, I woke up while it was still pitch-black. Do I sleep again or do I head off early today? While thinking so, I could hear strange noises. Almost like the sound of metal colliding…….

「Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!」

Wait, someone’s screaming! It looks like there’s a battle going on somewhere nearby. Time-wise, the bandits should still be recovering, so they probably aren’t energetic enough to attack anyone. But maybe they still have some other friends out there. If that’s the case, people getting attacked on the main street might be my fault. Thinking of that, I forced my starving body up and ran towards the direction of the screech.

「Please… Don’t be too late…」

Perhaps that Pig God heard my prayer, the battle was still ongoing when I arrived. However, the situation’s already quite dangerous. Two wagons were parked near a bonfire. Two men clad in armor, probably the escorts, and green-skinned child-like… Rather, those are probably goblins, I think… are locked in combat. And in the rear is a woman dressed in a robe, another armed with a bow, and there’s a man collapsed at their feet, bleeding from the stomach.

It seems like there’s already someone wounded, which isn’t really surprising since the number of goblins is beyond the dozens. Considering that they’re up against a number more than twice their size, they’ve done well lasting this long. Searching the wagons for a bit, I can feel the presence of four people huddled inside. It’s probably the wagon’s owners, I think. Three adults and a child. A couple, their child, and a servant, maybe?

No, this isn’t the time for that! Seeing that the front line’s already broken, they’re going to end up annihilated at this rate. I don’t know how the goblins are treated in this world, but in this situation at least, I don’t think I have any reason to side with them.

「I’ll assist!!」

Saying it as loud as possible, I attract attention to myself and started operating my magic. Though I’m just aiming for the goblins, if I ended up causing an explosion or something, they’re probably going to dragged into it. Focus on not getting them into it…. And chantless magic would stand out too much, huh. In that case…

「I ask, for the power to repel the injustice before us; I beg, for the atrocity right before us, to “Freeze”!!」

Reciting a somewhat proper sounding spell, I activate my magic. Freeze, even without me amplifying the effect, is a wide-range magic that causes freeze. Naturally, the only ones frozen are the goblins. I made extra sure that even the slightest chill won’t reach the escort people.

「Thank god it went well. Are you alright?」

I ran towards them with a trot and called out to them, but they look strange. They’re not reacting to my voice, only staring at me vacantly with their mouths wide open. Uhhh? Did I perhaps, do something wrong?