CH 53

After returning to base and unpacking my luggage, I went on organizing stuff. It’s good that I brought back large number of books and utensil for making seasonings, bit I think I brought too much. And since they wouldn’t see immediate use yet, I had to store it somewhere else for the meantime. That’s why in order to make room, I’m arranging a room in the basement of the facility.

The only problem is that I’m too big.

The facility is designed for human sized use that’s why it’s inconvenient for the current me who have a gigantic body. As a result, I ended up using a lot of time just to organize. Well, it was satisfying after it was over. The books are all now placed in a bookshelf along with the secret data disk that I hid.

Then I picked up one of the books and flipped through the pages. The colors have already fade but I can still make out the shape and details of the plants. It used to be hard to flip through the pages but now I can do it easily without ripping of a page.

Suddenly, I stopped. The contents of the book aren’t entering my head. I’m distracted by something aside from the knowledge that is in front of me,

(It’s not just my imagination isn’t it)

The strange feel – the one I had ever since I lost consciousness and woke up that day where I thought it might have been just due to the effect of the poison or mental stress. However, despite being in a condition that I could say barely perfect condition, I was able to move as usual but now I am now feeling that all my movement are now more nimble.

(Don’t tell me that poison from the octopus was more powerful than I thought and I powered up after overcoming it? I have read a lot of manga about overcoming such crisis ending up dramatically increasing one’s ability but I never thought that it would happen to me)

With such a high-spec body wouldn’t I be the most powerful being in existence? But this only made me ask the limit of the Empire’s technology.

(it’s frightening, I wonder I fi was able to be deployed on the battle field I wonder if the ultimate weapon wouldn’t have been used.)

It seems that there are other genetically enhanced soldier just like me exist, but it’s possible that they were frozen due to some issue. Like that spider who has ill taste that would cost such rejection even if he was an imperial soldier. Imagine that guy running amok in the battlefield, I’m sure the imperial government wouldn’t allow such folly.

(Finally, I’m entering the elven territory)

The idea of <since they won’t come to the river, then I’ll be the one coming over> won in my head.

This would be a dangerous mission, unlike in Canaan, I would be up against elves that can fire powerful magic. My plan is to scout first and get information then once I got sufficient information, I would increase the scope of my action.

I close the book in my hand that has the image of a girl that closely resembles Ms. 6 and put it back on the shelf.

Reconnaissance would be done on night that’s why I still have some time too just read and chill.

(If possible… No… I shouldn’t let myself be seen. That way the elves would let their guard down.)

Before I hunt for dinner, I decided to take a glimpse of the river and as expected there’s no elves there. So I went back to hunting quietly and caught some boar while beating monster along the way.

After preparing the meat and throwing it in the cooler I returned back to reading.

(Books about edible wild plant, wild vegetable and mushrooms are good. The more ingredient’s I know the more repertoire I can have. Tomorrow, I guess, it might be a good idea to bring it along the forest.)

If I can find foodstuff around the base I can have them regularly, it’ll help a lot in enriching my diet in the future. Though the problem here is that I don’t really like mushroom and wild vegetables but I have to let go of those dislike as securing those ingredients are my top priority. I just pray that my taste bud have changed since I changed to this form.

Time went by and the time to go had arrive. I put the book back at the shelve respectively. The sun starts to set so  decided to have dinner although it’s a bit early. My stock   of vegetable is dwindling steadily and I have to go back to get some along with some spice soon.

After cleaning up, I quickly set out and by the time I reached the river, it’s already dark and quiet.

(I don’t sense anything… I don’t hear anything nor smell anything)

Unless, they’re underwater, there’s no way that I should miss them.

(Using my stealth ability in this forest… I wonder if they can break it. Then again there’s Ms. 8)

I sighed confidently till I remembered the girl Ms. 8 who was blindfolded and had excellent hearing.

Once I stepped into the woods beyond the river something caught my attention. It seems that the ecosystem change from this point onwards. I start seeing plants that I had not seen growing around the temporary base and some of them are written in the book about edible wild plants that I read earlier this afternoon.

(Whoops! I almost forgot my purpose here)

I walked around carefully not to make any noise or break any tree but because of this huge body it was difficult to do so. The elves with their familiarity with the forest might have already knew I was here due to the broken branches that I made since my impressions of them is that of the <Forest people>

Well it seems that everything is going well, but it’s also disappointing that there’s no change at all. Well it’s understandable because I scouted expecting something to see.

Even though it’s risky I decided to head to the place where I predicted the village would be based on my previous surveys.

I found it even though I was slightly off my estimate- well, honestly it was further than I expected.

I believe it was what I was looking for based on the appearance alone. A place surrounded with wooden structure with white glowing orbs around it.

I tried snooping in using my heightened sense but it was useless as I could only hear faint voices whose word I can’t understand. Though I noticed that there are few armed elves on patrol so I believe that they aren’t alarmed at the moment.

(Well, it’s not impossible that they think that their defense is enough. Anyway, it’s worth the trip so I need to bail out now before they see me. After that I have to think what should I do tonight after this)

I am able to get some good information though I wish I was able to get some geographical information as well. I want to find where are the other elven settlement are and also now where the water source is.

I used my Mimicry and left. I find no elves patrolling so I started moving out. Once I reached the river, I released the skill. It seems like the tie of use of the mimicry extended quite a bit since I was able to return with it still active. I was expecting for it to release itself before I arrive at the river.

After waiting for a while to recover, let’s change the target location and enter the forest again. I want to uncover the elven position even by little by little, eve if by small increment it would eventually bear fruit and benefit me in the near future.