Outpost
I reached out, and the blue sphere shuddered, its color slowly bleeding into orange.
This was… the same color that had appeared when I set up the Home Base.
Before long, every last trace of blue had vanished.
"Done! It's done!!! I've taken control!!"
"For real? What happens once you've taken control?"
"What happens? Heh heh heh. Just watch!"
Goat cleared their throat, then spoke in a voice far more solemn than usual.
"Awaken."
"……"
"……"
Nothing happened.
"What the hell, nothing's happeni—"
Then the sphere erupted in a blinding flash of light.
Ice clinging to every surface shattered and fell away, and the frozen earth and trees within reclaimed their original colors.
Chirp-chirp!
Somewhere, a bird took flight.
It felt as though time itself, long frozen, had begun to flow again.
A warm breeze brushed my cheek.
"Goat, what did you do? What even is this sphere?"
"I don't really know either. I just felt this weird power coming off it! Looks like that sphere was controlling this whole forest… so I basically hacked it and stole it!"
"You hacked it…? Is that okay?"
"Who cares! This forest is yours now. Like a second territory! So, a secondary Home Base…? An outpost?? Call it whatever you want!"
This forest was mine?
Just like that, another territory had fallen into my lap.
"So this place stays warm and safe like the Home Base, too?"
"Yep! But not quite as solid as the Home Base! If someone invades, stopping them might be tough."
So it wasn't absolute.
"Then… hmm, how about we call it an Outpost?"
"Outpost works! Let's go with that!"
"Can I grow plants and stuff here at the Outpost?"
I crouched down and ran my fingers through the soil.
Soft, fluffy texture.
I brought it to my nose — it even smelled earthy and fresh.
Healthy dirt.
With soil like this, I might actually be able to plant something and make it grow.
I still had a few seeds back at the cabin. If I could raise crops here, the food problem would ease up considerably.
"……You're joking, right?"
"Huh? I can't grow anything?"
"Of course you can!! But is that all you're thinking about?"
A strange sensation washed over me all at once.
Something vast seemed to be stirring, shaking the entire forest.
Moments later, things began rising one by one from the far side of the woods, streaking toward me at high speed.
"Aaaagh! What is that?!"
"Hahaha! It's nothing weird! Open your hands!"
I flung my hands open on instinct, and soft red things plopped down into my palms one after another.
These were… raspberries?
"I just picked them! There was a whole bunch over that way!"
"You picked them? How?"
"Heh heh. Don't you remember? Inside a territory, I can move anything I want."
"……!"
Of course.
This place was a territory just like the Home Base!
"Want some meat? How about rabbit?"
No way…
The words had barely left their mouth when a rabbit came soaring through the air from the far side of the forest.
It hung suspended right in front of my face, short legs thrashing wildly in midair.
They could do this too?
"Just say the word! Anything this forest can do, I'll do it for you!"
"Uh, yeah… put the rabbit down for now. I get the general idea of what you can do."
Gaining a warm territory was already astonishing — and now I'd gotten invisible hands on top of it.
At this rate, farming would be a breeze, wouldn't it?
Dozens of ideas were already racing through my head.
Somehow, I felt like I might actually make it through this winter.
"The general idea?! Come on, that's nowhere near enough!"
"Huh…?"
"I feel like I can do this, too!"
Suddenly, a crate from inside the cabin appeared in front of me with a heavy thud.
Instant material teleportation?!
This worked too?
But the surprises didn't end there.
"We're out of firewood, right? Here, watch this!!"
A log and a saw floated up out of the crate and began working together to fell a tree.
It looked exactly like an invisible person was doing the labor.
Shhhk, shhhk!
Crack! Boom!!
The tree toppled, and then the invisible hands set about splitting it into kindling.
Incredibly fast.
In no time at all, a neat pile of firewood sat stacked before me.
"Huff, huff… s-so? How was that?"
"That's incredible, Goat! I can't believe you can do this!!"
Though… they looked pretty worn out.
Goat caught their breath, then made a little grunt as if stretching their back.
"One last thing…! You're really gonna love this one!"
What now?
The thought had barely formed when an orange glow was already wrapping around my body.
And in the blink of an eye, I was back inside the log cabin.
"I can teleport too?!"
"Y-yeah, it's possible… ah, but this is really too—"
"Goat…? Goat!"
"……"
"What's wrong?!"
"Zzz."
After that, only the soft sound of breathing came through.
They just… fell asleep? Exhausted?
Apparently this kind of work took a serious toll.
So they couldn't move things indefinitely.
I lit the hearth, sat down, and sorted through everything that had happened.
Then I started thinking about what I could do from here on out.
"Maybe…"
Maybe I really could survive here.
Not just for a day or two — all the way until I grew old and died.
I ate the raspberries in my hand one by one.
They tasted sweet and tart.
The next day.
Goat didn't come to until morning.
"Zzz… hweh? What the—! Did I fall asleep?!"
"Yeah."
How loudly did a soul even snore?
If the status window hadn't had a mute function, I probably would have been up all night.
Goat laughed sheepishly.
"Ahaha… I must've used too much power."
"We should probably split the load. Teleporting me takes a lot out of you, right?"
"Yeah… seems that way."
"Then I'll walk to the Outpost myself."
In exchange, I'd lean on Goat's power for the tedious work.
First things first — time to fill my stomach.
"Any fish nearby?"
"Fish? There are! There's a river nearby, and a valley! And a spring, too!"
Perfect.
A river meant fishing and drinking water.
Sure, snow was piled everywhere outside the territory and I could melt that to drink — but this cold had come from the Demon Realm. Something about using that snow as drinking water just felt off.
Following Goat's directions, I headed to the river.
Sure enough, clear, transparent water was rushing along one side of the forest.
I scooped some up and checked the smell.
"Water quality seems fine?"
"You can drink it! There are Purefin living in the river!"
"Really?"
Purefin were translucent-scaled fish — this world's equivalent of a grade-1 water quality indicator.
I followed the river up to the spring, and sure enough, Purefin were living in the gaps between the rocks.
That settled it. Safe to drink.
I scooped up a handful and took a sip.
"It's good! And cold!"
"Really really?"
"Yeah. Can you catch some fish for me too?"
"Obviously!"
The moment the words left their mouth, Purefin came cascading out of the water and rained down on me.
"One! Just one is enough!!!"
"Aha!"
I released the rest and roasted a single fish over a fire.
"Looks like it cooked well."
"It looks so good!!!"
"Shame. You can do everything else — why can't you eat?"
"I dunnooo… Still, I can roughly guess the taste through your memories! Come on, try it!!"
I took a bite of the golden-brown Purefin.
The flavor was something like tuna.
"Is it good? Is it good? Is it good?"
"Yeah, it's good. Not bad at all."
"How good??? Better than what you ate at the Renard River?"
"Ah, a little less than that one. Back then I'd just come back from the brink of death, you know?"
"True! Hard to top that! But if it's only a little less, that means this one's pretty tasty!"
"You could say that."
"Niceee~ That boar we ate in the forest was really good too! Let's see… are there any boars around here?"
What a strange feeling.
These were clearly my own memories, yet it felt like we'd lived through them together.
Still, it wasn't unpleasant.
This was the first time I'd ever talked this long with someone about things I'd been through.
"Is there somewhere around here I could plant crops, too?"
"There is! Go straight from here!"
Not far from the river, I found a sunny patch of ground.
Good. This would do.
"Come to think of it — how is there a sun here?"
With the blizzards outside, sunlight shouldn't have been reaching this place at all. Yet when I looked up, something like a sun was floating above the forest canopy.
Goat laughed.
"Mwahaha! That was me, of course!! Without sunlight everything would die, right? I made the sun the moment I claimed the Outpost!"
"Is that a real sun?"
"Pfft, no way! Just an imitation. But it should be more than enough for plants to grow!"
This really was another world entirely.
I was reminded all over again just how extraordinary Goat's abilities were.
"Alright. Let's try planting some potatoes as a test."
"Yeah!!! Want me to dig the holes?"
"Sure. Let's do it together."
I could have just handed the whole job off to Goat like auto-hunting, but then they'd clearly collapse from exhaustion again.
Couldn't have that.
I grabbed a shovel, dug the soil myself, then brought seed potatoes from the crate and planted them.
"I didn't think these would still be around."
"You cast preservation magic on them after finishing all the quests, remember? In case anyone needed them."
Right.
I just never expected that "anyone" would be me.
"Think the potatoes will grow?"
"They will! I'll take good care of them!"
After that, I roamed the forest — chopping wood, foraging for herbs.
And as I did, one thought kept surfacing: it would be nice to have someone else here with me.
Apparently Goat felt the same way.
"Hmm… some extra hands would be really nice."
"Extra hands?"
"N-no, I mean, I'm more than enough on my own!!! It's just that this Outpost takes more power than the Home Base. Feels like the gravity's twice as strong, or something?"
"That bad? Then rest. I'll handle the rest."
"Khhn, sorry! I should save some power for emergencies. Gotta be ready to save you if things go south!"
About two days passed like that.
I was resting in the cabin, the food I'd brought beforehand about half gone, when Goat called out to me.
"Someone's coming! What do we do?"
"Someone…?"
Surely it wasn't Officer Lee Hye-yoon again?
"Look, here! Outside view!"
Goat pulled up a CCTV-like feed on the status window.
They were guests I never would have expected.