I'm fucked.

(Photo of the cave entrance completely blocked by snow)

I think I'm fucked.

That is the conclusion I have reached after careful deliberation.

I am fucked.

└Heavenly Demon Is all of that snow?

└Wild Grylls Yes. It's hardened, probably because of the cold, so I'm digging it out with a pickaxe.

└Heavenly Demon Can you not clear it easily with sword energy?

└Wild Grylls I can, but I don't know how much is piled up. It just keeps falling down.

└Sword Masta Isn't that dangerous? What if you run out of oxygen...?

└Wild Grylls I'm holding out thanks to the chimney I opened up yesterday. Speedy added firewood, so I think it melted all the snow there.

└Sword Masta Speedy seems to have saved your life quite a few times.

└Why does that read like literature?

└Just three sentences perfectly conveying how fucked he is lmaooo

└There's swearing in it but it doesn't even feel like swearing lol

└But can snow really pile up that high? Is that another Forest of Four Seasons thing?

└Nah, not this one. Happens a lot in places with heavy snow. Apparently it often piles up to the top of the door.

└Just look at the northern Messiah Empire. People there apparently shovel snow every day lol

└I'm from the north, and clearing snow is more annoying than killing monsters. It's literally garbage falling from the sky.

└Allfather Even so, that is an abnormal amount of snow. It would be difficult for so much to accumulate overnight.

└Wild Grylls No matter how much I dig, more snow keeps pouring down from above.

└Allfather A word of advice: rather than spending time on the forum, why not dig more snow? This seems dangerous.

└Wild Grylls I am still digging.

I was working hard at it, even if this was closer to “mining” with a pickaxe than digging with a shovel. The trouble was, however much snow was up there, it kept tumbling down and filling in every hole I made.

If the speed-sloth hadn't added firewood overnight, the chimney would have been blocked too. If even my only source of oxygen had been cut off... I didn't want to imagine it.

The speed-sloth was an enormous help in everyday life, not just combat.

'But can the other animals survive snow like this?'

And not just the animals. I wondered whether the plants could survive, too. With so much snow piling up, there was no way they could grow properly. Yet all sorts of trees towered high enough to form a “forest.” Either they had the vitality to withstand this snow, or there was some other explanation.

'If winter in the forest is this bad, how much more fucked up are the other environments?'

This was the state of the forest, with its relatively “normal” climate. The snowy mountains and desert would be worse, if anything, not better. The tropical rainforest where the gorillas lived probably wasn't any different, either. It made no logical sense for my home to be the only place like this.

'I'll never finish just blindly digging away.'

I considered climbing out through the chimney, but quickly abandoned the idea. It wasn't very wide. Getting stuck would be a catastrophe. I was better off committing to digging out the pile at the entrance until I broke through.

'I need to clear the entrance before it snows again.'

If more snow fell now, I might spend the rest of my life trapped in this cave. Even the chimney wasn't a guarantee of safety. No, forget the chimney—I was worried about the cave itself.

Snow weighed an incredible amount once it piled up. Could this cave really support all that weight? Especially after I'd altered it a little to build the chimney?

I couldn't just sit around doing nothing.

'Fortunately, I've got plenty of firewood.'

I took down the cloth covering the entrance and built a new fire. The snow had frozen hard, so I would melt it with fire. That was my reasoning.

Of course, I wouldn't just sit and wait. Once the snow melted a little, I'd go back to digging.

THWACK! THWACK!

As time passed, the snow softened and became easier to dig. I was careful not to let falling snow put out the fire.

How long had I been at it? Eventually, the snow stopped filling back in when I dug it out. At last, the end was in sight.

“Whew!”

I surveyed the results of my labor with pickaxe and shovel. At long last, I'd cleared all the snow filling the cave entrance.

But that was only the entrance. The surrounding area was another story. The cave entrance was already much taller than me, and the snow was piled even higher than that.

'People in Russia and Canada live in places like this?'

How did they manage? I genuinely wanted to know.

Staring at the space I'd cleared just outside the entrance, I suddenly thought of the military. I remembered shoveling snow during my service, and spreading calcium chloride to keep the ground from freezing.

'Does the term calcium chloride even exist here?'

This world had alchemy, not chemistry. Ordinarily, chemistry was what came after alchemy. But considering how effective Elixirs were, its level of advancement was probably every bit as impressive as chemistry's.

So perhaps making calcium chloride would be easy. That was my thought.

'If that doesn't work out, I can use salt.'

I'd heard you could spread salt if you didn't have calcium chloride. Something about environmental damage and how using salt was better.

'I'll ask once I'm done working. For now, let's spread some salt.'

Salt was available from the auction house. It was expensive, but it was a survival essential with plenty of demand, so it never ran out of stock.

I worked my way along, spreading salt over each patch of ground I shoveled clear before digging out the next. Fortunately, it didn't snow again, so I could also build additional fires here and there.

Still, I had to figure out how to maintain this path and carve out an area where I could move around.

'Forget a chimney. At this rate, I need an emergency exit too.'

I would have to seek the wisdom of people who lived in cold regions soon. I didn't know how long this winter would last, but it didn't seem likely to end quickly.

It was nearly lunchtime by the time I finished clearing the area around my shelter.

*'It's not completely devoid of plants like the snowy mountains. There must be something...'

*I pondered that as I cleared snow off the oven and furnace. As I'd noted earlier, plants and animals couldn't possibly survive with snow piled up like this. It should have been as barren as the snowy mountains. Surely it wouldn't stay this way.

Maybe it would return to normal as soon as tomorrow?

I hadn't been here long, and so many dramatic things had happened that I couldn't help entertaining all sorts of theories. Winter had arrived out of nowhere, so summer could do the same. Imagining this enormous mass of snow melting away brought me a little comfort.

But imagination was imagination, and reality was reality.

'It might snow again. Let's bring everything I can into the cave.'

The metal tub full of frozen fish. The bellows. All my various tools, and so on.

I couldn't move the makeshift oven or furnace, so they had to stay where they were. I reassured myself that they were unlikely to collapse under snow anyway, and even if they did, I could rebuild them.

That more or less finished my preparations for winter and being snowed in. I finally had a moment to rest and was just about to open the forum.

RUMBLE...

An ominous sound reached my ears, and the ground trembled faintly. The instant I heard and felt it, I went straight into the cave. Without panicking, I took up my sword and shield.

I wasn't going in to hide, but to prepare. Living here had taught me that preparing like this was better than passively waiting for my fate.

SWISH...

Just before I stepped outside, the speed-sloth reached out a hand. Did it want to come along?

But it needed to protect the hibernating Roundfur. I forced myself to ignore its outstretched hand and left the cave.

RUMBLE!

The noise and vibrations had grown stronger. What on earth was coming? Judging by how quickly they were building, it was definitely moving fast.

That only made me more tense. I had no idea what might appear. Just in case, I circulated my mana and even manifested my aura.

After concentrating on the sound and vibrations for a while, I realized where they were coming from.

'Behind... the cave?'

Behind it, directly opposite the entrance. I whipped my head around as soon as the thought struck me. It was strange that something was coming from behind the cave rather than the forest, but this was the Forest of Four Seasons.

Nothing that appeared here would be surprising.

Even if it was...

ROOOOAR!

...not a living creature, but a disaster.

“Uh. F*ck?”

As an avalanche surged over the cave from behind like a tidal wave, time seemed to slow down.

In that brief moment, I glanced down and saw the speed-sloth looking at me from inside the cave. Its expression seemed full of contempt, as if asking why I'd ignored it and gone out alone.

It hadn't been reaching out to say it wanted to come along. It had been trying to stop me.

ROOOOOSH!!

“Gah! Urgh! Uagh!”

No matter how strong an animal was, it was utterly helpless before nature. I was no exception.

I hastily drove my sword into the ground, but it was useless. Heavenly Demon's sword was too good at its job. As the avalanche pushed me along, it simply sliced through the ground. For once, its effectiveness had backfired.

'I-I'm being swept toward the river, aren't I?'

Even in the chaos of being carried away by the avalanche, I recalled my bearings. This avalanche was heading toward the river. And beyond the river lay a place where the terrain changed constantly.

This was dangerous. One wrong turn and I might never make it back to my shelter.

'Not the sword. The shield...!'

I flailed my shield around instead of Heavenly Demon's sword, hoping to catch it on a branch or anything else. With my body almost buried in snow, it was little more than a desperate struggle, but I had to try, didn't I?

Survival meant doing whatever you could to stay alive.

THUNK!

My desperate efforts paid off quickly. I didn't know which tree I'd caught on, but I distinctly felt my clothes snag.

I'd been prepared to let go of Heavenly Demon's sword if necessary, but I stopped just in time.

“Mmphphphph!!”

Of course, that still left my body taking the full brunt of the avalanche. I held on and kept holding on, waiting for it to end.

“Pwah!”

After what felt like an eternity, the avalanche finally ended. Normally, an avalanche left heaps of snow behind, but strangely, it had all been swept away. Thanks to that, I wasn't buried in a snowdrift and could breathe freely.

“Cough! Cough!”

Coughing, I looked around. The avalanche must have swept away all the snow, because I could see bare earth.

First, though, I needed to work out where I was. Across the river would be the worst possible outcome.

'I'm not across the river.'

I seemed to have caught on a tree near the river. The frozen river was right before my eyes, so that much was certain.

Beyond it lay terrain completely different from this side: snow-white mountains. The snow there was tremendous, too. The avalanche that had just passed had clearly gone over there.

I couldn't tell whether the snow had moved or the forest had driven it out.

'Was the terrain even suited to an avalanche in the first place?'

Was there a mountain nearby? I was confused.

Or perhaps the forest was literally “alive,” like a living creature, and had cleansed itself. With weather this shitty, there wouldn't have been any plants left if it couldn't cleanse itself. It would have ended up just like those snowy mountains across the river. That seemed like a strong possibility.

'If even the forest is like this, what the hell are the other areas like?'

I was growing more and more afraid. I quickly got myself sorted out and returned to the cave.

“... Ah.”

There, I was greeted by the devastated yard outside my shelter. The avalanche had swept away not only the barricade, but the makeshift furnace and oven as well.

The furnace and oven could be rebuilt, but the barricade was a problem.

*'So this is why there's no civilization here?'

*Civilization couldn't exist when everything was constantly being swept away.

* * *

While Grylls was starring in a one-man disaster movie...

SHHHHHHHH!!

...a disaster was also unfolding in the grasslands of the Forest of Four Seasons.

The region had distinct wet and dry seasons, so heavy rain was to be expected during the wet season. But what happened when too much rain fell? Surely the grasslands would absorb it all?

“Gah! Pwah!”

“Graaah! Graaah!”

No such luck. An actual flood had struck the grasslands, harming countless animals. The worst affected were those that had failed to find shelter, especially the young. Still small and weak, they were simply swept away.

“Hmm.”

One man was watching all this unfold in real time: Ludwig. He was still wearing his heavy armor to retain its protection.

“So this is why this animal has such long legs.”

“...”

He was currently escaping the disaster on a giraffe's back.

Giraffes were known for their foul tempers, but this one left Ludwig alone. The lump on its head offered a clue to its reasoning.

'I would have been in serious trouble without this animal.'

Seated on the giraffe's back, Ludwig looked up at its face. It stood calmly even amid the flooded grasslands. It had only moved beneath a large tree to shelter from the rain for a while; otherwise, it remained steadfast on its own.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Then a tremendous noise reached Ludwig's ears, accompanied by vibrations that shook the earth. Turning toward it, he saw something difficult to believe.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

It was a turtle. Not a sea turtle, but a tortoise. Instead of an ordinary shell, it carried an enormous “mountain” on its back.

As befitted a creature carrying a mountain, its body was terrifyingly huge. With rain pouring down hard enough to cause a flood, animals were climbing onto its back.

Had Grylls seen it, he would have called it a living Noah's Ark.

“...”

Ludwig watched the tortoise plod silently along, then turned his head.

'A person can actually live in a place like this?'

He was growing ever more curious about Grylls. The catch, of course, was that Grylls's entire yard had just been swept away.

'I should find shelter on higher ground. I have a fine horse, so I ought to manage reasonably well.'

It was a giraffe, not a horse.