How to Survive in the Roanoke Colony-Chapter 75: Car

I returned to Croatoan Island after a long time, precariously carrying the Hijet on a barge.

The reason for bringing the Hijet was obvious. There's hardly anything pointed to load and carry from Croatoan Island.

The Hijet may look quite pathetic, but that's only from our 21st century perspective.

The power this tiny car's engine can produce is a whopping 35 horsepower.

...Of course it looks ridiculously pathetic, but as mentioned earlier, that's by 21st century standards. Let's think about what the standard of "horsepower" actually is.

Horses. Horses.

From the perspective of this era, where horses pull carts, wouldn't the Hijet have tremendous power equivalent to a carriage pulled by thirty-five horses?

Bump!

"...Guess not."

Anyway, after disembarking from the barge, I'm now driving along the well-paved (by 16th century standards) road, but I feel like I'm going to go crazy with anxiety every time I hit a rock. What if this thing tips over?

If I were just driving it empty, that would be one thing, but since I'm carrying various equipment for maintenance at the Chesapeake settlement, it's incredibly nerve-wracking...

Bump! Clank!

"Uh, uhh... uhhhh...!"

W-wait a minute, why is the wind blowing from the side right now?

Come on, no way.

It's still a car. It's not made of cardboard or corrugated paper, but steel. How could a steel car be blown over by the wind...

CRASH!

...It can.

I thought I was going to die.

Actually, to be precise, I already died once. I can feel my broken ribs rattling inside my body.

Normally, this would be 100% fatal. The reason I can state this so definitively is clear.

Medicine in this era is so underdeveloped that statements like "You have too much blood in your body. Let's drain some," and "Blood... circulates around the heart? What?! I've never even heard of such a thing!" are commonplace.

If your ribs break and puncture your internal organs, you die without even having a chance to do anything about it. You just die, painfully.

But I survived. I'm recovering.

I could feel the bones inside my body knitting back together and the wounds in my organs healing.

Right. Thanks to the immortality cheat, I've survived countless near-death crises. I should be grateful for just that.

'...If I hadn't fallen into the 16th century, there wouldn't have been any life-threatening crises either.'

Getting my heart stabbed by suddenly appearing Spanish soldiers, having my entire body turned into an exhibition by some assassins, or like this, dying defenseless when the Hijet overturns on a remote unpaved road...

Ah, I guess the last one is quite possible in the 21st century too.

Suddenly, cold sweat runs down my back. After escaping from the car through the broken window in my blood-soaked clothes, I finally realize:

If I had driven this piece of junk, I would have met my demise someday even in the 21st century.

Did Fansuku Software actually extend my life? Indeed... I'll bow three times a day in the direction of Montreuil, France, where the Fansuku Software headquarters is located.

No, I didn't originally drive such a garbage car.

Maybe not in the city (although it's still dangerous in the city), but in the countryside with many narrow, rough, winding roads that aren't properly paved, driving something like a Hijet is just perfect for enjoying a naked swim in the Jordan River.

You think I'd just drive this car because I'm crazy? This coffin that's slightly less than 1 ton. This car that tilts and overturns when the wind blows a bit strongly.

With or without reason, anyone who drives a Hijet is a crazy bastard? Why are you rubbing salt in my wounds? I also had a better car than this, damn it.

A 2017 Porter. Double cab, long-wheelbase, 4-wheel drive, solid one.

I used it to transport grapes to the direct sales store, and while posing in the driver's seat, I'd fill a corner of the local newspaper with articles like "Shine Muscat? Not dead yet! The cry of a young farmer."

Anyway, that's how it was.

Until the flood washed it away to the small mountain behind the farm.

By then, my income level had already started plummeting vertically, so there wasn't much I could do. Honestly, it would have cost more to retrieve it and send it to the junkyard, so I just left it there.

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Those bastards, selling watery-tasting Shine Muscat and ruining the brand value, they should go to grape farmers' hell.

Anyway, after that, I got a 92 model year Hijet for 300,000 yen as a used car.

A Hijet that I barely drove, which was about to go to the junkyard.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

The Hijet that will be found in perfect condition in the warehouse once midnight passes again.

This Hijet was my "temporary" personal vehicle, but now it has become my life vehicle (forcibly).

I went to the back of the overturned Hijet and loaded the various packages that were in the trunk onto my back.

Ugh, it's heavy. I was just complaining about the Hijet, but now that even that Hijet is gone, I'm going crazy.

The paint cans and other items I brought from the coast have already spilled and made a mess. I'll just say goodbye to them, thinking they're abandoned now. See you after midnight.

...

...

...

Ah, this is really pathetic.

I want to go back to the 21st century.

I'd even go into debt to get my car back.

If I just had my Porter, my Porter, I could easily move these packages. The Porter is used as a weapon in civil wars in foreign countries, what would the Hijet be used for? Scrap metal? A coffin?

Anyway, leaving behind the Hijet that was crumpled like paper, I walk step by step, and my legs tremble and my body shakes. Even though my strength has increased enormously since coming to the 16th century, I'm in this state.

After walking for about an hour and a half.

"Aaaah! I-I'll live!"

I finally changed out of my blood-soaked clothes and lay down on the bed.

The people who remained in the settlement rushed over when they saw me covered in blood, but since everyone knows I don't die anyway, I brushed them all off.

I just wanted to rest first.

I clenched my trembling hands and sighed.

Why, why did "Immortal Order: Origin" launch right when I was driving a Hijet?

Could it be that I received the immortality cheat because of the Hijet? Was there an agreement among the Fansuku Software executives like, "His personal vehicle is a Hijet, let's give him a cheat so he doesn't die"?

Anyway.

Wow, I've seen people get into traffic accidents, go to another world, get reincarnated, and get transported, but getting transported and then having a traffic accident is quite novel.

Now... I want to give everything up.

Give... it up.

...

And so I dozed off to sleep.

In my dream, I saw a scene from the past.

It was definitely the day of the flood. Thankfully, this house, Pseudo-Green Gables, built by my mother who was a huge fan of Anne of Green Gables, was built with a high foundation to suit Japanese conditions, so it wasn't flooded.

The problem was the field.

"T-this... damn it! The grapes are all ruined! The grapes all taste like water!"

Just as I was cursing the damnable Japanese climate and Emperor Jimmu's masochistic starting position selection for raining heavily right before harvest season, it happened.

At that time, I saw through the second-floor window (casement) of the house.

The Porter parked outside... uh...

CRASH!

It's... floating away...

Given how late my parents started farming, and the fact that they were fundamentally city people, you can tell we had no connections in the countryside.

And since we tried to relocate to a village where we had no connections, we went through all sorts of hardships, and this property was part of that suffering. There was a reason our farm property was tucked away in a very remote part of the village.

You can tell just by looking at the fact that out of the 13,200 square meters, several hundred include a small mountain spur.

The car crashed there...

Huh?

"Huh?"

Just as I was sobbing over the Porter buried in the mud-colored water like chocolate milk, I woke up. And immediately my mind started racing.

Wait.

Items in my house, no matter how damaged, are restored pristinely once midnight passes.

Here, what exactly is the precise meaning of "restored pristinely once midnight passes"?

What is "restoration"? Does it simply mean returning to the original state?

Then what is the standard for that "original state"?

For example, if a cultivator that originally rattled a lot due to my neglect gets damaged and returns, does it come back still rattling in that state?

No.

It comes back in a pristine, shiny state, as if newly purchased and just unboxed. There's a reason I've been using items more roughly in the past few years.

Rather than getting ambiguously scratched or strangely damaged, it's better to completely break it and have it restored pristinely.

Then...

'What about the Porter that was originally submerged and damaged?'

The Porter... then... what would happen to it?

When I came outside in my pajamas, dawn was just breaking. Of course it would be dawn since I suddenly opened my eyes while dreaming, thinking about the Porter.

Even though North Carolina is a bit warmer than Japan, it was still a bit chilly coming out in pajamas at dawn in autumn. But I don't care about such things.

Since I won't catch a cold anyway, I just squeezed into my sneakers and went outside.

Then I grabbed a shovel from the warehouse, kicked the damned Hijet that had just returned once, and ran towards the mountainside.

At that time, in my dream, and in the memory of the past, I saw you in despair.

I saw you submerged and disappearing, buried in silt.

But...

Now I can save you, Porter!

I wiped away the tears that were blurring my vision and ran like crazy. After running and running, I could see the mountain where shepherd's purse and mugwort were growing.

I immediately charged towards the place I saw in my dream, holding the shovel.

And! I dug like crazy!

Excavator? That's in Chesapeake right now, so I can't do anything about it. All I can rely on are my two arms and two legs that will never break.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Getting up at dawn to shovel seemed absurd, but thinking about the "something" that would return afterwards, I held my two arms that were trembling from the cold.

Soon it will appear.

It's coming...! What I've been dreaming of!

And finally.

Clang!

When the shovel and "something" in the soil collided, making a strange and clear metallic sound, I couldn't believe my ears.

Looking around, I was stuck in a soil pit about as deep as my waist, and soil mounds about as high as my waist were piled up here and there.

And it wasn't just one such pit that I had dug.

"W-what? Who suddenly dug the ground... Mr. Nemo?"

"What are you doing there!"

The villagers were calling me, but my heart was so full that I couldn't even answer and just gritted my teeth. I knelt down as if my legs had lost strength, threw away the shovel, and dug the soil with both hands.

Then... I saw it.

The deep onyx blue color like the sea.

Beautiful curves and straight lines.

And the clean driver's seat visible through the car window.

Ah.

Aah.

"A-are you alright?"

"..."

"You are alright, right?"

"...Everyone, please bring shovels over here."

If an angel suddenly appeared in dirty pajamas and asked you to bring shovels from the morning, what would you do?

You might think they're crazy, but at least our kind settlers followed my words. They each brought shovels and dug the ground with me.

And.

The outline emerged.

"Ah... ahk..."

Premium trim.

6-speed manual transmission.

Front seat airbags.

External tool box under the cargo area and spare tire.

Plus PTO (Power Take-Off).

Finally.

133 horsepower.

About 3.8 times that of the Hijet.

It's said that with just one of these, a village in a remote area of the Third World can sustain itself.

I quickly sent the villagers away before they found it strange. I apologized for troubling them early in the morning and gave everyone potatoes baked in butter that I had kept for myself as a snack.

And.

I returned to the front of the Porter.

"Ugh... ughk..."

Tears come out.

Even when I first realized I had fallen into the 16th century and panicked.

Even when I rammed the fence with an excavator and my heart was stabbed, causing momentary cardiac arrest.

Even when I was riddled with dozens of air holes by some assassins.

Even when my shoulder was sawed by a chainsaw because of that Oitotan.

I didn't cry.

I shed those precious tears here.

"Lord Fansuku... overwhelming gratitude...!"

That's how much I loved this 1-ton truck.