Jude went over the patterns of the Archaic Bear in his memory. The presence of an Archaic Bear meant that the ecosystem of the monsters had stabilized. In other words, there were many lesser monsters around it, and the lesser monsters included zombies, ghouls, scaled lizards, imps, gnolls and bloodthirsty wolves. Just thinking about it made his head hurt.
He would be fine against most of them, but if a bloodthirsty wolf appeared, he would be in big trouble. A bloodthirsty wolf was a monster with monstrous strength and agility, and it could easily outrun anything and shred it to pieces. What he could deal with right now was a couple of imps or gnolls, nothing more.
Even if he could not win against a monster like the Archaic Bear, he had to have the means to fight it. He could not just trust his legs and run, because if it could track his presence, it would be faster than him.
As far as he remembered, its weakness lay in its eyes. As a monster that hunted at night, it was only natural that it had something like night vision. That meant if he could shine a strong light into its eyes, he could buy himself several seconds, and a window like that was more than enough to run.
Jude closed the curtains and turned on the flashlight he had taken from the storage room. The light was weak. Forget about blinding it, if he shone this flashlight at an Archaic Bear, he would only make it angrier.
He needed a better one, so he searched for a tactical light online. In a matter of minutes, he found the perfect product, a tactical light of two thousand lumens with a strobe function that would certainly confuse the Archaic Bear. The only downside was that it used a lot of power, so its lifespan was short, one or two years at most. But that was fine, because in one or two years, he would be able to beat any monster without any problem.
With that on top of a laptop and a phone, solar panels would not be enough. And since a diesel generator was noisy, he could not use it as a regular source of power. If he turned it on at the wrong time, every monster near his camp would come flocking to it.
Wishing he had one more quiet way to charge things, he found a manual generator online. Twenty watts at five and twelve volts would be enough to charge a phone and a laptop. He carefully compared the specifications and picked a few that he liked.
Then a thought came to him. If the hills became more stable in the future, would it not be possible to reach the valley safely and build a hydropower generator?
"For now, let's order this first."
He confirmed his purchase of the solar generators, the diesel generators, and some manual generators.
While he was at it, he ordered some weapons too. He clicked on a steel rod, a spear blade, a mace and a shield, all from a foreign weapon store. The more weapons he had, the better. Monsters were diverse, and there were many ways to fight them. He had to be well prepared in advance, so that he could overwhelm them in every situation, just as he had hunted the old imp.
However, the first and most important thing was to build a safe zone. If he could choose, he would like a cave.
His stomach growled. He had passed out in bed the night before without eating.
Whenever Jude did not feel like cooking, he went to a nearby diner. Compared to its low prices, the portions were large, and on top of that, the food was quite delicious.
While he was watching the television after ordering a meat and bean stew, he saw the girl from the café next to his shop come into the diner. She wore an oversized shirt and shorts that showed off her long, pale legs.
After looking around for a moment, she saw him and walked straight toward him. He fixed his eyes on the television, thinking she was heading for the water purifier behind him, but he was wrong.
"Can I sit here?"
She leaned halfway toward the chair across from him as she asked. There were plenty of empty seats, but he still nodded, since it was not a big deal.
She quickly sat down and whispered, "I come here often. Their bean stew is delicious."
She must have been a regular here too.
"Well, I'll have the onion soup today," she said, and called out to the owner, "One onion soup, please."
"Okay! Please wait a minute."
After some time, a large tray came out with his food. Trying not to mind her company, Jude took his spoon and started to eat awkwardly.
Suddenly she rested her chin on her hand. "Mister, you don't know my name, do you?"
"But I've heard people call you boss before."
"My name is Elise."
"Oh, I see. Do you know my name?" he said, imitating her tone.
"Of course I do. The kids call you all the time. Mister Jude! Like that."
It was a little embarrassing, but he was fairly popular with children. Even when they bought only one thing, he always slipped a little candy into their bags, and thanks to that, the shop had almost become a playground.
Elise asked him with a serious look, "Mister, by any chance, do you know about the thing that's been so famous online these days?"
"Which one?"
Looking at his reaction, she quickly took out her phone and showed him a popular video. Jude watched videos often enough, but he did not watch the popular ones, because the popular list felt like a playground for the cool kids.
"Here. This is the most popular video these days. It's superpowers."
The exaggerated thumbnail and the provocative words caught his eye.
"Superpowers? In this day and age?"
His face twisted as he said it.