Mountain, I Bought It – Living in Another World Isn’t Bad Either

Chapter 10. Guided Deep into the Mountains…

“Uh…?”

I looked around the place I was guided to, utterly bewildered. It was completely in the mountains. The good thing was that it wasn’t dim; rather, the sunlight filtered through the trees, casting a bright glow.

However, it wasn’t a campsite or anything like that. The place where we parked the car was somewhat open, but the grass was overgrown, and rocks were scattered everywhere.

“Yes, we’d like you to purchase this mountain.”

A middle-aged man with narrow eyes smiled warmly. He seemed to be the manager of this campsite, but as he guided us here, I already had my suspicions about him.

The reason we were in such a remote mountain area started about an hour ago.

＊＊＊＊＊

Once again, I left home in the middle of the night and arrived at the campsite early in the morning. When I entered the management cabin, a familiar middle-aged man greeted me.

“Good morning.”

“Ah, good morning. I’m Mochizuki, the one who made the reservation.”

“Yes, yes, thank you. Your stay is for one week, is that correct?”

“Yes. I’d like to go sightseeing occasionally, but in that case…”

“Please make sure to take your valuables with you. We can’t guarantee there won’t be theft.”

“Ah, okay.”

“Ah, but… if you’d like, the place I’m about to show you rarely has any theft.”

“? There’s a place like that?”

“Yes. …And I think you’d want to see the site for yourself.”

“Huh?”

“No, no, for now, please sign here.”

“Ah, okay.”

After that conversation, I got into the rental car and followed his SUV. Before I knew it, we had passed the place where I had camped before and ventured deep into the mountains. Originally, the area was densely forested, and some spots felt dim, but we kept going deeper and deeper into the mountains.

“Is there really a campsite in a place like this?”

As if to fuel my unease, a tunnel came into view.

“Wait, wait, surely not… beyond this?”

It was an old, worn-out tunnel that looked like it could have been from some anime movie, with no visible lights inside. The SUV drove into the tunnel.

“Seriously…”

The road leading to the tunnel was a narrow path. If another car came, it would be a disaster. Naturally, there was no way to make a U-turn. I resigned myself and followed.

Inside the tunnel, only the red taillights of the SUV ahead were visible. Just as I was thinking, “How much longer?” I saw light at the end of the tunnel.

“Whoa~”

I couldn’t help but let out a sound.

Contrary to the dim, mountainous atmosphere from before, we were now driving on a mountain path bathed in bright sunlight. It might have been because it was almost noon, but it still felt unusually bright.

After climbing a slight incline for a while, we reached an open area. That was the place from the beginning. And then, I was told about buying the mountain.

“Uh… why are you suddenly bringing this up?”

“My, my, don’t you remember? We talked about this, didn’t we?”

“Huh???”

Ignoring my confusion, the middle-aged man handed me his business card.

“Hello. I’m Inari, the one in charge of managing this place.”

As I took the card and checked the name, then looked up… a large fox was sitting right in front of me.