It was difficult to escape from a fire alone, and it was even more difficult to escape from a fire with other people in tow, and even more difficult when the people in tow were the elderly and children, who were vulnerable and had many restricted routes of movement.
Ichijō Mirai stopped flailing around as he had been, honestly ripped off a piece of clothing to cover his mouth and nose, and started to head down to make his way out.
The straightforward jumping plan didn't work, and neither did jumping over obstacles as quickly as possible, so he tried his best to patiently carve out a safer path through the shelves that required at most a little bit of sitting and flipping.
Some shelves are metal, and only some of the non-metallic decorations and merchandise catch fire, while the metal shelves themselves become hot from the flames. These shelves don't need to be tidied up much, just push the big ones out of the way and leave the small ones small enough to step through, and Ichijō Mirai deals mainly with flammable merchandise and wooden shelves.
Wooden shelves are generally large and tall, and are filled with expensive items that are rarely flammable.
Or only half a person high wide countertop shelves, stacked with a mountain of goods, these goods are generally plastic packaging, when burning not only emits a bad smell and rolling smoke, but also leave a piece of sticky hot liquid, in the hands of the people stay a few seconds will cool down, along with the scalding of the skin and stiff into something like a scar.
In addition to this, the pathfinder is always exposed to the flames, which can cause burns to clothing and exposed skin.
Generally speaking, injuries don't bother Ichijō Mirai; he has no sense of pain and recovers quickly, so as long as he doesn't bottom out from a single slash, he'll be full of blood again in no time.
However, there are a few cases in which this can be a problem, such as when Ichijō Mirai can't use his fingers to accurately clear an obstacle with his burned hand, because he can't feel the skin on the injured part of his body even though he doesn't feel any pain.
Also, because he is almost constantly in contact with flames, even though he recovers quickly, part of the injured area remains unconscious from the burns.
It's a good thing this is a supermarket and there's a drink section.
Ichijō Mirai wrapped a cloth around his hand and cleared a path to the drinks section, he had a clear route and managed to reach it in only five or six minutes.
The drink area was also a mess, with bottles rolling all over the place, some of which were plastic and had been melted by the fire, the water inside had flowed out, some of which had turned into steam, and only some of which remained on the ground.
"Drink first, rehydrate yourself, then wet your body, especially the clothes that cover your mouth and nose," Ichijō Mirai said as he casually picked out bottles of pure water and tossed them to the trapped people, began to wet himself, and then stared at the elderly among the trapped people, "There's plenty of water here, enough for us to use and take away some of it, but there's only a limited portion we can take with us, so we need to drink it or put out the fire at the critical moment."
So don't hesitate to water yourself after watering a small child, intending to take your part of the water with you and then water the child again later, trying to squeeze your own survival space to increase theirs.
This kind of thinking is actually nothing, in the eyes of others will produce complex emotions of wisdom, after all, the old man in the fire for so long, even if survived, I am afraid that there is a high probability of dying soon, it is better to try to save the children.
But to the officer who wants to save everyone, the idea of diverging from his goal and failing to accomplish it is a bit difficult.
Of course, the Japanese police officers were not normal police officers, and probably did not have the ambition to save everyone, but the old man's idea was quite sensible, Ichijō Mirai thought, staring at one of the old man, emphasizing, "There's a lot of pure water here, and there's only a limited amount that we can carry."
The old man, wrapped in the fabric of his clothes, and with his few exposed faces scuffed with various gray stains, visibly hesitated, his right hand still watering the small child, while his left hand silently pulled a bottle of pure water out of his pocket.
"Then, please," he hesitantly looked at Ichijō Mirai, and carefully glanced at Ichijō Mirai's hands and legs, "we actually have the strength, otherwise we wouldn't be able to carry the child, the rest of the way."
Compared to how clean he was when he first came in, Ichijō Mirai now looked like he'd rolled in the dust a few times, most of the dirt having been scuffed up when he'd just cleared the obstacle course.
The dirt is not surprising, and no one cares much about it in a fire, but the old man cares about Ichijō Mirai's hands: they are wrapped in strips of cloth, layers of cloth that Ichijō Mirai wraps around himself every time the fire has burned him to the bone, and so many layers of cloth that the color of the cloth can no longer be discerned, but only shades of grey and red crisscrossing the surface.
In addition to his hands, Ichijō Mirai often cleared obstacles with his feet, the tops and bottoms of which had melted and the legs of his pants were torn and uneven.
And that's just the obvious signs of clearing.
The elders were more concerned about Ichijō Mirai's stamina, and if he ran out of energy before going out, then...
And he couldn't just do nothing and wait for a kind stranger without a police uniform to save him, could he?
"No," Ichijō Mirai refused, looking at each of them in turn to make sure they were soaked through, then rummaging through the bottles of pure water and asking them to carry two bottles each, "You're not doing any heavy lifting, so I'll have to carry you if you twist your back."
Drinks were scattered all over the place, not much of it pure water, but fruit juices or carbonated beverages, and while the stranded often struggled for a long time to find the right kind of water with their eyes wide open, Ichijō Mirai found it in seconds, almost every time.
He didn't explain why he knew there were people in the depths of the supermarket and just fell out of the sky, or why he looked for pure water with 100% accuracy as if he had his eyes turned on, or why he didn't speak as if he was rejecting it in disgust, but as if he was stating something that was bound to happen, and then vetoing it after some rational thought.
"Up ahead is the snack area, that's the shortest route we can take, we'll pass through there, you guys take care to cover your mouths and noses as you go by, and try not to touch the traces left by the burning plastic," he tore another section of the hem of his shirt and wrapped it around his hand, twisting open a bottle of water and pouring it over his hand, and then moving it around to get used to the heavy, wet clothes, all the while interrupting the trapped people with a preemptive strike, "not in a straight line."
"Go in a straight line, that area further on is the toy section, where there's not only a lot of plastic, but all kinds of dolls."
Dolls made of fabric and cotton.
These dolls are cute when there's no fire, but when there's a fire, these dolls are deadly...
Especially if gasoline is poured on them...
At this hour, Gin's probably catching the big black rat with the gasoline.
Let's hope he's a little more polite and doesn't get his mouth and claws on it, so he can save the great Lord Savior some 'tude! Poor rat's been chewing on my house while I'm powerless. No, I'll have to pour the ants' nest in retaliation. Ichijō Mirai was thinking about it.
Ichijō Mirai thought about it and started clearing the obstacles again as if nothing had happened.
He cleared it quickly.
Gamers are like that, they don't even need to think about moving bricks, they just need to hang up at the touch of a button, whereas normal people have to think about a lot of things.
The two children are protected by the parents in the middle of the position, so that what happens in the event of an accident other people can react to the first time to protect them, this crisis, regardless of how the original character, they are incredibly well-behaved and quiet down, obediently holding the adult's hand, with a hand over the nose and mouth of the clothes to go forward.
They walk and stop, one time only need to step, the other time to support than the school desk next to a lot of obstacles over, the other time to carefully lift up the water bottle to the obstacles can not be cleaned on the fire extinguished, and the other time to get down from the obstacles under the passage.
As they go about their business, they slowly emerge from their tense state of near-death, no longer just being cared for, looking up worriedly to see how their parents are doing, assisting elderly people who are losing their strength, and peeking at Ichijō Mirai as they wait for the obstacles to be cleared.
After peeking at the good man, who seemed to be unafraid and painless, one of the small children shrank his neck and carefully patted the parent's back to calm down while reassuring the parent in a childish tone, "It's okay, grandpa, we're going to be saved!"
It's normal for children to be a bit childish, and it's normal for them to be cheerful and full of vigor. The old man forced a smile, and even if he didn't believe it, he whispered in a sad voice to comfort them back: "Yes, it's going to be fine, we're already halfway there, and we'll be able to get out soon."
"No!" The child heard the perfunctory, subconsciously let go of his hand, and then hastily cover the mouth and nose, emphasize, "really will be fine!"
"This fox is very powerful!"
He looked as if he wanted to emphasize again but could only do so vaguely for fear of something, his back was straightened up impatiently, but his head was lowered, covering his nose and mouth once again, "Because, because..."
Ichijō Mirai didn't look back.
Even if someone called him 'Fox' again.
As long as he didn't trigger an unexpected situation, he didn't care what the trapped people were communicating, he just wanted to be a player who could skip the plot without saying a word, but because he couldn't skip it with one click, he manually pretended to be in the one-click-skip state, diligently digging, lifting, and pushing various obstacles with his hands.
Until the little child spoke again: "I, I have someone I know who is worshiping this Lord Fox!"
Even if it's 'Fox-sama', what's a 'worship', and he's saying it in a serious manner?
Wait a minute...
Whenever the 'Fox' and the 'Offering' appear, the characters that appear at the same time are...
Ichijō Mirai tapped out the fire on the barrier in front of him, and his ears slowly perked up.
He heard the child's voice, somewhat anxiously emphasized after the parent's perfunctory and skeptical reply, "Really!"
"Suzuki's making an offering to the fox!"
"She said that Fox-sama is very powerful! Unlike other gods, he appears when humans are in the greatest danger, and with a light and handsome gesture, he lends a helping hand to help his followers out of the doldrums of their lives."
"After seeing him, I won't be afraid of any danger! Just do your best to protect yourself, because 'if it's impossible to save yourself, the kind fox-sama will show up, he loves humans and will protect the unfortunate'."
He said excitedly, "Fox-sama really appeared!"
"What a kind god!"