The Curious Fox
Far to the north of the continent, a small village sat on the outskirts of the Peltz Territory. It lay west of Silstimore, yet geographically close enough to the Bermound Empire — the power that held the western continent in its grip — that the empire's shadow still reached it.
True to Silstimore's reputation as a second home for adventurers, even a village this small had an Adventurers' Guild of its own, however modest. And given a profession where life and death hung in the balance at every turn, hot-tempered humans could be found in every guild — men who, as a rule, traveled in packs.
"You gotta be kidding me. You think a demi-human like you can just set foot in a place like this?"
Whether it was the proximity to the Bermound Empire — a land steeped in the ideology of humans, by humans, and for humans — this village, too, harbored a deep aversion to so-called demi-humans, the catch-all for any race that wasn't human.
Of course, the man currently making all that noise wasn't a local either. He'd drifted in during his adventuring days and simply put down roots for a few years. The only reason he could talk like that was because the person standing across from him was even more of an outsider — and a demi-human besides.
A woman stood opposite him.
Her hair was tied high, but there was nothing neat about it — a wild, unkempt tangle that spilled in every direction, made all the more striking by its vivid crimson. Fluffy red fox ears poked through the mess. Golden eyes gleamed beneath, and her clothing, steeped in the culture of Sardorim, the eastern island across the sea, all but advertised that she was no native of this continent.
"Hoh? Fancy a bout, do you? Fine... step outside."
She hooked an arm over the hilt of the sword at her hip and calmly walked out through the guild's front door.
"Gotta teach her the rules around here, boss!"
"That's right! Girls like that need a proper lesson in who owns this land before they'll listen!"
"Heh heh... Yeah. Yeah. Let's show this demi-human wench who washed up from across the sea what happens when she starts swinging a sword around like she owns the place."
The three men spat out lines worthy of third-rate villains, fully intending to pull the coward's play of three-on-one.
Oh, and for the record — this whole thing started because the woman had helped herself to the drinks sitting on their table while the men were in the bathroom. They were, technically, the victims.
In the middle of the village road, one woman and three men faced each other, the air thick with tension. Onlookers gathered to see what the fuss was about. Mothers shooed their children indoors, warning them it was dangerous.
The woman slowly lowered her stance, resting her right hand on the hilt. Then she went still.
"Come at me, you whelps."
A breeze stirred, sending scraps of grass skittering across the ground between them.
"Hey, runt. You go first. You can handle it, right?"
The man ordered the fat one — the youngest of the three — to make the first move. A throwaway, of course, meant to gauge the opponent's skill. Not that he was a complete write-off. Even the fat one was Copper Rank, and he'd been eating an adventurer's meals for years. That put him well above rookies and the usual rabble who'd never been in a real fight.
"Yes, sir! I'll beat her to a pulp!"
The man drew his sword from the scabbard at his hip and started toward her. The woman still hadn't moved. Crouched low, hand on the hilt, she was a statue.
"That's it — come at me, you fat pig!"
He closed the distance.
"Don't get cocky, you animal!"
He lunged, swinging his blade—
Clang!
A whisper of steel...
His sword snapped. His clothes were sliced to ribbons, falling away in tatters.
"E-eeek!!!!"
The man curled into a ball, covering himself in shame.
And the woman... was still in the same stance. The exact same posture as before she'd drawn. She'd clearly unsheathed her blade, shattered his sword, and sliced his clothes to pieces — but no one had seen her swing, draw, or even sheathe it.
"You stupid fatso! Sit there and snivel! Hahaha! Who's next?! Come on!!"
The leader of the trio was rattled. He couldn't even tell what had just happened.
"Wh-what the... Hey, Number Two! You go!"
And so he sent in the second sacrificial lamb.
"Y-yes, sir! You little— how dare you do that to our runt! ...Gah!"
The result was identical. And then the leader, with the kind of cunning only a weasel of a man could muster, figured it out. This woman was far too strong to fight. But... all he had to do was not get close.
"Tch. Just my luck today. I'm out. Stay in the village, leave, do whatever you want."
He turned on his heel and walked away. Just like that — a slow, unhurried stroll.
"Oi, you! Where d'you think you're going?! Lost your nerve 'cause I'm too strong, have you?! Hahaha! Come at me! I said come at me!"
It was the kind of line you'd shout while chasing someone down — but she was still frozen in the same stance. The man grew farther and farther away, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Ryonen Reika.
A swordswoman from Sardorim, the eastern island far from the continent, and a practitioner of a lethal blade art. From her drawing stance, anyone who stepped into range was guaranteed to be cut down — but the fatal flaw was that she couldn't move a muscle while holding that stance. What's more, Battōjutsu was the only attack she had ever trained in her entire life. To strike, she had to stand perfectly still. Catching someone who ran was simply impossible.
The reason she'd left her island and come all the way to this distant continent? She was bored.
"Tch... Boring lot, aren't they."
She clicked her tongue and walked back into the Adventurers' Guild. Once the spectacle was over, everyone else drifted back to their seats and picked up their conversations. And with those twitching fox ears of hers, she caught a snippet that sounded interesting.
"They say there's been some kind of thunderous noise coming from the forest lately."
"A new kind of monster?"
"Who knows... Nobody can pin down where it's coming from, but they say the sound itself carries insanely far. You can hear it loud and clear even from a distance."
Her curiosity was piqued. Human or monster, it didn't matter. She'd gotten curious, so she was going to find it. No deep thought. No deliberation.
It had been about a week since I'd dropped into this forest.
Staying awake every night to watch for attacking beasts and monsters wasn't sustainable, so I'd found a place to hide and started stocking up on water and food. It felt less like an isekai reincarnation and more like a survival reality show. I was getting used to it, whether I liked it or not.
"Ugh... this is tough..."
I'd found a reasonably sharp-looking rock and was using it to dress a deer I'd hunted. Peeling off that thick hide was every bit as hard as the hunt itself. About seven bullet holes pocked the deer's flank. And once again, the bullets themselves were gone.
I hadn't checked the first time — the insect had been too disgusting — but it was the same with the fish and the snake-monster. The holes were there. The bullets weren't. Whether they melted away or the system just made them vanish, I didn't know. But leaving no evidence was, if anything, a plus.
A week of hunting had given me food, and I'd swapped my grass-leaf outfit for leather. It was still basically a loincloth, but it felt like an upgrade. And the points in the Gun Shop — the ones I used to buy guns — had been climbing, little by little.
Monsters paid better than regular animals. Magical beasts, I supposed, given this was another world. Either way, they were worth more points. As the points accumulated, more items in the Gun Shop had unlocked.
All sorts of items had opened up, but with only 620P on hand, most of them were pie in the sky. While the dressed venison roasted over the fire, I thought about what to buy. Anything over budget was out, obviously. That left the earplugs, the mag pouch, and the cleaning kit.
Having earplugs available was a genuine relief. My ears had been ringing ever since I'd first fired the gun. Gunshots were loud to begin with, but in this elf body, my hearing was so sharp that they seemed even louder. I'd toughed it out through the first night, when I'd killed the snake. By day two, I couldn't take it anymore and jammed grass into my ear canals to muffle the noise as best I could. So earplugs were priority one.
Buy the 320P earplugs, and I'd have 300P left. Grab the 120P mag pouch, and that would leave 180P. Not a bad plan. I was basically naked, wearing something that looked like it belonged in a caveman exhibit, so I had no way to carry spare magazines. When I ran dry, I had to open the Gun Shop, buy a mag, and load it on the spot. In an emergency, that took way too long. Being able to keep spares on hand would be a huge improvement.
I considered dumping the remaining 180P on spare mags, but the cleaning kit kept catching my eye. Back in the military, they'd drilled it into us that gun maintenance was non-negotiable. Clean before you shoot, clean after you shoot — I remembered wiping those rifles down obsessively. So what about my pistol? I hadn't cleaned it once in a week. I'd been blasting away with it, and it'd even gotten soaked. If this system-generated gun were conveniently immune to dirt-related malfunctions, the cleaning kit wouldn't even be in the shop. So I figured I needed it.
Watching a week's worth of points vanish in an instant left me with a vaguely hollow feeling — but then the new gear materialized, and my mood bounced right back.
I put the earplugs in first. Not the over-ear headphone type — they were foam inserts that went into the ear canal. I'd worried they wouldn't fit, given that elf ears weren't shaped like human ones, but they slid in perfectly. Comfortable, even. Other sounds were a bit muffled too, but that beat the sensation of my eardrums getting shredded every time I pulled the trigger.
I strapped the mag pouch — the kind with a connecting strap — around my waist and slotted in the two spare magazines. It looked like it could hold five in total. Then I pulled out the cleaning kit and started working on the gun...
"Fuck, I shouldn't have done this... now what?"
Assembly is disassembly in reverse. But what if you don't know the order? You get this. I'd taken the pistol apart, scrubbed every nook and cranny with the brush, oil, and patches... and then spent two hours lost, unable to put it back together.
"Is... is this it? Oh... oh! Got it!"
Without the pistol, I was just a fragile elf with a big chest. Losing the gun would have made me nothing more than a meal for whatever was lurking in these woods.
Once everything was put back together, I fired off a couple of rounds to test the pistol and the earplugs, then headed to the stream in high spirits to wash up.
Bang!
Bang!
Twitch.
The red-furred ears rising from the top of her head caught the thunderous noise echoing through the forest.
"That's the sound...!"
Reika had just finished dealing with a pack of wolves that had come at her. Standing still in her stance wasn't hard when the wolves were kind enough to charge her on their own. Beast corpses and blood were scattered in every direction. The foreign swordswoman, drenched in crimson, turned toward the distant sound and pushed deeper into the forest.