Chapter 15. The Forest of Eternity
Episode 15.
Eternal Forest
Name: Kazen(?)
Level: 15
Class: Mage(?)
Trust with Target: 41
Stress: 44
Stats
Strength: 6 Agility: 4
Endurance: 6 Magic Power: 9
Talents
Body: ▓▓ Mind: ▓▓
Art: ▓▓ Intuition: ▓▓
Skills
<Light>, <▓▓▓>
Traits
<Inventor King>, <▓▓▓>, <▓▓▓>, <▓▓▓>
▶ Kazen is keeping a special secret. You can confirm it once your trust with the target rises.
Name: Kria(?)
Level: 15
Class: Spiritist(?)
Trust with Target: 23
Stress: 29
Stats
Strength: 4 Agility: 7
Endurance: 6 Magic Power: 11
Talents
Body: ▓▓ Mind: ▓▓
Art: ▓▓ Intuition: ▓▓
Skills
<Spirit Summoning>, <▓▓▓>
Traits
<Insomnia>, <▓▓▓>, <▓▓▓>, <▓▓▓>
▶ Kria is keeping a special secret. You can confirm it once your trust with the target rises.
Not all of their information had been revealed.
Judging by the notes, they were also carrying a few secrets.
'So the names were aliases.'
That much was about what I'd expected.
The problem was that the question mark also appeared after the class field.......
Of course, as the note said, I would naturally find out once I raised their trust, but just thinking about that process made me sigh.
'Anyway, if their names are aliases, they might actually be nobles.'
If they weren't nobles, there wasn't much reason to hide their real names in this world.
They could be serious criminals, but given how naive the two of them were, that seemed unlikely.
'Hmm. Or they could be illegitimate children.'
Illegitimate children of a noble house.
It was a commonly encountered setup in FoS.
'And they have four Traits.'
Of course, there might be penalty Traits among them, but even including those, it was impressive.
Because the number of Traits fundamentally indicated an NPC's potential.
Separately, what bothered me was their stats.
I had a minimum benchmark—a simple formula—for deciding whether a companion was unusable.
[Sum of all stats = Level × 2]
In other words, at level 15, each of them needed a total of at least 30, but unfortunately both fell short.
It meant they were exceptionally weak even compared to other companion NPCs of the same level.
'Plenty of Traits, terrible stats.'
This was generally how the stats of a typical late-bloomer companion looked.
If I could also check their <Talent> grades, I could make a more accurate judgment.......
'That won't unlock until their trust is over 50.'
Even so, I needed companions.
Especially now that I hadn't gotten my hands on the Necromancer class.
At this point, there really was no choice but to move forward with what I had.
* * *
Who is the core of a party?
Without a doubt, the tank.
No arguments.
Ignorant people dismiss tanks as meat shields or whatever, but that's completely wrong.
Without a front line, even forming a basic formation becomes difficult.
A party with only damage dealers.
A party made up entirely of healers.
Even just seeing those words, you can tell something is wrong.
On the other hand, a party made up entirely of tanks gets by reasonably well.
They can fight enemies slowly but steadily and, above all, reliably.
'Though the deeper we go into the forest, the less our damage will land.'
But that would be after entering at least the mid-section of the forest, so it was still a distant concern.
Anyway, why am I emphasizing the importance of tanks like this?
Simple.
Our party has no tank.
"......."
It sounded like a disaster of a party, but unfortunately, that party was ours.
You can get by with fewer damage dealers.
You can make up for not having a healer, to some extent, with potions or herbs.
But the absence of a vanguard was hard to ignore.
So—
"Kaindel. Here it is."
What choice was there?
As the all-rounder, I had no choice but to stand in the vanguard.
"Thanks for the hard work."
I took the lump of metal Kazen held out.
It was a shield roughly made from train wreckage.
"I trimmed the outer panel of a train door. You can hold it by the handle part."
Maybe 'roughly made' was selling it short.
The shield looked quite plausible.
Patchwork Shield
A shield patched together from train wreckage. Its defense is better than it looks, but its weight is a drawback.
An item information window even popped up like this.
Whatever the case, it meant the system had recognized this as "equipment."
"Ah, and be careful. The edge isn't properly ground and it's sharp."
"The edge?"
Just as he'd said, the bottom edge looked unusually sharp. It looked dangerous, but I actually liked that.
In a pinch, it looked like I could use it as a weapon, almost like a kite shield.
"It's a shame. If only I'd had proper tools, I could have made it much better......."
"This is enough."
The weight was a bit of a drawback, but it was still worth carrying around.
With my current Strength stat, carrying it for long periods shouldn't be too much of a strain.
"I'm back."
Just then, Kria returned and shared her haul.
She had made a final circuit around the train, picking up anything that might be useful.
"Why is there so much?"
"Th-they're all usable."
"What are you going to do with a torn teddy bear?"
"There's stuffing inside."
"So?"
"......Wouldn't it be easy to set on fire?"
I hadn't thought of that.
Come to think of it, our mage couldn't even use the basic spell <Fire>.
"And, also, um. It's good for storing fragile things inside the doll. Like glass bottles."
"Can you carry it around?"
Kria nodded.
Actually, the doll wasn't that big, so I didn't say anything more.
The haul besides the teddy bear was.......
'Bandages, disinfectant, a few knives, and food.'
There were also wearable pieces of armor and weapons, but we didn't have the leeway to carry around things we couldn't even use.
The core of the haul was definitely the food.
The food was only bread and dried meat, but if we rationed it carefully, it should last us several days.
With three mouths, at least there were fewer people to feed, which was a small comfort.
'The rest we'll have to find in the forest.'
<Eternal Forest> has almost everything, after all.
"Ready?"
"Yes."
"Good. Then let's go."
Eternal Forest.
A place where all kinds of dangers and countless threats lurked, but where rewards to match them also surely existed.
We finally set foot on the game's main stage.
* * *
We walked through dense forest in every direction.
We had entered right around sunrise, so it wasn't that dark, but it wasn't bright either. That was because the leaves in this forest were so thick and tightly packed.
About ten minutes after entering Eternal Forest, I looked back and spoke.
"Kazen."
"Yes!"
"You don't need to be that tense."
"Understood!"
"......."
Was he a new recruit standing guard duty for the first time?
In fact, this was already the third time we'd had this conversation.
'If he doesn't loosen up, he won't last a day.'
<Eternal Forest> was certainly a dangerous place, but you didn't have to be on guard in every place, at every moment.
In the game, there were stretches where you could go almost a month without encountering an enemy.
At times like that, the game practically changed genres—from a hardcore roguelike into a cozy gathering game.
'Of course, we can't relax that much yet.'
What was clear was that Kazen's current wariness was excessive.
Had he heard some baseless rumor about the forest?
That it was a demonic realm where death and threats came rushing in without pause.......
Well, it wasn't entirely wrong.
"......Looking at it like this, it just seems like a beautiful forest."
Kria murmured.
I followed her gaze, and the forest's majesty struck me anew.
Sunlight filtering through the leaves made waves of green whenever the wind passed through them, and only a tiny fraction of the light managed to reach the ground. It looked like beams breaking through storm clouds, lending the scene an oddly sacred air.
"Why does the kingdom stake its life on this forest......."
Kria's murmuring continued.
I'd realized recently that this girl seemed to have a habit of talking to herself at all hours.
'Does she not know the king's policy?'
Did that mean she might not be a noble?
Or was she playing dumb?
Anyway, the unwritten rule was not to butt into someone's self-talk, but I deliberately opened my mouth to answer.
"Because it isn't a place that's only dangerous."
"......Huh?"
"Weasel. Can you get that?"
I woke the weasel that had been resting on my shoulder.
The weasel's gaze turned toward where I pointed. Its nostrils twitched as if gauging the distance, and its whiskers trembled.
Tap-tap!
The weasel seemed to understand my instruction and immediately launched itself through the air.
Meanwhile, I explained to the two siblings.
"Some discoveries brought back from the forest changed the foundations of human history. <Mithril>, which became the basis of magical engineering, the <Wood Record>, said to contain all history since the continent was formed, and even the <Jineonrok>, which made communication between different species possible."
Of course, things like those only appeared in the very late part of the forest—the deep zones.
But that didn't mean there was nothing to salvage in the entry area.
Squeak.
The weasel returned.
I took the blue leaf it had obtained, then patted its shoulder.
The weasel purred as if pleased.
......Was it a cat?
"From now on, if you find these leaves, secure them."
"What is that?"
They didn't know this either.
You could tell at a glance they'd only been taught the high-level stuff.
A successful party wouldn't need to obsess over gathering materials like these.
But we were starting from rock bottom, so this leaf was a lifeline.
"Watch closely."
I took out one of the canteens I'd gotten from the train, then headed toward some muddy water nearby.
It was a puddle formed by a recent rain shower.
When I scooped up the murky water and filled the canteen, both of them looked even more puzzled.
"Kaindel?"
Into the canteen filled with muddy water, I placed one of the blue leaves I'd just obtained.
Then I shook it.
A little vigorously, for about ten seconds?
After that, I poured the water from the canteen out in front of the two.
"Wow......."
"It's clear?! Is this water actually safe to drink?"
I nodded and explained.
"<Blue Leaf>. It purifies water. One leaf can clean up to two liters, and it's easy to use."
This was the safest way to secure drinking water in the early stages.
"To think a single leaf has that much purifying power......."
"If this is also a discovery, can you register it in the crystal?"
Kria asked a fairly sharp question.
"Yeah."
As far as I knew, this <Exploration Crystal> was unused, so Blue Leaf shouldn't have been registered in it yet.
I shone the Exploration Crystal on another Blue Leaf the weasel had brought back.
Hummm—
The Exploration Crystal trembled faintly, and a dim cluster of light quickly swept over the Blue Leaf.
Soon, a faint liquid-like glow began to rise inside the crystal.
[Registered the discovery in the <Exploration Crystal>.]
"......How much did it fill?"
I told them the number visible before my eyes.
"0.1%."
"Oh......! Then if we find 999 more leaves, can we return to the Royal Capital?!"
"You really think so? A discovery only contributes to exploration progress the first time it's registered. Duplicates don't count."
"Ah......."
Kazen clicked his tongue as if disappointed.
But strictly speaking, Blue Leaf wasn't even a first-time discovery.
If anything, I should have been grateful it gave us even 0.1%.
Blue Leaf
Rarity: F
A blue leaf that rarely blooms on trees in <Eternal Forest>. It possesses an excellent purification ability.
The leaf was only F-grade rarity to begin with.
"Oh. Now that you mention it, there's something I've been wanting to ask since earlier......."
"Go ahead."
"What's that flower-shaped light under the crystal?"
Beneath the Exploration Crystal, a flower-shaped light was flickering, constantly changing its form.
More precisely...... the petals were slowly crumbling away as time passed.
"It's the remaining time."
"Remaining time?"
"Yeah. You could call it the Exploration Crystal's lifespan."
Exploration Crystals also had grades, but the one we'd gotten was the lowest grade.
Naturally, its lifespan was short too.
Like a cheap watch made from low-quality parts, it wouldn't keep running for long.
"One month."
I looked at the two and said.
"If we don't fill the exploration progress within that time, the crystal will break and we won't be able to activate the <Return Magic> built into it."
"Th-then what happens?"
What happens, indeed.
"We get stranded in the forest."
Generally, there was a common expression used to describe that kind of situation.
"Simply put, it's game over."
Fortunately, they seemed to understand that phrase; both of their faces went pale.