176. Jukai Forest (1)
176. Jukai Forest (1)
Hummm—
The moment we exchanged greetings with Shin Se-hee and stepped into the spatial movement formation, Mana surged and a wave of dizziness hit me.
"Aaaaaaaaaah—!!!"
"Wow, they're here!!!"
A deafening cheer erupted without warning.
My party members and I could only stare back with bewildered expressions.
We had no choice.
I'd closed my eyes for just a moment, and when I opened them, a massive crowd was swarming in front of the spatial movement formation.
Some of them were even holding a huge placard that read [I love Utopia!].
"Wh-what the...!?"
"...Huh? How did these people find out and gather here? Didn't it only take about an hour from accepting the request to coming here?"
"Are we, Utopia, really this famous even overseas?"
"A-ahem! Hello~ You are already dead! Yes, that's right~ That's right~ Squinting Mastermind~"
Im Ga-eul waved both hands, showing off her regrettably goofy side, but the crowd's cheers weren't directed at her.
Utopia as a whole wasn't popular in Japan, after all.
The fame belonged to just one person.
"Jin-san—! The real thing! It's really him!!"
"Flower on the Cliff─!!"
"Jin-sama!!!"
"Meal side dish!!!"
"I'm really enjoying your YouTube!"
It was Jin Yu-ha, the one who'd recently been chosen by the algorithm gods thanks to the Blue Crab subjugation video.
"......"
"......"
"......"
Since we'd all put on translation artifacts before coming to Japan, I could understand their words without any filter.
Pretending not to see Im Ga-eul, whose shoulders had slumped in dejection, I spoke.
"...Hmm, I didn't expect this many people. Should we grab a taxi or something...?"
Normally in the game, selecting a mission would drop you straight at the request location, so I was feeling a little awkward.
"We'll pass through for a moment. Alright, everyone, please step back."
Three women with Japanese flag emblems draped over one shoulder stepped forward, holding back the surging crowd.
"Salute! Greetings. Thank you for coming all this way to resolve our country's problem! We are hunters dispatched from the Japan Hunter Management Headquarters."
They were personnel dispatched from the Japan Hunter Management Headquarters.
"From now on, we will escort the Utopia Party to the request location."
Vrooom─
Behind them, a large armored vehicle, visibly sturdy at a glance, rolled in and picked us up.
And so, guided by the Japanese hunters, we made our way toward Jukai Forest.
"I never imagined Jin-san would choose our Japan as his first request."
Honestly, they were saying it was all too sudden, and they hadn't expected us to depart for the request the moment we accepted it.
"But those people back there...?"
"Ah, the Hunter Management Headquarters was scrambling to find hunters to send as escorts on short notice... It seems word spread even to civilians. If that caused any displeasure, I apologize."
"No, it's fine. How could we feel uncomfortable about people who like us?"
Right after I finished talking with the stern-faced Japanese hunter at the wheel, the woman with pigtails in the passenger seat whipped her head around.
Her eyes were sparkling bright.
"Wooooow─ The real thing...! I've always wanted to meet you. I-I hope this isn't rude, but would an autograph be possible later?"
"Ah, sure. I'll give you one."
"Aaaah!! I'm so happy!!! So, so, so happy!! Thank you!!!"
The pigtailed woman had an incredibly high level of energy.
Starting from how she first learned about me, she kept spilling TMI—how she fell for my swordsmanship and made me her role model, how she'd even learned Korean separately and joined a fan cafe, and so on.
"...So, when the Hunter Management Headquarters urgently looked for hunters to come greet you, nearly 300 applied, you know!! But I was the fastest!!"
In contrast to her high energy, my party members were starting to look a bit worn out.
'...Hmm, I'd better rein this in.'
"Excuse me, sorry to interrupt, but do you have anything to tell us about the Insomnia Resolution Request we accepted this time?"
Since it was a last-minute assignment, the Japanese hunters probably knew next to nothing, but I asked anyway to stop her TMI.
But her reaction was different from what I expected.
"Ah─. That one. It's a famous request even here."
'...What? A famous request?'
My eyes twitched slightly at her unexpected answer.
"This place, Jukai Forest. Its former name is Aokigahara Forest. This forest is considered a cursed forest among us Japanese and is a rather unsettling place."
"A... a c-cursed forest!?"
Im Ga-eul, who'd been listening, shot back a question in a startled voice.
The Japanese hunter nodded with a quite serious expression.
"Yes, this place has been famous in a bad way for a long time. A forest where disappearances happen with unsettling frequency."
"......!!"
Gulp─
A heavy atmosphere, starkly different from when she'd been spilling TMI just moments before.
The sound of someone swallowing filled the inside of the armored vehicle.
The Japanese hunter let out a short, self-deprecating laugh—pfft.
"Well, it used to be just a legend, but now it's also real. Especially since the world turned upside down, even more─"
"I-is there really a... a curse there...!?"
Im Ga-eul, seemingly with zero tolerance for a scary atmosphere, asked in a voice that trembled.
And the other party members, having just heard from Shin Se-hee that the request grade had been misassigned, couldn't hide their tense expressions either.
The Japanese hunter, however, brushed it off and shook her head.
"No. No. Rather than an actual curse or supernatural phenomenon... Hmm, it's a social phenomenon."
"...Social phenomenon?"
"Yes. With monsters suddenly appearing in peaceful daily life, civilization crumbling, and signs of the world ending... These kinds of people emerged. Rather than dying to a monster or living miserably in hiding... I'd rather end my life on my own terms."
"......Ah."
"And the Jukai Forest we're heading to now is, you could say, the first place that comes to mind for such people. It was famous as that kind of place even before the Gate Incident broke out, but even more people have flocked here since the world went mad."
She wore a bitter smile again as she spoke.
"As a result, Japanese hunters didn't want anything to do with that forest, so that trivial request was neglected until it trickled all the way down to Velvet Hunter Academy... Well, that's the story."
At her words, we had no choice but to fall silent.
Because everyone knew how much chaos and horror the historical event known as the 'Gate Incident' had wrought upon the world.
Even Korea, which had relatively quickly brought the situation under control, still bore the scars of that time.
And I, listening to her, actually felt a fresh sense of novelty.
I never knew there was such a backstory to the Insomnia Resolution Request, which was just one of many Misrated Requests.
In the Velvetsra game, the explanation was glossed over and it was just presented as a cursed forest steeped in grudges.
'Yeah, I guess a bright, all-ages game couldn't spell out these dark details in depth.'
Just as I was sorting out my thoughts for a moment, the vehicle came to a stop before I knew it.
"This is as far as our guidance goes. We sincerely pray that you return with satisfactory results."
Clack─
They offered a salute with crisp motions, just like when we first met.
But all three hunters were holding autograph papers signed by Jin Yu-ha in one hand, so they didn't look all that serious.
* * *
Whoosh─
A dreary gust of wind swept past.
"It really wouldn't be strange to hear it called a cursed forest..."
"Ugh, i-it's not actually going to have real ghosts or something, is it?"
At the gloomy atmosphere palpable even from the forest entrance, the party members spoke in uneasy voices.
'Alright, I should explain things now.'
Back at the academy, we'd had to accept the request as fast as possible before the Misrated Request vanished,
and on the way here, I hadn't been able to give the party a proper explanation because the Japanese hunters were with us.
"Everyone made sure to pack the things Shin Se-hee gave you earlier, right?"
The party members nodded.
They'd all stored the necessary items for this place in their Subspace Tattoos.
'Even if this place is called the Newbies' Wailing Forest, if you thoroughly pack the right supplies and know the strategy, it's actually a great hunting ground.'
"First, there's one thing I need to correct. Contrary to what the Japanese hunter said earlier, this forest really is cursed."
Im Ga-eul's face went ashen.
"...F-for real?"
"Yes, well, an awful lot of people have been offered as sacrifices, after all. Nothing that happens here would be strange."
I added to the story I'd heard from the Japanese hunter a moment ago and continued.
"Still, as long as we're careful about the things we need to be careful about, it shouldn't be too dangerous."
The party members pricked up their ears and started listening intently.
"For now, the number-one top-priority principle to keep in mind: doubt everything in this place. Don't trust anyone or anything."
"...Doubt?"
At Lee Yu-ri's question, I nodded.
"Yeah, things happen here that mess with what we know as common sense. That's why the most important thing to watch for is a 'sense of wrongness.' There'll definitely be moments when something strikes you as unnatural. When that happens, you have to judge carefully. And if I were to describe the forest's concept—its special trait—looking at the supplies we brought─"
That was when it happened.
─ Wow, who's this? He's super handsome!
─ Whoa, should we take him?
─ Let's take him! Let's take him!
─ Ehehehe, come with us!
Hair-raising voices suddenly whispered in my ear.
At the same time, shadows stretching from the forest entrance coiled around my body.
Shoook─
I was sucked into the forest.
'......Huh?'