Arcana Online
When I got out of bed and stretched, Yongyong put on his cute little act and demanded breakfast in that tiny, endearing voice.
“Kkyu-ung.”
I pulled out a magic stone and watched him eat it, only to suddenly realize how much he’d grown.
Back then, he was small enough to sit in the palm of my hand, but now he was about the size of a little doll.
Thanks to that, he was a lot easier to carry around tucked in my arms.
Maybe if he gets any bigger, I’ll just wrap him around my neck and wear him like a scarf.
No, no. Not the time for that.
If I wanted to get to the quest location I’d received yesterday, I needed to move quickly.
[Quest Received]
Check whether anything has happened to the Forest Tribe.
Reward: EXP, a large amount of magic stones.
It was a simple quest: just confirm whether the tribe living in the forest where the World Tree stood was still there. The place was a half-day’s walk away if I went on foot.
No fighting, no hassle—just a simple investigation.
And the reward was sweet.
The moment I tucked Yongyong into my arms and headed to leave the City of Stars, someone called out.
“Found you at last!”
I turned toward the voice and saw a woman with brown hair and wolf ears striding toward me.
Who was that?
“Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you!?”
“Who are you?”
“Me? I’m a viewer!”
“Huh!?”
The woman declared herself one of my viewers.
But didn’t I only have one viewer?
A stalker.
Then this woman was—
“A-a stalker!?”
“Who’re you calling a stalker!”
She snapped in outrage and raised her hand.
S-She’s not seriously going to hit me, is she!?
I squeezed my eyes shut.
The next moment, something soft brushed across my head.
I opened my eyes to find the woman smiling down at me.
“Do you know how badly I wanted to see you!?”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to recruit you!”
Ah. So this was the same thing I’d turned down last time.
“Sorry. I don’t want to belong to any organization.”
“Well, then I guess I can’t help it. But I’m not giving up!”
With that, she waved goodbye and vanished after tearing a scroll from her inventory.
I stared after her in dazed silence for a long moment, then a question surfaced in my mind.
Did she really come all this way just to say that?
*
*
*
Shasha returned to the Frey Guild early in the morning.
“You met her already?”
“I got lucky! I ran into her on the street this morning!”
She beamed as she talked about how the girl was even cuter in person than in the videos, but that wasn’t the answer I wanted.
“What happened with the thing I told you to do?”
“What thing?”
…
She stared at me blankly for a moment, and only then did the memory seem to come back to her, her face draining pale.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Go back and ask again.”
I told her not to come back to the guild until she’d found out, then threw her out.
I watched her standing outside looking miserable through the window, then lowered the blinds.
*
*
*
I’d rather hoped the bear would come when I was walking along the road, but it never showed up.
Was it busy…?
With no other choice, I kept walking on foot, and my romance with adventure was rapidly being crushed.
After several hours of walking—
“My legs hurt.”
Why on earth did they have to make this game so well!?
Even stamina existed here, so if I kept moving for too long I had to stop and rest.
I leaned against a nearby tree, handed Yongyong a magic stone, and was resting when I was just about to set off again.
“Peep!”
Looking toward the sound, I saw a tiny little chick staring up at me and chirping.
It was staring at the magic stone Yongyong was eating, even drooling a little. Did it want some too?
“Do you want one too?”
“Peep!”
I pulled a magic stone from my inventory and handed it over. It ate happily, but one apparently wasn’t enough, because it looked up at me and asked for more.
Wasn’t that a little too brazen?
I let out a snort of laughter and gave it another one, and it clamped the stone in its beak and disappeared somewhere.
My stamina seemed to have recovered enough, so I started walking again, following the road until I could see the forest in the distance.
A dense woodland spread out around a massive tree at its center. Was that the World Tree?
Once I reached the forest entrance, I took out the compass Erika had given me.
【Find It Compass】
Guides you in the direction of the designated target. (Single-use)
Following the direction the compass pointed, I walked on until rustling sounds and a voice reached me.
“What brings a young human here?”
I looked toward the sound and saw a member of the Forest Tribe—no, an elf—aiming a bow at me.
With blonde hair and a pure, delicate gaze, she was looking at me with a cold expression, bow drawn, so I raised both hands in the air and said, “I was sent here on a request. I was told to check whether anything has happened to the Forest Tribe.”
“The request letter?”
I pulled a sheet of parchment from my inventory and showed it to her. She motioned for me to throw it over.
When I did, she checked the contents and finally relaxed her guard.
“Sorry. Things have been feeling rather ominous lately.”
“Could you tell me more?”
“First, let’s move somewhere else.”
I followed the woman, who introduced herself as Melin of the Forest Tribe, and headed toward the village.
The village was full of elves, but every one of them wore a gloomy expression, and the dark circles under their eyes were no joke.
They looked exactly like people who hadn’t been sleeping properly.
Melin guided me through the village’s heavy atmosphere.
“This is the home where the elder of the Forest Tribe lives. Please wait here for a moment.”
After a few minutes, a voice from inside told us to come in.
When I stepped inside, I saw a simple little house, modestly furnished with only the necessities.
Melin gave a polite little cough when she caught me looking around.
Only then did I gather my wits and look toward the person sitting in the chair.
There was a man with the looks of an idol and the face of a pretty-boy gigolo.
He had the kind of appearance my real older sister would absolutely adore.
“This is His Grace, Mylene, the elder of the Forest Tribe.”
“It’s nice to meet you, traveler.”
“Hello, His Grace Mylene.”
When I bowed in greeting, Mylene smiled and told me to take a seat.
As soon as I sat down, Melin served us some warm tea.
“I heard the story. You came here after receiving a request, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Then I’ll begin from the start.”
From what they told me, strange noises had started coming from the World Tree a while back.
The sounds had grown worse day by day, but they couldn’t figure out the cause, and it was wearing them down.
Worst of all, it was so loud at night that they couldn’t sleep, and the whole tribe was suffering because of it.
At that moment, a message came to mind.
[Quest Received]
Uncover the source of the unknown noise coming from the World Tree.
Reward: Increase in the Forest Tribe’s favorability.
Looking at the reward, which was worse than I expected, this was probably an easy quest?
“Leave it to me.”
“Thank you, traveler. Melin will guide you to the World Tree.”
After leaving the house and following Melin through the forest path, I started hearing a strange sound.
It sounded a little like a scream, maybe, or the groaning of someone in pain, but I couldn’t make out exactly what it was.
After walking for quite a while, we reached the massive World Tree.
“I’ll wait here.”
“All right.”
I moved closer to the World Tree and looked it over, but nothing seemed unusual.
“Yongyong. See anything?”
“Kkyu-ung.”
“Right? There’s nothing here.”
I searched for a long while, but found nothing.
With a frustrated sigh, I sat down against the World Tree, and then I heard something from somewhere nearby.
“Peep! Peep!”
“Piiip!”
“Huh? What?”
I looked toward the sound and saw the chick that had eaten a magic stone from me earlier.
How had it gotten all the way here?
And wait—there were two of them?
“Peep! Peep!”
“Piiip!”
“Huh? You’re going to help? How?”
The two chicks led the way with great confidence, telling me to follow them.
What, are these chicks some kind of gratitude-giving magpie…?
No, wait. They’re chicks.
Following the chicks to a corner of the World Tree, I found a very tiny hole.
It was hidden so well I could barely see it with the naked eye.
The chicks slipped right inside, and for the first time since my body changed, I finally had a chance to make useful use of this form.
If I’d been even a little bigger, I never would’ve fit.
I awkwardly crawled into the hole and kept going for a long while before a light appeared in the distance.
“Peep! Peep!”
“Piiip!”
“J-just wait! I’m coming!”
Those little brats. They’d been walking comfortably while I was crawling through there, and now they were hurrying me like I was the slow one.
I should be grateful, so I’ll endure it, seriously.
After a long crawl, I finally emerged into a place where bright light was leaking through and found a wide open clearing.
There, along with the chicks, was someone else.
A being whose face was partly covered in black scales—one thing was certain: it wasn’t human.
Its pupils were slit like a snake’s. Who was it?
It looked at me and smiled brightly.
Not a normal smile, either. Its mouth had split all the way back to its ears.
There’d been no need for a horror movie anymore.