Sourtul Forest
Sourtul Forest.
On the Continent, vanishingly few people even knew the forest existed. Little was known of it to begin with, and those who had learned what it truly was were reluctant to speak of it. The place was worse than dangerous. Of everyone who had ever gone in, not a single soul had come back alive.
And now Yujun and Manuela had set foot inside it.
The air was bleak enough that a ghost's wail seemed liable to rise at any moment. Yujun extended his senses. Nothing in particular answered. He spoke.
"This the place?"
"Yeah."
Manuela nodded.
"But it's my first time here too..."
"Then how did you know the thing you need is here?"
"Imagination!"
"......Witches really do have it easy. Sounds even better than seeing the future."
"No. I prophesied it more than two years ago. That's how Sourtul Forest became a place that those in the know are aware of."
"Oh. Is that right?"
Looked at a certain way, wasn't it Manuela's fault that the Continent's rankers had died? But a witch was bound to prophesy. There was no blaming her for that.
"To be precise, I didn't prophesy one specific material. It was only that Sourtul Forest would be stocked with materials of Legendary grade or higher."
"Just materials?"
"There might be equipment too. You could probably pick up quite a few consumables."
"Inside this forest?"
"Yeah."
"Hmm..."
Yujun swallowed the sound. Sourtul Forest was unlike any ordinary wood, but it hardly looked like a place hiding tremendous treasure. It wouldn't have been strange for the undead to come shambling out. That was how it looked on the surface, at any rate.
Sourtul Forest — where top rankers and the strongest of the other races had issued their challenge and vanished without a trace. Even the so-called top rankers were probably around level 500, or lower. Having already slain a Demon King, he saw no reason to be afraid.
Yujun drew his sword. Manuela, by contrast, wore a slightly tense expression. If you're going to look like that, why did you say we should come?
At least she doesn't seem frightened. That's something. By his judgment, Manuela possessed combat ability on par with a solid member of Coordination. Her power was also remarkably versatile, and traveling with her was a considerable help.
It'll be fine.
"This is insane!"
"Run! Fall behind and you're headed straight for the underworld!"
"Aaaah! We never should've come here!"
Three players were tearing through the heart of Sourtul Forest in a desperate flight. All three belonged to a rare race called the Hon, marked by abnormally huge bodies and tiny faces. The Hon had no talent for magic whatsoever, but they were famous for exceptional skill in close combat. Rumors of rare items in Sourtul Forest had lured them in, and they were now regretting it to the bone.
"Why did you say we should come?! Rayl! Look what you've gotten us into!"
"You were all for coming here! Who are you blaming?"
"Both of you, stop it! Is this really the time to fight each other?"
A single monster was hunting the three Hon. The thing on their heels was a Devil Tiger, a beast of tremendous bulk. Had it been a mere beast, Hon warriors in the high four-hundreds would never have been fleeing in so ugly a scramble.
The Devil Tiger spat a dark-crimson fireball from its maw. The blast roared past and detonated, and one of the Hon threw himself aside, barely clearing it, then ran on, gasping for his life. His luck held for only that once. The Devil Tiger was already at his back, and it sank its teeth into the nape of his neck.
"Grk!"
The Hon had no gift for surviving a torn-out throat. One of them died.
"Kotun!"
"Don't look back! Us staying alive matters more."
Rayl said it coldly. While the Devil Tiger fed on Kotun, the other two Hon opened the distance, wringing out every last scrap of strength they had.
"Huff! Gah!"
Before a Devil Tiger, the struggle meant nothing.
The Hon — the dead man included — were powerhouses who would have been received with respect anywhere on the Continent. They had never dreamed they would be this helpless against a single monster that wasn't even named. Helpless didn't even cover it. This was run or die.
And then the moment came when a deep shadow fell across their fate.
Thud. One of the Hon caught his foot on a stone and went down. It was a mistake he would never have made under ordinary circumstances, but with his life hanging on a moment this desperate, he moved too fast, lost his balance, and fell. A gap of only an instant. The Devil Tiger, having already finished Kotun and closed the distance, flashed a vicious light in its eyes — the look of a beast that had found its next meal.
Terror settled into Rayl's eyes where he lay on the ground. He needed to get up and flee at once, but fear had locked his body, and he moved with agonizing slowness. It was the moment he squeezed his eyes shut.
The Devil Tiger suddenly whipped its head around and broke into a sprint on all fours. Rayl cracked his eyes open, his face blank with confusion.
"Wh-what?"
In the direction the Devil Tiger was running stood one man and one youthful-looking woman.
Why them, all of a sudden?
The two Hon had no way of knowing. Neither did Yujun and Manuela.
"Why's it coming this way?"
"Right?"
"What are you going to do?"
In answer to Manuela's question, Yujun showed her the pure-white blade of the Absolute Sovereign's Sword.
The Devil Tiger leapt high. Yujun's eyes sank deep. A breath in, a breath out — a single respiration. The sword flashed, and with a clean shearing sound the Devil Tiger's head parted from its body. The cut across the severed neck was immaculate.
"......"
The two Hon gaped. The Devil Tiger that had driven them to the very brink of death had lost its life in a single stroke — and to a man of rather slight build, compared with a Hon. They had no choice but to be shocked.
"He looks human... Was there someone like that on the Continent?"
"The Continent is vast. It wouldn't be strange if there were a human stronger than us."
The two Hon approached Yujun, who had felled the Devil Tiger, with caution. In a place like this, speaking carelessly to another player was a dangerous act. But no matter how one looked at him, Yujun was no monster, and relations between humans and the Hon were not particularly bad.
"Thank you for helping us."
Rayl bowed his head deeply. It was the thanks one naturally owed a savior of one's life.
"Sure, sure. Mind if I ask one question?"
"Please, go ahead."
"How long have you been in here?"
"Today is our second day."
"And sleep?"
"We wouldn't dream of sleeping here. Creatures like the monster you just saw are crawling all over the place."
"Anything besides monsters?"
"The monsters are the greatest danger, yes. Ah — and even when we retraced the path we'd come by, we couldn't get back out the way we entered."
"What do you mean?"
"We definitely weren't lost, and yet we couldn't escape this place."
"I didn't see anything like a barrier."
"Right. That's why the three of us — no, the two of us — thought it was strange. It wasn't as if the paths or the surroundings kept changing, and still we couldn't get out of the forest."
Yujun's face grew grave. Something other than a barrier was exerting an immense influence over this forest, and he had no idea what it was.
"Aside from that Devil Tiger just now, what other monsters were there?"
"Most of them were things we didn't even have names for. From the start, the moment we sensed a monster's presence we ran, so we rarely even saw what they looked like."
"You've survived remarkably well."
"Honestly, we didn't expect monsters of this caliber. We had our own confidence in our strength."
Yujun nodded. He knew the Hon well. They were a combat-specialized race that had often appeared in the game, and yet here in Sourtul Forest such people were nothing more than prey for the predators. He didn't need to ask to see how hollow they must feel. On top of that, one of their own had died.
"Why did the Devil Tiger suddenly target me?"
"...That, I don't know either."
"Have you seen any other players?"
"No. You and the person beside you are the first."
"No corpses either?"
"......No."
With a heavy expression, Rayl looked toward the place where his kin had died. There was nothing there. The Devil Tiger had crunched the Hon up and swallowed him whole. Did it have an appetite that left not even the bones?
"Ah, and we've also seen monsters fighting each other."
At the other Hon's words, Yujun spoke again.
"They fought each other?"
"Yes. It didn't seem like a territorial dispute. It looked like they were simply fighting to eat one another."
"Because there was no prey?"
"I don't know."
Well, the confirmed cases were far too few. One sighting was too little to judge by.
I'll have to see it for myself.
"I hope we aren't just being a burden..."
"It's fine."
Yujun's party decided to move with the two Hon. They wouldn't be much help in a fight, but he had his reasons for keeping them close. If it came to it, the Hon might at least serve as meat shields — and he wanted to know why the Devil Tiger had suddenly changed targets and charged him.
Run into another one, and I'll know for sure.
First, if he meant to obtain whatever he was after in this forest, he needed to understand what kind of place Sourtul Forest was. So he settled his mind and took his time.
"They're starting to close in."
Yujun said.
"Close in?"
"The predators."
"You can sense them? I don't feel a thing..."
"For now, just stand still. I'll put some distance between us."
"...What?"
At Yujun's words, Rayl was visibly flustered.
"Put some distance between us, you say..."
"It's all right. Don't be afraid. You aren't going to die."
"......"
There was something he wanted to test.
Three identical monsters revealed themselves before Yujun's party. The things drooled in long strands, their bodies like a goblin and a lizardman mashed together. They didn't look particularly strong on the outside.
Looks don't matter.
The three predators of Sourtul Forest did not charge in at once the way the Devil Tiger had.
"Hmm. Look at these tasty ones."
"The human in particular looks nice and tender. It's been a while since I've had a human. Heheh..."
"That human male is mine. Eat him, and my level ought to climb a few more."
Astonishingly, the creatures spoke, and with leisure to spare. They even brought up levels. Yujun didn't let it show, but he was more than a little surprised.
Monsters that know what a level is?
Monsters, by nature, did not possess a player's abilities. That was precisely why they were called monsters rather than members of the other races. And yet these things spoke as if they were players themselves. The strange part was that they were absolutely not players.
I don't know every race, but...
The distinctive mana wavelength unique to monsters that were not players — he felt it coming off them. Was there something about them that set them apart from the monsters outside Sourtul Forest?
"Shall we begin the hunt?"
One of the monsters said as much, then came running with a longsword honed to a razor edge.
Did they take that from a player too?
There was a great deal he wanted to know about them. Yujun moved as well.