The Carnivorous Forest
I had finished my revenge match in Zone 3, so I could finally leave Lundel with a light heart. Without delay, I set off down the path leading to Zone 3.
But I couldn’t depart right away.
“Thank you once again, from the bottom of my heart.”
At the village entrance, Halvar and all the residents of Lundel had come out to see me off. They poured out so many words of gratitude and regret that, for a moment, I almost felt like I didn’t want to leave.
Still, I couldn’t keep putting off my departure forever.
“Take care, Hakon.”
“The next time we meet, you had best be prepared.”
“I’ll accept any challenge you bring. Just do your best.”
After exchanging those final farewells with Hakon and sharing a firm warrior’s handshake as we promised to meet again, I waved until their figures disappeared from sight and left Lundel behind.
Just as I was about to head properly toward Zone 3—
“Did you say your goodbyes nicely?”
“Emily?”
I ran into Emily’s party.
“Weren’t you guys supposed to have gone back already?”
“We were planning to, but after watching your fight, we just couldn’t sit still. So we decided to head to Zone 3 today.”
I eyed Emily, Naira, and Mugi with open suspicion. If they had truly wanted to go to Zone 3, they could have left while I was busy saying goodbye to the villagers.
Emily simply shrugged at my gaze.
“I won’t deny that we were hoping to travel together. But Ian, you don’t know the way to Zone 3, do you?”
“Well… that’s true, but…”
“Luckily, we do. So how about we accompany you as far as the residential area in Zone 3? We won’t push any further than that. Just to the residential district, and then we part ways.”
The bright, cheerful smile on Emily’s face felt strangely unsettling. It was like I was being played, like I was losing somehow.
But she was right—I didn’t have any better options. I could always follow behind as a latecomer, but that would waste far too much time.
In the end, I had no choice but to nod. Yeah, traveling with people I was at least a little familiar with was better than going with complete strangers.
At that moment, Naira—who had somehow slipped right up beside me—casually draped an arm around my shoulders. At this rate, she was going to end up hugging me before long.
“By the way, how do you do that thing?”
“What thing?”
“You know, that move you always pull off. The one where you suddenly change direction in mid-air.”
“Ah.”
To be honest, even I didn’t really know how I did it. I had just tried it out of pure desperation to survive, and somehow it worked. Since it relied entirely on instinct, I wasn’t confident I could explain it.
So there was only one thing I could say to Naira.
“I don’t know. It just… works when I do it.”
“Wow… that was seriously annoying just now.”
“But I really don’t know. And anyway, you’re an archer. Why are you even curious?”
Unlike me, who played solo, Naira had Emily to reliably guard her front line. In a pinch, she could even get help from Mugi.
At my question, Naira flashed a sly grin.
“I’m thinking of picking up a second weapon, just like you.”
“Huh?”
“After watching you fight today, using two weapons looked pretty good.”
She pulled a sword out of her inventory and began swinging it wildly with her off-hand.
“How’s this? Not bad, right?”
“Well… the combination itself is solid.”
Of course, her actual skill would need a lot of training, but I kept that part to myself.
Still, I was being sincere about the combination being good.
The downside of wielding both a sword and a staff at the same time was that you had to spread your stats evenly. Even now that my level had risen, I still sometimes felt like a jack-of-all-trades.
But a sword and bow would share the same stats, and their roles would be clearly divided. It might actually be an even trickier combination than sword and magic.
And then—
“I’m planning to start using a second weapon from the next zone as well.”
It wasn’t just Naira who wanted to wield multiple weapons.
“Wait, you too, Emily?”
“No matter how I look at it, our party is severely lacking in close-range attack power.”
Emily pulled a weapon from her inventory just like Naira had. But it wasn’t the shield she usually used—it was a spear.
“If you had joined our party, Ian, this wouldn’t have been necessary. But it can’t be helped. Or would you like to join us now? We’d welcome you anytime.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I’m good.”
“What a shame.”
She stared at me with those captivating eyes, and the gaze felt so heavy that I decided to change the subject.
“By the way, what exactly was that flag we received back then?”
The flag Arka had given me right before we left the boss room. It was probably the highest contribution reward for this boss.
“Are you that curious?”
Emily smiled mischievously at my question.
To be honest, I was curious.
But—
“No. I’m not really that curious anymore.”
I shook my head. If I admitted I was interested here, I’d probably be subjected to an endless stream of girl talk.
Surprisingly, however, Emily gave me the information without any fuss.
“Aww, you’re no fun. It’s not like it’s a big secret anyway. That was a Guild Founding Token.”
“A g-guild?”
The guild system did not currently exist in Arcadia. It wasn’t in the menu, and no matter how much I wandered around the villages, I had never heard anyone mention guilds.
So I—and many others—had assumed there were no guilds in this game. We hadn’t felt any particular need for them, either.
But suddenly, guilds? I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“Were you surprised?”
“Yeah… I guess so. So did you create one?”
“Not yet. There are a lot of things to consider.”
That made sense. You had to decide on a guild name, set activity goals, choose whether to be the guild master yourself or entrust it to someone else…
And since it was an item that only appeared in Zone 5, she was probably debating whether it was even okay to create one now.
In that sense, it was right for Emily to have received this reward. A guild would be too heavy a burden for a solo player like me. A weapon was more than enough.
While we talked, our footsteps carried us to a valley that had changed completely.
The once-dry stream now flowed with cool, refreshing water. But I tilted my head in confusion.
“Why did we come here?”
Hadn’t they said we were going to Zone 3? I had followed because they claimed to know the way… Emily, you didn’t trick me, did you?
Yet everyone’s expressions remained perfectly calm.
“This is the right place.”
“We’re exactly where we need to be.”
“This is… how it was.”
I couldn’t sense any hint of deception. That meant the path to Zone 3 really was here…
“Then where’s the path?”
The cave where the altar had been? Or had a new route opened up?
“Well, you see…”
The moment I saw the mischievous looks on Emily and Naira’s faces, I realized I had been caught without any chance to resist.
They lifted me up. Even Mugi—who I had trusted—joined in.
“Whoa! W-wait a second…”
“It’s fine! They say we’ll arrive right away!”
I was thrown straight into the rushing current.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Somebody save meeeeeee!
When Ian finally regained her senses after being tossed about in the water for what felt like forever, she found herself at the downstream section of a gently flowing river.
“Haa… haa… What part of that was ‘right away’…”
Ian barely managed to crawl onto the riverbank. Without even bothering to dry her clothes, she flopped down spread-eagle on the ground.
“I’m definitely getting revenge for this.”
That aside, their claim that the path to Zone 3 lay within the valley had been true. The surrounding scenery was completely different from rocky mountains or open fields.
“No wonder I couldn’t find it.”
The place where she now stood was a tropical rainforest where even sunlight barely reached.
Even though she had just been in the water, the air was hot and humid. Compared to the trees growing here, the forest in Zone 1 could only be called a garden.
This is Zone 3…
The area she would have to conquer from now on. She couldn’t even begin to guess what kind of enemies would appear.
Will there be beasts more dangerous than bears? Or poisonous snakes? Giant insects?
To be honest, bugs were something she really didn’t want to deal with… Such thoughts quickly filled Ian’s mind.
But after spending some time like that—
“By the way, why aren’t those people showing up?”
They had agreed to travel together only as far as the residential area in Zone 3 before parting ways. She had been waiting because they said they would arrive soon, but there was still no sign of Emily’s party.
“Don’t tell me those people abandoned me and took a different route?”
If that was the case, she really wouldn’t let it slide. She was pondering what kind of revenge would be most fitting when—
-Whiiir!
A long green tentacle shot out from somewhere and wrapped around Ian’s ankle.
“Huh? Kyaaah!”
Her body was yanked into the air by the sudden ambush.
She didn’t even realize she had let out an embarrassing scream. Instead, she immediately drew her sword and swung it at the tentacle around her ankle.
“Slash!”
The green tentacle was easily severed by Ian’s blade. She twisted into a somersault and landed on the ground.
What appeared before her eyes was a purple flower wrapped around a tree with long vines. In the pistil area—where no plant should have such a thing—rows of teeth clicked and clacked menacingly.
A carnivorous flower that devoured people.
So the tentacles were vines?
Before she could even be surprised, the plant that had found its prey stretched its vines toward Ian.
She leaped backward with all her strength to avoid them.
At that moment, the vines twisted sharply and chased after her relentlessly. Ian twisted her waist and torso, pulling her sword back taut.
The skill she had obtained when her sword proficiency reached 200.
The fifth form of basic swordsmanship. An area-of-effect annihilation technique.
Top Blade
Ian’s sword spun like a top. The rotating blade sliced through every bundle of approaching vines, spraying the flower’s sap from the clean cuts.
Avoiding the sap, Ian immediately stamped forward.
A single-strike charge to close the distance in an instant.
Sword Rush
The long, tail-like trail of blue light sliced the flower clean in half.
-Kieeeeek!
The flower, now missing half its petals, let out a scream. Watching it, Ian let out a dry laugh.
“What kind of plant screams?”
At the same time, she realized it. This place—Zone 3—was a world of moving plants.
If that was the case—
“There’s no better special remedy for plants than this.”
Ian sheathed her sword and pointed her staff at the still-screaming flower. Mana gathered within the staff and quickly took shape.
What appeared was a sphere of flame. A chilling smile formed on Ian’s lips.
Fireball
The flower, its vines already severed, had no way to block the flaming orb. The man-eating plant was soon engulfed in flames from head to toe and reduced to nothing but ashes.
Ian, who had watched the entire scene, let out a sigh of admiration.
“It’s way more efficient than I expected.”
She hadn’t imagined that even after chipping away at its stamina with her sword, a single fire spell would finish it off so cleanly. She now felt certain that she would be able to use magic far more effectively in Zone 3 than she had in Zone 2.
Ian put away both her sword and staff. She checked the riverside once more, but there was still no sign of Emily’s party.
She clicked her tongue.
“Whatever. They’ll come on their own.”
Ian decided to head out first in search of the residential area. The past two weeks had been strange, but she had always been a solo player to begin with.
The morning had simply dawned, and she had woken from the dream.
That was why Ian failed to notice.
That something lurking in this forest was already following closely behind her.