Chapter 3: They Departed on a Guild Mission, or So It Was Told

I wonder if there are any good missions… wondered Renya as he entered the guild hall. When he saw the crowd gathered in a corner of the room, he stopped.

He was currently, in a word, broke.

After earning his pay, his coffers had been reasonably well-off. The purchase of the house had done significant damage to it. His habit of buying interesting foods and ingredients finished it off. He was also carrying debt, and though his contract forbid people from knocking on his door demanding payment, he’d prefer to have a solution to this problem sooner than later. For the time being, he wasn’t yet at risk of falling into poverty. This was primarily because Shion and Rona had been funding him with their savings from before they had met. It wasn’t a permanent arrangement, and he needed to find a way to make sure it didn’t become one; he had no intention of becoming a professional sugar baby.

The two girls had brushed it off, telling him to think of it as them paying rent. Agreeing with their proposal, however, would infringe upon Renya’s masculine ideals. The male ego could, at times, prove to be quite troublesome.

In any case, he needed to make some money. He had considered opening a store, but after being neglected for so long, the store space at home was a filthy mess, broken and cracked in various places. Frau was currently working double time to clean and repair the place. The cleaning was fine, but the repairing raised a question: where was she getting the necessary materials to do the repairs? Upon asking the fairy, he learned that she had developed her own methods for acquiring funds.

“Frau leveled up, so Frau can make manastones now.”

Apparently, after continuously receiving mana from Renya and compressing it in herself, Frau had gained the ability to crystallize the stored mana. That did not explain what exactly a “level” was, and how it was “upped,” but Renya did not dwell on the question. The manastones were neither large nor very pure, so they didn’t fetch much of a price. Nevertheless, selling them allowed her to earn some pocket change. It could be said that it was actually Renya doing the earning because he was providing the mana. Renya, however, felt that since Frau was the one making the manastones, the earnings belonged to her.

“The crystallization process involves a big loss of mana, so Frau tries not to do it too much.” Frau hung her head a little as she spoke. In a way, her business was slightly sketchy, and she seemed a tad ashamed to admit to Renya that she was effectively trafficking his mana.

“I see. Well, since I can’t even afford to give you an allowance right now, I’d say go for it. As long as it doesn’t interfere with daily life, make as much as you want.”

“The mana Frau gets from Master is both Frau’s food and Frau’s bond with Master. So Frau only uses a teeny tiny bit, and only when Frau is really in trouble.”

Renya patted the smiling fairy on the head. As he did, a question occurred to him.

“By the way, what did you do after locking all of us inside? You said the house was surrounded, but I don’t think anyone showed up.”

“There were visitors,” she said before pausing. Then, after what appeared to be a moment of contemplation, she continued, “But they went bye-bye right away.”

Renya frowned. Was it just him or did Frau just say something odd? What was “went bye-bye” supposed to mean, exactly? He glanced at the fairy. The sight of her beaming smile convinced him that he was probably overthinking things. This was, after all, an alternate world. Maybe the wording had a different nuance. Whoever they were, if a little girl managed to convince them to leave peacefully, they couldn’t have been that much of a menace.

As Renya pulled himself out of his thoughts, he found himself at the corner of the room with the crowd of people. They were gathered before a bulletin board where guild missions were posted. Everyone’s attention seemed to be focused on one particular mission. He peeked through the crowd and read the specifics. It was an extermination mission that was taking place at the forest northeast of Kukrika about a half day’s walk away. The forest was fairly large — many times the size of Kukrika — and contained the entrance to a dungeon known as the Forest Maze, which supposedly led to the Miasmal Forest. Strangely, the mission itself was rather nonspecific and only involved hunting down monsters that thrived there; it made no demands as to what species. So long as they killed monsters and brought back manastones, they would be rewarded accordingly.

“Not every day you see an extermination mission with no specific target,” said someone in the crowd.

There were ongoing missions for the extermination of a number of dangerous monster species. These monsters tended to pose a constant threat to humans that often stemmed from excessive fecundity or deadliness. Missions of this nature had no time limit, and adventurers did not need to register beforehand. Anyone who could prove that they had killed some of the designated species would be rewarded. The inverse implication of this was, of course, that no matter how rare or dangerous a monster might be, killing it would produce no reward if there was no corresponding mission.

Meanwhile, the mission this time did not specify what species of monster to kill. Anything that lived in the forest was fair game. Judging from the murmurs in the crowd, this was very unusual. The novelty, however, was lost on Renya, who had no sense of what was usual to begin with.

“You think the Forest Maze is close to an outbreak?”

“No way. That place has a low rate of monster spawning relative to its size. There has never been an outbreak at the Maze on record.”

“Were there even any tough monsters in that forest?”

“This might be a good chance to make some quick cash, you know? You just have to kill whatever you see, after all.”

As various adventurers pitched in with their own thoughts, Renya found himself entirely uninterested. The whole matter seemed sketchy to him. He was about to look for a different mission when he heard something that made him stop.

“This reminds me, it’s almost forest octopus-hunting season. Might be worth giving that a shot along the way,” said a middle-aged adventurer with the aura of someone who had years of hard-earned experience. He was stroking his chin with a grin on his face.

“Hey, you,” said Renya as he grabbed the man’s shoulder. The intent look on Renya’s face made the man lean back a little before he answered.

“Y-Yeah?”

“Did you just say ‘season’? Do you mean that thing’s edible?”

“What, you don’t know? All right, listen, my good man.”

The adventurer was then kind enough to tell Renya all about the forest octopuses. Apparently, they were a subspecies of the sea-dwelling octopuses. Like their aquatic brethren, they were eight-armed mollusks, but they happened to live in forests. This was surprising to Renya firstly because octopods existed in this world and secondly because some of them lived on land. Furthermore, forest octopuses could stand and walk on their eight arms. They primarily fed on small animals and, possibly due to their terrestrial nature, their meat was firmer and less watery.

“Land octopuses… How does that even work? Do they breathe with lungs?”

“I can’t stand the sea ones, but I love the land ones. Sprinkle on some salt, dry them, then roast them a bit. They’re a great snack when drinking.”

“Mm. Tell me more.”

“You can put them under the sky and turn them into jerky, too. Great for nibbling on. Don’t eat them raw, though. Too tough to chew. Also, you can’t grill them fresh, either. They’ll end up so hard you’ll think you’re chewing on a shoe.”

Presumably, the process of drying activated some sort of enzyme that softened their texture enough for consumption. When it came to animal meat, fresh did not necessarily translate to tasty. Some things, even, were tastiest just before they rotted. Knowing this, Renya did not find it especially surprising that forest octopuses were not to be eaten fresh.

“They’re a pain to find, though. And you’ll want to be careful because some of them can get pretty big. A friend of mine once found a sucker that was over five meters in length. At that size, it’s not guaranteed who eats who.”

“Any relationship between their size and their taste?” Renya asked, completely ignoring the implication that they sometimes fed on humans. His attitude made the middle-aged adventurer smile wryly before continuing.

“They’re not great when they get too big. Apparently, the babies still taste the best. You dry them whole. Also, I heard you can roast their eggs too, but I’ve never tried them myself.”

“I see… That’s good to know. Thanks. Here, treat yourself to a drink,” said Renya as he handed the man a few silver coins as a token of gratitude. He didn’t have much money left, but he still thought that useful information deserved to be paid for.

“Appreciate it, my good man. If you’re going to try your hand at hunting them, don’t bother with the little critters. It’s better to chop up a goblin and spread the flesh around. Those suckers are drawn to the smell.”

He hadn’t expected them to eat goblins as well, but the thought didn’t bother him either. He could hardly have tasted the likes of octopuses and mantis shrimps in his previous life if he had been so squeamish.

“I see. You’ve been a great help. Thanks for everything.”

Renya gave a quick bow, thanked the man again, and headed home, his head filled with thoughts of forest octopus trapping.

“So, we’re doing a guild mission, and we’re going to hunt ourselves some forest octopuses while we’re at it,” declared Renya.

The first thing he had done after getting home was to gather Shion and Rona to make his announcement. Neither of the two girls had any idea what he was talking about, forcing him to summarize the events at the guild.

“Oh, those things. Yeah, those are a delicacy,” said Shion, nodding together with Rona. “The forest is huge and there’s not too many of them. On top of that, monsters roam around there, so they’re hard to find on the market. There’s basically only one supply chain for taverns and diners, and that’s getting them directly from adventurers, so they’re pretty expensive.”

Shion continued to explain that they might have made for a decent business if they could be caught en masse and sold wholesale. Unfortunately, due to their rarity, merchants didn’t like to carry them. She did not hide the disappointment in her tone.

“I’ve also only tried them on a handful of occasions, but I do remember them to be quite good. They were dried raw and cut into thin slices for a salad. I’ve also had them pickled. Oh, and there was a time when they were chopped up and cooked with a crop from the west called arroz. That was delicious as well.”

“Arroz?”

“Um…” Rona put a finger to her chin, looking like she was trying to recall some old memories. “They’re tiny white grains used to make alcohol and vinegar.”

Her words hit Renya with the force of a bull. Only with an effort of will did he prevent his shock from showing on his face.

She was almost certainly referring to rice.

Renya might be an amnesiac, but he was a Japanese amnesiac. Bread and pasta might fill his stomach, but only rice warmed his heart. Being in a different world, he was already prepared to never see rice again. Thinking back on it, though, wheat flour existed here. There was also plenty of vinegar in the markets, so it should have been a foregone conclusion that the precursor to vinegar — rice — existed as well. Feeling slightly disappointed by his own oversight, he focused his thoughts on emphasizing how participating in the mission normally would be profitable as well.

“Even if we don’t catch any, the guild will reward us for killing monsters. If we clean the place out, we’ll at least make some money.”

“Not a bad idea.”

With Shion in agreement and no further opposition, it was quickly decided that they would depart in two days.

The forest they came to was referred to as… the forest. The place had no particular name. According to Shion, it really was just a regular old forest.

Renya estimated Kukrika to be about four kilometers from end to end, based on the fact that a slow walk through the city took about an hour. This meant Kukrika occupied an area of approximately sixteen square kilometers. Since the forest was big enough to fit a couple of Kukrikas, it was likely at least sixty to eighty square kilometers in size. In his previous world, thirty square kilometers of trees would be enough to deserve a name and a plaque. Here, a place twice that size was “just some forest.” It was another one of those moments when he really felt the alternate world culture gap.

From Shion and Rona’s point of view, this forest wasn’t worth naming. The Miasmal Forest, where Renya first made his appearance in this world, was a couple hundred times bigger. Compared to that, the place before them really did seem like a dinky little patch of trees.

Normally, it was a quiet forest rarely traversed by people. But thanks to the sudden influx of adventurers, there was now a fair bit of commotion in the area.

“Geez, just how many freaking parties decided to show up?” said a slightly annoyed Renya as he put his hands on his hips.

His attire was different from usual, consisting of a long black top with an intricate pattern of silver thread woven into the hem. His pants were also black, and he wore his usual leather chest guard, arm guards, and iron-reinforced boots on top. Frau had come to him the before they left and handed him new clothes, saying she had made them overnight. Rona, rather tactlessly, proceeded to wonder aloud whether fairies needed sleep. Shion responded by jamming her elbow into her insensitive friend.

When he took the clothes from Frau and ran his hand across it, Renya realized that he had no idea what they were made of. He stared at the fairy, who bashfully rubbed her hands together before explaining that Silkies were originally expert tailors whose skill with threads were second to none. She then proudly declared that she had taken the fibers of a grass she grew in the garden and the silk of a certain creature that lived in the garden, and used her mana to weave them into a special thread to make the cloth. Upon learning this, all eyes except Frau’s became fixed on the garden. It seemed no different than any other garden of a large house. That did not stop them from sharing the same exact thought: what in the world was happening in that garden?

“Silkworms?” asked Shion with an expression that suggested even she didn’t think so.

“Nn-nn, silk is nice and soft on the skin but not resilient enough.”

It was one thing for clothes to be able to survive some wear and tear, but no one else was entirely sure if they needed to be “resilient.” Frau, oblivious to the thoughts of the others, began to describe in detail just how resilient the clothes she gave Renya were. Taking her claims at face value, the clothes apparently conferred a moderate amount of resistance to heat and cold while also being capable of self-cleaning and self-repair. Despite being cloth, it could guard against sudden impacts through an automatic and reversible hardening process. In addition, it could trap blades and significantly blunt their edges. Basically, it had long abandoned its identity of clothing and crossed over into crazy magical armor territory.

“Doesn’t that mean this is really valuable?”

While the source of the materials was a concern, what worried Renya more was whether Frau had put herself in any danger in the process of making the clothes.

“Nn-nn,” replied Frau with a smile. “No worries. If they’re gone, Frau can make lots more.”

Hearing that Frau could make more of the things, Shion and Rona gave each other troubled looks. If she really could, she’d be sounding a death knell for every last tailor in town.

“I see. Thanks then,” said Renya as he patted the fairy on the head, pointedly ignoring the juxtaposition between Frau’s blissful smile and Shion’s gnashing of her teeth.

Though Frau had sent them off with a smile, after arriving at the scene, they were hard pressed to share her good cheer. Disappointment set in as they realized that the sheer number of people in the forest would make it very difficult to earn much reward. Adventurers all loved money; few would pass up an all-you-can-hunt event that rewarded every kill. They had only just entered the forest and there were already parties squabbling over claims to the spoils of dead monsters, which only worsened the commotion.

“It’s going to be tough to hunt anything on the edges of the forest,” said Shion as she glanced at a group of people arguing beyond the trees. They stood over the dead body of a kobold — a dog-headed monster that walked on two legs. They were weak creatures that produced manastones inferior to even goblins, and there was a certain despair to the sight of people arguing over who got the kill.

“Anyone have any idea as to where forest octopuses might live?”

“I heard they’re generally near water.”

“They’re amphibious?”

“I don’t know what that means, but they apparently don’t like it when their body dries out.”

Why’d they leave the water in the first place then?

Shortly after his mental quip, Renya reconsidered. If they hadn’t, he wouldn’t be able to catch them; he’d have to ask fishermen.

“There’s a small swamp in the middle of the forest, so we can set up camp somewhere nearby.”

“A swamp, huh…”

He imagined a gloomy bog, filled with muck and goop. It was a strangely depressing thought. They wouldn’t be able to use it as a source of water, and any food they procured would be dirty and tainted with the stench of mud. He was not going to enjoy being there.

There were no obvious paths in the forest, and traversing it without a map proved to be extremely difficult. Normally, trying to walk forward in a straight line would always result in some deviation to the left or right. Shion, however, seemed to have an odd knack for keeping them on track, and she did actually manage to point them straight forward. Rona whispered an offhand comment about how boars charged in straight lines, which earned her a loud and aggressive complaint in the form of a spinning backfist.

For about an hour, Shion led them forward through the dense undergrowth. When they got very close the center of the forest, they happened upon a clearing that contained a swamp, its water tinted green. Renya kneeled at the edge and put a finger in the water. He grimaced at the slightly thick texture. He then put his finger to his nose and found that it didn’t smell that muddy. The water was cleaner than he’d thought. Still, he doubted the thickness and smell would go away even if he boiled and filtered it. The water was definitely not drinkable.

Above him, a hole in the forest canopy allowed him to see the blue sky beyond. It was a change from the dense overgrowth they had walked under for the past while. Though he couldn’t see the sun, the blueness of the sky told him that they still had some time before sundown.

“The plan was to spend a night here, so we’ll have to set up camp… I sort of want to do a bit of hunting first, though.”

“That might be tough. Thanks to all the adventurers who rushed in here, the monsters all ran away,” said Shion with a frown.

They were deeper in the forest now, which shielded them from the noise at the fringes. The widescale hunting of monsters, however, sent said monsters fleeing for cover. They were probably all in hiding now, waiting for the storm to pass.

“Rather than hunting a bunch of little things, it might be more efficient to aim for a big one,” said Renya, remembering when he defended the settlers’ village against goblins. His kill count had reached triple digits that time, and he was not exactly swimming in money afterward.

“Famous last words, Renya. Especially for adventurers,” cautioned Shion.

Renya paused and awkwardly scratched his neck.

Touché.

He took a small stone from the ground and stood up. Shion gave him a questioning look. With a quick action of the wrist, he flicked the stone into a patch of grass. There was a low, dull thud followed by a soft, shrill cry. He took out a knife and approached the patch of grass. A ball of brown fur, just about big enough for one to get their arms around it, was squatted on the ground. Its eyes were spinning after being hit on the head by the stone. He stuck the knife into what he thought was its neck, and it stopped moving.

“A giant rat, huh. Pretty big catch.”

Dangling it by its legs, it looked to be a mouse-like creature about 50 centimeters in length.

“Is this a monster too?”

“Nah, that’s an animal. You won’t find a manastone inside.”

Apparently, monsters and animals were differentiated based on whether or not they had manastones inside their bodies.

“And what about forest octopuses?” Renya didn’t really care either way, but asked just for the sake of it.

“Also an animal, also no manastone. But it’s pretty aggressive and sometimes attacks people.”

It was something that he, a stranger to this world, might never figure out just by looking.

He lowered the giant rat’s body onto the ground and began taking it apart with his knife. He had considered having a taste of his first catch, but then he remembered all the food he brought with him from town. Since there was no need to eat it, the best use for its body was probably as bait for forest octopuses. The adventurer at the guild had told him that goblins were best, but those goblins were unfortunately busy being slaughtered by a bunch of Renya’s money-starved colleagues. He could have asked them to give him the corpses, but he didn’t want to deal with people giving him weird looks and guessing at what he was scheming.

Had he intended to eat the rat, he would have first cut its head off and hung it upside down to drain the blood. According to the information he was given, though, forest octopuses were drawn to the smell, so he purposefully left the blood in. After chopping it up, a raw smell began to drift from the dismembered chunks. The scent of blood might attract more than just forest octopuses, but he decided that if any other monsters showed up, he’d just chop them up for money too, so he left the smell alone.

Next, he looked in his inventory and took out the shovel he bought in town. He walked over to the very edge of the swamp and began digging a hole in the ground. When Shion and Rona saw what Renya was up to, they figured that they probably weren’t going to get anything else done that day, so they started setting up camp nearby. They picked a place that was reasonably far from the swamp. Being too close ran the risk of being disturbed by something that popped out of the water. The wetness itself was also uncomfortable.

Renya’s digging proceeded smoothly. The earth near the water was soft, and he was soon standing in a waist-deep hole. He reached into his inventory again, pulled out a tall pot, and buried it in the ground so that only the opening was exposed. The pieces of the giant rat went in, along with a scoop of swamp water. That was all it took to create a land version of the classic trap — the octopus pot.

Gauging his distance from the camp, he chose positions where the light of a campfire would not reach to dig more holes, eventually finishing with a total of ten. Normally, octopus pots were placed horizontally and provided a hiding spot for octopuses. Once an octopus settled in, the pot would be retrieved with the prey in tow. The original process did not actually involve any bait, but Renya was working on limited knowledge, so he made it up as he went along.

If he failed, then so be it. He wouldn’t be too upset.

“If we don’t catch any forest octopuses, we’ll have to do some real hunting tomorrow,” murmured Renya to himself. Even if he did catch some, he still needed to hunt down a good number of monsters. Otherwise, he wouldn’t make enough from this mission to cover the costs of the equipment he bought. Problems, problems. He put them out of his mind.

The surface of the swamp shimmered faintly, and orange light danced among the swaying leaves. He looked up at the reddening glow of the evening sky.

If life was a song, this was his coda. Just a long epilogue. An extra chapter. A bonus end. He had nothing to prove, and no one to prove it to. Why put in effort? Where was the need?

Shion and Rona were invested in him, and he felt a little sorry for them. But, if the day came when they found their hopes in him thoroughly betrayed, they could simply leave. He would not keep them.

It would be a pity, though.

Hiding in the shadows of the trees, Renya smiled thinly to himself.

Night had fallen over their camp.

A soft noise outside their tent woke Renya, and he opened his eyes. His sleeping bag was warm and comfortable. His eyelids drooped. He almost drifted away into sleep again before he forced his eyes open and kept himself awake.

The campfire crackled outside. The shadows of its flame danced on the fabric of the tent.

The tent.

Once again, they put up only one, and once again, they bickered over it. It was almost the exact same argument they had as when they went on the dungeon mission. In a fit of desperation, he made his “one of these days, I really am going to take you for a spin” threat again. Like last time, Rona smiled confidently and beckoned him with her hand. Shion blushed, but made no obvious attempt to refuse.

He loudly decried their terrible taste in men, but to no avail. It was little more than bluff and bluster — the pitiful baying of a fangless wolf. The only thing he managed to do was expose his own helplessness.

Their patrol rotation was Renya, Rona, then Shion. Renya opposed this on the grounds that it was harsh on Rona, but Rona insisted. Her reasoning was that Shion was probably going to latch onto him anyway, and this order allowed her to pull Shion off him when they switched shifts. It also meant she could respond quickly to any emergencies. Finding that he had no counter-arguments, Renya looked at Shion, who was scratching her head with the stupidest of smiles on her face, looking not the least bit repentant. Apparently, the Shion sleep-hug was already a confirmed event on their overnight itinerary.

He clenched his fist with the intent of giving Shion a nice solid one across the jaw. His resolve evaporated, however, when Rona enviously said that he got all the perks, and the order was finalized.

Renya pulled himself halfway out of his sleeping bag and looked to the side. The blurry image of Rona slumbering peacefully in her sleeping bag found its way into his sleepy eyes. If Rona was beside him, that meant Shion was on patrol duty right now. He crawled out of his sleeping bag, put his outerwear and sword belt back on, and pulled the tent’s door flap open slightly. Shion’s head popped in.

“Are you being a good boy in there?” she asked, trying to suppress a laugh.

He closed his eyes and allowed the feeling of “I’m going to kill you” to pass.

“Don’t make me hurt you… What’s the matter?”

He unsheathed his katana slightly in an intimidating manner. Shion either didn’t get the message or was well aware it was an empty threat. She grinned, completely unaffected.

“Leaving the jokes aside for a minute, I think something’s going on in the forest.”

“Those jokes of yours are going to be the end of you one day, you know? Anyway, what do you mean, something’s going on?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. Something doesn’t feel right.”

It must have been a very vague feeling. Shion didn’t seem entirely confident in her own perception. Regardless, Renya immediately shook Rona awake. She yawned a little and opened her eyes.

“What seems to be the matter?”

Her sleepy countenance was betrayed by the clarity in her voice. Renya noted it, treating it as a reminder that former knights were not to be taken lightly.

“Shion feels that something is wrong. It’s not certain, but it’s worth checking out.”

“Understood.”

Rona gave a curt answer and quickly sat up, pulling her sleeping bag down to her waist. Having taken off her priest robes to sleep, she was currently in her underwear. Her sudden rise caused a pair of objects to jump out in front of them. There was a weightiness to the way they swayed. The voluminous presence demanded the gazes of Renya and Shion, giving neither of them any say in the matter.

“Wait, it’s one thing for me to be staring, but why are you staring too?”

“Oh, um,” stammered Shion, “I’m just, you know… sort of impressed.”

“Now, now, you two, let’s keep some tension in the air,” said Rona, chuckling. She swiftly geared up, completely unfazed by her gawking onlookers. The deftness of her movement, however, spoke to the nature of both her current and past professions.

“Pack this camp up. We’re going to scout the surroundings. Put out the campfire too. We’ll use a more controlled light.”

“What about the pots, Renya?” asked Shion.

Renya grimaced. After spending so long setting the pots up, it pained him to leave them behind.

“I want to go grab them… but I doubt we have the time.”

“Why not go pick them up then? We’ll go dig them out.”

Shion casually held out her hand and motioned at him to give her the shovel. He hesitated.

“I don’t believe there’s any reason to rush right now. What seems to be the problem?”

“Yeah. We’re wasting more time waiting on you, Renya.”

Rona held out her hand and asked for a shovel as well. With doubt still lingering in his mind, Renya took out two shovels from his inventory.

“Right, we’ll go dig those pots out.”

“Renya, we’ll leave the tent to you, then. All right?”

Before he could answer, the two were already heading toward the pots. Figuring that he’d only waste time by saying more, he immediately started folding up the tent and returning it to his inventory.

“Ew! Renya! It’s gross how many of them are in here! They’re li— Hey! You! Stop sucking on to me!”

“Big ones, small ones… You’ve got quite the selection here.”

So much for keeping tension in the air, thought Renya to himself as he brought out cloth and string from his inventory.

“Here. Use the cloth the cover the pot opening and tie it with string. I’ll throw them in my voidbox after.”

“Got it. This sure is one heck of a good haul, though.”

“Coming here was well worth it, wasn’t it?”

“You know, this might be weird coming from me, but the two of you sure are laid-back, aren’t you…”

The pots were filled with octopuses of various sizes. So much for being hard to find. Renya had no idea whether his bait had good effect or the octopuses simply had a habit of gathering in places like these to rest, and he didn’t intend to think too hard on it. He had caught plenty, and that was all that mattered. If he had to guess at the reason for his large haul, it would be a lack of exposure. No adventurers focused on hunting forest octopuses, and he doubted there were fishermen who specialized in them either. As a result, they probably hadn’t been trained to be wary of things like traps.

He put the sealed pots into his inventory.

Had he not taken the time to do some experiments beforehand, the storage of the octopuses might have presented a problem. Thanks to his testing, he had learned that he couldn’t put living things directly into his inventory. A picked flower went in without problems, but a potted plant was barred. There was, however, a loophole to this rule that he discovered. When he wrapped it completely in a container such as a box, he could store it as a “box (potted plant inside).” It occurred to him he might be able to apply the same logic to a “box (human inside),” but he never worked up the nerve to ask Shion or Rona for help with his experiment. The transportation of humans in voidboxes, therefore, currently remained within the realm of conjecture.

“So, Renya, what next?” asked Shion after seeing the last octopus pot vanish from his hand.

“For now, we’ll start heading back toward the outer edges of the forest. Slow and steady. If anyone sees or feels anything weird, speak up immediately.”

“I know I’m the one who said it, but should we really be moving based on a gut feeling that something was wrong?”

It was true that Shion’s feeling was nothing more than just that — a feeling. There was no concrete evidence. Nevertheless, Renya deemed that enough to warrant packing up their camp and moving. Rona also made no objection. From Shion’s perspective, it must have seemed baffling for them to make such a fuss about a simple hunch.

“If nothing happens, then that’s fine. We don’t lose anything,” replied Renya as he quickcast an Illuminate in the palm of his hand with the brightness toned down. He had recently tried this as a part of his training regimen and discovered that he could simply make a fist to block off the light. It was a very practical application of the spell. He planted an orb in both Shion’s and Rona’s hands as well.

“The problem is if something does happen, so whenever anyone raises a concern, we follow up on it regardless. It’s better to err on the side of caution. You can call me a coward, but I’d rather be a coward than dead.”

“Is that… how it’s usually done?”

“Don’t ask me. I don’t know what’s usually done.”

Renya could only stand there and shrug when the topic turned to generalities and common rhetoric. With no memories of his past life, he couldn’t even figure out what his previous self would have done. Perhaps old Renya would have laughed up a storm had he seen what new Renya was doing. He had pondered the thought on more than one occasion, always to no avail.

“Enough talking. Let’s move.”

“Sure.”

Both girls responded simultaneously with a nod.

Renya took the lead and began making his way through the forest. The dense canopy swallowed most of the pale moonlight, allowing little to reach the ground. For all of Renya’s wondrous abilities, even he couldn’t see in the dark, so he had no choice but to feel his way forward, aided by the tiny amount of light from the orb in his hand. As they advanced, he also had to watch their rear. Needless to say, progress was slow. Perhaps owing to her prior training, Rona proved to be reasonably agile, but Shion was a total amateur at traversing the darkness. The limited vision granted by the dim glow in Shion’s hand wasn’t nearly enough for her to walk properly, and Renya was treated to a string of yelps and moans as she bumped her head and scratched her face on low-hanging branches. Eventually, he grabbed her shoulder.

“Renya…”

“Put your hand on my shoulder. Keep it there. Follow me. And don’t pull on my clothes. It stops me from reacting quickly.”

“Sorry,” whispered Shion as she did as she was told, “and thanks.”

Renya gave her hand a few gentle pats.

“It’s fine. This kind of thing just takes some getting used to.”

“Getting used to, huh…”

“That’s right. After you get the hang of it, people will start asking you how you do it, and you’ll get to tell them to just get a feel for it, too. That’s how skills work,” said Renya before adding in a whimsical tone, “The trick is that nobody actually knows how they do it, and everyone just keeps kicking the ball down the line.”

The statement drew a laugh from Shion. Meanwhile, Rona was eyeing the two of them enviously.

“Renya, I’d like to hold your shoulder as well.”

Rona’s request was pointedly ignored.

“Renya!”

“Oh shut up already. Look, you’re walking fine without help, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but I don’t feel fine.”

“Ugh, I can’t be dragging both of you. I won’t be able to mo— Wait.”

He abruptly stopped talking and gestured at Rona. Not missing a beat, she immediately fell silent and followed his gaze, her prior playfulness gone without a trace. The sudden shift in atmosphere caught Shion completely off guard, and her eyes darted frantically in all directions, unable to figure out what the other two were looking at.

“Something moved… Seemed pretty big.”

Renya peered into the darkness ahead. He couldn’t see clearly, but he noticed movement. Rona appeared to have felt the same.

“I believe I heard metal. A person, perhaps?”

“Huh? What? Where?”

To help the struggling Shion, Renya directed the light in his palm in the direction where he saw something move. Behind him, Rona closed her hand and snuffed out her own light.

“There. Can you see?”

Shion stared for a while before shaking her head.

“…Sorry. I still can’t.”

“Don’t worry. It takes some practice,” said Renya, comforting his disappointed friend.

“Renya, I believe it’s coming toward us.”

“You can tell? Damn. Can you see what it is?”

“Unfortunately… I suspect it’s a person, but I can’t tell much more in this darkness.”

Indecision stuck Renya. He could put out more light and immediately figure out what was ahead. If it was something dangerous, though, he would also be revealing his own position and attracting the thing’s attention. Conversely, he could remain under the cover of darkness and wait for the thing to leave, but there was a chance that it was moving toward them, as well as the possibility that it didn’t rely on sight to sense its environment. In that case, they would be at a terrible disadvantage. While he mulled over his options, the thing had come much closer to them. He could hear it trampling the grass underfoot.

“What should we do, Renya?”

“Let’s light it up. We’ll get a good look at it. If it’s big and ugly, we scream and run for our lives. Good plan?”

“Good plan.” Shion nodded.

“It’s your call,” said Rona. “I’ll leave the timing of the light to you, then?”

“Sure. We don’t want it to get too close either. Makes it harder to get away. I’ll give you a cue.”

After whispering about the plan with the two girls, Renya focused his attention on the darkness ahead. If the thing was too far away, he risked not being able to see it clearly. If the thing was too close, they might not be able to escape. It was a delicate balance. He waited, and waited. Then, feeling like it was time, he spoke to the two behind him.

“Get ready to run if I tell you to. I’m throwing up the lights. Shield your eyes so you’re not looking straight at them. You’ll blind yourself.”

Renya waited until he saw the two girls bring hands over their eyes. Then, he aimed at a branch as far away from them as possible and cast Illuminate on it. Set to normal duration and moderate intensity, the glowing orb washed away the darkness of night and granted vision of the forest.

Something stood in the light. Shion gulped. Rona pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.

At first, Renya thought it was some sort of undead. Surrounded by the forest’s shadow, its sickly skin seemed all the paler in the bright artificial light. Even from a distance, it looked pallid and deathly, its bloodless white flesh resembling that of a corpse. Yet bloodless it was not. Streaks of liquid red flowed freely down its ashen body — the sign of grave injury. Its chest rose and fell, labored breaths signaling it was yet alive.

An undead’s heart did not beat. It did not bleed, much less breathe. However, despite the multiple signs of life it displayed, Renya was loath to believe they were looking at a living human. He watched as the ghastly figure shambled unsteadily toward them. Its foot caught in the undergrowth and it swayed before leaning on a nearby trunk for support.

He knew he was probably looking at a female adventurer, but the sight of her defied explanation. Her shoulder-length hair retained little of its golden luster, replaced by the dark glow of something viscous and oily that coated its disheveled strands. Her blue eyes were hollow and glazed. Renya couldn’t tell if she saw them, or if she even saw anything at all. The tattered remnants of what once might have been leather armor dangled from her waist. Her undershirt had been torn to pieces, and what remained on her no longer functioned as clothing, exposing much of her unnaturally pale skin.

Slowly, the female figure approached them. Bite and scratch marks covered her body. Dark bruises — the kind caused by intense pressure — ran up and down her right arm. They were in the shape of hands. Her left arm was not bruised; it was simply gone. Renya’s gaze drifted downward. Her stomach looked painfully bloated, almost as if pregnant. But she couldn’t be; no one with child would wander the forest at night in armor. Further below, she was completely naked, and countless thin red marks could be seen where the grass and shrubs took their toll. Those dark hand-shaped bruises also covered her legs from knee to ankle. Her thighs were in worse shape, where teeth and fangs left little flesh untorn.

Renya’s mind blanked. He felt his foot slide back a step. Keeping Shion and Rona behind him, he tried to piece this thoughts back together. What had violated this woman so?

“…Was she attacked by a goblin or something?” The words leaked out of Renya’s mouth.

“I doubt it,” said Rona as she tightened her two-handed grip on her mace. “While goblins and orcs kidnap woman for breeding, I’ve never heard of their victims suffering abuse this horrible.”

Her eyes were focused on the woman’s left shoulder, where a mere stump of an arm remained. It had not been cut off by a sharp blade. The wound was ugly, and the severed ends of the tissue was wildly frayed.

“That left arm of hers… was probably bitten off,” said Rona.

“So it eats people… Ogres, then? But… were there monsters like that in this forest?” asked a slightly unnerved Shion. She looked conflicted. While she clearly wanted to get away, she seemed hesitant to abandon the woman before them and leave her to her agony.

“What are the characteristics of ogres?” asked Renya. He kept his eyes on the approaching woman and moved his left hand to his katana.

“More than three meters tall. Strong and stupid and eats a ton.” Rona kept her answer concise, providing only the most relevant details.

After hearing Rona’s description, Renya shook his head at Shion’s suggestion.

“Can’t be ogres then. Look at the bruises on that girl. The fingers are human-sized. More importantly, if they eat a ton, they’re not going to walk away after chewing off one arm.”

“The bite marks seem like they came from some sort of beast… but nothing explains why her stomach is so big.”

“Either way…”

She was a goner.

The words formed in his mind. They had just reached his mouth when a scream from the woman caused him to freeze.

“Eeeugh… Auggh… Eeeeaaaaaaagh!”

Her knees hit the ground and she arched her back. Her one remaining arm was pressed tightly against her bulging stomach as she let out an agonized shriek. Then, her stomach throbbed. Again. And again, undulating as though something squirmed on the inside. At this point, even Renya felt the color draining from his face.

“Watch out! She’s keeping something in her stomach!”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure she’s not keeping it there, Renya.”

“Gah! How the hell are you so unreasonably calm right now, Shion?!”

Stretched to its limit, her stomach finally gave way. The pressure from within ripped its flesh apart, and a gruesome mess of fluid burst out the new openings. Some of it was blood. Some wasn’t. The woman kept screaming, her voice growing more and more strained.

“All right, let’s make a bet: whatever comes out of there, it’s going to be bad news. Who’s in?” asked Renya with a panicked smile. The two girls nodded.

“I am. Ten gold on it being bad news,” answered Rona.

“Me too. Ten gold on bad news.” Shion joined in, making a fist with her hand.

Renya sighed wearily.

“We can’t all bet on the same thing. Then it’s not a bet. Also, you two are surprisingly calm, aren’t you?”

“Well, I personally am dying to hear you to give the order to run, Renya…”

“I want to help her…” said Shion before her expression clouded. “But I guess there’s no way we can.”

Neither Renya nor Rona had the composure to be sharing Shion’s concern.

There was no pause to the woman’s screaming; no lull in her agony. She pushed harder against her rupturing stomach as her fingers began scratching wildly at its surface. Her nails began to tear through the skin. Gashes opened from gashes, old ripped into new. Fluid oozed out of her body, soaking the earth. A pungent odor began to permeate the surroundings.

At this point, Renya decided that his danger threshold had finally been breached. He was just about to give the order to run when he noticed that a number of silhouetted figures had appeared behind the woman and were running toward them. More specifically, they seemed to be running away from something. Further behind them, something big was moving. Each thump of its heavy steps was accompanied by the cracking of the twigs and grasses it flattened.

“Renya, there’s something else coming!”

“Don’t bother checking! We’re getting out of here! Run!”

Renya spun around and gave the two girls an urgent shove on the back. He watched them nod at his signal and dash off. A second later, he followed suit. He had only taken a few steps forward when the forest went quiet; the woman’s screaming suddenly stopped. There was a split second’s silence, followed by the sound of a wet cloth being ripped. Then, something hit the ground with a splat.

“Wah! What the hell is this?!”

“Don’t stop, you dumba— Eeugh! It’s coming this way… N-No… Gyaaaaaah!”

Men’s voices cried out in alarm behind Renya. They probably found themselves stuck between the big thing pursuing them and whatever popped out of the woman’s stomach. Renya, however, didn’t stop running. He didn’t even turn to look; he had no intention of finding out what any of those things were. All his attention was focused on one thing only: figuring out if anything dangerous lay before them.

“What… was that?”

“Don’t talk, Rona. You’ll run out of breath. Shion! Keep going straight! Rona, stay close to Shion!”

Behind him, Renya could hear noises. Something wet was squished. There was a snap — the splitting of both meat and bone. If he focused, he could hear screams of agony and cries of help coming from various directions in the forest. Stealth was no longer an option, so Renya cast another Illuminate on Shion’s left palm, cranking the brightness to high.

“Shion! Use the light in your left hand!”

“Got it!”

She opened her left hand and held it high, using the light to guide her path. Rona was close behind, and Renya brought up the rear. As he followed the two girls, he felt a growing sense of unease. They were supposed to be moving toward the outer edge of the forest, but their frantic escape reversed their direction. Right now, they were running ever deeper toward the forest’s center.

“Shion, turn! I don’t care which way! Ninety degrees left or right, you choose!”

“Okay!”

Shion threw her hand against a thin tree and executed a masterful cornering maneuver. Rona, too close on Shion’s heels, couldn’t react in time to the sudden change in direction and ended up stumbling, but was aided by Renya who swept her up by the waist. Together, the two of them managed to make the turn without losing any time.

“Sorry, Renya. It’s okay. I can run.”

“Good. I’d rather not sprint while carrying a person on me.”

He slowed his pace a little and let go. Rona slid smoothly out of his arms and hit the ground running. Her long and skirt-like priest robe should have been ill-suited for such acrobatics, but it didn’t stop Rona from matching Shion’s speed. Renya found himself impressed by the robe’s design. Evidently, those deep slits up each side of its lower skirt were not only for show.

“Renya, what should we do next?” asked Rona during their desperate dash.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, given these extraordinary circumstances, what should be our next move?”

“Huh? Bit of a redundant question, don’t you think?”

Rona frowned in confusion. Clearly, she did not consider the question redundant. Shion, however, had a pretty good idea what Renya was about to say.

“We run until we get out of this forest, and then we keep running until we make it back to town.”

Shion, having expected Renya’s answer, sighed a little. While the things happening around them were definitely not normal, Renya undoubtedly saw no obligation for them to investigate the cause or fight whatever was out there. Personally, she would rather not abandon the people in the forest and flee, but she found herself somewhat understanding of Renya’s position. From Renya’s perspective, he would be putting his friends in danger to help people whom he neither knew nor cared about. That was not a risk he was willing to take.

“Renya… what if there are people hurt out there?”

“You think we can take them with us? Are you hiding a secret horse wagon somewhere? Because otherwise, I don’t see how we can possibly carry them.”

Of course, even if they miraculously procured a wagon, they’d be faced with the rather impossible hurdle of trying to navigate it through a forest. Rona nodded, evidently satisfied with Renya’s reasoning.

Shion, however, found Renya’s matter-of-fact approach a bitter pill to swallow. She knew they’d call her naive for thinking so. She was also well aware that Renya’s view was correct given the current circumstances. Nevertheless, she stood her ground — literally, by planting down her feet and stopping.

“Renya, I have a request.”

Seeing that their lead had come to a halt, Renya and Rona stopped as well.

“I can’t just run away like this,” Shion said as she turned toward Renya. “I won’t ask you to save everyone, but I want to at least find out what’s going on. This place isn’t that far from town. If we leave this alone and run, whatever’s happening here might end up harming the city.”

She stepped right up to Renya and fixed him with a firm stare. He returned her gaze. There was a silent pressure to the way he looked at her, and Shion had to stop herself from shrinking away. At the same time, she could tell he was waiting for her to continue.

“Please, Renya. Help me with this.”

She already knew how he would respond. Despite that, she still had to ask. She had to try.

Renya kept his eyes on Shion, his expression unchanging. With his right finger, he quietly scratched his cheek.