Chapter 15 — Weren’t You Proudly Saying a Little While Ago That You Exterminated Giant Centipedes?
The Elven Forest was uncharted territory for the adventurers of the Empire of Ent, to the point where one might doubt the accuracy of their title. While one could assume that they went on adventures to places filled with danger, in reality, they only operated within the adventurer system.
The system clearly defined whether a quest had been cleared or not and could provide an appropriate reward for the exact number of enemies slain. But the Elven Forest was protected by a mysterious power that isolated it from the outside. It was the domain of monsters, a place beyond the management of the empire’s adventurer system. For that reason, people rarely ventured there. Doing so would only get them attacked by elves and monsters, and no matter how many of the enemy they killed, they wouldn’t get any reward, so it was a waste of time.
But now that an EX difficulty quest had been issued—“Head to the Elven Forest and Eliminate the Remnants of the Royal Family”—the situation was different. This was a special kind of quest. The royal family was headed to the Elven Forest, so the adventurers needed to go there and hunt them down. Such hunting quests weren’t particularly rare, but the requirement to complete this one was new. This time, they needed to bring the royals’ heads back to the capital. Anyone who did that would be rewarded however they liked.
There were five survivors of the royal family. Naturally, it would be first come, first served, so the adventurers had been stirred to action. The royal family were just humans, so killing them would be easy enough. Even the weakest adventurers had a chance if they could find them first.
Adventurers began to flood into the Elven Forest.
◇ ◇ ◇
“So that’s why there are heaps of dead low-level adventurers everywhere,” Takuya said. His class was Samurai, matching the armor and helmet that he wore.
“Adventurers all have the Gift, so they naturally become overconfident,” replied the Mage Kaname in a self-deprecating tone. Her robe and staff left no doubt about her class. The majority of those who became adventurers in Ent had the Gift. Without it, fighting against monsters was more or less impossible. The adventurer system existed only to judge adventurers; it didn’t provide them any sort of power.
“What do you think about killing the royal family? It sounds to me like theirs is the side of justice,” Kimitaka the Assassin said, clearly unhappy. Wearing clothes appropriate to one’s class boosted their abilities, so most adventurers wore matching outfits, but the clothes Kimitaka wore didn’t bear any such notable characteristics.
The three of them made up the Rank S party Gehenna.
“Worrying about the details of the quests won’t get us very far,” Takuya said.
“I wouldn’t want to lose my qualifications as an adventurer for defying the empire,” Kaname added.
“That’s true, I guess.”
They were at the first point of entry for the Elven Forest coming from East Ent. Corpses that looked like adventurers lay scattered all around them, crawling with insects.
“Falcon Circle Cut!” Takuya drew his sword, slicing the swarming insects in half.
“I don’t know if we should be wasting our time fighting these,” Kaname commented. “No matter how many we kill, the reward won’t change.”
“But we can’t just let them go after we see them.” If they ignored the insects and walked past, they could be attacked from behind. Still, killing a few dozen of them didn’t accomplish anything.
The forest around them erupted with screeching, and before they knew it, they were surrounded by insects of all sizes.
“Dammit! Falcon Circle Cut!”
“Multiple Fireburst!”
Takuya and Kaname unleashed area of effect attacks, slicing apart and incinerating the swarm.
“Isn’t using fire in a forest kind of dangerous?”
“Don’t worry about it. I wish this forest could burn that easily.”
The Elven Forest was nothing more than in the way. People had tried to cut it down or burn it to the ground multiple times, but no matter what they did, the forest wouldn’t shrink by an inch. If they cut down a significant number of trees, the trees simply grew back immediately, and if they set one or two on fire, the fire never spread.
The screech of insects continued.
“There’re still more!” cried Takuya. “What is going on?!”
“Maybe they’re calling friends!” Kaname suggested.
The creatures continue appearing in droves. None of them were individually very strong, but the more the trio killed, the more appeared to replace them.
“There’s a clearing up ahead. We should be able to make a stand there,” Kimitaka said, having yet to participate in the fight. The Assassin class didn’t particularly excel in group combat, but it possessed skills in information and intelligence gathering.
“Okay!”
Kicking the insects out of their way, the three ran forward. In short order, they reached a clearing just like Kimitaka had said.
Takuya glanced back. “The bugs aren’t following?”
“Maybe they don’t want to leave the trees,” Kaname offered. The clearing had nothing but short grass.
“Let’s take a break and think of a plan— What?!” The ground began to shake, and the moment he began to grow suspicious, Takuya’s body sank into it. In a split second, everything below his waist had disappeared.
“A pitfall trap?” said Kaname.
“Hurry up and pull me out— Gah!” The ground swelled up for a moment, covering Takuya’s upper body. “Th-This is...a camouflaged slime...”
The swollen ground had turned translucent. Within it they could see his body, gradually staining the fluid of the slime red with blood. “Dammit! My body!” A S Rank adventurer wouldn’t die from such an injury, but it would cripple his ability to fight.
A terrifying howl split the air.
“Now what?!”
Another creature appeared, an insect big enough that they had to look up at it. The enormous beetle’s footsteps shook the ground as it stepped into the clearing.
“L-Let’s run!” yelled Kaname.
“Hey, don’t leave me behind!”
But none of them were able to escape. The enormous horn on the rhinoceros beetle’s head began to spark before lightning shot out across the clearing, striking everything indiscriminately. The slime burst, spewing its contents everywhere, while the members of Gehenna were burned to a crisp. The beetle then nonchalantly stepped into the clearing and slurped up the remains of the dead slime.
“Th-This is...completely different than outside...”
After finishing its meal, the beetle continued marching forward. It couldn’t have cared less about the adventurers and trampled them to death without noticing.
◇ ◇ ◇
“It’s so hot,” Tomochika complained, exhausted. While she certainly had much more endurance than Yogiri did, when it came to sheer discomfort, there was nothing she could do about it.
The climate in the Elven Forest was like that of a rainforest. They pushed through air thick with humidity and the smell of plants, literally cutting a path through the greenery. The elevation varied significantly, so even advancing a short way was an incredible challenge.
Tomochika had returned to wearing something like a swimsuit. Even Yogiri had finally put away his customary school uniform shirt and tie in favor of a thinner top. Normally, dressing so lightly in the jungle was suicidal. Having bare skin should have made them easy prey for leeches, mosquitos, and ticks, but thanks to Yogiri’s power, they were able to manage. Just by approaching them, all potential threats died.
“Hey, is the ground shaking?!”
Now that Tomochika mentioned it, Yogiri noticed that the ground seemed to be moving. It didn’t feel like an earthquake, more like it was shaking in a fixed rhythm from a low sound. Gradually, the sound became louder and louder. The sound of something heavy enough to make the ground thunder as it pushed its way through the trees, breaking and snapping them as it passed, growing ever closer.
The source of the noise then arrived, kicking over a tree as it appeared in front of them.
“What?! Is that an elephant?!” cried Tomochika.
“Its skin seems a little too glossy for that,” Mokomoko observed.
“Is it...a bug?” asked Yogiri.
It was an enormous insect, a rhinoceros beetle big enough that one might mistake it for an elephant at first glance. It was five meters tall with six thick legs, a round body, and a magnificent horn on its head.
“Hey, do you really think elves live in a place like this?” Tomochika asked.
“How would I know?!” Mokomoko replied.
“It doesn’t look like it’s here for us,” Yogiri remarked.
“But how will it act now that it has seen us?” asked the ghost.
Yogiri frowned. “Beetles eat tree sap, right? Will it attack people?”
“There are carnivorous beetles out there.”
Right now, it wasn’t showing any clear killing intent. If they didn’t bother it, it seemed like it wouldn’t be a problem.
“Let’s get out of the way,” Yogiri suggested. “Actually, we can probably follow the path that it made through the forest.”
“We have no idea if that will lead us east,” Mokomoko pointed out.
The three of them stepped out of the way of the beetle. As if totally blind to them, it kept trekking forward. It then tried to kick another tree out of its way.
“Wait, that’s not a tree!” Tomochika shouted. “That’s another bug!”
“It looks similar to a walking stick.”
“It may not technically be an insect. It has too many legs,” their guardian spirit observed.
The creature camouflaged as a tree wrapped itself around the beetle, and roars from the combating insects split the air.
“What is going on?! What are we supposed to do if the bugs fight each other?!” cried Tomochika.
Yogiri shrugged. “I’m going to root for the beetle.”
“Stop watching and run!”
The giant beetle was twisting back and forth, trying to shake the other insect loose. The tree-like creature wriggled, trying to get its legs through the gaps in the beetle’s exoskeleton. So far, the beetle seemed to be losing, since its horn had been broken in the surprise attack. Yogiri kept watching, but the fight soon came to an abrupt end, as with a sudden gust of wind, the two bugs vanished.
“What now?!” asked Tomochika.
An enormous body had appeared in front of them, like a black wall materializing out of nowhere. Looking closer, it also appeared to be some sort of insect. Its unbelievably enormous body blocked their view.
“Is that...a centipede?” Yogiri asked.
The forest had been cut apart so much that they could now see the sky. The two warring insects from earlier were up in the air, both held in the enormous jaws of the new arrival. With a crunch, their bodies broke apart, falling to the ground in pieces.
“Mokomoko, weren’t you proudly saying a little while ago that you exterminated giant centipedes?” Yogiri asked.
“Well...I can’t say they were quite this large.”
Mokomoko had said that in the past, things like demons, giant snakes, and giant centipedes had existed in Japan. She had boasted about how the Dannoura School could defeat such creatures, but it didn’t seem like she had much to offer here.
“If it’s that big, it probably won’t even notice us.”
“It’s totally staring at us! It’s definitely interested in us!” Tomochika protested.
The giant centipede had turned its head to face them, all but declaring that they were its next target.
“Die.”
The enormous insect wavered and fell, crushing a huge section of forest beneath it. A tremor shook the ground, incomparable to any of the shaking they had felt earlier.
“What is this place?!” Tomochika shouted. “How is this an Elven Forest?!”
“It’s a lot more dangerous than I thought it would be.”
“Speaking of which,” Mokomoko interrupted, “as hard as it is to admit, I fear we may be lost.”
“Huh? Weren’t we just walking in a straight line?”
“Such was my intent.”
“Hold on, you were cutting a path through the leaves. It should be easy to tell if we were going straight.”
They turned to look behind them. The forest was in ruins. The movement of the giant insects had completely changed the landscape.
“We should be fine if we can see the sea, right? So if you go up into the sky and check—”
“This forest is filled with something like magical energy, or a curse, or a toxic miasma. I cannot move separately from you two.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?!”
“It’s getting dark,” Yogiri said, checking his watch. “The sun might set soon.” Sure enough, it was already evening.
“All right! That’s it for today!”
Taking a break wouldn’t solve anything, but they were going to end up camping anyway. Mokomoko used Furemaru to cut apart the surrounding area just in case before transforming the material into something like a tent.
The three stepped inside and sat down. The floor of the tent was like a cushion, so it was reasonably comfortable. There were no seams in the structure, so they were completely cut off from the outside.
“Wow, it’s cool in here. How are you doing that?” Tomochika asked.
“Furemaru can compress and expand the air, mimicking an air conditioner. Did you not learn of Boyle’s and Charles’s Laws in school?”
“Ugh...now a ghost from the Heian era is one-upping me in knowledge...”
“Can you do this while we’re moving?” Yogiri asked.
“Controlling it while in motion would be quite difficult.”
“Well, let’s talk about what we’re going to do tomorrow, including how we’ll deal with the heat.”
“Yeah,” Tomochika agreed. “I guess we’ve been a bit too haphazard about this.”
“Hm. At this point, we don’t know particularly well where we are,” Mokomoko replied.
“Can’t you at least tell which direction is which?” Tomochika asked. “Shouldn’t Enju have a function like that?”
“The robot has the ability to detect terrestrial magnetic fields, but they are different from what exists on Earth. So the function isn’t particularly useful. If we looked at the sun and stars, we might be able to use them as a reference.”
“We were too reckless. I wonder how Vivian and the others are planning on getting through?” asked Yogiri.
“I mean, they had a plan, so I imagine they have some idea, right?” Tomochika answered. “It seemed like they knew about the forest already.” Maanu had said they had sent someone to scout it out, and the elves hadn’t attacked them. So clearly, they had some knowledge of the forest itself.
“I see. I guess we’ll ask someone if we run into them.”
“Ask who? I doubt we’ll be able to meet up with Vivian again.”
“I think it’ll be fine. Apostles were attacking us up until we entered the forest, so they’ll probably keep coming. The real question is whether the bugs will get to them first.”
“So, we basically have no plan at all.”
Yogiri was forced to reflect on their reckless advance into the forest.
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