Chapter 6: The Baptism in the Forest
“Haah… I feel revived!”
After finishing her drink, Yuzuki-san stretches contentedly. Even though she’s wearing a robe, the way she raises her arms accentuates her chest. My heart races at the sight, perhaps because her lips had just brushed against my hand.
“Water Magic is really convenient, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. I’ve never been more grateful to be a mage than today…”
Unable to meet Yuzuki-san’s eyes as she gives a wry smile, I turn my gaze forward.
“Sigh… Why am I still unemployed? I thought I had acquired the ‘Tenfold Experience Acquisition’ skill…”
In a way, wouldn’t that mean I could excel at any skill? Sure, I’ve gotten really good at peeling vegetables, but still…
“Huh? What’s that? A skill?”
Yuzuki-san reacts to my unintended grumbling.
“Ah, um…”
I explain how I met an old man who claimed to be a god and was allowed to choose my skills. There’s no real reason to hide it.
“Really? I didn’t get to meet any god, though…”
“Is that so? By the way, I think I heard that normally skills are assigned randomly.”
“Oh, really? Then maybe I got something randomly assigned too… I just don’t know what it is.”
“I think you definitely have something. But if you can’t check your skills, you won’t know what you’re good at.”
“That’s true…”
Ah, I see. Maybe that’s why professions exist—to indicate one’s strengths? But that means, as an unemployed person, I have no strengths at all…
“I wish I could see my status with an Appraisal Skill.”
As I sigh and grumble, Yuzuki-san perks up at my words.
“Appraisal? …Status?”
I wonder if Yuzuki-san doesn’t play many games.
“Oh, it’s a common trope in games. You can check a person’s skills, strength, speed, and other stats.”
“Interesting…”
Though my stomach is growling, the relief of quenching my thirst has given us a bit of breathing room. I feel happy just being able to talk with Yuzuki-san like this.
—But that thought was fleeting.
Suddenly, I hear the sound of something approaching. The crunching of fallen branches grows louder, signaling that something is getting closer.
“What…?”
Yuzuki-san instinctively clings to my arm. I quickly rise from the fallen log I was sitting on, ready to move.
Then, a beast about a meter away leaps out from the bushes. I notice a single horn protruding from its forehead.
“Whoa!”
Without slowing down, it charges toward us. Instinctively, I bring my left arm up to shield my chest, just as I feel a jolt of impact against my palm.
“Ahhh!”
Overwhelmed by pain and fear, I kick the beast away.
“Mizumoto-kun!”
Hearing Yuzuki-san’s scream, I glare at the beast in front of me. It seems my kick landed well, as it hesitates, merely watching us instead of lunging again. Though it resembles a rabbit, its size is comparable to a large dog, and the horn makes it look anything but cute. The sight of its bared fangs fills me with dread.
“W-We need to run!”
I grab Yuzuki-san’s arm with my uninjured right hand and start to run. My left hand throbs with pain, but I ignore it and focus all my energy on escaping. I could have sworn the horn pierced through my palm, but surely that’s just my imagination…!
What on earth is this forest…? A giant rabbit with a horn—could it be a monster or something like that?! I feel like it’s chasing us, but I don’t have the luxury to look back.
“Ah!”
At that moment, Yuzuki-san stumbles, possibly caught by a twisting tree root. I brace myself and manage to support her, preventing her from falling. When I glance back, the distance between us and the pursuing rabbit hasn’t increased at all. Seeing this as an opportunity, I gather my strength in my legs—
“Yip!?”
Just then, another beast leaps out from the side and bites down on the rabbit’s neck, crushing it instantly.
“W-What…?”
The creature that appeared was wolf-like, standing about 1.5 meters tall—a size that doesn’t exist on Earth. It glances at us briefly before returning to feast on the rabbit.
“Yikes!”
As I watch the wolf tear into the rabbit’s innards and crunch its bones, a small scream escapes from Yuzuki-san beside me. I feel a surreal sense of detachment, but this seems to be the harsh reality. For an ordinary high school student with no survival experience, just being in this forest is hard enough, let alone facing such dangerous beasts.
But there’s no time to lament.
“We need to escape while we can…”
I place a hand on Yuzuki-san’s shoulder and call out softly, noticing her trembling. Tears stream down her eyes as she stares into the distance, lost.
“Yuzuki-san!”
When I call her name in a hushed tone, her gaze slowly refocuses.
“…Mizumoto-kun?”
“Let’s hurry and get away.”
“Y-Yeah.”
As we take a cautious step back to leave the area unnoticed, the wolf turns its head toward us.
“No way…”
Yuzuki-san’s voice is filled with despair, but the wolf seems uninterested in us, returning its attention to its meal.
Swallowing hard, I pray that the wolf won’t chase us, and together, we hurry to put as much distance as possible between us and the scene of horror.