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I ran while crying! I kept running, dashing back and forth, striking them from one side to the other, tears streaming down my face.

“God!!! What’s with this number? Damn it! There’s more than a thousand of them! Right? Eat this!!! Run… Going around? No, you aren’t! Eat this! Hya! Damn it! Fish!!! I’m starving! Hya! What’s their damn problem?! Why are there so many… Hya! Argh! Who… Hya… Brought… Ugh… Them… Ey… Here?!!! Oh wait… It was me! It was me damn it!!!”

There were hundreds of them if not thousands. I also couldn’t use my skills to wipe them out. Still, they wouldn’t line up neatly in a straight line, and the forest was full of obstacles. I had no other choice but to take them down one by one. At first, I was smashing them two at a time with both swords.

Then it clicked that I’d probably be faster if I used all my limbs. I could also break the nearby rocks and use the pieces like bullets to fire with my fingers. Due to this, I was flying around, punching and kicking.

As I ran, I crashed into bushes, branches, rocks, and the ground, getting battered and covered in blood. My cute Village Girl’s Everyday Clothes were torn to shreds…

I spent about an hour wiping out Mobs within a wide 10-kilometer radius.

“How do you like this, you b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲s̲?! There are almost none of you left! Damn it. There’s less than a kilometer to the village. That was close. No, wait! There’s a few more of them up ahead. Huh? There’s a human there as well! This is bad!”

Panicked, I flew toward the Mobs I had missed and found a clearing in the forest. There, a two-headed serpent was facing off with an old man.

“Whoa! First villager found! Stupid, now’s not the time for this! There’s one more snake left. There are also about 10 wolves. What’s a whole pack doing here?! Wait! They’re about to surround the old man! No, you’re not!”

I moved quickly, taking down the wolves one by one with powerful blows and rock bullets.

“These guys may think they’re being stealthy, but they’re not hiding from me! Whoa! That old man is amazing! He took down the snake in an instant! Oh no! There’s a wolf going straight at him!”

The old man took down one snake and then slashed through a wolf that lunged at him.

“This old man really knows what he’s doing. Still, his movements are getting sluggish… Was he poisoned?! This is bad! I hope I make it in time!”

I was currently looking down at the clearing where the old man was from a certain treetop. The old man and the remaining snake stood nearly in the center of the clearing, giving me a perfect view of the scene. Realizing the danger, I snapped a branch within reach and hurled it between the snake and the old man.

“Whoa, he split it in half! Wait… There’s one more wolf! It’s sneaking up on the old man from the other side of the clearing. I also need to take care of his poisoning. Guess I don’t have a choice!”

I wanted to avoid contact with the locals for as long as possible. If I were to enter a human settlement, I planned to do it more cautiously, but now wasn’t the time for that! I quickly jumped down from the tree and approached the old man. After muttering a few words to him, I scooped him up into my arms.

I then moved him to the other side of the clearing, away from the remaining wolf. The old man looked quite surprised by everything, leading me to think I’d done something strange. Regardless, I decided to not bother with the details and placed the old man in the shade for now.

After that, I hurried back to retrieve the sword he had left in the center of the clearing.

(Alright, you mutt; you’re fighting me now.)

I figured I’d probably stand out negatively if I were to use my bare hands or my own weapon to take down the wolf in front of the old man, so I decided to just use his sword. Above all, he’d already used it to take down the snake, so it wasn’t likely to cause me any trouble. From its appearance, I could figure out that it was a somewhat decent Zero Rank weapon. A weapon of this rank could do quite a bit when charged with Chi.

(It looks like the old man was also using Chi on this weapon! Wait, does this mean that the people here can also use Chi?)

As I held the sword, mulling this over, the wolf lunged at me. I reacted fast, slicing it in half.

Immediately after, I returned to the old man.

(This is bad! The poison has spread quite a lot!)

I needed to act quickly, but I didn’t know what to do. If I used a Healer’s skill, it’d probably be too over-the-top, causing me to stand out too much.

(Maybe I can combine my Chi with a basic detoxification spell. That’ll probably work, and it won’t be too flashy. What I need to do first is get rid of this poison! I’ll check for wounds afterward to see if he needs any further treatment.)

Kneeling beside the old man, I placed my palm over the wound on his leg, letting my Chi flow quietly as I cast the detoxification spell.

(Okay! This is going well! My Chi is surrounding the old man. Huh? His wounds are already healing! Maybe the Chi is activating the healing part of the detoxification spell, which is then healing the cells. Or maybe not. This is really complicated! Whaha, he says? Oh, it looks like the old man is having fun as well!)

“What? Not… normal… Wounds… Detoxification… Amazing… No way…”

I was surprised that I could understand what the old man was saying.

He was speaking a language that sounded just like the language spoken by the armor in the mountains. The strange thing about it was that although I didn’t know the language, I could understand what they were saying. I was fine with listening comprehension, but talking was a bit strange. I tried to piece words together, but I wasn’t sure if my pronunciation was even right.

“Howard Cloud, is it? It is a pleasure to meet you. My name’s Susie. Huh? Aurora? Don’t know it. Huh? Where did I come from? W-Well… I came from over there… Whooaa! Don’t get so excited! It’s not good for your blood pressure! My parents? I don’t have any! I’m all by myself!”

As I spoke, my stomach suddenly decided to chime in as well.

“I’m sorry about that! My stomach is just so impatient! Can you believe it’s timing though?! Please don’t look at me like that! God, I’m so embarrassed. I’m so sorry! Huh? What did you say just now? Lots of food? What a powerful yet beautiful phrase! I feel like you’ve just dealt a critical hit! Whaaat?! Salt, you say?! Herb bird? Are you trying to finish me?! You are, aren’t you?! Arghhh! M-My mouth is watering!!! Is it really okay? Can I really visit your home? I won’t be a nuisance. Really? I can really have lunch with your family?! I’m going to cry, you know! I can’t believe someone from such an unknown place would say something so nice to me! Normally it’d be outrageous for a girl like me to follow an unknown man to his house right after meeting him, but… But I can’t resist! I can’t endure this temptation! Please take care of me! It’s really okay, right? You won’t just abandon me, right? Take me to eat, please! Give me some meat and rice¹!”

◇◇◇

I was astonished when we reached Sir Cloud’s carriage, which he had left outside the forest.

Given that he’d called it a carriage, I’d expected to see a horse, but the thing standing before me was no horse, though Sir Cloud tried to assure me it was indeed a horse. Its silhouette did resemble a horse, but it had scales, not fur. And instead of hooves, it had what looked like clawed hooves—or rather hoof-like claws. I was aware that hooves had evolved from claws, but still.

Besides, the horse’s face had pointed teeth and no ears. It was more similar to a lizard’s face than that of a horse. Yet it had a horse’s mane and tail. It was a truly mysterious creature.

(I guess this is how horses look in this world. It really does strike home that this is another world.)

According to Sir Cloud, this country was known as Aurora, and the village we were heading to was known as Amukham Village.

About 20 kilometers south, there’s a town called Cope Town, and apparently this horse could pull the carriage there in about an hour. In other words, it was apparently as fast as a granny bike.

Furthermore, he mentioned that Dekenbel, one of the twelve cities, was situated around 300 kilometers south of here. And beyond that, about 1200 kilometers south of Dekenbel was the Royal Capital.

(A Royal Capital?! So there’s a king! Whoa, how fantasy! Still, it’s over 1500 kilometers away from here. So about the length of Honshu². Even someone with superhuman powers, able to run at 100 kilometers per hour, would still need about 15 hours to get there. It’s definitely not a small distance to cover.)

As we were traveling in the carriage, Sir Cloud kept asking how I’d ended up here, but all I could say was that I’d found myself in the forest without a clue of how I’d gotten there.

And that was in fact the truth!

I also learned that the Amukham Forest was actually part of the Great Iroshio Forest and a home to many Demonic Beasts. Also not a place where a girl, such as me, should wander alone.

Ever since meeting Sir Cloud, he’d been treating me like a child, which I found odd as I viewed myself as an adult. Perhaps my perspective as a Japanese person and theirs were different in this regard.

By the way, what they referred to as a Demonic Beast was what I considered a Mob. Apparently, the snakes and wolves we’d encountered earlier only appeared in the forest’s middle or deep regions, so their appearance this close to the village was quite unusual.

As I heard that, cold sweat trickled down my back. I replied, “It must be tough,” while trying to keep my expression normal. Truth be told, I was sweating like a pig.

I also wanted to say something along the lines of, “It’s strange that those snakes were so far out,” but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

As we continued on our way, we talked about various other things, but the thing that captured my attention the most was the village scenery.

I’d never lived in the countryside and had only seen such rural landscapes briefly through a train window. This was the first time I could truly take in the fresh breeze as we traveled.

We passed by a large body of water apparently known as Hodgson Pond that was almost too big to be called a pond, and the sun’s rays reflected off its surface, making it sparkle amidst the clusters of trees.

The streets lined with poplar trees against the blue sky felt like something straight out of a calendar photo! I couldn’t help thinking.

The rolling hills and endlessly stretching wheat fields left me sighing in wonder.

Sir Cloud glanced at me as if I were some sort of amusing sight.

(Please stop looking at me as if I’m some sort of cute animal! I’m getting embarrassed here!)

Apparently, it was quite hard to catch this view, as harvest was set to begin next week, meaning that I’d come at just the right time.

As we chatted about various things, we eventually arrived at Sir Cloud’s residence.
It was built on a slightly elevated area, sheltered by windbreaks, with a charming L-shaped layout and white walls. In length, the house extended from east to west, with the second section reaching down out from the east side toward the south.

The roof was split into two tiers, each with a gentle slope. I had trouble recalling the name of this kind of roof.

The part of the L extending to the south was made as a shaded terrace, and on the west end of the house, there was a sturdy door sitting on the first floor, which I assumed was the main entrance.

Standing in front of the door was a woman, who I guessed was Sir Cloud’s wife. She looked to be in her fifties, with striking green eyes with a hint of grey and beautiful chestnut brown hair, styled in an elegant manner.

She had the aura of a refined and gentle woman.

1. Silva: LOL, this is very different from what Howard is able to hear and comprehend? xD
   Jiro: I was shocked when translating it too!
2. TL/N: Honshu historically called Akitsushima is the largest and most populous island of Japan.

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