Baldik looked at the goblins surrounding us and spoke in a voice close to despair.
“There are too many of them. They’ve blocked the rear too!”
He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on his sword.
Drek was already holding his shattered shield, blocking the entrance.
“We go straight ahead.”
“When we don’t even know where it leads?”
“Better than going back!”
The moment he finished speaking, we charged forward.
A faint forest path, as if someone had passed through, continued ahead, but goblins were appearing one by one on both sides.
“Keep going! If you stop, you die!!”
As we kept running, stones and spears came flying after us.
I tried to raise my shield to block them, but the thin water-current shield shattered from a single impact.
For an instant, my ears went numb.
The nosebleed that had stopped burst open again, hot blood running down over my lips.
‘Why the hell are they throwing so much at us, those lunatics!’
Drek took the lead and shoved three goblins away with his shield, while Baldik followed, cutting down the ones leaping out from either side with one hand.
Just as my breath rose to my throat, my vision suddenly opened wide.
“…Where is this?”
The moment we stopped, a strange energy surged over us.
A chill and fullness, like stepping into a cold bath after being outside in summer.
“…Water?”
“Hey, this is… a river!!”
A dark blue current whose depth I couldn’t gauge. It was a river.
The river’s flow below was fiercer than I had expected.
“Don’t back up! You’ll fall!”
Baldik shouted.
We were standing on a riverside cliff.
Behind us was a deep, swift river; in front of us, a swarm of goblins was pushing in.
“Damn it, we’re completely trapped!”
Drek raised his shield and shoved the goblins back again.
Then he began undoing something he had slung over his shoulder.
“…Chainmail?”
“The shield’s at its limit, and armor won’t be of any use now.”
Drek took off the old chainmail, wrapped one end around his hand, and spun it over his head.
Then he swung it.
The chain whip sliced through the air with a clattering sound and lashed into the goblin horde.
Two of them screamed and collapsed, and Drek swung the chain once more.
At its stronger-than-expected power, the goblins flinched and drew back.
“Good, the path is open—!”
But the number of goblins was still overwhelming, and they continued to press toward us.
Baldik swung his sword with one hand, breathing harshly.
“Hah— hah— I can’t… anymore…”
“Me neither, haah— I’m out of mana now.”
“If we hold out any longer here—”
Before he could finish, Drek staggered and dropped to one knee.
At some point, he had been hit; blood was running down his head.
“Drek!”
“Kgh, damn it…”
But at that moment, the goblin horde came howling in.
“Damn it! We can’t hold them off any longer!”
Baldik cried out as if screaming.
His breathing was rough, and his face was smeared with dirt and blood.
“…”
With trembling hands, Drek pulled something out.
It was an old ring set with a blue gem.
“Take this…”
“Why are you giving this to me…”
Dumbfounded, I accepted the ring and clenched it in my hand.
Then Baldik shouted desperately.
“We have to jump! If we don’t do it now, we won’t survive!!”
We met each other’s eyes.
There was no other choice.
“Jump!!”
All three of us hurled ourselves toward the cliff at the same time.
The ground vanished beneath my feet.
The feeling of falling, as if being sucked into the air.
“Uaaaaaah—!”
Splash—!
Cold water wrapped around my body, and I sank deep beneath the surface along with my consciousness.
***
“Hah!”
I gasped in a breath and snapped awake.
A pitch-dark space. Could it be… that I was dead?
Right, after falling from a cliff, it would have been hard to survive.
Then a familiar voice echoed in my head.
[You have reached a milestone. Please choose a perk.]
“What?”
A system message, even though I hadn’t been asleep?
My hazy mind cleared as if doused in cold water.
Paaang—!
With a brilliant sound effect, three cards appeared before my eyes.
___________________________
[Increase Maximum Strength]
[Increase Maximum Stamina]
[Increase Maximum Agility]
___________________________
‘What the hell are these garbage choices…’
I’d expected something magic-related, but they were all cards related to physical ability.
So this kind of thing could appear too?
If there was one saving grace, it was that two of them were green, uncommon rank.
The cards glowing green were [Increase Maximum Strength] and [Increase Maximum Stamina].
Wondering if something impressive had appeared, I pressed the description.
[Maximum strength increases slightly.]
[Maximum stamina increases slightly.]
‘…Slightly?’
The changed description was just that one word.
It did sound better than “increases minutely,” but the thought that I’d gotten my hopes up for nothing crossed my mind.
‘Did they just change the color on these?’
If my stamina or strength rose dramatically, then I’d go, “Ooh!”
Leaving that aside.
‘Why does strength keep showing up?’
Considering Blue Magic had appeared, the system definitely knew I was a mage.
Even so, the fact that strength options kept appearing like this made it feel as though there was some kind of intention behind it.
I’m absolutely not taking it.
I immediately selected [Increase Maximum Stamina].
I had to survive. At the very least, my body needed to be intact.
The absorbed card shone and disappeared.
Surprisingly, that wasn’t the end.
[You have reached a milestone. Please choose a perk.]
The voice rang out once more.
“Twice?”
A second perk?
I hadn’t done anything worth that much.
‘Could it be… a party hunting bonus?’
I had barely contributed, but if Drek and Baldik had been recognized as party members, then it made sense.
Either way, I was grateful.
Paaang—!
Once again, three cards spread out before my eyes.
This time, they were white, white, and green.
[Increase Maximum Mana Regeneration]
The first card, at least, felt familiar.
And familiar meant dependable.
But from the second card onward, it was different.
[Increase Funds]
‘…Huh?’
“Mine” out of nowhere?
Puzzled, I checked the description first.
[Grants five silver coins.]
It was actual money.
To be precise, a cash reward.
I had no idea how it would be paid out, but for someone in my penniless state, there was no reason to refuse that card.
‘…But still, the third one.’
The final card.
It caught my eye, sparkling not with white light but with a vivid green glow.
[Blue Magic: Water Bullet (水彈)]
The wording wasn’t familiar, but the name was one I felt I could roughly understand.
‘This is it.’
There was no need to doubt.
It was meaningless to weigh which card was more practical.
This was my sense as a mage—no, my instinct.
I immediately reached for [Blue Magic: Water Bullet].
The card was absorbed, and though I hoped just in case, there were no further perks.
Now, it was time to wake up.
***
Splash—! Splash—!
The sound of cold water struck my ears.
The chill digging into my entire body made my eyelids lift heavily.
“Umm—”
My lower body was submerged in water, and I was sprawled on a gravel bed by the river.
‘…I’m alive.’
Maybe it was thanks to the increase in maximum stamina, or maybe it was because of the level-up recovery reward.
In any case, my body was in better shape than expected.
But if I’d been swept away by the river and dragged into a deep whirlpool?
That was… something I didn’t even want to imagine.
‘By the way, where exactly am I?’
No matter how I looked around, there wasn’t a single sign of another person.
No Drek, no Baldik, no horde of goblins.
Only me.
‘Could I be the only one who made it to the other side?’
The outline of the forest visible across the river looked familiar.
It seemed I had been carried quite a ways downstream.
I might have come farther than I thought.
My face reflected in the river looked terribly unfamiliar somehow.
A youthful face, black hair, blue eyes, a scrawny body.
It matched exactly the description that soldier had given.
It felt a little strange to say this myself, but… it was a pretty decent-looking face.
‘Yeah, if possible, it’s better to be handsome.’
I took off the wet leather armor clinging to my thin body and threw it aside.
The leather, sagging like a box soaked in rain, was now closer to a restraint than protective gear.
‘Drek, Baldik… you’re safe, right?’
The time we’d spent together was short, but we had fought and fled together.
I couldn’t pretend not to know them now.
Just as worry passed through me, I felt an unfamiliar sensation at my fingertips.
“…This is.”
It was the ring Drek had handed me, about the size of a thumb, set with a blue gem.
Had I put it on unconsciously at the moment I fell?
I didn’t know why he had passed it to me, but I remembered the look in his trembling eyes.
Someone had to live, and for some reason, that someone had been me.
I carefully placed the ring in my pouch.
It was something I would have to return one day.
Wringing out the hem of my soaked clothes, I got to my feet.
My body was heavy, but I had to do what I could.
The riverside. The forest. An unfamiliar landscape.
There was nothing familiar, but I couldn’t stop now simply because it was unfamiliar.
I checked my belongings in order to leave.
I had left my backpack at the campsite, and what I had now was only one dagger at my waist and this one pouch.
‘…This feeling is familiar.’
The feeling from when I had first fallen into this other world.
It reminded me of that time, when everything was unfamiliar and uneasy, and I knew nothing.
In truth, it wasn’t all that different from then.
But there was one thing that had clearly changed.
Now, I had magic.
[Water Bullet]
Shuuuk— Mana flowed out and seeped over the surface of the river, and then a single droplet of water slowly rose into the air.
Soon, the droplet drifted over my palm.
It was small, but I could feel a strange weight to it.
When I focused my consciousness, the droplet responded smoothly, as if it were my fingertip.
I carefully fired that droplet at a nearby tree.
Shuuwaak— thud!
Rather than the sound of a water droplet bursting, I heard the dull sound of something striking.
When I approached, I saw that the tree bark had been gouged deeply.
‘…It’s more usable than I expected.’
With this level of power, as long as I hit, it could be used as a weapon well enough.
Of course, its limits were clear too.
Firing a single shot consumed quite a bit of mana.
It was only because there was river water nearby; if there had been no water, three or four shots would probably have been my limit.
In the end, this magic was conditional too.
I had gained an offensive spell, but it was still ambiguous to call myself a mage.
Still, it was better than when I had nothing.
Now, at the very least, I wasn’t powerless.
I looked around again.
I didn’t need to think hard to know what I had to do now.
‘I need to look for Drek and Baldik.’
It was too early to call them friends, and too awkward to call them comrades.
Even so, in this unfamiliar world, they were the only people I knew.
***
I headed upstream.
If I went farther up, Garnian Village would be there, and more than anything, I strongly wanted to check again the place where we had first fallen.
As I walked while searching along the riverbank, I suddenly realized something.
Even though I had been walking for quite a long time, my body wasn’t getting tired to a strange degree.
‘The stamina increase… is more useful than I thought?’
To be honest, I hadn’t expected much from the expression “slightly,” but the more I walked, the more I felt it.
In the past, my legs would already have given out, but now I was much better off.
As I followed the path upward, I considered various possibilities in my head.
The most important point was only one thing.
‘If I can’t find the two of them.’
Maybe we had gone in different directions, or perhaps… they had left by another route. There could be all sorts of reasons.
Or in the worst case, they might have lost their lives.
If so, this journey of walking in search of them like this would lose its meaning.
‘In that case… I’ll have to go to Garnian alone.’
Perhaps this could actually be an opportunity.
I had luckily crossed the river, and if I could use this momentum to find the village and settle there, I could gather information and secure my safety.
I filled my head with as many positive thoughts as I could.
I raised my head and surveyed my surroundings.
Before long, a somewhat familiar sight entered my vision.
It was a cliff.
The place where we had last jumped.
I went closer and searched the area around the riverbank.
Fallen branches, old footprints stamped into dried mud, and a single scrap of cloth that seemed to have washed ashore.
But that was all.
There was no Drek, no Baldik.
“…So there’s no one here.”
I looked around the area for quite some time, but I didn’t see even a single shadow.
Seeing that there was nothing atop the cliff either, it seemed even the goblin horde had already withdrawn.
Thinking that Drek and Valdik might perhaps return to this place, I left behind a small sign.
Then I quietly turned away.
‘...Now, let’s go to the village.’
There was nothing to gain by staying here anyway.
Surviving came first right now.
Moving opposite the direction in which the river flowed, I began walking along a narrow path through the forest.
***
The forest path was quiet.
Only the thin rays of sunlight filtering through the dense trees, the faint cries of small birds, and the rustling of leaves told me that this forest was alive.
It had already been quite some time since I left the riverside and started walking this path.
Hunger burned in my stomach, and my wet clothes had dried stiff under the sunlight.
Compared to the area near the river, the forest was definitely more humid, and the undergrowth constantly hindered my ankles.
‘...When will I get there?’
The road was farther than I’d expected.
There was no map, and not even a proper signpost, but in any case, there was only one path.
The fortunate part was that at least I didn’t have to worry about thirst.
I had been walking for a long while.
Up ahead, beyond the forest path, I sensed someone’s presence.
I quickly hid myself behind a tree and cautiously looked.
Someone was there.
An old man in a gray cloak was crouched by the roadside, carefully repairing and tying an old leather strap.
‘...A traveler?’
He did not look particularly well armed.
He was leaning on a staff, and at his waist were only a few small pouches.
But... the problem was that he was an old man walking a road like this alone.
“Who’s there?”
While I was holding my breath, he spoke first.
His voice was low but clear.
Rising to his feet, he turned his head toward me.
“If you intend to hide, you should hide a bit better. Your footsteps were rather loud.”
I came out from behind the tree with an awkward smile.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to hide on purpose, but before I knew it...”
The old man laughed lightly.
“Those who travel alone are bound to be cautious. An unfamiliar face, are you a traveler?”
“Well, something like that. I crossed the river... and now I’m on my way to the village.”
“Do you mean Garnian?”
I nodded.
“Yes. Is this the right direction, by any chance?”
The old man nodded faintly and said,
“It is. If you follow this road, you’ll arrive before sunset. However, you’d best be careful. I hear bandits have been swarming even near the village these days.”
“...Bandits?”
“Perhaps because Garnian is a fairly prosperous village, many of the ones driven out have gathered outside it.”
My lips tightened on their own.
Bandits... that was definitely something Dardan had mentioned.
If I ran into bandits in my current state? I’d probably have to fire one shot of [Water Bullet] and run.
If I couldn’t get away immediately, it would be over just like that.
I’ll have to move more carefully...
“Still, for now, don’t worry. This is the road I just came by, so it should be safe for a while.”
...There might be bandits, and yet he came alone?
As expected, old men and children who travel alone are the ones you have to be wary of.
I bowed my head.
“Thank you. By any chance... would you be willing to walk together?”
The old man smiled and shook his head.
“I appreciate it, but I must go in the opposite direction. If we accompanied each other for no reason and our paths diverged, it would be troublesome for both of us, wouldn’t it?”
He turned around with his staff, then suddenly stopped and looked back at me.
“I won’t ask your business. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t ask mine. But be careful. If you travel alone, they’ll set their sights on you.”
They... He must mean the bandits.
I nodded.
“Thank you for the advice.”
After he disappeared, I began walking the road again.
Before I knew it, the forest opened onto a clearing, and far beyond the hill, faint pillars of smoke were rising.
Garnian.
At last, the village came into view.