Now that I had finished the revenge match, I could finally leave Rundel with an easy heart, and I immediately set out on the road to Zone 3.
But I couldn’t leave right away.
“Once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
At the village entrance, Halvar and all the residents of Rundel had come out to see me off.
They poured out so many words of thanks and regret.
So much so that a part of me began to feel like I didn’t want to leave.
But I couldn’t put off my departure forever.
“Take care, Hakon.”
“You’d best be prepared the next time we meet.”
“I’ll accept as many challenges as you like, so do your best.”
Lastly, I said goodbye to Hakon.
And after exchanging a manly handshake with a promise to meet again,
I left Rundel, waving until I could no longer see them.
Just as I was about to properly set out for Zone 3,
“Did you say your goodbyes properly?”
“Emily?”
I ran into Emily and her group.
“Wait, didn’t you go back?”
“We were originally going to, but after watching your fight, Ian, I couldn’t just sit still. So we decided to head to Zone 3 today.”
I looked suspiciously at Emily, then at Naira and Mugi.
If they had really wanted to go to Zone 3, they could have left while I was saying goodbye to the villagers.
At my gaze, Emily simply shrugged once and said,
“Well, I won’t deny that we were trying to go together. But Ian, you don’t know the way to Zone 3, do you?”
“Well, that’s true, but…”
“Fortunately, we do. So how about accompanying us as far as the Zone 3 residential district? I won’t force you any further. We’ll stop right there.”
Seeing Emily smiling so brightly made me feel strange.
It felt like I was losing somehow, like I was being trained or something.
But just as she said, it wasn’t as if I had any better option.
I could go with a later group, but that would take too much time.
In the end, I had no choice but to nod.
Fine. It was better to go with people I was at least a little close to than with strangers.
Just then, Naira, who had somehow come up beside me, very naturally draped an arm over my shoulder.
At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up outright hugging me someday.
“By the way, how do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You know, that thing you always do. The thing where you suddenly changed direction in midair earlier.”
“Ah.”
Honestly, I didn’t really know how I did it either.
I had just tried it to survive, and somehow it had worked out.
Since I relied entirely on instinct, I wasn’t confident I could explain it properly.
So there was only one thing I could say to Naira.
“I don’t know. It just works when I do it.”
“Wow… you sounded damn annoying just now.”
“But I really don’t know. And you’re an archer anyway. Why are you curious?”
Unlike me, a solo player, Naira had Emily, who could reliably hold the front line.
If things got dangerous, she could probably get help from Mugi too.
At my question, Naira grinned broadly.
“I’m thinking of handling one more weapon, like you.”
“Huh?”
“I watched you fight today, and using two seemed better than I expected.”
Then she pulled a sword from her inventory before I knew it and began swinging it around with her other hand.
“How is it? Pretty good, right?”
“Well… the combination itself is good.”
Of course, as for her skill… she’d probably need a lot of training.
Still, I meant it when I said the combination was good.
The downside of handling a sword and staff at the same time was, naturally, that I had to distribute my stats evenly.
Even now that my level had risen, I still sometimes felt like a messy hybrid build.
But with a sword and bow, the shared stats would be the same, and the roles would be clearly divided.
It might be an even more troublesome combination than swordsman and mage.
But then,
“I’m thinking of using one more weapon starting from the next zone too.”
Naira wasn’t the only one planning to use multiple weapons.
“Huh? You too, Emily?”
“No matter how I look at it, our party is seriously lacking in close-range attack ability.”
Like Naira, Emily pulled a weapon from her inventory.
It wasn’t the shield she usually used, but a spear.
“If you had joined our party, Ian, none of this would have been necessary, but there’s nothing we can do. Or are you thinking of joining even now? We’d always welcome you.”
“That’s right, that’s right.”
“No thanks.”
“What a shame.”
As she said that, she gazed steadily at me with a bewitching look.
Feeling burdened by her stare, I decided to change the subject.
“By the way, what was that flag you received back then?”
The flag she had received from Arca before we left the boss room.
That was probably the reward for the highest contribution in this boss fight.
“Are you that curious?”
Emily smiled mischievously at my question.
To be honest, I was curious.
But.
“No. I’m not really curious anymore.”
I shook my head.
If I said I was curious here, I felt like I’d be subjected to an endless stream of women’s chatter.
Unexpectedly, however, Emily readily revealed the information.
“Oh, you’re no fun. Well, it’s not really something to hide. It’s the right to establish a guild.”
“A g-guild?”
Currently, there was no guild system in Arcadia.
It didn’t exist in the menu window, and even when walking around the village, I had never heard anything about guilds.
So many people, myself included, had thought this game had no guilds.
We hadn’t particularly felt the need for one, either.
But now, suddenly, a guild?
I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“Are you surprised?”
“Yes, well… of course. So did you make one?”
“No, not yet. There’s a lot to consider in various ways.”
Fair enough.
She had to decide on the guild name, its purpose, and whether she herself would become the guild master or leave it to someone else.
On top of that, since it was said to be an item that should only appear in Zone 5, she was probably debating whether it was all right to make one now.
In that sense, this reward really did suit Emily in many ways.
For a solo player like me, a guild was a burden I couldn’t shoulder.
A weapon was more than enough.
Meanwhile, our steps brought us to the valley, which had changed in many ways.
A scene where streams of water poured down refreshingly without worry of drying up.
But I tilted my head.
“Why are we here?”
Hadn’t we clearly said we were going to Zone 3?
I had followed them because they said they knew the way…
Emily, did you trick me?
However, everyone’s expressions were perfectly calm.
“This is the right place.”
“We came to the right place.”
“This place… was like this.”
I couldn’t sense any trace of a lie.
Then that meant the path to Zone 3 really was here…
“Then where’s the path?”
The cave where the altar had been?
Or had a new road opened up?
“That would be…”
At that moment, Emily and Naira’s expressions turned playful.
Before I could put up any proper resistance, I was completely caught by them.
And then they lifted me up.
Even Mugi, whom I had trusted, was helping them.
“Uwaaah! W-wait…”
“It’s fine. They said you’ll arrive soon!”
And just like that, I was thrown into the rushing water.
“Kyaaaaaaaaah!”
Somebody save meeeeeee!
***
After Ian was swept along by the current for a long while, she finally came to her senses at the lower reaches of a river where the water flowed gently.
“Haa, haa… What part of that was soon…”
Barely managing to crawl onto land, Ian didn’t even dry her clothes and simply collapsed spread-eagle on the ground.
“I swear I’ll get revenge for this one.”
Separate from that, it had been true that the path to Zone 3 was in the valley.
The surrounding scenery visible at a glance was neither rocky mountain nor field, but an entirely new place.
“No wonder no one found it.”
The place she was currently in was a tropical rainforest where even sunlight barely reached.
Even though she had just been in the water, it was hot and humid.
Compared to the height of the trees growing here, the forest in Zone 1 could practically be called a garden.
‘So this is Zone 3…’
The place she would have to conquer from now on.
She couldn’t even guess what kind of enemies would appear this time.
‘Will beasts more dangerous than bears appear? Or venomous snakes and giant insects?’
Honestly, she wasn’t very confident when it came to bugs…
Those thoughts had filled Ian’s mind before she knew it.
But as she spent her time like that,
“By the way, why aren’t these people coming?”
They had agreed to go together as far as the Zone 3 residential area and part ways there.
So she had been waiting, thinking they would arrive soon, but there was not the slightest sign of Emily and her group.
“Don’t tell me those people abandoned only me and took another route?”
If so, she really wouldn’t let it slide.
Just as she was thinking about what kind of revenge she should take to repay this grudge,
—Whirlik!
A long green tentacle flew from somewhere and wrapped around Ian’s ankle.
“Huh? Kyaaaah!”
At the sudden ambush, Ian’s body rose into the air.
She didn’t notice in the slightest that an embarrassing scream had rung out.
Instead, she immediately drew her sword and swung it toward the tentacle around her ankle.
“Slash!”
The green tentacle was easily cut by Ian’s sword.
She flipped through the air and landed on the ground.
What appeared before her eyes was a purple flower coiling around a tree with long vines.
At the pistil of the thing, teeth that should not exist on a plant clacked noisily as they moved.
[Lv 16. Man-eater Plant]
A carnivorous flower that devoured people.
‘So the tentacle was actually a vine?’
Without giving her time to be surprised, the plant that had found its prey stretched its vines toward Ian.
Ian leapt backward with all her might to avoid the vines.
At that moment, the vines sharply changed direction and pursued Ian persistently.
She twisted her waist and body, pulling her sword taut behind her.
A skill she had obtained when her swordsmanship proficiency reached 200.
Basic Swordsmanship Skill, Fifth Form.
Area annihilation technique.
“Top Blade!”
Ian’s sword spun like a top.
The rotating blade cut down every cluster of vines that came toward her, and the flower’s bodily fluids sprayed from the severed ends.
Avoiding the fluids, Ian immediately stamped her foot.
A single-charge technique to close the distance in an instant.
“Sword Rush!”
The blue trail stretching out long like a tail split the flower apart.
—Kieeek!
The flower, half its petals blown away, screamed.
Ian let out a hollow laugh as she watched it.
“What kind of plant screams?”
At the same time, she realized.
This place, Zone 3, was a world of moving plants.
In that case,
“There’s no better miracle cure for plants than this.”
Ian put away her sword and aimed her staff at the flower that was still screaming.
Mana gathered within the staff and soon began to take shape.
What appeared was a sphere of flame.
A chilling smile formed on Ian’s lips.
“Fireball!”
With its vines cut away, the flower had no way to block the fireball.
In the end, the man-eating flower caught fire all over and turned to ash.
Ian watched the sight to the very end and exclaimed in admiration.
“It’s way more efficient than I expected.”
Even though she had shaved off its health with her sword, she hadn’t expected to finish it off with a single fire spell.
She felt certain that in Zone 3, she would be able to use magic more easily than she had in Zone 2.
Ian put away her sword and staff.
She checked the riverside once more, but Emily and the others were still nowhere to be seen.
She clicked her tongue.
“Forget it. They’ll come on their own.”
Ian set off first to find the residential area.
The past two weeks had been the strange part; she had originally been a solo player.
Morning had dawned, and she had merely woken from a dream.
And so Ian did not realize
that something lurking in this forest was following behind her.