[Claude POV]
It took me a while to realize that the forest outside of the dungeon was actually safe.
The realization came gradually, like dawn breaking after a night of horrors. My muscles remained tense for days, fingers instinctively twitching toward my weapon box at every snapped twig or rustling leaf.
Yet death never came. No monsters lurked behind the ancient trees, no traps waited beneath the moss-covered stones. The persistent knot in my stomach—a companion throughout my time in the dungeon—slowly began to unravel.
This forest was different from the dungeon's manufactured death maze. Here, sunlight filtered through a canopy of emerald leaves, casting dappled patterns on the forest floor.
Birds called to one another in melodies that held no malice. Even the poisonous plants and creatures I encountered were merely hazards of nature, not designed instruments of torture.
I recognized most from the botanical texts I'd studied—their vibrant colors or distinct patterns serving as nature's warning signs rather than sadistic surprises.
Orienting myself by the specific flora and fauna surrounding me, I recognized my location with growing certainty.
This must be the Great Forest on the Millis Continent.
Without knowing the current date, I couldn't determine if Rudeus and his companions would be anywhere nearby.
The timelines from my fragmented memories provided conflicting information. For now, the prudent course was to methodically explore my immediate surroundings before attempting to locate an exit from this vast woodland expanse.
And vast it truly was—humongous didn't begin to describe it.
According to maps stored in my borrowed memories, this forest covered nearly half the continent, its ancient roots spreading beneath soil that had never known the bite of human plows.
Various demi-human tribes made their homes within these shadows. I recalled mention of dog-folk and cat-folk tribes—the al-del something. The name danced at the edges of my consciousness, refusing to materialize completely.
Frustrating. For all the knowledge crammed into my mind from other Claudes, mundane details like tribal names often slipped through the cracks.
Information deemed non-essential for survival was frequently discarded by my overloaded brain.
I focused instead on immediate concerns, like finding food. Daily, I foraged and hunted, cooking meals over small fires that I extinguished meticulously afterward.
The dungeon had taught me the dangers of drawing attention.
My supply of preserved condiments had finally been exhausted. Fortunately, the forest provided alternatives—wild peppercorns, aromatic herbs, and bitter roots that could approximate certain flavors. But salt remained elusive.
I found no natural deposits, no salt licks, nothing that could be processed into the essential mineral. The trace amounts in plants and animals weren't enough to satisfy the body's needs, and I could already feel the effects of its absence—subtle muscle cramps, occasional dizziness, a persistent thirst that water alone couldn't quench.
I sighed, my breath visible in the morning chill. "Time to find civilization... or something close to it."
The prospect of encountering others brought mixed emotions. Companionship meant potential allies, trade, information—but also potential threats, complications, questions I couldn't answer without revealing too much.
"Hopefully, it's not another goblin's nest," I muttered to myself, unconsciously touching the scar on my forearm from a previous encounter.
Rustle
Rustle
The sound caught my attention—not the random movements of forest creatures, but the deliberate, if clumsy, motion of something larger. I turned slowly, hand hovering near my knife.
Children's voices. The high-pitched tones carried through the undergrowth, speaking in words I couldn't understand but whose cadence was unmistakably that of young ones at play.
Relief washed through me. Where there were children, there would be a settlement, perhaps even one willing to trade with a stranger.
I moved toward the sounds, careful to make enough noise that I wouldn't startle them. Emerging from behind a curtain of ferns, I spotted them—three small figures with pointed ears and silver-blonde hair that caught the sunlight. Elven children. They froze mid-game, staring at me with widening eyes.
I raised my empty hand in the universal gesture of peace and smiled, trying to appear as non-threatening as a battle-hardened eight-year-old possibly could.
"Hey there..." I called softly.
They responded in what I recognized as Beast God language—flowing syllables that meant nothing to me. I cursed my oversight in neglecting language studies, another gap in my preparations that now proved problematic.
I kept my movements slow, my expression open. Yet their faces paled as though they were looking not at a child but at death itself. Fear replaced curiosity in their eyes, a reaction I'd seen too many times before.
Slavers. It had to be. Those parasites had likely raided nearby settlements, leaving these children to associate any human with captivity and suffering.
Another sin to add to the already lengthy list of grievances I harbored against slave traders.
"Hiii!"
Their unified shriek pierced the forest silence as they scattered like startled deer. Before I could call out again, I felt it—the unmistakable sensation of being targeted.
The tiny hairs on my neck rose, my pupils dilated, and time seemed to slow. Survival instincts honed in the dungeon's merciless halls took over.
Someone was aiming at me with a bow.
I didn't need a guide anymore. I'd found the locals, and they had found me.
[NARRATOR POV]
The elven warrior tracked Claude through his arrow's sightline, muscles tensed but steady. What had begun as routine patrol duty had suddenly become a potential defensive action. Behind him, the children who had raised the alarm huddled together, eyes wide with residual fear.
The stranger before him defied easy categorization. Though child-sized, something about him screamed danger to the elf's trained senses.
Chaotic mana swirled around the boy's form—untamed, potent, and tinged with a bloodlust that no child should possess. The warrior had seen beasts with calmer Toukis.
A mimic, perhaps—one of those creatures that assumed the appearance of the innocent to lure prey. It wouldn't be the first time such a monster had appeared near their borders.
"Aim at the head," he instructed the others who had silently taken position around them. "It's dangerous to let him get closer to the village."
"Understood," came the whispered response as twelve archers nocked arrows, their bow strings drawn taut, tips aligned perfectly with Claude's skull and vital points.
The leader addressed Claude in Beast God language, his tone carrying authority despite the underlying tension: "Are you a slave trader?"
"*##!%" The boy's response was incomprehensible—sounds that resembled no language the elven leader recognized.
The disconnect wasn't surprising. Though many elves who traveled or traded learned human tongues, this particular settlement prided itself on isolation.
Theirs was one of the closed communities, maintaining minimal contact with outsiders and dealing exclusively with neighboring elven villages. The human language held no utility for them and therefore remained unlearned.
"I've come in peace!" Claude attempted again, his voice deliberately softened, his posture carefully adjusted to appear harmless.
But his body betrayed him. Years of constant vigilance had conditioned him to emit a subtle readiness for violence—a predatory awareness that leaked from him like an invisible mist. To the sensitive perceptions of the elves, this unconscious signal blared like a war horn.
Fear and instinct overrode reason. The lead archer released his arrow with a soft twang of bowstring.
Claude's body moved before his conscious mind registered the attack—a sideways twist that allowed the projectile to slice through the air where his head had been a heartbeat earlier.
The volley that followed met similar failure, arrows embedding themselves in tree trunks and earth as the boy evaded with preternatural precision.
The elven warriors stared in disbelief. No child moved like that. No human should have reflexes that made their coordinated attack look clumsy and predictable.
Claude assessed the situation with cold efficiency. Conversation had failed. Diplomacy was no longer an option.
These were not monsters but people acting from fear—yet the distinction meant little when deadly force was being directed at him.
With movements honed through countless life-or-death struggles, Claude reached into his weapon box.
The familiar weight of a throwing dagger settled into his palm, an extension of his will rather than a separate object. His arm moved in a blur, the blade spinning through the air with surgical precision.
One by one, his attackers fell. Some dropped from tree branches with groans of pain, others collapsed where they stood.
Claude's attacks were calibrated with ruthless precision—deep enough to incapacitate but not to kill. He had spilled enough blood in the dungeon; he would not add more without necessity.
He approached one of the fallen warriors, nudging the elf with his foot. "Why did you attack me?" he asked, knowing full well they couldn't understand each other but needing to go through the motions nonetheless.
The silence that followed was answer enough. With a resigned sigh, Claude stepped back, his shoulders slumping slightly.
"Sigh, this is a pickle..."
He turned away from the scene, leaving the injured elves to tend to themselves. There was no point in pushing further into territory where he wasn't welcome. The forest was vast; he would find another path.
From the shadows of the trees, more elves had gathered to witness the confrontation. To them, Claude represented an existential threat unlike any they had encountered before.
A human child with the combat prowess to defeat twelve of their best warriors without sustaining so much as a scratch—it defied comprehension.
Yet something in his restraint gave them pause. He could have killed, but chose not to. He could have pressed his advantage to discover their village, but instead turned away.
This strange contradiction—lethal capability coupled with apparent reluctance to harm—kept them from pursuing him further.
Besides, they had more immediate concerns. Rumors of slave traders had increased in recent months, and whispers of a great flood had begun to circulate among the seers.
This human anomaly would likely depart their forest when faced with either threat. Until then, maintaining distance seemed the wisest course.
But not everyone agreed with this assessment.
Days after the confrontation, three small figures crept through the underbrush toward the clearing where Claude had established a temporary camp.
The elven children who had first encountered him returned, curiosity overcoming their initial fear. From a safe distance, hidden by guardian adults, they observed the strange human.
Claude sensed their presence but made no move to acknowledge them. He continued his routine—training at dawn with movements too fast for their eyes to follow, hunting and gathering through the morning, practicing magic in the afternoon heat.
Only when they ventured closer did he offer a small wave and a portion of his cooked meal.
A tentative relationship formed despite the language barrier. The children visited regularly, sometimes bringing small offerings of fruit or handcrafted trinkets.
Claude responded with prepared vegetable dishes that respected their dietary preferences—he had noticed their reluctance to touch the meat he cooked for himself.
Though they couldn't understand each other's words, expressions and gestures built a primitive form of communication. The children demonstrated local plants that could be eaten, while Claude performed small magic tricks that left them wide-eyed with wonder.
The adults watching from concealment gradually relaxed their vigilance, though they never fully dropped their guard.
The strange human continued to emanate danger, but his actions toward the children remained gentle.
As weeks passed, Claude settled into this unusual coexistence. Though salt remained scarce—forcing him to rely on the minimal amounts present in wild game—the peace of the forest began to heal wounds the dungeon had inflicted on his psyche. For the first time in longer than he could remember, the weight of impending catastrophe lifted slightly from his shoulders.
Then came the day when serenity shattered.
The forest, normally alive with bird calls and insect hums, fell abruptly silent before erupting into chaos.
Shouts and cries echoed between ancient trunks, carrying tones of panic that required no translation. Something had happened—something dire.
Claude's first instinct was to retreat deeper into the woods, to avoid entanglement in problems that weren't his.
The dungeon had taught him the value of selective engagement, of recognizing which battles were necessary and which were merely distractions from survival.
But before he could act on this impulse, one of the guardian elves who always shadowed the children burst into his clearing.
The warrior's face was transformed by terror, his customary composure replaced by raw, primal fear.
That expression triggered something in Claude—a memory not his own but inherited through his Miko connection.
Recognition dawned with sickening clarity. He had seen this before through Kuro's eyes, through Fred's final moments, through Alex's desperate last stand.
Claude's carefully maintained control crumbled. Bloodlust erupted from him like water from a shattered dam, his face contorting into a mask of cold fury.
Without a word, he reached for his weapon box, its metal surface scraping against stone with an ominous grating sound that seemed to echo the approaching danger.
His peaceful interlude was over. The monsters had found them.
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