Chapter Eight: Surprises In The Faint Forest

Yushin talked with many NPCs before leaving Red Clay City through the east gate. And yet no quest activated. To reach Faint Forest, one had to go from there and pass a few small villages. He had no trouble finding his way and no monsters attacked him either.

The vision of that huge and dense looking forest blew all his expectations out of proportion. There isn’t anything like it in real life. Some trees had over one hundred and fifty meters tall and were so wide they didn’t lose out to buildings. Yushin failed to estimate the extension and ending point of the forest. Trees, trees, and trees. Everywhere he looked.

‘How is this a “faint” forest? It looks huge… This is much bigger than my entire city. I’ll go in with care. ’

Entering the forest was not a problem. But when he did it, his body stopped for a while and then felt a familiar and penetrating sensation.

‘Is this some kind of barrier…? Felt like I passed through something and it scanned my body.’

There are no discernible markings whatsoever around, even after thorough checking. [Tracking Skill] started to work, and many red dots appeared on the minimap. Yushin hid and checked them out.

The figures were Gray Wolves, Jaguars and Brown Bears. They didn’t look like their regular versions. Monster-like elements, such as horns, bigger claws, and fangs, were present.

According to the [Hunter’s Lodge], each monster species has their own [Habits and behavior]. A [Monster Ecosystem] has many intricacies and rules. Wiping out one species may lead to a chain of events impossible to predict.

Yushin didn’t want to assume they behaved exactly like real life animals. He kept observing them in secret. The Brown Bear with horns acted like an untouchable boss, and no one looked willing to bother him. He stood tall and did whatever he felt like.

Jaguars and Wolves didn’t get along but also didn’t get into bigger conflicts. They hunted other common species and fed them to the bear.

In that part of the woods, the bear was the monarch.

When he was about to test a lone wolf’s strength, a couple of adventurers came into his sights. Two male avatars, one carrying a bow, the other sword and shield. Their strategy was basic: sword and shield tanks, bow snipes. That was all there was to it.

Finding a lone gray wolf, the adventurers stroke. But from there on everything went badly.

The wolf was much faster than expected. It dodged sword strikes and arrows missed him. It was in control of the whole battle. A few minutes passed and they still couldn’t land a blow, but the wolf clawed through half of their HP with ease.

Yushin knew doom walked near, but not because of the wolf. The others had already surrounded them. They hid themselves waiting for the right moment to strike. From what he could tell, they weren’t actually planning on ganging up on them.

They didn’t want them to run.

When the adventurers realized this, they rushed back but died anyway. They should not have underestimated these wolves.

‘Unless I can kill one swiftly, I’ll be dead right away.’

Yushin sighed and decided to check other places inside the forest. He might have wandered into a high leveled area.

At one point, Yushin stopped. His minimap was full of red dots. Over one hundred of them at once. He got up into a tree once he realized all of them were land-based worms.

‘Green Worms… Those are [Elven Chewers].’

Those Green Worms appeared in his [Hunter’s Lodge] info, even though the other monsters did not.

Info: Faint Forest’s Green Worms. A common Faint Forest species. [Land Based Worm]. Cannot climb trees. Sluggish. Attacks: [Spike Spit] and [Jaws Triturator]. Weak to pierce. Strong against bludgeoning. Can hide in the ground and run or ambush. If there are many together, an evolved form leads them. Run.

‘Damn… These are no good either. I’ll keep going.’

Yushin didn’t get down and instead walked from tree to tree. It wasn’t hard to do with so many large branches, but after he was away from the worms he jumped down. He didn’t know what to expect from the trees, after all. He hadn’t seen a single monster there. That was never a good sign.

The forest itself didn’t change a lot until much deeper. The monsters were the same, but the leader changed sometimes. In some, the brown bears were leaders, but he also saw wolves and jaguars commanding. There were so many communities the number of monsters came to tens of thousands. He was pretty good at hiding, otherwise he’ would be dead already.

Some Monster Communities are disorganized and random. They acted according to the [Leader’s Personality]. On the first one, the brown bear was a [Monarch]. Everyone served him.

There was one particularly interesting community. They shared command. All three were leaders, fighting outside invaders that dared to enter their territory. Yushin called that type Monster [Democracy], as opposed to [Monarchy] from before.

It was hard keeping track of each one’s characteristics. He found out naming them helped organize that data. When the gray wolves were in the lead, their team play was extremely high. Jaguars were fast but lonely. If he wanted to ambush some of them, Jaguar communities were the best spot to start. And so he did.

Yushin strategy used hit-and-run. He lurked around waiting for an opportunity to strike and did so swiftly. Jaguars were challenging with their speed, but they never called for help. The greatest risk was standing in one place so monsters would walk up to them randomly.

Since his skills were a bit slow, none of them could effectively hit the enemies. Yushin chose to avoid them and fight only with normal spear attacks and his own speed. Anticipating the monster moves was hard at the beginning, but he picked up things quickly. Soon he was overwhelming them with precise strikes to their eyes, legs, and throat. Kill and hide.

[Got Ratre’s Skin x11]

[Got Ratre’s Fangs x11]

[Got Ratre’s Blood x 10]

‘So these Jaguar-types are Ratre. I killed enough of them, let’s move on to wolves.’

Yushin knew wolves were much more challenging, even those on Ratre communities. Those were less prone to call for help, but they would still do it if you killed them too slow or if they felt threatened.

On wolves, he didn’t go to maim right away. He drained their HP by hitting non-vital spots and then went for the kill. Wolves were much slower to kill than Ratres but offered about the same level of challenge. Yushin couldn’t go for bears since even solo they were much stronger than him. Safety always first.

[Got Ranroth’s Fangs x 8]

[Got Ranroth’s Claws x7]

[Got Ranroth’s Fur x 10]

[Got Ranroth’s Blood x 10]

‘The Gray Wolves are Ranroth. Too bad I can’t know how much longer I need to level up.’

Unlike most games, Tales showed as little info as possible. That includes level up experience.

Yushin realized the Monster Community was adapting to him. Soon they began to patrol more and even search using better methods. A few wolves found him and pursued, but he managed to lose them in the forest.

‘That was close. Time to explore deeper.’

He was a long way from the exit but kept going in anyway. The communities changed but the monsters were the same. It seems those were the only species able to coexist in the [Outer Circles]. Soon he found out why: those monsters did not dare to venture further. As soon as he stepped inside one of the [Inner circles], those three monster species were nowhere to be seen.

The branches were much thicker and darker. Some kind of sinister energy had corrupted the forest itself. Even though the air was clear, whatever did that also changed the forest permanently.

‘This is the work of that [Demon Miasma]. Maybe I should go back…’

But before he could, his sights stopped into a few ruins a bit away. They looked like some sort of old elven temple, with ancient runes and guardian statues. The temple itself was very large and seemed to go deep underground. It even went up in the trees, in a marvelous and now somber piece. Repairing it, Yushin assumed it would be beautiful.

Lost in that marvel, he did not realize new enemies around.

He was already surrounded.

Skeletons that wore armor and looked fierce. Some carried long swords, other bows and arrows. A few of them even used magic. And they still managed to get him by surprise.

Yushin shivered. That was the reason monsters didn’t go there.

It was freaking suicide.

“Assarp noa Ekov.” One of the skeletons spoke. Yushin wrinkled his brows.

“Denente em noa Ekov?” He kept asking. They made no moves to attack.

Yushin finally shook his head. “I cannot understand you.”

“You are our kind, yet does not know the words?” The skeleton finally asked in Tales common language.

“Your kind?”

“Yes, you have not undergone baptism, but we can feel some [Familiarity] towards you. We are the [Raibyr, Guardians of the Old Forest]. You cannot pass.”

“When you say “baptism”, do you mean awakening?”

“That seems to be the appropriate word in the common tongue. This familiarity is the only reason we have not killed you on sight, wanderer. This is a sacred place of our kind, no one can pass.”

“I apologize. I will return right away.” Yushin smiled and bowed. ‘...Another one of this [Familiarity] talk. It was the same with the dwarf before. Does this have something to do with me randomizing origin? Am I some kind of dwarf-elf hybrid? But it says half-human on my character screen…’

“Wanderer.” The skeleton elf spoke. “To enter the temple you must solve the forest’s mystery. May our Lord be with you, living one of our kind.”

Yushin nodded before leaving. A system warning popped up:

Common Quest

Solve the Faint Forest’s Mystery.

Duration

-----

Difficulty

E

Reward

Allowed to enter the [Temple of Raibyr].

‘My first quest! I don’t even know where to start, though… I’ll try to explore more and see if there are any clues.’

Yushin made his way back until it was sure he was no longer in Elven territory. Instead of going further back, however, he wandered in a circular motion. How far did the elves protection go? Was that the only temple in the forest? He had not seen even one tenth of it. There sure were much more things to find.

Slowly, the species started to slight change. He saw Red Wolves, Yellow Worms, Gray Bears and Stripped Jaguars. They looked much more ferocious than the ones before and even had some faint sinister force. Almost walking into some spider’s nest, he noticed the webs before falling prey to it. The fauna started to change, and so did the communities. It was a whole new world from that point on. And too dangerous for him to proceed alone, at least with his current strength.

‘So the Outer Circle has weaker monsters since the ones inside pushed them away. From what I can see, those stronger ones also don’t go any further in. That means there are even stronger species or a Boss. The ones in the Inner Circle have more freedom, and the ones outside banded together for survival. And they don’t respawn, but there is a [Monster Reproduction System] in place. What happens if some adventurers start to wipe a few of these species out? Broken balance, huge changes. Maybe they can even go outside and attack villages... In the end, this is a shifting forest, and can affect everything around it.’

Yushin had finished his exploration for now and started to go back to the exit. There was no need to go back where he came from, so he dashed to the closest place, taking care not to run into any ambushes.

He was already used to the monster patterns. As long as he didn’t provoke them and become a target, he would be able to walk unhindered through the trees. He also confirmed there were no flying type monsters or even tree grapplers. Monsters always stayed on the ground. Moreover, even if he climbed a tree, they tried to attack from afar, but never followed. Either it was some kind of rule or they dreaded climbing…

On the way back, Yushin saw a huge group of players for the first time. There were about ten. They didn’t have better equipment than him but looked well organized. There were signs of battle everywhere, and the place was clear of monsters.

He hid and climbed on trees, observing the situation. The group of players chased something or someone. They were talking among themselves while running.

“Damn, how did they escape? There are only three of them left. We need to kill them fast before they log out.” One of the players was definitely in a bad mood. He carried two daggers, had short blue hair and a mean look on his face.

“Pfft, who was it that missed all those hits? Yer got parried a lot, man… step it up, will ya?” The one that carried a long sword teased. He had long red hair.

“Shut up! They’re kinda good, but I don’t care. That frigging dungeon is ours!”

‘A dungeon…? So a few adventurers found a dungeon, and these fellows want to kill them and steal it. Heh. It’s not any of my business anyway, but I’ll keep observing.’

Yushin followed them in silence, trying his hardest not to make noises. His run early on through the forest helped him practice a lot.

One of the pursuing crew looked bothered by something. He kept glancing around, sometimes in Yushin’s direction. Either he was very afraid of monsters popping up or somehow he sensed his presence. After a while, he gave up and just kept running forward.

Soon the group finally found their target. Three players indeed. They stopped since ahead was a group of Elven Chewers. From that position, they could not go forward nor run back.

The one in the lead was a black haired female with beautiful glossy medium sized hair, carrying a long sword and small rounded shield. Her frame was small, only around 160 cm or so, definitely petite. Her eyes looked fierce and decisively soulful, even with an animal glint to them. Yushin couldn’t distinguish her race.

The two behind her were one axe-wielding half-orc and one spear wielding kobold species. They both had several bruises and cuts. The adventurers didn’t lose any time and stroke. Yet none of the attacks connected.

[Parry!]

[Block!]

[Parry!]

The petite looked like a Goddess in battle. Her movements were quick and fluid, her reaction speed amazing. She parried and blocked attacks like they were nothing. The other two merely had to complement her moves and they could hold out for a long time. This made the attackers red with anger and frustration.

“You b**ch! I’m gonna step on your corpse!’ Yelled the two daggered mean faced fellow.

“Humpf, treacherous animals... Have you no honor? We had a deal!” The voice was definitely young and soft sounding.

“Deal’s off, baby. We didn’t expect yer guys ta find a Magic Dungeon. Either ya relinquish yer rights, or we kill ya. Simple as that.” The red haired threw his thoughts in.

“Over our dead bodies!” Shouted the kobold.

“You two…” - One of the guys in the back stepped forward. He carried bow and arrow. “Why don’t you join [Red Clay Guild]? She’s the only one in [Free Forest], right? Well, join our guild and we can enjoy not only that dungeon but the others together. It’s much better than dying here and losing everything, right?”

The Half-Orc and Kobold were in silence. All they had to do was attack the woman from behind. They would be able to join [Red Clay Guild] and enjoy some privileges. Otherwise, It was only a matter of time until they died there.

“You can go…” The soft voice resounded. It tried to hide, but was full of loneliness and sadness. It was as if she already expected the answer to be betrayal.

“Lady, what kind of people do you think we are?” The half-orc spoke first.

“We just met, but… we either die together or live together! Right?” The Kobold also said with a smile.

“Right.” The woman gave a faint smile and pointed her shield at the enemies. “Come.”

They were fuming mad.

Yet, in the shadows, there was also another person that had made a decision.

Hearing [Red Clay Guild] and [Free Forest], Yushin wasn’t mad. He had a bit of prejudice towards Red Clay, but only towards the blonde’s group. When the archer tried to force a betrayal, he was already expecting it to happen.

But the trio stayed united.

At that moment, Yushin decided to support them. That meant he would make an enemy out of the entire [Red Clay Guild].

But, once he decided something, not even making enemies with the whole world would make him turn back...