It was a forest alright. A one-tree forest, mind you!

Eugene was... overwhelmed. Standing in awe, able of nothing but stare at the colossus growing, just in the midst of that giant violet foliage mantle, wrapping the world in a vegetable cloak. It's roots (the ones he could see even from the tremendous distance separating them) were thicker than a regular sky-crapper, branching like a giant net. Not only that, but what one would initially think where the rest of the trees that made up the forest were, in fact, part of the same giant one, connected to it by some thinner roots. The giant had no less than eight different layers of foliage, not counting those belonging to its branches: the first shadowing over half the forest and the last shaping a leafy ball of sorts (in which a dozen of soccer stadiums could still fit perfectly). So yes, with all this information, you could more or less imagine just how damn big that thing was.

He knew there would be a fair amount of weird Isekai stuff in this dream-world-stage-whatever this was, but he had to admit he wasn't ready for this. As for why he hadn't noticed this from a monumentally far away distance, it probably had to do with the fact that the whole forest was protected by a thick layer of (probably magical) mist.

He mused at the impossible sight before him for more than a few minutes, he finally returned to his senses. Just what kind of conditions would have to be met for something like this to appear? He was no genius, but he assumed an extremely thick concentration of mana in the atmosphere was a must-have. While crossing the mist curtain, he also felt revitalized. The mist was probably an altered state of condensed mana, though he was no expert on the matter.

"Putting that aside" he mumbled to himself. He contracted that bad habit lately. "Where am I supposed to go now?" True, he had been walking with no particular route up until now, but that couldn't keep up for long. Even if he didn't have a map or anything of the sort...

Well, right now, the most obvious goal he could think of would be the abnormally huge tree. But that was just him talking.

He levered the pros and cons of heading that way. On the pros side, there was the fact that the views from there had to be excellent, at least, which could help setting his next step. Besides a huge tree meant huge fruits, so he wouldn't starve over the trip. Following that track of thought, though, started the cons. He probably wasn't the only one thinking like that. Many animals would inevitably gather at the center of the forest. And mixing up animals with a dense magic atmosphere was never a good idea, at least not in all those Isekai-themed novels he read up until now. That rabbit monster from before was probably a mutation of what was once upon a time a cute bunny ladies would've fell head over heels for. And what about those who actually ate that kind of thing on regular basis? Just thinking about it made him shiver.

It was a hard choice to make...

... Ultimately, he decided to head towards the tree.

"I won't make any progress if I stay around doing nothing" he reckoned. "Besides, there's nothing like a path full of exciting flora and deadly fauna to raise one's level up a tad." His status could use a bit of improvement. He wasn't exactly complaining about the growth rate, but still...

Well, that was it. He would just have to fight or flight his way over the giant tree...

About an hour and a half later...

"Why does everything I meet tries try to kill me and eat me!?"

In a forest arc in any good fantasy novel, a scene where the main character would have to fight with living ivies was not at all uncommon. He knew that. Even so, he didn't expect it to be something as awful as this.

"(Crystal!)"

Using his favorite (and possibly only offensive) rune, he produced a makeshift dagger. This time, instead of simply flinging it around, he tried to push some of his own mana (which he was getting pretty good at feeling lately) on it. To his surprise, it worked. The blade did look sharper, although being made out of glass didn't give it a sense of durability.

Using his new weapon, he cut the thick branches holding his feet to the ground, and rolled to a side just in time to avoid a giant carnivorous plant's jaws. A second later and he'd be done for. Not that he was any safer now: three ivies shot from three different angles, aiming to immobilize him.

"(Feather!)" he yelled, and everything around him (including his own body) became much more heavier. With that, he spent around half of his MPs. Just great.

At least, the makeshift binds fell to the ground, pressing heavily against it. Now, unless the plant had some other ass on its metaphorical sleeve, it was only the "head" left.

As if thinking the same as Eugene had, the plant coiled around itself, and began to sink in the foliage in an attempt to escape.

"Like hell you are!" Eugene, not so willing to let those juicy experience points fly away, tested a different strategy.

"(Feather)"

This time making his body as light as the spell pointed out, he dashed forward. He didn't quite manage to reach the plant monster, but that wasn't his goal in the first place.

"(Feather)" he mumbled for the third time, touching one of the tree trunks closer to the monster. Immediately after, thousands of leaves collapsed under their own weight, and a flattening puff-like sound told Eugene his goal had fallen as well.

Searching around for it around the bunch of overweighted leaves, he finally found it writhing pitifully on the ground. Not that he felt any kind of pity towards the thing.

"Time to cut out the weed" he said, laughing at his own joke as he cleanly sliced the "head" from it's body. Some sort of disgusting blue liquid came out the severed parts, and he managed to avoid getting his shirt stained (more than it already was) just in time before he heard the characteristic 'pop!' preceding any of the system's notifications.

System Notification

For defeating an enemy stronger than yourself, your soul soul has grown stronger! Your status has been updated accordingly.

"Good. Let's check our status..."

Status Name Eugene Progression 7.30% to reach Progression Race Human Vocations Title Orc Slayer

Runologist: C (8.00%) Blessings Phanes' Bless (None) Attributes

Physique

20

Charisma 20 Intellect

39

Magic

41

Some minor improvements in all statistics. Not too good, but not too bad either. As for his profession...

Acquired Runes (Glass) 100%

(Feather) 100%

Available Runes

0 (8.0%)

Max Spell Length

2

Not too much growth of on this side either. He sighed. He assumed this much.

Closing all his status windows, he kept moving forward... He would've liked to, at least. Instead, he felt the familiar sensation of something suddenly growing out of the earth and wrapping his feet together.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" Already? He killed one of those literally seconds ago!

Of course nobody was kidding him. A new killer plant appeared from the side, slowly approaching him. Eugene decided not to wait until the thing was breathing on his face, instead cut the bundle tying his feet... together... Damn deja vu.

He swiped his dagger, the plant monster dodged it and went for another bite... I tried to, at least... Instead, it hissed, for some reason... No, no, it wasn't hissing! Eugene noticed it was starting to turn white-ish and wither on some parts.

"Why?"

He couldn't figure out the reason, though. While it had weakened the thing, it hadn't killed it, so he still couldn't celebrate. Nothing that another quick swipe couldn't solve.

System Notification

For defeating an enemy stronger than yourself, your soul soul has grown stronger! Your status has been updated accordingly.

This time, he decided not to open his status immediately. Instead, he invested some of the scarce MPs he still had in weighing down any possible threat that could come from above. Now sure that no more carnivorous pants were trying to chomp his head off, he sat on the ground, sighing heavily.

"Haaah... Two consecutive attacks. And I imagine I've gained the same amount of experience, if not less..." It was a headache to think about this Progression. Damn.

The next thing he did was scanning around for some food. Luckily, he didn't have to wander much before he found a little lake with a few small bushes growing around. Bushes loaded to the top with with berry-like fruits. Food and water. Not bad, not bad at all...

Then, after that, he returned to where the fight had taken place. He started to carefully poke some plants here and there, sticking his head to a tree trunk, maybe closely examine the soil. Soon, he discovered a fine trail of the same blue-ish liquid that he assumed was the plant's life juice. But he wasn't looking for that, but rather...!

Ah ha!

Leaning to a side, he found a seemingly normal plant. Well, it was normanl, except for the fact that, unlike the rest of its neighbors around, it didn't have so much as a single splatter of the blue stuff.

To prove his theory, he grabbed a piece of the piece monster he dissected with his makeshift (but growing more and more useful) glass dagger. He noticed some of the mana he had imbued it with had already worn off, but it wasn't that much of a big deal.

Unceremoniously, he threw the thing to the perfectly... or maybe not so common plant. As soon as it made contact it...!

... did... nothing?

...

"Well that was underwhelming. Maybe I was wrong after all..." even before he ended the phrase, some more of that unbearable hissing could be heard, and the piece of the monster that was touching one of the plant's leaves withered almost immediately, turning into dust as if it had never existed in the first place.

"Heh, I knew it...!" Grinning satisfactorily to himself, Eugene came closer to the plant. He remembered rolling around the place for a bit, which made him sure he had already touched it before. Good, so it wasn't poisonous, just herbicide... A herbicide herb. Curious.

But even more important than that: it was useful.

After a little rest and recovering most of his MPs, Eugene cleaned up the area a bit. Then, using his (Crystal) rune, he produced some makeshift brewing tools. Namely, a pot to crush the herbicide plant's leaves, with a hole to leak the resulting liquid. Below it, he placed a vial he produced also with magic. And a dozen more of those were sprawled around, waiting to be filled up. He grinned to himself, grabbed a handful of leaves and tossed them into the... crush tool. Rather crude name, but he wouldn't make himself a name out of brewing, so those little details didn't matter so much.

His grin only grew wider as he noticed how much herbicide he could get out of a relatively small amount of leaves. He would be getting a lot of this stuff, and he could bet those damn plants wouldn't bother him again...

Once again, something sprouted out of the ground and grabbed his legs.

This time, however, recovered from the initial surprise, he smiled. Now he had a test subject to try his newest product on!

He reached for the only filled vial he had, and splashed all of its content in the living roots...

If only touching the plants had nearly killed one of those things, a bottle of its juice was definitively an overkill. Hissing and smoking, the whole thing turned white and crumbled into dust.

System Notification

For defeating an enemy stronger than yourself, your soul soul has grown stronger! Your status has been updated accordingly.

Big success.

This was great. He didn't know if it worked in animals (in fact, seeing how it didn't do a thing to him, it probably didn't) but at least he wasn't getting more of those sudden ambushes. Besides, those damn things had the bad habit of clinging to the prey's legs first of all, so maybe spraying some the herbicide on his boots would result in a near-free experience grind...?

Oh boy. He was already enjoying this...