Rustle, rustle…
Rustle, rustle…
In a lush, verdant forest, the noisy sound of bushes shaking rang out, accompanied by the hurried pounding of footsteps.
And those footsteps did not belong only to a human, but also to animals racing swiftly across the ground with claws and fangs.
“Woooooooh!”
“Wooooh!
Wooooh!!”
“Stop chasing me!
Even if you catch me, I’m not going to let you guys do anything to me!
The road is wide enough for all of us, so why don’t we just go our separate ways?”
Deep within the mountain forest of some remote region, a fine little scene of cat and mouse was currently unfolding.
To be more precise, the protagonists of this story were a pack of gray wolves, members of the canine family, and a blond-haired boy who, out of necessity, had turned one of their lone companions into his lunch.
The blond boy’s name was Ize.
Ize Elward.
At present, due to certain reasons, he was traveling toward the westernmost edge of the continent.
And as the current situation made painfully obvious, Ize’s journey had run into a crisis.
He was being hunted down by a large pack of gray wolves.
Forced to move at high speed through a jungle filled with complicated terrain, the tremendous drain on his stamina was enough to make even Ize, who prided himself on his exceptional physical condition, begin panting for breath.
Especially since, while fleeing, he was not only carrying a leather backpack on his back, but also tightly gripping a two-meter-long black iron spear in his hands.
Such enormous physical exertion caused Ize’s emotions to gradually grow anxious.
When facing a life-or-death crisis, almost no one could remain perfectly calm, right?
Especially when there was a whole pack of wolves behind him, completely lacking any sense of martial ethics, trying to devour him alive.
Only a ghost could stay calm in a situation like this!
The reason he still had the spare energy to throw taunts behind him was simply because he was trying to find a little amusement amid his suffering.
Besides, they could not even understand what he was saying.
It was just that every time he turned his head and mocked them, the wolves seemed to chase him even harder…
‘If I keep running like this, it’s obviously not going to work.
Unless something unexpected happens, I’m definitely going to be the first one to die!’
As he sprinted, Ize leaped over a massive tree root.
His body soared through the air, the spear in his hand following the motion of his arm like a shadow.
As far as extra weight went, the spear in his hands was undoubtedly a burden.
But as the weapon that had accompanied him for several months of travel, it was practically half of Ize’s life.
Wandering through wild mountain ridges and forests filled with monsters, encounters with those creatures were unavoidable.
At times like that, without a weapon, Ize would have almost no ability to fight back.
Was he supposed to fight monsters barehanded?
It was not as if everyone was Wu Song.
Besides, monsters even knew how to attack in groups, just like the situation behind him right now.
‘I need to find a chance to break out of this chase.
My stamina is draining way too fast.
Ideally, I should lure these huskies into the territory of another group of monsters.
Once things turn chaotic, I’ll finally have a chance to escape.’
Ize rushed through one thicket after another, still sparing a sliver of focus during his desperate flight to think about how to shake off this pack of gray wolves.
Having grown up since childhood beside his grandfather, who was a hunter, Ize might not have been able to boast about much else, but when it came to hunting and escaping with his life, his skills had reached a fairly high level.
It was not as if he had never been chased by wolves before.
In the past, Ize had often managed to rely on his outstanding physical abilities and the experience he had learned from his grandfather to run circles around wolf packs.
But the current situation was completely different from those days…
because the roles were different now.
A pack of “Gray Wolves”!
These were “monsters” that could never be seen back in his hometown, creatures that only appeared in the adventure journals written by bards.
Compared with ordinary wolves, mere beasts, their speed was enough to leave the latter choking on dust.
And at this very moment, Ize was truly playing a game of cat and mouse with them.
The kind where losing meant immediate death.
—”Monsters.”
Since ancient times, they had emerged from the world-famous underground labyrinth, and by now, they had slowly come to run rampant across the surface as brutal creatures.
It was said that the closer one got to the area around the underground labyrinth, the higher the possibility of encountering monsters became, because the origin of all monsters was that very labyrinth.
For ordinary people, even the weakest monsters, such as goblins or kobolds, were enough to pose a fatal threat, let alone stronger monsters.
Only adventurers blessed by the gods could rely on the power of divine grace to contend with them.
As for the pack of “Gray Wolves” currently chasing Ize, they were not merely troublesome for ordinary people.
Even some lower-level adventurers of weaker strength would find them a headache.
Because wolves had always been creatures that moved in packs.
In other words, once they appeared, they came in large numbers, which was extremely troublesome.
If he had not been forced into it, Ize would not have wanted to provoke them either.
But when he encountered that lone gray wolf, the other party had tried to eat him for lunch first.
As the saying went, when a friend comes from afar bearing food across a thousand miles, one must return the courtesy.
And so, with the idea of returning the favor, Ize had ultimately used the seasonings he carried on him and turned it into a truly delicious lunch.
After that, well…
there was no after that.
Wolves were creatures that held grudges, and they lived in groups.
If someone harmed one of their kin, that person would be hunted down with madness.
Just like Ize was right now.
This cat-and-mouse chase continued for a while longer, until a sudden change appeared.
“ROOOOOAAAAARRRR!!!!”
A roar that seemed to shake the entire forest reached Ize’s ears.
That abrupt bellow made his eyes light up.
This was it!
The opportunity he had been looking for to shake off the gray wolf pack!
Joy rose in his heart.
With a dashing leap, he flew across the forest terrain and over the bushes, displaying leg strength that did not match his lean-looking build at all as he accelerated rapidly.
As long as one was not an idiot, anyone could tell that roar had come from some kind of powerful creature.
And that was exactly what Ize needed.
Unlike the legendary underground labyrinth, the “monsters” that occupied the wilderness rarely coexisted peacefully with one another due to their territorial instincts.
When “monsters” that were not of the same kind met, there was a high possibility that conflict would break out.
If he could lure the gray wolf pack over to the creature that had just roared, then he would have a chance to run, a chance to shake off this troublesome pack of gray wolves.
After that, he would also have to find a place to wash himself and confuse the scent on his body.
That way, he could prevent them from catching up to him again.
However, Ize, caught up in his delight, failed to notice something.
Within that roar that echoed through the forest, there was faintly a trace of sorrow.
It was almost like the wail of a living creature that had been wounded and sensed the danger of death.
At the same time, on the other side of the forest…
“ROOOOOAAAAARRRR!!!!”
“Volley fire!
You lot, block the ground!
Don’t let it escape into the air!”
“Yes!”
The voice belonged to the goddess of a “Hunting” Familia.
Around her, the girls belonging to the Familia obeyed her commands like warriors.
In this vast forest that stretched beyond the eye could see, they fired a rain of arrows at the wyvern releasing vicious roars.
This was a dragon hunt.
The twenty-member group was composed entirely of women.
Among the many demi-human races gathered there, elves were especially numerous.
They wore light equipment that made movement easy, and their main weapons were bows and other ranged arms.
Every piece of equipment was engraved with the mark of a moon and a bow, symbolizing their Familia.
The girls’ sharp eyes, like those of hawks, locked onto the wyvern.
Their arrows accurately pierced the membranes of its wings, stripping the dragon of its ability to fly.
Having lost the wings it relied on for flight, the dragon could only stagger through an area not far above the ground.
However, those injuries only deepened its ferocity.
It let out a roar as if it wanted to devour anyone in its path, then stumbled and crashed its way toward the depths of the dense forest.
And at that exact moment, after cutting through a thicket nearly as tall as a person, a boy came face-to-face with the wyvern lunging toward him…
“A human!?”
The girls of the Familia hunting the wyvern all revealed looks of shock.
They simply could not understand why a human would be active in the depths of a dense forest where monsters roamed freely.
And to suddenly appear under these circumstances, no less.
It was as confusing as driving down a street, only for someone to suddenly dart out from the roadside like a ghostly pedestrian appearing in your blind spot.
“Boy, dodge!”
Almost the instant she noticed the boy, the goddess with vivid bluish-green hair called out a warning to him.
At the same time, with swift movements, she drew a new arrow from the quiver at her slender waist.
In the blink of an eye, she nocked the arrow, drew the bow, and released the string.
In her heart, she prayed that her arrow would kill the wyvern before it could harm the boy.
Regardless of why he had ended up in danger, upon seeing such a situation, she would not hesitate to give her all to save him.
That was how pure a goddess’s kindness was.
Ize looked at the enormous creature that was practically right in front of him, and shock appeared on his face.
Even his breathing could not help but stop for an instant.
He had come here to escape with his life, so why did it now seem like he had come here to throw his life away instead!?
Did fate really have to mess with him like this?
There was no time for him to think.
The wyvern had already lunged at him with a fierce glint in its eyes.
It could do nothing against the group of archers behind it, but before dying, dragging a human down with it would not be too bad!
Its bloody maw opened wide.
The intense aura of death rushing straight toward him made Ize feel as though everything around him had inexplicably slowed down.
Even his vision seemed to turn gray and white.
That abrupt sensation lasted only for an instant.
As it faded, at the critical moment when death was only a hair’s breadth away, his instinct for survival overwhelmed every other emotion, and his body reacted completely on its own.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH—!”
The black iron spear that Ize had been gripping tightly throughout his escape swept in a sharp arc with a piercing whistle, swinging in front of him.
In the moment before the wyvern’s blood-colored fangs could descend upon him, the spear plunged deeply into its neck, stabbing into its throat.
For a brief instant, everything froze.
Then the arrow released by the goddess followed immediately after.
The arrow traced a beautiful arc through the air.
The wyvern’s head, already gravely wounded by the boy’s strike to its vital point, let out a roar as a wisp of black vapor burst from it.
Then the wyvern’s body abruptly came to a halt, eventually transforming into a black crystal that fell to the ground.
Because the target of his attack had suddenly vanished, Ize, who had thrown his full body weight into the spear just moments earlier, lost control of his body and pitched forward.
The last thing that entered his eyes was the trunk of a tree growing larger and larger before him…
And before he lost consciousness, at the edge of Ize’s vision, there seemed to appear a dazzling flash of blue.