The monstrous snake, Python, has died!
It was a rumor that swept through the Great Forest like a storm.
Yet, this rumor carried a high level of credibility.
Python was an extremely conspicuous monster due to its size.
Over hundreds of monsters had witnessed the battle involving Python.
The moment it fell in the final battle was clearly witnessed by many.
This marked the birth of a new dominant-grade monster.
The residents of the Great Forest held their breath.
The list of dominant-grade monsters had been firmly established for decades.
It wasn’t that no monsters dared to challenge them.
They simply lost and were eaten.
Someone had rewritten that record.
What kind of monstrous being could it be?
And how mercilessly unruly would this new one prove to be?
Perhaps Python’s greed hadn’t even been satisfied and it might still seek battle with the other dominant-grade monsters.
If that truly happened, it would overturn the entire balance of power within the Great Forest.
Because of this, the residents of the Great Forest were wary of rashly approaching the new dominant.
And as expected of the paragon of change, the new dominant did not take long to begin its movements.
At first, it seemed like it was heading straight ahead, but suddenly it zigzagged, circling around a specific area—its direction impossible to predict.
Predictably, interpretations varied.
It was a sweeping of the land, a proclamation of its territory.
Or perhaps it was preparing for an impending duel with the nearest dominant-grade monster.
The truth?
“…Excuse me, could you tell me where exactly we’re heading?”
“Huh? Didn’t I say it already? We’re going outside the Great Forest. We have to get to the village.”
“If you keep moving this way recklessly, all we’ll do is head deeper inside. This… is common sense… or rather, you didn’t know, did you? It’s my fault for not explaining it better.”
“Uhh?”
It was simply a matter of having lost the path.
*
Rena hadn’t made an attempt to escape from the Great Forest on her own.
It happened after she had fully adapted to a life in the wild and her lifestyle had stabilized.
This was roughly a year after landing in the Great Forest.
She packed her things and set off on an adventure.
The world is round.
Long a subject of debate, this was proven a truth by the successful exploration of a great adventurer.
Fantasy worlds should be no different.
If you continue walking forward, you will eventually circle the world.
Even this seemingly endless forest should logically lead somewhere if you keep heading straight.
But, it didn’t.
Rena’s adventure ended in failure.
The primeval forest lacked roads.
Naturally, determining a direction and moving forward would eventually lead to obstacles necessitating a detour, and the presence of monster villages had to be avoided entirely, making it impossible to go straight.
Because of this constant turning, even after walking for an entire month, Rena found herself still deep within the forest.
She realized:
Ah, this is why the experts warn survivors not to move aimlessly but to stay still.
After a month of walking, all she had achieved was extreme fatigue and an unfamiliar view where she couldn’t even tell where she was.
Afterward, Rena half-abandoned the idea of escaping on her own.
Since life wasn’t significantly uncomfortable, she entertained the vague hope that a rescue team would eventually come.
But reality was shocking.
“There’s no such thing as a rescue team.”
“…?”
“People lost in the Great Forest are considered dead.”
“Hmm, wouldn’t relatives at least try to recover the bodies?”
“By the time relatives find out, monsters would have already eaten everything, leaving no trace of the body.”
There was… no rescue team!
If Rena had not saved Selene, she would have aged and died waiting in the Great Forest for the rest of her life.
“And it’s impossible to escape the Great Forest by just walking around without any plan.”
“Why is that?”
“The Great Forest distorts your sense of direction. For some reason, walking eventually leads you deeper into more secluded areas. Scholars explain it as some kind of strange phenomenon caused by highly concentrated mana clustering in one place, but I don’t really know the specifics.”
“Ah, mana.”
Mana was something Rena, as someone from another world, already knew about well.
Isn’t that used for magic?
Is there really so much mana here in this forest?
I didn’t feel anything.
Rena sharpened her senses.
She sensed the steady breeze passing through and the flow of the air.
Next came the faint awareness of monsters lurking far away, watching her.
She didn’t pay attention to these.
Monsters are everywhere.
If she tried to deal with each one individually, she’d have to completely annihilate the entire Great Forest.
More importantly, it was the mana.
Mana, mana… Hmm?
Rena detected something unusual.
It was completely different from wind, gazes, and presence.
It felt as though it simply existed there, like the still objects painted in a picture.
Perhaps this was why she hadn’t noticed it until now.
It was like trying to find differences in a picture, where the discrepancies were so natural that you didn’t even know they were there.
But why did she only feel this dissonance now? Was there some trigger?
Something… that feeling was somewhat similar to the radiance lingering on Python’s scales.
Was that mana?
Had recognizing that monster’s mana allowed her to perceive the existence of mana?
“Uh, Rena?”
“Ah.”
Selene’s voice brought Rena’s consciousness, which had been lost in thought, back to reality.
“Don’t be awkward, just call me.”
“Why are you so shy? It makes me more uncomfortable acting like this.”
You’d better be embarrassed if you can stand it.
Just calling someone’s name, why act so shy?
You sure are reserved.
Though she appeared haughty, anyone could intimidate others, yet she didn’t live up to that face.
Rena had long adapted to calling Selene “Big Sister.”
She no longer cared about the age gap due to her changed gender or the fact that she was technically middle-aged.
Compared to that, wasn’t calling someone by name a piece of cake?
“I’m sorry.”
“Drop the formalities. I’ve been telling you to talk casually, and it’s been ages, but you’re still so stiff. Acting like some old man?”
“…Got it.”
“Hmph.”
“A, got it.”
Selene wrinkled.
From her perspective, Rena was an odd one.
The social circles of the nobility that Selene was accustomed to weren’t like this.
No matter how close, one had to maintain decorum and respect boundaries.
In contrast, Rena’s approach was like a cavalry charge.
She broke through as if there were no set boundaries.
But it wasn’t like she disliked it.
If she had to admit her preference, this was indeed her type.
People who have severe social anxiety are often seen by others as having erected an iron wall, even though they secretly hope for others to approach them.
So Rena’s unfettered attitude was very welcome.
She just didn’t know how to reciprocate because she hadn’t done it before, hence the awkwardness.
“Anyway, does that mean we have no way to escape this forest?”
The Rena of the past and the Rena now were two entirely different people.
Rena had grown.
Now obstacles in the road or even monster villages could be passed through with sheer force.
Break the rocks, dig through the hills, and kill the monsters.
Since she had confirmed that there was a village outside the Great Forest, she planned to escape this way.
Selene explained that even this attempt was in vain.
It was a bolt from the blue to Rena.
“That’s not true.”
“Hmm?”
“If it was impossible to escape from the Great Forest, the initiation rites of the knight orders or the formation of exploratory teams for adventurers would be suicidal.”
“That’s right.”
Rena’s dim eyes lit up again.
What did that mean?
“All we need to do is check a compass.”
“Compass!”
Rena was shocked.
Recognizing the volume of her scream, Selene realized her mistake.
“Ah, you don’t know what it is? A compass is…”
“I know what it is.”
Thinking who’s the fool here?
Even elementary school children know what a compass is.
If Rena, who’d graduated from university, didn’t know this, it would be a serious problem.
The reason for her outburst was more about her frustration at not having thought of such a simple solution herself.
A compass is an instrument that teaches direction.
It always points in the same direction, thus guiding travelers so they won’t get lost.
The logic was: if the Great Forest distorts your sense of direction, check the compass frequently.
It’s easy to make a compass.
To properly create one would be impossible for Rena, but there were sufficient methods to create a makeshift one.
You know the stars for example.
The constellations of the North Star and the Southern Cross served as a natural compass, treated like a lighthouse for ancient sailors crossing vast seas.
In a manga she read, it said you could discern directions by looking at tree rings.
Thin rings indicate north, thick rings indicate south, or something like that.
You could float a piece of magnetized metal on a leaf in the water.
Then the natural magnet would point south.
These miscellaneous pieces of trivia were stored in Rena’s brain.
I could have avoided living like a savage in the Great Forest for years if I’d known this!
They say if you’re dumb, your body suffers. That was exactly right.
“Well, not just any compass will work. You need a specially made compass from the Mage Tower. Only objects resistant to the Great Forest’s mana will function properly.”
“Phew.”
Rena sighed in relief.
So I’m not stupid for wasting time. Common compasses wouldn’t work here.
Rena consoled herself, thinking she wasn’t a foolish, ignorant moron but rather a sharp genius using instinct to avoid wasting time.
“Luckily, I’ve got a compass from the Mage Tower. However…”
“However…?”
“We’re too deep into the Great Forest. Even the Mage Tower’s compass won’t function here. We need to get closer to the outer edge to confirm our direction.”
“Urgh.”
Then the whole conversation we just had was useless.
She may look sharp, but she’s a bit of a klutz.
“Alright, then let’s just keep walking forward as we’ve been.”
Our original plan was to keep walking straight anyway, so technically nothing has changed.
Why shouldn’t we just use the Infinite Monkey Theorem?
If a monkey hit the keys of a typewriter randomly for an infinite amount of time, eventually it could write all of Shakespeare’s works.
Maybe, with good luck, we’ll head in the right direction and escape the Great Forest.
Sitting still won’t make anything change.
“At the very least, if I can reach where I collapsed before…”
Selene’s muttered words sank into Rena’s ears.
“What’s different about going there?”
“I got lost around there. It’s more like the boundary between the entrance and mid-section of the Great Forest. The chances of finding a way out here should be higher than where we currently are.”
“Why didn’t you say that from the start?”
“It’s not that easy. That’s where the main force of the Lizardmen roams…”
Don’t be so unnecessarily worried.
Rena thumped her chest.
“Don’t worry, just follow me.”
The Lizardmen there? Dead long ago.
