Chapter 33: The Green Forest , The Deepest Part(1)

To the north, the snowy mountains. To the south, the jungle. To the west, the desert. And finally, to the east, the Great Forest. These four untamed landscapes, uninhabitable by humans, were the boundaries of human expansion.

Since before and after the Great War, the territory inhabited by ‘humanity’ had always been limited to the area between these four perilous regions.

Countless explorers had lost their lives trying to venture beyond the known world. Even the pioneering efforts of history’s greatest leaders had ended in failure.

Humans, mere creatures resembling monkeys.
All living beings should live within their designated boundaries; therein lies happiness.
Do not dare to defy your predetermined fate.

…
…
…

“Delicious!”

Deep within the Eastern Great Forest, in the dead of night. Avalli took a bite of her sandwich and sighed contentedly.

‘Should I open a restaurant when I grow up?’

It wasn’t a bad idea. The food imbued with her unconscious ‘magic’ was surprisingly good. Of course, mages who could sense the magic power in her food would likely cause her trouble… but Avalli, a visitor from another world, was still unfamiliar with the ways of this one.

Her long silver hair, reaching down to her waist, shimmered as she chewed. The moonlight reflected off her hair, and her sparkling green eyes held an almost divine aura.

Tonight was Avalli’s third full moon in this world of ‘Sword and Magic’. She was currently wandering the Great Forest, fulfilling a request from her teacher, Lucy.

The request: to collect magic stones.

Magic stones were essential for the research Lucy had been conducting as a mage at the Magic Tower. She could create all the other necessary materials herself, even if it took time… but magic stones, the core power source, were an exception.

Avalli, feeling somewhat responsible for Lucy being stuck in Asha Village, had created a clone to take her place in bed and slipped out of the village as soon as the full moon appeared.

‘…I could have done this earlier.’

She had been putting it off, distracted by magic lessons with Lucy, cooking with Envel, playing with Camelia and the other children, and watching Arsene and Hans’s training sessions.

But the night of the full moon was different. Avalli was reluctant to stay in the village in her true form.

Her silver hair, green eyes, and breathtakingly beautiful appearance… if the villagers were to see her like this, her precious, ordinary life might crumble.

Avalli finished her sandwich, patted her stomach contentedly, and muttered to herself.

If she found even a single demonic beast, she would turn it into a magic stone and return home. She used to be afraid of the forest, haunted by memories of being chased by demonic beasts, but she had overcome that trauma during the last full moon.

She was strong. Considering this was a game world, she must have leveled up considerably.

Avalli’s assumption was correct. She had gained an immense amount of experience from fighting demonic beasts in the depths of the forest where she first arrived, struggling to survive and make her way west.

So, the demonic beasts of the forest depths, which she had once desperately avoided, wouldn’t stand a chance against her now. They would fall easily, transforming into magic stones far larger and purer than the one from last month, the kind that would make Lucy foam at the mouth and faint from excitement.

“Time to make some money, money, money!”

Avalli hummed cheerfully and kicked off the ground, her body propelled forward with incredible speed. She now understood the astronomical value of high-grade magic stones. She planned to gather a few extra, not just for Lucy’s research, but for her own personal gain. Selling them now would be difficult, with so many people searching for their source, but they were valuable assets she could cash in later.

So, the silver-haired girl, her eyes gleaming with greed, raced through the forest—
—and encountered no demonic beasts for hours.

“Huh?”

Only after traveling a considerable distance, enough to notice a change in the surrounding vegetation, did Avalli sense something was amiss. Not encountering any demonic beasts initially wasn’t strange.

The closer she got to the west, closer to Asha Village, the weaker the demonic beasts became. She had eradicated most of them when escaping the forest.

But this area was different. While she could easily defeat them now, she had barely survived her encounters with the demonic beasts in this region when she first arrived, fighting for her life with every ounce of strength.

Back then, she had prioritized survival, avoiding combat whenever possible. So, most of the demonic beasts in this area should still be alive.

“…Hmm.”

But no matter how much she searched, she couldn’t find a single one. It had been three months since her last visit, so changes were to be expected, but… the complete lack of any trace was unsettling.

Fortunately, Lucy had recently taught her a spell for situations like this. A detection spell, categorized as Kinetic magic, though it blurred the lines between Kinetic and Spatial magic.

Avalli channeled her magic power as Lucy had instructed, without using any hand signs or other aids. Lucy had warned her against it.

‘If you increase the output like that, things could get… complicated.’

Lucy had taught her to cast magic with minimal effort. With Avalli’s transcendental magic power, far beyond human levels, all she needed was a little guidance.

And the most effective method for that was incantations.

“May the flow of all things be revealed before my eyes.”

Words held power. And words refined and systematized over time held even more.

Detect.

Avalli’s magic power, with the clear purpose of ‘search’, began scanning the surroundings. The magic power, sweeping across the land, relayed every anomaly and discrepancy to Avalli.

The sheer volume of information would have overwhelmed and shattered an ordinary person’s mind—

[Trait: Drinker of the Spring of Wisdom]
[You have drunk from the spring that grants boundless wisdom. Your Wisdom stat greatly increases, and you gain a bonus to abilities derived from Wisdom.]
[Wisdom +100]
[150% bonus to Wisdom gained from all traits, skills, and equipment]

—but one of the traits Avalli had chosen began organizing the incoming data.

This was different from Lucy’s Detect. Lucy’s Detect merely read the ‘color’ of magic power. Avalli’s Detect was like radar, scanning, analyzing, and relaying information about ‘everything’. It was a level of magic that would require dozens of ordinary mages working together for weeks to achieve.

“There it is!”

The spell, the first one Avalli had cast using the proper procedure, quickly yielded the information she sought.

Southeast, about two kilometers away. There was a location with a strong residual trace of magic power. She needed to investigate further, but… it seemed like Spatial magic had been used there.

As Avalli raced towards the location, she recalled Lucy’s lessons.

Spatial magic was the most difficult of the three energy-related magic types.

Only a handful of mages on the entire continent could use proper Spatial magic, and even then, it was mostly limited to fixing the coordinates of other spells. Even those few could only teleport inanimate objects or themselves. It was a highly complex and difficult form of magic.

“…Hmm.”

Arriving at the location detected by the spell, Avalli let out a soft groan. She could sense the type of magic used here. It was a kind of supernatural intuition, possible only because of the multiple magic-related traits she possessed.

‘Teleportation.’

And on a massive scale. It seemed that all the demonic beasts in this area had been gathered and teleported somewhere. Avalli could probably do the same with her ‘magic’, but it would consume an enormous amount of mana.

What was happening in the Great Forest? If her friend, the one well-versed in the lore of ‘Sword and Magic’, were here, would he have understood what was going on?

The question surfaced in Avalli’s mind, but naturally, there was no answer. Possessing transcendental magic power didn’t grant her omniscience.

“…It can’t be helped.”

If something was happening in the Great Forest, the repercussions would eventually reach Asha Village. She needed to investigate.

Fortunately, the residual magic power from the teleportation was strong. Avalli’s ‘magic’ could easily teleport her to the coordinates indicated by the residual energy without much mana expenditure.

‘Here we go!’

As Avalli silently uttered the childish phrase, the space around her distorted—