Chapter 1:
Those Who Squirm from the Depths
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Deep within the Great Canada Forest lay the elven village of Lalatoya.
A large, undulating outer wall separated the village from the mana-rich and monster-infested trees. The wall was made of large wooden pillars, each of which twisted and bent to close any gaps with its neighbor. Despite the wall’s natural appearance, the regular placement of the pillars made it apparent that this was an artificial structure. The thirty-meter-tall living wall kept the tranquil village safe from the dangers of the forest beyond.
Inside the wall’s perimeter were wooden houses interspersed among fields for growing crops and plains for grazing cattle. Each house was topped with a wooden deck, and a large roof that gave them the appearance of large mushrooms. The houses’ walls were carved with intricate elven symbols. A quaint, lamp-lined stone path meandered between the fields and houses.
Beyond this pastoral scene, toward the village’s center, the trees grew larger and larger—almost unnaturally so. Their massive trunks, far wider than even the widest giant sequoia, were topped with an impressive layer of foliage. These trees were, in fact, homes—a perfect blend of nature and artificial construction. Glass windows in their trunks reflected the sparse light that managed to break through the gaps in the thick foliage above. Birds called from among the gigantic branches, giving the whole scene a mystical feel.
Two figures, wooden staves in hand, stood before the village elder’s treehouse while a pair of spectators watched. The tension in the air was thick.
One figure, a young-looking woman, had skin the color of amethyst, and snow-white hair tied back in a braid. Her beauty had a magical, almost bewitching quality. Her golden eyes—a color unseen among humans—stared ahead in silence, fixed on me. If I didn’t know better, I might have said her guard was down. But her elongated ears twitched slightly with every movement I made. She kept a close eye on me, gauging what I would do next.
The woman standing at attention opposite me was Glenys Alna Lalatoya, the village elder’s wife, and a dark elf—a rarity on this continent. She wore traditional garb covered in elven symbols.
I faced off against her—a two-meter-tall, armor-clad knight. That was the avatar of “Arc”—the game character I’d been playing as when I was suddenly transported to this mysterious world. The wind rustled my dark cloak and revealed glimpses of my silver armor’s intricate white and azure designs. The armor was simply magnificent, like something worn by the knights of legend.
My cloak was as black as night, and was lined with what looked like glimmering stars, as if it had been ripped from the night sky. I was armed only with a wooden staff, having set aside my sword and shield for the moment.
Glenys and I stood approximately three meters apart, watching each other closely.
Even having attained the highest level possible in the game, I stood little chance against this woman, who’d been training for the past several hundred years.
Figuring it’d do me no good to continue standing there staring, I lunged toward Glenys, swinging my staff down. It sliced through the air at breakneck speed, thanks to my immense strength. But Glenys apparently read my movement well in advance, and deftly knocked my staff aside with her own.
I recovered and swung my staff back up, this time aiming to knock her off her feet. She evaded the attack easily, causing me to miss by a fair distance, and struck the back of my hand with her own staff.
The strike didn’t hurt, thanks to the mythical-class Belenus Holy Armor that protected my body, but the loud, metallic clang caused me to cry out.
Glenys pointed her staff toward me and offered a piece of advice. “Don’t move and then strike, Arc. You need to strike as you move.”
I nodded and waved my staff back and forth a few times, trying to wrap my head around her instructions. “Understood, Miss Glenys.”
However, considering that I’d never had any actual sword training in my life, I knew there was no way I could pick it up in a day.
Glenys deftly dodged my next few strikes and scored a blow on the back of my hand.
She furrowed her brow and let out a sigh. “All right, I want you to try to avoid my attacks this time.”
“Okay, I’ll—whoa!”
Before I could even get the words out of my mouth, Glenys was already lunging at me. My enhanced perception and high reaction speed barely enabled me to dodge. I readjusted my stance to aim my own staff at Glenys, but she continued her graceful dance, evading my blows even as she pressed the attack.
I fell back again and again, until I eventually found myself up against a tree. An instant later, Glenys landed blows on my hand, chest, and head. The clanging sounded an awful lot like a xylophone.
I came to my senses to find her standing in front of me, a gentle smile on her face. “I guess I win this round?”
I’d honestly thought I could put up a better fight, but that was quite clearly not the case.
“Hmph. Would you mind one more round, Miss Glenys?” I hoped to redeem myself at least slightly.
Glenys rested her staff on her shoulder. “Fine by me.”
Although I was glad to have another chance, it ended up being no different, since Glenys still landed multiple blows on my head.
I swung the staff a few more times, groaning to myself as I tried to figure out how to move more fluidly. Glenys and I were facing off in mock battle, using nearly harmless wooden staves. Sooner or later, however, I’d find myself in a far more dangerous situation, armed only with my sword. This talented ex-soldier was able to make quick work of me, in what amounted to little more than a warm-up for her.
Glenys didn’t sound even remotely winded as she offered her evaluation. “Your reaction speed is incredible, Arc, but it’s just too easy to read your movements. All you do is react. Also, since you’re not attacking based on the flow of battle, you’re easily fooled by feints. You might look the part of a knight, but you really don’t have the swordsmanship down.”
She’d built her skills over time, and could afford to toy around with me before coming in for the kill. Compared to her, what I was doing could hardly even be called swordsmanship. My technique was basically suicide strikes that relied on brute strength. If this had been a rock-paper-scissors match, I would have been constantly throwing out whichever hand beat her previous move. Once Glenys recognized that, it was easy to lure me into all manner of traps.
It reaffirmed my gut feeling that I needed to improve the flow of my movements, if for no other reason than to make the best use of my sword.
While I thought that over, a voice called out in my defense.
“There aren’t a whole lot of people who can match Arc’s superhuman abilities, Mom. No need to be so hard on him.”
The woman, a dark elf like Glenys, walked up beside me. She wore a priest-like robe marked with arcane symbols over her amethyst-colored skin. Her snow-white hair, tied back in a ponytail, fluttered in the breeze as she fixed her golden eyes on me.
She was Ariane Glenys Maple, Glenys’s daughter. Ariane was a soldier of Maple, the capital of the Great Canada Forest.
I first became acquainted with Ariane by sheer chance, when she hired me as a mercenary to help her rescue some fellow elves enslaved by humans. From there, we got to know each other better as we continued to work together. Now I found myself staying in an elven village—a place few humans were ever allowed to set foot in.
Glenys put her finger to her chin in thought. “I suppose you’re right. Not many humans could keep up with Arc. But, you know, plenty of elves could run circles around him. Take your sister, for instance. Or even your grandfather.”
There were quite a number of talented fighters in Ariane’s family.
Ariane beckoned to me. “Arc, give me your staff.”
I nodded and handed it over.
“Care to spar, mother?”
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
The two women exchanged smiles before silently separating.
Even though they were mother and daughter, Glenys looked so young that they could easily have been mistaken for sisters. Due to their long lifespans—around four hundred years—it was incredibly difficult to tell an elf’s age by appearance alone.
“Hyaaa!” Ariane yelled as she glided toward her mother, closing the distance in a flash.
Glenys drew back, almost imperceptibly, and swung her staff to catch Ariane’s mid-swing, deflecting the blow. She then gracefully moved into her own strike, swinging low under Ariane’s failed attack.
Using a move similar to her mother’s, Ariane deftly dodged Glenys’s subsequent attacks, trying to build distance between them while launching a series of kicks to keep her mother at bay. Glenys smiled at that, even as she jumped to avoid Ariane’s counterattacks.
“Tsk, tsk. You take after your sister, with your overreliance on kicking.”