Side Story:
Cain’s Great Adventure
ON THE DAYS HE DIDN’T GO OUTSIDE WITH HIS tutors, Cain usually spent his time reading books. Taking down two horned rabbits had taken him all the way to level 8, increasing his stats and making him stronger—and he noticed the difference. He wanted to get back out there to keep increasing his strength.
Since he was still six years old, there was no way he would be allowed to visit the city by himself, but Cain didn’t give up. While sitting in his room, he was constantly thinking of ways to get permission to leave the house. Finally, he came up with an idea.
“That’s right! Teleportation! If I could travel there and back instantly, nobody would know—I wouldn’t need permission to leave. I might even be able to enter the forest!”
After formulating a plan, Cain focused on practicing his teleportation magic. Teleportation was an advanced spell that required affinity and used a lot of mana. Cain was the only one in the entire world who fulfilled all the requirements. According to the books he was reading, teleportation was so rare it was treated more like a legend than an actual ability.
Cain closed his eyes and focused his mana. He then visualized what he wanted in his mind. He began by moving from one corner of the room to another corner. After doing so countless times over the course of two days, his practice had paid off: he was able to teleport wherever he wanted. However, he couldn’t teleport to locations he hadn’t visited before.
He also couldn’t teleport to Kazuya’s room, or any locations from his previous life. He tried multiple times, but the teleportation magic never activated.
“Well, that’s to be expected,” Cain said with a sigh. He thought about Saori and Manami.
It was time for Cain to act. He prepared the necessary equipment in his room, then chanted the teleportation spell.
“Teleportation.”
In the blink of an eye, Cain was no longer in his room. He was outside of the city, in the grassland where he usually trained with Millie and Nina. “Nice. It worked. I should be able to make it to the forest quickly from here.”
Cain took out his sword and cast the Search spell. The mana released from his body thinly spread out over the immediate area. Due to his freakish mana capacity, he was able to detect monsters a half mile away.
Cain carefully proceeded through the forest step by step. Even if his Search spell didn’t detect anything, it was still possible for a monster to ambush him, according to his teachers. Cain recalled their words.
“Don’t let down your guard just because you have the Search spell. If a monster throws a physical object at you, you won’t be able to detect mana from that projectile. That’s why you need to be on your guard at all times.”
This forest had monsters that made use of tools. A monster using a bow would be able to shoot at you before you were able to detect them with Search.
This forest, dubbed the “Forest of Monsters,” was one of the locations in the Esfort Kingdom with the densest mana. Due to that, the monsters here were far stronger and more plentiful compared to a normal forest.
That’s also why there were so many adventurers active in Gracia. Adventurers would hunt these monsters and acquire loot, which would then be taken by traders to be sold in the Capital. The more such trades took place, the more sales tax Gracia generated.
“Oh, I detect something…North. There’s a lot of them.”
Cain carefully headed in the direction he detected monsters, moving as quietly as possible. There, he discovered a goblin settlement.
Cain peeked at the settlement from behind a tree and counted roughly fifty goblins in the area. A few of them were Variants that had leather armor and wielded swords.
Cain prepared for battle by casting Boost on himself and imbuing his sword with mana. His sword began to faintly shine. He charged into the middle of the settlement, and with each flash of his sword, the head of a goblin was separated from its body. The Variants near the large building in the middle of the settlement seemed to have noticed him. They raised their swords and headed towards Cain.
The first goblin swung wide with its sword. Cain made use of his martial arts to dodge to the side, and, borrowing the momentum from the dodge, swung upwards in a flash. The attack separated the goblin’s sword arm from its body.
“Gyaahh!” cried the goblin, its face distorted in pain. It screamed while grabbing the stump where its arm used to be. Cain took the opportunity to slice its head off.
Cain continued to dispatch the goblins that came after him one after another. He unconsciously swung his sword again and again, and before he realized it, he had annihilated the entire settlement.
He felt a little sick when he saw the mountain of goblin corpses. Goblins were humanoid monsters about the size of children. Seeing their organs strewn around would make anyone nauseous.
“Relax.” Cain cast a calming spell on himself. “Phew… Well, I guess they’re goblins, so it’s fine.”
He flicked his sword to shake off some of the blood, then put it back into its sheath. He then took out a small sword used for butchering from his Item Box, then began to cut the magic stones out of the goblins’ chests, one after another.
Monsters all had a magic stone buried inside their chest. Its size and type were dependent on the strength of the monster. Goblins had magic stones about the size of a pinky finger’s nail, and the guild would buy them for five copper each.
Cain put the gathered magic stones into his Item Box. He then dug a hole with Earth magic, put the goblins inside, and burnt their corpses with magic.
“I can keep going. I’ll go a little further in.”
After a short breather, Cain continued his adventure. He would proceed to find an orc settlement and ogre settlement using Search. Each settlement hosted a few Variants, such as orc generals or blood ogres, but not even they were a match for Cain. He decimated the settlements, then continued moving further into the forest. Each time Cain fought, he could feel himself getting stronger, leveling up and increasing his stats.
He arrived at the center of the forest, where he detected a large lump of mana completely different from anything he had encountered thus far.
“That lump of mana seems different. I’ll go check it out.”
Cain headed towards the source of unfamiliar mana. There, he found a green, sixteen-foot-tall dragon.
“Oh! A dragon. It doesn’t have wings, so it must be an earth dragon.”
Amongst monsters categorized as dragons, earth dragons were the weakest. It was basically a gigantic lizard. They preferred to live alone, so it was rare to encounter a horde. Despite that, it took a full party of A-rank adventurers to hunt them.
Not that Cain knew any of that. He immediately teleported on top of the earth dragon. There, he swung his mana-infused sword and slashed at the dragon’s neck. Before it could even realize what happened, the earth dragon collapsed to the floor, headless. It convulsed for a moment, then fell still.