I’ll just have to die. There’s nothing else I can do.
Those were the only thoughts that came to mind. But even so...
“I’m not ready enough for death that I can abandon all hope yet.”
Abandoned somewhere within the monster territory known as the Purgatory Forest, and at a loss for what to do, I suddenly came back to my senses and murmured to myself. Saying something like this in the middle of the woods seemed like a bad idea, lest I tempt fate and give away my location to a keen-eared monster, but it didn’t feel like my sanity would last unless I could express these things out loud.
After all, I’ve just been left to fend for myself in a place with monsters so dangerous that even the army has given up on it.
I can’t see it any other way than being told to just die. But I don’t want to die. So what am I gonna do? I’ve gotta survive somehow...
I guess I should check what I’ve got with me first.
Come to think of it, I’d been told that they’d left me with rations. True enough, in the empty spot where the carriage had been now sat a cloth bag, about half my size.
A bag half as big as a fourteen-year-old boy wasn’t all that large, but probably enough to hold a few days’ worth of food. Checking the contents, I found...
“Jerky, salt, bread...not much in the way of vegetables or fruits, looks like. Oh, there’s an apple here. But just one... Well, it won’t keep long, so I guess this is it. The rest is mostly preserved foods. There’s not much water. Am I supposed to go out and find some myself? In this forest? You’ve got to be kidding.”
Water was going to be my lifeline. It was a bigger priority than other foods, but I hadn’t been given much of it. If I didn’t find a source of water today or tomorrow, I’d be done for. That was just how little there was.
As for food, I’d been told it was a few days’ worth. If I had some water to go with it, though, I could last for a week. Preserved food really was an incredible innovation.
There was a moderately large rock of salt included, so if I hunted my own food, I could survive for a while without getting tired of the taste. But would I really be able to hunt for myself? I’d hunted rabbits and the like in human-managed forests before, but I didn’t really have any experience beyond that, nor was I used to fighting monsters. I’d learned enough swordplay to put up a decent fight against another person, but I wasn’t nearly skilled enough to qualify as self-reliant.
That made me remember something. “Right, my card... Oh, here it is.”
I patted my clothes and found it in the right pocket of my hemp trousers. It had been snatched away from me at one point while I was getting thrown out, so I’d been afraid that I’d never get it back. But as I’d hoped, my father hadn’t gone that far. Then again, this card had already been attuned to me, so there’d be no point in anyone else keeping it. It’d only be good as scrap material. Although, it was still worth a fair amount, and could probably fetch an especially tidy sum as it had come from a duke’s household.
This item, commonly known as a “status card,” was made out of a silvery material called mythril. It was a consolidation of advanced magical technology. By simulating a link to the <Akashic Records>—the Divine Intellect—it could display various details that someone might not know about themselves...or something like that. It had been explained to me at length before, but I honestly didn’t understand the finer details. Actually, I don’t think the mage who’d explained it to me in the first place understood it that well either. It was based on ancient technology which had been repurposed for use in a limited function. As there wasn’t a lot of analytical study on it, it was entirely possible that the mage’s explanation was largely incorrect.
Either way, I didn’t give it too much thought. Regardless of how exactly it worked, I’d looked for my status card because it would give me important information that I sorely needed right now.
I channeled mana into the status card, which began to faintly display text.
Name: Noah
Species: Normal Folk <Human>
Titles: Former Noble of Duke Olipiage’s House, Apostate of Astralism, He Who Bears a Mission
Root Skills: <Holy King>
Derived Skills: None
General Skills: <Swordplay 3>, <Wind Magic 2>, <Fire Magic 2>...
“Not much different—Wait, what’s this? ‘He Who Bears a Mission’? That wasn’t there before my baptism...”
I tried tapping on that title to learn more about it. The card had a function where if an entry was pressed, it would display text describing it to some degree. According to what someone else had told me, this was also thanks to the Akashic Records. I didn’t place much stock in that, since I had my doubts about whether such a generous entity existed in the first place.
Then who was responsible? Honestly, I wasn’t sure. But it was ancient technology. Anything goes, right? That was my reasoning.
Sadly, no matter how many times I pressed that strange title, there was no response. I’d heard this kind of thing could happen when no further explanation was possible. It was more common with titles, presumably because the gods had no interest in such decorations given among common people.
Then please don’t be interested in my “Apostate of Astralism” title, I hoped with all my heart. But when I sighed and pressed it, it said:
Apostate: One who has disobeyed the teachings of Astralism. In Noah’s case, he became one as a result of possessing the <Holy King> ability.
But it was true that everything had started when I gained the root skill <Holy King> at the baptism. That was why things had progressed to the point where I’d been abandoned in this place.
“There’s not much I can do about it now, I guess. I should go look for a source of water first. Then I can sit down and think about things,” I said to myself, then set off into the forest in the direction where I’d caught the scent of water.
∗ ∗ ∗
“I’m saved! At least I won’t die of dehydration.” I sighed in relief. I’d just discovered a spring, small though it was. It’d have been nice to find a big lake instead, but I’d have to be on high alert for monsters coming to drink at a place like that. I was better off with a spring of this size.