Chapter 1 (2/2)

It looks like the status bar is the health bar, green represents the HP bar, green represents the remaining HP while red represents the HP loss. If the HP bar is completely red it would represent death.

It seems that I do not have any more time to think about it, the event has started, and a wolf starts to approach her with its fangs bared to attack!

“[Magic Bullet]”

I cast the magic spell onto the attacking wolf. As it is a starting magic spell, the skill is activated in an instant, and there is a streak of purple lightning that appears at the tip of the magic staff, and hurls accurately to the forest wolf. The wolf gives a shriek and collapsed to the floor without getting up. The HP bar has turned red in the blink of an eye, and it looks like I successfully defeated it. As expected from putting all the points into the intelligence stats, I actually killed it with one blow. As a result of my attack, all the wolves’ line of sight gathered onto me.

But it really is quite scary to see all the forest wolves rus.h.i.+ng at me with low growls. I suppress my fears and continue to keep on using [Mana Bullet], trying my best to start attacking the ones with the lowest levels. [Mana bullet]’s cooldown is really short, with the time between two attacks to be nearly zero. In addition the required MP is also very little, so I can keep on using it without stop.

Still, the enemies hold the advantage in numbers. One of the wolves which has the highest level bypa.s.sed my attacks and approached closely to me.

Help——

Fear makes my reaction slower by a beat, and even though I try evading to the side when the wolf comes at me, my right arm still transmits waves of impact…… What surprises me is the feeling of a cla.s.sic controller vibrating on my right arm. There are claw marks on the wounds, but it did not hurt at all.

I check my character’s status and my HP has dropped by half, but it seems like I am fine otherwise.

I see, so this game does not really have the sensations of pain. If I think about it, it makes sense. If this game was created to have the same sensations of pain in reality, this game would not have been permitted to be relased in the market. It seems like the game will only cause a physical reaction to where the injuries are, to remind the player which body part has received an attack.

Since I know there is no pain now, then there is nothing to be afraid at all. With that line of thought, I start to feel that the attacks from the wolves are nothing much, how fascinating indeed. I giggle to myself inwardly, these wolves are nothing special at all.

From that point onwards, I keep releasing [Mana Bullet] and successfully defeated the wolves, then sighed with relief and look back at the young girl. I did not have any concentration left to spare during the battle. It seems she has just sat there in a daze throughout the whole time, but with this outcome the problem is solved right?

Honestly, is she really a NPC? No matter how I look at her, she looks no different from a human being. Even though I’m not as surprised since I saw Themis’s as a preexisting example, but her expressions are too lifelike. From how she appears, she is shocked by my appearance and even hold some form of wariness to me.

……. Why am I getting treated this way when I did things to such an extent. Her att.i.tude now is literally treating my existence like a criminal, with no holes in her guard.

Normally, when you see someone helping out to solve the magical beasts that is attacking you, you would normally say [That was really a close one, thanks for helping me out here.] or similar words of thanks, and the att.i.tude should be quite friendly right?

I keep staring at her. Maybe I am overdoing it by looking at her too much, I get the sense that she’s becoming even more frightened and wary of me. WIth the silent atmosphere hanging in the air every pa.s.sing second, even a bocchi person like myself has started to sense something wrong with the situation.

Could it be that I have mistaken something? This place is completely desolate. If it is something like a mission, it will surely appear at some noticeable building or cave. Will the game company really make an attacking event in wilderness like this? A NPC surrounded by wolves that keeps on waiting for a player to rescue her —– That’s too bizarre, and I laugh when I think about this point.  (TL: Surrounded by ‘wolves’, can I join in with the surrounding? Cough.)

But, the girl who sees me laughing shrieks a little. This makes me feel like I am bullying some form of small animal, help me, I feel like I cannot take this anymore.

When I look at her again while my thoughts spin in my mind, I notice a wooden staff at the side of her feet. Eh…… Even though it looks like a wooden staff, but that might be a magic staff? Maybe she was not just receiving attacks from the wolves, but battling with them? There was a wolf with some damage to the HP bar, then things are different. Maybe she is not a NPC, but a player like me ——

My face becomes green when I consider this possibility, I quickly confirm a thing with Themis.

“Themis, could it be that the green marks on doesn’t merely represent a NPC?”

“The green marks on the map represents both NPC and players desu.”

Just like I thought —- When I get this fact, my entire body is flushed with cold perspiration, because she’s really a player in this game. Even though she is dressed like a village girl, but when I reflect upon it I have never seen what the default equipment is for a female player. If I did not guess wrongly, it means that she wanted to fight with the forest wolves, and I disrupted her. This is really bad…….. (TL: You know nothing, Jon S–, Chaos-san, You know nothing!)

When a player is fighting with an enemy, while another player did not get the original player’s permission and attack the same enemy, it is known as KS- Kill Steal. This not only causes trouble to other players, it is also something that violates the etiquette in a common MMORPG. This is because the EXP distribution is typically based on the DPS done by players. KS will cause the original player to get less EXP, and that is why it is seen as a taboo.

And it is also due to that reason that players often find areas that are far away from others. Of course, if the players themselves request for aid, that would not be a problem. However, this time it was completely wrong, and a mistake from my part by attacking without confirmation.

The outcomes of these scenarios would often lead to arguments, and if the situation is serious, the names might even be spread to the various forums. With that, the infamy of the players who KS-ing will spread everywhere, and sometimes even cause to them to stop playing.

This is a really a headache. And it’s all my fault, with none on her side. I better apologize sincerely to her, even if it was a mistake on my part, it was still my fault.

“Sorry.”

My guilt and shy personality caused my whole body to tremble, but I did my best and apologize to her by bowing deeply. Even though I am unable to look at her appearance and her reaction, but I hear something like a deep gasp, and a short while later she answers in a small voice: (TL: Chaos-san is so adorkable.)

“No, I’m the one, erm, sorry.”

Why is she apologizing to me? Did she feel embarra.s.sed from being so guarded against me? Or did she forgive me? But to a Bocchi me, this tense atmosphere is making me fidget all over. I better leave before things get worse. When I lift my head up with this intention, I did not expect to see her smiling.

Did she really forgive me? —– She’s such a nice person, and if it we did not meet each other under this situation, we could have become friends d.a.m.n it……. I actually made a friendly person so troubled, what I have done! My heart is full of guilty feelings and I do not have the mood to play anymore. The only thing I want to do now is logout of this game and go back to the real world.

When I think of that, there is a window display that pops up in front of my eyes. It is some form of information panel, and there is [Do you want to logout? Yes / No]. It seems like logging out is the same as calling up the character window, once I think about it the message will pop up and confirm.

“Do you want to logout from the game? It will take approximately ten seconds to do so, and if you get interrupted by magical creatures, you will be disrupted, please remember to check your surroundings and whether it is safe to do so.”

Themis did not forget to add her explanation. I thank her in my heart, and press the [Yes] icon to begin logging out. With that, the same magical circle appears at my feet, and I should be able to teleport out.

“M, may I know your name?”

The girl asks me in a panic.

“…… Chaos.”

Once I answer her, the light from logging out envelopes me, and as I close my eyes from the blinding light, I lose consciousness.

When I come to my senses it is pitch black in front of my eyes, and there is a heavy feeling on my head, making me realize that I have returned to reality. I carefully take ValGear out of my head and did a lazy stretch.

When I think about the girl that I just met in [Another World], I really did something that was terribly embarra.s.sing. But from the att.i.tude when she asked for my name, perhaps she wants to be friends with me. If that is the case, I might have lost out on a great chance. But I think I should not worry too much. The game has just started and I met a player immediately when I just logged in, I’m certain there will be many chances in the future and I should place my hope then!

In any case, I will put my destination as the kingdom of Maldor. There should be many players there and the chances to be friends will definitely increase. I still have to raise my levels from beating the magical beasts. Let me put in some serious effort tomorrow!

The Caro village is located in the southern part of Ca.s.stal, its population approximately two hundred, and is considered to be a small village. The residents there relies solely on agriculture. The remote road in the north-eastern village is a forked road that leads to the capital and to the Commune United Kingdom. As the road is very far away, few people pa.s.s by the village.

However, this road is an important lifeline to this village to be able to communicate with the outside world. As a village that even traveling merchants hardly come to, they would have difficulty in surviving if they did not rely on fixed intervals to sell their agriculture items and wooden supply to the capital. They would use the money from what they sell to buy the necessities for living. And now, the information that one of the resident has brought, became the biggest threat to the village’s survival.

“Are you certain?”

A man whose age was over half a century —– This village leader makes a bitter face, and asks in a heavy tone as if pleading to the heavens. The cadres surrounding the leader also wear grave expressions.

“There is absolutely no mistake about it. I saw it with my own eyes. This is the first time that I saw so many forest wolves appearing in the forked road.”

Everyone present there becomes silent when they listen to the young hunter, praying that is a joke.

The forest wolves —- normally would not appear on a road where humans travel. They are magical beasts that gathers only within the deep forest. If there is only one of them, they can send some adult males to drive it back, but a pack of wolves are completely different, and they needed the whole village to fight. But if that happens, there would be a definite loss, and the worst outcome was to lose the males within this village.

“The only way is to hire some adventurers to take care of this issue.”

“What sort of foolish nonsense is that, once you go onto the road you might encounter them, any number of lives will not be enough!”

Normally, when a road is built, they tend to be far away from the magical beasts nesting area, and the chance to encounter them would be low, therefore making it safer. But with a road that deviates from the above rules, one might encounter a magical beast’s nest without knowing and perish. This remote road that linked to the capital is not an exception.

“But no matter how long we wait, there will not be any adventurers coming to this desolate place.”

In order to fight against the magical beasts, it is a norm to hire adventurers to drive or vanquish them. Even if they could not find an adventurer in the village, once they go to the kingdom they could hire someone. But considering the fees, it is not something that can be easily done. In addition, the village’s location is in a remote place. Unless something serious happens, there were almost no adventurers that came.

“We have to wait for the kingdom’s army.”

“Didn’t I say it earlier, it’s not the main road but the remote one. This kingdom obviously will not place much importance to this village. How long are we going to wait? Before that, the people in the village would not be able to live on!”

Actually everyone present knows it clearly, there was no other way than to bring everyone to fight to the death. But who does not cherish their own lives? Therefore they were ignoring this solution where they would have to bet with their lives. They keep discussing without any resolution, and time pa.s.ses by. By now the village leader also understands that there is no end in sight and decides to just bolster the defences to ensure safety.

“In any case, we can only tell the villagers there are forest wolves appearing, and it is dangerous and they should not go near the remote road. There might be other magical beasts appearing the nearby forests, and we need to warn everyone not to arbitrarily enter.”

“Help!”

Before the village leader finishes speaking, there is a young girl’s voice in the air. When the village leader and the cadres turn back to look, they discover a weak girl panting and sitting down on the ground with a look that she’s about to cry. This young girl is one of the villager’s residents. Her older sister, Lila, was fourteen years, and they are very close together.

“What’s wrong?!”

The girl comes to her senses when she gets yelled at by the village leader. Even though she is still a little dazed, she tries her best to tell everyone.

“Onee-chan, Onee-chan, she…… Forest, picking herbs in the forest, suddenly there were a lot of forest wolves! Onee-chan…… to let me run away, she used herself as bait, please, please save Onee-chan!”

“What!? d.a.m.n it, call every man in the village to take up a weapon! We are going to save Lila!”

The words of the young girl cause the villagers to stir, and everyone prepares to take up a weapon and handle this urgent situation.

The young girl from the Caro village, Lila, resisted the fear with everything she had from the advancing magical beasts.

She and her younger sister came to the forest as usual to pick herbs. If they do not go deep within the forest, they would not encounter any magical beasts, and the two of them always held a cheerful feeling to stroll in the forest. It was nothing more than a common occurrence to the villagers.

When Lila finished picking the herbs and wondered if it was time to go back to the village, her younger sister suddenly looked and pointed at a place with disbelief.

“Onee-chan, what is that?”

Her younger sister was pointing at something that was a black spot. When Lila focused on it, she found it was a grey magical beast.

“Forest wolves……”

She had wanted to think why the forest wolves which only lived deep in the forest would appear here, but Lila immediately forgot about this question and only wanted to escape from this place.

“It’s a magical beast! Let’s run!”

The two sisters feelings were mired in uneasiness, praying that the wolves would not discover them while moving away. But things went against their wishes, and the wolves seem to have sniffed out their scent, and after they howled they started rus.h.i.+ng towards the two sisters.

“Run!”

With a sudden yell of desperation, they spent every effort into fleeing. But the howls seemed to have attracted more of the wolves, the shuffling of feet started to increase behind them. With the sisters’ speed, anyone would know that they would be caught up by the wolves before they reach the village.

What should they do? Lila hesitated for a while, and made her decision. Her action was to —– attract the forest wolves’ attention. If they continued running, both of them would end up being eaten, but if only one remained behind, the other would have the chance to escape safely. If the younger sister stayed behind, she would just end up as the forest wolves’ meal. It had to be the older and physically fit sister who can bring about some time for her younger sister.

The only option is to let her younger sister escape and she would think of a way to escape from the wolves.

“Onee-chan! If we don’t hurry the wolves are about to catch up!”

“Leave me! Just go ahead an run!”

The younger sister saw that her older sister had stopped running and paused in confusion. But Lila could not care too much any longer, and urged her sister to run.

“But……”

“Listen carefully, I want you to run as quickly as possible, and call the villagers over! During this time Onee-chan will think of a way to lead them away, understood? Go now!”

Lila pushed her confused sister. Her sister lowered her head and started running towards the village. Lila picked up a long wooden stick and rocks, and yelled at the forest wolves.

“Come here! I’m right here!”

In order to attract the attention of the forest wolves, she threw a rock at it and hit it. The angry wolf turned its attention to Lila. She went into a different direction her sister went, and the wolves started to chase after her.

She gritted her teeth to suppress her of not knowing when the forest wolves would tear her apart with their sharp fangs and fled.

But this plan soon drew to an end, as there was a pack of wolves waiting for her in the front. Lila’s face was filled with hopelessness. Eight forest wolves surrounded her in the end and continued to growl at her. Even though she had a wooden stick that was useless in defending her, she still held on tightly to it, as if this stick represented her last hope.

The wolves continued to circle closer and closer around her, and one of the wolves which felt that it was close enough suddenly pounced at her, but Lila’s wooden stick struck at it. She continued to glance at it while it whimpered back away with a few steps, while continuously swinging the stick at the other wolves.

But a wolf spotted the chance and bit at the stick in Lila’s hands. She desperately tried swinging the wooden stick to shake the wolf of, but the conclusion was as expected. The wolf which was stronger tore the stick off her hands, and she fell to ground with from the recoil of losing the stick.

“Ah!!!”

The incredible fear forced Lila to scream.There was no way to escape or fight back. Even so, she continued to push herself back instinctively by shuffling her legs. The forest wolves seemed to understand its prey was unable to resist any more, and they showed their drooling fangs and continued to press closer. It was just a few steps away before Lila became the wolves’ meal.

“[Mana Bullet].”

The purple streak of light hit squarely on the forest wolf nearest to Lila. It screamed loudly when it got struck and collapsed to the ground without getting up again. Even though there was no apparent injury, but taking a look at its motionless body, the wolf was certainly dead. Lila appeared confused when this happened without any warning. When she looked over at the direction where the ball fired, she discovered a youth with rarely seen black hair.

This sudden helper —- An unknown boy in Lila’s eyes, gave her the impression that he was very unreliable. He looked like he was close to her age, and appeared to be taller than the other boys in the village, but he looked very thin without any signs of muscle on his body. Perhaps he did not do any farm-work, as his skin that was visible from outside his clothes were pale.

She thought he might be a n.o.ble, but the clothes on him were tattered and the possibility of that was very low. His frightening gaze from his black irises were accompanied with a cold, merciless expression, made Lila tremble with fear.

In the blink of an eye, the forest wolves had changed their targets to the youth and charged at him. He did not seem to even flinch from them, and continued to fire the streak of purple light at the wolves one after another and brought them down.

Could that be magic? Lila finally thought of that possibility. Even though she hardly communicated with the world outside the village, and did not have the chance to witness magicians using magic, but the figure in front of him who used some form of special skill to defeat the enemy was the exact image of how magicians were depicted in the legends.

And in front of this youth who had overwhelming strength, the forest wolves could only await death. One of the forest wolf’s claws swung at his arms, and blood splattered all over and dripped down slowly. But the boy did not react to that, and even showed off a surreal grin. It was a smile to mock its foe.

Even though Lila knew that the smile was not meant for her, she still felt gooseb.u.mps all over her skin. She had clearly felt frightened of the wolves that were chasing her from the very start, and her body was rigid from the dread. And yet the youth calmly killed them one by one, and his actions were so practiced that she knew he was familiar with these sort of bloodbaths from battles. (TL: Oh my gosh Lila stop being a M or I’ll go crazy!)

Lila could not help but suspect, did the boy really wanted to help her? With her life hanging by a thread, a magician would appear in a remote place like this? Did he come here for some purpose? She hoped that he came here by coincidence from hunting magical beasts and lent a helping hand when he saw her in danger.

Once all the forest wolves were defeated, Lila and the boy’s eyes met.

The way how he studied her from eye to toe made her more and more uneasy. After a while, the boy displayed a smile, but there was nothing funny that she did.

Could the boy want me? —– Lila groaned in her heart and curled up. The boy seemed to be weak, but he killed eight forest wolves without even panting once. If he really wanted to do so, he could easily made her gave up. To fulfill his desires, he might force her to do actions so terrible that it could not be spoken. The young girl could only try to suppress her fear and defend herself from him who could pounce any moment.

But the boy only stood there in silence. Lila felt more and more puzzled over the boy’s aim. Just when she was about to ask, he suddenly frowned and muttered to himself….. Is the boy also troubled?

“Sorry.”

A simple word.

He apologized.

Lila looked on in confusion when he suddenly spoke before understanding what he said. Why did he apologize? Because it was rude to keep staring at someone? No, if one was to think about it, he was probably apologizing for scaring her right? He really did not have any intention to molest her, and it appeared that the boy was really helping out due to his kindness. Lila was instantly relieved, and also understood one thing. The boy helped her out with kind intentions, and not only did she not thank him, she reacted as if he was a frightening wolf. Lila’s face was dyed in scarlet when she thought about it.

“No, I’m the one, erm, sorry. ”

Because of her embarra.s.sment her voice was reduced to a whisper, but she still chose to apologize carefully. The boy seemed to understand it was a misunderstanding, and when he raised his head, his expression was reverted to that cold one. It looked like he did not know how to express himself, and therefore chose to be quiet. When she compared the heroic figure during the battle against his shy figure during conversation, Lila smiled from the huge difference.

When he saw her smile, the boy muttered to himself again, and there was some form of red magic impressions at his feet. Was that teleportation magic? Even though Lila did not understand magic very well, she had heard of teleportation magic in fairy tales. It was a magic that was incredibly difficult to perform, and the boy who saved her, was a magician beyond imagination.

“M, may I know your name?”

It seems that the boy was prepared to leave after everything was settled. Lila thought she needed to say something, and asked him for his name in the midst of her panic.

“……. Chaos.”

The boy answered honestly.

If Lila did not take the initiative to ask the boy, he might have just chose to leave quietly. Lila thought that his n.o.ble deeds of not expecting any form of rewards were beyond praise.

“Erm, thank you for saving me!”

Even though Lila wanted to thank him, the figure of the boy had disappeared, and she did not know whether he heard it.

“He left…….”

The boy’s figure disappeared into the air almost like a dream. But the forest wolves were still in front of her, representing that everything was true.

Three days later, when Lila returned safely to the Caro village, the village leader called her to ask questions. She began to think back how he met that boy.

After he left, Lila met up with the villagers who were going to rescue her. Her younger sister even hugged and cried for a long time. The two sisters slept together after a long time. Perhaps the younger sister could still remember the frightful incident, and she did not leave by her side.  After comforting her sister because the village leader wanted to talk to her, she managed to promise not to follow.

“May I ask why you called for me?”

“I asked you to come so you can look at this.”

There was a forest wolf’s carca.s.s placed on the table, but there were no signs of arrows or wounds. Lila was certain that it was killed by magic.

“A few days ago there were a large number of forest wolves in the forked road. We originally did not know what to do, and we only sent a team to investigate just recently. They actually reported that they did not find any trace of the forest wolves. And because of that, they investigated the nearby areas and found there were several of the forest wolves’ bodies. We thought it might be the kingdom’s troops or adventurers, but we did not receive any news at all. As there are are no signs of injuries, I thought….. I wanted you to confirm things, but it seems like I  was not wrong.”

“….. Chaos-sama?……”

She thought about the boy who saved her three days ago, killing the magical beasts without any fear with overwhelming strength without any forms of returned grat.i.tude. He was like a hero from the legends. She thought that he would have gone somewhere else after using the teleportation magic, but he came back here again, and even solved the village’s impending disaster.

“It looks like you think that it was him as well…… To think that he not only rescued you, he saved the entire village. Surely, the t.i.tle of a true hero, must be describing a n.o.ble man like him.”

At this moment Lila was moved beyond words. She felt she had seen a legendary person in the epic tales and she was even a part of his stories. Lila thought, although she was a just a side character in his tales, one day Chaos would appear in front of everyone and became the celebrated hero that was loved by all.

Not long after, her prediction actually came true.

Chaos would become the legendary hero of [Estobia]. When they talked about his achievements, the earliest one that could be traced was rescuing the Caro village. Even after his name was left for all ages to know, they were unable to find anything earlier in the history books.

Thereafter, whenever the future generations talked about his heroic deeds, they would start from the tale of saving the young girl from the Caro village. And as the birthplace of the first heroic tale, the name of the Caro village spread everywhere.

This was the prologue of the legendary tale, the grand hero Chaos, who appeared like a mysterious comet in the skies.

TL: Somehow I get the vision of the story’s editor asking the author to come out with ways to explain the RPG elements to newbie readers. Just…. wordy as heck.

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