The First Day of Adventure

"Why not kill it?"

They had left Elf Forest, but it was already getting late, so Rhode and Serie began setting up camp where they were.

This was the first day the two of them had been partners.

Rhode held a long-eared rabbit in his hand, its gray forehead bearing a slender horn.

With Serie's help, Rhode had successfully caught the first prey he had encountered since coming to this world.

Come to think of it, he had been lucky. Ever since arriving here, every monster he had encountered had been something he could not defeat but could at least escape from.

According to Serie, the rabbit in his hand was called a Grayhorn Rabbit. It was extremely weak in combat. Though it had a long horn on its head, it had no offensive power whatsoever. Its only advantage was that it could run very fast.

It could be called the lowest creature on this world's food chain.

"It feels strange somehow for an elf to be telling me to kill things."

Rhode took out a small knife ground from stone and, with a few quick motions, sent the Grayhorn Rabbit off to meet the goddess.

"Do you think I look like an ordinary elf?" Serie grinned.

Compared to other elves, she was something of an anomaly.

"True. I've only heard of one kind of elf that likes war: Dark Elves."

"What is that?" Serie was puzzled by the unfamiliar term.

"They haven't appeared yet?" Rhode murmured to himself. It seemed the elves of the Mythical era had not yet developed so many branches. Though it seemed the elves in Frieren only had one form as well—the nearly immortal state of the most ancient elves.

"It's nothing. You can think of them as corrupted elves."

"I can't understand that at all."

To Serie, elves and corruption were entirely separate concepts. Once corrupted, something was already a monster. How could it still be called an elf?

"It's fine. We probably won't run into any anyway. How about some grilled meat? By the way, can you eat meat?"

Rhode skillfully cut the rabbit meat into small pieces, threaded them onto skewers, and roasted them over the fire.

Every now and then, he took out little bottles and jars from his bag and sprinkled their contents over the meat.

A fragrant aroma drifted from the skewers.

"What are those?" Rather than immediately answering Rhode's question, Serie became curious about his little bottles and jars.

"Oh, they're my seasonings. They're my most precious treasures."

Rhode showed Serie the things in his pockets.

They had been his greatest haul during his days of wandering.

Fortunately, some plants in this world looked extremely similar to those in the real world. With the fearless spirit of Shennong tasting a hundred herbs, Rhode had managed to acquire quite a few spices.

Serie took a bottle, opened it, and sniffed it. The pungent smell made her sneeze.

"Boring." She tossed the bottle back to Rhode.

She could not understand it. These things were so choking that their scent was practically comparable to poison, yet sprinkling them over food somehow made it taste better.

Could this be his magic too?

Before long, the meat was done, and a skewer was held out before her.

"Want one?"

The elements within it were utterly chaotic, but Serie did not dislike it, so she accepted it.

After taking a bite, she tasted a delicacy unlike anything she had ever had before. Even her tightly drawn little face relaxed considerably.

"By the way, do elves eat meat?"

Rhode remembered that elves in Frieren ate meat. At least Frieren herself did. He did not know whether elves from the Mythical era had a taste for it.

"We don't."

Serie shook her head. The elves of Elf Forest did not like food with overly complex elemental energy.

However, she had heard that some elves elsewhere in the world chose to eat meat. After all, the Elf race in this world did not consist solely of the elves from Elf Forest.

It was simply that the elves of Elf Forest were closer to their most primitive form.

"That sounds a lot like the elves from the legends."

There was not much meat on a Grayhorn Rabbit, and the two quickly finished eating. Rhode had wanted to look around for more edible mushrooms, but Serie stopped him.

"You'd better not wander around. This is already outside Elf Forest."

In other words, they could be attacked by monsters at any moment.

After all, this world was incredibly chaotic.

Monsters were everywhere, and from among them had arisen a more intelligent race capable of using more magic: the Demon Race, the Elf race's primary enemy in the present age.

She was somewhat curious.

How had the human before her managed to survive in this world until now?

He had no sense of danger whatsoever, and his fighting strength was barely greater than that of a Grayhorn Rabbit. He probably could not even defeat a random monster.

And yet, someone like him possessed a talent for Creation Magic and had even appeared before her.

Serie did not believe in gods. Even if the goddess herself appeared before her one day, she would secretly calculate how to kill her.

Yet everything that had happened now made her feel that this was the gods' arrangement.

"Fine, then. Are you going to rest, or should we take turns keeping watch?"

Rhode picked up a torch and gathered some wood, then snapped his fingers to ignite them all. He spread them evenly around the campsite.

The light from each individual torch was weak, but it stood out clearly in the darkness. The heat they gave off also kept the mosquitoes from approaching.

"What are you doing?" Serie found it difficult to understand.

"Using fire to drive away wild beasts! Of course, I reinforced these torches with mana, so they should burn all night without a problem."

Serie fell silent for a moment before slowly saying, "I suggest you put those torches out. Most monsters in this world are not afraid of fire. You'll only attract them instead."

Was this man truly protected by the gods?

With nerves this thick, the fact that he had not been eaten by a monster could only be called unreasonable.

Hearing Serie's warning, Rhode thought about it and found it sensible, so he put out all the torches.

Serie then cast a spell. A green Magic Circle appeared before her, and a ring of ripples began spreading outward.

"What magic is that?"

"A Warning Magic unique to elves. Once a living creature enters its range, it will sound an alarm."

What a great thing!

Rhode's eyes lit up. This was truly essential magic for traveling in the wilderness. He had thought the Little Ancestor before him only knew the sort of magic meant to kill opponents, but she actually knew magic like this too.

"Teach me, Miss Serie!" Rhode immediately pressed his hands together, his tone utterly sincere.

Serie smiled. "I can, but first you need to tell me where you're headed."

"I don't have a destination."

Rhode truly did not know where he should go now.

The main reason was that he had been in this world for more than a year and had not seen a single member of his own kind. If Serie had not told him humans existed, he would have suspected that humans had not yet appeared in this era.

"Well, I'll take things one step at a time. Isn't traveling just an adventure full of the unknown?"

Serie looked at Rhode's foolish grin without speaking, then quietly said, "What a funny guy."