The First Day of Adventure

"Why didn't you kill it?"

After leaving the Elf Forest, but with night falling, Rhode and Serie set up camp on the spot.

This was their first day as partners.

And in Rhode's hand, he was holding a long-eared rabbit, with a slender horn on its gray forehead.

With Serie's help, Rhode had successfully caught his first prey since crossing over into this world.

Come to think of it, he'd been lucky—ever since his arrival, every monster he'd encountered was the kind he couldn't beat but could escape from.

According to Serie, the rabbit in his hand was called a Grayhorn Rabbit. Its combat power was pitifully weak. Despite the slender horn on its head, it had no offensive ability at all. Its only advantage was its running speed.

You could say it was at the very bottom of this world's food chain.

"It feels weird hearing an elf tell me to kill something."

Rhode pulled out a stone-ground knife and, in a few quick moves, sent the Grayhorn Rabbit off to meet the goddess.

"Do I strike you as an ordinary elf?" Serie curled the corners of her mouth.

Compared to other elves, she was something of a heretic.

"True, I've only heard of one kind of elf that likes war—the Dark Elf."

"What's that?" Serie looked puzzled at the unfamiliar term.

"Not around yet?" Rhode muttered to himself. It seemed that in the Mythical era, the Elf race hadn't yet split into so many branches. Though it appeared that elves in Frieren only had one form too—something close to an immortal existence, the oldest of elves.

"Nothing. You can think of them as corrupted elves."

"I can't understand that at all."

In Serie's view, elves and corruption were two completely different concepts. Once corrupted, something became a monster—how could it still be called an elf?

"Never mind, we won't run into them anyway. How about trying some grilled meat? By the way, can you eat meat?"

Rhode skillfully cut the rabbit meat into small pieces, skewered them, and placed them over the fire to roast.

Every so often, he pulled out some bottles and jars from his pack and sprinkled things on top.

A fragrant aroma wafted up from the meat.

"What's that?" Instead of answering Rhode's question right away, Serie grew curious about his bottles and jars.

"Oh, those are my seasonings. This is my most precious treasure."

Rhode showed Serie the contents of his pouch.

These were the greatest gains from his days of wandering.

Luckily, some plants in this world looked extremely similar to those back home. Through the fearless spirit of Shennong tasting a hundred herbs, Rhode had managed to gather quite a few spices.

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

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

She couldn't quite understand it. Something so irritating, with an aura almost like poison, could make food taste better when sprinkled on it.

Could this be some kind of magic of his, too?

Before long, the meat was done. A skewer of roasted meat was handed to her.

"Want one?"

The elements were wildly chaotic, but Serie didn't dislike it, so she took it.

She took a bite. It was a flavor she had never tasted before, and even her usually tense little face relaxed a bit.

"By the way, do you elves eat meat?"

Rhode remembered that elves in Frieren did eat meat—at least Frieren herself did. He wondered if the elves of the Mythical era were into it.

"No."

Serie shook her head. The elves of the Elf Forest didn't like food with overly complex elemental energy.

But apparently, in other parts of the world, some elves did choose to eat meat. After all, the Elf race in this world wasn't limited to just the Elf Forest.

It was just that the elves of the Elf Forest were closer to the original form.

"Just like the elves in the legends."

There wasn't much meat on a single Grayhorn Rabbit, and the two finished it quickly. Rhode thought about looking for some edible mushrooms, but Serie stopped him.

"Better not wander off. This is already outside the Elf Forest."

The implication was that they could encounter a monster attack at any time.

After all, this world was incredibly chaotic.

It was filled with monsters, and from among them had emerged a race with higher intelligence and the ability to use more magic—the Demon race, which was now the main adversary of the Elf race.

She was a little curious.

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

No sense of danger, combat power barely better than a Grayhorn Rabbit—he probably couldn't even beat a random monster.

Yet this was the very person—someone possessing the talent for Creation Magic—who now stood before her.

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

But everything happening now forced her to feel that this, too, was the arrangement of the divine.

"Alright, do you want to rest? Or should we take turns keeping watch?"

Rhode picked up a torch, gathered some wood, snapped his fingers to ignite it all, and evenly distributed the flames around the camp.

The light of a single torch was very faint, but in the darkness it was clearly visible, and the warmth it gave off kept the mosquitoes and insects at bay.

"What are you doing?" Miss Serie asked, somewhat baffled.

"Driving away wild beasts with fire! Of course, I've reinforced these torches with my magic—they should burn all night without any problem."

Miss Serie was silent for a moment, then slowly spoke: "I suggest you extinguish those torches. Most of the monsters in this world aren't afraid of fire. Instead, you'll just attract them here."

Sure enough, this man was blessed by the gods, wasn't he?

With nerves that thick, he hadn't been eaten by monsters yet—it defied all reason.

Hearing Miss Serie's warning, Rhode thought it over and found it reasonable, so he put out all the torches.

Then Miss Serie cast a spell. A green magic circle appeared before her, and a ripple began to spread outward in all directions.

"What kind of magic is that?"

"A unique Warning Magic of the elves. Once any living creature enters the spell's range, it will sound an alarm."

What a treasure!

Rhode's eyes lit up. This was truly an essential spell for wilderness travel. He had thought this Little Ancestor only knew magic meant to kill opponents, but it turned out she had spells like this too.

"Teach me! Miss Serie!" Rhode clasped his hands together on the spot, his tone utterly sincere.

Miss Serie smiled. "I can, but first you have to tell me—where is your destination?"

"I don't have a destination."

Rhode truly had no idea where to go now.

After all, he had been in this world for nearly a year and hadn't seen a single one of his own kind. If Miss Serie hadn't said humans existed, he would have suspected that humanity hadn't even appeared in this era yet.

"Well, I'll take it one step at a time. Isn't travel just an adventure full of unknowns?"

Looking at Rhode's foolish grin, Miss Serie said nothing, only murmured softly: "What a funny guy."