After the Disaster

Mace sat by the campfire, his chubby face etched with helplessness and frustration. He wanted to lash out, but he had no idea who to blame. On the other side of the fire, Rhode leaned quietly against a tree trunk, eyes closed to conserve his energy. Lize prepared their food in silence; though her expression remained calm, her red, swollen eyes told the whole story.

Whether by luck or misfortune, the fat merchant was the only survivor of this disaster besides Rhode and Lize. As a merchant who traveled frequently, he possessed a few magical items for self-preservation. When the airship crashed, the Guardian Pendant in his hand had displayed its stable, reliable function, leaving him the least injured of the three. Rhode's previous wounds had not yet fully healed, and the intense combat followed by the crash had only made matters worse. Lize was no better off; she had been too tense to notice her own state until everything ended, at which point they discovered she had a dislocated right arm and a foot injury. Only the fat merchant was physically fine, save for some scrapes and a dizzy head.

For an ordinary person, such injuries would have kept them bedridden for months. Fortunately, Lize was a professional Spirit Master, and the Healing Spell was her specialty. Under her care, all three began to recover, though Rhode still needed time to fully regain his health. Even so, this was good news for him; given the severity of his original wounds and the intensity of the battle, he should have been dead or crippled. Yet, Rhode remained whole, and aside from some stiffness, he was no different from an average person. This shocked Lize, who had been responsible for his care since they rescued him; she knew his condition better than anyone, yet even she hadn't expected his body to be so resilient.

It wasn't just Lize who was surprised; Rhode himself was secretly stunned. Although he had sensed during the fight that his body didn't conform to human standards, he hadn't expected it to be this monstrous. To have sustained such heavy injuries, fought so fiercely, and then been thrown to the ground in a violent crash, only to still be mobile... could his mixed blood be that of a Barbarian?

There was one more thing Rhode kept to himself. He understood his own body because he knew his own attributes—whatever they were, they certainly weren't purely human. But the blonde girl's performance was truly bizarre. By all logic, a delicate girl and a non-combatant Spirit Master should have died in such a situation. If he could run around because of his non-human attributes, what allowed her to survive and remain active? It couldn't just be luck.

This question was answered only when Rhode noticed a hint of gold hidden within Lize's beautiful azure eyes—it seemed this young lady's survival was not merely a matter of luck.

"Um... Mr. Rhode?"

Mace rubbed his hands together, a fawning smile appearing on his chubby face.

"What do you think we should do next?"

After rescuing Mace, the three had searched the wreckage of the airship again, but found no other survivors. To prevent their companions' bodies from becoming food for the forest beasts, Lize suggested cremation. Although Mace felt a pang of heartache for his precious cargo, the sight of the blonde girl's gloomy face and Rhode's indifferent attitude forced him to change his mind. He watched with a pained expression as they burned the airship to ashes—acting as if he were the one most severely injured. While the expensive Guardian Pendant had saved his life, it had shattered into scrap metal from the excessive impact, making his losses quite significant.

Afterward, the group rested in the forest for a day. While they encountered no trouble, the fat merchant had become a bird startled by the mere twang of a bow after the Wind Serpent Lord attack. He had previously insisted that Wind Serpents were a low-probability event not worth worrying about, but he had completely changed his tune; those rumors he once dismissed now seemed 100% accurate to him.

Look, they said this route might encounter a pack of Wind Serpents, and we really did! And I've heard the Silver Moon Forest has man-eating wolves and terrifying giant birds—what if we run into those too?

It was a classic case of "once bitten, twice shy."

At the thought of this, sweat beaded on the fat merchant's forehead. While he was a decent merchant, he had no experience with adventuring. Now, staring at the dense thickets and trees surrounding them, his legs couldn't help but tremble. The tales his guards once told of poisonous snakes in the grass and vicious wolves now played vividly in his mind, making him paranoid about every rustling leaf.

With his only life-saving item reduced to junk, the fat merchant had no choice but to rely on others.

He didn't pin his hopes on Lize. For one, he had met her when hiring her, and with Mace's eye for character, he knew she was obedient and likable but lacked initiative. Furthermore, as a non-combatant, she would be unable to help him if something went wrong. Thus, Mace decided to rely on Rhode. Although Rhode didn't look like a fighter, his performance had been striking, proving he possessed exceptional strength. He didn't know how this young man compared to experienced mercenaries, but he couldn't be that bad.

As for Lize, she seemed lost in the grief of losing her companions and paid no mind to these matters.

"Don't worry, Mr. Mace."

Seeing the fat merchant's nervous expression, Rhode shook his head. Though the man was vulgar, he didn't dislike him; after all, if the merchant hadn't ordered the ship to stop, Rhode might not have been saved. He held a certain amount of goodwill toward him.

"I am very familiar with this Silver Moon Forest. In the area we are currently in, it is unlikely we will encounter anything particularly dangerous. You can rest easy."

Rhode's words were not unfounded. In the game, the Northern Paffield Plains were a gathering spot for novice players, so he knew the distribution of monsters like the back of his hand. On the plains, the greatest threat was the Wind Serpent pack, whose sheer numbers were a nightmare for many melee and non-solo classes. In the Silver Moon Forest, the greatest threat was the Silver Wolf, but unlike the Wind Serpents that relied on numbers, Silver Wolves usually acted alone and were easier to deal with. Furthermore, after killing the Wind Serpent Lord, Rhode had gained 3,000 experience points, reaching level eight. The novice zone capped at level ten, so unless he ran into a rare elite boss, Rhode was confident he could walk through this area unhindered—unless he was like those clueless newbies who ran blindly off the map into some cursed monster nest. But for Rhode, known as the "Walking Library," that possibility was basically zero.

"That's good, that's good."

Hearing Rhode's reply, Mace let out a long sigh of relief. He took out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead, then yawned. Due to extreme mental tension, he hadn't slept well all day, mistaking the sound of the wind through the trees for wolf howls. Now that he had made up his mind, he felt much more at ease. The fat merchant stopped worrying, curled up by the campfire, and closed his eyes comfortably.

With that, the fat merchant squinted and soon fell into a deep sleep.

Once he was certain the merchant was sound asleep, Rhode, who had been sitting quietly by the fire, stood up and turned to walk into the depths of the forest.