S4 - Change Of Scenery
Suddenly, I found myself someplace unfamiliar.
“Ngeh?!”
I was so surprised that I blurted out a strange noise.
Huh?! Where am I?!
I was with Katia in one of the homes in the elf village just a second ago…
…and now, I’m on a sandy beach by the ocean.
The chair I was sitting in loses its balance in the unstable stand and falls backward.
Even in this situation, my well-trained body automatically reacts in time to keep me from falling with it, at the very least.
But what good does that do?
Even if I didn’t take a tumble, I still don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on here.
Standing next to my fallen chair, I stare blankly at the waves.
It’s the ocean.
The elf village is in the Great Garam Forest, deep inland.
It would take more than a few days to get to the coast from there.
And yet I wound up here in the blink of an eye.
I reach to the top of my head.
There, I feel something.
When I pick it up and bring it in front of my face, our eyes lock.
It’s a white spider.
I remember feeling something drop onto my head right before I arrived here.
None of my skills were able to detect it in advance, leaving me startled when I felt it land.
The next thing I knew, I was here.
This spider must be the culprit.
As for what it’s doing now, it’s just frozen in place.
It appears to be alive, but it’s as if its battery is dead.
I poke it with a fingertip and get no response.
“Do you understand me?”
I try talking to it, too, but it doesn’t respond to that, either.
If this is my only clue, I don’t see how I’m ever going to figure out how I ended up here.
I turn my attention away from the stubbornly unresponsive white spider, looking at my surroundings again.
In front of me is nothing but water.
The ocean stretches as far as the eye can see, without an island or coast in sight.
When I turn around, I see a forest beyond the beach.
I can’t tell how deep it goes beyond the trees at its edge from here.
But it can’t be very small, since I see more trees when I look left and right.
“…Uh-oh.”
I was already at a loss for what to do, but now I’m even more confused in a more literal and immediate way.
…For now, let me get my thoughts in order.
Before I wound up here, I was talking to Katia.
She was telling me about what happened after I passed out yesterday, and I was telling her about Taboo.
While we exchanged information, I was hoping I might get an idea of what to do next.
Then we heard the “Word of God.”
<World quest activated.>
<An evil god is plotting to sacrifice humanity in order to prevent the destruction of the world. You must either prevent this plot or assist with it.>
Katia looked surprised, too; evidently I wasn’t the only one who heard it.
I was similarly startled by the unexpected event.
You only hear the Word of God at specific times, like when you level up or gain a skill.
I’ve never once heard it announce anything like a quest.
Could this be the first time it’s happened in history?
At the very least, I’ve never heard of the Word of God making an announcement about a quest or something along those lines.
I would think anything that unusual would be recorded by the Word of God religion.
Although I suppose it’s possible such history could’ve been erased.
Considering that the Word of God has completely eliminated anyone with the Taboo skill in order to keep the information it contains from spreading, I wouldn’t be surprised.
But there’s certainly been no “world quest” in the time I’ve been alive, and I’ve never heard anyone from older generations mention it. This has to be an unusual event.
Even if there has been a world quest at some point in the past, I doubt it was within the past several decades.
Which means something extreme is going on.
…And yet.
“I guess I’m literally being excluded…”
I got teleported here right after that so-called world quest went out.
Just as I was being surprised by the world quest, this white spider landed on my head and surprised me even more, and then I found myself in this unfamiliar place for the biggest surprise of all…
At this point, I’ve gone beyond surprised to dumbfounded.
But I can’t just stand around in shock forever.
The fact that I was teleported here must have something to do with that world quest.
It seems like a natural assumption, timing-wise.
But who did this, and why? I can’t say for sure.
I do have some idea about the “who,” though.
Assuming this white spider did indeed teleport me here, it must’ve been the work of its master.
Its pure-white color reminds me of someone.
A girl as white as snow flashes across my vision.
Even Julius wasn’t a match for her—it wouldn’t be too surprising if she caused a situation like this.
But it seems a little hasty to assume that she’s this spider’s master just because it’s white.
I’ll just consider it a theory for now.
I certainly learned my lesson today that it’s dangerous to jump to conclusions and act without knowing the whole story.
…That’s right.
I really don’t know anything.
There’s far too much I don’t know.
So I’ve got to learn everything, one step at a time.
At least, that was the plan…
But I don’t think I’ll be able to do even that in this situation.
I’ve been thrown into some unknown place, alone, with no idea how to get back.
…Actually, am I even going to be able to survive like this?
Since I was dumped here so suddenly, I don’t have anything but the clothes on my back.
I’ve got no weapons, and nothing to eat.
If I don’t have food or water, won’t I die in just a few short days?
I’d better find a way to get both.
But I have no way of knowing if there’s anything edible in that forest…
The thought quickly makes me nervous.
I can’t just stand around here in a daze.
I’ve got to do something.
“Hmm?”
Just then, I think I hear something faint in the distance.
I listen carefully until I’m sure of it.
Not only that, but it seems to be coming right toward me.
At a fairly rapid speed, too.
“…Brotheeerrrrrrrrr!!!”
“Wah?!”
Now, I don’t think I did anything wrong by automatically dodging the shape that came flying at me from within the forest.
Once the would-be assailant landed face-first in the sand, I cautiously approached.
“…Sue?”
“Yes! It’s your beloved younger sister, Sue!”
For some reason, my previously missing sister Sue was right in front of me.
I had a lot of questions, but Sue insisted that we “needn’t stand around out here” and led me away.
She told me that the house where she was living was right nearby.
I wondered why she would live in a place like this, but sure enough, there was a clearing not far into the forest with a single house.
Even though none of it made any sense, I figured Sue would explain soon enough, and I followed her into the house at her request.
“Welcome to our little love nest.”
Sue muttered something strange as we entered. At this point, though, my mind was so completely blank that I didn’t bother asking what she meant.
I had so many questions and points of confusion that I figured it could wait until later.
Little did I know that I would regret that decision in just a few minutes.
“Now then, dear brother, you simply must live here with me. For ever and ever. Just the two of us.”
Not long after we entered the house, my sister drugged me, bound my hands and feet so that I couldn’t move, and prepared to take my clothes off.
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