TL: Hey guys, Reigokai here!
A new story has come! This time about a weak guy using his cunning to defeat his enemies!
The announcement for this is here if you are interested: Not a Chapter: 2 stories done, a new one to come
Author: The cover for the first volume of I Hope to Live Safely scheduled to be sold on June 15 has been published**.
—-
Yes, and so, I have come to an isekai.
Normally, it is a basic of isekai reincarnations to show a flashback scene about how you got to the isekai from your normal lifestyle, but it is an embarrassing story to tell others, so I will be omitting it here.
I will provide the information that I was a Japanese man from Earth, but anything else would be a breach of privacy—
“No, this isn’t the time to be pulling out that prologue here.”
The explanation for my current situation: I am inside a forest in an isekai. The end.
I was inside a forest by the time I noticed. No, I might be in a mountain with a lush forest and delicate inclination. By the way, the reason why I can tell it is an isekai is because of the trees in front of me.
Their faintly transparent trunks that let me peek at the scenery on the other side and the leaves shining dimly. Such a magical forest covered my whole field of vision. Would such a place exist on Earth?
Ah, if it exists, please tell me the place. I am thinking about visiting that place in my retirement.
“By the way, it has been about 20 minutes since I have been standing here dumbstruck.”
5 minutes being moved at such a wondrous sight, 5 minutes of becoming calm and beginning to think, 5 minutes where I began thinking ‘This is not Earth, right? Could it possibly be an isekai?’, and 5 minutes of me looking at the trees again to relax my heart.
It is about time I begin acting. First order of business would be to check my own state.
“No wounds on my body. No fantasy signs such as suddenly having a deformity or a sigil. Can’t feel overflowing mana. Possessions…none.”
Hehe, I omitted it, but I was actually in the middle of taking out the trash outside my house, so I didn’t have anything. Not even my cell phone or my wallet with coins and bills from Earth. Well, I only had one bill though.
Anyways, I was simply sent here all of a sudden but it doesn’t seem like there’s any effect elsewhere. There’s no isekai reincarnation bonus.
No, thinking about it calmly, I haven’t died, so this is not a reincarnation but an isekai transfer, huh.
It seems to be night. It is pitch dark above the trees.
I also see a star several times bigger than the moon I see in Japan.
I can tell something akin to a phase of the moon, so it might be a satellite just like the moon, and the fact that I can see a satellite would make it safe to assume that this planet has a similar solar system just like Earth.
The chances of Earth coming to be were astronomically low to begin with. It would be extremely convenient for there to be a different planet that fulfills those same conditions.
“—Isn’t it bad to walk in a forest at night?”
A method to know the direction at night is to check the celestial bodies, but I am in an isekai, so the stars are aligned differently. I can find at least the Orion Constellation and the Big Dipper, but they are obviously not there.
Thinking about it calmly, even if I were to have a grasp of the cardinal points, I don’t know the location of the settlements, so I wouldn’t know where to head to.
In that case, isn’t it okay to just move forward? Fortunately, the grass around here is luminescent, so the nights here might be safer than the ones in the forest on Earth.
“I should praise myself for taking out the trash in sneakers instead of slippers.”
What I have learned after moving forward for around 1 hour: this is not a forest but a mountain.
I found changes in elevation as I went on, and when I looked back, the shape of a mountain was slowly getting clearer.
As I speculated before, this is a mountain with a gentle slope, and it seems my starting point was close to the top of the mountain.
My objective for now should be to get down from this mountain. Next would be to find a river.
What I have been thinking of while walking was of course how to survive. I do intend to hang on with nuts as my food source and evening dew as moisture, but there will be a limit as I am not a seasoned survivor.
I am honestly scared of drinking raw water, but that’s my last resort. Finding a river is mostly to decide where to head to rather than for a water supply.
There’s nothing I can do if this planet is completely uninhabited, but if there’s civilization and people in it, a river would become a foundation.
Even famous civilizations in ancient times flourished from cultivations centered around rivers that carried an abundance of nourishment. I want to believe this is a shared rule between worlds.
“But a problem has happened since coming here.”
I said in an extremely low voice.
Far off the distance…there’s uhm…a bear. A super big bear.
The bears I have seen at the zoo don’t even have an overall length of 2 meters, but this one is around 4 meters.
Were you nocturnal? Aah, this forest is bright after all. There shouldn’t be any issue for you. It is around 20 meters ahead, but I can see it clearly. Man, I really can see it clearly with how bright it is. It is looking over here…it has seen me.
I was having the rare experience of my spine freezing as I pondered.
Play dead? I would just be presenting him with a meal. Run? The bear is on the down-slope. If I were to run away in the opposite direction, I would be challenging the bear to its specialty which is an upwards chase.
Fight? Haha, I wouldn’t want to even with a hunting gun.
Even at that time, the bear-san was growling as it moved slowly towards me.
Think. Think and bring out an answer quickly. Right, this method!
“N-Naizu tu mit yu?”
The bear roared. Looks like he doesn’t forgive poor western imitations.
I can’t run away at once. My legs are trembling so much I can’t move.
The bear must have recognized me as an easy meal, it rushed—or not.
The bear was suddenly swallowed by a yellowish green liquid that poured on it.
This liquid that easily swallowed up a giant 4 meter bear must have high viscosity, it didn’t spread on the ground and was trying to turn spherical.
The shrill screams of the bear and chill-inducing sounds were being made from inside the liquid as the inside gradually dyed black.
Blood. The blood of the bear is mixing with the liquid, making it look black. The liquid is consciously consuming the bear.
“…A slime.”
There’s barely anyone who doesn’t know about this if they have played fantasy roleplaying games.
What’s in front of me is exactly that. It doesn’t have cute eyes and mouth like that one famous game, and it is clearly not a small fry monster that only gives 1 experience point.
The desperate death cries of the bear echoed in the forest as it tried to escape from inside the slime.
But that cry of his was drowned by the slime invading its mouth.
“Uh…kuh! Cough cough!”
This ghastly sight of a bear being consumed right in front of my very eyes with no emotion whatsoever was making me want to vomit.
I might have straight up vomited if it had been after eating, but I was spared with just a gastric juices burning my throat.
But it is only after coming this far that I realized my own fatal mistake.
The slime began moving my way, most likely because it reacted to my coughing.
I should have ran away quickly while the bear was being attacked. I regret my foolishness of watching this carefreely and making a sound on top of that.
But it is moving slower than the walking speed of the bear. I should be able to run away or draw back like this.
“—?!”
My body jumped to the side from fear faster than my mind could process it.
The place I was in was swallowed by the slime.
That speed was reminiscent of a bursting water balloon or the fire fighting hoses.
The slime didn’t react at all to the fact that it failed to consume me and began to move my way.
It was moving slowly again. Even though I can’t feel any emotions from it, it gives me the illusion that I am being toyed around.
My body can’t stop trembling. The huge bear, which was a threat just now, has already been consumed.
There’s a part of me that has already begun to accept that this will be how I end up too a few minutes later.
“Ah…aaah…”
I was being drowned by fear, I couldn’t even speak. I blindly grabbed a rock and threw it.
But this rock thrown in an agitated fashion flew on the air without hitting the slime. It flew deeper in, hit the trunk of a tree, and made a nice sound.
And then, the slime lunged.
“…?”
It lunged onto the tree behind it.
The tree was smashed from the overwhelming mass.
I saw a strange sight afterwards.
“It is eating the tree…?”
It is at this point in time that I notice…this slime is reacting to sounds.
Rather than hearing, it is most likely sensing vibrations.
It attacked the roaring bear, reacted when I coughed, and attacked from the sound of me retreating.
And it is now attacking the fallen tree that made a loud sound.
I pick up any rocks I can nearby and get up.
The slime must have noticed that there’s no prey where it jumped at, it reacted to the sound of me getting up again, and moved.
I threw a rock onto the furthest tree while trying to make the least sound as possible.
The slime reacted to the sound, jumped, and another tree fell.
I ran off at the same moment as this happened.
“Haaah…haaah…haaah…”
I looked back several times while I was running to confirm whether it was chasing me, and threw a rock onto a tree nearby out of fear that it might still be there.
I don’t know how long I ran.
I lay on a tree while being assailed by fatigue and was heaving.
The sky gained brightness and, by the time I noticed, the wondrous-looking forest had changed into a normal forest with light brown and green trees.
Being alive is wonderful.
Even though it is wonderful, why am I going through all of this?
Why was I thrown into a world like this?
In the isekai stories I have read, the popular ones would have some sort of reason for the people to be summoned to the worlds.
I obviously don’t have a special constitution in this body of mine, and I am not from a hero lineage.
If the reason doesn’t lie with me, I would have to assume it was an accident from their side.
The whim of a God, a mishandling, a mistake in this world’s summoning spell.
I don’t care if it was mishandling or a mistake, I would have liked there to be a summoner with a shocked face in front of me at the very least. Leaving me stranded on a mountain is just too much.
“Stuff like becoming a hero and defeating a Demon Lord, being surrounded in a harem of demi-human beauties; I don’t need those as long as I can live safely…”
Nothing will come from complaining to no one. Let’s move on after taking a break.
I didn’t notice until I calmed down, but I can feel the presence of living creatures here and there in this normal forest.
The chirping of birds, spiders making their nests on the corners of the trees; things that were not present in the place with transparent trees.
There’s most likely no proper living beings in that place because of that slime. That bear might have just wandered in there by coincidence.
But would you just enter a place where the top of the food chain is a slime?
“Anyways…I am tired.”
I decided to entrust my consciousness to the world of dreams.
◇◇
A meeting was being held in a castle of the Taizu Kingdom.
The knight captains wearing shining silver armor, the authorities serving under the Taizu King, and even the king of Taizu himself, Marito Taizu.
Marito is a remarkable figure who succeeded the throne when he was 25 years of age.
He has been a king for 2 years, and within those 2 years, he has solved many internal problems of the nation and has obtained outstanding support from the populace.
However, a problematic issue has happened, thus bringing us to the meeting at present.
“A merchant without escorts was attacked again, huh.” (Marito)
“Yes. The carriage we were guarding managed to pass by without issues, but the ones that came just a few minutes after were attacked and only corpses were left.”
“Even if they reaped what they sowed, it wouldn’t leave a good impression for merchants that enrich our nation to be attacked.” (Marito)
The neighboring Gahne Kingdom had changed to a new king a few years ago, and the crime rates dropped sharply in the vicinities of the Gahne Kingdom due to his ability.
But the result of this was that the bandits and the unsavory bunch ended up flowing their way instead.
Contrary to Gahne which has vast open fields, the land of Taizu is composed mainly of mountains and forests, so you wouldn’t be troubled in finding camping spots, but this also enables many bandits to hide in savage lands, and attack travelers when they find an opportunity.
The knights are stationed around the castle city and the villages under the orders of Marito which stops casualties from happening, but if it is along the way, it complicates the matter.
The country could dispatch knights for escort, but this will obviously incur costs and would require manforce. Even if they were to provide the service free of charge, there’s just not enough personnel.
In that case, the merchants and travelers would need to hire adventurers or stuff of the sort, but because the influence of the knights is strong in the Taizu Kingdom, the scale of the adventurer guild is small and doesn’t have many people.
The guilds in other countries are bigger and there may be enough people to fulfill the needs, but they can’t force other countries to dispatch escorts.
There’s then people who would try to cross without escorts as a result of this, and are being assaulted by bandits.
“Damn bandits, if they were to attack me, I would bring them retribution with my sword…”
One of the knight captains groaned, but Marito sighed.
It is true that the knights in the Taizu Kingdom are truly skilled. A few of them would be able to deal with more than a hundred bandits.
But bandits are aware of this. They won’t show themselves at all when there’s knights as escorts.
It is a battle they wouldn’t be able to win if they were to fight an upfront battle. You could even say this is the most logical move for them.
“We would need to locate their hiding place if we want to cut down the bandits. Is there anyone with a solution?” (Marito)
There was no knight who spoke here. They have made a variety of suggestions before and were left to perform them, but they all ended up missing.
The sly and cunning bandits would slip away from the action sphere of the prideful knights.
“3 mountain hunt attempts, no results from them. We might be able to get results if we had a bit more of an aim, but…for now, I would like to select the person who will be in charge of the personnel that will be dealing with the worsening bandits. Is there anyone you would like to recommend?” (Marito)
If this were a different mission, the knights would have taken the initiative to nominate themselves, but because several capable knight captains have failed, they already understand just how grueling of a task this is.
The one who raised their hand within this was the oldest of the knight captains, Lord Ragudo.
“My king, there’s someone I would like to nominate.” (Ragudo)
“Lord Ragudo, huh. Who do you plan on nominating from the people here?” (Marito)
“No, it is not someone here. However, everyone knows they are capable. I would like to nominate Ilias from my division.” (Ragudo)
The faces of the knight captains there turned complicated when that name came out.
“Are you referring to Ilias Ratzel? Is that okay?” (Marito)
Marito knows about Ilias well.
If it is just the strength and skills in the sword, Ilias wouldn’t lose to a knight captain, and their loyalty to the country is second to none.
But the evaluation of Ilias doesn’t get higher.
The reason for that is…
“She might be able to bring out a great suggestion from a different perspective.” (Ragudo)
“Alright. I will give you 1 month. I leave it in your hands.” (Marito)
There aren’t many knights who see the girl, Ilias, favorably, most likely because their pride doesn’t allow them to acknowledge how high her abilities are. Lord Ragudo is one of the few who evaluates her highly, but because he is in the minority, he can’t strengthen her position.
The evaluation of Ilias might make a turn if she manages to subjugate the bandits, but the chances are high that she will be seen in an even more judging light than before if she were to fail.
Marito also evaluates Ilias highly, but she is a tried and true knight. He is somewhat worried about whether she can deal with the bandits with evil cunning.
‘It would be great if some sort of glory were to shine on her’ -is what Marito thought as he worried about her future adversities.
