His invisible eyes opened up. Just like every day, he woke up quite early in the morning, right after the first rays of sunlight hit the land. He can feel the cold morning dew on the grass as he crawled out, with his case wrapped around a tentacle.

“Grrr…”

Well, his stomach had been growling ever since he woke up. He remembers using up all of his food to regenerate his body the previous day. Looking back, if he didn’t have any food there after that fight, he would have died from starvation. Maybe that’s also one of the reasons why he immediately ate that human and ignored the other two.

After picking one off from his case, he retracted the tentacle back inside his body and dropped the pill directly on his stomach. Just like that and he already ate his whole day worth of meal. These food capsules sure are handy.

He already used up three. Two he used for himself, and one that he used to ‘bribe’ Slime, the [Green Fleshling]. He only has four left now…

But that wouldn’t pose a problem anymore. When he finally makes a base, production of these food capsules should be a cinch. He just has to reach that Yggdrasil and set up his base…

He crawled back to the side of the river. He continued on his lackluster journey towards the tree, all the while staring at its humungous canopy. He hoped that there won’t be any random humans idling around here this time. He’s not sure if he can handle them again without being sufficiently fed, and getting hit by that ‘magic’ thing once again doesn’t sound pleasing at all.

He can handle the monsters. They’re weak anyway. He hasn’t met any strong creatures here ever since he landed. He guessed that this particular forest is a habitat for young or weak monsters, and does not have any overtly strong predators for them to strive and live.

With that naive thought, the unknowing alien crawled happily alongside the rhythmic flow of the river…

“Achoo!” Sylph cutely sneezed from where she sat. “Uh, I’m not getting a cold or anything, am I?” She looked over her clothing, which is a bright green dress that has leaves for frills, and five giant leaves as its skirt. Suffice to say, it doesn’t look like it’s covering her body that well. Not to mention that she’s atop Yggdrasil right now, where it reaches even above the lowest layer of clouds.

“Can I even get sick…?” She hasn’t fallen sick before, at least. “No, no. That’s too stupid.”

The wind elemental was idling on her usual spot, a random leaf on Yggdrasil’s canopy. Her eyes were watching various things from her vantage position, like the wolves drinking from the river, slimes idling around a shrubbery and eating its berries, and other things. This is a part of her job as the guardian-- making sure that everything is ‘normal’ every day.

This forest is considered a ‘Dungeon’ by the humans, last time she checked. A dungeon is a place where particularly above-normal humans-- more commonly known as adventurers-- raid and complete quests they have taken from their respective towns and cities. According to their ranking system, The Forest of Yggdrasil is a rank-D dungeon, a somewhat ‘easy’ dungeon to grind and complete quests to.

Being ranked ‘D’ quite infuriated Sylph, but to be fair, the humans didn’t know that she resides here. If they did, this forest would be ranked much, much higher. At least, that’s what she says to herself… which isn’t really far from the truth.

These adventurers often travel and enter her forest, killing random monsters or taking some known herbs and such. She doesn’t really care much to their actions. Monsters reproduce fast, and in fact, they’re actually helping her on keeping the population of the monsters in check.

However, she doesn’t tolerate humans snooping around near Yggdrasil, which is basically her home. She doesn’t tolerate anything, actually.

“Eeh, so it was coming here after all… How boring.” Sylph swung her feet dangling over the leaf she was sitting at. She was looking down at the crawling mass of flesh on the ground, the creature that she had been observing these past few days. Her face held that similar look last night, with her upper face darkened and her emerald eyes glowing an ominous green hue.

“I’ve let you live because you’ve somewhat entertained me, but…” her feet stopped moving. “I don’t want any creepies in my home.”

So she still had to resort to this in the end. She didn’t want to end her fun this early, but if it’s just going to be a nuisance from now on, then she’d be better off killing it sooner rather than later.

She flicked her fingers. After that one simple action, the whole forest seemed to shake, along with Yggdrasil itself. Flocks of birds flew up from the trees they were perched at, while weak monsters ran away from one specific direction…

A load roar broke out from the north of the forest.

“Elsie, you have a new playmate~.” the tiny fae giggled. “Don’t be too rough, okay?” she kept on talking to nobody while laughing.

In a snap, her whole body froze, and her familiar cold expression returned.

“... Kill it.”

All of a sudden, everything was shaking around him. Even the river itself got shook around, throwing water all over the place. He actually had to crawl away or else he could have been thrown to the river and drowned to his death.

“Zuru...!” he stuck his tentacles on the ground, stabilizing his body for the most part. His right tentacle was still holding on his case while it’s burrowed on the ground, so it was secured. It felt like a particularly strong earthquake.

A piercing roar echoed around the whole forest.

The sudden screech slightly surprised him, both from the shock itself and how loud it was. It sounded like a creature of some kind, not made by a machine or something. That was definitely a roar of a very large monster.

And it’s somewhere near him.

This is bad. Just from that single sound, he can already imagine just how big it is. Vocal chords that are powerful enough to be heard from a mile away… at the very least, it’s not small.

Yes, it’s a mile away. Hearing something that loud, even his brain can compute that much. Well, if it’s that far, he should be able to stay away from its path before it notices him--

Rumble.

An uprooted tree, more than a hundred times larger than his body, landed right in front of him. Several trees were also flying in all direction, and the quaking of the planet seemed to get more intense by each passing second.

“R-ruru…?” all of his eyes stared up at the shadow looming over the trees to the north. It was moving fast towards his direction, destroying anything on its way. Each step from its gigantic eight legs sent tremors around where it stepped, with even web-like cracks forming on the very ground itself.

This creature, a black and green arachnid reaching the height of a hundred meters, was definitely going after him. Its insectoid eyes were leering daggers into his, promising his quick and imminent death.

For a moment, images of the top-predators on his planet flashed inside his mind. Their overwhelming power, speed, and defense, negating any tactical strategy even a genius would come up of. This spider exactly feels like one of those terrifying creatures.

There’s only one thing to do here. Faster than anyone could blink, he turned tail and crawled with all he had.

“K-Kururururu!”

So this is why there weren’t that many monsters in this forest. That thing is probably the ace predator of the food-chain here! With something like that roaming around his home, even he wouldn’t be able to survive!

Shadows flew past over his head, which likely came from the flying trees the monster sent everywhere. In a matter of seconds, the giant spider was already outside the forest and is already on the clearing near the river. If it’s this fast, he’d get chased down after ten seconds…

Why is it even chasing him? He probably won’t even satisfy its stomach!

Before his brain could even register it, a large hairy spider leg slammed into his right, and flung him back inside the forest.

“Helpless, weak, and coward. Hahaha!” Sylph laughed giddily to herself. Watching that thing running around like a frightened mouse was satisfying. “Elsie, don’t destroy the forest too much. Just kill it already, okay?”

The spider, as if it heard her, screeched in a significantly lower tone. It hastily crawled towards the direction where it threw the strange red creature.

She can already smell that monster’s fear. Elsie, her pet Queen Arachnid, is quite terrifying. Before those adventurers started appearing on the forest, Elsie was originally the one culling the forest’s population. Now that its job has been taken by the humans, it became idle and hibernated on the north side of the forest.

Sylph tentatively watched as the spider brought up an unmoving set of red flesh to its face, and ate it in one gulp.

The fairy wickedly smiled. “Aaand you’re dead.”