Far Far away from the Southern Paradise, among the many small cities of the west, lay the Denatro Forest. Situated north of the Denatro City and south of Calico City, the forest experienced a shortage of beasts as a result of the regular merchants and mercenaries from both cities passing by, thus only small bird type and herbivore beasts occupied this small piece of land, creating a peaceful and harmonious feeling for anyone that passes through

Bleeeergh

…Usually creating a peaceful scene

Hiss

“Ugh”

Hiss, Hiss

“Don’t rush me I’m c-bleeergh”

Hisss~

The young man that shattered the forests charm with every ten steps was in fact Yu, following the white snake that kept a three-meter distance away from its mess of a master

“How, Uuuu, how are you fine after crossing space? Anyone below gold would have their insides thrown into disorder, human or bea-Bleeargh”

Hiss~

“Ugh let’s have a little rest, I don’t think I wanna be seen by anyone like this right now”

Said Yu as he found a tree to lean on, he felt much better after he stopped walking, the snake on the other hand seemed to hesitate, but after seeing the hollow part in the tree Yu had leaned on its eyes seemed to shine, it hastily climbed into it, scaring its previous furry occupants away

‘What with it? It hurried me since the point we came and now its hiding, weird’

His thoughts didn’t linger though as his dizzy mind threw his thoughts back into disarray

‘Crap that was close though, I never thought another explosion would happen’

His back sweat bullets as he recalled the earlier scene, which had both assisted in his success and almost doomed him

‘Still it was as I thought, it seems this whole ordeal was a plan from the management’

A smile made its way onto Yu’s face as he recalled his earlier theory

When he had pieced together the information he obtained he thought of a horrible possibility, that the darkness, cloud, and the Life Negation Lock in his possession were all the management’s doing, they used someone in the north to activate the darkness’s advance, gave the Elar the Runes to make the cloud, and then when those two combined they would follow the trail to the Rune within his possession, leading it straight to the south, thus it would be able to wipe out the entire battlefield

So what he had done was simple, when a fire lights up in your backyard you must hose it down with water, to fight darkness you must use light! Thus he used the entirety of the elven Units he got from Mous to forcibly activate a Holy Shock on his Core, damaging it in the process, but achieving his goal of blowing up the darkness

‘Light and Darkness are both part of the laws making up the Dimension, if they suddenly cease to exist... the only outcome is for the Dimension to be ripped apart, sending its occupants randomly through space’

And that’s how Yu escaped the Dimension, well partially

‘But how the hell did that holy shock become so powerful’

He had activated his shield when he blew the darkness up but then another explosion came ripping his shield apart, he honestly didn’t know how he even survived, all he knew was that the impending feeling of doom he felt vanished as soon as it appeared

What he also didn’t know was that most of his theory was incorrect as the management had nothing to do with neither the cloud nor the darkness, for his Core wasn’t the target of the darkness as it had only sought to eliminate the Core in its path not devour the Rune it had not known existed within

As they say ignorance is bliss, the less Yu knew the happier he was with his epic plan

“Humm, what a nice weather”

He mumbled as he slowly closed his eyes, going into a much needed long sleep, one fret of worries for the first time since he had arrived in this world.

Bizzz

“Hmm!”

Well he tried to do that but the buzzing sound swept away all his sleepiness aside

‘This sound, could it be’

He turned to the left and spotted a rather large bee heading in his direction, how large? Well large enough for a grown adult to scream like a little girl, much less Yu, who actually had a particular fear of bees

“C-couldn’t have been a spider or a centipede or something like those cool insects, it just had to be a bee”

Every time he saw bees he suddenly recalled that memory form childhood, when he had accidentally scratched his shoulder on a tree housing a bee colony, next thing he knew they were chasing him like he had killed their mother!

‘No no no get a grip on yourself Yu, you are now a Grimoire holder, a little… a slightly large insect like that couldn’t compare to you anymore! you even killed a human sized hound by yourself!’

He tried to encourage himself with half facts and took deep breaths, he thought about his current state and battle power

‘The wolf is out, still recovering, it might need two or three days, the spider is a nemesis of bees but that little one’s only weapon is the threads, he won’t be able to make one in this short amount of time, the snake…”

He lifted his head up and called it a few times, but received no response, and the bee was already half way to his location

‘As I thought it really had something to do, it was acting weird after all’

And taking into account his current state, his combat power was in fact, Zero

‘You know what, if I had at least fallen asleep it may not even be able to tell that I was alive, maybe just ignore me’

He joked to himself, and the bee was already in front of his eyes

Pish Pish

“Got you~”

The bee started spiraling out of control after getting sprayed at by Yu

“Introducing to you, Buzz Killer Pink Edition, the bane of all insect beasts, well below silver that is”

The bee didn’t sit through Yu’ introduction to the horribly pink weapon, it had already flown back where it came from

‘Heh, I gotta thank Kore for bringing this stuff to the battlefield, if it just wasn’t pink…’

He set the spray to his side and closed his eyes to get some shut eye, while he won’t be getting any sweet dreams he needed to rest

‘Hmm, I feel like I forgot something…’

He thought as his mind started to wander into the dar- BIZZZ BIZZZZ

“You gotta be kidding me”

He forced open his eyelids and looked toward where the sound was coming from, seeing six bees coming toward his direction, each larger than the next, led by a smaller one he assumed was the one he sprayed just now, his face paled, and he recalled what he had read from when he was a child in his world

‘When a bee dies it releases pheromones to alert the nearby bees of danger, but it also releases those pheromones if it encounters danger near the hive, dammit we must be close to the hive since this small be is out here’

He hurriedly garbed his “weapon” and sprayed it wildly, filling the area around him with a pink mist

BIZZ BIZZ

The bees didn’t come any closer but they didn’t leave either, it seemed that they were determined to kill him or chase him away, Yu knew he could probably outrun them while with the spray in hand, but that’s when his body was in prime condition, right now he could barely take a few steps without throwing up

Thus the awkward situation where he had to spay every few minutes continued until two entire hours had passed, by that time he had gone through a whole bottle and was halfway through his second

BIZZ

“Bizzz”

BIZZ BIZZ

“Biz Biz Biz!”

Around this time Yu just randomly responded to the bees with buzzes himself so as to kill time while he waited until the bottle had a quarter in it, he hoped to have recovered as much strength as he could before he made a mad sprint in the opposite direction

BIZZZ! BIZZ BIZZ!

Suddenly the bees flight went into disarray, their buzzing gained a higher tone as if warning off the danger, after which they flew away at their top speed

“???”

Rather than saying he was surprised it would be better to say that he was relived, he really didn’t want to sprint away anytime soon

‘Hmm I wonder what happened, I couldn’t have said something to trigger them could I’

He thought about his random buzzing sounds but shook his head, that would be too good to be true

Hiss~

“Hmm? Oh! Your back, you sure took your time, by the way was that you who scared them away”

Hissss- The snake nodded its head

“Oh? How did you do that?”

The snake’s eyes suddenly shone brightly, it wasn’t any brighter than before but their seemed to be something off about them

Yu also noticed something different about its scales, but before he got the opportunity to ask he heard another buzzing sound

“Oh? Already back”

BIZZZZZZBIZZZ

“Hold up something’s wrong”

Hearing the intensity of the buzzing Yu gets up and squints his eyes beyond the distant trees, then he catches a glimpse of bees, not one or two, not even just ten, no he catches a glimpse of almost a hundred bees

Boom!

He ran so hard he left a foot imprint where he had been standing, and it didn’t seem like he was going to slow down anytime soon

“Hugh, ima hurl”

The snake on his shoulder started glowing while he ran, and the nausea started gradually lessening until he could barely feel it

“You had something like this too?! Why didn’t you use it earlier”?

Hiss Hiss Hisssss~

“Well whatever, just keep it coming, with this I can make it without getting stu- “

The words got stuck in his throat for when he glanced at his back he saw hundreds of half human sized bees coming at him with their eye-poppingly large stingers

“Mommy!”

Thus the chase between a teary eyed young man and hundreds of bees continued through the forest, it seemed to resemble the memory Yu had in mind, except while his size was merely twice larger, the bees were a few tens of times larger

…….

“Haaah haah hah haah, did, hah, we lose, haah them?”

His- The snake weakly nodded while its glow was barely noticeable, whatever energy it had was exhausted by this point and it wanted to go to sleep even more so than Yu

“Haah, okay you did great, you should take a break now, thanks for the hard work”

He patted the diligent snake before unsummoning it, and while he also wanted to sleep he decided to continue to look for a way out, he didn’t know where he was but if it surly wouldn’t be a safe area with so many bees

“Though if I meet anything now I would have no way to fight back, but at least it’s better than waiting for death to come to me, I’ll scout before proceed”

So he did, and for the next three hours he went through the forest very carefully, he hardly saw anything dangerous like he had presumed, but he still saw many normal herbivore beasts

‘There are many weak beasts here so it can’t be that there is a dangerous entity that scaring everything from approaching, which means this area is pretty safe’

He thought but still cautiously made his way in a straight line, finely exiting the forest by sundown

Once he got out he saw walls, which weren’t very high, manned by patrolling guards here and there

‘I was hoping I would be sent somewhere far from the entrance, at least then I would have a good chance of escaping through the borders, but it seems like I’m pretty far from the Southern Paradise already’

There were no such “rundown” cities in the Southern Paradise, there everything had to be magnificent, even the worst cities belonging to the lower nobilities had to look prim and proper, for everything there had to “look” like a paradise

“Forget about them Yu, focus on the task at hand”

He wanted to waltz in casually but he didn’t know how far he was from the Southern Paradise, and if they sent a warrant for him then it would be troublesome if they knew the places he had appeared at, thus he changed his cloths with some of those he had taken from Mous’s bag, ones that didn’t have an insignia belonging to any family even though it still stood out, after changing he hid all the items in the bag and made his way to the gate

“Identification please”

The guard there was polite, maybe because of the cloths Yu had on, but Yu naturally denied having it

“I lost it in a fight just now, also may I ask where we are currently? You see I was chased by some pesky beasts all the way here and got lost”

A sneer flashed on the guard’s face before he hid it, but Yu had caught sight of it

“You must mean those bees, well if you’re a merchant form the Calico City and you lost your identity then you need to pay a fine to enter the city like anyone else who doesn’t have one”

“And how much is it?”

“Five bronze”

“Alright, but I lost my bags with the identity so I only have three silver on me right now”

“Well I don’t have any change here buddy”

“Hmm, tell you what, how about I give you a whole silver and you give me a suggestion of this city’s best facilities?”

“It would be my pleasure sir!”

Yu took out a silver coin and threw it to the guard, even though he knew he was being cheated he didn’t mind, a silver wasn’t too much anyway, at the same time he didn’t want to stand out too much, if the guard thought he was a merchant who was rich and without an escort then he would not alert anyone and instead follow him sneakily, possibly with some other people, and kill him off to take the money

‘Which means no one from the higher ups would know I even showed up’

Perfect plan, now he just needed to bait him into a narrow alley

“The best place to get some rest would be the Denatro inn on second street, you can get to it by taking the third alley to the left straight ahead, if you wanna rent a room you should hurry up now, also Gebzo restaurant at the third street is where you could get the best food, they would probably be closed by now though so you should go tomorrow, if you wanna buy something for your next journey I would suggest you visit old man Rump, just ask around and they will point you to him”

“Alright thanks, guess I’ll go get some sleep first”

“You should, have a good night”

Yu nodded and went into the city, there didn’t seem too much traffic but he noticed the bars were filled to the brim, while the weapon shops also had quite a few people inside

‘I didn’t see that many beasts on the way though? Why does everyone look like their gonna go into war’

Soon he passed all those stores and entered a scarce area on the first street, coincidently the third alley was precisely in this place, it seemed narrow and dark

Yu didn’t hesitate and went in, the sound of his steps echoed inside, but soon other footsteps were heard

“Snort, I didn’t think you would be so stupid brat”

“Hmm?” Yu turned around and looked at the two guards approaching, one of which was the one at the gate “Oh hello there, are you also going to the inn? Maybe you wanna spend that silver? I’m sure it was quite the tip when compared to your pay”

“You little shit! I thought we could let you go after you payed us and begged for your life but it seems you want an early death!”

The guard took out his sword and rushed toward Yu, the other one followed behind a tad slower

Yu snorted and rushed toward the guard with a knife, which gave them a surprise but instead of clashing head on he maneuvered around the right, the guard smiled seeing this and swung his sword to parry the dagger while his partner stabbed at Yu

“Amateur” “Noob” said both the guard and Yu at the same time, both certain of the result in their mind

Sadly, only one side could emerge out of this alley alive, and it happened to be decided the second Yu was situated between the two men and the wall

“Wha-“ Squash!

The guard could only exclaim before getting smashed into the wall by the shield that materialized around Yu, with how narrow the street was the shield not only bashed them into the wall, it even smashed through the walls into the next room, thankfully it was a closed clothing store

“Greed isn’t good for your health you know? It’s a common cause of death these days”

Yu cheekily smiled, though his smile falter when he looked at the blood seeping out of the two guard’s armor

‘Maybe I overdid it, well whatever, I should hide the bodies’

He dumped the bodies in the store and took of their equipment, then he wrapped them with some cloths and lit a match, but before he set the place ablaze he looked at the cloths and thought to himself a bit

‘Hmm, well might as well’

A few minutes later a blue robed person could be seen walking out a dark alley, with smoke rising on the other side

“I left a few silver coins in the cache, it should be more than enough for the owner’s compensation”

He didn’t use any known weapon, nobody saw him getting through the gate other than the dead guards, so even if they wanted to pin it on someone they needed a face, with a lot of people getting in and out every day they would be hard pressed to single him out

‘Now I just need to choose a boisterous inn that had no logs’

He didn’t spend much time to get said inn, not everyone knew how to read and write, only those fancy inns had book keepers, so by the time the fire had been put out Yu was already in bed, drifting slowly into a much needed, peaceful, fret of worries, uninterrupted sleep.

…. Yup nothing woke him up this time, I assure you