Chương 76: Hyper Efficient Travel

Rays of sunlight slip through the canopy above, fracturing into long, golden beams that spill across the forest floor. They don't so much illuminate the space as paint it, light and shadow layered in soft gradients across moss, roots, and shifting grass. The air is alive with motion. Birds chatter somewhere overhead, wings fluttering in short, erratic bursts. Leaves whisper as a gentle breeze threads its way through the trees, bending blades of grass in slow, rolling waves.

A green forest slime warbles along the ground, its gelatinous body wobbling as it navigates around roots and stones. Every few steps it pauses, absorbing fallen leaves and plant matter with quiet, damp enthusiasm. I flick a rock at it. It explodes. Not metaphorically. The pebble punches straight through it with a sharp crack, rupturing its body as if I had fired a bullet instead of casually weaponizing a piece of debris. Which is, admittedly, a fair comparison. Stats have that tendency.

The slime tries to reform around its exposed core— It does not succeed. A vine snaps forward, wraps the core, and yanks it free before the attempt can even begin. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ You have slain Green Forest Slime (Level 16 | Tier 1) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I toss the core into my spatial storage with the same casual ease one might use when discarding a wrapper after extracting the actually important part.

"That's one hundred. Guess I can stop hunting the small fry now." I sigh. Then, with practiced ease, I tear open a small rift in reality. The stars are already arguing. Loudly. The current topic— How many dimensions a sandwich occupies. I pause. Consider. Reject further analysis. Then interrupt their deeply important debate with immediate and entirely justified complaining.

"I'm sooo bored! Where are all the fun fights?!" The argument stutters for a moment as several of them greet me, before resuming at a slightly lower volume, now functioning as ambient background chaos. Through it, Older Sister responds, her presence warm, amused.

"You are the one who wanted to hunt, darling."

"Yeah, strong stuff," I complain, kicking a rock idly.

"Like, tier two minimum. All I've run into are differently colored slimes, some overconfident bird things, and those weird dog monsters. Where is the actual challenge?" There's a distinct impression of her rolling her eyes.

"Darling, you are a Titled Tier Two combat specialist with a Peak Aspect, a fully formed Arcana, Pride, a highly mutated race, and equipment most would never even see." A brief pause.

"You are, quite literally, the equivalent of someone who completed one hundred side quests before beginning the first main quest. Patience." I grumble and kick the rock harder. It embeds itself into a tree trunk with a sharp crack. … Acceptable.

"How do monsters even scale?" I ask, folding my arms.

"What makes their levels go up? I'm near a frontier village. Shouldn't the wilds be where the stronger monsters are?"

"Quite the opposite," she replies.

"All living creatures emit mana constantly." A beat.

"Well… almost all." I ignore that.

"It is this ambient mana that gives rise to monsters. The more life in an area, the more mana accumulates. The more mana accumulates, the stronger and more numerous the monsters become." I tap my chin.

"So what you're saying is… the more people there are, the worse everything gets?"

"In simple terms, yes." I nod slowly.

"So a frontier village next to unclaimed wilderness is actually safer than, say, a major city?" Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Precisely." … I look out into the forest. Then toward the distant direction of civilization. Then back to the forest.

"…That feels backwards." A nearby bird chirps. I glance at it. It immediately flies away. Reasonable reaction. I understand the cause and effect. I do. But something labeled"frontier" being less dangerous than a city is just… Strange. …Wait.

"What about slimes?" While I was in the village, I saw no fewer than three instances of slimes casually existing inside the walls for no apparent reason. One of them even received a special gift in the form of a vine to the face while I was cooking. Which means slimes— Older Sister finishes the thought for me.

"They spawn everywhere, completely at random. Think of them as the ants of Asteria." A brief pause.

"The only difference is that these ants can demolish buildings in sufficiently mana-dense regions." … I turn my head slightly and giggle. That is so— So unbelievably, undeniably, stupid. A scene forms instantly. Some ambitious baker relocates to a bustling city, full of hope and financial aspirations— Only for a Tier Two stone slime to manifest directly out of the wall behind them like some kind of architectural horror, before immediately reducing both the shop and their dreams to rubble. … Hilarious.

Nine out of ten. One point deducted for future inconvenience. Because this also means I will be seeing an excessive number of slimes throughout my journey. Tragic. I compose myself, clearing my throat as if I had not just derived immense amusement from the mental image of a baker losing everything to an aggressively motivated sphere of gelatin.

"So," I continue, tone perfectly composed, "should I simply head straight to the town? With my speed, I can reach it within a few hours even at a casual pace." It has been far too long since I have experienced the simple joy of watching my stats increase. Being level fifty for over a month is, frankly, offensive. The gamer in me is growing increasingly restless.

"Give me a moment, darling." I wait. A few seconds pass. Then— Two locations appear in my mind. Sharp. Precise. Impossible to misunderstand. Both lie thousands of kilometers away, positioned along the path toward the town. … I will continue to not question this. Some things are better accepted without further investigation.

"If you would like," Older Sister continues,"you may visit these before reaching the city. One hosts a rather interesting monster. I believe you will enjoy the fight." A slight pause.

"The other is a medium-sized local dungeon. Level sixty." Another pause.

"Ten levels above you should not be an issue, correct?" I smile at the torn edge of reality.

"Thanks, Older Sister." Warmth returns in kind.

"You are quite welcome." My ears soften. My tail curls lightly around my leg. Hm. Comfort, perhaps. Or safety. I will analyze the behavioral implications of my biology later. For now, I close the rift. My arms rise as I stretch deeply, joints loosening, muscles aligning. I lower them slowly, rolling my shoulders as my center of gravity shifts. A light bounce on my toes, testing balance, testing weight. Two thousand five hundred kilometers to the first red mark. Give or take. I grin wide. Only slightly feral.

"Let's see if I can do that in an hour." The ground compresses beneath my boots. Then I launch. Dirt and grass erupt behind me as the forest floor absorbs the opening step. The force alone would leave craters with every stride, so after the first burst, I reduce my gravity by sixty percent. The difference is immediate. Still destructive, but now only mildly offensive to the environment rather than openly hostile. I weave through the forest at speed, shifting between ground and canopy without pause.

One step hits soil, the next lands on a branch, the next— A tree trunk. Sideways. I push off it like a springboard. The tree does not survive. Tragic. Time blurs. Motion becomes constant, a seamless chain of acceleration and redirection. The forest stretches, bends, and flows around me as I carve a path through it. About twenty minutes in, I encounter a river. Calling it a river feels inaccurate. It is wide enough to be mistaken for a small lake, the surface broken by slow, steady currents.

I stop at the edge and peer down. A fish immediately launches upward, attempting to remove my nose. A vine intercepts it mid-air and deposits it neatly into storage. I look back down. The water is… lively. Fish dart in erratic bursts, colliding, scattering, and devouring smaller prey. Blue water slimes drift like gelatinous hazards, occasionally dissolving into nothing as something faster claims their core. The bottom is worse.

Dense, tangled plant life waits patiently, snapping shut on anything that strays too close. And then there are the larger shapes. Eels and snakes. Each easily the size of an anaconda, drifting through the chaos like they own it. They probably do. Mildly suspicious. A few vines spear into the water, retrieving one eel and one snake for later use. Dinner secured. I lower my gravity further and step forward. Onto the water.

Each step lands with enough force to briefly resist sinking, my momentum carrying me forward in a continuous chain. Strength, Dexterity, and gravity manipulation combine into something that feels less like running and more like exploiting a loophole. I cannot stop. I cannot turn. But in a straight line— I run across the surface. A childhood dream, realized through excessive force and questionable physics. The sensation is— Liberating. My tail swishes in appreciation.

A few ambitious creatures attempt to intercept me. I let Life Suppression bleed out just slightly. They reconsider their life choices immediately. Smart. The river ends, and the forest resumes. Another thousand kilometers pass in a blur of motion, branches, and the occasional tree that suffers greatly for its participation. Another river. Another sprint across the surface. Then— The red mark. I slow, skidding slightly as I come to a stop. Under an hour. Yes.

I just casually ran roughly half the width of the continental United States. Completely reasonable. Still slower than Earth's fastest jets. A tragic, but ultimately temporary problem. I get the distinct feeling that my Dexterity will be climbing very soon. The evidence? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Twin-Heart Grove Stag (Level 57 | Tier 2) Species: Deer Aspect: Wood An extremely rare mutation of a common forest stag.

Exhibits coordinated dual perception and rapid regenerative capability, using its antlers to entangle, impale, and control surrounding vegetation. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ An approximately moose-sized stag stands before me, both sets of eyes fixed on my position as it endures the faint trickle of Life Suppression I've had passively leaking out throughout the run. Smaller than the Deepwood Boars. And yet— Not even remotely comparable. Its presence is… sharper. More deliberate.

Like it actually understands the concept of violence rather than simply participating in it. The mottled brown fur covering its body carries a faint, almost lacquered sheen, catching the light in subtle, unnatural ways. Segments of bark-like armor reinforce its legs and portions of its torso, layered and ridged like something that was grown rather than formed. Between its shoulders, two necks rise and split cleanly into a V. Each head moves independently, watching me.

Each crowned with antlers that are wood rather than bone. A rather menacing specimen. I tilt my head slightly, studying it.

"Seven levels above me." I pause. Then I nod once, as if confirming something deeply important.

"Not a threat at all." I extend my hand. Astra Nocturne settles into my grip, its void-black edge drinking in the light around it. Much better. Still, this should be worth at least one level. Ideally more. I smile—small, sharp, and just a bit too pleased—and mark the stag as my prey.

"Let's dance."