I Became a Veteran Who Has to Stir Up Trouble to Survive - Chapter 100

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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[100] Deep Forest
Clang! The warehouse door slammed shut, and darkness engulfed everything.
I immediately rushed forward and threw my shoulder against the door, but it wouldn’t budge an inch.
‘A trap…!’
When I pounded the door and warehouse walls with my fists, they felt solid—like stone.
Just moments ago, it had been ordinary timber, but now it seemed to have transformed into steel.
“Open this door right now!!”
I shouted and kicked at the door frame when a viscous liquid suddenly began dripping from the ceiling above.
‘Deadly poison?!’
I reflexively stepped back, and Radi cautiously touched the liquid with her fingertip, her brow furrowing.
“Doran, this feels….”
“Is it poison?”
“No, the slippery sensation… it’s like some kind of digestive fluid? But since it’s not acidic, it doesn’t seem designed to dissolve food….”
Ding—!
「Digestive fluid is beginning to secrete from all directions!」
「If you remain in the digestive fluid much longer, all your stats will be absorbed!」
“Damn it!”
A trap that drains stats—how infuriating.
When had they prepared something like this?
Questions swirled in my mind, but I forced myself to stay calm and focused.
I had to find a way out before the digestive fluid rose to my head.
“First… I need to get some light.”
I stomped on a wooden crate in the warehouse, broke it apart, wrapped the pieces in cloth, and fashioned a makeshift torch.
Using the flint Radi handed me, I ignited it, and the surrounding area brightened.
‘Not a single gap….’
The interior, which had been a shabby warehouse when I first entered, now had walls, floor, and ceiling all transformed into an unfamiliar material.
“Radi, step back.”
I drew my sword and swung it at the wall, but the blade bounced off uselessly.
‘This isn’t something I can solve through brute force alone.’
Lady Renar, who designed this trap, would have anticipated that much.
Then.
I raised my hand.
The [Secrian’s Ring], which responded sensitively to mana, emitted a soft glow, and something within the room flickered faintly in response.
‘There’s a concentration of mana somewhere.’
Looking up, at the very center of the ceiling where digestive fluid was spurting out, mana was gathered particularly densely.
I swung my sword with all my might toward the glimmering point.
Though the blade bounced off again, unlike before when nothing happened, the wall surface rippled faintly this time.
‘This is the weak point…!’
If I could exploit this properly, I might break through.
Was there a way to weaken the wall?
“Wait a moment…! Let me try this!”
Radi pulled out various bottles from inside his robe and laid them out.
“These are dissolution agents. Different ones are effective against different enemy types—there are ones that work on the undead, animals, and inorganic materials.”
Radi carefully poured out some of the chemical solution and sprayed it on the wall.
But the effect appeared from a completely unexpected liquid.
“Plants…?”
When I sprayed the chemical that corroded plant cell walls, the wall began to dissolve with a sizzling sound, releasing white foam.
“That’s it! Pour it here!”
I soaked a cloth in the chemical and pressed it against the weak point in the ceiling.
As I waited with my arm extended while the liquid ate through the wall, digestive fluid gradually filled the interior of the room.
From my knees to my waist, from my waist to my chest.
At some point, Radi had climbed onto a crate and was precariously balancing on his tiptoes.
“D-Doran…! Gah…! I’m reaching my limit…!”
Ding—!
｢Your ally Radi is being consumed by digestive fluid!｣
｢At this rate, his stats will be absorbed and he will be neutralized!｣
｢Your strength temporarily increases by 6!｣
Realizing we were running out of time, I thrust my sword toward the ceiling with all my strength.
Thud—.
Gripping the sword embedded in the ceiling with both hands and pulling with all my might to the side, the wall suddenly tore open and the digestive fluid poured out all at once.
Swept away by the torrent, Radi and I were expelled outside and quickly recovered our footing.
“Cough, cough…! Are you alright?”
“I thought I was going to die from suffocation.”
I picked up my sword and scanned my surroundings with a tense gaze.
If Lady Renar was here, I would have punished her immediately, but she was nowhere to be seen.
And the ranch was gone too.
“…Where are we?”
I slowly raised my head and looked around in all directions.
A deep dense forest packed with towering ancient trees that seemed to touch the sky.
The trunks were so thick that their circumference was difficult to estimate, and the forest floor beneath our feet received barely any light.
No matter how much I looked around, this was nowhere near the Royal Capital where we had been.
We had passed through a forest path on our carriage ride here, but it was absolutely nothing like a forest of this scale.
“D-Doran… That place over there is where I used to milk the cows… Is this really that same ranch?”
The pastoral and peaceful scenery of the ranch had vanished without a trace.
The dairy cows that had been grazing moments ago had transformed into twisted flower-cluster-shaped plant monsters, and where the warehouse had been, only the remains of a massive carnivorous plant remained.
What on earth was this place?
No matter how much I thought about it, there was no forest this dense near the Royal Capital.
As I stood there in a daze, I noticed the carriage we had ridden in was wrapped in vines.
Approaching cautiously to examine it, the horses were nowhere to be found, and inside the cargo compartment lay our backpacks covered in white dust.
“The luggage is intact! Fortunately, my crossbow is still here too. But this dust….”
“It seems like at least two or three days have passed since this place was abandoned….”
There’s no way I could have been trapped inside the carnivorous plant in the warehouse for that long.
Then did that much time really pass while I was tending to the livestock at the ranch?
“…Let me calm down first and organize what’s happening.”
* * *
Radi and I rechecked our equipment and put our heads together.
“Is there a possibility that the scenery we’re looking at right now is an illusion? Could it be that we’re still trapped inside the carnivorous plant, experiencing hallucinations?”
“That’s unlikely.”
The probability that what I’m seeing is a delusion is low.
I even transformed into a Selurian Golem to verify, and there was no magical energy detected by Secrian’s ring.
If that’s the case, then the ranch itself must have been an illusion….
“Radi, you said earlier that you smelled something like a sweet floral scent while working at the ranch, right?”
“Yes, at first I thought it was my imagination or carried on the breeze… but now that I think about it, there wasn’t any foul odor coming from the barn either.”
“Then it’s highly likely that the ranch we first saw was false from the start. All those cows and livestock back then were fakes too.”
The cows I had milked had transformed into strange piles of flowers.
That’s why Radi was able to lift them so easily.
‘So then… I fell under an illusion while riding in the carriage through the forest path, and the moment I entered the warehouse, I was spatially transported to this place?’
That seems like the most likely possibility right now.
In Belheim, portals are the common means of spatial travel, but if you dig through ancient magic, there are other methods that aren’t entirely impossible.
“…Who on earth was that woman? How is something like this even possible….”
“I’m not sure… but one thing’s certain—she wasn’t actually from a noble family.”
‘…Someone was impersonating and acting as a member of the Kelenor Family.’
Even when I visited with Belmont, we passed without suspicion, meaning she perfectly deceived even Belmont’s eyes.
It seems impossible, but it’s not entirely out of the question.
‘When she locked us in the warehouse, she definitely called us mortals.’
In Belheim, there are only certain types of beings who use such a term for humans.
“Superior entities….”
Gods, fairies, or certain high-ranking undead—beings that frequently use such expressions.
Just by orchestrating something like this, she far exceeds the capabilities of any human.
“…First priority is escaping this place. That woman will likely keep hunting us.”
“Understood. But where should we go?”
“We need to find an open field where the trees don’t block out the sky. That way we can read the constellations and find our way. Or we could search for signs of civilization.”
It seems considerable time has actually passed since we left the Royal Capital, so Malton and Karen must have sensed something was wrong.
With Belmont there too, if we can just signal our location, he might come to rescue us quickly.
I lit a torch and ventured deeper into the dense forest.
The forest floor, covered in soft moss, showed the same scenery no matter where I looked, and only the occasional shafts of light filtering between the trees served as landmarks.
‘I’m certain I’ve seen a landscape like this in a game before… where was it?’
Everything from the moss to the rocks was enormous and unusual.
As I made my way through the vegetation, Radi sniffed the air and murmured.
“It’s an unfamiliar grass scent… where exactly is this place?”
“Well… my memory’s a bit fuzzy too.”
I trailed off, glancing around at my surroundings.
The deeper I ventured into the towering ancient trees, the more a sense of wrongness crept over me.
The forest lacked the sounds that should have been present.
No rustling of leaves swaying in the wind, no birdsong chirping from somewhere distant, no scurrying footfalls of small creatures fleeing through the undergrowth.
None of it could be heard.
‘…Is there nothing else in this forest but us?’
No, that wasn’t it.
Something was here.
My heart had been pounding ever since we left the ranch.
When we passed beside the moss-covered rock, I noticed claw marks that had crushed the solid stone surface as if it were soft tofu.
Radi had also sensed the strangeness of this place—his words had dried up at some point.
As the darkness deepened beyond the torchlight, only the sound of our breathing grew unnaturally loud.
‘This place… we absolutely should not have come here.’
That thought was just crossing my mind when—
“Doran, over there seems slightly brighter… should we check that way…?”
The instant Radi pointed toward one direction of the forest, I immediately clamped his mouth shut and ducked behind a tree.
That was when—
───!! ───!!
The massive shadow that lay ahead of our path suddenly began to move, shaking the earth.
Seeing the colossal form that required me to crane my neck upward, I understood.
Just how impossibly wrong a place Radi and I had wandered into.
「You have witnessed an unnamed colossal primordial beast!」
「The souls of monsters dwelling within your spirit simultaneously tremble in fear and express awe!!」
「It is one of the common ancestors of all insectoid-type monsters!」
「This place is… the [Ancient Primordial Forest]!!」

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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