Chapter 1: 1

Volume 1 – Chapter 01 – Starting Point

“Oh. And I’m back again.”

Glancing around, you can feel the soothing glow of the morning and the refreshing, cozy weather gently shrouding your skin. 

Combined with the soft passing breeze, carrying whiffs of aromatic flowers from the lush faraway meadows, assemble into a breathtaking, fantasy-like sight.

But amidst this stunning scenery was a man sitting on a lofty cliff heaving long, deep sighs, sticking out like a sore thumb amidst the gorgeous landscape.

“How many times have I been here now? A couple of dozens of times at least? Honestly, at this point, I really can’t f*cking remember.”

Frustratingly shaking his head, Yun Qiu’s face is contorted in frustration – as if he had just experienced a massive failure – and miserable helplessness.

Sighing again, Yun Qiu brought out a pure black booklet from his arms and unfurled it. The pages in the book were curiously black, and appearing in the center of the first page is clear and vivid white text.

‘Ensure their safety’, my ass!”

Seeing this sentence, Yun Qiu couldn’t help but feel the rage burning from the bottom of his heart. 

Enraged, he lifted the book and prepared to chuck it to the stratosphere before abruptly pausing midway.

He hesitated and bit his lips in frustration. “Damnit, why is it so hard to protect one woman? She keeps on dying while being fine in the end. At this rate, I’m gonna be the one who’s gonna break down first. Do I need to try out every past mistake to find the right solution for all of this?”

As he grumbled to himself, he begrudgingly lowered the black book. Opening the book, he flipped to the second page, only finding only a single text scrawled on the rest of the blank, empty page.

Compared with the sentence on the previous page, this sentence isn’t as significant to Yun Qiu. 

After learning from his countless failures, he discovered there was no point in saying it or not. He tried numerous times to speak to others about his unusual case.

But in the end, nothing changed. You can see that he’s still squatting in this same old shitty place.

He can only shut it and reluctantly put the booklet back in his pocket. Because, after all, the booklet was Yun Qiu’s only key to returning to his real world. 

No matter how tormented he is, as long as he wishes to return to his world, Yun Qiu can only diligently and obediently put the book away.

“Groan… it’s almost time.”

Yun Qiu doesn’t need to know the time; with his past ‘experiences’, Yun Qiu can accurately determine and estimate when that 「Event」 will start.

Not long after, a deafening「Boom」and thundering rumbles from the forest reverberated underneath his feet, as if something heavy crashed the earth. 

The sudden reverberations sent the birds in the forest flying in droves. 

Everything that happened so far didn’t roam too far from his expectations.

“Welp, time to do what I gotta do.”

Despite how much he whined and lamented, Yun Qiu is well aware that he didn’t have much of a choice.

Even if he knew what would occur and what he would encounter down there, Yun Qiu still had no choice but to go.

All because of fate.

Finally, with a sigh, Yun Qiu jumped down from the lofty slope and swiftly dashed into the woods.

……………………

In the dense and vast forest, a girl is dashing and weaving through the thick foliage while periodically glancing back.

The girl appears 18 and 19 years old, while her long, flowing black hair fluttered behind her shoulders as she sped through the forest. With her delicate features, captivating figure, and pale skin as flawless as jade, it makes that no matter what the occasion, she is undoubtedly an impeccably beautiful girl.

Curiously, the girl was wearing a rather luxurious dress. Her attire is not only inconvenient to move in but also not suitable when considering her present surroundings.

The forest she is currently in is in the west of the city of 「Norland」, with an area spanning hundreds of kilometers.

As a forest frequently infested with monsters, typically, only the city’s Knights or the members of the「Adventurers Guild」shows up in this kind of forest to either explore or patrol. With her attire, which has nothing in common with the uniforms of the Knights or the adventurers, she appeared more like a lost noble.

But her movement is remarkably agile and nimble despite her flashy unsuitable dress. She swiftly sprinted and weaved through the overgrown foliage, before soon arriving at a small clearing in the forest.

“Huuu… here should be…”

「BOOM——」

Just as the girl was about to stop to take a breather, she immediately heard a loud crash behind her. 

Turning around, she witnessed a towering, dark shadow closing in from a distance. 

The shadow knocked surrounding trees impeding its path to the ground with its enormous weapon; with each swing, tremendous force shook the earth.

“ROOOAR–!”

A few seconds later, the dark shadow emerged from the forest, revealing its true face. With more than 2 meters tall with a sturdy, muscular body that packs immense destructive power, it is an elite orc warrior rarely seen in the forest. 

Because it’s a monster that mainly operates「On the Ground」, it is difficult for an individual to deal with this level of threat alone. Aware that she had no weapons, she understood that she had no chance of winning a head-on confrontation.

The girl is well aware that she has gone deep into the forest, and there is no hope of escaping all the way back to the city from here. If she continues to flee like this, she will be long exhausted before reaching safety, leaving only little energy left to fight before meeting her impending doom.

Rather than facing that hopeless situation, the girl is determined to take a risky gamble. 

With a soaring cliff in her sight, as long as she could kite the orc, she might be able to shift this unfavorable situation in her favor.

“ROOOAR–!”

The orc, unaware of the girl’s schemes, bellowed as it noticed its prey halt. The orc viciously and swiftly charged toward her – at a speed that shouldn’t be possible with its size – while brandishing its giant club.

At the same time, the girl didn’t hesitate to bet it all on her risky plan. Swiftly turning around, she sprinted out from the cover of the forest and toward the nearby cliff.

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She relentlessly pushed herself forwards as the rugged, billowing wind coursing from the jagged edges of the cliff crashed against her face.

With her actions that will soon undoubtedly determine whether she will be able to live to see the next day, it would be a lie to say that she is not tense at all. 

But now, only in the face of such risk and danger can she hope for a chance of survival. After all, the girl did not make such a bold and risky decision without giving it weighty deliberation and planning.

Seeing how her plan is smoothly working, the girl gradually gains confidence that her method will succeed.

After reaching a suitable distance toward the cliff, she halted and spun around; she serenely faced the orc. 

She firmly stood and motionlessly gazed at the orc rapidly rushing from a distance. Her hands tightly clenched the verdant gem hanging from her unique pendant; whether or not she will triumph or perish in the end will all be ended by her next move.

Just as she was about to make her last gamble, a man suddenly bolted out of the woods without warning. 

The figure-in-question seized advantage of the turned-back and lowered guard of the orc and viciously kicked the orc’s head with a clear, resounding Thud. 

Taking advantage of the momentum, the man shifted his direction and elegantly landed on the girl’s side – all of this happening in a single, fluid motion.

The orc staggered and crumpled to the ground from the brutal unexpected kick – its body dazedly convulsed as its mind tried to process what just happened. 

Only after a few seconds did the orc’s sluggish mind eventually detect a new arrival of a human male in its line of sight.

“Hey, is there a gaping crater in your noggin? Why can’t you even just honestly and obediently run away, huh? Have you ever thought that if you frankly die here, how many people will suffer because of you?

 And how confident do you think you can be? Hmm? Ah, so you intend to push the orc off this cliff. That sounds good and all, but what will you do if you discover you either failed or couldn’t push it off? What would you do then? 

Whenever you make a plan or a decision, you must always have a backup or an escape plan ready. So, speaking of which, where is your backup plan, hm? Is it maybe killing yourself and jumping off the cliff?”

“You……?”

The girl was rendered dumbstruck. 

Not only did she not expect someone would actually be near her and have the guts and ability to come to her rescue in this treacherous forest – she most likely and definitely did not expect that someone suddenly giving her a long, ruthless, angry scolding in the middle of a grave life and death situation.

She really found this current situation to be incredibly baffling. The man appeared extremely irked as if she had just done something that massively pissed him off. 

But before she could reply, she glimpsed that behind the man, the orc gradually staggered up and trod its way towards the man in the middle of his scolding, wordlessly readying to strike. 

She couldn’t help but cry out.

“LOOK OUT!”

「BOOOM—」

Before the man finished lecturing, the massive wooden club shattered the ground where the man stood, forming a new shallow crater.

But Yun Qiu seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. 

He casually sidestepped the orc’s attack in a beat, then leisurely returned to scold her.[1]

“What the hell are you sitting around in a daze for? Why you can’t just run for it? Oh, please don’t tell me I have to forcefully drag you away.”

Yun Qiu’s tone and words aren’t very kind. But it can’t be helped when he and the orc had battled against each other countless times – to the point where he considered the orc to be old pals by now. There’s also her whom he failed to persuade numerous times back in the past.

But now, more importantly, he felt something heavy occupying his heart had finally lifted when he finally vented his pent-up frustration.

“But what would happen to you if I strand you here? It will keep on relentlessly hounding you until you are dead!”

The girl, clothed in an extravagant dress, stubbornly retorted.

She’s not the type who was absolutely terrified of death and scrambled at the slightest hints of peril based on her past actions, nor the type of person who could bear to flee and strand her rescuer behind to die without looking back.

Unbeknownst to Yun Qiu, he sincerely wished that lass would value and cherish her life more, as that would save him a great deal of trouble regarding his goal to return. 

But unfortunately, the story isn’t written and orchestrated by Yun Qiu, so he can only deal and work around with the girl’s difficult personality. 

“It’s me who got caught in this mess, so I can’t let a civilian die to save me!”

Her voice was unwavering as she picked up a meter-long wooden rod at the side. She briskly collected and repositioned herself to the other side as she shifted into a stance and readied to flank.

“It is impossible for you to handle this orc alone. I’m fairly proficient in swordsmanship, so if we work together, we may have a shot in winning.”

“No, why are you so sure I will immediately die when you leave? Have you ever asked for my opinion, huh?”

Yun Qiu leisurely retorted as he continued to skirt around the orc’s swings by lightly circling. 

He effortlessly evaded the orc’s simple attacks by anticipating the trajectory of the moves in advance, though at the cost of being unable to counterattack since he’s more focused on evading.

“Look, I don’t care at all whether or not you know how to swing a sword or not; what I do care about is that you’re holding an oversized toothpick instead of a actual sword. This orc’s skin is stupidly thick; even if the orc stood still and allowed you to slash it, will that toothpick of yours even scratch it?”

“But I can’t just abandon you here and flee by myself! If I never try, then how would we know what will happen?!”

She didn’t bother much to argue against Yun Qiu on the results when in her perspective, she saw Yun Qiu, unarmed, barely dodging the orc’s onslaught by desperately circling around it.

Deeply afraid that he would eventually be struck, she hurried to aid him, only to be stopped by Yun Qiu’s angry snap.

“STOP RIGHT THERE! If you take one more step, I will truly be seriously pissed off!”

Yun Qiu snapped as he nimbly leaped away from the orc’s swing. His tone has somehow got even nastier and more cranky than before.

Startled, the girl froze in place from the man’s sudden snarl; she found it to be insanely tough to comprehend his bizarre behavior.

Does he not understand the danger he is in right now? No matter how strong you are, you can’t just battle orcs with just your bare hands alone.

Is it not good to have another person to support you?

Translator’s Notes:

[1] When I translated this, I just imagined Yun Qiu acting like Gojo during the first 13 seconds of this clip

Comments: Yup, this is a pickup. Was browsing SFCAG until I stumbled upon this hidden gem. If you find any mistakes or if you find something that can be improved upon, please let me know in the comments. (Wait, who actually comments in WordPress anymore?)

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