As Ace ventured deeper into the eerie forest, a shiver ran down his spine. This place was unlike anything he'd ever encountered before, especially considering he'd never been on a single camping trip. The forest had this unsettling, dark vibe; every rustle of leaves and distant hum seemed to whisper of ghosts.
With his newly acquired Glaive in hand, he clutched it tightly, finding solace and comfort in its warmth and weight. It washed away his fear and nervousness.
"Hah! I never thought a night in the forest with no light source would be this eerie," Ace muttered, like, seriously?
"Hey partner, can you help me out with some light here?" He spoke to his glaive, not expecting an answer but hoping it might lighten his mood.
To his shock, the glaive's blade lit up, revealing an escape from the darkness.
"Can you understand me, partner?" Ace wondered. Then he quickly dismissed that idea, thinking, 'How could it possibly respond?' So, he tried a different approach.
"Partner, can you adjust your glow based on my thoughts?" Ace questioned, his curiosity piqued by the glaive's mysterious behaviour. It remained silent, but its radiant glow held steady, leaving Ace to ponder the connection between himself and the luminous weapon.
'Hmm, maybe it's more like a machine that only works on command rather than having free will of its own,' Ace concluded from his observations until now.
With some light to guide him, he started moving toward the east but remained vigilant.
'Don't know when some wild animal might show up and make a meal out of me. I have zero fighting or hunting experience, especially with a glaive. Or worse, a demon could be lurking,' Ace thought, nervously.
With a typical teenager's untrained body, surviving this forest would be quite a challenge, and it would be downright embarrassing to die without even making it out of the forest on his first adventure.
After hours of walking, the sun was beginning to rise, and Ace heard rustling leaves and approaching footsteps. Tension gripped him as he feared the worst-case scenario.
He quickly hid behind a tree, waiting for whoever was coming. 'If it's come to this, I'd better be ready to fight instead of running. Running would leave my back exposed.' He waited until the footsteps were right in front of him.
To his immense relief, he found a woman there, not a demon. Up close, she was remarkably beautiful with pale skin, warm amber eyes, and jet-black hair. She wore a traditional kimono with elegant patterns and carried a large pot.
Ace, still cautious, decided to approach her. "Hello, I didn't expect to run into anyone out here. Are you lost too?"
Startled by his voice, she turned to look at him and shook her head. Without saying anything, the woman turned around and started walking away.
'Is she ignoring me or being cautious?' Ace wondered, observing her behaviour.
"Can you help me get out of the forest? I've been stuck here for a while," Ace asked, not rushing toward her to avoid scaring her away.
She stopped in her tracks and stood there without turning. Ace walked up to her and asked for help, but she denied his plea without a second thought and said, "I can't help you, so please don't follow me; I need to bring water to my home."
Ace was quite surprised at her response but still hesitant said, "I can help you carry the water pot if you can just show me the way out of this forest."
She declined without a second thought, "No, thank you."
'It seems she is quite wary of me' Ace thought.
"I'm Ace, Ace Walker, by the way," Ace quickly introduced himself as a way of showing respect that might help gain her trust.
She looked at him for a moment and then said somewhat hesitatingly, "I am Yuki Tanaka."
'Woman, I am not going to eat you, so why act so scared,' Ace thought but kept a harmless smile on his face.
Yuki looked at his smiling face and blushed a little but quickly turned her face away, afraid of him seeing her.
But, of course, would our protagonist not notice a beautiful girl blushing because of his smile?
'Hmm, why is she blushing? Am I that handsome now?' Ace wondered. While he was good-looking in his previous life, he wouldn't turn heads every time he smiled.
Maybe because of his smile, this time she started the conversation.
"Are you from a foreign land?" Yuki asked.
"Hmm, no?" Ace replied, lying to her, as being a local would benefit him more than being a foreigner.
"Well, you look quite different from... us," she somewhat hesitatingly said.
"Well, my parents were from a foreign land, but I was born here," Ace said. It was a good thing that the translation function was provided by the Library; otherwise, he would not know what he would do.
"Hmm," Yuki replied.
"So, will you help me get out of the forest?" Ace asked nervously.
"You know it, right, that you can just follow me back; you don't need my permission," Yuki said.
Ace looked at her with a dumbstruck expression while also being speechless at his own dumb behaviour.
Seeing his dumbstruck expression, Yuki tried to stifle her laugh, but it was proving to be quite a difficult task.
"Okay, I will let you carry the pots as your thank-you gift," Yuki eventually said after successfully suppressing her laughs.
"Hmm," Ace nodded, trying to appear stoic so as not to embarrass himself anymore.
While walking toward the river, Ace suddenly perceived some dark purple type of aura rushing toward them at very high speed.
"Hmm?"
Since his ability perceives supernatural aspects of reality, this was very likely to be a demon.
Seeing this, Ace quickly held Yuki's hand and started running in the opposite direction.
Yuki tried to stop him and leave her hand out of his grip, but seeing the grave expression on his face, she stopped struggling.
"What happened?" Yuki asked nervously.
"A demon is coming; we need to run fast," Ace replied.
Before she even had the time to process this, Ace's combat intuition kicked in, causing his hair to stand on end, his heart to race, and time to slow down. His life was in danger.
Summoning all his strength, Ace grabbed Yuki and leaped to the right just in time to dodge a strike that obliterated several nearby trees.
"Holy...!" Ace exclaimed. 'Dying before even leaving the forest. Seems like I used up all my luck on that gift pack.'
The creepy demon hissed, "You managed to dodge that! Well, this will be fun."
Ace quickly looked around to find Yuki, only to see her collapse near him.
Ace could only say, "RUN," as he had to focus on the demon from now on.
The demon, which looked twisted and deformed, with leathery, discoloured skin that appeared to be rotting. Sharp, jagged fangs jutted out from its misshapen mouth, and its eyes were sinister, with a pungent hue. The demon's limbs were elongated and twisted, with bony protrusions, and its nails were like wicked claws, seeming to take his time hunting his prey.
"Seriously, have I encountered a demon from 40k? Because I'm sure demons here didn't look this ugly," Ace quipped, cursing under his breath.
Summoning his glaive, he was ready for the battle, but the demon didn't even give him time to think. Rushing toward him with a speed that left him no time to evade, the claw of the demon reached him in a split second; he could only block it with his blade and try to endure it.
Due to the speed and power of the claw, he was launched like a cannonball toward the trees, only stopping by stabbing his glaive into the ground.
Ace didn't even have time to breathe as a second claw was already on him.
Ace barely got the time to raise his glaive in time to meet the incoming claw, with the demon raising his eyebrows at his reaction time.
Unfortunately for him, the difference in strength was too great, making his hand's bones crack, and the situation got even worse since he couldn't use his glaive with broken hands.
"Pathetic, to not even last this much time you sure are quite weak," the demon said mockingly.
Approaching the boy, the demon lifted Ace by clutching his hair and was about to deal the final blow to this pathetic creature.
Suddenly, a stone hurled at his face and struck him right in the left eye, making him go blind for a moment before his regeneration kicked in.
'Thanks, Yuki,' Ace thought.
Using this life-saving opportunity, Ace used all of his strength and stabbed the demon in the neck with the glaive, but maybe it was because of his broken hands or his luck, he missed slightly from the mark and stabbed the demon in the chest.
"Arrggghhhh."
"What have you done? Why isn't it healing?"
"It burns, it burns, someone stops it!" The demon screeched madly.
In his rage, he unleashed a brutal punch on Ace and then delivered a forceful kick that sent him crashing into a nearby tree.
"Argh."
'Fuck ,It hurts like hell, and I can't believe I'm dying so early in a low-tier world. Maybe I should choose a slice of life world next time,' Ace mused, enduring the horrifying pain coursing through his body, cursing his luck.
"I will kill you, I will kill you, for doing this to me!"
As Ace lay there in silence, awaiting his inevitable demise, the demon drew closer to him, with its grotesque form.
"Dieeeeee hum–"
But before the demon could finish its utterance, its body was brutally lacerated in multiple places, and it was sent reeling with a swift kick to the face.
Ace gazed up in disbelief to find a petite woman with pale skin, large insect-like eyes, and hair that shifted from black to a dark shade of purple. Her hair was elegantly pulled back in a bun adorned with a butterfly ornament. Despite her slight build, she possessed an otherworldly beauty.
Ace recognized her immediately as Shinobu Kocho, the Butterfly Hashira, with a wave of relief washing over him. This fight had laid bare his inexperience, and he wasn't able to utilise Ethereal Insight during close combat.
With the absence of the demon's tormenting screams and the belief that the battle had concluded, Ace saw Shinobu crouching before him, came down to his eye level, and casually remarked, "You have a nice glaive."
Ace found himself at a loss for words, unsure of how to respond.
