The wilderness at night was extremely dangerous, with countless monsters lurking in the darkness. Even adventurers wouldn't dare to camp and sleep so openly out in the wild.
The projection fast-forwarded, and the camera shifted to the inside of the tent.
Then it showed that there wasn't a single person inside.
"???"
"No one?"
Zeus was completely dumbfounded. He had been watching the whole time. How could there suddenly be no one there?
The sharp-eyed "Empress" immediately noticed that the ground inside the tent looked freshly disturbed. In an instant, she understood where the boy was actually staying.
"He's underground."
"Underground?"
Prompted by her words, Zeus quickly noticed that the soil on the ground looked newly turned, as if it had just been dug up. Looking closer, he even spotted several air holes hidden beneath the bed.
No way… this kid slept underground? Zeus's eyelid twitched.
He had just thought the boy was being careless, but it turned out he hadn't been careless at all. On the contrary, he was extremely cautious, hiding himself underground. But where had he learned something like this?
The projection sped up again. Soon, a corner of the tent floor lifted slightly, and the boy who had spent the night there crawled out from beneath the bed.
"Oh~"
"No strong odors around, and no creatures came close during the night. Looks like the area near the village is relatively safe."
Only after confirming the surrounding scents did the boy begin packing up his things.
As he did, those watching the projection finally noticed that there was a coffin placed beneath the bed. It seemed the boy had spent the entire night sleeping inside it.
Monsters carried distinctive scents, especially those that had killed before. The stench of blood on them was particularly strong. Judging the surroundings by smell was a very reasonable approach.
Clearly, the boy had a solid grasp of basic monster knowledge, and even though this was his first time surviving in the wild, he behaved with remarkable experience.
He quickly packed up the tent, sliced off a thin strip of meat, and tossed it into the forest beside the main road. He casually rubbed his hands with sand to get rid of the lingering scent of meat, then immediately switched into travel mode.
His running form was nothing more than a basic jog, with no technique to speak of. His breathing was heavy, and his footsteps were loud.
Time accelerated slightly, and text appeared on the projection.
[Ten Minutes Later]
His labored breathing gradually became rhythmic. His running posture began to change, no longer wasting so much energy, and the sound of his footsteps started to fade.
Then came another marker.
[Twenty Minutes Later]
His steps became more refined, no longer quite like running. His breathing grew steady and almost inaudible. His footsteps vanished entirely, and his speed was now more than twice what it had been before.
Then again.
[Thirty Minutes Later]
The boy's breathing was almost impossible to detect, and even the sound of his movements had disappeared. He moved in complete silence, leaving only footprints on the ground as proof of his passage.
In the span of just one hour after leaving the village, the boy had undergone an extraordinary transformation.
He had corrected his running form on his own, refined his breathing, and even shown rapid growth in stamina. It was as if he was improving every single moment.
Even the gods were left momentarily stunned by what they were seeing.
"How… how can his growth rate be this fast? He hasn't even come into contact with the 'Falna System' yet, has he?"
A normal person couldn't possibly grow this quickly. To begin evolving within just an hour, with changes visible to the naked eye, was completely unreasonable.
Even adventurers blessed by the Falna System didn't display growth at such an obvious pace.
Yet the child in the projection showed something entirely different.
This rate of growth was abnormal, far beyond what a normal adventurer could achieve.
Could an ordinary person so easily complete self-correction in such a short time and then enter a phase of rapid evolution?
Clearly not.
"A blessing from the World?"
One god suddenly mentioned the "World," and that reminder made the others recall something important. This boy wasn't ordinary. He was the "Child of the World." In a sense, shouldn't that make him a god like them?
"Speaking of which, if he's the 'Child of the World,' shouldn't he be a god just like us?"
"No."
Compared to the other gods' naive assumptions, Freya flatly rejected the idea.
"That child doesn't possess even a trace of divinity. He has no divine core and not even the slightest bit of divine power. And besides, if the Creator can even create gods, why would it take so much time and effort just to let a single human be born?"
"The World wanted a purely human child. Otherwise, why would it make a pact with Bell's father?"
"Therefore, the World won't grant this child any blessings. Nor will it give him even the slightest help."
Freya was certain that the World had no intention of intervening directly, and likely couldn't grant Bell any power at all. Perhaps the World understood very clearly that even a small amount of power would overly influence Bell himself.
"That wasn't help from the World. It was the child's own strength."
This… left the gods struggling to accept it.
That kind of power, coming purely from the child himself?
If he truly possessed such strength, then there would be no need for him to get involved in the struggles between familias.
And if he really had that kind of potential, even if he hadn't come to Orario, Zeus and Hera surely wouldn't have been able to resist taking him in.
"And if that child truly had such talent, Zeus and Hera wouldn't have pretended not to notice."
Freya had hit the key point.
Zeus and Hera had never deliberately trained Bell. From the state he was in when he first awoke, it was clear he hadn't received any training at all.
Everything he had become, he had grown into on his own.