It was somewhere in the middle of their trek that Jhin remembered he still hadn't asked Nymph to arrange a vehicle for him through Synapus Technology. A flicker of genuine regret crossed his mind — he'd let his anger get the better of him and charged straight into this world without a second thought.
If I had a car right now, I could just drive Kokkoro and Pecorine straight back to the city, couldn't I?
Wait — I don't think I have any currency for this world, either. He turned it over in his head. This world has elves, so it's almost certainly a fantasy setting — which means monster materials should absolutely be a thing here.
Once he'd thought it through that far, not having a vehicle suddenly seemed like less of a problem. He'd follow Pecorine's lead, hunt some monsters, and collect materials worth selling. There was simply no way he was spending Kokkoro's money.
Jhin had taken an immediate liking to the little elven guide Goddess Eris had appointed for him. If he was being honest, the moment he'd laid eyes on her, his first instinct had been to blurt out something completely deranged like "Please marry me" — which would have been a truly catastrophic first impression.
He couldn't quite explain it. All he knew was that he liked Kokkoro — simply, unreservedly, and without analysis.
Driven by that feeling, he found himself paying her extra attention throughout the walk, even going so far as to offer to carry her on his back. That proposal had been declined with complete and utter seriousness. Kokkoro's exact words were:
"We've only just met, and I've already dropped the honorifics. If I let you carry me on top of that — divine punishment would surely follow."
Left with no other options, a disappointed Jhin resigned himself to admiring her from a discreet distance.
A white-and-green dress wrapped around skin as fair and delicately flushed as fresh snow. Pale green gauze sleeve-covers were secured at her upper arms with golden rings. A deep olive half-cape was draped over her right shoulder and fastened in place by the strap of her waist pack — quintessentially elven in style. The outfit was perfectly modest by any reasonable standard, and yet there was something about it — an ineffable quality — that made it feel subtly, undeniably charming.
Of course, it was entirely possible that Jhin was simply viewing the world through rose-tinted lenses and reading appeal into everything.
After half an hour of walking under Pecorine's guidance, the three of them arrived at the edge of a forest where the trees were of extraordinary height, their canopies so dense they seemed to press against the sky itself.
Jhin craned his neck upward and muttered, "I wouldn't even be surprised if there were giants in there."
"Giants don't live in forests like this," Pecorine said brightly. "From what I've heard, they prefer high mountains and caves."
She reached back and drew the greatsword from her back. The blade-tip, shimmering with a faint blue-tinged light, leveled itself at the depths of the forest. "Inside there lives a pack of monsters called Deep Forest Boars. They're enormous, and the meat is absolutely delicious — but they always travel in groups, and there are too many of them, so I never had a way to deal with them on my own."
"Now that Kokkoro and I are here, the numbers work out, don't they?" Jhin said.
"Exactly!" Pecorine gave Jhin an adorable wink and a thumbs-up. "I don't know what you two are capable of yet, but as long as someone can draw their attention, taking down one or two Deep Forest Boars shouldn't be a problem at all."
"I should mention — I'm not suited for direct combat," Kokkoro said, gently cautioning Pecorine against overextending. "Most of my magic is in healing and support."
"Oh~ support magic is even better!" Pecorine's eyes lit up, then shifted toward Jhin. "And you — you're the Hero, so your combat skills should be pretty solid, right?"
Jhin met her gaze. He thought it over, then decided to test the waters using his Contractor abilities first — gauge the power level of this world before committing to anything.
He reached into thin air and drew out the Star Deck, then swept a single card in an arc before him.
"Contractor."
A mechanical voice rang out in the open air. The black bulletproof trenchcoat he hadn't worn in what felt like a lifetime settled over his shoulders again, and the cold-eyed phantom that had briefly materialized behind him faded slowly into nothing.
A spark of electricity flickered at Jhin's fingertips. He smiled. "For now, think of me as an assassin."
"That's so cool — is this a Hero's true power?"
"Sorry to disappoint, but you've guessed wrong. This is the power I had before I became a Hero."
"Fighter, assassin, mage." Pecorine's gaze swept across the three of them, and she realized they were the textbook composition of any proper adventuring party. Her confidence surged. She swung her greatsword in a single-handed arc, already striding toward the tree line. "Then let's move out!"
Pecorine proved herself every bit the seasoned adventurer she appeared to be. On the route to the Deep Forest Boars' habitat, she foraged a remarkable number of fruits — brightly colored things that looked toxic but were in fact completely harmless and apparently quite delicious.
Once she learned that Jhin carried a storage device, she threw all restraint to the wind and stripped the surrounding vegetation of every piece of fruit she could lay eyes on.
Only when Jhin told her the storage was getting full did she reluctantly take her armful of fruit to the front and lead the way while eating as she walked. The greatsword had long since been returned to its scabbard — she'd left the guarding duties entirely to Jhin.
They encountered a few small monsters on the road, but most of them were put down cleanly before they ever entered Pecorine's attack range — dispatched by Jhin with a razor-sharp dagger threaded with specialized steel wire, efficient and without fuss.
Jhin had asked Kokkoro about monster materials earlier. Not all monsters dropped them, she'd explained, but the higher the monster's rank, the much greater the chance of a material dropping upon defeat. Legendary-class monsters were guaranteed to drop high-grade materials.
Jhin had cleared out a fair number of monsters by now — but they were all too low-ranked to yield so much as a single material.
"Ah — we're here. Jhin, Kokkoro, keep it quiet." Pecorine crouched behind a thicket of underbrush, pressing herself low as she murmured to the other two. "Look — straight ahead. That's the Deep Forest Boar pack."
Jhin moved up beside her and crouched down. A herd of brown boars — each one easily the size of a small truck — were enthusiastically ramming their tusks against one another in what appeared to be some kind of contest. Dark brown, circular nostrils blasted powerful jets of air from their snouts. Their legs, stubby-looking but coiled with explosive strength, pounded deep divots into the earth with every step.
Whatever they were doing, in Jhin's eyes they were nothing more than a large collection of walking meat. He hadn't had a proper piece of meat since arriving in this world, and he had absolutely no intention of waiting any longer.
Without hesitation, he canceled the [Contractor] state and drew a gold-tinted card.
"Substitute — The World."
The mechanical voice sounded, and Jhin erupted from the underbrush like an arrow loosed from a bow. [The World] merged with his body, doubling his physical parameters in an instant — had he pulled up his status panel at that moment, he would have seen his Physical Composite Rating climb from D all the way to D+.
Power unlike anything he'd felt before flooded every cell in his body. Jhin clenched his right fist. The veins along his bare forearm stood out in sharp relief. With a rush of displaced air, he drove the punch into the nearest Deep Forest Boar.
"He is absolutely not an assassin!" Pecorine only had time to get that one complaint out before she yanked her greatsword free and charged in right behind him.
Kokkoro had kept most of her attention fixed on Jhin from the start — so the moment she saw him break cover and charge straight into melee, she raised her crystal spear without a moment's hesitation and began to cast.
"Blessing of Light!"
A gentle breeze, woven through with the cadence of the chant, curled around Jhin and Pecorine — sharpening their movements, making every pivot and dodge flow with a precision that felt almost effortless.
A single punch from Jhin sent the Deep Forest Boar directly in front of him hurtling backward. It crashed into its companion with a thunderous boom. The stricken boar's legs spasmed several times, then a gout of dark purple blood — flecked with fragments of ruptured organs — sprayed from its mouth, and it went still.
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