After eating, we took the opportunity to have a small vacation and travel through the second zone.

Taking up temporary residence in our old valley with the heritage as we wandered about leisurely beholding the various beautiful sights of the forest, watching the sunrise and set.

Without the fear of death, the forest felt far calmer than before.

It was nostalgic.

Traveling through these poisonous woods with Rin reminds me of the days I spent training with Rin at the very beginning. It was certainly a simpler time. I vaguely remember wondering if this was all a dream I would wake up from…

Never did enjoy that training, but the memories with Rin are certainly nostalgic.

I ended up getting beat up a lot back then… but Rin was young, pure and naïve at the time. She’s seems more distant and colder nowadays.

Wait…

I glanced toward Rin with a puzzled expression, she had crouched down examining a glowing purple flower that gave off a poisonous vibe.

Refocusing on my memories, I realized that I might be misremembering the situation from that time with my nostalgia. I’ve always had a hard time understanding Rin’s emotions from her constant stoic expression.

Despite my realization that I might be glamorizing the past, Rin continued onward carefully picked up the dangerous-looking blue flower and stowed it away in her bag before wandering off. She was seemingly wandering around to find and collect another herb.

Whilst I was treating our wanderings as more of a tour and nostalgic trip, Rin had obviously taken it as an opportunity to collect various herbs and materials.

Does Rin know the meaning of the word 'relax' and 'vacation'?

Regardless, there wasn’t any danger here…

My thoughts paused as I burst into silent laughter with a strong chuckle.

No danger, in this place! Haha~ If I heard someone say that when I arrived in this zone, I’d have thought them crazy.

This poisonous forest was once a scary and intimidating place that required constant alertness to survive… but now, it seemed to be a place of natural wonder and marvelous beauty without danger.

It’s nothing more than a difference of experience and strength.

Knowing the extremely dangerous poisons on plants, animals, and monsters to avoid and having the strength to defend yourself against any monsters that show up would obviously resulted in that outcome.

Learning the correct herbs combinations to neutralize the poisons of different plants, monsters, and animals to make those poisons edible is a basic requirement for survival in this zone.

-And quite obviously, it’s impossible to learn these particularities without a large amount of trial and error... or someone guiding and teaching you.

Even with my current strength, someone would have difficulty surviving in this place should they enter without preparation and experience.

The ability to kill the wildlife wouldn’t be their problem. The problem they would have is that it would only take a single mistake to get scratched or bitten.

…and in this forest, where everything is poisonous, getting scratched and bitten would kill or debilitate you. Knowing the herbs for antidotes or how to deal with the poisons is a requirement if you don’t want another monster to come pick up leaks after getting injured.

To be honest, though, I’ve never really had to deal those problems.

My unnoticed ability keeps aggressive monsters from ambushing me and prevents others from defending themselves when I attack.

As long as I’m careful, nothing will bother me in this place and my regeneration can deal with the poisons in an emergency.

Rin talked about the various dangerous while training me, though.

While I could deal with the poisons directly through regeneration, other people would have a large amount of difficulty.

This green forest is poisonous to the extreme, whether it’s vegetation or the monsters within.

Of course, with my experience and capabilities, I’d be hard-pressed to die in this place.

All that allows me to look past the danger in this place and obverse the natural beauty, and it is quite beautiful. These woods have a certain charm I’d completely ignored in the past, they’re brimming with life... and more important life-force that can be stolen.

Whilst I haven’t been stealing life-force from everything in the surroundings, occasionally draining the life-force of plants that get in the way is enough. It should be noted that the life-force contained within tress and vegetation in this poisonous forest is almost four times the plants in the tutorial zone.

The semi-regular absorption of life-force by the flower of the world tree is similarly quadrupled and without even thinking about it, my body was constantly growing stronger.

If I stayed in these poisonous woods for a period of time, my strength and power would grow at an extremely rapid pace.

As for the baby basilisk, I left it behind in a temporary base camp. The juvenile spends 80-90% of the day sleeping. Carrying the baby basilisk with me would be troublesome.

I didn’t leave the basilisk to move about freely, I locked it within a barrier. Otherwise I’d be fearful that it would do something stupid like going out to hunt or randomly eating a poisonous flower.

Hopefully, the edible large amount of processed raw meat left behind will satisfy it.

Deciding to put the little beast of my mind, I turned my gaze toward Rin. A couple meters away, Rin had leaned over and picked up another ominous flower.

The flower had blue petals and a various spikes along the purple and green stem, a singular black leaf radiated danger.

“What are those used for anyway?” I walked over, mainly asked to have a conversation topic rather than actually caring about their use.

Rin pointed to the flower’s blue petals. “Mild anesthetic and strong sedative.”

“Huh…” I examined it, the flower seemed similar to everything else in this place.

Holding the flower, Rin gestured to the flower’s leaf without touching it. “The black leaf is a corrosive poison.”

Plucking off the flower petals, Rin placed them into a separate place in her bag and tossed away the remaining flower. “The leaf’s poison is too difficult to combine with other poisons, so it’s not worth keeping.”

“Right…” I looked toward the flower haphazardly thrown to the floor and quietly absorbed the remaining life-force.

Rin took out the glowing purple flower from earlier. Gesturing to take a closer look, Rin pointed to the glowing petals. “Useful for changing the color and taste of potions to make them more edible.”

“That’s it?” I blinked in surprise.

The glowing purple flower emanated poisonous vibes, yet the usage was only to change the color and taste of other potions.

“What else do you want? The other features aren’t enough to bother with.” Rin shrugged and put away the entire flower.

“I didn’t realize you would consider the taste and color of potions.” I looked at Rin with a strange expression.

Researching and utilizing a flower that would have no influence of the efficiency of the potion and only changes the taste and color of potions is definitely not something Rin would normally bother with. Based on my understanding of her, Rin valued practicality and saving time as the first priority.

“I don’t want to deal with complaining whenever I give you a potion.” Rin rolled her eyes and gestured for us to keep walking.

Ah… So that’s why she bothered to pick up the flower.

“Well, I appreciate your thoughtfulness.” I said and began continuing the journey.

Although I don’t remember complaining about the taste of her potions… I didn’t doubt her words.

The general direction we walked was toward the world tree towering in the distance. We were mainly randomly exploring the situation and enjoying each other’s company.

We traveled without particularly caring about the destination. Through my fifty-meter sensory range of plants, I noticed an area empty of plants and quickly went over to examine it.

There was a temple hidden just beneath the surface, the entrance was camouflaged behind several plants... but the roots of the plants didn’t lie and avoided the temple creating an empty area.

Moving aside the plants, there was an open stone entrance with stairs leading downward.

“Do you want to explore it?” I turned back toward Rin.

Rin had been silently following behind me and looked at the temple, before nodding. “Since we are here.”

“Okay~” I grabbed a nearby branch from a tree and walked in.

The temple was cold and dark. I took out a compact mana light made with left-over crappy materials and used it to light the way.

Reaching a passageway that split into three, I looked toward some writing on the wall.

Truth… lies… daring… I barely recognized those words.

However, my lack of understanding of the writing system of this universe didn’t matter. I had a guide nearby who knew the language perfectly.

“What does that say Rin?” I gestured toward the writing.

Rin rolled her eyes, grabbing the mana light from my hand and walked over. “Find the truth, sort through the lies and be daring.”

My mind was baffled by the gibberish, I thought I was misreading it. “Isn’t that nonsense?”

“Do you really think the creators merely want people to follow simple instructions? It wouldn’t be called a trial at that point.” Rin snorted at my nonsense, and pointed forward.

“Which passage do we choose, then?”

“Right, left, middle.” Rin gestured and walked toward the rightmost passageway.

I followed her with a puzzled expression on my face as we reached another three pronged passageway, and she resolutely chose the left passageway.

“Have you been here before?” I asked with confusion.

“No, the riddle is a play on words.” Rin shrugged, before she explained the puzzle. “Truth can also mean right. Lies are associated with the left hand and it takes courage to choose the middle path.”

I followed Rin until we’d reached an empty room and had gone through all the instructions, another pair of writing appeared on the wall.

Taking the mana light over toward it, Rin read it aloud. “Stars twinkle and shine in the darkness, following them brings hope and light to all.”

I silently thought about the passage, trying to discern the meaning… but before I could react Rin simply turned off the mana light in her hands.

With the light source gone and the room in darkness, miniature stars in the stone ceiling began glowing with a peaceful light. The stars circling around the ceiling of the room toward a particular spot in the back of the room.

Rin stated, “Stay still.”

She began walking underneath the stars, following them to that particular spot on the ground. When Rin had followed all the stars to reach that particular spot, a click was heard and a secret door opened in this empty room.

The newly opened passageway shone a blindingly bright light into the room, illuminating Rin and myself.

“Come on.” Rin indicated that could move and gestured for me to follow her.

Watching her breeze through these puzzle without a care in the world, I suddenly realized what it felt like to be bystander in those junk novel’s where the protagonist is constantly showing off their dazzling capabilities.

Perfect intelligence, instant problem solving, and a combat genius.

I felt completely useless in comparison.

I wanted to cry.

I’m a normal genius, okay? How can you simply solve all these puzzles without even spending a second to think about it?

Give me some time to think about it.

Despite my internal complaints, I showed none of it on my face.

In these situations, a side-character should honestly praise her for being amazing... but I couldn’t bring myself to praise her so I settled for stunned silence. I was afraid my internal crying would be noticed in my voice, dampen the effect of the praise and cause her to avoid showing off in the future.