31. A: The Black Disintegration

“hooo”

Mastering all of my power, I jumped up.

Soaring multiple meters into the air, and back-flipping, while enjoying the scenery.

In a world frozen in time, whereas I am falling extremely slowly, I look around.

And as expected of though acceleration.

With it is activated, everything is moving extremely slow, even my falling. Though because of that, I too can’t move or speak, but nevertheless, it’s still great.

As I am now able to use my memory skill to record a mental map of all the visible things in my surroundings with no mistakes.

And also, enjoy this one moment of zero gravity floating to my heart’s content.

But every fun thing has to end eventually, and so, me too have started falling.

But with physical art and though acceleration, such a thing is not a problem.

Falling toward a tree branch while double flipping, I swiftly use my hand to grab it, then hand-standing for a moment, I make another backflip, and moving to the next branch.

Like that, with a circus-like performance, to test my new movement with physical art, and to have some fun, I, at last, have reached the last branch. And...

Hup.

“Tadaa. A performance befitting of professional, is it not ? as expected of me, I am great.”

And I am not even tired. How fun.

“but now I know which direction to go through.”

Or at the least, I am sure of the path with bigger trees not being the right one.

“and if we were to eliminate that direction, then there’s only one path left, or more like there were only two choices from the beginning.”

With the direction with bigger trees leading to the heart of the forest, and the one with shorter trees leading to the outer perimeter.

Still, even if this direction is the one leading to the outside perimeter of the forest, I am not sure if it will lead me to my starting point.

“well, better hope I don’t end up in a worst place.”

Not caring to think more, I started to move in the direction I have chosen.

And after all the noise I made, of course, I had to be fast in case a native busy-body of this place propose to guide me.

Who knows, I may find a nice monster that will try to send me back home. By killing me that is.

Thinking about such things, I give out my all into accelerating.

But to be clear, a dark forest is not the best place with its many trees, for a late evening jog.

Running, while jumping and evading all the obstacles in my path, I was about to head-butt a tree, because of a blue notification suddenly taking my attention.

-Conditions have been met.

You have acquired skill: Agility Lv1.-

“shit. That was a close call.”

If I was not careful, I may have had an accident here. And with my speed just doubling instantly? I would pluck the poor tree from its place.

In such a joking manner, I kept moving, until a certain thing caught my attention.

In a certain tree in front of me, there were trails of blood. My blood.

“This path is it, then.”

But seriously ? what happened to the bread crumbs in fairy tales? is not it cruel that I have to use my own blood for navigation ? and literally at that?

“well, it’s still is better than nothing.”

And even when thinking of this, I did not stop even for a second, but instead steadily increased my running speed that can put athletes to shame, while following the trails of blood.

“....?”

What the ...?

Stopping suddenly, I grab my daggers and stand in a flight-ready stance, while carefully examining the thing I just saw.

If I were to describe it, then it’s a humanoid body laying on the ground while it’s being surrounded by a weird mist-looking black substance, and is disintegrating into black sand particles in here and there. Slowly but surely.

And you know what? I recognize the humanoid creature. Why, you ask? of course, I do, because I was the one who killed it before.

Yes, you guessed right. The mad puppet from before is lying dead there, and is ...... well, laying dead?

I don’t think it’s alive, with all of these special effects taking place here.

I mean, did someone snap his fingers or something?

But leaving such jokes behind, I carefully walk to the side and use a tree as a cover, then I bend down and stealthily take a small stone.

Standing back again, I move from behind the tree, and .....

Throw it.

Throwing the stone at the black mist, I quickly get back to my hiding spot behind the tree, and observe.

Looking again. Nothing changed.

Well, just in case.

Bending down, and taking hold of another stone, I throw it too.

Staaare.

Observing the stone and the black mist, as if trying to make a hole in it by my gaze, it happened. The stone just passed through the black mist as if nothing is there.

“is that it? nothing will happen? even if I speak ?”

Well, I know how I look now, and yeah, I may look like an idiot in this situation.

But, hey, am I to blame? of course not.

After all, who is able to say, that something like me making a sound or touching the black mist won’t awaken some multi-eyes-canines-covered-eldritch-tentacle-monster that will try to kill me?

In this type of situation, people should act like cowards after all, and be as careful as they can.

But be that as it may. Nothing had happened, and even waiting and throwing more stones had no effect.

So I still don’t know if such beings exist or not. For I, after all, don’t know what genre that thing belongs to.

“because of that, I have to investigate.”

Not the genre of course, but the black mist actually.

Reaching to a falling branch near me, I walk carefully, and ......

Stab the black mist with the branch, trying to see if anything will happen.

“but stabbing seems to have no effect. Not even changing its course, instead, it simply slips through it. So this thing is not a mist, huh.”

If it was a mist or gas, then the branch would have an effect, but it seems to not do so.

“hmmmm. Do I really have no choice but to try the second most dangerous thing ?”

What is the second most dangerous thing you ask?

Of course, it’s to analyze it.