Chapter 002: “How Cliched!”

Shien doesn’t know if it’s summer, but not only is the sunlight very strong, the air temperature is also quite high.

Shien is passing through the forest while laboriously swinging the Holy Sword. At some point while he has been cutting apart the bushes and branches in his way, he has become sweaty and out of breath.

“So hot...”

Shion complained listlessly, but he still didn’t stop and continued moving forward.

This is because as he moved deeper and deeper into the forest, Shien also felt more and more that it’s dangerous where he is.

“There’s still no sound of animals at all...”

Shien just has that kind of bad premonition, making him want to leave this place as soon as possible.

What’s especially bad is that the premonition is getting stronger and stronger. Strong to the point where Shien is getting apprehensive.

Then, at that moment, a message suddenly appeared in Shien’s mind.

「Skill gained – [Enemy Detection] – Would you like to learn?」

Shien involuntarily paused a moment.

“I got a new skill just like that?”

While still feeling surprised, Shien didn’t hesitate at all and chose to learn right away.

In that instant, the previous bad premonition transformed into a real warning in Shien’s mind.

Shien just felt a slight pain in his head, a coldness at his back, and then following a faint feeling of detecting something, suddenly turned around and looked up at the sky.

“Screech!”

A sound bursting through the air suddenly assaulted him.

“Boom!”

The sound of a dull impact blasted out like an explosion.

Shien only felt like he got struck by a heavy mountain. He was blown away without the chance to make a sound and slammed into a tree like a cannonball with enough force to fell it.

“Oomph...”

At this point, Shien finally felt a dull pain, forcing him to make a sound.

「Skill gained – [Physical Resistance] – Would you like to learn?」

Shien was still confounded when the information appeared in his head.

“What?”

“What happened?”

“Was I attacked?”

Shien, who slid down to the ground along with the broken bard, had completely failed to respond to what just happened.

What even more amazing is, even though he received an attack enough to send him flying and even break the tree, Shien didn’t receive all that much damage, merely a little dullness in his chest.

By the time Shien managed to respond, perhaps due to the effect of the [Enemy Detection] skill, he finally noticed the position of the existence that attacked him. Thus he hurriedly got back up and looked up.

With that look, Shien froze.

It’s because of the scene that exceeds reality before him.

“Coo!”

A cry filled with hostility echoed across the sky above the forest for a long while.

An enormous black shadow descended from the sky right before Shien’s eyes.

That is a bird.

Pitch black coloration. A snake’s body. Bird’s wings. Man’s face. Enormous in size with a wingspan of ten meters. A strange and evil looking vicious bird.

Just then, it seems like it’s that giant and vicious bird that descended from the sky, struck Shien, and sent him flying.

Now, that bird is staring transfixed at Shien with a pair of bloody eyes. It’s telling Shien that it doesn’t plan on letting the prey before it get away.

“Hahaha...”

Shien couldn’t help but laugh.

No way around it.

“This joke is a bit much, isn’t it?”

Reincarnated into another world after meeting a goddess, thrown all by himself into a forest, and then immediately afterwards getting attacked by a strangely shaped demon beast?

This development…

“How cliched!”

“Coo!”

The sound of Shion’s insult coincided with the cry of the bird.

Immediately after, the bird once again formed into a black blur, blasting through the air in an attack on Shien.

‘……!”

Shien just felt the mad siren-like warning from the [Enemy Detection] skill, and rolled to the side without any thought or attention to how he’d look.

“Boom!”

The sound of a dull impact rang out again.

The tree Shien just slammed into was shattered to pieces by the bird and turned into a flying cloud of splinters.

「Skill gained – [Dodge] – Would you like to learn?」

Shien who was rolling embarrassingly on the ground once again received information in his mind.

“Learn! Learn!”

Shien madly agreed without even needing to think about it.

In a moment of crisis, that skill is definitely something life-saving.

Thus, Shien just went ahead and learned the just gained [Physical Resistance] and [Dodge] skills without overly thinking about it.

“Coo!”

The bird that just shattered the tree flew once more into the sky. As if it’s getting mad at the failure of its attack and at the resistance Shien is putting up, after a cry, it spat out a bolt of lightning towards Shien.

That bolt of lightning acted as if to vaporize the eyes, and Shien who just managed to get up only saw a blinding whiteness and was struck.

“Boom!”

Lightning struck where Shien was, causing both an explosion and flinging Shien away and sending him rolling away once again.

「Skill gained – [Magic Resistance] – Would you like to learn?」

Again, a new skill was gained.

“Cough…!”

While the rolling Shien violently coughed, he still did as before and learned the new skill without hesitation.

And this time was just like before. Even though he was clearly struck by lightning, Shien still didn’t receive all that much damage. All he felt was some pain all around.

At this point, Shien basically understood just what is happening.

“So this is the power of the Holy Sword?”

Shien, while lying on the ground, covered in dust, turned to look that the Holy Sword he’s been tightly holding all this time.

The Holy Sword is still giving off the brilliant and beautiful glow it has been since the very start.

It’s because the Holy Sword has the effect of 99% damage resistance that Shien managed be unharmed until now, right?

“Coo! Coo!”

The bird in midair doesn’t know this at all. It just looked at Shien, who was lying on the ground seemingly near dead but not having bled a drop of blood, and continually gave off it’s enraged calls.

It must be that it never imagined. That it still haven’t managed to finish off the the prey it found after so much work.

Thus, the bird dove down once more while giving off vicious waves from it’s whole body, as it it’s trying to finish Shien off.

Watching all this happen, Shien too felt a burst of desperation from within.

“Don’t think I won’t fight back!”

Facing the vicious figure descending from the sky like a nightmare, Shien tightly gripped the Holy Sword and shakily stood back up.

“Ping!”

Upon the brilliant Holy Sword, the aura of light that was once calmly flowing around it suddenly increased and exploded outwards.

An amazing power flowed from the Holy Sword into Shien’s body.

Shien thus held up the Holy Sword towards the evil figure in the air.

And then…

「Skill gained – [Two-handed Sword] – Would you like to learn?」

Shien chose to learn it without hesitation.