The forest was every bit as dark as I remembered, though it seemed much less gloomy being there surrounded by comrades-in-arms. The mood was much more subdued within the woods than it was on the way there, though. No more singing, barely any chatter, and everyone watching and listening for any signs of threat or opportunity.

We made it quite far in before anything happened. We heard them before we saw them, coming down the path toward us. I glanced at Sigrid, and she caught my eye, then shook her head.

No danger. Probably more Players.

That hunch was confirmed when we saw three people, two young men carrying a third, staggering down the path in a hurry. The one being carried had an arrow jutting from his belly. A quick use of All Shall Be Revealed told me he was another team builder named Achmed. They saw us a moment later and skidded to a stop in surprise, accidentally dropping Achmed on the packed dirt of the path. He landed hard with a grunt of pain.

Nina was there in a heartbeat. “I can help.”

At first, the two uninjured men blocked her, hovering protectively over their comrade. Nina held her hands open in front of her. “Please let me help.”

They opened a path to Achmed and Nina knelt over him. She took the arrow’s shaft in her hand.

“We already tried pulling it out,” one of the Players said, “but it’s got a pretty nasty barb and we didn’t want to make things worse. We’re headed back to town to find a healer.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Nina said. As we watched, the wound itself seemed to push the arrowhead out. Nina wiped away the blood to reveal no sign that it had ever been there. It had knitted itself closed without any trace of a scar.

Achmed sat up, putting his hand to his belly then looking shocked to find nothing there. Nina handed him the arrow. The shaft was long, slender, and straight as, well, as an arrow. The tip was indeed nastily barbed, but exquisitely made. “Here,” she said, “a souvenir.”

The Players gushed over Nina, thanking her over and over.

“How’d you get shot?” Andy said.

“We were going along the path and everything’s fine,” said Achmed. “Then we come across this mess of brambles blocking the way.”

“A wall of thorns, like something out of Sleeping Beauty, you know?” said one of his pals.

“And a new quest window pops up, something about a hidden dungeon,” said the other.

“I pull out my sword and start hacking at it when thooomp, this arrow flies out of nowhere and I’m down.”

“Who shot you?” Andy said.

“No frigging idea,” Achmed said. “They were hidden in the trees.”

“We didn’t stick around to find out,” said the first pal. “Whoever it was, they hid themselves well.”

I caught Jane’s expression light up and I knew exactly what she was thinking. Elves.

Achmed dug into his pocket, pulled out twenty gold coins, and held them out to Nina. “Here.”

“What’s that for?” Nina said.

“For the healing.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Achmed grimaced. “I’m sorry. I know the going rate’s more than twice that, but I’m a bit low on funds. I can get you the rest later, I hope that’s okay.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Nina said. “I don’t want your money. And what’s this about the going rate?”

“At the big temple in the city, the healers there charge fifty gold for a basic heal.”

“That’s outrageous,” Nina said. “Which temple?”

“The big cathedral in the middle of town.”

“Outrageous.”

Achmed shrugged. “That’s capitalism for you. It’s all about supply and demand. They have all the supply, and there’s lots of demand. Also, you can’t buy a healing potion anywhere anymore, not for love or money, so they can pretty much charge whatever they want.”

I had no idea this was happening, and I was glad I stocked up on potions, but I also felt a little guilty. Maybe I bought too many?

“Yes, but fifty gold,” Nina said. “The gall.”

“I didn’t even know there were any Players with healing powers,” Achmed said. “If you wanted to, you could make a fortune.”

“Even if that’s true, I don’t want to,” Nina said. “Keep your money, and if you ever need healing again, come find me at the Dragon Clan dojo on Dagger Street.”

We left on good terms with Achned and his crew, and as we were getting ready to continue on I noticed Byron looking at his wife. She noticed it too.

“What?” she said to him. “Yourel looking at me all funnny.”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just really proud of you is all.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said, shaking her head, but the flush in her cheeks told me how she really felt.

According to Achmed, we would run into the wall of thorns in twenty minutes or so. After ten, I went over to Sam. I’d had an idea.

“Hey Sam, how do you feel about doing a little scouting?”

His handsome face brightened. “Sure!”

“I thought maybe you could use your powers to summon an animal, then have it run up ahead and see what’s there by looking through its eyes.”

“Piece of cake. Let’s see, something that can climb trees would be useful. How about...” A squirrel appeared out of nowhere on the moss beside the path. It sat on its haunches and looked up at Sam with its beady little eyes, scratching its nose with its tiny paws.

“Off you go, then,” Sam said, and it scampered off down the path ahead.

We kept trudging along, and every once in a while Sam’s eyes would glaze over when he was taking a peek at what the squirrel was seeing.

“Nothing so far,” Sam said. “Nothing but...wait, there it is. There’s something blocking the path. Looks like, yes, it’s just like those people described. A wall of thorns and brambles. It’s gigantic!”

“No it’s not,” Jane said, “you’re just squirrel-sized.”

“Oh right. Still. And hey, I can see that System notice those guys were talking about. About the hidden dungeon. It’s a new quest alright.”

“What about going off the path?” Jane said. “Could we bypass the wall by going through the trees?”

“Just a sec. No, the wall continues through the trees. Seems to go on forever.”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Can you get through? I mean, as the squirrel? It’s pretty small.”

“Those suckers can get in anywhere,” Wayne said. “Can’t keep them out of my attic.”

“It’s pretty overgrown and prickly in there. It’ll be easier to just go over,” Sam said. “Okay, I’m up a tree now, wow that’s a thick wall, now jumping to another tree, that’s good, now one more jump aaaand—”

Sam gasped for breath and his eyes snapped back into focus. “I think they killed it.”

“What?”

“The instant I tried jumping from a tree on this side to one on the other I lost the connection, and I can feel my summon is gone.”

“So much for that idea,” Andy said. “Still, way to think like a squirrel there, using the trees to move around.”

“Thanks,” Sam said.

There was some debate over continuing, but Jane was adamant. “I want to see elves.”

I admit I was pretty curious myself, so we ended up continuing along the path until we reached the brambles. Sure enough, it was exactly as advertised. A tangle of thick vines covered with sharp, inch-long thorns blocked the way forward. It rose at least fifteen feet up, but was still dwarfed by the trees that towered around it, and appeared utterly impenetrable. Even for a squirrel.

Quest: Solve the [Hidden] Dungeon in the Eastern Forest

Reward: Dungeon ownership

Jane slowly approached it, holding her hand out in front of her.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Sigrid said.

“I just want to feel it,” Jane said. She got close enough to touch it, and quickly withdrew her hand and put it in her mouth. “It pricked me.”

“Shocking,” Sigrid said with a practiced roll of her big blue eyes, perfected after being best friends with Jane for so long.

I held my breath, waiting for the swoosh of an arrow in flight, but nothing came. I studied the treetops around us, convinced that there had to be someone hiding up there ready to shoot, but I couldn’t see anything. I tried using All Shall Be Revealed, but still found nothing.

“I could just blink to the other side,” Jane said. “Take a peek, come right back.”

“You mean like how you were just going into that Void to take a peek and come right back?” said Sigrid.

“Yeah,” Jane said, “exactly like that.” Then she vanished.

“She did it anyway,” Sigrid said. “I knew she would.”

It took her only a few seconds to return. She stood there for a moment, eyes wide, then fell over. She had one of those arrows in her belly. I didn’t even hear the swoosh.

Andy and I were closest so we rushed over to her. Each of us grabbed an arm and together we heaved her up and dragged her away from the brambles. When we reached what we thought might be a safe distance away we supported her on her feet.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Sigrid said as she watched Nina take hold of the arrow’s shaft. She did the same thing she’d done before with the other Player, and the wound pushed the arrowhead out and sealed itself.

Jane’s weight on me lifted as she stood up under her own power, fully healed. “Well that was fun.”

“Serves you right,” Sigrid said, scowling.

Jane shrugged. “Worth a try. Besides, we’ve got a healer with us now, no biggie.”

“And what if it had killed you there on the other side, huh?”

“Then I would’ve come back like Daniel did,” Jane said. “Probably.”

Andy handed her a waterskin and she took a long, deep drink. “Did you at least get to see anything on the other side?”

“Just for a second.” Jane gestured at the forest around us. “Picture more of this. But I did learn something important: this is the Nature Dungeon.”

We stood staring at the wall blocking the path for a while, each of us waiting for someone else to say the obvious.

“We aren’t gonna see the elves today, are we?” Jane said.

That wasn’t the obvious thing I was waiting for.

“Sorry, Jane,” I said.

Jane shrugged. “Well, I guess that’s that,” she said.

That was the obvious thing.

“So, uh, are we just going home, then?” Sigrid said.

“Let’s go back through the forest,” Jane said. “This path’s a bust, but maybe we’ll come across some of Daniel’s bunny rabbits on the way home.” Then without waiting, she strode between two trees and disappeared into the undergrowth.

“She bounced back fast,” I said.

Sigrid sighed. “She does that.”

She’d left us no choice but to follow her, so one by one we stepped off the path and joined her in the forest. Soon there was only me left on the path and I was just about to follow when I had an idea. With one look into the undergrowth to make sure nobody was watching, I ran back to the wall of thorns. I held out my hand, but learning from Jane’s prickly mistake I stopped just before touching it.

Channeling my affinity with Nature through Affinity Control, I focused on just one of the vines, one of the thinner ones, only about as thick as my arm. If I was someone like Andy that would have still made it a pretty big vine, but this was my spindly limb we’re talking about.

Okay vine, how about you move a bit for me?

It moved.

Nice.

I cringed, waited for the swoosh and the sharp pain of an arrow, but neither came.

So far so good.

I broadened my focus and willed a section of the wall to shift. Not a big section, just enough to create an opening I could see through.

There was an abrasive sound like sandpaper on wood, punctuated by the odd crunch as vines rubbed together as they shifted, and a tiny gap opened in front of me.

Still no swoosh.

System: Your affinity with Nature has evolved

It wasn’t a big gap, barely a sliver. Not big enough to shove anything through, not even enough to peek through to the other side. But it was something. As soon as I stopped focussing, the vines quickly shifted back to the way they were, like nothing had ever happened.

I glanced up at the trees around me, wondering who was watching, and why they hadn’t turned me into a pincushion. I had a sudden impulse to try something, something I’d never done before. I used Nature Affinity Control one last time, only this time I also used Synthesis to combine it with Life. In my few experiments with Synthesis, I’d only ever used it to create something new, like Omni-do. I’d never applied it this way before, to infuse a different affinity into an active ability. The result was interesting, causing a single pale lavender-colored flower to blossom from the vines where I’d made them open.

“I’ll be back,” I said, and was about to run back and join my team when out of the corner of my eye I saw the flash of movement and heard a soft thud beside me. Something had fallen out of the trees.

I looked down at the path and saw a blob about the size of a grapefruit. It was mostly round, slightly flattened where it touched the ground, and translucent with a bluish tinge to it. As I looked at it, its shape shifted slightly, becoming more oblong. It didn’t have eyes, at least none that I could see, but I had the distinct impression it was looking back at me.

So cute!

Baby Slime It’s not much to look at now, but give it time. Powers:

Are You Gonna Eat That? - Novice: Devour anything

Concentrated Acid For Blood - Novice: Acid innards

Blob - Competent: Change shape

Skills:

Spit - Novice

I crouched down. “Well hi there, little buddy,” I said. “Are you gonna squirt me with acid if I pick you up?” It oozed a bit closer. “I’ll take that as a no.” I reached out and put my hand on the ground in front of it, palm up. It oozed onto it. It was neither warm nor cool, and didn’t feel at all slimy as I’d expected, just smooth and soft.

I stood up, holding it in my open palm.

I have no idea where or when it started but you find a lot of slimes in isekai stories. Usually they’re a low level monster that newbies encounter when they’re first dipping their toes into the adventuring pool, but over time they also became a bit of a meme. There’s even a very popular isekai where a guy got reincarnated as a slime. Monster pets are another common trope in isekai stories. Baby dragons are popular companions, as are slimes.

“Is that what you are? Are you supposed to be a monster pet?”

I was tempted to give it a name and keep it. But that wouldn’t feel right.

A monster pet like this slime should belong to the protagonist. A background character like me could only have a pet like this if my role was to be a monster tamer, which I was clearly not. No, this little guy belongs to the main character.

“I know just the person you need to meet,” I said to the slime as I transferred it onto my shoulder, where it perched comfortably.

And that’s when I heard the screams.