"Takanashi-kun...-hic-....-sob" –Haru 

Harusaki-san once again clings to Takanashi-kun, this time however, she finally was able to let out all of her previous tension. Looking at her figure that sobs while shaking uncontrollably, perhaps some switch was flipped as Takanashi-kun naturally wraps his arm around her shoulders and snuggles close.

"It's okay, it's okay now Harusaki , I'm here after all" –Takanashi

Hello... I'm here too you know ?

Could it be that my existence have been forgotten ?

Takanashi got all the nice part but I tried my best too didn't I ? I wasn't the one to give the finishing blow but I made all this possible so this could be said as my victory could it ? Can I maybe expect a little reward too?

.........sob

But, you are forgiven!

Right now I'm much more benevolent than usual.

Why you say?

Because right now…

Two more of those panthers are approaching us from the sides....

Perhaps they were lured in by the smell of blood. From my right and left, the beasts that look exactly like the corpse on the ground are cautiously closing the distance. Did they see their friend's death? Even though the air should be filled with aroma from the red liquid covering our bodies, they aren't losing their cool like the one just now.

As expected… these guys are way too vigilant.

I'm not expecting to win a big gamble again two more times.

Ahahaha.

We're checkmated hard aren't we?

Ah… look at that, those two are having cramps on their faces. I've only ever heard of the term "eyes looking as if they've died" in books before, I never thought that I'd get to see it in person.

Not like it can be helped.

Even though my eyes are following the pair of beast cautiously, my heart has already given out. The situation is pretty much a hopeless one. I'm holding my ground right now isn't because I think I can get away, it's simply the obstinacy of a living creature that clings to life at all cost.

Who is it? Who's the one responsible for this unreasonable series of unfortunate events?

If this was a novel then the writer must not be a decent human being!

Have the beasts noticed our resignation? They are getting in position, ready to attack.

But, they never had the chance to.

With a dull sound, the body of one panther was screwed in by an arrow.

I didn't even hear the "swisss" sound that an arrow normally supposed to make. It was silent, as if the air splits itself out allowing the arrow to travel without any resistance.

Before we even had the chance to pull ourselves together because of the sudden turn of event. The part that was struck with the arrow burst open. It was an explosion but there were no smell of gun powder. Moreover, the thing that exploded from the arrow was a transparent, small tornado that had a faint green shine.

When we come to, the panther has already spread its body on the ground, unmoving. A Large amount of blood is streaming from its wound, a gaping hole that's the size of a man's fist. The other one is nowhere to be found, perhaps it ran away the moment its friend died.

"Everyone, are you okay!?" -???

From the direction of the voice, a slender figure frantically runs toward us.

It was our class representative, Fujioka-san.

______________________________________________________________________________

"Harusaki-san, Takanashi-kun! you're bleeding!" –Fujioka

I'm bleeding too you know?

In my heart too.

"C, class-rep! you're here too?" –Haru

"Un, but talk later, let's have your wounds treated first" –Fujioka

The moment class-rep said that, as if waiting for the right timing, a man walked in from the same direction as she was.

The man is about 180cm tall, with short blond hair and youthful facial features. He looks to be 20 years old. But I wouldn't be surprised if he was one of those kinds that look twice as young as their real age. He's wearing leather armor on top of a dark green tunic. On his back a quiver full of arrows and holding a wooden bow on one hand.

So the arrow just now was the handiwork of this guy?

Well, putting that aside, there's something bothering me about how he looks.

No it's not the clothes that seem to be straight out of a story in the Middle Ages, neither it is the golden-haired-pretty-boy looks that could be mistaken for a celebrity.

It's his ears.

That's right, the ears.

They're long and pointy.

.

.

.

Un, I see now.

This is not a survival game... but a fantasy one ?

_______________________________________________________________________________

The day grows dark as we sit around the bonfire made with the fire woods I picked up earlier. I dropped them in the fight with the panther but since we didn't run it was easy to collect them back. Class-rep is treating the two with bandages and medicine received from the young man. My wound was lighter than the two of them so I did it by myself. It’s just a scratch wound after all.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Today's menu is whole roast panther. According to the young man, who named himself Teruel Fristoris, the panther meat isn’t very tasty but it has all the nutrients that the meat of a normal cattle would have. Since his name is long, let's call him Teru-san for now.

Un, this meat, how do I say it.

It's neither good nor bad.

It has a taste similar to beef, but there's no seasoning, and it kind of stink.

Above all else, it's hard.

Since I'm very hungry, I try to stuff as much as I can into my belly to recover my strength. But my teeth might just fall off before that.

And so, while trying our very best to chew on the unappetizing meat, we shared our stories around the bonfire.

"------- --- --------- -------- -------------------------- --- " –Teru-san

Teru-san was saying something but I have no idea what he is talking about.

I kind of expected it since this isn't Earth but our languages are different after all.

Then, how is it, that we're able to converse?

"--------- ---- ------------------" –Class-rep

That's thanks to the one over there who has been speaking to Teru-san as if it's a natural thing.

The other two are looking at class-rep with a dumbfounded expression.

Well, it's understandable since a normal classmate up until now was able to converse easily in a language of a different world.

None of them are reacting very strongly to this however, they just sit next to class-rep and let her does the talk. I guess the recent series of crazy events has already given them some degree of immunity to surprises.

When asked, class-rep said that for some strange reason it was as if the language is ingrained inside her head and she had a complete understanding of it. She was able to communicate with Teru-san who she met by chance and ended up saving our hides. According to Teru-san, it seemed to be a special [Arte] that enable someone to comprehend various languages. He himself has never seen it so he doesn't seem to know much about this [Arte], perhaps it's a very special one.

Hmn… I see, everything makes sense now.

Not.

What was that, did I just hear a very disturbing word mixed in there?

[Arte] you say?

____________________________________________________________________________________

Let's arrange everything I've learned from our conversations in a way that's easy to understand for now. There's too much information I might just get drowned in it.

First of all, this forest is called the Ciallmhar Forest. It's a forest where various low ranked monsters and animals live. Due to the sheer vastness of this forest, not all of it has been explored even though the monster living in here aren't very strong.

Teru-san belongs to an Elf community that stay on the east side of the forest, his job seems to be hunting and collecting herbs in the area nearby their village.

Class-rep introduced us as coming from the land of [Japan], however did not mention anything about being from a different world. After all even if he helped us he's still a stranger from an unknown land. Was she aiming for him to misunderstand that we came from a faraway country by himself? Since we don't know anything about this world, telling clumsy lies may get us exposed so she's letting the other person do his own interpretation. 

I thought that she was just a hardworking student but unexpectedly she's very witty at times like this. My evaluation of her has gone up in a flash.

Class-rep, how cool.

Additionally she told him we have no idea how we ended up in the middle of the forest. We were studying just a moment ago then when we woke up we were here. Teru-san made a difficult face and tried to link the events together. He apparently is going with the theory that we're a bunch of noble's kids from a foreign country who got kidnapped and our kidnapper somehow ran into troubles, with the monsters maybe, while losing us on the way. I wonder just why does he think we’re nobles? Is it perhaps because we’re ignorant about the way of the world? He also mentioned that the clothes we’re wearing are made of very fine and luxurious material he has never seen before. Putting his leather armor aside, is that tunic of his made from linen? I’m not sure at what level is the civilization in this world but perhaps cotton fabric like ours aren’t yet available in this era.

Well, It's a story full of holes, but since we're not the ones who come up with it, we have no need to explain. All we need to do is to tell him we don't know.

When he makes his conjecture, class-rep suitably adds in some vague follow-ups while trying not to make any blunders. Like “No idea, If we need something other people can take care of it” or “Never heard of that before, we don’t set foot out of our house very far”

I wonder if it's because she's smart? Or is it because she's a woman? This girl sure is good at lying.

Scary.