Sigh.

Here, I was thinking that I was smart.

Climbing the trees sounded good on paper because almost all of the traps on the ground would be avoided.

But if the trees are poisoned, it makes my plan completely useless.

I stood up and walked to the usual spot. That's when I thought of something different.

Why am I the only one going towards the south side?

In all my regressions, I didn't see another player there at all.

When I hunt on the west side of the forest, I meet some players here and there.

But I tend to avoid them, as I don't want to get close because of my skill.

In the south, it's different; I haven't seen a player yet.

Only goblins and goblin corpses were the only living things I saw.

Ripple!

The angel appeared with the speech that I have almost memorized by now.

The pressure was still too strong for me.

I need to find out why no one is going to the south at all.

So I picked up my usual sword and dagger and walked a little further away to sit down.

I observed the field, and people were starting to form groups.

But somehow they were all going to either the west, north, or east.

Why was no one going to the south?

I need to ask them. I stood up and waited for another group to go towards the west side of the forest.

After a few minutes, I saw a group formed by two girls and two guys.

Before they entered, I stopped them.

"Why are you guys going this way and not that way?" I said as I pointed towards the south side of the forest.

One of the girls looked at me and then at the south side of the forest.

"Hmm, I don't know. I guess it was just a chance that we chose this direction.

And honestly, does it even make a difference which way we choose to explore?"

"Yeah, you are probably right; it doesn't really matter which way you go". I answered, knowing that there were different enemies depending on the direction.

"It looks like you don't have any team members; do you want to join our group?" One of the guys said this as he looked at me, waiting for a response.

"Nah, I prefer to be alone, but thanks for asking". I said this as I went to one of the other groups that was also going towards the west.

I asked them the same question, and again, it was just luck.

I couldn't believe this. Was everybody going everywhere else but the south based on chance?

I went to ask all the other groups, but they also had the same response. I even regressed, trying to ask the first groups that went to explore the forest.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They also said it was luck, so I tried to convince them to go towards the south.

As I saw them approach the south, I knew they would probably get injured by the traps.

So I regressed before they entered, as I didn't want to see that.

As I waited at my usual spot, I could conclude that every group entered either the west, north, or south.

Just because they could or felt like it was a better choice.

I guess I will try to clear the traps somehow and find out what is going on there.

*****

I have regressed so many times trying to clear the traps.

The number must be around 30–50, if I had to estimate.

Because of so many regressions, I can finally move a little under the angel's pressure.

Which is a huge achievement for me, as I couldn't move at all before.

I picked up the sword and dagger from the pile of weapons and approached the south side of the forest.

I started to think of my previous attempts.

After going deep enough, it becomes nearly impossible to avoid the traps.

Because the distance between the traps is so small, the number of traps at the same time also gets bigger.

The most awful one was getting caught by the ankles of my feet and getting pulled up in the air.

Usually, I would just cut the rope and fall down again.

But imagine instead that two massive logs, at the same time, also activate and swing towards you.

Yeah, I couldn't avoid that and died because of it.

But the most annoying traps are the poisoned arrows.

Getting hit once is game over, and imagine now that you have to avoid multiple arrows.

When I have to fight the wolf, I will definitely try to lead it to the south side of the forest.

So it can get a taste of what I had to go through.

In my last attempt, I felt that I was super close to getting through the traps.

But I am more confident this time because I have something different compared to all the previous regressions.

I looked at my status window.

[Name: Taeho Kim] [Level: 4]

[Age: 21]

[Stats]

Endurance: 8.8 (8)+

Agility: 8.8 (8) +

Strength: 8.8 (8)+

Magic: 0 +

Mana: 0 +

[Stat points: 3]

[Skills]

- Perfect Clear[X]

- Swordsmanship[F]

- Trap Detection[F]

I finally got the 'Trap Detection' skill. But I didn't know how effective it would be.

I clicked on the skill to get a description.

- Trap Detection[F]

- Able to detect traps with low efficiency.

What is low efficiency? But it is a skill that I didn't have before.

So it's at least better to have the skill than not have it.

I went into the forest to try the skill out, so I could see how good it was.

After walking for some time, I realized that the pitfall trap would be around here.

But my skill was not activating, so I went a little closer.

Tingling.

I felt a slight tingling, and I instinctively knew where the trap was.

But it was more like a feeling than a detailed description of what the trap was.

"So that's how it works".

It seems like I will not get details on what the trap could be. Instead, I will kind of know where it was placed.

I looked at the pitfall trap, and I was around 3 meters away.

My range must be around 3 meters, then. This is a pretty good skill.

I could tell where the trap would be if I were within 3 meters of it.

But I will not know what the function of the trap will be.

No matter how I saw it, this was a convenient skill to have.

It is only F rank right now, but what about the higher ranks?

At the higher ranks, it could potentially also tell me what the function of the trap was.

I was getting excited by the thought that, in the future, no traps could escape my sight.

But for now, I have this tingling sensation that helps me.

I continued deeper into the forest, quickly reaching the place where I was last time.

The skill really helped me a lot. Even though I have memorized most of the traps, I sometimes forget a few.

It's not like I have photographic memory, but after regressing enough times, you would be stupid not to memorize some of the traps.

But this is where my new skill came into play, as it would activate if I got in the vicinity.

I stopped up because last time I was here, I got hit by a poisoned arrow from behind.

Tingling!

But this time, I knew where it came from. It was a line that connected one tree to the other.

It was around head height, but near my hair. It was probably my hair that activated it last time. The problem was that my eyes couldn't see it.

But that wasn't why I stopped.

Tingling!

Tingling!

Tingling!

My skills told me there were multiple traps here. But my eyes couldn't see them.

If not for my skill, I would never have known there were traps here.

I instinctively knew where the lines were. Slowly moving forward, I tried to dodge the lines one by one.

I lay down on the ground, crawling, jumping over, and even stretching my body in wild poses, trying to dodge the invisble lines.

I repeated this until I could finally see a shining light through the trees.

"Just a little more, and I am out".

After getting very close to the end, I felt that there were no more traps.

So I jumped, and the first thing I saw was a wooden house in the middle of a small circular field.