The Place Where Everything Begins

At roughly the same time as when Jeremy fought with the Amorphis...

On a particular riverbank's shore amidst the temperate forest...

*Huff*

*Huff*

There came the huffing noises of a soaking-wet woman approximately 170 centimeters in height with cream-like skin and blonde-gold hair tied up into a big bun. She had an oval face, a straight nose, and small lips.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the shore, spotted a bisected male human body with fresh blood still oozed out from the bisected parts; gut and entrails could also be seen hanging on the man's upper half danglingly. Whereas, nearby the corpse was more than five wolves surrounding tightly around it.

If Jeremy were here, he would realize the dead man's face to be a bit familiar. After all, the corpse, which was being eaten and chewed by more than five wolves, was none other than Trevor.

Trevor was dead, killed by a slash from the Gnoll's steel spear...

That simply meant Rachel was the only survivor in the rescue team if Jeremy was excluded...

As more than five wolves were munching on Trevor's corpse right now, six of them were inside the river, swimming clumsily towards the other side of the riverbank where Rachel was.

At this time, Rachel looked pretty tired, yet she still raised her bow and shot arrow after arrow at Gnoll, swimming in the middle of the river in her direction at speed faster than the world records on Earth.

In the end, Rachel's life was on the line here. If she retreated now, the Gnoll and more than six wolves would chase her down until she was spent out.

Rachel knew if that happened, she would be eaten alive by the wolves; her fate wouldn't be any better than Trevor...

*Thwish*

An arrow left Rachel's bow, traveling swiftly in the Gnoll's direction.

Having seen the incoming arrow that appeared to be very accurate, coming directly towards its head, the Gnoll raised its arm up slightly.

*Puchi*

The arrow pierced the Gnoll's left arm as the dog humanoid furrowed its eyebrows in slight pain before plucking out the arrow and continuing the swim at an even faster pace.

A split second later, the Gnoll hadn't even swum far...

*Whoosh*

Another arrow came in the Gnoll's direction as it lifted its left arm once again to block the incoming arrow.

Just like before, the arrow pierced into the Gnoll's thick flesh at almost the same place.

'Damn it; this human is a fucking marksman...'

Upon thinking so, the Gnoll started to hesitate whether to continue swimming to the other side or not. After all, its big body would become no different than a stationary target in front of such a marksman.

Having no time to consider anymore, another arrow flew in its direction once again; the Gnoll gritted its teeth heavily, embracing the painful sensation on his left arm as it received the third arrow wound.

'Fuck it! It's just one female human anyway; my mission is as good as complete anyway...'

After thinking so, the Gnoll hurriedly commanded its subordinates to retreat along with it,

"Awooof!"

Having heard the command, all wolves in the water started to swim back ashore while the wolves that were eating Trevor's body promptly stopped their activity.

Simultaneously, arrow after arrow flew towards the Gnoll and wolves nonstop as Rachel didn't even have time to breathe properly. Her face looked tired and flushed red from her physical exertion.

'Don't ever think of escaping from my arrows!'

Rachel thought in a fury after reminiscing about when Trevor stumbled on the gravels. Afterward, as he was caught up by the Gnoll and its pack, Trevor decided to sacrifice himself to give her some more time to escape.

Rachel would remember such sacrifice for the rest of her life...

At this time, Rachel discarded the thought of killing the wolves entirely while solely aiming her arrows at Trevor's murderer, the Gnoll.

'For revenge!' thought Rachel as she fired yet another arrow at the Gnoll's head.

...

Inside a large underground cavern where a pond, rocky pillars, brown mushrooms, and a monster corpse resided...

'It's time to go...'

Jeremy thought to himself after pocketing the elemental stone within his left glove. He felt that if he lingered around here for too long, the cupids might discover him.

Unbeknownst to Jeremy, the two cupids hadn't looked at this place, the Amorphis' cave, even once after the second stage started.

After all, the two cupids knew all too well that nobody, whether it be from the human or kenku side, wouldn't survive a single attack from the earthen worm, Amorphis.

The reason why they had to put the giant worm inside this tutorial was that the System had forced them to do so for the sake of maintaining the second stage's balance.

Having turned his body to the hole where the Amorphis came out, Jeremy started sprinting there without hesitation.

Jeremy's speed became faster and faster with each step he took. Not long after, his speed far exceeded an average car, moving with a speed closer to 300 kilometers per hour.

Not even three seconds from the start of his sprinting, Jeremy arrived before the hole he looked at earlier.

'This speed should be enough; alright, let's focus...'

Having thought so, the environment around Jeremy started to slow down again; even while his speed was so fast, he could still see things around him pretty clearly.

*Whoosh*

Jeremy's figure went inside the hole swiftly, creating a gusty whirlwind at the entrance of the tunnel.

Simultaneously, Jeremy's figure started to brighten up with blue light as he used a mana technique to create a dim light around his body.

After all, there was no light within the dark tunnel; Jeremy could only resort to using this method to see far ahead and not crash into the tunnel's rocky wall.

At first, the tunnel's angle was not steep at all; however, the deeper Jeremy went, the steeper the tunnel became.

As Jeremy was roughly halfway through the exit, the steepness was as high as sixty degrees. Still, Jeremy could run up without any difficulty at all.

Right when Jeremy arrived approximately 100 meters before the exit, he could finally see the wall around him as the light shone from the hole's exit, so Jeremy dismissed the blue glow surrounding his body.

At this time, the tunnel's sheer steepness was more than 80 degrees, as even Jeremy was met with some difficulty to run up such a rocky wall.

Fortunately, Jeremy's speed was fast enough to propel him up the precipitous wall.

...

Amidst a particular zone with no animals or plants in the surrounding, spotted a giant hole of almost five meters in size...

Suddenly, a human's silhouette flew out from the said hole at a very high speed, causing his body to go high into the sky more than forty meters before gradually falling back down onto the gravel ground.

While landing, the man crouched down in a one knee position in midair while using his left fist as support to bear the falling momentum together with his knee. Meanwhile, holding onto a plain-looking spear, his right hand was extended outwardly to reduce the velocity.

*Thump!*

The man, Jeremy, fell to the ground on one knee and one fist heavily, crushing the gravels on the ground with his tough knee bone and fist.

'I hope it looks cool,' thought Jeremy as he stood up and warded off some dust and dirt on his leather armor.

Having stood up from the crouching position, Jeremy thought to himself,

'There are two things left to be done before executing my final plan...'

Upon thinking so, Jeremy closed his eyes to feel the space fluctuation. Like the last time, he tried to feel the time and direction.

Not long after, Jeremy gradually opened his limpid blue eyes as he turned his head in a particular direction before walking in the said direction.

'There are roughly three hours before it's dinner time. If I execute the next step of the plan directly, my following plan might face some hiccups after that. Thus, it's better to find a place to rest as I haven't slept a single second ever since last night; I should sleep some today, not to burden my mind and brain too much...'

Jeremy realized there was not much time left before the evening came, so he thought it was better to stop his today's journey at someplace before proceeding with his next plan.

After finally deciding his next course of action, Jeremy accelerated his footsteps as his figure disappeared into the temperate forest, gradually leaving the large hole behind.

...

Not long after, a black tent was seen to be pitched in the middle of the temperate forest as delicious fragrance permeated out from the tent's entrance continually.

Undoubtedly, the person inside the tent was none other than Jeremy as he was cooking another meal to satiate his appetite.

It appeared that Jeremy was not afraid of wolves or other predators inside the forest in the least. After all, he was the boss here...

'What a great smell...'

A certain someone thought to himself as he started his early dinner...