I Became a Druid whom the Different Races are Obsessed With chapter 1

1 – Slave Carriage

The sound of clattering hooves is heard rhythmically.

The bumpy ride is unbearably uncomfortable.

What on earth has happened?

I sit up and lift my heavy eyelids.

“Ah!”

Then, right next to me, a shrill scream rings out.

Curious, I turn my head slightly and meet the eyes of a girl in rags, bound by chains.

A pitiful girl with green hair and eyes.

The girl who locked eyes with me starts to tremble all over, as if terrified of something.

Who is that child, and why is she tied up like that? And why is she afraid of me?

As I sit blankly, thinking such thoughts, the tent that covered the surroundings is lifted and sunlight shines in.

“Oh! You finally came to your senses!”

A burly man with a friendly face sticks his head in through the open tent.

He confirms that I am awake and then completely pulls back the half-lifted tent.

Then, the hidden scenery around me comes into view.

A narrow dirt road stretching through a dense forest. A two-horse carriage running leisurely on it.

The place where I was sitting was surprisingly the cargo compartment of the carriage.

‘A carriage?’

In this day and age, a carriage? And to make matters worse, I’m riding in the cargo compartment?

I couldn’t understand the situation in front of me and my mind stopped working.

Did my feelings show on my face?

The old man on the driver’s seat chuckled and spoke to me.

“You, you were lying on the forest path. I thought you’d be eaten by the beasts if I left you there, so I put you in the carriage. Do you remember anything?”

No. I don’t remember anything at all.

I’ve been racking my brain since a while ago, but the only thing that came to mind was the crescent bear’s mouth.

What’s more, the language I heard was something I had never heard before, but I understood it as if it was my mother tongue, and my confusion only grew.

I have no idea what’s going on.

As I was flustered and fidgeting with my mouth, the driver pointed at me and said.

“Judging by your clothes, you must have lost your way in the forest, right? I’ll take you to the nearest village, so don’t worry.”

I looked down at my body at the driver’s words.

I saw a work uniform that was torn and stained with blood.

It was a clear sign that I had fought with the crescent bear.

But something was strange.

The work uniform I was wearing was ragged, but my body was fine without any pain.

The neck that was bitten off and the chest that was crushed.

The body that should have been in a mess was healed perfectly.

“Oh, and I also put the weapon you were holding in there. Is it a magic weapon? It looked like a saw.”

I followed the direction that the horseman pointed to and naturally moved my gaze.

The corner of the luggage compartment. There was a familiar chainsaw lying there.

A hybrid chainsaw with an engine and a motor.

It was rated as the strongest chainsaw ever, but it was so heavy that no one used it. It was an unfortunate model.

That was the chainsaw I used.

‘Blood?’

I quickly crawled over and looked closely. The body of the chainsaw was full of dark red blood stains.

Between the well-maintained saw blades, there were also a few strands of stiff black hair tangled.

I felt a chill run down my spine at the sight.

The vivid sensations and the traces left here and there seemed to scream at me.

The half-moon bear that I encountered in Jirisan. The fierce battle where I swung the chainsaw. The grumpy hallucination that I heard before I died.

All those memories were not dreams, and the situation in front of me was also a clear reality.

“……”

I turned my head and looked at the horseman.

And then I asked the most certain question that would explain the situation clearly.

“Where… where is this place?”

A strange language came out of my mouth naturally.

As he was startled and surprised, the horseman laughed and answered.

“This is the western edge of the Great Forest. If you turn around the corner, you’ll see the World Tree. You can check the distance yourself.”

Great Forest. World Tree.

The coachman spat out awkward words and pointed in one direction.

I stuck my head out of the carriage and looked at the direction he pointed.

Soon, the carriage turned a corner, and the hidden scenery unfolded before my eyes.

“What is that, what….”

What I saw was a tree.

A colossal height that seemed to split the vast world in half.

A majestic and dignified posture that seemed to support the sky and the earth.

A truly gigantic tree that looked like a mushroom cloud from a nuclear bomb stood tall in the distance.

“Huh.”

It was an unreal sight that I could never see in the original world.

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In front of that overwhelming and transcendent appearance, I had no choice but to realize and accept the situation.

“Here. This is not Earth….”

This place is not the world I lived in.

It was a world that I did not know, where the existing laws did not apply.

“I’m going crazy….”

I seemed to have fallen into another world.

* * *

“By the way, thank you for giving me a ride on the carriage. I would have surely gotten lost if I was alone.”

I died fighting a half-moon bear and fell into another world.

After accepting that fact, I gathered information to sort out the situation.

“What. Even if it’s the edge, it’s still the Great Forest, isn’t it? It’s a dangerous forest where we have to help each other as kin.”

“Hey, mister. I’m the one who carried that person and put him on the carriage, you know? I was hoping to get a drink or something, but if you say that, what do I become?”

Fortunately, I had two informants attached to me.

They were the old man on the driver’s seat and the escort adventurer who followed on horseback.

They didn’t doubt my words that I had amnesia, and they kept talking about this world.

The Great Forest. The World Tree. The Empire. Monsters. Demons. Magic. Gods.

Thanks to them, I was able to grasp the worldview of this place to some extent.

It seemed to be a world with a similar atmosphere to the ‘medieval fantasy’ that appeared in novels or comics.

But there was still a question that remained unanswered.

I cautiously brought up the topic that had been bothering me since earlier.

“By the way, what is this child…?”

I pointed to the girl who was crouching in the corner of the cargo compartment.

She was the green-haired girl I had encountered as soon as I opened my eyes in this world.

Clank.

The startled girl flinched and the heavy iron chains scraped the wooden floor.

The driver glanced back and answered as if it was nothing.

“Hmm? That’s an elf slave. I’m a slave transporter, you see.”

“……”

My face involuntarily frowned at the word slave.

I had some idea, but it was a complicated feeling to admit it like this.

As I tried to hide my decaying expression, the guard who followed on horseback laughed heartily and joined the conversation.

“Did you think he was human? That old man is a generous slave transporter, you know. He only deals with different races.”

“Heh heh. Human slaves are too troublesome to deliver, you see. So don’t worry. He gave you a ride on the carriage out of kindness. He’s not planning to sell you off as a slave.”

I didn’t know what he meant by generous, or what he meant by don’t worry.

I asked in a strained voice, hiding my crumpled expression.

“Then… is this child a slave?”

“That’s right. I heard she was a mage’s slave, but she must have been experimented on or something, because she can’t hear a sound. She was abandoned by her master and is on her way to the slave market.”

“She has such long ears and she can’t hear a thing? Isn’t that funny?”

The coachman and the guard started to laugh uproariously, finding the deaf elf amusing.

I ignored their laughter and looked at the elf girl.

Her ears stuck out from her green short hair.

Now that I looked closely, her ears were indeed long.

“Ugh….”

The skinny elf girl curled up in the corner, trembling pitifully.

It was a frustrating sight that made my heart ache, seeing it with a modern sensibility.

I turned my head away and looked at the coachman’s seat.

The two humans were still laughing and joking.

‘I don’t know if they’re good people or bad people.’

The people who saved me turned out to be human traffickers.

The fact made the coachman, who had a kind face, look like a scary person.

They say there is no nobility in any job, but surely slave traders are an exception.

I felt uncomfortable with the current situation, so I scratched the electric saw in vain.

Then, the coachman looked back at me and muttered in amazement.

“By the way, I didn’t expect that woman who looked like a corpse without eating to react like that. You’re not an ordinary human either, are you? Are you an elf hunter or something?”

“Huh, really? It’s been a while since I’ve seen an elf afraid of a human.”

What kind of nonsense is that?

Is that kid only afraid of me? What did I do to him? And what is an elf hunter?

It was an unavoidable remark and misunderstanding, so I had to reveal my job as an excuse.

“No. I was an ordinary woodcutter.”

The concept of memory loss came to my mind belatedly, but fortunately no one cared about it.

Instead, a rather fierce reaction erupted from the two humans.

“What? A woodcutter?!”

“Heh! No wonder, the elf bastard was scared of you.”

It was a reaction as if they had seen a curious person.

It was a hard-to-understand reaction, so I wondered why they were like that.

Then the coachman explained as if I didn’t know this either.

“Woodcutters who cut down spirit trees are the enemies of the elves, aren’t they? The elves claim to be the guardians of the primeval forest, you see.”

The coachman’s words reminded me of the contents of the fantasy novels I had often read.

The race that loves the forest and protects the trees, the elves.

The elves of this world were not much different from the commonly known image of the elves.

But it was a bit difficult for me.

I learned to steal and tried to live as a woodcutter here, but what am I supposed to do if the elves control the forest?

I got up and asked to get some information about the elves.

“This place has some kind of nature conservation association by race―”

That’s when it happened.

– Kugugung! Kwaaang―!

A loud noise exploded from the back of the carriage, accompanied by a vibration that shook the ground.

We were startled and grabbed the railing of the carriage, looking at each other.

Then, the escort adventurer who was checking the situation shouted urgently.

“Damn it! It’s an ambush! You guys keep running and clear the way!”

The adventurer who cursed turned his horse and disappeared from sight in an instant.

At that sight, the coachman twisted the reins and shouted at me.

“Hey, hey! Check the situation behind us! There should be another carriage that the escorts were riding!”

I was going to do that anyway.

I quickly crossed the luggage compartment and lifted the tent.

Then, a shocking scene unfolded before my eyes.

– Kwagawa! Kuwoong!

A huge root that sprang from the ground overturned the carriage.

The adventurers who were thrown out of the carriage cursed and started to fight back.

A desperate scream echoed from the forest, and the sound of weapons clashing was sharply ringing.

The first battle scene I ever faced.

My mouth was wide open and I had no intention of closing it.

“Damn it! They say goblins come when you call them!”

The coachman must have seen the situation behind us, as he sped up the carriage and shouted.

What the hell was going on?

In the violently shaking carriage, I grabbed the railing and yelled.

“What the hell is that!”

The coachman answered with a scream.

“Elves! The elves have attacked us!”