How could he tell he was in the middle of the Great Forest of Jura?
Simple. The [Manager], combined with the [Deep Appraisal] knowledge shared from the Merchant job of the Arifureta Suzuki, gave him the exact coordinates.
But honestly, he didn't even need the system to tell him. Suzuki wasn't sure if it was the Manager stabilizing his mind, or his new [Self-Made] skill forcefully adapting his biology, but the very air around him was dangerously thick. It vibrated with the suffocating, crushing aura of a legendary disaster.
This aura... it has to be Veldora's.
Suzuki had to admit, if the system hadn't forcefully evolved his body to adapt, he would have instantly died from sheer shock. The raw presence of the Storm Dragon was that overwhelming.
In the manga, Veldora might have been depicted as a goofy, lonely dragon who loved reading sacred texts (manga) and became Rimuru Tempest's best friend. But reality was far less comedic. Veldora was a True Dragon—one of the absolute strongest entities in existence, a walking natural disaster born at the dawn of the world itself.
If Suzuki were still a normal human, his heart would have simply burst. It might sound pathetic or silly, but in this world, Veldora was treated like a hurricane or a major earthquake. Millions of people in his original world died from natural disasters; dying from standing too close to Veldora was perfectly logical.
Fortunately, he was still breathing. He had gained Unique Skills, and his body was rapidly strengthening—much like the classic isekai protagonists who gained absurd stats simply by crossing dimensions.
However, possessing potential and actually surviving immediate danger were two entirely different things.
Before he could even fully process the impossible reality of his transmigration, the underbrush violently shook.
Thump-thump-thump-whish!
Click-clack-skritch-skritch!
Drawn by the massive surge of magicules created by his arrival, a snarling pack of Black Direwolves and a skittering swarm of Giant Armor Ants surrounded him.
Thanks to [Self-Made], Suzuki's eyesight had drastically improved. Peering through his glasses into the darkness, he could clearly see a hunting party of violent, blood-stained Goblins hiding in the dense foliage. They were cowards, waiting for the wolves and ants to finish him off so they could scavenge his scraps.
"...Damn it."
AWOOOOO-SHHHHHHH!!!
Zzzzz-kr-kr-kr...!
To the monsters, a human suddenly appearing in this part of the forest was nothing but premium prey. More importantly, they could practically taste the dense magicules radiating from his body. Eating him could trigger an evolution. It was a buffet, and he was the main course!
Strangely enough, despite the overwhelming danger, Suzuki didn't scream. Panic was a luxury orphans could not afford. [Self-Made] instantly stabilized his heart rate, flooding his muscles with cool, calculated, explosive power.
"Interesting."
Suzuki flexed his hands, feeling the alien strength coursing through his veins. At that exact moment, a Giant Armor Ant lunged, its razor-sharp mandibles snapping like steel shears aimed at his waist.
Clang-snap!
He sidestepped with unnatural speed. His hand shot out, snapping a thick, dead branch off a nearby fallen oak. The exact millisecond his fingers wrapped tightly around the wood, a sub-ability of [Self-Made] activated: [Improvised Armament].
Vrrr-zzzt-chk!
Dense, black-blue magicules surged from his palm, coating the rotted wood. The branch instantly hardened into something denser than steel. His stance naturally shifted, his muscle memory instantly rewriting itself into that of a master spearman.
This was the absolute right of the scavenger. Because he had been transmigrated with nothing but the clothes on his back, the Voice of the World had compensated him. He didn't need a legendary sword forged by a master blacksmith; the world itself was his armory. As long as he grasped an object with the intent to fight—be it a broken Goblin spear, a heavy branch, a stone, or a discarded kitchen knife—it temporarily registered to his soul as his personal weapon.
KRA-SHAK!
He thrust the branch upward, cleanly piercing the ant's heavy carapace and crushing its magic core in a single, flawlessly fluid motion.
AWOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Infuriated, the Direwolves howled and charged en masse.
The massacre began. But it wasn't wild, emotional, or desperate; it was an algorithm.
A wolf lunged to bite his arm.
CHUNCK!
He ripped a jagged mandible from the dead ant, his skill instantly converting it into a lethal shortsword. He parried the wolf's fangs and smoothly severed its neck. Recognizing the physical disadvantage, two wolves leaped back, their mouths glowing as they attempted to cast Wind Blade magic.
Whroom!
Suzuki's eyes glowed. [Etymologist] activated, instantly parsing the "syntax" of the gathering magicules in the air.
To anyone else, it was just raw magic. But to Suzuki, a spell was just a sentence. He could instantly read the grammar of the magicules. This was "Analytical Parsing"—breaking down code, text, or structured data to understand its meaning.
But the true, terrifying power of his skill lay in "Semantic Shift"—the natural linguistic evolution of a word's meaning.
What did he see when the two Direwolves cast a high-tier Wind Blade aimed at his neck? The original syntax read like this:
[Element: Wind] + [Form: High-Pressure Edge] + [Action: Lacerate] + [Target: Suzuki.]
He saw that the spell drew its lethal power from a single semantic root word: [Lacerate] (to cut).
Suzuki casually pushed his glasses up his nose. He spoke a single, resonant syllable in the Direwolves' native monster tongue, forcefully editing the document. He shifted the root meaning of [Lacerate] to its closest, non-lethal aerodynamic equivalent: [Circulate].
The result?
The terrifying, razor-sharp vacuum blade sped toward him... and instantly transformed into a refreshing gust of wind that gently rustled his hair and would have perfectly cooled down a hot cup of tea. He had essentially turned a lethal magical attack into a Dyson desk fan.
"...It's honestly too troublesome to use this skill manually," Suzuki sighed.
It was a brilliant ability, but having to play semantic word games mid-combat was annoying. He might have been a linguistic genius, but he simply wasn't in the mood to play Scrabble with rabid dogs. It was much faster to just bash their skulls in.
"Fortunately, I have the Manager."
By delegating the task to the [Manager], the semantic shifts were automated. He didn't even need to think; the system instantly parsed and defanged incoming spells, allowing him to focus entirely on physical execution.
In less than three minutes, the clearing was painted in monster blood.
Dozens of carcasses littered the ground. Suzuki wasn't even breathing heavily. He stood in the dead center of the carnage, holding a bloody wolf fang in one hand and a shattered ant leg in the other. He had even cleared out the cowardly Goblins hiding in the brush by casually flicking pebbles at them, which [Improvised Armament] had turned into lethal bullets.
He adjusted his grip, preparing to step over the bodies and clear out the rest of the nest.
However, before he could take a single step, the magicules in the air suddenly solidified. The ambient nature energy grew overwhelmingly heavy, thick with absolute authority.
A soft, ethereal green light bloomed from the trunk of a massive, ancient oak tree. From the glowing bark emerged a stunningly beautiful woman. She appeared far less "mortal" and much more "spiritual," with long, flowing hair the color of fresh spring moss.
She hovered slightly above the blood-soaked ground, raising a delicate hand to stop him.
"Please, halt. That is enough. I must ask you to stop this massacre," she spoke, her voice echoing like a gentle breeze through the leaves.
Treyni, the Dryad and legendary Guardian of the Jura Forest, had officially intervened.