Chapter 7 : Born a judge, delivering only death sentences

Lena Hated Thieves

Who could possibly like someone who steals their stuff? It’s a natural sentiment.
But Lena didn’t have a strong attachment to her possessions.
With siblings above and below her, she’d generously let them use her things as they pleased.

Life in the Great Forest changed that.
In the wild, you had to claim and defend what was yours with your own hands.
Concepts like warm families, kind neighbors, and trustworthy friends were tales from a distant land.
It was easier to treat everyone as an enemy.
Because survival demanded it.

If her daily food was stolen, she’d go hungry.
If she went hungry, she’d lack strength the next day, making hunting a struggle.
It was a vicious cycle.
To break that endless loop, it was best to be relentless from the start and prevent theft altogether.

So, theft was a grave crime.
Lena was the judge, and the sentence was death.

She sped through the dense forest.
The culprit was a stealthy thief—someone she wouldn’t have noticed at all before awakening the destiny of the Wild.
Even after succeeding, they should’ve let their guard down, but their tracks into the forest were so faint she had to strain to follow them.

They weren’t just meticulous—this was innate stealth.
After all, no matter how clever a beast was, it was still a beast.
If it were Lena, she’d have been so sloppy she’d be twirling and dancing.
How could a beast stay so cautious?

As the Great Forest’s most intelligent being (self-proclaimed), she refused to acknowledge a beast outsmarting her.
It was a shaky argument, but her conclusion was oddly spot-on.
The creatures here were so bizarre that judging them by common sense was a headache.
Extreme stealth could simply be a talent they were born with.

“Ugh, they went so far.”

Perched atop a tall tree, Lena scanned the thief’s trail.
She was gauging how far they’d fled.
The verdict? She’d be chasing them for a while yet. But she had no intention of giving up.
She’d come too far to turn back now.

At this point, she had to see it through—otherwise, it’d feel like a waste of time.
Luckily, she wouldn’t need to push her stubbornness further.
The tracks, which had stretched on endlessly, stopped abruptly in one spot.

“Is that their hideout?”

A smile crept onto Lena’s lips.
Good. You dared trash my place?
Now you’ll feel the frustration of someone stomping into your home with dirty feet.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—a righteous grudge would strike the thief!

“Huh?”

But it seemed too soon to call it settled.
Lena’s jaw dropped at the sight before her where the tracks ended.

Halfway up the mountain, tucked cleverly in the shade, she’d assumed it’d be a cave.
She was wrong.
A sheer cliff loomed ahead.
No holes or passages for a beast to slip through.
Trees draped downward, their growth sculpted by wind and time—a breathtaking natural scene.

“No, this isn’t the time for sightseeing.”

Where had they vanished to?
The tracks led right here.
They stopped dead.
The thief had to be here.

It made no sense unless they’d flown into the sky or sunk into the earth.
But if they could do either, they’d have done it sooner.
Switching escape tactics this late didn’t add up.

So how did they… ugh…

As Lena groaned, something clicked.

[The awakened destiny of the Wild comes into contact with hidden mysteries!]
[The shining senses thoroughly dissect the structure of the hidden mysteries!]

A corner of her mind tingled.
An instinctive hunch—or a near-divine premonition—nudged her.
That spot… why does it feel like my finger would fit perfectly there?

It was the same childish urge she’d felt to shove chopsticks into an outlet despite adult warnings.
Lena didn’t fight it.
She pressed her finger into a crevice in the cliff, feeling a snug, satisfying fit—like a key sliding into a lock.
Then she raked her nails across it, as if tearing a curtain.

And then—

“Wow.”

The cliff shimmered, swayed in the breeze, and dissipated, revealing a hollow interior.

“What is this? An illusion? A hologram?”

It wasn’t just a vivid image—the texture had felt solid too.
So it was all fake?
This was a mystery far beyond the tech of her modern homeland.

But the humans of this era, who hadn’t even tamed the Great Forest, couldn’t possibly wield such advanced technology.
Magic? It had to be magic.
That explanation tied it all together.

In a fantasy world, magic’s a given—it’s the romance that turns imagination into reality in a primitive, ooga-ooga Middle Ages, right?
She’d read in a novel that a 9th-circle mage could drop a meteor and wipe out dinosaurs.
Compared to that, a tactile hologram was child’s play.

Lena decided not to overthink the mystery she’d just unraveled.

“Hoo.”

She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart.
It didn’t work too well.
But how could she stay calm?
Wow! Magic!

It was a thrilling new experience, arriving just as she’d completed her job evolution and needed fresh content.
Her heart pounded, her eyes sparkled, and energy surged through her.

[The Mystery of the Great Forest]
There is a forgotten legend in the Great Forest.
A tale so absurd it’s been dismissed.
Do not set foot in the Great Forest.
The owner of the Great Forest, the dragon, will be watching you.
You have discovered traces of a dragon.
Whether you flee in fear or bravely seek to claim its legacy is your choice…

“Let’s go!”

As usual, Lena ignored the system message—too late to matter.

[Entering the dragon’s lair, a mystery hidden in the Great Forest!]

Her excitement over her first taste of magic didn’t distract her from her goal.
The magic was just a bonus she’d stumbled into along the way.

Inside the cave, beyond the magical barrier at the entrance, there were few signs of artificial tampering.
It was a natural cavern.
As with most caves, the entrance was bright, but the interior plunged into pitch-black darkness.

Lena didn’t care and marched forward.
Since embracing the destiny of the Wild, darkness was no obstacle.
Now, with the awakened version, it might as well have been daylight.

But no matter how good your night vision is, shouldn’t it still look dark without light?
A liberal arts student with a YouTube-fueled mishmash of trivia, Lena vaguely recalled that fact.
Not that she was complaining.
In a fantasy world with magic, she could shrug off science a bit, right?
Maybe this place ran on different physics.

She didn’t dismiss any wild guesses or possibilities.
It was less about open-mindedness and more about a non-expert’s caution.
Living alone as a primitive, she’d never met others to confirm what was “correct.”

“More importantly, how big is this place?”

The complaint slipped out despite her need to stay quiet and conceal her presence in the thief’s domain.
She felt like she’d been walking forever, lost in thought, yet the end was nowhere in sight.
Judging by the footprints, the thief wasn’t that large—why claim such a massive cave?

Do beasts have rich and poor here too? Does money buy you a bigger house?
Just as boredom started to fray her mind, the scenery shifted.

At the cave’s end loomed a vast chamber with a hemispherical ceiling.
It looked like something enormous had once coiled there.
The ceiling bore scratches—patterns etched by hard scales.

And below—

“…”

There was the thief she’d been hunting.
A small figure squirming in the massive space.
Luckily, they hadn’t noticed her.
Their stealth far outstripped their perception.

Lena crept closer.
Observing to identify the beast and plan might be wise, but that was a novice’s tactic.
Why waste time when a single blow to the head would end it?

She’d hold back, of course.
Killing them instantly was too lenient.
After all the trouble they’d caused, she’d tack on the crime of being a jerk—they’d pay for it alive.
You picked the wrong target.

Now within striking range, Lena raised her hand boldly, revealing herself with a smirk—ehehe.

Kkiing! Kking!

The thief whimpered.

“…Ah.”

Tearful, round eyes stared up at her.

Humans naturally adore cute animals.
Especially newborn puppies, with a charm so potent they could melt even the coldest hearts.
Lena had been dead-set on killing the thief.
Yet, faced with its identity, she wavered.

The thief was a small wolf.
At first glance, she mistook it for a puppy—dogs and wolves are cousins, after all.
Its heart-wrenching whimpers hit harder than a bomb.

Even Lena, detached from civilization and a few screws loose, wasn’t immune.
Honestly, her gender shift might’ve made her more susceptible to cute things.

“You’re the thief, right?”

Kkiing!

“Yeah, then die.”

…?

Her verdict didn’t budge.
You’re cute, I’ll give you that.
But if she spared it for being adorable, wouldn’t the two orcs she’d already sent to hell feel cheated?

Lena’s arm swung again.

Kkaeng! Kkaeng!

The young wolf’s cries turned desperate, brimming with sincerity this time.