Day 3: Giant Mole and Awakening (3)
Feeling the thudding heartbeat pushing blood out of my face, I analyzed the aberrant species with my detection ability.
It looked like a small, miniature pet dog, but with horns sprouting from its head—that was the only difference. I hadn’t seen anything like this in the biology books either…
Its height was 30 cm, body length from the tip of the head to the end of the hips around 50 cm, and tail length about 10 cm. The creature’s head was roughly the size of two of my fists smashed together, yet its 25 cm horns threw off its weight balance horribly.
The horns sprouted from a spot a little higher than the forehead—lower than the crown but still near the top. It didn’t look heavy, but maybe those horns were weapons.
I tried analyzing the material of those horns with my detection ability, but all I got was “unknown.”
Ah, what the hell is this place?! First time seeing a giant mole that wasn’t an one-eyed giant, and now this weird horned pup on top of it all…!
I calmed my body, which was tensing up and freezing, and kept hiding while continuing to scan.
Based on my own Phase Power of 100, this thing was only around 10. But I wasn’t sure whether I could treat the Phase Power of humans and aberrants as the same thing.
Well… for now, since it’s a dog with horns, let’s call it a horned pup.
I already confirmed with detection that the horned pup’s Phase Power was the same type as the one inside my body, but the real problem was that I had no idea how this 10-level creature was using its power at all.
Even if its Phase Power measurement was 10 but it could somehow utilize ten times more than a human, it would still equal my own total of 100. But I didn’t know how to convert Phase Power into physical movement to make my body more agile—I only knew how to use it for detection!
That was the kind of ability you had to pay real money to learn back in the real world!! Even in the ability user tiers divided into ten stages from S-Class down to I-Class, you had to reach G-Class to learn and use techniques!
Moreover, when I scanned the horned pup’s brain, it was completely calm.
Seeing something so calm in a forest full of danger and peril under a cliff made me wonder if I was weird for thinking there must be some amazing ability involved.
Huff… huff.
Calm down. If I got excited, my judgment would blur, so I couldn’t afford to get excited.
My bad habit was that when I stayed tense for too long, my thoughts would veer off in bad directions in that situation.
While I kept watching with deep breaths, the one saving grace was that the horned pup was too busy chewing on the fallen yellow leaves on the ground to notice me?
If I considered the horned pup’s habits, it probably hadn’t truly recognized my existence.
Maybe it was a baby? Or perhaps there were parent horned dogs nearby? Or maybe this form was the adult, and because it had some special ability, it couldn’t be dealt with by the woman giant and couldn’t be touched by the giant mole either?
Bad thoughts kept rising, and cold sweat ran down my cheeks and dripped to the floor.
Both hands were already gripping the sharp wooden staff tightly, trembling.
What should I do? Fight? Run? Turn around and flee?
Getting the detection ability on the third day of entering the Phase World was a complete jackpot, but thinking about it now, the situation itself was a mess. I got one detection ability and thought I could survive for fifteen days and return to reality? That was weirdly overconfident!
I cursed at my earlier self who had been humming a silly tune, and slowly retreated to the edge of my detection range, positioning the horned pup there and continuing to analyze.
If there had been at least some comparison target, I wouldn’t have been this terrified. The fear coming from ignorance was no joke!
If this had been the upper part of the cliff in a beginner area, there would have been weapons, and I would have charged bravely, but since it was the lower part of the cliff where any variable could appear, I couldn’t take reckless action…
The horned pup was diligently tearing and eating the fallen yellow leaves, and I watched its appearance with detection ability from exactly 60 meters away for thirty minutes.
Watching the horned pup keep chewing the yellow leaves on the ground, my severe tension gradually eased, and my stiff body became somewhat flexible.
I could mentally relax too, so if a sudden battle broke out, I might be able to respond calmly.
The horned pup, which was distracted while tearing leaves and walking around while drooling, was giving me more psychological fatigue than I expected. Every time it moved around, I had to keep my 60-meter detection range on it, so the accumulated fatigue kept building up.
But it wasn’t a complete waste of time.
I could compare the muscle movements of the giant mole I had seen before with the muscle movements when the horned pup moved.
Fundamentally, since they were both four-legged animals, the types and shapes of bones were slightly different, but overall they seemed similar. Before moving, muscles contracted, then when they moved, muscles stretched and returned to normal—the three-step cycle.
If I told someone about this, they would ask if I was explaining it too simply, but since detection ability had shown me this, what could I do. Moreover, I didn’t even know the mechanism of how my detection ability worked, so it was only natural that I couldn’t explain it properly.
If I figured out how detection ability worked… I thought maybe this ability would evolve one step further.
Anyway, thanks to keeping watch, I could predict what movements the horned pup would take. This would be a great help when entering combat.
But it had a human-like appearance yet kept eating only the fallen leaves. Was it a herbivore?
…Not even eating grass.
…It had been one hour since I discovered the horned pup eating leaves.
It was eating disgustingly a lot! How many times its own body weight was it eating? It had been eating since I discovered it!
When I scanned internally, everything it ate was being broken down by Phase Power, but even the remnants showed that the horned pup’s stomach was already full to the point of bursting.
Just from appearance, its belly was already bloated, so when was it planning to keep eating?!
At least it should do something—maybe leave, or approach me, or do something with its body or horns to help with information gathering—but it just kept eating…!
Ah, damn it!
When I played fighting games with my sister, I always heard the line “The one who gets impatient first loses~?” and I had been holding back as much as possible, but watching the horned pup repeat the exact same action for an hour made my mental fatigue so bad that I wanted to explode with irritation.
Boil… boil.
Because of that, my Phase Power dropped by four in less than an hour, from 100 to 96. It was good to know that Phase Power consumption varied with mental state and recovery decreased.
You damn pig of a dog… ugh!
I was struggling to control my boiling head when the horned pup started showing different behavior.
Oh, it finally moved?
Maybe because my irritation reached the horned pup, after eating the last leaf, it lifted its head, looked around, licked its mouth, and began walking unsteadily toward the opposite side of the cliff where I was waiting.
Even in my anger, I had been a little scared that it might approach me, but… since no one saw it, it was fine!
Suppressing my anger, I hurriedly followed behind it.
Maybe the horned pup… would show its parents? While tense and cautious, I followed, but after moving 50 meters, there was no presence of other aberrants besides the horned pup.
Just one? It didn’t seem like it was moving to find someone.
Unbothered by my presence, the horned pup walked calmly along the cliff… suddenly stuck to the cliff and plunged into it!
I was startled, thinking it was about to burrow through the wall, but when I got closer, I realized the horned pup hadn’t burrowed through the wall but had entered through a hole into the cave.
A small gap 50 cm high and 70 cm wide.
Umm…
The horned pup had already entered the hole and left my detection range. The hole… seemed to continue beyond my detection range.
Since it was 50 cm high and 70 cm wide, it was barely wide enough for me to crawl through barely. Maybe there was a family of horned pups inside?
For now, I slowly moved toward the hole to find the horned pup that had left my detection range again.
Even if there was a family and they jumped out, if I blocked the entrance and stabbed the sharp wooden staff wildly, they wouldn’t come out, right?
I was a little uneasy that they might be unexpectedly strong or use special abilities, but… should I just ignore and pass by? If I ran quickly past, there probably wouldn’t be any fighting…
By moving a little faster, the horned pup again appeared at the edge of my detection range.
It was slightly curved, but… it could almost be considered a straight hole. The depth was about 10 meters? As I went deeper, the passage widened and became broader.
How far did this hole go? Since the place had changed, maybe I wouldn’t feel any different emotions? I needed to scan the brain again,
=Huaaaaaaaaah!!!!=
Hee?! W-what?! A woman’s scream?
A woman’s scream with a volume that felt like it would tear my eardrums suddenly rang out, and I dropped the wooden staff in shock and turned my head toward the direction the scream came from. At the same time, the horned pup inside the hole felt terrified and rolled around frantically.
Now that I thought about it, my whole body felt tingly, as if my internal Phase Power was writhing on its own.
Was it because of the scream? Thinking that Phase Power could only be handled by Phase Power itself, there was no doubt that the scream contained Phase Power.
=Kyaaaaaaaaah!!=
Again! With a human scream of that size and a woman’s voice, it had to be the woman giant! What the hell was going on?! Was it fighting the giant mole again?!
With the second scream, my hands and feet began to tremble, and my breathing became rough. The feeling of my chest being squeezed and my stomach churning was the worst.
My mind was in a mess from fear, but I desperately ran madly toward the direction of the hole.
With just two screams, the horned pup’s body was already foaming at the mouth and convulsing, which I felt clearly.
When I scanned internally, my Phase Power twisted messily, my brain turned to mush, my organs frayed, and it was gasping like it was about to stop breathing.
The image that came to mind overlapped with my own appearance, giving me goosebumps all over my body, and my teeth began to chatter.
This isn’t a joke! If another scream burst out like this, I would end up like that! How could I escape?! How could I stop it?!
I grabbed my racing chest and ran 40 meters, and the small hole where the horned pup had entered came into view!
=Kiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!=
“Kuaaaaaah!!”
My brain…! My brain! It felt like it was burning…!
With the scream heard again, I grabbed my hair as if I wanted to tear it out and rolled on the floor, but after a dull impact felt from my whole body, I regained my senses and desperately crawled into the hole.
With the third scream of the giant, it affected my head as well, making my skull feel like it was splitting and my brain being kneaded by hands, and I felt nauseous.
With the feeling of my brain turning to mush, tears and snot flowed down as I crawled madly to where the horned pup was, and there was a path that went further behind the horned pup.
The horned pup showed no movement at all, as if it had already stopped breathing. The moment I saw the horned pup bleeding from every hole in the cave, an anger that felt like I would lose my mind erupted.
“This damn dog is lying there in the middle, making a mess! Kuulll!!”
Damn it…!
I pushed the dog’s corpse aside with my trembling arms and crawled back into the cave.
“Huff! Huff!”
After crawling about 5 meters deeper, I saw a rather wide elliptical cave. The pungent smell of blood filled my nose and lungs.
With my trembling hands, I fumbled around my face and felt something warm and sticky—it was blood tears? Nosebleeds? Every time I breathed, blood seemed to pass my throat, and I coughed up blood, feeling hot and sticky dripping on the front of my uniform.
Ah… my head was spinning. Tinnitus kept ringing in my ears too…
My consciousness was hazy but then clear, and although there was no light, I could see the vague shapes inside the cave.
That the scene seen with detection and with eyes overlapped and created a strange churning feeling—that was what it meant to be hallucinatory.
Kuuuung…
Kwaaaaaaang…
While my eyes kept blurring and my consciousness grew hazier, the sound of something bursting and the ground rumbling came distantly…
KuoOOOOOOOO…!
This… was… an animal’s howl… a howl mixed with pain.
Kick kick. Was the woman giant winning?
Kuulll.
Blood was coming up again. My chest had felt tight, so…
Kuulllkuulll.
Every time I coughed up blood, my chest felt refreshed.
At the same time, my consciousness was gradually fading.
Inside my fading consciousness, when I scanned my body, a little blood had started accumulating in my lungs and bleeding in my esophagus and stomach. My eyes had blood vessels popping, which scared me terribly.
Was I going to die here.
Alone in this empty cave…
For some reason, my sister’s viciously smiling face… came to mind.
Sister… Kuulll.
Even if I climbed on a tiger’s back…
Kuulllkuulll.
If I just… held on… I could survive…
But…
Sister… sorry.
Now,
I… can’t.