Day One: Over the Edge
With a body whose entire athletic career amounted to breathing exercises and the twice-daily walk to and from school, heroics were more than I could manage. Something might have shifted in me when I was summoned to the Phase World, but staking a fight with a mutt like that on nothing but a hunch was sheer nonsense.
My brain, pounded firm and trained by a lifetime of stray thoughts and delusions, turned several times faster than any guy my age — or so I proudly maintained. Which was probably why I could spin out a thought this long even in the middle of running for my life. Not that crap like this was any use at all in the situation I was actually in...
Hkk. I was going to cry again.
I kept glancing around as I ran, hoping some club-worthy stick might be lying around before my stamina gave out completely, but the situation was hopeless. All I could see were piles of fallen leaves and twigs thinner than my own scrawny forearm — not even a fist-sized rock worth chucking.
...Was I really going to die here? Really? For real?
"No!! Eighteen years!! A girlfriend!! Not even once!! I never even got to date one!! I want to kheok, and kulk, I want— there's so much, so much I still want to dooo!! Urp!"
Khaaaak!! Agh, kluk, khek, kek-khek.
The resentment knotted tight in my chest — the grudge of a certain little guy who'd never once seen action — was going to turn me into a virgin ghost. So I couldn't die like this! My chest ached in an entirely different sense, and the tears were threatening again, but whether it was the self-pity doing it or the rage that self-pity had curdled into, the strength leaking out of my body seemed to be seeping back in.
My energy recovered, only a little, and as the bastard behind me wheezed harder and harder, choking and hacking, my run began to pick up speed. Yeah — I hadn't even held a girl's hand a single time...! There was no way I was croaking in a place like the Phase World!!
Krrk?! A thin, startled wheeze — hih-hih-hek, riri-hihek.
Ah. So that's the noise a shocked mutt makes. A two-legged meal that had been panting and on the verge of keeling over a moment ago had suddenly put on speed and started pulling away — of course it was surprised.
Kuwahahaha! How do you like that! This right here is the hidden power of a human being!
"Graaaah!!"
And in that same moment, waaay off in the distance, bushes about my own height growing in the gaps between the trees caught my eye. Right. The instant I burst through those bushes, I'd spin and latch onto that bastard's neck. It was running at roughly my speed, so all I had to do was wait just past the brush, throw myself on it, and cling to that throat for dear life — hug it, choke it, and hold on. We were equally spent, so if I got that skinny neck locked under my arm and squeezed, I at least wouldn't have to worry about getting bitten to death. Our stamina matched, and its legs weren't much thicker than my own arms and legs; there was hardly a difference in build. Land the first hit, and I'd have a shot!!
All or nothing!
Bracing myself as hard as I could, I poured every scrap of strength I had and every scrap I didn't into my legs and ran faster, desperate to buy myself even a gap wide enough to turn around in.
Krrng... heh. Hek. Krek, kehek.
Yes!! The gap was widening!!
...Except I was getting the feeling the bastard had given up on chasing me. That wasn't how this was supposed to go. My heart was hammering like mad and my lungs were contracting and expanding violently, but a sliver of room opened up, and I glanced back — and the mutt wore what looked like a resigned expression? That counted as an expression, right? The tips of its brows hung limp, and the flesh around its snout had gone slack.
The distance between us stretched — roughly twenty meters, twenty-three, twenty-seven — and it was... slowing down? But the bushes were already right on top of me. I wavered between just sprinting on and escaping, or sticking to the plan — blowing past the bushes, spinning around, and setting up for a human-versus-mutt wrestling match. If the bastard had given up, though, better to keep running and open the gap as wide as I could. No sense waiting around and inviting the risk and the penalty of having my very first wrestling match — something I hadn't even gotten to try with a girl — be against that thing.
Fine. I keep running!!
"Hraaagh!!"
The bushes rushed up to my face. I crossed both arms over it, drove power into my legs, and leapt, bursting straight through.
And then weightlessness crashed over me.
"...Huh?"
A strange sensation as my guts floated up inside me, and with it the distinct feeling of my balls shriveling. Ah. Surely not.
I lifted my gaze, and with the way ahead thrown wide open, a green sea of trees filled my eyes all the way to the horizon. I dragged my trembling eyes down a little, and the crowns of countless trees — a drop of nearly fifteen stories — lay spread beneath my feet like a carpet.
"Uh... uhhh?"
Goosebumps erupted over every inch of me.
A great waterfall off to the left slid naturally into view, and beneath it a plunge pool throwing up violent spray. The fairly wide river running out of it followed a stretch not far from the cliff, then bent sharply and vanished into the forest.
Forest to the left. Forest to the right. Forest straight ahead.
And below, a deep blue-green river.
"Hik."
Fear sealed my throat. I couldn't even scream.
Flailing my arms and legs, I twisted my head back, and there on the cliff was the bastard, smacking its lips as it watched me drop. Ah. So that was why it had slowed down — it knew this was a cliff.
"Uwaaah—uwaa."
Between the weird floating-guts feeling and the terror of dying in a fall, tears started spilling out of me. A bungee jump with no cord. There was a river down there, so I probably wouldn't hit bare earth and burst apart all over...!
No!! This was no time to be firing off stray thoughts!!
The proper water entry the instructor at the Phase World Marine Camp had taught: coming down from a height, one hand shields the chin, mouth, and nose, with the forearm clamped as tight to the body as possible. The other hand cups your balls. Cross your feet, and hold the body straight as a rod. What had they said the impact was like, hitting the water from a twenty-five-story apartment? I'd seen an article once about someone who went in from thirty stories up and walked away fine.
I fought with everything I had to keep my posture from twisting, so I wouldn't hit the river broadside across a wide stretch of my body. At the same time, the blue-green river rushed up to meet me.
KWARRRRRRRK!!!
A roar like the world itself collapsing slammed down over me. In swim class, jumping in only ever made a splash or a plop. Coming down from twenty-five stories, it was like a bomb going off beside my ear.
The impact felt like it was smashing my entire body to pieces, and I screamed. The shock tore my hands loose, and water slammed in through every hole I had — the pain was so bad I thought I'd pass out. Hurt this badly, and you can't even lose consciousness. B-but where was the surface? Which way? The full-body agony was one thing; I couldn't tell up from down.
"Bweghh—glub!!"
The thought that I might actually die here, unable to breathe, sent a terror through me that felt like it would stop my heart. I flailed my aching limbs in desperation and dredged up Otherworld Survival Studies. In a case like this, thrashing only made it more dangerous, so if you went limp and let your body hang slack, you'd float up to the surface on your own... was that it? Had they said that?
Miraculously recalling it, I let the strength drain from my whole body and held still, and after a moment I felt myself slowly rising. B-but it was slow! At this rate, my br-breath...! My breath was running out faster and faster, and my body was still only rising... Ah? If I'd started to rise, then up that way was the surface, wasn't it? Then I just had to swim!!
"Blub-blub-glub!"
I thrashed my arms and legs like a madman, clawing toward the surface. Br... breath! My eyeballs felt ready to burst, and my lungs shriveled and raised hell, demanding I hand over some air. The agony was enough to drive me insane. The instant I couldn't hold it any longer and opened my mouth, water surged in through my nose and mouth.
"Koff—gulp, gulp, gulp!!"
Kkeuok...!!
Churning my limbs until they nearly snapped, pouring out every scrap of potential I was fairly sure I hadn't touched even as a baby at the breast, I caught a faint light far off. The surface was right...!
SHWAAAK!
"Puh-haaak!! Koff, uweeek! Kheok—hah!!"
Fuck, I was alive!! Alive!! Uwaaaaah!!!
I flailed both arms and kicked to keep from going under, tears and snot streaming as the fresh water stung my eyes, my nose, and my throat, and I sucked in the oxygen I'd been starved of with everything I had. The moment it hit me that I hadn't died, my chest welled up and the tears came pouring out.
"Euheh—glurk, puk, koff!"
My body started sinking again. Everything hurt so badly I thought I'd die, but staying like this meant actually drowning, so I dog-paddled — the one and only stroke I knew — and struggled toward the bank.
"Uweee... kkeuugh... Koff. Hah..."
Uuuugh... I was dying. I was really dying. From a combination of factors, I was genuinely about to diiiie. My whole body ached like I'd been beaten with a club, and the river water I'd sucked in through my mouth and nose on impact was surging back up — and not content with that, pouring out of my nostrils too. Water had gotten in past my eardrums, leaving a buzzing whine, and the fresh water irritating the inside of my nose brought tears streaming down as a bonus. A skull-splitting headache came complimentary; my heart was still pounding from those few minutes of all-out sprinting, my lungs felt wrung dry, there was a stitch in my side, and my arms were shaking, my legs were shaking.
"Hah, euweek. I can't... I can't die here... Urp, koff. But, heok, I really think I'm gonna... die. Koff."
I shook. And shook.
If I had to describe my current state, a pig one step from death — waterlogged and shivering with chills — would do nicely. Wringing out every scrap of strength I had and every scrap I didn't, I crawled out of the river on all fours, and the strength I'd forcibly dredged up while fleeing that bastard earlier was hitting me now as backlash, tearing through my whole body. In the end the strength left my arms, and I collapsed on the bank with my lower half still in the river. Right now you could beat me to death and I wouldn't be able to move.
Me — someone who, short of something truly extreme, wouldn't even talk to a stranger, let alone swear — and yet in a situation like this, the curses just spilled out on their own.
"F...fuck."
My older sister hated swearing to an absurd degree, so as a rule I'd stuck to clean, pretty words — though that education had come with a generous amount of hands-on persuasion. Anyway, in this situation, I didn't think I could hold the curses in.
"A place to rest... I need... a place to rest..."
An Aberrant could come bursting out of anywhere, just like before... Resting like this was no different from suicide. I wanted nothing more than to flop flat on my back and shut my eyes this very second, but if I did, something like that Long-snouted Lean Wolf from earlier might come leaping out of nowhere. I had to find the safest place I could.
Ah, over there — a branch that looked like it might serve as a staff...
I laboriously worked my trembling limbs and crawled slowly toward a branch that looked taller than I was. At least the pebbles were all worn smooth and round, as if they'd been tumbling along the riverbank for ages, so I was spared the misfortune of having my knees, elbows, and palms gouged open and bleeding.
"Hah. Hah."
The moment I started moving, the world wheeled in front of my eyes and my heart wouldn't beat right. I was r... really going to die. A-any more of this...
...
No, no, no! If I passed out in a place like this!!
Realizing I'd blacked out for an instant, I slapped my cheeks hard, crawled the rest of the way, and at last got the branch in my hands.
"Heuugh..."
I couldn't even spare a thought for snapping off the twigs jutting out every which way. I just forced strength into my body, planted the branch as a staff, and hauled myself upright.
"Hk—"
For a second my grip went slack and I nearly sprawled, but luckily my hand caught on a twig and I avoided an ugly fall. If I'd gone down, I don't think I would have even considered getting back up...
My body trembled, and my heart thudded so hard it was difficult to breathe, which made thinking difficult too. Still, I was on my feet, so I caught my breath and desperately tried to recall what I'd read in Otherworld Survival Studies. First: I was alone here in the Phase World. Only one person got pulled into any single Phase World — that's what I'd been told, so it was certain. And there was no way the Otherworld Biology textbook had it wrong, so the Aberrants around here ought to be nothing but low-grade specimens matched to my Phase Power.
The accepted theory was some business about Phase Power distribution — that you were forcibly summoned to wherever the concentration was lowest. So since I'd only just been swept here today, there was no question that nothing nearby was stronger than I could handle. Case in point, that mutt.
"That bastard... next time I see it, I'm killing it. No matter what..."
Grinding my teeth, I looked around. Over that way — the direction I'd fallen from — I could see the plunge pool and the waterfall, and all around me stood broadleaf trees, most of them nearly ten meters tall, the big ones shooting straight up past twenty. I had no idea what kind they were, and the branches generally didn't start until about two and a half to three meters up, so if I could just get onto one of them I'd be able to rest easy... but.
"Koff. In m-my current state, absolutely impossible... Even when I was fine... huuk. It would've been... impossible. Koff."
Should I head for the waterfall? Or just rest here a while, recover some strength, and then climb? Aah, I was scared out of my mind that an Aberrant might come bursting out of somewhere. If one showed up now, I couldn't run, and I couldn't put up a proper fight either.
"Koff. Hk—"
Come to think of it, the place was full of broadleaf trees, the soil was firm, and warm sunlight came filtering down through the leaves — a broadleaf forest zone, by the look of it, one of the handful of regions considered easy to survive in. The sunlight had a quiet sting to it... summer, then? If it was this warm at this time of year, maybe somewhere near the equator? At least it wasn't some insane desert or snowfield. Small mercies.
No, before any of that — a place to rest. I had to find a place to rest.
"Uuuugh."
Yeah. The plunge pool it was.
Laboriously sharing my weight with the branch-staff, tears and snot and drool streaming, I started putting one foot in front of the other. Hero novels always tucked a place to rest behind a waterfall just like that one, and I walked on carrying the desperate wish that this one would have such a place too.