Day Two: The Giant (1)
The spot I'd chosen was a fork where two branches split off from the trunk. The gap between them wasn't wide, so as long as I settled myself properly there was no real chance of falling, and it was a place where I could sit and rest in comfort.
I paused to catch my breath, then looked over everything I had that might help me survive the fifteen days ahead.
First, a thick school-uniform jacket in deep blue, trousers of the same color and the same weight, and a tough, sturdy shirt.
There had been a necktie. It was gone. Wallet, phone, money, every scrap of miscellaneous junk I carried—all of it had vanished. All that remained were the clothes on my body and my shoes.
They said that the first time you were sucked into the Phase World, everything dropped away at the moment of summoning except whatever covered more than a certain area of your body. So it really was true.
Once the world had turned into this wreck and no one could know when they might be abducted into the Phase World, the adults had started making clothes, shoes, belts, and the rest—drawing on every fact known so far—to push the odds of survival as high as they could.
And the sturdiest thing among them was the school uniform I had on right now.
For something that was only clothes, they'd made it of a special material so that even a decent knife-thrust wouldn't punch through. The insulation was extraordinary on top of that. Which was why the uniform had come through intact when I climbed the tree earlier.
The uniform I was wearing would probably stop that bastard's bite at least once. Not perfectly, of course. If it got my arm, it would keep the arm from being torn clean off. That was the extent of it.
At any rate, I'd heard the country had passed a law requiring students to wear special uniforms like this in case of a forced summoning to the Phase World, and I found myself unexpectedly grateful. This was about the only thing here that might actually protect my body.
I felt along my waist and fiddled with the belt fastened there.
This, too, was the adults' handiwork: a leather belt you could eat. They'd put it through a special process so that not a single chemical harmful to the body went into making it, and if you only stored it properly, it would keep for a year without complaint. That was what they'd said, wasn't it?
Which also made it a pain to look after. Once every two weeks the school checked whether we were maintaining them properly, and they even scored the quality inspection as part of our grades.
But it was useful in equal measure. It wouldn't be pleasant to eat, yet if you tore a piece off and forced it down, you could put back a fair number of calories—enough that you wouldn't have to go courting danger on purpose just to scrounge for food.
Put bluntly, you could hide and live on nothing but this for fifteen days and come out all right.
They said a length about one segment of my finger came to a meal's worth of calories. Let's see, the belt was about six and a half feet, so... ah, forget it. They'd said that if you rationed it you could last twenty days, so I'd just ration it too.
Turning the belt over in my fingers, I thought of the discipline teacher who'd stood at the school gate, picking apart the state of our clothes. He'd check whether we were dressed according to the rules, dock our conduct scores if we were missing even one thing, and force the clothes onto us.
It had been a nuisance and an irritation back then. But now that I'd been dragged by force into the Phase World, I was struck by how remarkable the teachers were—and the adults who'd prepared uniforms and belts and shoes like these and made us wear them whether we wanted to or not. I was grateful, too.
I sighed and kept fiddling with the belt. If I made it out of here alive, I'd have to make my sister wear one, no arguments. The thought of not even having an emergency-ration belt was too horrible to dwell on.
Out of nowhere, I remembered the kid from the neighboring school who'd died even with clothes and an edible belt like these.
......
Turning it all over, I found it remarkable that I hadn't fallen into a panic. Maybe my nerves were thicker than I'd thought?
...No. That didn't seem right. Even now I was scared to death that some Aberrant might appear out of nowhere....
I sorted through my thoughts and steadied my breathing for a while, then let out a sigh and looked down past my feet. Branches and leaves blocked a good deal of the view. Thanks to that, I figured that even if something showed up below, it wouldn't spot me.
A look around told me the same: with the foliage this thick, there was no chance my position would be given away to the outside.
"They said flying-type Aberrants never appeared during the first cycle of the Phase World, so I should be fine."
Thinking I ought to rest a little, I closed my eyes—and everything I'd just been through flashed past like a reel.
The moment I arrived in the Phase World, that dog-bastard chased me and chased me, and I'd bungee-jumped with no cord off a cliff the height of a twenty-five-story building and hit the river... Of my entire eighteen years, today had to be the most eventful.
The thought that I'd survived the first crisis drew a sigh of relief out of me on its own. More than anything, I was so glad I wasn't hurt anywhere that I felt like I might actually tear up a little.
And then a thought brushed past, and goosebumps broke out all over my body.
"Good thing the river ran deep. If it'd been even a little shallower... ugh."
A shudder ran through me, and then I wanted to lie down and rest more comfortably. They say that once you're standing you want to sit, and once you're sitting you want to lie down—that's just how people are... And to make matters worse, the instant I decided I was safe, the tension drained away and sleep came crashing down.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
I hauled both hands up and slapped my cheeks over and over, driving the sleep off. I was unbelievably tired, but there was no guarantee this place was a hundred percent safe. If I fell asleep now, I'd lose my grip entirely and sleep like the dead. And if that happened... ugh...
...Hah!
Ugh. I can't sleep. I can't... If an Aberrant shows up...
"Aaaah—aaah—aaah."
I tried using my voice to force myself awake, but it did absolutely nothing.
Ugh... I really can't hold out.
Through the fog in my head, it occurred to me that I ought to make a cord and tie myself to the trunk.
Bobbing my head to fight the drowsiness, I took off the uniform jacket, undid the belt, and bound the two together into one long line. Stretched out, it came to a fair length. Because I'd climbed so high, the trunk up here had narrowed considerably; this ought to be enough to tie myself in place.
Sleep had my head and body barely working, but I wrestled with the trunk for a while, arms wrapped around it, and managed to fix myself to the tree.
There... that'll do. Even if I die, I'll sleep... and then die.
With the thought that I couldn't hold on any longer, I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the sleep bearing down on me.
"Hey, Jung Seoha, you! Why won't you listen, and why do you keep saying weird stuff like that!"
"Hmph. A foolish question."
I swept the hair out of my eyes with a dramatic flourish and glared at the secret knight-commander of a hostile nation, concealing her true self behind the guise of my sister!
"This is the true form of this body! A body destined to reign as the strongest Anomalous Ability User in the world! Is it not only natural that talk fit for base commoners lies beyond me!"
"Auuugh... Seriously~! Cut it out, okay? Your sister's begging you!"
"Foolish one! Accept reality and worship this body! And revere me!"
"Youuu—!"
"If it is now, I shall let your true identity pass unquestioned! As for me... kek!"
Th-this treachery! To attack my thigh so cheaply while I, the sovereign, am in the middle of speaking!
"I swear—!"
"Such baseness! A surprise strike to paralyze this one's thigh! And yet this body does not raise a hand against a woman—gack! Gack!"
"Why are you like this! Keep it up and I'm telling Dad! You're going to be in huge trouble, you know that?!"
"Urgh—ugh! I'm the one getting hit, so why is the knight-commander of a hostile nation the one getting angry! I'm the one who should be angry!"
Ugh! To be forced into a commoner's manner of speech... Terrifying!
"Fearsome indeed! To shatter this one's mental barrier, invade, and make me speak like a commoner! And yet I do not bow to violence! That is my self-respect! It is the pride of this body!"
"Uuuuugh~!"
Hgh—a scratching attack?!
"N-now this body is at a disadvantage...! But I will not give up like this! Retreat!!"
"Nnngh..."
My neck hurt, somehow. I was thirsty, too. My body wouldn't quite move, so I squirmed and forced my eyes open—and found leaves and twigs crowded all around me.
"...Where am I?"
Kkh. My throat had locked up, and my voice wouldn't come out right. And what was I doing at the top of a tree... Aaah!!
"Right. This is the Phase World."
I had the nagging sense I'd dreamed something unsettled—someone tormenting me—but I couldn't remember what it had been about.
Maybe it was the aftermath of the adrenaline; my whole body hung heavy as cotton soaked through with water. I'd gulped down that much fresh water and my mouth was still parched, so I must have slept a long while. My stamina seemed to have recovered. The problem was...
"...It's bright?"
The sun sat somewhere else, everything around me was far too bright, and the smell of the air had changed. When I held still and listened, leaves rustled in the wind, and from far off came the cries of birds I'd never heard before.
The only birds I knew went cheep-cheep, or caw, or let out a harsh squawk, but putting all of it together...
"Don't tell me I slept the entire day."
Blood started moving through my head little by little, and my thoughts began to pick up speed.
My watch and my phone had both vanished when I was flung into the Phase World, so there was no way to check the time. Being chased by that bastard dog, jumping off the cliff, hauling myself up the tree—that had eaten a fair amount of time... Had it? Definitely more than an hour. Not quite two.
Which meant the sun ought to have been sitting at the crown of the sky, pouring out heat. Instead a strangely cold air clung to everything around me.
"And more than anything, my clothes and shoes are completely dry."
Nnngh. Ow—my backside had gone raw, and a blister had come up, and it hurt... Ghk! A cramp, in my foot—! Ugh.
Still, it was a mercy this was a warm broadleaf forest. There'd been a moment when freezing to death in the cold and eating a game over wouldn't have been the least bit strange.
I kneaded the cramped leg hard and looked around.
Otherworld Survival Studies called the night the most dangerous time, when every threat imaginable could appear. You were supposed to be careful, and careful again, before night fell—and I'd meant to rest for a moment and burned through an entire day.
I was going to have to be truly careful from here on.
Slowly I moved my arms and legs and rolled my neck, working the stiffness out of my body. The cramp hadn't fully gone, so a prickling lingered, but it didn't get in the way of moving.
After a sleep—no, after blacking out—my head had gone clear, and reality was coming into focus bit by bit.
I had to endure more than fifteen days in this place, alone. Dodging Aberrants that would try to kill me the moment they noticed me.
Thinking about it dragged my mood down further and further. Above all, in a Phase World where even adults had only a fifty-fifty chance of surviving among the Aberrants, what could I possibly do—someone whose only skills were games and delusions?
The first day, adrenaline and luck had let me spend the time safely at the top of a tree like this. There was no law saying the remaining fourteen days would be anywhere near as kind.
My body's recovery had improved. But would that help me survive wedged in among monsters?
Otherworld Survival Studies said that in your first Phase World, you were to awaken as an ability user by any means necessary, and that until you gained an ability, you were to avoid fighting Aberrants.
Without at least a bare minimum of ability and skill, even if you fought an Aberrant and won, the odds were high you'd die from the aftermath of the battle. That was what it said.
Honestly, even that dog... that thing up on the cliff. If those filthy claws had so much as raked me, I might have caught tetanus.
They said you could light a fire and sear a wound for first aid. But I was supposed to do something that terrifying and painful with my own hands?
...The idea of getting chased by that bastard dog and finishing it with a chokeslam had been nothing more than bravado. A gamble.
It wheezed and slobbered, a scrawny mutt with stamina as garbage as mine and not a scrap of muscle on it—but it was still an Aberrant possessed of Phase Power. Not an opponent a shitty high schooler with absolutely nothing special about him could beat...
A chill crept over me, and goosebumps rose across my whole body. What an ignorant, absurd thought that had been.
My brain must have been made of game-brain. Somewhere underneath, I'd assumed that if I just took that bastard dog down, things would work out somehow—that there was no way I'd die easily in a place like this.
...No. Dwell on nothing but bleak thoughts, and even the luck that had been coming my way would turn and flee. Survival studies taught that, too. The enemy outside was the Aberrant, but the real enemy was yourself. Sink into nothing but gloom and despair, telling yourself "I can't do it!!", and you'd drop dead even in a place where you could have lived.
I kept loosening my body and strained to recall the survival studies I'd learned at school.
That was when it happened.
Thud!
Thud!!
Thud!!!
All at once the ground boomed, and the tree shook up and down.
Wh-what?
An unidentifiable roar and a vibration sent cold sweat breaking over my whole body, and my heart began to hammer out of control.
THOOM!!! THOOM!!! THUD!!!
The rumble in the earth swelled and swelled. Swallowed by an unknown terror, my heart took off at a mad sprint; blood rushed to my head, and a headache came crushing in.
I forced myself to ignore the drum of my heart against my eardrums, held my breath, and rolled my eyes this way and that, trying to make out what had appeared around me.
Thud!! Thud!! Thud!! Thud!!
My heart thudded in time with the shaking, and it felt as if opening my mouth would send it leaping straight out.
I clamped both hands over my mouth and nose and trembled, and just as I decided the sound shaking the ground was drawing nearer—
Fsssh.
Something struck the tree I was hiding in and swept on past.