Chapter 2
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 002
Chapter Title: Abomination
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Early dawn.
The crow's caw pierced through his sleep. Kim Woojin stirred groggily, blinking his eyes a few times.
"......Am I still alive?"
He'd lost so much blood that he was sure he'd died, yet somehow his eyes had opened.
Where was this?
He glanced around.
A narrow crevice in the rock, barely wide enough for one person. Woojin was crammed inside, lying there like a child who'd crawled under the bed.
When he moved his arm slightly, a clump of dry fallen leaves piled on top of him rustled down. And that familiar moldy stench stung his nose.
"Ah, damn it."
A curse slipped out like a sigh. He'd figured out roughly where he was.
"This is...... my nightmare."
This was the dream world that had tormented him for over a decade. No doubt about it. This rock crevice was the hiding spot he'd been using these past few days.
To freely travel between the dream and reality, he needed a safe hiding place where he could sleep securely.
Sleep was the bridge connecting the two worlds. Sleeping in reality took him to the dream world. Sleeping in the dream brought him back to reality.
That's why Woojin had always worked to secure safe hiding spots in the dream world. Waking up by killing himself was unpleasant in every way...
......But that line of thought sparked a question.
"What happens if I die now?"
Dying in the dream didn't matter. No matter how many times.
It just woke him up. Lie down in bed, go back to sleep, and he'd return to the dream world.
But Woojin had just collapsed in the real world. Massive blood loss, enough to confirm death.
If his real body was already dead...... what would happen to his mind with no place to return when he woke from this dream?
"......This doesn't feel good."
Better to play it safe.
But holing up in this crevice forever wasn't an option either. To survive, he needed supplies. Water, food, firewood...... things hard to come by in this barren land.
Abandoning action out of fear only invited greater danger.
"Let's move for now."
Woojin shoved aside the leaf clumps covering him. He crawled out of the crevice and looked around. The familiar, tiresome landscape filled his view.
Skeletal, twisted trees like an old woman's gnarled fingers. Black mold and moss blanketed the ground, and the sky was choked with unnatural storm clouds, letting in almost no sunlight.
"At least I can still see."
If he could see clearly without a torch, it was midday. Woojin scanned the surroundings and set off without hesitation.
No compass or map. But Woojin had his own way of navigating.
"Toward the lighter shadows."
The deeper into the forest, the darker the clouds grew, and the thicker the shadows on the ground.
Monsters preferred dark, shadowy places. The deeper you went, the more dangerous they became. Best to avoid them.
So every time he entered the dream world, Woojin headed toward the lighter shadows.
It wasn't easy. Dying in the dream respawned him at the starting point from long ago.
The spot where Kim Woojin from twelve years ago first encountered this world. That starting point had much thicker shadows than here.
"......Not something I'd want to do twice."
Escaping unscathed from the forest's depths was incredibly hard. It had taken luck, endless deaths, and built-up experience.
Compared to that, this outskirts area was peaceful.
The visible beasts were generally small and timid, not rushing in recklessly. Plenty bolted the moment they spotted Woojin.
Woojin strolled leisurely without conflict. But this quiet atmosphere was just another trap preying on travelers' lives.
Whoosh—
A strange wind sound. Woojin instinctively dropped low.
Swoosh!
Something grazed over his head. A bat with black, massive wings. Its sharpened talons gleamed wickedly.
"Blade Bat."
That's what Woojin called it.
Blade Bats were masters of ambush. They clung to branches, waiting for prey to pass, then swooped down to rake the neck with their claws.
Flap, flap—
The bat crash-landed, wings thrashing wildly as it flipped over. It couldn't right itself. A dagger was embedded in its side.
Woojin's dagger.
"Hit it."
He'd thrown it when it grazed past. A hasty toss with no expectation of a hit, but luck had driven it straight into the bat's body.
Woojin approached the flailing bat. His hand gripped the machete at his waist. Its dark blue blade shimmered faintly.
"Kyaaak!!"
The bat shrieked fiercely, baring its fangs. Futile struggling.
Slash!
The swung blade neatly split the bat's skull. It collapsed, lifeless. Woojin wrenched the machete free, and thick blood strung out like a thread.
The bat was dead.
"Good...... better process it quick."
Truth be told, cleanup was more hassle than the kill.
Woojin pulled the dagger from the bat's side. Then he sliced off the head, slit the belly, and yanked out the guts. His hands moved with astonishing speed.
The bat carcass was prepped in seconds.
As it neared finishing, Woojin's hand suddenly stopped. He tilted his head, listening.
......Grulk.
A bizarre sound from afar.
"It's coming."
Woojin's hands sped up. He finished quickly, stood, and swung the machete.
A nearby innocent tree took two hits. Black sap oozed from the split trunk, reeking stronger than pine.
Woojin hastily washed his bloody hands and weapons in the sap. He wrapped the bat meat in sap-soaked leather and buried it deep under the tree's leaves.
"This should do."
Finishing in a flash, Woojin ducked behind a nearby rock. Soon, heavy footsteps approached.
He peeked out. A humanoid pile of flesh walking on two legs. Its flabby mass jiggled with each step. Black ooze dribbled from empty eye sockets.
Abomination.
While Blade Bats resembled beasts somewhat, heavily mutated monsters looked utterly unlike living things. Woojin lumped them as Abominations.
"Pretty big one."
It stood over two meters. Its girth was like a massive tree trunk.
Grulk, grulk—
The Abomination lumbered forward, emitting grotesque cries. Its fat fingers groped the air, searching.
The reason for its fumbling: degenerated eyes, blind. Most Abominations seemed plagued by rotting, oozing eyeballs.
Sniff, sniff.
Its nostrils flared nonstop. Suddenly, it halted. Its jaw split sideways, a long tongue lolling out.
The serpentine tongue slithered over the dirt. Its tip lapped up the pooled bat blood and guts.
Naturally, bat innards couldn't sate that massive bulk's hunger.
The Abomination sniffed relentlessly, hunting the meat and whatever took it. But all it caught was the pungent tree sap.
Grrooo......
After wandering a while, it finally gave up and turned away. Its back receded into the distance.
"......Safe now."
Woojin emerged from behind the rock. Dodging Abominations like this was beneficial in many ways.
Ferocious temperament, immense strength, tough hide. High-difficulty prey.
The local beasts' timidity was likely due to it. Prolonged fights would draw it with the noise.
"No need to clash with an Abomination."
He could kill that one if he wanted...... but no point risking it. Not worth the effort.
Woojin retrieved the buried bat meat. He glanced up at the sky.
"Sunset soon."
The sky had grown even murkier. Time to prep for night.
He'd scouted a hiding spot earlier: under a tree stump with a severed trunk, a decent-sized burrow.
Setting up there, Woojin gathered twigs for firewood. Soon, a proper campfire blazed.
He dragged a burning log out, gripped it as a torch, and approached the burrow. He shone the light inside, inspecting closely.
"......Empty."
Webs at the entrance and lack of traces suggested it'd been abandoned for a while.
He'd planned to deal with any squatters. Luck was on his side—no hassle.
Woojin burned away the entrance webs with the torch and returned to the fire. Sitting, he checked his weapons.
Three daggers, versatile machete, round wooden shield rimmed with iron.
"Better maintain them while I can."
He wiped the used dagger with thick cloth. Sticky sap smeared off as he rubbed.
Then, Woojin paused, staring at the dagger. Its mirror-polished blade reflected his face.
Messy gray hair. Beneath, a young man's face, mid-twenties at most.
"Always feels weird."
Seeing someone else's face in the mirror never got less strange.
Every dream, Woojin awoke in this young man's perspective. Like "possession" in subculture tales. He'd lived the dream world in this body all along.
A body he'd shared for quite some time.
But Kim Woojin knew nothing about the man in the mirror. Origin, age, even name...
"......At least I know one thing."
A forgotten item came to mind.
He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a round metal medallion. Strange script was engraved on it.
Letters from some unknown land, utterly alien. Yet Woojin could somehow read and understand them.
[3rd Class Mercenary]
This Mercenary Badge was what Kim Woojin had from the moment he first opened his eyes in the dream world. So he assumed the body's original job was mercenary.
"3rd Class Mercenary...... doesn't sound great."
Middling rank. Not low enough to scorn, but nothing impressive. Probably not a rank to take pride in.
The lack of a name on the badge supported that. No need to worry about loss if it wasn't enviable. They'd have engraved a name otherwise.
So Kim Woojin felt no attachment to it. He tossed the badge aside casually and stared into the campfire as the wood burned white.
"......Time to check."
Quite some time had passed.
Woojin poked the fire with a long stick, shoving logs aside. He dug into the ash and dirt below. A round dirt clump rolled out from underground.
He tapped it with the stick. The exterior cracked, revealing well-cooked bat meat inside.
Bury the wrapped meat, build a fire on top, cook with ground heat. No roasting smell to attract beasts.
Woojin tore into a cooked bat leg and ate. He nodded in satisfaction.
"A bit chewy, but edible."
Not a bad end to the day.