Chapter 1: My Skill Is...
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 1: My Skill Is...
"Fuck...!"
The sun had long since finished its duty, and even the moonlight was smothered by clouds. It was a pitch-black night deep within the forest.
The fog was so thick I couldn't see an inch in front of me. Heavy, rhythmic raindrops hammered against the ground, scattering my screams so that no one could hear them.
My gambeson, made of layers of tough cloth designed to protect my body, had soaked up so much rainwater that it weighed down on my shoulders like lead. The pouch on my belt, its leather strap torn away, was hollow and light.
The mid-April wind, still retaining its winter chill, cooled my body to the bone.
The 3rd floor of the Labyrinth.
Only the 3rd floor.
And yet, I was on the verge of death.
The lantern that should have lit the night had flickered out after spilling its oil. I could have relit it if I had more fuel, but I threw the heavy metal casing to the ground. If I tried to carry it any further for the sake of 'next time,' there wouldn't be a next time.
The grain cubes I’d packed to stave off hunger had turned into an inedible mush inside my pouch, ruined by the rain.
"Huff...! Pant...!!"
Despite running without pause, I didn't feel like I would make it. The hunters of the dark were still hot on my trail.
But continuing to run like this was a guaranteed death sentence.
Inside the dense evergreen forest, I slowly reduced my speed and drew my sword from its sheath.
"Come at me, you bastards!!"
A cornered prey barks the loudest. For the sake of a guaranteed kill, the hunters grow silent and cautious.
—Grrrr...!
Heavy rain, thick fog, and moonlight hidden by clouds. In a forest without a single ray of light, only their eyes shone brightly, emitting a vivid yellow glow.
Six Direwolves.
They were monsters that began appearing on the 2nd floor and were common on the 3rd. Most people called them weak—creatures that could be killed with a single swing or even a punch.
"Sssph...!"
I swung my sword at the one lunging toward me. Perhaps it was the proximity of death, but my entire body felt hyper-sensitive.
Squelch—
I managed a shallow cut on its front leg, but it wasn't enough. In that split second, another Direwolf leaped from the side and tore into my left shin.
"Aaaagh!"
I plunged my sword into the back of the beast clinging to my leg, yanked it out, and thrust it forward.
—Yelp...!
As I drove the blade deep into its gaping maw, another one leaped high and bit into my right shoulder, tackling me to the ground.
"Urgh... you son of a bitch...!"
I grabbed its legs and forced it off me, but the gambeson around my shoulder was shredded, and the muscle was ruined. Strength drained from my right arm.
Another one approached from behind, its jaws wide as it went for my face. I reacted instinctively, jerking my head to the right, but its fangs still tore through my eyelid, and my left eye lost its function.
Lying on the ground, I kicked out wildly to keep the others at bay.
While I was down, two Direwolves had gnawed on my limp right forearm, forcing me to drop my sword. My arm was now little more than minced meat, leaking blood onto the forest floor.
Blood seeped from my torn eyelid, and a bitter taste filled my mouth. I managed to scramble up and, with a stroke of luck, delivered a powerful kick with the tip of my sturdy leather boot. I felt ribs shatter and organs crush under the blow.
Groping the ground, I found my fallen sword and gripped it with my left hand. It was a small victory, but I wasn't used to swinging with my left, and since I couldn't see, the blade struck a tree and snapped.
I slammed the blunt end of the broken hilt into the eye of the wolf clinging to my thigh, crushing the socket, and then shoved my fingers deep into the hole.
—Growl... Bark!!
Because I fought like a man possessed, the situation shifted.
"Now you're the ones barking."
A cornered prey barks the loudest. For the sake of a guaranteed kill, the hunters grow silent and cautious.
The last remaining Direwolf kept its belly low to the ground, glaring at me warily.
In my left hand was a broken hilt. My right arm was mangled meat, dripping blood.
My left shin had been bitten hard, but the thick leather boots had effectively protected the skin. I could feel warm blood leaking from my right thigh, only to be washed away by the rain.
I brushed back my rain-soaked hair and took a deep breath.
My vision was halved and blurry, but the creature's yellow eyes served as a perfect beacon.
—Woof!!
I lunged forward and kicked at its face. As my right leg grazed its snout, the beast bit down hard.
I slammed the pommel of the hilt in my left hand onto the Direwolf's crown. Moments later, its jaw slackened, and it collapsed.
"Huff, huff. I... I lived...."
I lived.
Did I?
"No, I'm going to die."
I had won the fight, but I hadn't survived. Blood was pouring from my entire body; if I stayed like this, the end was obvious.
In the middle of a freezing night, soaked to the bone by rain, I would likely die of hypothermia before long.
Then why the hell did I fight so desperately? I wasn't going to make it anyway.
"Fuck...! Fuuuuuck—!!"
If only I had a skill. If only I had a skill like everyone else.
No, that wasn't right.
A skill. I actually had one. The problem was that it wasn't a proper skill. It was something I had obtained earlier than most, after finishing my second run of the Labyrinth.
* * *
When I went to the Appraisal Office to have it identified, the appraiser had a look of shock on his face.
"This is... a skill I've never seen before. I think you'll have to use it yourself to figure out the effect..."
Using the skill wasn't easy. I had no sense for such unscientific phenomena, let alone magic.
They said a skill activates through will, but I didn't truly understand what that 'will' was, so I couldn't use it for a long time.
In the end, I entered the Labyrinth again without being able to use it.
Just as I was beginning to feel a sense of helplessness, I used the skill for the first time. It seemed my strengthened desire and will had finally triggered it.
But when I used the skill, my right forearm turned into the steak I had eaten the night before.
"Fuck."
Everything below my right elbow had become a well-grilled hunk of meat, dangling uselessly.
No matter how I looked at it, it was the exact same meat I’d had for dinner.
For about two days, I wallowed in despair, sobbing in my room at the inn.
I thought I’d have to live the rest of my life without a right arm, but as they say, every cloud has a silver lining.
After a night of desperate attempts, I somehow managed to return my arm to its original state.
"What a shitty world."
It was a skill that usually took months of Labyrinth time to acquire, and I had ended up with something pathetic.
In the evenings in the Labyrinth City, the inns were filled with people. There were the winners, boasting about the powerful skills they’d obtained, and the novice explorers who looked at them with envy, hoping they would find something just as strong.
And then there were the losers, who had obtained skills that were more like curses.
I didn't want to admit it, but I was one of the losers.
Even if I had obtained mine during my second dive, it didn't change the fact that it fell far short of expectations.
"Doesn't that mean you can recreate anything you eat?"
I ignored the words of a drunken explorer at the inn. The ability to recreate food you'd eaten might have been great, but the ability to turn your own body into that food was undeniably stupid.
The only ones who would benefit from my body becoming delicious food were the wolves currently struggling to eat me.
If there was any silver lining, it was that the skill didn't actually decrease my combat power.
I knew there were people who had acquired far more horrific skills—things that made it impossible for them to fight at all.
I hadn't moved forward, but I hadn't stepped backward either. That was my only consolation.
Of course, because my first skill was so god-awful, my morale was in the gutter.
With combat power that hadn't changed despite having a skill...
I headed into the Labyrinth again. And again. And several times after that. Then came my sixth trip.
The other members of my party had already promoted their Explorer Grade and left to find teammates who matched their level.
To put it bluntly, they had cut loose the teammate who couldn't keep up.
In a Labyrinth where magic and skills flew wildly and monsters that defied common sense roamed, there was nothing I could do. I only possessed the martial prowess of an average adult male.
And so, here I was.
Only the 3rd floor. I’d spilled the oil for my lantern, and I had no food left.
The blade and grip of my trusty one-handed sword had said their goodbyes. My gambeson was torn and heavy with water, making it feel cold and oppressive. My bitten forearm was in tatters.
I had won a desperate fight, but I didn't think I could survive.
My body temperature was dropping rapidly from blood loss. It wasn't even full spring yet; the moment the sun went down, the temperature plummeted.
My left eye was completely ruined, the eyelid shredded by a fang.
A right forearm that was now minced meat, leaking blood in real-time. Half my vision gone. A cold, heavy gambeson soaked in rain. Muscles screaming in agony.
What the hell did I fight for?
If I was going to die anyway, should I have just let these Direwolf bastards have a nice meal? No, no matter how I thought about it, that wasn't it.
What was it? What was so damn delicious about me?
"You dog-like bastards...."
I stared at the six Direwolf corpses scattered around me and thought.
"Haa..."
Whether it's food poisoning or parasites.
"It's better than dying."
Crunch.
With a 'come what may' attitude, I shoved the raw meat into my mouth. If they had killed me, they would have torn my corpse apart just like this.
Since I was the winner of this fight, it was my turn to tear them apart.
Munch—
The rain grew heavier.
I had finished the water in my canteen, so this was actually better.
Thanks to my thick leather gloves, I was able to grip the blade of the broken sword and roughly skin the beast.
Thighs, chest... skip the intestines. I chewed on the lungs and swallowed the eyeballs.
I wasn't the type to believe in superstitions like 'eating an eye makes your vision better.'
But I had already eaten the raw meat, which smelled foul.
I simply put the parts that weren't covered in fur and were easy to dig out into my mouth.
The wolf whose eye I ate was the same one that had torn my face.
The tough, raw meat went down my throat without being properly chewed. It was so large I could feel the shape of the hunk of meat sliding slowly down my esophagus.
Finally, I tore out and ate the heart. They say the heart is the essence of life.
To clear my clogged throat, I cut an artery and drank the blood. I stood with my mouth open toward the sky for several minutes so the dried blood wouldn't stick to the inside of my mouth.
Once the rainwater pooled in my mouth, I swished it around like mouthwash to rinse out the blood and spat it onto the ground.
I wrapped the mangled Direwolf corpses around myself and tried to sleep. Since they had been dead for less than thirty minutes, the warmth from when they were alive hadn't fully dissipated. It was warmer to sleep clutching them.
The scent of raw blood filling my stomach rose up my throat and stung my nose, but eventually, the horrific nausea was overtaken by exhaustion.
Praying that I would see the sun the next morning, I leaned against a tree and fell asleep.
And when I opened my eyes in the morning, my vision had returned.
Well, half of it. Or was it a quarter?
"My eye... why is it like this...?"
My right eye was fine. It was doing its job as usual.
But not the left.
I had definitely lost it last night while fighting the wolves.
"I can see... but it's a bit duller..."
A cold fog had settled. Low weeds were dripping with dew. I wondered how I had survived that freezing night.
Outside, the sunlight was peeking through.
The Direwolf corpses I’d slept with must have leaked blood from their wounds during the night; the ground where I lay was soaked.
The problem was, the color of the blood wasn't red.
"Red-green color blind...? I developed color blindness because I was hurt?"
It didn't make sense. If the eyeball was destroyed, I shouldn't be able to see anything, so why was I just unable to distinguish colors?
The wolf blood had dried on my back and the ground, making a crackling sound as I stood up.
I brushed off my back, and flakes of dried blood fell like withered paint.
Thinking I should at least wash my face, I looked into a puddle formed by the rain. And then, I understood why.
"This is..."
The brilliant golden eye characteristic of a Direwolf.
My dark Korean pupil was gone, and a wolf's eyeball had burrowed into my left socket and taken root.
And instinctively, I realized.
'Doesn't that mean you can recreate anything you eat?'
My skill... was the ability to turn whatever I put in my mouth into a part of my body.