Traces (3)

Human bones are relatively easy to distinguish from those of other animals.

Even when compared to apes, which bear the closest resemblance to man, the difference is night and day. A rounded back of the skull, a squarish jawline—there was no mistaking it. I was certain.

Even after asking the Gallery just in case, the consensus was clear: it really was a human bone. And an ancient one at that, judging ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠by how utterly bleached and bare it remained.

It doesn't look like head trauma killed him.

The cranium was remarkably intact, free from any fractures or crushing blows. I set about searching to see if more of the skeleton lay nearby, but I had to throw in the towel almost immediately. I wasn't an archaeologist; sorting a specific human skeleton out of a chaotic mountain of tangled animal bones was well beyond my capabilities. Confirming that another human had once been here was more than enough.

Was this person dragged in here by an owlbear?

I needed to scour the perimeter. Setting the skull down, I began wandering through the depths of the cave. The cavern was enormous, leaving plenty of nooks and crannies to inspect.

"Wait, this is..."

Before long, I stumbled upon a spot I couldn't simply walk past: a secluded hollow nestled right beside the owlbear's nest. Two sheer stone walls rose high into the shadows, framing an unexpectedly wide recess tucked between them. Leaning forward, I poked my head through the narrow gap to take a peek.

"..."

Bones. A human skeleton sat propped peacefully against the far wall. Unlike the scattered scraps chewed up by the owlbear, this frame had been preserved in its entirety.

Slipping through the crevice, I took in the scene with wide eyes.

"Whoa..."

The space past the partition was far roomier than it looked from the outside—and strangely cozy. Thick blankets of dust and cobwebs betrayed the passage of countless years, but even with the decay, the alcove retained an undeniable warmth. What caught my eye most, however, was the scattered furniture and tools.

Most had been crafted from wood and had long since rotted away, yet a few ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still precariously held their shape.

Is that a stone axe?

It was a crude implement fashioned by binding a carved stone head to a wooden handle. The cutting edge looked as though it had been painstakingly ground down against a rougher rock, and the cordage holding it together had clearly been woven by hand from plant fibers. Unlike me, who had the Gallery as a lifeline, this person had started from scratch with bare hands.

Wait, these carvings...

I ran my fingers across the etched strokes lining the ground. They were intimately familiar. Every stroke matched the tally marks I carved into my own shelter wall at the end of each passing day—a record of surviving another dawn. Yet tallies like these were usually cut into vertical stone, not the floor. Puzzled, I lifted my gaze to scan the surrounding walls.

Filled to the brim here... and packed over there, too...

The four walls enclosing the alcove were entirely smothered in dense clusters of tally marks. With no blank rock left standing, the survivor had resorted to carving their survival count directly into the bedrock floor. It was a silent testament to just how astonishingly long they had endured.

"..."

A tidal wave of heavy emotion crashed over me. To have fought and held out for so long, only to end up as a forgotten heap of bleached bones. Even with the miracle of the Gallery on my side... could I truly hold out as long as this person did? They had survived out here far longer than I had, and by that metric, they must have been vastly stronger than me.

Yet they died. Unmourned by anyone, leaving behind nothing but an endless field of tallied days in the cold dark.

This skeleton could very well be my future.

"Haaah..."

A heavy sigh slipped past my lips, burdened by a feeling words couldn't quite capture. I couldn't tell if it was sheer despair or weary resignation. Had I remained completely ignorant of this, I might have clung blindly to hope. But seeing this made the road ahead feel dauntingly bleak. Could I ever truly make it out? For that matter, could I even survive to see tomorrow?

...I just have to keep pushing.

Judging by the sheer volume of tallies etched into the stone walls and floor, this person had endured for at least two or three years—if not considerably longer. What had ultimately killed them remained a mystery. I began turning over the dust and debris, hoping to uncover a clue about their cause of death. The Forest of the Four Seasons had forced even an utterly clueless modern guy like me to grow exponentially stronger; someone who survived two to three years here couldn't have died easily.

"Hm?"

As I methodically combed the perimeter, something unusual caught my eye: a wooden chest resting in the far corner. Despite the ages that had rolled by, it remained miraculously intact. Given the undisturbed carpet of gray dust settled across its lid, not even a crawling spider had disturbed it in decades.

Better safe than sorry...

I nudged the latch with the tip of my sword, wary that some lethal critter might come bursting out. Fortunately, my paranoia proved groundless; the lid clattered loose without any sinister surprises.

What could be inside? Did they hoard water bottles like I do?

Suppressing a faint flutter of anticipation, I slowly eased the lid open. A sudden puff of powdery dust set me coughing, but once the air cleared, the contents came into view.

"...Books?"

The chest held very little—just a small stack of bound volumes. They had been remarkably well-preserved against the elements, their pages virtually undamaged. Handling the brittle leather with utmost care lest the binding crumble, I lifted the topmost volume into the light. Faded letters were scribbled across the weathered cover.

Figures. Can't read a word of it.

I didn't recognize a single character from this world's languages, though the flowing script bore a passing resemblance to European alphabets. In times like this, nothing beats the Gallery. Raising my phone, I snapped detailed photos of the entire shelter.

Every response drew a blank. Considering how few major nations existed across the known realms, one would expect a smaller variety of languages, making this collective confusion rather bizarre. Deciding it was best to follow the anonymous commenter's advice, I pinched the edge of a brittle page and turned it.

A stale, musty draft puffed from the paper, but the leaf held together without tearing.

It's yellowed with age, but the text is still completely legible.

All that was left was to post detailed pictures to the Gallery. I silently prayed that someone out there would recognize the handwriting.

Books served as a bridge connecting the past to the present. If that bridge collapsed midway through history, vast swaths of recorded knowledge, lore, and technology were lost to the void. There was a reason tyrants and conquerors always put libraries to the torch when they sought to erase an era.

If it's an extinct language, decoding it is going to be an uphill battle.

Regardless of the realm, time inexorably reshaped everything it touched, and language was no exception. The words of the ancient past rarely matched those spoken in the present. Unforeseen twists of history always left their mark; back in the Republic of Korea, the Japanese colonial period had forcibly warped aspects of the language, and comparing the original Hunminjeongeum promulgated by King Sejong to modern Korean revealed stark, undeniable divides.

And there's a whole collection of these here.

I flipped through a few more pages before inspecting the rest of the volumes in the chest. All were in similarly pristine condition, each page blanketed in unfamiliar glyphs. If only I could decipher the whole set. The sheer wealth of survival wisdom waiting in these bindings would be an invaluable lifeline.

I might as well take the whole lot and photograph them.

The Gallery was my only avenue for translation anyway. Rather than piecemeal uploads, scanning them all at my own pace made far more sense. Carefully nestling the volumes back into the chest to shield them from moisture and friction, I slipped the entire container into my sub-dimensional pouch.

A second search around the hollow yielded nothing else of practical use.

I suppose the pendant around the skull is the only other item of note.

Resting against the skeleton's collarbones was an intact necklace—or more accurately, a pendant set with a vivid red gemstone that looked remarkably expensive. Taking it off wouldn't do me any good; what use did an emerald or ruby have in an uncivilized wilderness? I decided to leave it resting where it belonged.

This person must have desperately missed other human beings, too.

I stared quietly down at the silent bones leaning against the stone. Beyond loneliness, an overwhelming aura of sorrow clung to the frame, tugging at my heartstrings. They, too, must have longed to escape this lethal forest, only to watch that dream slip away into the dark.

Convicts dumped here have their eyes plucked out, but this person wrote detailed journals.

They hadn't been thrown in as sacrificial trash. They were likely a stranded traveler, or someone trapped by some tragic twist of fate. Standing before the silent remains, I opened the Gallery interface, purchased a sturdy cloth sack, and began gently gathering the bones inside one by one.

Bear with me just until we reach my camp, elder.

Perhaps it was because I had always meticulously observed my parents' memorial rites back home, or perhaps it was simply my nature, but walking away and leaving these bones sprawled in the dirt felt like a betrayal of common human decency. The animal-eaten remains outside were beyond my help, but this body was whole. Slinging the sack over my shoulder, I stepped out from between the twin stone walls.

Outside, Wonmo was busily chasing a fluttering butterfly near the rim of the nest.

"Wonmo. Time to head back."

"Kkyu!"

That was enough exploration for one day. Once we returned to the cave, my first order of business would be taking clear photos of the manuscripts to upload. The faster I unraveled their contents, the sooner I could harvest whatever survival secrets they held.

And while I'm at it, I should hold a proper funeral rite.

I had no idea if this world practiced memorial services, but it was the right thing to do. As that commenter had joked, this person was my grand senior in survival, and this skeleton could very well mirror my own fate down the line. The legacy they left behind would become an immense asset for my continued survival.

After a steady trek back to camp, I unloaded my gear and surveyed the immediate surroundings, looking for an appropriate patch of earth to serve as a grave.

Over there will do nicely.

Of course, the burial could wait; prioritizing the texts came first. I retrieved the chest from my pouch and set it beside my bedroll.

Did anyone on the forum figure it out yet?

A decent chunk of time had elapsed since I posted the interior page. By now, the scholars among the regulars might have pieced together the origins of the script. With a modest surge of hope, I tapped back into the Gallery network.

It appeared Allfather had succeeded in deciphering the text.