I Am a Natural Person

The summoning of an outer god and demon who would commit divine slaughter and bring about the world's destruction had been a complete success.

The only problem was that the one summoned… was me.

For starters, the physical stats of this body had been built with a warrior specialization in mind. My core physical attributes—strength, constitution, agility, and endurance—sat around forty, while the remaining stats clocked in at thirty-five for dexterity and thirty-two for magical power.

That probably doesn't mean much without context, so let me break it down. Picture a reasonably fit, well-built man who works out regularly; his physical stats would hover around five. Every multiple of five marks a whole new tier of power. Take an ogre, for example—a high-tier boss monster capable of leveling an entire mountain. Its strength sits at thirty-five. Mine was already around forty.

Getting the picture yet?

This was the kind of strength that could rip a god's head clean off its shoulders, like that bald guy from a certain game. And my magical power was dragon-class? Wow. No wonder the bugs had all fled.

Anyway, there I was, lumbering around cleaning up corpses. The bodies dangling from the trees only needed a careful jump to reach, and once I timed it just right they came free into my hands. I gathered them one by one, then casually stomped the magic circle into oblivion, smashed the altar and ritual symbols to pieces, and buried the lot of it.

With a body like this, I could dig faster with my bare hands than most people could with a shovel.

Why bother? Simple. These bastards had clearly been demon worshippers. If there were cultists performing secret rites deep in a forest like this, then the opposing force—some religious order—had to exist somewhere. Sooner or later they might come investigating. Leave the scene as it was and it would be, Aha! Those guys summoned something! After them! Covering my tracks was mandatory for survival. Even if the site was eventually discovered, enough time would have passed that no one could pin it on me.

The sky hung gray and overcast while I hauled corpses around; my body felt fine, but my mood sank lower by the minute. Still, by the time dusk had settled I had finished the cleanup. Standing before the two graves—one for the black-robed cultists and one for the people in ordinary clothes—I offered a few final words.

"For reasons none of you can now explain, you sacrificed yourselves to summon me."

I glanced between the two mounds.

"To the victims: if there's a next life, may you find happiness in it. And to you demon-worshipping bastards—burn in hell."

With that last silent prayer, I set off down the path.

In nothing but my underwear, of course.

Just in case, I tried activating a skill in my mind.

It worked perfectly. In an instant the bulk of my presence thinned to almost nothing; my footsteps vanished and I left no tracks behind. Originally the skill offered a long duration, aggro reset, and minimized threat ranking on first contact with monsters. Here in reality it seemed to translate into a genuine stealth effect—my existence itself grew faint and the sounds around me simply ceased.

Confirming the skill worked made me reasonably sure magic would function the same way, since the game had always treated spells as skills. Out of curiosity I called for the item window, equipment screen, and status window, but all of them remained stubbornly silent. So only the body had come through, then…

Well, at least I had the character's physique and a pair of underpants. Look on the bright side.

My immediate goal was the mountain peak. From up there I could get a rough sense of the lay of the land, and if any people lived nearby I might spot artificial structures.

Time passed and night deepened, yet I could still see as clearly as midday and felt not the slightest fatigue. I found myself genuinely grateful for the comfort of this body. I had nearly resigned myself to spending the night ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in that summoning cave.

"Ugh… what am I going to do about clothes…"

I had scavenged a few useful items from the corpses, but the thought of stripping the dead and wearing their garments filled me with such visceral revulsion that I simply couldn't bring myself to do it.

Just then a bizarre cry echoed through the trees.

"Kweeiiing-ik!"

I followed the sound and found a deer-like—or maybe water-deer-like—creature wandering about. Horns jutted from its head in every direction, its hide was a filthy blackish color, and its eyes burned bright red.

What the hell is that? Some native deer species of this world? The moment the thought crossed my mind, an image from a certain television program flashed through my head: a bald middle-aged man catching a deer, fashioning clothes from its hide, and eating the meat with pure bliss on his face.

Sorry, deer, but this is pure wilderness. Only the strong survive.

The classic rogue bread-and-butter combo. Still cloaked in Hide, I closed the distance at blinding speed and snapped the creature's neck. It died without a flicker of pain.

Killing something that large was a first for me, yet my heart remained perfectly still. I observed a quiet moment of silence.

"Well… a man's got to eat. If only I could open the inventory…"

Pushing the inconvenience aside, I set about butchering the carcass.

Thankfully the magic responded at once. Magic Knife was a basic spell that conjured a small mana dagger. Why would a fundamental spell create a knife? Because it had been designed precisely to solve the problem of "what happens when a monster gets in a mage's face." In plain terms, it was a close-quarters combat spell. Its sister technique was Magic Staff—a spell that reinforced a staff so you could simply bludgeon monsters with it.

Feeling the strange texture of the conjured blade, I set to work on the carcass. It wasn't difficult. With A-rank butchery mastery and dexterity in the thirties, it would have been stranger if I couldn't do it. The only real issue was how disgusting the whole process felt.

Before long I had a usable hide, a generous pile of meat, and a thoroughly blood-soaked version of myself. I took the pelt with me, bundled the meat in cloth scraps scavenged from the corpses, and buried the offal, inedible bits, and blood in the earth.

Incidentally, why was there no earth-digging spell? Other fantasy novels always featured something like Dig right out of the gate. From a game-design perspective it was probably omitted because it would have been a bug-generating nightmare.

A basic spell. A gentle stream of water poured over my head, rinsing away blood and dirt until I felt clean and refreshed. With a lighter heart I resumed my awkward climb up the mountain.

I encountered plenty of animals along the way, but none of them noticed me, so I reached the summit without incident. Looking out across the landscape…

A vast horizon. Stars glittering in a clear night sky. The mountain peak was breathtakingly beautiful. Oh, and there was only one moon. Fantasy convention usually demands three; a little disappointing.

The breeze was cool and my mind grew calm.

Except…

"It's all mountains."

I had involuntarily become a natural person.

A short way down from the summit I found a suitable den—a small cave deep enough to keep the rain off and perfectly livable. Water wasn't a concern; I could create it with magic.

I gathered firewood, lit a fire, set a large stone over the flames, and began roasting meat. It would probably take three or four hours. The rest of the meat I decided to smoke. How did I know the technique? A-rank cooking mastery simply dropped the knowledge into my head. A simple smoker ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was just as easy thanks to crafting mastery. Even that bald survival-show guy had made one without trouble; it really was that simple. Build a fire that produces plenty of smoke, construct a frame of branches, seal it with a pile of leaves, and hang the meat inside. Done.

I stretched the deer hide out to dry; a day or two would probably finish the job.

With nothing left to do I lay back and stared at the sky. Maybe a little free time was all it took for the darker thoughts to surface.

Why am I here? Why me? Am I even still myself? Is the god of this world watching me right now?

A whole parade of bleak questions about the future tried to take over my mind.

I sat bolt upright.

"What good does wallowing do? Surviving comes first!"

When the mood turns this grim, the answer is always a full stomach and a good night's sleep.

Just in case the deer meat carried some toxin, I cast a purification spell and watched carefully. Nothing happened. If poison had been present, a telltale sparkle of purifying light would have appeared.

The venison was delicious—so good it nearly brought tears to my eyes. Once I was thoroughly stuffed, I settled down to sleep.

Deep into the night, I remembered something I had once heard: the mind rules the body, and the body rules the mind. Judging by the fact that I slept like a log after everything that had happened, the saying was true.

Early morning. Despite the less-than-ideal sleeping conditions I woke rested and clear-headed. After a quick stretch, a wash, and breakfast, I sat down to plan for the future.

First, I decided to change my name. The corpses had looked vaguely Western at a glance, so an East-Asian name like Jeong Hoon would stand out as utterly alien. I would take the name of this body—Haren—as my own.

On the practical side, I judged this place "safe." Surrounded by nothing but mountains and equipped with this body, I could live here without much trouble. Food and clothing therefore became priority one. I couldn't stay in my underwear forever. That meant hunting a variety of animals. The creatures here all had those unnatural red eyes and strange horns, but after eating yesterday's meat without ill effects I figured they were fine. Probably just how animals worked in this world.

Second: training and understanding my own power. After witnessing yesterday's carnage, I actually considered the isolation from civilization a stroke of luck. The state of those corpses strongly suggested a barbaric era; combat ability was non-negotiable. I had also been nursing a private doubt: Does this body really possess enough strength to tear off a god's head?

My conclusion: no. I had only inhabited this flesh for a single day and could control barely a fraction of it. Top-tier hardware, bottom-tier software—an absurd mismatch.

Third: questions about skills, magic, and the various mysteries surrounding them. In the game a skill had been something you simply clicked and it happened. What about reality? When I used Hide, Dash, and Assassination, the sensation had been that of my body unconsciously performing the techniques itself—muscle memory, more or less. If that hypothesis was correct, then by repeatedly using skills until they became second nature I might eventually pull off techniques the game had never allowed or had deliberately locked away.

Masteries felt different: every time I performed an action they casually tossed relevant knowledge into my head. I never fully remembered it; it simply surfaced with a little "Ah, right, that's how" whenever needed. So I would deliberately exercise as many masteries as possible and commit the knowledge to my own memory. There had to be a huge difference between knowledge I truly owned and knowledge that was only handed to me on demand.

Magic, honestly, I still didn't understand. Results appeared with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no intermediate process. The game had described magic as "a phenomenon created by weaving mana together"—the laziest explanation imaginable. Like every other magic game, you either unlocked spells by spending skill points or bought them from a mage merchant for cash. Everything else had been meticulously designed, yet magic alone was a vague mess. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Or maybe the game's slapdash treatment of magic was the reason it felt slapdash here too. Weird.

The mana required to cast spells, on the other hand, I could sense with startling clarity. Having never possessed it before, the sheer foreignness made it impossible to ignore. And it wasn't only mana—I could feel distinct forces residing in my body, the earth, the trees, the fire, and so on. They clearly weren't mana, yet I had no name for them. The only common thread was a clean, refreshing quality. If I could perceive both mana and these other forces so completely, did that mean simply thinking of a phenomenon was enough to produce it? I would need to watch other people cast magic before I could settle on an answer.

For now I could use basic, beginner, and intermediate spells without issue. Advanced magic was possible but ruinously inefficient. As for divine power, I had no way to check it—it was a passive. Still, I intended to look into it. I suspected it was connected to the reason I had been brought here in the first place.

Finally: finding civilization. I wanted to see other people. So far I had encountered only grotesque corpses and insects. Surely the world hadn't been destroyed leaving me as the sole survivor? That kind of dramatic twist felt a little too much. I would search for trails or rivers that people might travel along; eventually they would lead me to civilization.

Now all that remained was to put the plan into action.

Training. Nothing but training!