Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Ashes Before Dawn
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A beastly wail—half animal, half bird—pierced through the dim forest.
Trees towered as high as apartment buildings, packed densely together. The damp, soggy piles of fallen leaves and the fishy, earthy scent were smells you’d rarely catch in the city.
Standing in the heart of this untouched primeval woodland, devoid of any human presence, Hwan-in looked up in his suit.
Through the umbrella-like canopy of leaves and branches far overhead, a patch of blue sky peeked through.
“...”
Hwan-in turned his gaze to the object in his hand.
A single gold coin, gleaming brightly.
He’d picked up the gold coin that had been emitting a strange glow from the ground, blinked once, and in that instant, the concrete jungle’s back alley had transformed into this lush forest.
This inexplicable situation, where his surroundings had flipped 180 degrees, would have sent any ordinary, normal person into a panic...
But as Hwan-in scanned his surroundings, he spotted an unidentified footprint stamped into the dark, muddy soil and paused to think.
It wasn’t a human footprint, nor was it any beast’s.
Whatever this place was, if the owner of that unidentified track was aggressive...
Hwan-in pocketed the gold coin and silently began searching for something that could serve as a self-defense weapon.
Crack!
He found a 2-meter branch as sturdy as oak, snapped off the thin, slender tip with his foot, trimmed away the smaller twigs with his special alloy Multi-Tool, and began shaping it into a club.
Scrape, scritch, crunch, crunch.
He could use the Multi-Tool’s knife as a weapon. Made of platinum-gold alloy, its wear resistance was a hundred times that of steel, so it could certainly pull double duty.
However, given the tool’s design, the joints might break easily under use as a weapon, so Hwan-in had no intention of risking it.
Click.
He folded the Multi-Tool and pocketed it, then swung the roughly finished club a few times.
Whoosh—whoooosh—
For an improvised weapon, it produced a hefty whoosh that echoed satisfyingly.
The weight was concentrated toward the end, putting a lot of strain on his grip, but having something was better than nothing.
After swinging the crude club—barely worthy of being called a bludgeon—a couple more times, Hwan-in recalled his years at the kendo dojo and assumed a proper stance, swinging it properly once again.
Whoom—whooom—swoosh—
Front strike. Side strikes left and right. Quick thrusting motions.
“...”
The memory of the kendo dojo his parents had forced him into: “If you can’t empathize with others’ pain, at least understand pain as an objective fact so you can imagine yourself in their place.”
He hadn’t been there for technique points—he’d only wanted to learn how to knock opponents down—and had eventually been kicked out by the head instructor. Still, the skills he’d honed over those years lingered in his body.
After loosening up and awakening those dormant memories, Hwan-in gripped the wooden club tightly and wordlessly stepped deeper into the forest.
Stepping over leaf piles and dodging thick roots protruding from the ground now and then, he couldn’t come up with any explanation for his situation.
What the hell was this?
He’d had lucid dreams a few times before, so he was certain this wasn’t one.
No dream could stimulate his senses so vividly—the forest felt too real.
He wasn’t hallucinating from booze, either. He’d had a few drinks watching the news about his failing ex-job, but they’d been low-alcohol cocktails.
His memories right before arriving here were crystal clear, too.
Why? What had happened to drop him into this jungle?
With a slight furrow of his sharp eyebrows, he pushed aside the waist-high underbrush, revealing traces of a path.
But no matter how he looked at it, it didn’t seem like a path made by humans.
People walking through pathless woods naturally clear obstructing branches and foliage. After dozens or hundreds pass through, trampling the earth and clearing the way, a trail forms.
So, an animal trail?
‘Not an animal trail, either.’
Animal paths were lower, narrower, and didn’t even look like paths at first glance.
Hwan-in narrowed his eyes.
That unidentified footprint he’d seen earlier.
He tightened his grip on the club and slowly veered away from the path.
The print resembled an ape’s but had longer toes. And while apes usually had five toes like humans, this had only four.
‘An ape with four toes?’
Whatever owned the print, if it roamed this forest barefoot, it was likely a primitive civilization—and violence was probable upon encounter.
Sensing this, Hwan-in decided to avoid the owner of those prints—and the multiple creatures that must have made the trail.
Shh...
The faint rustle of underbrush and the chirping of insects fell silent. And a subtle, unpleasant smell began waft through the air. He noticed it right then.
“...”
Shh. Shh-shh.
The bushes shook in short bursts. Hwan-in backed away slowly, senses on high alert.
No wind. Something was brushing the foliage.
Even for Hwan-in, who occasionally got called a psychopath, facing the unknown in this unknown place built tension.
He slowly backed against a nearby tree—thick enough that three grown men stretching arm-to-arm could barely encircle it. It would shield his rear from attack.
That’s what he thought—until three, no, three monsters burst through the underbrush. He whipped around and bolted the opposite way.
Screech?
Shriek! Shrieeek!
Screee! Screee—!!
The green-skinned monsters, momentarily stunned by the unexpected encounter, let out unearthly howls and gave chase.
In that split second before fleeing, Hwan-in noted the bipedal monsters’ features.
Skinny limbs like twigs. A protruding gut that seemed excessive by comparison. Height of a ten-year-old child.
If you pulled an ogre from hellscrolls into reality, it’d look just like these green monsters.
And they wielded crude wooden spears and Stone Age axes chipped from rock.
The moment Hwan-in saw those, he ruled out fighting head-on.
He didn’t know where this was—just that it was a remote forest far from civilization. Any injury in a fight could doom his survival odds.
‘They won’t be fast runners.’
Screeee—!
Kyyyaaahh!!
As Hwan-in predicted, the green monsters weren’t quick.
They somehow kept up on those frail legs, but differences in stride and physical ability made their speed incomparable.
As he sprinted, Hwan-in glanced back occasionally, taking in the howling monsters pursuing him.
‘What the hell are those? Animals? Natives from some jungle outpost?’
Their rough, green, bumpy skin—untanned and stiff—barely covered their loins. Shark-like jagged teeth and blood-red eyes ensured they looked nothing like humans.
Frightening enough to terrify an adult, but Hwan-in wasn’t scared—he was pondering how to kill them.
‘Not human. So no legal issues with killing them.’
At worst, maybe a fine for property damage or violating rare animal protection laws.
Kyeeek! Ki-heeek!
Grk! Kr-kya—!
“Huff, huff. Huuuuh.”
The wind whistled past his ears amid the noise, but the monsters’ heavier panting stood out clearly.
His dress shoes hindered full speed slightly, but it wasn’t too bad.
He kept up consistent basic fitness training, so he could maintain this pace for twenty minutes easy.
But those monsters wouldn’t last half that. They might even give up before then.
‘...’
Minding his footing, he reaffirmed the club’s feel in his hand.
He wasn’t unarmed. The size difference was obvious, and so was the stamina gap.
Hwan-in had no intention of letting live the monsters chasing him with murderous intent. His motto: Anyone swinging at you better be ready to get hit back.
Checking the distance while watching his step, he assessed them.
The relatively burlier one led the pack; the other two trailed in line a bit behind.
He made his call.
Spotting an especially massive tree ahead, Hwan-in veered toward it naturally. Pretending to dodge, he slipped behind it swiftly, gripped the club two-handed, caught his breath, and waited.
...Thudthudthudthud...!
Kyyaaa...!
The pounding footsteps and shrieks drew closer. He tensed his arms just right. Moments later...
Kieeek—!
“Hup!”
He lunged at the green monster that emerged drooling filth from beside the tree, swinging the club at its head.
Whooom—Crack!!
The green monster struck full in the face by the two-handed club had its head snap back at a right angle. It flew back without even a scream.
One eye popped from the impact; its forehead caved in the shape of the club. It twitched in spasms, drool pouring out.
Crunch.
Hwan-in’s expressionless foot stomped its neck, snapping it. He felt his heart pounding wildly.
A chill ran over his skin from the sensation of taking a life, but he immediately snatched the murky Stone Axe from the dead green monster’s grasp and hurled it at the second one approaching.
Whirr-whirr-whirr—!
The unbalanced Stone Axe sailed over the head of the green monster clutching its wooden spear and vanished into the forest.
Ki-hee?
But Hwan-in didn’t lament. He charged the startled, frozen monster, grabbed the clumsily thrust spear with one hand, and yanked.
Kyeeek?!
The green monster reflexively gripped the spear and pulled back, but the difference in strength and weight was overwhelming.
Dragged along spear-first, it slammed face-down as Hwan-in intended. He brought the club down on its exposed green skull.
Splorch!
The merciless blow visibly caved in the back of its head.
The club cracked halfway through from the two strikes, but without a second’s hesitation, Hwan-in discarded it and seized the meter-long wooden spear.
His eyes turned to the last one.
K-Kieeek?!
The final green monster, weaker and slower, had watched its kin die by Hwan-in’s hands.
No wonder it saw him as the grim reaper.
Ki-heeeek!
It dropped its twiggy spear and fled. Hwan-in’s eyes gleamed.
He’d wondered if the unfamiliar creature might not think like a typical monster, but faced with death, it acted like any animal.
Catching up to the desperately fleeing green monster in a flash, Hwan-in snapped his wrist for spin and thrust at its back.
Squelch—
The spear pierced straight through its solar plexus.
Grr... glurk.
The green monster gurgled bloody groans, clutching the protruding spear tip from its chest and trembling. It strained to turn its head toward the reaper, but...
“...”
Hwan-in mercilessly flung it spear and all.
Fists clenching and unclenching from the thrill of taking lives, Hwan-in caught his breath briefly before impassively inspecting the three monster corpses he’d made and muttering.
“This really doesn’t make any sense.”
Even for Hwan-in, whose empathy diverged sharply from normal people’s, this was too absurd to ignore.
Picking up a gold coin in a musty back alley teleports you to a place with these things? Come on.
He wondered if it was a dream, but his heart thumping from minutes of running and killing confirmed it was all too real.
“...”
Quickly calming his excitement and assessing coldly, Hwan-in stripped the rag-like hides from the three corpses, sliced nearby vines, and bound the hides crudely.
Then he began hiding the bodies in the thick underbrush.
The stench from the monsters was nauseating.
Creatures reeking like that probably didn’t have great noses. Hiding them this way would delay discovery by their kin considerably.
He roughly erased the combat traces, then examined the spear he’d used to impale the monster.
“...Blood smell’s a problem.”
The spear’s tip was just a bit mashed. He could sharpen it with a knife, but it was soaked in the green monster’s red blood.
Wiping with hide wouldn’t help; it’d stink worse over time.
Hwan-in tossed the spear aside and backtracked the direction he’d thrown the Stone Axe. He found it lodged intact in a large tree and examined it curiously.
The single blade was grayish stone of a material he didn’t recognize, as was the dark, grimy handle.
Thwack!
Testing it with moderate force on the tree carved a triangular gouge a handspan deep into the live wood.
Yet the Stone Axe showed no damage.
“The cord binding handle and blade doesn’t seem plant-based either...”
Either way, it’d make a fine weapon. The short reach bugged him, so maybe craft another spear or club.
Slinging the musty, gamey hide rags over his shoulder with the Stone Axe, Hwan-in quickened his pace away from the spot.
He had no idea where to go or what lay anywhere. Lingering where he’d fought monsters was out of the question.
‘They were active daytime, so probably not nocturnal. No prey in hand, so likely hunters or scouts.’
So first...
Deciding swiftly, Hwan-in turned and headed the opposite way the monsters had come from.