So Boring I Could Die
Hunting was far harder than he had ever imagined.
Only when endurance, tenacity, an intimate knowledge of game, and the keen eye to track subtle traces came together could someone truly be called a hunter. Yet even seasoned veterans who had dedicated half their lives to the wilderness could spend an unlucky day chasing shadows. For an amateur whose entire repertoire came from YouTube tutorials, the outcome hardly needed stating.
In short: Ivan had yet to catch a single beast.
"Ssshh... I'm screwed."
The sun began to sink below the horizon, yielding not a shred of bounty. Once darkness took over, hunting was out of the question; he would be fortunate just not to get lost in the frozen woods. Tonight, going hungry seemed all but guaranteed. Desperate for anything edible, even wild weeds, he scoured his surroundings—until suddenly—
"...!"
A lone deer was nibbling berries off a small, scrubby bush.
Offering a silent prayer of thanks for this miraculous stroke of luck, Ivan did his utmost to stifle every breath and suppress his presence.
Had he ever focused this fiercely in his entire life? Holding his breath, Ivan raised his handaxe and slowly lined up his throw. A weapon he had never held before entering this world now felt as natural in his grip as his own flesh and blood. The moment a bead of sweat rolled from his brow, tracked along his eyelid and chin, and dripped onto the snow below, the axe cleaved through the freezing air.
"Skreeek—!"
The handaxe blade cleanly cleaved the deer's neck. Blood gushed across the snow as the beast collapsed in a heap.
A strange sensation hummed through the tips of his fingers, blossoming into a rush of euphoria Ivan could hardly put into words. His heart hammered violently in his chest—stoked by the primal relief of securing food, the raw thrill of claiming prey, and the soaring sense of accomplishment at having finally achieved something in this harsh new world. Humming a cheerful tune, Ivan hoisted the deer onto his shoulders. The reassuring weight pressed into his back, and his footsteps heading home were effortlessly light. In that fleeting moment, he was the happiest man alive.
"Krrr-krrr..."
That is, until he stumbled upon a pack of goblins swarming ahead, crude weapons clenched in their scrawny claws.
"Fuck me sideways. What kind of dogshit game is this?"
If he had known this would happen, he would have brought a sword. Once again, another round of shameless, unfair bullshit had ambushed Ivan out of nowhere.
In virtually every fantasy setting, goblins were considered bottom-tier trash—the weakest of the weak. Standing no taller than elementary schoolers and possessing laughable physical strength, they were quintessential fodder. But when armed with weapons, the equation changed dramatically.
Unless one wore full plate armor, steel treated everyone equally. In a video game, taking a few cuts meant losing a sliver of HP, but reality offered no such leniency. Worse yet, the spears and daggers clutched in their filthy hands were thick with rust. As a modern man, Ivan understood the lethal danger far better than the locals ever could.
One scratch from that crap and I'll die of sepsis or tetanus, won't I?
A chill of pure dread crept up his spine. Ivan was no true barbarian warrior; he could not care less about an honorable death or whatever glorious afterlife awaited fallen braves. What mattered to Ivan was surviving right here, right now.
The goblins gradually tightened their encirclement. What if he tossed the deer to them and ran? Offering up a fresh kill might distract them long enough to abandon the chase, slightly raising his chances of survival. In exchange, he would spend the night shivering and starving in the bitter cold—and perhaps the days to come as well. Still... wasn't that better than rotting from tetanus and dying a pathetic death?
A sudden wave of self-loathing seized his soul.
Was I really about to abandon the first prize I earned with my own sweat and run away like a dog? Really?
If he surrendered and cowered every time life dealt him a tough hand, what meaning was there to his existence?
Fight. Even if you groan in agony, drenched in blood—protect what is yours.
An unfamiliar voice whispered in the depths of his mind. Was it the residual instinct of the barbarian warrior ingrained in this flesh? A divine revelation? Or perhaps just some onset of lunacy?
It didn't matter. Ivan surrendered himself to the feral fighting instinct surging through his veins. Hurls of raw force propelled his handaxe forward the exact instant his boots dug into the frozen earth.
"Gyehh?!"
The axe shattering an unlucky goblin's skull served as the opening bell. Ivan lunged toward the nearest monster and hurled his fist. His form was sloppy, reeking of an amateur brawler devoid of finesse or martial technique, but the blow carried more than enough raw force to slaughter a wretched goblin—and that was all that mattered.
Crack—! Ivan felt the satisfying crunch of bone fracturing under his knuckles.
"Krrk! Kreeek!"
Enraged by their comrade's death, the surviving goblins lashed out with their weapons. A rusty dagger nicked his ear, and a jagged spearhead grazed along his ribs, bringing a delayed burst of sharp, burning agony. Rather than wasting breath on a scream, Ivan threw another punch. One less goblin.
With every slash and scrape carved into his skin, his senses seemed to expand without limit. In a dilated reality where time appeared to grind to a crawl, Ivan kept moving relentlessly—punching, kicking, trampling, and crushing every wretched creature in reach.
What ruled his body in that moment was not the terror of death, but the pure, unadulterated thirst for battle. Chasing down the stragglers who turned to flee, Ivan ground the last of them into the dirt before exhaling a scalding breath. Hot vapor rose from his blood-drenched body into the frosty air.
"Phew..."
Collapsing flat against the snowfield, powdery frost seeped into his open cuts. Ivan groaned at the sting, yet found himself savoring the brisk, numbing chill. Sometime during the slaughter, a grin had crept onto his face.
He realized he had thoroughly crossed an invisible boundary he had subconsciously guarded his entire life. There was no going back to who he had been before.
And strangely enough, he didn't mind that one bit.
From that day on, Ivan's routine settled into a simple rhythm.
From sunrise to sunset, he trained without pause, venturing out to hunt only when his rations ran low. Whenever he stumbled across monsters, he crushed them; occasionally, he actively hunted them down for sport. This astonishing body grew stronger in direct, honest proportion to his labor, seemingly devoid of limits.
Choosing the Barbarian Warrior class had undeniably been the right call. Ivan nodded in deep satisfaction. Magic? Highly developed muscle was equal to—if not superior to—sorcery. The mere memory of having once envied those flimsy spellcasters made him flush with shame.
Three years had passed, and Ivan felt the staggering fruits of his labor reverberating through every sinew.
Wrapping his arms around a thick tree trunk, he braced his legs and heaved. With a deafening crack, the ancient tree ripped free from the earth, roots and all. Tossing it aside as if it were a stray twig, Ivan drove a bare fist into a massive boulder before him. The stone split cleanly in two. He had long ceased to qualify as anything remotely human.
At this rate, couldn't I just waltz back into the clan and flip the whole place upside down...?
Though three years had slipped by, Ivan had yet to return to the tribe. He had been too consumed by his training to care much, but over those three years, Havel's expression had grown noticeably grimmer with each visit.
"...Ivan, I am truly sorry," Havel muttered, bowing his head. "I have no right to ask, but... could you wait just a little longer?"
Ivan stared at his sworn brother with a faintly skeptical gaze.
Didn't you say the exact same thing three years ago?
A passing suspicion crossed his mind that Havel might be surprisingly incompetent, but Ivan held his tongue. At least the man was putting in effort.
"Well, I don't mind waiting a bit more. Like I said before, don't push yourself too hard."
"Still..."
"And don't lower your head over this. We're brothers, aren't we?"
"Urk... Ivan!!"
Tears of deep emotion welled in Havel's eyes. Despite his towering, ferocious frame, the man possessed an unexpectedly tender heart.
After a short pause, Havel cleared his throat and awkwardly changed the subject.
"Ahem. At any rate... on my way here, I noticed shattered trees and pulverized boulders strewn all over the woods. I fear a giant may have wandered into the forest. Be careful not to cross paths with it."
"...Thanks for the heads-up. Right, can't hurt to be careful."
Ivan awkwardly averted his gaze. Havel sensed a strange tension in the air, but decided against pressing the matter.
Once Havel departed, Ivan went right back to tearing up the forest for his daily workout. But in the middle of it all, an unexpected thought struck him: Do I even need to get any stronger than this?
Forget finding a worthy rival to wager his life against; he could barely find a beast capable of enduring a single punch or two. What was the point of gaining more power? This forest had simply grown too small for him.
"Ah... so this is how you felt, Saitama."
Ivan muttered whatever nonsense wandered through his head. There was no one around to hear him anyway.
Aren't there any trolls or ogres around here?
Entertaining idle thoughts only gave him a headache. He decided to call it a day, kick back, and nurse a bottle of booze. Ivan craved some fresh excitement—a spark of light to pierce this monotonous routine and entertain him. Even so, he harbored no real expectation that anything would actually happen. He wasn't naive enough to cling to baseless hopes.
...At least, not until he spotted an old man collapsed in the snow, half-buried in the white drifts.