3
03 - Portal
This was an impossible thing.
Cutting a charging wolf in half in mid-air was not something that could be explained by being a master swordsman or anything of that sort.
What's more, the one who swung it was a novice who had never held a sword once in 26 years.
It was the same as the 40-minute full-speed run from before. There was clearly a force at work that transcended the laws.
'Whew.'
Jin-woo took a step back to avoid the spurting blood and looked at the corpse of the bisected wolf while catching his breath.
Although he couldn't see it in the darkness, strangely, the image of the wolf's body split in half was drawn in his mind.
The quality and density of the air felt different from just before.
The sensation that had been clearly felt gradually disappeared as the wolf's corpse grew cold.
It felt as if the wolf's soul had completely escaped, and the switch of sensation had also clicked off.
The battle with the two wolves was a fight that took less than a minute.
From that fight, there was one fact he learned.
"I guess I'm a swordsman."
He had learned a fragment of his past life.
***
As the excitement of battle subsided, his breathing gradually returned to normal.
The heated sweat cooled in the cold night air, rapidly stealing the heat from his body.
At the same time, Jin-woo was able to regain his composure.
'I need to get away.'
First, he put the wolf's corpse into his inventory.
He picked up the staff he had dropped and left the spot.
There might be more wolf packs, and other monsters attracted by the smell of blood might come.
Checking the ground with his staff, he went far, even a little farther.
But if he wandered around for too long, he didn't know what kind of crisis situation would unfold, so he couldn't just wander aimlessly either.
It was a situation with no right answer.
He had no choice but to leave it to luck and intuition.
'It's a tree.'
In the meantime, he discovered a tree.
Although trees were scattered all around, there was a reason this tree particularly caught his attention.
It was extremely large.
'The thickness of the base is no joke?'
He checked briefly, and the thickness of the trunk was thick enough to require several adults with outstretched arms.
He couldn't see the height, but if the tree was this thick, the height would probably be quite high too.
Jin-woo judged that wandering further in the darkness carried great risk, so he stopped wandering and climbed the tree.
Groping with his hands and feet, he grabbed the curved parts of the trunk and climbed upward.
Tree climbing was something he had done plenty of as a child, so he was familiar with it.
There weren't many things for a poor family's child to play with. Tree climbing was the most fun and interesting play that an energetic child could do.
Jin-woo climbed to a certain height and chose a thick branch to sit on.
He took out the rope he had prepared from his inventory and tied it crosswise over his waist and shoulders, also tying it firmly to the branch.
He took a sip of water to moisten his mouth, then took out the familiar army-green blanket and covered himself with it.
He couldn't lie down, so he closed his eyes while leaning against the tree trunk.
Neither his posture nor the situation was conducive to a good, deep sleep.
With the thought of at least relieving his eye fatigue, he just dozed off lightly.
Nodding his head up and down, he continued his light sleep.
With the policy of resting as much as possible even in uncomfortable circumstances, he focused on resting, and before he knew it, dawn had broken.
The forest became bright as quickly as it became dark.
As soon as the sun rose and light shone, Jin-woo immediately woke up from his sleep.
Jin-woo came to his senses, opened the blanket, and looked down below the tree.
His mind became as alert as if he had taken a cold shower.
Four wolf corpses were piled up at the base of the tree.
Each had an arrow stuck in their neck or head.
***
It seemed that yesterday's wolves had companions. Climbing the tree had been a good decision.
The problem was that there were also enemies that couldn't be stopped by just climbing a tree.
'What the hell is this?'
About five or six question marks appeared in his head.
Having experienced this twice now, his bewilderment had grown even greater.
What exactly did this Elf want? For what reason was she hovering around him and doing such things?
It felt like watching some old fairy tale, but in reality, he had never had a single conversation with the Elf, and their entire encounter was just making eye contact and him running away.
He didn't think she could have felt anything from that brief meeting.
In other words, the Elf's actions didn't originate from him but were entirely the Elf's own whim.
'Damn, is she thinking of keeping a pet human or something?'
It couldn't be a pleasant feeling, but anyway, she hadn't killed him and was even bringing him practical benefits.
While the net and fish he had left behind were originally Jin-woo's belongings, shooting four wolves dead and even bringing their corpses was definitely beneficial.
Wolf hide was quite valuable, and wolf meat, while not as expensive as beef or pork, was still more expensive than substitute meat.
Jin-woo came down from the tree without lowering his guard and pulled the arrows from the wolf corpses.
All four had died from exactly one arrow each, so the condition of the hides was the best of the best. Such clean hides could even be sold at a premium price.
'These arrows aren't ordinary either?'
However, the arrows he pulled out seemed more like treasure than the wolf corpses.
The arrow shafts made of unidentifiable white wood were light yet had elasticity comparable to rubber, and while the arrowheads were ordinary iron, their craftsmanship was exceptional.
Even to Jin-woo, who was a layman when it came to metalworking, the color was distinctive enough that he couldn't possibly consider them ordinary arrows.
He gathered all four white arrows and the wolf corpses and put them all in his inventory.
Jin-woo stood up and turned his head, looking around 360 degrees.
As expected, not even a strand of the Elf's hair was visible.
But she was probably observing from somewhere again, just not visible to his eyes.
He could no longer be optimistic that she had gone off to do her own business.
'Let's stop worrying about the Elf.'
He knew for certain. She was beyond his control.
Now was not the time to waste mental energy worrying about the whimsical Elf, but the time to do what he needed to do.
Getting out of the Gate as quickly as possible.
'Let's find a Blue Portal.'
This wasn't the time to leisurely collect or hunt.
Since he didn't know how long the Elf's whim would last, he needed to return as quickly as possible.
In the world inside the Gate, several Blue Portals appeared at random intervals and changed location periodically, and by taking those portals, one could return to the original world.
It was a kind of escape route.
Not only Earth's Hunters, but also other races like Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs had to take Blue Portals to return to their own worlds.
It wasn't that he hadn't been looking for Blue Portals while moving until now, but he hadn't found any yet.
Since they were randomly generated, the element of luck played a large role.
Still, there were many portals, so if one kept looking persistently, they could find them without much difficulty.
He heard that a Hunter once made it his mission to search for portals and count them, discovering 50 in ten days.
They said it wasn't as rare as expected, so with just a little luck, one could find them quickly.
However, whether one could survive until that little bit of luck arrived was the determining factor for survival.
***
Her long black hair swayed gently in the quiet wind.
She had returned to the lake that served as her base and spent time quietly gazing at the water's surface.
Light flickered from a makeshift lamp she had set up next to her camp, illuminating the lake.
Then.
A voice of her compatriot was heard from behind.
"Why are you playing around in such a place, second daughter of Garcia?"
The corners of her mouth, which had been in a not-bad mood just moments before, immediately turned downward.
"It's my business."
"With such an insincere attitude, restoring your family's fortunes will be impossible even after a hundred years."
"......"
"Please be diligent. Fulfill your calling for Mother World Tree."
The other party continued nagging in an equally unpleasant, blunt voice.
Fed up with the tiresome words, the black-haired woman gave the wisest answer.
"I'll handle it myself."
The other party clicked their tongue. Along with a tsk sound.
"I'll be watching."
Leaving only those words, the presence disappeared.
Left alone, the woman sat on a rock and crossed her pale legs.
Resting her chin in her hand, she looked down to see her own reflection in the calm water's surface.
Why was she doing this?
She didn't know either.
It was literally a whim, but having a whim after seeing a human in the first place was unprecedented.
Since it was the first time, she was curious.
What was the identity of this whim, and where did it come from?
What emotion lay at its foundation, and what had she unconsciously realized?
Splash.
A fish hit the water surface with its tail fin, creating small ripples.
If it weren't for that fish, the quiet surface would have remained endlessly still without any change.
The black-haired Elf quietly watched as the ripples caused by the small tail movement spread across the entire surface.
It was on a night without a single ray of moonlight.
***
Third day since starting to search for Blue Portals.
He hadn't found any portals, and Jin-woo was still safe.
If there was one more noteworthy point, it was that every morning, some kind of prey was placed in front of his dwelling.
On the first day, it was a deer with horns that had stopped growing.
On the second day, rabbit corpses were piled up small and neat.
On the third day, an entire wild boar lay dead.
All the prey had died from a single arrow, the familiar white arrow.
'This makes twenty-one.'
There were 21 white arrows in his inventory.
Not only that, but the wild boar corpse he had dreamed of, plus a deer with young antlers.
While the meat and hide of the wild boar were much more expensive, the deer's antlers were an even greater luxury item.
He heard that antlers were often used when the upper class made precious medicinal tonics. It was obvious they were more expensive than simple preference foods.
'The whim is still continuing.'
Three days had passed, but fortunately, the Elf's whim hadn't changed.
But he couldn't let his guard down. Since it was a whim, he didn't know when or how it might suddenly change.
With the feeling of wearing a bomb necklace with an unknown time limit, Jin-woo gritted his teeth and searched for Blue Portals.
However, he couldn't find any Blue Portals, and instead, what he found was a Red Portal.
'Damn.'
In the distance, seeing a red-glowing portal inside a house-sized tree trunk, Jin-woo clicked his tongue.
Unlike Blue Portals for returning to Earth, Red Portals were portals leading to the next layer.
From the 1st Layer here, crossing a Red Portal would take you to the 2nd Layer.
The 2nd Layer, where they said you needed to be at least a D-rank Hunter to properly survive.
In other words, it was a place the current Jin-woo couldn't even look at.
'I should remember it though.'
Still, he did put the location of the Red Portal in his head.
If the Elf's whim ended and she came to kill him, rather than just dying, he would have to jump into the Red Portal and escape.
Crossing the portal would drop him at a random location in the 2nd Layer, so he could escape from the pursuing Elf.
Whether he could survive in the 2nd Layer... That was a problem to think about then.
'In the end, I need to find a Blue Portal... Hm?'
Then he discovered a human shadow in a location a little away from the Red Portal.
Compared to when he met the Elf by the stream, he wasn't very surprised because the shadow's owner wasn't moving at all.
He was dead.
The race was probably human. Meaning he was a Hunter from Earth.