The dry branches cracked beneath Shiro's worn sneakers as he pushed deeper into the vegetation.
The sun had already vanished completely, leaving only a trail of purple light in the sky before it was swallowed by a thick, suffocating darkness.
He walked for about twenty minutes before finding a tiny clearing surrounded by three enormous trees, their roots jutting out of the ground like the ribs of some buried monster.
"What a fucking awful place."
Shiro cursed under his breath as he let the dimensional bag drop onto the damp earth.
He sat down on one of the roots, feeling cold sweat stick his green uniform shirt to his body.
His mind was a mess of exhaustion and anger.
Just hours ago, he had been stocking cartons of milk beneath Tokyo's fluorescent lights.
Now he was on an unknown planet because a bunch of suit-wearing assholes with crowns had decided that his soul was worthless.
Empty shell.
Zero potential.
The High Priest's words were still burning in his chest.
Trying to push the thoughts away, Shiro opened the bag and pulled out the short sword provided by the kingdom.
The metal was dull, with no visible edge, and the rough wooden grip dug painfully into his palm.
What a joke of a weapon.
He set it aside and tried gathering some dry leaves to start a fire, only to realize the obvious.
He had no lighter.
No matches.
And he had never started a fire in his life without technology.
The wind suddenly stopped.
The cold whistle cutting through the trees vanished, leaving the clearing in absolute silence.
Shiro froze with his hand hovering over the twigs.
A violent shiver crawled up the back of his neck.
A heavy sensation pressed down on his shoulders, as though the air itself had suddenly become thicker.
Something was watching him.
From the shadows of a thorny bush five meters away, two glowing yellow eyes appeared.
Then, to the left, two more.
Two pairs of eyes.
Two predators.
Border Wolves.
But they looked nothing like the wolves of Earth.
They were the size of leopards, with black fur that looked like solid smoke and fangs jutting from their drooling mouths.
"Shit... shit, shit!"
Shiro cursed as his heart began pounding so violently that he could hear every beat inside his ears.
He dropped the twigs and groped around in the darkness until his fingers closed around the short sword's hilt.
His arms were shaking so badly that the blade vibrated in the air.
The first wolf didn't hesitate.
With a low growl, the creature launched itself from the darkness straight toward Shiro's throat.
Adrenaline and the primal terror of death took control of Shiro's body.
Instead of backing away, he stepped forward with a desperate scream and swung horizontally with both hands, putting his entire body weight behind the attack.
The impact was brutal.
The blunt blade struck the side of the wolf's neck in midair.
Bone cracked.
The creature slammed into the mud, thrashing twice before becoming completely still.
But the price came immediately.
Crack!
A shard of metal flew past Shiro's cheek.
The short sword's cheap, fragile blade had snapped in half from the impact.
All that remained in his right hand was the hilt and a broken piece of metal barely fifteen centimeters long.
Before he could process what had happened, the second wolf took advantage of the opening.
The monster surged forward like a streak of shadow, slamming its front paws into Shiro's chest.
The impact threw him onto his back in the damp earth.
Shiro instinctively raised his left arm to protect his face.
The wolf's jaws clamped down around his forearm.
"AAAAAGH!"
Shiro screamed in agony as the teeth tore through his uniform and sank into his flesh, ripping through muscle.
The smell of fresh blood drove the predator into a frenzy.
The wolf began violently shaking its head, tearing Shiro's arm apart while its front claws repeatedly slashed at his ribs, desperately trying to reach his throat.
Shiro was sinking into the mud, bleeding heavily.
His vision began flickering black from the unbearable pain.
He pushed against the wolf's snout with his mutilated left hand, but his strength was draining away along with his blood.
Am I going to die here?
The thought crossed his fading mind.
Killed out here because of this fucking world?
A blind, bitter fury rose from somewhere deep inside him.
He refused to die like this.
In the fraction of a second when the wolf opened its jaws to deliver the killing bite to his throat, the world around him froze.
Drops of the monster's saliva hung motionless in the air.
The sound of the wind disappeared.
Before Shiro's nearly lifeless eyes, a matte-black interface with blood-red lines tore through the darkness.
Its glow was imposing, pulsing with the authority of an absolute entity.
[SURVIVAL ALERT: Host Vital Signs Critical (14%).]
[The 'Origin System' (SSS Rank) has detected a hostile target of lower level.]
[Would you like to activate the exclusive skill: [Enemy Gravity Manipulation]?]
"Activate... this... fucking thing!"
Shiro spat the blood pooling in his mouth, mentally roaring with every ounce of strength he had left.
[Skill: [Enemy Gravity Manipulation — Level 1] successfully activated.]
[Target: Border Wolf (Level 3). Applying 10× gravitational pressure.]
Time resumed.
At that exact moment, a deep rumble echoed through the clearing.
The wolf, which had been seconds away from tearing out Shiro's throat, let out a sharp, strangled whine.
An invisible, crushing force slammed down onto the monster's back, violently pressing it into the ground.
The predator was completely pinned against the mud beside Shiro, unable to lift its head or move a single paw.
The creature's bones began cracking beneath the invisible pressure of ten times its own weight.
Shiro gasped as he struggled to roll onto his side.
His muscles burned.
His left arm was nothing but mangled flesh.
But the wolf was immobilized, pinned down like an insect skewered to a table.
Staring at the monster that had almost taken his life, Shiro forced his body to move.
He crawled through the mud, ignoring the pain in his ribs, until he was on top of the helpless creature.
His right hand still gripped the broken sword hilt tightly, the jagged half of the blade sharpened by the fracture.
"My soul is worthless, huh?"
Shiro hissed through his teeth, his eyes bloodshot and his voice filled with pure resentment.
With a violent downward motion, he drove the broken half of the blade straight into the wolf's eye, forcing the metal deeper until the hilt slammed against the monster's skull.
The wolf shuddered one last time.
Then it went limp in the mud.
[Enemy defeated. Experience acquired: 45 EXP.]
[First Hunt successfully completed. Initiating basic regeneration process...]
Shiro collapsed onto his back beside the corpse, releasing the broken weapon.
As he stared at the System's red interface floating in the darkness of the forest, a warm sensation began spreading through his wounds, slowly easing the pain.
His journey had only just begun.