In that foreign land, Ash struggled to rise.
Not gracefully. Not in any way he could tell another person without embarrassment. More like someone whose body had already decided to give up while his mind still refused to accept the same reality.
He pushed himself into a sitting position with one hand, his back resting against the tree that had stopped his fall. The world still spun slowly around him, and for several seconds he remained still, waiting for his vision to stabilize again.
His left leg reminded him of its existence through a sharp, constant throb of pain.
Ash examined it carefully. The fingers of his wounded right hand probed the area that hurt the most. The bone was still in place — not sticking out, not piercing through the skin.
That was the only good news he had gotten today.
"I guess I should still be grateful the bone didn't come out," he muttered quietly. "Otherwise, I'd probably have bled to death before even understanding why any of this happened."
He stared at the palm of his hand. The skin on the tips of his fingers had peeled away, shallow but wide wounds. Small injuries that weren't dangerous, yet painful enough to constantly remind him that this was not a dream.
Ash let out a long breath and began to work.
Broken branches were scattered around the tree where he had fallen — branches that had probably saved his life by softening part of the impact. He picked several of the straightest and sturdiest ones. Not too heavy, but strong enough to support weight.
His hands moved with experience that should have felt unnatural.
But wounds were a language he had learned long before he ever wanted to understand them.
He tore off his sleeve with a short, rough pull. The worn fabric ripped apart with little resistance, as though it had wanted to give up for a long time already. Several strips. Long enough.
With systematic movements, Ash placed the branches along the sides of his leg and tied them tightly using the torn cloth. Strong enough to support him. Not strong enough to stop the bleeding.
"It's been a while since the last time I dealt with a broken leg." His fingers kept working as he spoke into empty air. "But if I remember correctly… this should be enough to walk."
He paused briefly.
"Not comfortable, but enough."
After finishing, Ash leaned his head against the tree and stared at the sky through the gaps in the canopy.
Gray clouds still hung low overhead, pressing against the purple sky behind them like a wet blanket too heavy to remove.
"Damn it."
There was no anger in his voice. No shock.
Only the exhaustion of someone far too used to bad days.
"First day in another world, and I already broke my own leg."
The forest answered with silence.
Then his stomach spoke as well.
Growl.
The sound echoed between the glowing tree with an intensity far too dramatic for an empty stomach.
Ash looked down at his own abdomen.
"Great. Another problem." He patted his stomach once. "My leg's broken, I'm lost, and now I'm hungry."
He fell silent for a moment before sighing.
"What a shame my cup noodles didn't transmigrate with me."
He picked up the longest branch beside him and used it as a walking stick. The motion felt too natural for someone doing this for the first time.
Because it wasn't his first time.
Standing required far more effort than he expected. His left leg immediately pulsed with furious pain the moment it touched the ground, but Ash endured it in a way he knew far too well — not by ignoring the pain, but by deciding it wasn't important enough to think about right now.
Then he began to walk.
Deeper into the forest.
Without a clear destination. Without a compass. Without a map. Without anyone to ask.
He simply chose the direction that seemed the safest — or at least the direction without a visible cliff — and stepped toward it with something closer to determination than confidence.
His walking stick tapped against the ground in a limping rhythm.
One normal step.
One careful step.
One normal step.
One careful step.
The forest floor felt foreign beneath his feet. Some parts were soft like wet mud, while others were hard and filled with roots that emerged without warning like natural traps that had no intention of killing him, yet still could.
Above him, the forest canopy glowed.
The giant trees in this place emitted a faint light from within their own trunks — silvery blue, soft, as though something alive existed beneath the bark.
Beneath trees this massive, there should have only been darkness.
Yet those tiny lights created something Ash never expected.
Beauty.
Not the kind of beauty that was grand or breathtaking.
Just quiet beauty.
Like a long corridor illuminated by tiny lamps that never went out.
Ash walked through it wearing the exhausted expression of someone who lacked the energy to feel full awe, yet remained aware enough to understand that what he was seeing was extraordinary.
Then something caught his attention.
Fruit.
Small. Round. Emitting the same silvery-blue glow as the trees themselves.
They hung low in large clusters, almost resembling grapes growing on the wrong kind of tree.
Ash stopped.
He looked up.
He stared at the fruit for a long moment before muttering, "So it's not just the trunks that glow."
He reached for one. The motion sent another wave of pain through his left leg, but he managed to pull several fruits down at once. They were much lighter than he expected.
Ash sat beneath the tree.
Staring at the fruit in his hand.
"So the question now…" He slowly rotated the fruit between his fingers. "Can I eat this?"
Its surface glowed softly in his palm.
"I'm in another world, so maybe the food safety standards are different too." He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "But I really hope this doesn't make me explode or give me catastrophic diarrhea."
He glanced around the forest.
"Because honestly, I don't even know where the nearest toilet in this world is."
His stomach growled again, softer this time.
Ash stared at the fruit once more before sighing.
"I guess I don't really have a choice."
He bit into it.
The texture was strange.
Not as hard as an apple, not as soft as a mango. Something in between. And the taste…
Ash chewed slowly, trying to find something familiar to compare it to.
Nothing.
"It's bland." He chewed again thoughtfully. "But fresh."
A short pause.
"Strange. It's not good… but it's not actually bad either."
He ate another fruit.
Then another.
No explosion. No strange pain. Just fullness arriving slowly and quietly in the middle of the most absurd day of his life.
After finishing the fruit, Ash lay down beneath the glowing tree.
The ground beneath his back was softer than he expected.
He stared at the gaps in the canopy above.
His body needed rest.
Not because he wanted to stop.
But because his body had already decided for him, and this time Ash was too tired to argue.
His eyes closed.
And even though he was in a foreign world that had never once heard his name, beneath a self-glowing tree in a forest that existed on no map — sleep still came the same way it always did.
Quickly.
Quietly.
Without dreams he could remember.
Like someone too exhausted to dream at all.
Time passed without him noticing.
Slowly, the gray clouds began to thin. The purple sky gradually revealed itself once more until eventually the two moons appeared again upon the horizon — one pale gray, one burning red.
Like two giant eyes watching the world from afar.
Night fell once more.
And with it…
something else arrived as well.
The sound emerged from the darkness.
Not the sound of wind.
Not the sound of the forest.
Something far more wrong.
A wet, heavy crunch echoed in the silence. The sound of bones being slowly crushed by jaws.
Ash woke instantly.
Not slowly like a normal person. His consciousness snapped back all at once, as though his body itself recognized the sound as danger before his mind could catch up.
His eyes opened.
And something stood before him.
Its body resembled a human from a distance — two legs, two arms, proportions that were almost normal.
But the resemblance ended there.
Its skin was deathly pale, like something that had never once touched sunlight. It stood around two meters tall, yet the way its body hunched made it feel much larger.
It had no eyes.
No nose.
Only long, blade-like pointed ears… and a mouth far too wide for a face that size.
That mouth moved slowly.
Chewing.
The cracking bone sounds that had awakened Ash came from there.
The creature was eating.
Ash did not move.
His body froze completely, not from conscious decision, but because a primal instinct far older than logic had already taken control.
Stay still.
Do not move.
Do not make a sound.
The creature moved sideways using all four limbs at once. Its arms were too long. Its joints seemed to have the wrong number of bends. And at the ends of its fingers—
not claws.
Blades.
Long, dark, and sharp like ten black knives growing directly from its flesh.
Ash slowly raised his head a few centimeters.
His instincts instantly regretted the decision.
Between the movements of the creature's jaws, Ash saw something horribly familiar.
Human fingers.
A human hand.
Cold panic flooded his mind.
Was that really a human hand it was chewing on?
What the hell is this thing?
Is this a demon?
Did I really end up in hell?
But panic changed nothing.
The creature was still there.
Still eating.
Still moving slowly between the glowing trees.
Then a glowing insect landed on the tree trunk right beside Ash.
Time seemed to stop for a moment.
Then the creature moved.
Its arm shot forward.
Too fast.
Ash did not even truly see the motion — only the beginning and the end.
One second the arm was still lowered.
The next, the black blades were buried deep inside the tree trunk.
Only inches away from Ash's head.
The insect vanished.
Either it escaped or was obliterated.
Ash did not know.
He only knew that if his head had shifted even slightly to the left, it might not have been wood pinned to the tree.
He did not move at all.
Even his breathing felt too loud now.
Then the faint blue screen appeared before him again.
Thin like vapor.
Silent and floating.
[Beast: The Pale Hunger]
[Class: Lesser]
[Description: The Pale Hunger is a fast beast highly sensitive to sound. Its claws are as sharp as daggers, and its jaws are strong enough to tear apart even bone.]
Ash read the last sentence twice.
Tear apart bone.
He remembered the sound that had awakened him earlier.
Bones being slowly crushed inside the creature's mouth.
And the word "Lesser"…
Low class.
Which meant there was something worse than this.
Far worse.
A cold sensation slowly spread from his chest to the tips of his fingers.
Useful information, Ash thought dryly. But now what?