Chapter 5. To Become Stronger
[The origin of human civilization! You have discovered fire!]
[Don't give up! (3/100)]
“Haah! Haah! Huaaah!”
I dragged myself up onto the white sandy beach, breathing heavily as if I were about to die, while dragging my legs that had completely lost their strength.
Even after that, I had to die three more times before I could finally make it here, and I realized that I had been incredibly lucky the first time.
Perhaps because the sensations in this game mainly let me understand where something hurts through my mind, my head hurt more than my body.
It felt like I had experienced a truly horrible nightmare, so I wasn't in a very good mood.
My emotions had already gone beyond their limit, making my chest ache as if it were about to burst, and now this was making things even worse.
“Those damn wolves…!”
Thankfully, there was a perfect target for me to blame.
If even that had been taken away from me, I really would have had nowhere to vent my frustration.
“At least I made it back before sunset.”
The last time I died, it had already been after sunset.
Just how much time had I wasted?
Everyone else was probably playing the game normally in some perfectly fine city, while I was acting like some rebellious idiot, doing this ridiculous thing alone, suffering alone, and regretting it alone.
“…What should I do now?”
I wanted to chase after those wolves right away and tear their mouths apart, but I didn't have the ability to do that yet, which was troublesome.
Besides, there had looked to be dozens of them.
Even if I somehow managed to find them, I would die in no time.
I would probably have to repeat those meaningless deaths that the angel sister had warned me about several times.
Most importantly, those wolves were clearly much stronger than me.
Even if I made a plan assuming I could ambush them, I couldn't see any way to win.
Thinking about the Maltese I had raised a long time ago, even it would wake up and run away if I quietly approached it while it was sleeping.
There was no way I could even sneak up on these wolves in my current state.
“How about… I train my muscles or something, like the protagonist of one of those game novels?”
“No, wait. Don't they not really describe that kind of thing anymore?”
Even if I did that, I had no place to sleep, nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and nothing to wear.
I would probably die before I could accomplish anything.
At least it wouldn't be a meaningless death, so the angel sister wouldn't nag me about it.
Wow.
I knew primitive life was difficult, but actually having to live it myself was completely insane.
I could understand why people used to live in tribes.
“Am I actually playing a game right now, or did I really come to another world…?”
As for fantasies about another world, they had already been completely destroyed back when I was in high school, so I wasn't particularly interested in them anymore.
Think about it.
In novels and manga, the protagonist can communicate with everyone, and the residents usually accept them without much resistance.
But in a world with a society roughly resembling the Middle Ages, who would welcome someone like me, who was a complete outsider?
Not only would the culture be different, but even the way people thought would be different from mine.
They wouldn't adapt themselves to me.
Until I learned how to adapt to them, every single day would be hell.
Unless I had some incredible special ability after coming to another world, there was no point in talking about it.
Without any special advantage, my current situation was meaningless.
“A game… A game…”
“Ah! A game!”
Since this was such a hardcore game where players had to learn everything themselves without even a tutorial, I hadn't thought about it.
But if there were skills, didn't that mean there should be stats too?
“But I've never seen an icon anywhere while playing this damn game.”
“Do I have to say it out loud like an idiot?”
No matter how I thought about it, watching an adult over twenty years old seriously say something like, “Status Window! Inventory!” was a little…
“But perhaps that too is part of the romance.”
“Status Window!”
[Name: 김인광. Level: 1. Gender: Male.]
[Strength: 3. Vitality: 10. Agility: 3. Wisdom: 1.]
[(Initial stats are determined by actual physical ability and one hour of gameplay.)]
[Total Defense: 10]
[Skills]
Survival Swimming (F1): Swimming ability so poor that surviving after falling into the sea is considered a miracle.
[Quests]
Title - Unbreakable Will: Don't Give Up! 5/100
Title - You Picked the Wrong Fight: Makes the opponent tremble in fear! 1/500
Revenge of Fire Against the Wolves!: Burn the One-Eyed Wolf to death!
[Quest Reward - ???]
The reward for enduring a brief moment of embarrassment was more than enough to ignite the childish heart inside me.
No matter how I looked at it, this world seemed exactly like reality.
And yet there was a status window in this world?
I couldn't stop the corners of my mouth from twitching upward!
“But isn't there any HP?”
“There doesn't seem to be anything like mana either…”
“Is this one of those games where, level or no level, you just die if your head gets cut off?”
“That's not really my preference.”
“If that's not the case, maybe it's still under development.”
“Or perhaps those systems haven't even been unlocked yet?”
“Maybe completing the tutorial and clearing quests causes the necessary systems to appear.”
Whatever the case, there was nothing I could do except keep going.
“Haah… Is there maybe some kind of sword training ground?”
“Something where I can hit a straw dummy and increase my stats?”
Even if such a place existed, it had nothing to do with me while I was stuck in this strange place that might or might not even be an island.
“Then what should I do?”
I could go toward the sea if I wanted to, but in normal games, the ocean was usually an area you entered after leveling up to a certain degree.
So it was probably too early for me.
But if I went into the forest, there was no doubt I would run into those wolves again.
“Do I have to do something like ten thousand punches of gratitude?”
“If doing that can increase my stats, I'm willing to do it as many times as necessary.”
“That's the very definition of romance.”
Rustle.
“…This is a god-tier game.”
Perhaps it had come because it saw the fire I had made.
A very familiar-looking, yet strange creature appeared from the bushes.
It was only about the height of a ten-year-old child, but it had well-developed muscles, light-green skin, and huge, slanted eyes.
“Kererik. Kerik!”
It had a protruding snout, and disgusting saliva was dripping between its sharp, yellow teeth that looked as if they had been broken.
I had always thought pointed ears were an elf characteristic.
But if this was also some kind of fairy-like creature, then perhaps such features weren't all that strange.
“Goblin…!”
Yet compared to a normal goblin, its body was considerably more developed.
