"I'm DOOM!"
The entire forest trembled as the shout echoed through the trees. Birds took to the sky in a frenzied flurry of wings, startled by the raw, frustrated cry that shattered the morning calm.
It was early, but the sun had already risen high, casting golden beams across the scorched remnants of last night's battle. Smoke no longer filled the air, and the choking scent of fire had been replaced by the metallic tang of blood and the charred scent of flesh. The flames had died, leaving behind nothing but blackened husks of trees and the silence of death.
We stepped over the cracked bark of a burnt tree, its trunk split open, revealing a strangely untouched root system below—clean, unburned, and oddly vibrant. A mystery? Perhaps. But not for long.
"Are you KIDDING ME?!"
The voice boomed again, this time in outrage.
"It was supposed to be only FIVE! Five! One, two, three—FIVE!"
Another shout, louder and more exasperated than the last. The speaker groaned, the sound echoing like thunder off the dead hills of ogre flesh.
"How the hell am I supposed to explain THIS?!"
He sat atop a gruesome mountain of corpses—ogres, big and brutal, now reduced to nothing but meat and mess. Blood painted the ground beneath them, seeping into the soil in thick rivulets. Limbs jutted out at odd angles, faces frozen in permanent snarls of pain and surprise. It was horrific. But eerily calm.
The young man clutched his brown, shoulder-length hair with both hands, tugging at it in sheer disbelief. His eyes were glued to a slightly crumpled parchment. The kind given to adventurers when accepting a quest.
On it: a drawing of an ogre, a list of instructions, and a target number—5.
That's all it said. Kill five ogres. Bring back their heads. Simple enough, right?
And yet…
"Twenty-eight!" he cried, almost on the verge of tears. "Why are there TWENTY-EIGHT?!"
The sword beside him—drenched in ogre blood—lay forgotten on the ground. His dagger, equally stained, rested sheathed in his boot. He groaned again, long and loud, like a man mourning his own common sense.
"Tsk…"
A soft click of his tongue followed as he shook his head, defeated.
Aria.
That's the adventurer's name.
He let go of his hair, blowing a stray strand from his eyes as he surveyed the battlefield. A war he hadn't planned, with consequences he didn't want.
His clothes were a mismatch of practicality and carelessness: a gray undershirt, an ocean-blue tunic stained with sweat and grime, brown trousers tucked into scavenger boots scuffed from overuse. A belt ran across his waist and up to his shoulder in an X-pattern, serving as both support and sheath strap. His cloak hung loosely across his back, fluttering with the breeze.
Aria stared out at the slaughter like a man who had accidentally painted the Mona Lisa while trying to doodle a stick figure.
"Oh... brother…" he muttered under his breath.
It was supposed to be a simple fight—quick, clean, forgettable. But that idiot, he thought, glaring at one particular ogre whose head now rested against a tree trunk, impaled cleanly through both eyes.
That one had called for backup before it died.
Ogres, like goblins and wolves, never hunt alone. They're pack creatures. Social. Loud. Aggressive. So when one calls, the others come. And come they did.
Instead of facing five ogres, Aria had unknowingly faced the entire den. And somehow, somehow, he was the last one standing.
He sighed, running a gloved hand down his face. "Well… at least the village won't be seeing them again."
But now came the real problem.
Aria looked around at the battlefield, his eye twitching.
"What am I supposed to do with all of these?!"
He had no choice but to pick the five best-looking ogre heads, stuff them into a wooden bag, and leave the rest. Blood still seeped from the seams of the sack, tied to his waist, as he began his descent across a rickety wooden bridge that spanned the river outside the forest.
Groaning, he muttered to himself.
"I know, I know. Leaving that many corpses is reckless, irresponsible, possibly traumatic for whoever finds them…" he trailed off, kicking a stone. "But I did leave some tracks. Deep claw-like slashes on their chests, burned symbols on the trees. When someone comes across it, they'll think a beast did it. A powerful one."
Problem solved, he thought smugly.
He adjusted the bag of heads, cringing as it squished against his hip.
"Tsk…"
The sun caught his ocean-blue eyes just then. They glimmered, almost crystalline, as he lifted a hand to shade his face.
He stopped in the center of the bridge.
The wind picked up, catching his cloak and hair, making him look… heroic. Almost mythic. The victorious lone adventurer returning from slaying a dangerous monster.
Pfft. As if.
Aria snorted. "As if I'd ever reach A-Class."
He rolled his eyes and leaned against the bridge railing, lost in thought.
It still feels weird… this world.
He remembered the first time he woke up in Deliah. The night sky had stared down at him, stars blinking like watchful eyes. He had been expecting darkness, peace, the gentle void of death.
Instead, he got moonlight. Trees. Air in his lungs.
I was supposed to be dead.
Overworked. Undervalued. Heartbroken. He had collapsed at his desk after weeks of being used and discarded. And when the darkness came, he had welcomed it. Longed to see his family again.
But instead of heaven—or even nothing—he got… this.
Another world. Another body. Another damn chance.
Unlike those cheerful Isekai protagonists from books, Aria hadn't been excited. He hadn't cheered. He hadn't wondered what powers he had or if he could defeat a demon king.
He had screamed.
Not from joy—but from rage.
He had tried to kill himself again. Multiple times. Cliff diving. Stabbing. Poison.
Nothing worked.
Well—poison worked a little. It made him sick. Nearly tore his stomach open. But he never died. Just suffered until the antidote could be found.
"Yippee," he muttered, rolling his eyes.
Eventually, after twenty attempts, he gave up. The world wouldn't let him go.
You'd think I'd have trauma by now, he thought, but maybe… I already lost too much before coming here.
Watching your family die does things to a person. It desensitizes you.
But there had been one moment…
A bear had crushed a small, white rabbit in front of him once. Just… snapped it in half like a toy.
He had cried for hours.
Still human, he had told himself then.
Still capable of pain. Still capable of caring.
And gods, that rabbit had been so fluffy.
"I like fluffy things," he chuckled under his breath, the memory tugging a reluctant smile onto his lips.
The wind ruffled his hair again as we returned to the present.
There he was—standing at the center of the bridge, bathed in light and breeze like a returning war hero. He grinned to himself.
"Nope. No hero. No glory. Just invisibility, thank you."
He whistled a soft, unknown tune and continued walking, his footsteps light despite the burden tied to his side.
Birds chirped from the trees above, seeming to escort him as he approached the village.
"Mister!"
A voice cried out from ahead.
Aria's eyes softened instantly.
"Mister!"
She ran toward him, her small feet kicking up dust as she flew across the grass. He bent down, arms wide open.
Mira crashed into him, her little arms wrapping around his waist as tears spilled from her eyes.
"You came back!" she sobbed.
He smiled—gently, sincerely—as he ran a hand through her hair.
"I promised, didn't I?" he whispered.
He reached up, brushing away a single teardrop trailing down her cheek.
"I never break a promise."
Never, huh?
Then I suppose…
We found our guinea pig.
Little Light is about to have a home.
And somewhere in the shadows, a wicked laugh echoed.
A grin—twisted and sharp—spread across unseen lips.