"Gawk—!"
"Uwaaaagghhh!"
Zhao Yu's scream came out half-choked, half-gurgled as he rolled helplessly onto the sand, coughing up seawater like a dying fish.
He clutched his stomach, face pale, his body trembling from the nausea twisting inside him.
"Ughhh… sh*t… salty… why is it salty?!"
He spat violently, his tongue hanging out like he had just licked a bag of rocks.
"Bleghhh, pfft, oh my god, I actually drank the ocean. Someone kill me now…"
He collapsed onto his side, groaning dramatically, the sound of gentle waves lapping beside him.
The sea breeze hit his face, warm and humid, and grains of sand clung stubbornly to his hair.
For a good ten seconds, he just lay there, limbs sprawled like a crime scene victim.
Finally, he dragged himself up on shaky arms, swaying as though he had just stepped off the world's deadliest roller coaster.
His purple eyes scanned the horizon, blinking as he took in the endless blue waters, the stretch of white sand, and the faint outline of strange cliffs in the distance.
"Okay…"
He muttered, breathing heavily,
"Let's think. I got caught up in that stupid wave of energy, probably a scripted scene or whatever, and then, bam, teleported here."
He rubbed his temples, forcing his mind to focus even though his legs still felt like jelly.
"This must be… a location in Solar–3. Yeah… that has to be it. A remote spawn point or… or some story-related place."
He squinted at the scenery again, then slapped his forehead.
"Great. Just great. Out of all the places, I land here, alone, half-dead, with nothing but sand in my mouth. If this is Solar–3, then, ha! Lucky me, I'm basically in the DLC expansion zone without even grinding for gear first!"
Zhao Yu let out a long, exaggerated sigh, his shoulders drooping as if the weight of the entire ocean he just drank had crushed him.
"Well… I guess it's not all bad,"
He muttered, forcing a crooked grin.
"At least I don't have to wake up early for school anymore. No more boring classes, no more pretending to listen to math lectures."
He chuckled weakly before his expression soured.
"But damn… Mom is probably freaking the hell out right now. She's gonna barge into my room, see my bed empty, and think I've been kidnapped by aliens or something. Yeah, she's gonna be worried as sh*t…"
He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly before finally straightening up and brushing sand off his cloths.
With heavy steps, he began to wander along the shoreline, scanning his surroundings.
His brows furrowed.
"Haa… I don't really know this place at all,"
He admitted to himself, his voice trailing off as he squinted at the forest edge and the faint cliffs in the distance.
"If this were the game, I could just open the damn tracker menu and find my way to Xinzhi City in, like, five minutes. Easy."
He kicked at the sand in frustration.
"But nooo, here? No minimap, no glowing waypoint marker, no fast travel. Just me, stuck in survival mode with zero tools. Sh*t…"
He stopped, planted his hands on his hips, and looked around with exaggerated seriousness, as if trying to act like a seasoned explorer.
"Fine then. If I don't have a tracker, I'll just have to trust my instincts. Yeah. Pure instinct. Zhao Yu, the great human compass."
His face went blank a second later.
"…I'm totally screwed."
Just as Zhao Yu was about to wander deeper into the forest, his attention snapped toward a sudden rustling noise.
A few strange, bug-like creatures scattered away, and in their place, a small blue blob bounced into view.
His jaw dropped.
"Whoa… wait a second. Is that… is that a slime?! Like, an actual slime? Holy sh*t, I'm seeing it in real life! I mean, yeah, I've seen slime before, like in games, anime, and, uh, science class experiments… but this? This thing is moving on its own, wobbling and glowing! This is insane, this is so cool!"
The little slime hopped once, then twice, its gelatinous body rippling like jello in the sunlight.
Zhao Yu crouched down, fascinated, his eyes shining.
He even reached out slightly, like a kid seeing a puppy for the first time.
But then, the slime turned toward him.
Its round, watery body jiggled, and it gave a faint, unnatural hiss as it started bouncing directly at him.
Zhao Yu froze.
His excitement drained from his face as a realization clicked in his brain.
"…Wait. Hold up. Aren't these things hostile to humans?"
The slime leapt.
"OH SHT, FCK, !"
Zhao Yu yelped, stumbling backwards so fast he nearly tripped over himself.
He spun on his heel and bolted, running like hell, arms flailing wildly.
"I take it back, I don't want a Pokémon! Somebody call animal control!"
His eyes darted desperately until, there.
Lying in the grass was a broken wooden stick, about the size of a baseball bat.
He snatched it up like it was Excalibur itself.
"Ohhh right, this'll work! Primitive weapons for the win!"
Zhao Yu yelled, psyching himself up.
He charged back toward the slime with all the bravery of a cornered chicken.
What followed was a chaotic blur of swinging, screaming, and missed hits.
Zhao Yu hammered down on the slime again and again, his stick splattering goo everywhere, but the creature just kept bouncing, wobbling, and coming back.
"Why, won't, you, DIE?!"
He shouted between strikes, his arms burning, sweat flying off his forehead.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, and about twenty-five solid whacks, the slime gave a final wobble before collapsing into a puddle of lifeless goo.
Zhao Yu staggered back, panting like he'd just run a marathon.
His shirt clung to his back with sweat, his stick trembling in his exhausted grip.
"Ha… huff… haa…"
He gasped, before glaring at the puddle.
"Bruh… killing a slime… is so damn hard?! What the hell kind of tutorial monster is this?! In every game ever, slimes die in one hit! ONE. HIT. Not twenty-five like I'm chopping firewood!"
He dropped onto the ground, stick still in hand, staring at the goo with disbelief.
Zhao Yu sat there on the dirt, staring at the puddle of slime goo like it had personally insulted his family.
He poked it with the end of his stick, watching the blue goop jiggle slightly before settling again.
"What… what am I even supposed to do with this thing?"
He muttered, his voice half-exasperated, half-disbelieving.
"I can't eat it. Hell no. What if it's, like, toxic or straight-up poisonous? Knowing my luck, I'd take one bite and either die instantly or start mutating into some slime-human hybrid."
He pinched his nose dramatically.
"And the smell, ugh, it's like rotten jelly mixed with wet socks. No way this is edible. No way."
He leaned back, glaring at the goo as though it had wasted his time.
"So I risk my life, swing this stick twenty-five freaking times like I'm reenacting Kung Fu Panda, and what do I get? Nothing. Nada. Just a slimy puddle that can't even serve as food or loot."
He sighed heavily, throwing his head back.
"Bruh… if this is how things work here, then I'm actually screwed. If killing one slime takes this much effort, I won't even survive untill dinner."
He paused, then added with a grimace,
"And worse, I don't even know if there's gonna be dinner."
Zhao Yu was still glaring at the slime puddle when a sudden realization slammed into him like a truck.
His eyes went wide, his jaw nearly unhinged.
"Wait… Roswell!"
He blurted out, clutching his head.
"Sh*t, he's the main character! He got caught up in that explosion too, he probably spawned nearby… somewhere around here… in the exact same spot where Rang Rang and Yang Yi helped him in the storyline!"
His breathing quickened, and he leapt to his feet, pacing back and forth like a man who had just remembered his homework was due yesterday.
"Oh fck, oh fck, I've already wasted so much time here, messing around with one slime like an idiot! Meanwhile, that bastard Roswell is probably speedrunning the entire arc!"
Zhao Yu shouted, his voice echoing through the trees.
He swung his arms in frustration, stick still in hand like a makeshift pointer.
"Right now, the three of them are probably already heading to Husk Field! And at this point, hell, they might've already met Bailuo! They could be fighting the Giant Serpent already!"
His voice cracked as he imagined the scene vividly.
He tugged at his hair, panicking.
"No, no, no, by now, Roswell might've even absorbed the Serpent! And if that's the case, then he's already on his way to meeting the Remnant of Xinzhi City, DAMN IT, HE'S SPEEDRUNNING HIS POWER-UPS WHILE I'M OVER HERE… HITTING SLIMES WITH A STICK!"
Zhao Yu dropped to his knees, slapping the ground dramatically.
"Why… why am I wasting so much brainpower thinking about that bastard?! This is exactly how he steals the spotlight!"
He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, though his heart was still pounding.
"Okay… no. Not much time has passed yet. He shouldn't be that far. He's probably still somewhere near Husk Field. Yeah. Yeah! I still have a chance to catch up!"
He was about to psych himself up again when suddenly,
Ting—!
A sharp, crystalline chime rang out of nowhere, cutting his words short.
Zhao Yu froze, eyes darting around.
"…Huh? What the hell was that?"
———「System」———
「Tutorial Quest」
◆ Killing A Slime !
「Completed」
———「Rewards」———
「Calculating Rewards :」
◆ Calculation Completed !
———「Rewards Acquired」———
「Silent Step」
◆ Allows a person to walks or run without making a single frequency of noise
————————————
"Oh, Kay."