And so, Cael ended up being chased by that black bear monster. His life was now truly at the tip of the bear's snout.
"Damn it!"
BAM!!
The sound of a giant claw slamming into the tree trunk made Cael's ears feel momentarily deaf. Luckily, he had quickly spun around and was survived from the bear's swipe.
"Is this really real, you bastard?!" He glanced behind him again, but the bear was truly there and was chasing him once more. Cael continued to run. "Hey, I'm just a lost human, are you running out of food in this remote forest?"
The answer was the bear's fierce roar.
Its body was perhaps as tall as Cael's apartment ceiling, about three meters. But overall, it was huge, maybe the size of his room. The creature opened its drooling mouth wide towards Cael, who was running in terror with no clear destination.
Due to the extreme fear, Cael unknowingly expended too much energy. Sweat poured out, his heart raced fast, and his knees felt like they were about to break because of the difficult terrain with the roots of giant trees.
In his frantic run, Cael seemed to receive a revelation from nowhere. If he kept running, there would only be death. After all, the bear was an inhabitant of Sylvant Forest and surely knew its ins and outs. While he himself was a stranded human who was suddenly summoned to this place.
He was just an ordinary human without any abilities, but now a sword was tied to his waist.
"To hell with whether this is a dream or not, I can think about it when that bear isn't chasing me!"
With a mix of recklessness and fear, Cael ran around a large tree trunk. Just as he reached a quarter of the way around, he heard the loud sound of the tree being hit by the bear. He tried to control his heart that felt like it was leaping out of his chest. He drew the sword with a slightly trembling hand.
"Fight or die... fight or die... fight or die...."
Forget about whether it was a dream or reality, now it was just about fighting or dying.
After circling, Cael immediately stabbed his sword into the bear's front leg, whose claws were still embedded in the thick tree trunk.
"GAAARRRGGHHH!"
Cael's body stiffened hearing that shriek of pain. His chest felt like it had been hit by something heavy and very hard.
He braced himself, pulled out the sword, and then slashed at the bear's left hind leg. However, his body was suddenly thrown back by a very fast swipe from the bear's left front paw.
He tumbled and only stopped when he hit the root of a giant tree. His back hurt, but at least he was still alive.
The bear angrily charged, coming so close it lifted both front paws high and was about to smash them down simultaneously.
Cael rolled to the right. A loud sound was heard, the ground where he had just fallen cracked, and dust obscured his view.
Cael ran quickly with trembling knees to the bear's rear. He tried to remember, in Aetherion Chronicle he had also chosen the Assassin class, and he remembered the very first skill a player had called Shadow Slash, a single, very fast slash that dealt quite a lot of damage for the start of the game.
He remembered the movement pattern of Shadow Slash. His arm raised backward, his left foot forward, and his right foot back. Then at that moment, dark blue Mana should gather to envelop the sword blade, and after that, a single slash would deal critical damage.
Cael didn't know if his sword was enveloped in blue Mana, but what was clear was that the bear had already turned around with an expression of increasing anger.
"GUAARRGGHHH!"
"AAHHH!!"
With a terrified scream that he forced to sound brave, Cael swung his sword diagonally from right to left. Instantly, a dark blue light was created, scoring the space in front of him. The bear's shriek was heartbreaking, with red blood spraying into the air.
Then its large body collapsed, the earth shook once more, and then there was silence and stillness.
Cael stood stunned, he had successfully launched the Shadow Slash skill somehow.
***
Finally, Cael tried to come to terms with reality. He had indeed been thrown into the world of Aetherion Chronicle somehow. This was a cliché part of an isekai story where the main character from Earth is thrown into another world.
Now Cael looked at the world in front of him with a different view. If he previously felt this was a dream like heaven, now it was no worse than the real world on Earth.
It was full of monsters, battles, magic, and bad people.
In Aetherion Chronicle, there was no truly safe place except in a city. In the outside world, there was surely always a moment when a monster, coming from nowhere, would attack ferociously. Cael had just proven it himself moments ago.
If he paid attention, he also felt a strange flow moving within his body. For now, Cael concluded that it was what was called Mana.
"Where is the system? Hey, Miss System?"
Usually in manhwa stories, if thrown into another world like this, the main character would become a loyal friend of the so-called system, a mysterious entity that makes the main character powerful in a short time.
The system provided many benefits such as an inventory, a shop, mission guidance, and so on.
However, Cael did not immediately see a system notification.
His face turned gloomy and his smile was not as cheerful as before. "So I'm going to be a solo player, exploring this seemingly infinite world of Aetherion Chronicle all by myself?" He almost felt like crying, he felt like he had entered a soulslike genre game.
Cael sighed. It was still shocking, and he was still afraid of what would happen next. Even now, he hoped it was all still a dream.
"Then, how do I absorb Mana from this crystal?" He looked at the small, bottle cap-sized crystal in his hand that was glowing purplish.
It was a monster core crystal that could increase a player's status when absorbed. Depending on the monster, some core crystals could increase fire, water, or wind attributes, or increase resistance to certain elements. But the majority, for low-level monsters like the bear earlier, were to gain the effect of increasing Mana capacity.
Remembering that he had only fought a low-level monster, Cael felt close to tears. "My single life was almost taken by that low-level monster...."
The sun was getting hotter, but here it was still shady and dim. Cael sighed repeatedly.
"The nearest city from here should be Florin City. I have to go there."
This might only be a dream, it might initially only be a game world, but now Cael was truly convinced that all of this was reality.