Ren woke to the sound of his own pulse—a wet, rhythmic thumping that echoed in his ears like a funeral drum.
Pain wasn't just a sensation anymore; it was his entire reality. It was dull, deep, and heavy, as if his veins had been injected with molten lead. When he tried to twitch a finger, his nervous system flared in a violent protest that made his vision swim with white sparks.
He groaned, the sound catching in a throat that felt like it had been scrubbed with sandpaper. He forced his eyes open.
The canopy loomed above him, a tangled web of obsidian branches against a sickly, violet sky. For a moment, the sheer alien nature of the world sent a surge of panic through his chest—until the memories of the previous night came crashing back.
The wolves. The blood. The snap of a neck. The red, glitching screen.
Ren exhaled a shaky, ragged breath. He was alive. Barely.
He tried to sit up, and a white-hot spike of agony lanced through his thigh where the wolf had torn into him. He clenched his teeth so hard he feared they might shatter, refusing to give the forest the satisfaction of a scream. Slowly, agonizingly, he dragged himself upright until his back pressed against the rough, cold bark of an ancient oak.
His school uniform was a ruin—stiff with dried, copper-smelling blood and caked in forest grime. His shoulder burned, and his leg throbbed with a dull heat.
Yet… he wasn't dead.
Ren looked down at his thigh. The deep gouges left by the wolf's teeth were already knitting together. The edges of the wound were pink and itchy, the bleeding stopped by a thick, unnatural scab.
[Skill Active: Rapid Healing (Lv. 3)]
It wasn't a miracle. It didn't feel like magic. It felt like his body was being forced to repair itself at a grueling, exhausting pace. It was draining his energy, leaving him hollow, but it was keeping him in the game.
Ren pushed himself to his feet. His legs wobbled, his center of gravity shifting in a way he didn't recognize. His balance felt… deliberate. When he took a step, his foot didn't just land; it gripped the earth. His muscles seemed to know exactly how to distribute his weight to minimize the pain.
[Skill Active: Martial Arts (Lv. 1)]
There was no manual in his head, no list of forms. It was just a cold, mechanical instinct. His body had remembered the brutality of the wolf fight and turned it into a foundation.
He looked at the broken branch still clutched in his hand. It was a piece of trash, but it was all he had. He reached into his pocket and felt the two 100-yen coins.
200 Yen.
The number burned in his mind. 1,000 Yen for one point of Strength. He was a beggar standing at the gates of godhood, and he was starving for capital.
The forest was quiet. Too quiet. The insects had stopped their buzzing, and the wind had died down to a stagnant chill. Ren took a few cautious steps, his eyes scanning the shadows. He needed to find water. He needed to find a way to turn this forest into profit.
That's when the ground began to hum.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It wasn't a heartbeat. It was footsteps. Heavy, rhythmic, and terrifyingly close.
Ren froze, his breath hitching. A low, rumbling huff—the sound of air being forced through a massive, wet snout—echoed through the trees. Branches snapped like toothpicks.
Then, it emerged from the gloom.
It was a boar, but it looked like it had been forged in a trench of war. It stood taller than Ren's chest at the shoulder, a mountain of bristling, wire-thick fur and scarred hide. Its tusks weren't just teeth; they were ivory scimitars, curved and stained dark at the tips with old rot.
Its eyes, small and clouded with a murderous red haze, locked onto Ren.
[Appraisal (Innate) Active...]
[Target: Iron-Hide Boar]
[Rank: F+]
[Value: High]
Ren's heart hammered. Value. The System didn't show him the boar's level, but it showed him the price tag. This wasn't just a monster; it was a walking pile of stat points.
The boar pawed at the earth, a spray of dirt flying backward, and then it charged.
The world blurred. Ren didn't think; his body simply reacted. He dove to the left, the Martial Arts skill guiding his roll. The boar thundered past, a wall of muscle and heat that missed him by a fraction of an inch. The wind of its passage nearly knocked him over.
He came up in a crouch, but his injured leg buckled.
The boar skidded to a halt, its hooves tearing deep furrows in the soil. It turned with a speed that defied its size, its snout dripping with foam. It charged again, lower this time, aiming to gore him through the middle.
Ren raised the broken branch. He knew it wouldn't kill the beast, but he needed leverage.
IMPACT.
The branch didn't just break; it exploded into splinters. Ren was sent flying backward, his ribs screaming as he slammed into a tree trunk. The air was driven from his lungs, leaving him gasping, his vision flickering black.
'Too strong,' his mind hissed. 'I can't win a test of strength.'
The boar lowered its head for the final strike. It was only ten feet away.
Ren forced himself to move. Not faster—smarter.
As the boar lunged, Ren didn't dive away. He stepped toward it, sliding into the beast's blind spot. He twisted his body, slamming his shoulder into the boar's massive neck while his hands clamped onto the base of the left tusk.
Pain exploded through his arms, his joints feeling like they were being pulled from their sockets. He was dragged through the dirt, his skin tearing against rocks and roots, but he held on with the grip of a man who had nothing left to lose.
He screamed, a raw, primal sound, and twisted the tusk with every ounce of his weight.
CRACK.
The tusk didn't break, but the boar's head was jerked sideways, sending it tumbling. It shrieked, a high-pitched, horrific sound, and thrashed violently. Ren was thrown off, tumbling across the clearing until he slammed hard against a jagged rock.
Something in his side cracked. He lay there, gasping, the taste of copper filling his mouth.
The boar staggered to its feet. Blood poured from its snout, and one of its eyes had been gouged by a branch during the tumble. It was blind in one side, enraged, and dying.
Ren forced himself to rise. Every instinct he had—the old Ren, the student—screamed at him to run. But the new Ren, the one who had seen the Black Market Shop, knew that running was a luxury he couldn't afford.
He picked up a jagged, heavy stone. It was sharp, heavy, and cold.
The boar charged one last time, a desperate, final gambit.
Ren waited. He watched the red eye. He timed the rhythm of the heavy hooves.
At the last possible second, he stepped inside the boar's guard. He didn't swing the stone; he drove it. He used the boar's own momentum, thrusting the jagged rock up and under the jaw, aiming for the soft tissue leading to the brain.
The boar's massive body slammed into him, crushing him into the dirt.
For a moment, there was only the weight of the beast and the smell of hot blood. Ren felt a warm, thick liquid spill over his chest. He waited for the bite, for the tusk, for the end.
It never came.
The boar went still. Its heavy, labored breathing stopped.
Silence returned to the forest, broken only by Ren's own ragged gasps. He lay pinned beneath the carcass, his chest barely able to expand under the weight.
He let out a weak, hysterical laugh. "I… really hate this world."
[Task Completed: Slay the Iron-Hide Boar]
[Looting...]
[Acquired: 1x Mana Shard (Low), 1x Intact Tusk]
[Total Value: 1,200 Yen]
Ren's eyes widened. 1,200 Yen. He had done it. He had enough for his first stat point. He could finally grow.
But the world wasn't done with him.
A low, ominous rumble started deep beneath the earth. It wasn't the boar. It was the ground itself. The area where they had fought—the site of the old ruins—was hollow. The weight of the massive boar and the violence of their struggle had been the final straw.
With a sudden, deafening roar, the earth collapsed.
Ren didn't even have time to scream. The ground vanished, and he was dragged downward into a dark abyss. A wall of freezing, violent water surged up to meet him.
A subterranean river.
Ren hit the water with the force of a falling brick. The current seized him instantly, spinning him like a ragdoll. He tried to swim, to claw his way back to the surface, but his body was spent. His limbs felt like lead, and the cold was a physical blow to his already battered system.
He was pulled under. The faint purple light of the sky vanished, replaced by a suffocating, churning blackness. The river dragged him deeper into the earth, away from the forest, away from his classmates, and into the unknown depths of the world.
Ren's lungs burned, a searing fire in his chest. His consciousness flickered like a dying candle.
The current tightened its grip, slamming him against cold stone as it swept him toward a destination he couldn't see.
'Not like this,' was his last coherent thought. 'I just... got the money...'
Then, the darkness took him completely.