The next day, Jericho's eyes flickered open, his body heavy with exhaustion and his mind clouded by the remnants of nightmares. Slowly, his dizzy eyes began to clear as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. He blinked, squinting against the harsh light filtering through the trees.
"Where am I?" he asked himself.
The last thing he remembered was the demons, the destruction, and his family being slaughtered. His heart sank as the weight of the memories hit him all over again.
Jericho forced himself to sit up, the pain in his body sharper than before and his muscles aching with the toll of everything that had happened. The world around him was quiet, no smoke or destruction, just the chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves in the gentle breeze.
Confusion washed over him as he didn't know how he got there. All he remembered was everything going dark, and he thought for sure he was dead. But now, he was in the middle of some dense forest, alone.
His hands trembled as he placed them on the ground to steady himself. As he forced himself up from the ground, his mind raced back to the screen he had seen before he blacked out.
"What was that screen?" Jericho muttered, barely able to form the words.
Immediately, he remembered the system, the screen he had seen before everything went dark flickered to life in front of him, its translucent, glowing text floating before his eyes once again.
[System Activation Complete.]
[Welcome, Owner of the Divine Sun System.]
The words on the screen faded and were replaced with another line, one that felt almost too real.
[Vital Signs Stable. Recovery Complete.]
Jericho blinked in disbelief as he ran his hands over his chest. His injuries, the ones that had nearly killed him, were gone without a trace. The deep gashes and bloodstains on his clothes were no longer there, and his body felt whole.
"My wounds, they're gone," he muttered, running his hands over his chest and back. "Was it all a dream?" he asked himself. "No, it can't be, this screen is proof that it isn't. That means Mom, Dad, and Colby are all dead."
The system's screen flickered again, changing its contents as if responding to Jericho's words.
[You have been given another chance at life by the Divine Sun System. The system will now display your player stats.]
Jericho swallowed hard as he pushed himself up to his feet. "Player stats?" he wondered.
The screen before his eyes flickered once more, changing its contents to a different tab.
[Basic Tab.]
[Name: Jericho.]
[Race: Human.]
[Level: One.]
[Stat Tab.]
[Strength: Five.]
[Speed and Agility: Four.]
[Stamina: Ten.]
[Endurance: Five.]
Jericho marveled at the strange screen floating before his eyes. The screen was displaying his current status, but he had no idea what it was.
"Is this screen somehow displaying my physical status?" Jericho asked himself.
As his eyes scanned across the screen, he saw that there were other tabs. Immediately, his attention shifted to the other tabs. The screen before his eyes flickered again and showed him a different tab.
[Skill Tab.]
[Skills: None.]
[Complete tasks to acquire skills.]
"Tasks?" Jericho thought in his head. "What kind of skills does this thing mean, and what kind of tasks do I have to do to get the skills?"
Seeing that the Skill Tab was empty, Jericho's attention shifted to the other tabs.
[Task Tab.]
[Main Task: Level up.]
[No Side Tasks at the moment.]
"Level up, huh? And how do I do that?" Jericho said aloud.
While Jericho was still trying to figure out what was going on, his ears caught the sound of a low growl emerging from behind a fallen tree not far from him. The growling sound grew louder and caught his attention, drawing his eyes from the screen to the source of the sound.
"Who's there!" Jericho called out, thinking someone was around.
He soon found out that it wasn't a person when he saw a massive magic boar emerging from behind the tree. The boar was at least the same size as a large boulder, its giant tusks flaming and burning the leaves around it.
Upon seeing the wild boar, Jericho instinctively moved back, trying to move as far away from it as possible. As Jericho was moving away from the magic boar, the screen appeared before his eyes, showing him an urgent notification.
[Enemy detected.]
Jericho shifted his eyes from the boar to the screen for a moment, reading its contents.
"Yeah, I can see that," Jericho said in panic. "Crap, I need to run for my life," he said in his head.
Just as Jericho was about to make a run for it, more messages appeared on the screen.
[One side task has been found.]
[Task: Defeat enemy for reward. Failure to complete the task will result in a penalty.]
[Reward: Special Grade Weapon.]
[Penalty for incompleteness of task will be Instant Death.]
On seeing this, Jericho's eyes widened in shock. "What the hell?! You want me to fight a magic boar? How the hell am I supposed to do that?!" he shouted. "And what do you mean I'll die if I don't complete the task? What kind of system is this?"
And without thinking twice about it, Jericho turned and made a run for it. Without wasting any time, the magic boar chased after him with all its might.
"How unlucky can I be?" Jericho shouted as he ran for his life. "I just miraculously survived a demon attack, and now I'm about to die again. I must have shit for luck."
He darted through the forest, his lungs burning and his feet pounding against the underbrush. As he ran for his life, Jericho glanced over his shoulder only to see that the magic boar was already closing in on him.
To avoid being skewered by its flaming tusks, Jericho skidded to a sudden halt and dove to the side, just in time to avoid getting hit.
Unable to stop itself, the boar barreled past him and crashed into a massive tree with bone-rattling force. Upon impact, the boar's tusks tore clean through the tree trunk, and the flames engulfed the bark, reducing the tree to cinders in seconds.
"Its flames turned that tree to ash in seconds... what if that had hit me?" Jericho's eyes widened. "Shit, I need to lose this thing fast."
Fear coursed through him, making his limbs tremble. He forced himself upright and broke into a sprint, his heart pounding like a war drum. But before he could take more than a few steps, the glowing system screen flashed to life in front of his eyes, halting him in his tracks with a warning notification.
[WARNING.]
[Engage in combat with the enemy or suffer penalty. Failure to engage will result in death in 30 seconds.]
Upon seeing the message, Jericho skidded to a halt. "Why can't I move? I want to run, but I can't..." Jericho's eyes darted, his limbs locked in place. "It's like my whole body's running on instinct, like it knows something I don't."
As he stood there frozen in place, his stomach turned cold. "This means that… this threat from the system isn't a joke."
Every part of him screamed to keep running, but his legs refused to move. Something deep inside him anchored him in place. He knew the boar might kill him, but all his instincts screamed at him not to go against the system.
After all, the system was able to bring him back from the dead, and he was sure that it could also kill him on the spot. Jericho clenched his fists, his breath shaking in fear. Despite shaking all over his body, he was going to take his chances with the boar.
Finally accepting that he had no choice but to face the magic boar, Jericho clenched his fists and set his jaw. His eyes scanned the forest around him, desperate to find anything that could serve as a weapon.
He hadn't looked far when his eyes fell on a short, splintered tree branch that was laying not far from where he was standing. The branch was half-buried in the dirt, its jagged end was sharp and pointed, perfect for him to use as a weapon.
Without thinking, Jericho bolted toward the branch. The moment he made his move, the boar charged at him with its flaming tusks slicing through the air with a roar of heat.
Jericho leapt off the ground toward the branch, twisting mid-air just in time to avoid the burning strike. The tusks whooshed past beneath him, close enough to sear the air.
He hit the ground hard, rolling to a stop beside the fallen branch. Without hesitation, he grabbed it and yanked it free from the dirt, raising it up as a weapon against the boar.
The boar skidded to a halt, its claws gouging deep into the forest floor. With a low, guttural snort, it turned to face Jericho once more. Its glowing eyes locked onto him, and it began scraping its hooves against the dirt, kicking up clouds of dirt with every stomp.
Thick smoke curled out from its nostrils, rising like steam from a furnace. The ground trembled beneath its rage as it prepared to charge at Jericho. After preparing for the strike, the boar charged at Jericho at full speed. The air around it burned as it moved toward Jericho without warning.
The boar charged toward Jericho, closing in fast with its blazing tusks aimed straight for Jericho's chest. Unable to avoid the boar's attack, Jericho dropped low and threw himself into a slide, dirt scraping against his back as he slipped beneath the beast's massive frame.
As the boar thundered past him, Jericho thrust the sharpened tree branch upward, driving it deep into the soft flesh of the boar's belly. The wood tore through with a wet, splitting sound, and blood sprayed across the forest floor.
The boar let out a guttural shriek and stumbled. It skidded a few feet before collapsing in a heap behind Jericho, dirt kicking up in a cloud as its massive body hit the ground with a heavy thud.