Chapter 2
Looking at the roasted chicken meat in front of him, Lyon felt his hunger increase even more. It had been a few days since he began his journey toward the colossal mountain on the horizon. On the first day, he had found and hunted many wild beasts, but he only ate the wild chickens for survival.
Though it was not easy, he somehow managed it.
During the day, he would travel toward that colossal mountain on the horizon, hunting wild beasts, and at night, he would rest, eat, and sleep.
Picking up a portion of chicken stuck on a wild brick above the bonfire, he stared at it for a few moments, then took a bite and started eating anyway.
It's not like he had any seasoning or the luxury to eat something delicious.
I am stuck here trying to survive. I'm not on some vacation. What did I even expect?
Shaking his head slightly, Lyon stopped thinking about useless things and ate greedily until his stomach was full.
After that, he put out the bonfire, then climbed a tree some distance away from it. Sitting on his handmade bed made of branches and leaves between two trees, he looked at the bonfire and camp where he had been resting and eating a few minutes ago.
The camp he left had a trap set up with sharp wooden spikes and a huge rock hung by a vine. If anyone or anything approached the bonfire, they would fall into the trap, causing the rock to drop and alert Lyon instantly of danger.
He hoped that whoever approached the fire would be a human, not some dangerous wild animal he would have to deal with. If it was a human, he would at least have a chance to negotiate and gain information. And if the person was kind enough, they might offer help.
But if they were malicious or had bad intentions—as human hearts are unpredictable—there was no guarantee that the stranger would be kind.
Whether it was an unknown dangerous animal or a human with bad intentions, Lyon was ready to deal with it. He glanced at the spear made from a tall but sturdy branch, its tip sharpened and reinforced with a stone tied on by vines.
Beside his bed rested a bow and some arrows made from wild branches.
If anything went wrong, he was more than ready to face it. But one thing Lyon found strange about this whole place was how bizarre yet beautiful the forest and mountain were. The longer he stayed in this forest, the more he felt his intelligence and rationality fading little by little, replaced by unsettling thoughts.
If he wasn't so observant and self-aware, Lyon might not even have noticed. What confirmed his suspicion further was that the wild beasts he had hunted so far had no sense of intelligence or rationality. They were all mindless, as if driven mad by something—drowning in madness.
Another strange thing he noticed was that the beasts he hunted possessed incredible strength. They were far more powerful than anything he had known. It was almost as if those creatures had supernatural strength.
On his first day of hunting, Lyon was almost caught off guard and nearly killed in the process. But he somehow survived through cunning and luck. At first, he worried that he might not be able to continue hunting if he kept encountering such beasts.
But it turned out his worry was for nothing. After eating the meat of those beasts, he felt himself becoming stronger, his body filled with power and vitality. He estimated that, with his current strength, he could easily defeat the strongest person he knew on Earth.
Seeing this change in himself, even he was surprised. It felt like he was in some fantasy world, hunting magical beasts to get stronger.
This further proved his suspicion that he might not really be on Earth. The fact that killing wild beasts could make him stronger made no sense—it was something that only happened in a magical fantasy world.
He also had other reasons to believe he wasn't on Earth. The air here was extremely fresh and clean, almost magical. Too many strange things had happened for it all to be mere coincidence.
Lyon was 99% sure he was not on Earth, but in some magical world. This realization filled him with curiosity—he truly wanted to know what kind of world this was and how its mysterious power system worked. He wanted to explore it, use magical powers, become stronger, and fight others using supernatural abilities.
All of this was so interesting and exciting that he was filled with anticipation for the future and the world itself.
He lay down on his bed, trying to sleep, his head filled with strange and bizarre thoughts. If any normal person heard him say such things, they would call him crazy.
He closed his eyes, trying to sleep, and after some time, he drifted off.
In the middle of the night, however, his sleep was broken by a loud noise.