After being driven out of the pack, I dragged my broken leg across the plateau for three days.
Every step was like someone hitting my bone with a hammer.
I'd thought I was already familiar with pain.
But the pain of a shattered leg was different—
the kind that made even breathing feel like it was shaking the wound open again.
By the third day, I finally couldn't hold on.
I collapsed beside a milestone.
—National Highway 315, K1027.
I lifted my head.
A narrow strip of asphalt stretched straight toward the horizon.
Occasionally a car shot out from one distant point, then vanished into another.
I lay on the ground, chest burning with every breath, vision flickering in and out.
"Dying again?" I let out a thin laugh.
Last life, I died at my desk.
This life, I was dying on a barren plateau.
Different scenery.
Same core truth:
The moment a system throws you out,
you are no longer considered "worth keeping alive."
My breaths grew shallow. My heartbeat started stumbling.
Just as my consciousness was slipping—
a pair of headlights stopped not far from me.
Tires rolled over gravel, crunching closer.
A window rolled down. A hand appeared.
Instinct tightened every muscle in my body.
I braced for a rock, or a scream, or a metal rod meant to drive away predators.
But none of that came.
Instead, something fell to the ground with a soft thud.
Right in front of me.
—An egg-yolk pie.
Bright packaging.
A sweet, heavy scent leaking through the plastic straight into my nose.
The driver didn't even look at me.
He just stepped on the gas and drove off.
He wasn't being kind.
More likely—
"Oh hey, a wolf? Let's toss something and see what happens."
I stared at the small, ridiculous snack for a long time.
"Long" was only a few seconds.
The next moment, I lunged forward and tore the wrapper open with my teeth.
The creamy sweetness exploded in my mouth—
and I almost cried.
Not from gratitude.
From pure, animal survival.
To a human, it's a cheap snack.
But to a wolf who hasn't eaten for three days,
who's one breath away from dying—
It's a rope thrown from the edge of a cliff.
I ate the egg-yolk pie so cleanly there wasn't a crumb left.
When I finished chewing, I lay there and realized something:
—Being alive is more important than "wolf dignity."
I used to fight for my share in the pack, clawing and tearing, proving my worth with my teeth.
Now I could lick every last crumb off the wrapper for a cheap pastry
and feel no shame.
If anything, for the first time, I felt clear:
Food matters more than face.
Funny, isn't it?
In my last life, the company used me until I died.
In this life, the wolf pack threw me out the moment I became a burden.
In every world,
"weakness" is original sin.
But at least now, I had a sliver of a chance.
The night wind picked up. My wound burned with heat,
but my mind was clearer than before.
The sweetness still lingered in my throat,
and for the first time since I woke up, I felt—
Maybe I wasn't completely dead yet.
I turned my head toward the distant road.
Cars passed one by one, their headlights pulsing like a slow heartbeat.
I began calculating.
The wolf's path was broken.
From now on, I needed to move closer to human society—
even if it meant living as a "weird stray dog."
Survival is a craft.
Tail down.
Ears lowered.
Act pitiful.
Beg.
Not glorious,
but better than dying.
I licked the last bit of crumb from my teeth and lifted my head.
—Starting tomorrow, I need to find a way to make cars stop.
Not with teeth.
Not with claws.
But by acting like a dog.
In that moment, I understood something:
In my last life, I was a corporate slave who was trained to death.
In this life, I had to learn to train others.
At the very least, I had to learn to train a few drivers—
well enough to earn my next egg-yolk pie.
And whatever "wolf pride" I brought out of the pack
had already melted into mush in that single bite of sweetness.