Chapter 1 Starting Point (1)
This sensation…
"So… This is what death feels like."
It feels like I'm floating endlessly in a void. With nothing around except me.
I can't see, I can't smell, I can't hear, I can't taste, I can't feel…
Being detached from all my bodily senses, it oddly feels calm and peaceful.
I want to stay like this forever…
«Hero…»
«Save us…»
"What is this?"
I pondered.
I thought for a moment, that I heard something.
"It's weird… I'm deaf, I shouldn't hear anything…"
What's this sensation I'm feeling at? It's more like I sensed them…
Are this just my thoughts?
«Hero…»
It continued again.
It referred to me as a Hero.
«Wake up… Hero..»
Wake up?
What do you mean? I'm dead, I can't wake up. My body is gone, all my organs have shut downed.
«Wake up…»
«Save us…»
«Hero…»
These weird thoughts appeared one after another.
«Wake up…»
This time, I decided to give in. I'd try waking up.
"This…"
I'm alive?
The sensation returned slowly.
My body felt attached, again. Slowly but I could feel it.
Then… I felt something moving within me.
My eyelids slowly started to rise up.
I opened my eyes to see a blue night sky…
And I moved my head around from left to right.
I was lying down.
My t-shirt and my pants was torn and ragged. It's like I was some slave before I was thrown away.
Then, a sudden piercing smell struck through my nose.
This pungent disgusting smell of blood and rotting meat.
Mustering with all my strength, I slowly staggered back to my feet.
I looked again, crows were flying from the sky just above me.
"What is this scene…?"
I stood atop of a flesh, and its human remains. Rotting skull carcasses filled the scene below my feet.
And looking in the distance.
Countless human bodies piled up like a mountain.
They clumped together forming small hills.
And right now, I was standing on one at the top of it.
"Bleughh…"
As if I couldn't take it anymore.
I puked, for a minute I didn't stop… More like I couldn't stop.
"Haaah…"
I wiped my mouth clean with my hand.
Words cannot describe how I'm feeling.
A garbage for human bodies. A nightmare that no one wants to see. It's the incarnation of hell itself.
But it's a place I know. For the fact that this place.
Was the starting point of the game "Hero's Fate".
«—System—»
[Quest: Escape this place.]
Out of nowhere, a blue holographic image etched with words onto it appeared in front of my face.
"Escape this place" How fitting, how can I escape a place like this?
In the first place, I never wanted to be reincarnated.
I… I… never wanted to be any part of these at all.
Life back then was already impossible for me. What could I even achieve?
I was merely a parasite of the society. Just sucking out their energy and never giving any return.
I had no place, no friends, no relatives, no family in that world.
It was simply how life was and I accepted it that I could never change.
I just want to return…
Not from a hellish place like this. Survival here is equivalent to zero chances.
I'm not simply fitted for this role. Someone should have taken my place, not me.
I don't care about all this bullshit, I just want to be gone from this suffering.
I just want to die…
«Hero…»
A brief memory of that voice flashed by.
"Hero…"
"Why me? Of all places… Why me?"
"What's the reason for me being here?"
"Why did you guys reincarnate me?!"
"I never wanted to be a part of these…"
No matter how loud I raised my voice, no one cared.
Tears and snot streamed down my face.
"Why me..?"
ROAR!!!
A growling sound echoed. At the same time, the ground…
Thud.
The ground shook.
"Oh shit!"
And it caught me off guard.
I lost my balance and my body flew off the human hill.
Thud.
BAM!
"Ahh! It fucking hurts."
My body landed on the fleshy ground.
It hurts…
I sat down scanning the injuries within my body.
"Thankfully I sustained no injuries."
The blood in the atmosphere filled my nose. This unbearable stench makes me regret ever having a nose.
I wish this was a nightmare and I'd just wake up. But it isn't.
[N/A (★) Lv. 1 (Exp 0/20)]
[Class: Hero]
[STR: 11/20]
[AGI: 12/20]
[END: 9/20]
[INT: 8/20]
[Mana: 100/100]
[Skills: None]
[Fragments: ???]
Another hologram appeared but the words weren't the same.
How classic, a status from this point? How can it help me in any way?
[Class: Hero]
[People who are born to protect the weak. People who are born to stand up against injustice. This is what a hero must do.]
"I know that… But why me?"
Thud.
Thud.
ROAR!
A beast roared.
"Fuck, what the fuck did I do?"
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The noise seemed to be getting closer to me.
I hurriedly gathered to muster any strength around my legs.
"There's no time to dwell on these pointless thoughts, survival comes first."
I dashed my legs forward relentlessly after hearing a roar like that.
My body was in full adrenaline mode.
After a minute of running, I slowed down to a stop.
"Hah, it feels so tiring."
It's the first time I was in a situation like this. It feels like my fight or flight system is going to be overloaded.
"Calm yourself down…"
As if easing my anxiety, I decided to take a deep breath.
After that, I decided to snuck onto some pile of dead bodies behind the beast.
Thud.
Screech!
"What the fuck is that noise?"
Thud.
This time, the sound of the beast went farther away.
And I took this chance to see a glimpse of the beast.
I peeked my head just a little left where the beast could be seen.
Its huge black spikes stuck just outside its spine.
"It's huge…"
The beast figure was around a fifth floor apartment size. Its skin itself was black smeared with human blood.
It's like a dog and a cat were combined together.
The beast jaws seemed to be holding something.
I inspected a little forward, cupping my right hand into a circular formation.
"What is it eating?"
"Human bodies?"
Haah… What did I expect? The sight of it disgusted my body to its fullest. I never want to see this ever again.
I must escape from this place. Fast and quiet so that beast would never notice.
Grrr!
Then all of a sudden. The beast glanced at my direction.
"Did it see me?"
"Nah, there's no way."
Yeah there's no way it could have seen me right?
ROAR!!!
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Rumble!
"Fuck it's chasing me!"
Using my legs, I decided to run away as fast as I could.
Fear and desperation filled my mind.
I ran opposite to the beast's direction so it wouldn't catch up to me.
BAM!
Out of nowhere, something dropped from the sky in front of me.
The shockwave it produced blocked my field of vision for a few seconds.
Dust scattered within all my body.
ROAR!!
GRR!!
"Fuck, I'm dead meat right now aren't I?"
Now that I got the full view of it. I knew that there was no escape.
The beast stood in front of me.
Its towering and wide body filled the scene in front of me.
Dark energy spurted out from all over its body.
W-What can I even do in this situation?
"Move your body damn it!"
My legs gave out and my body froze.
In that moment.
"DEATH."
Was what I saw…
"Again? No way I'm just gonna die like this."
In this sudden turn of an event, my body regained control. I could move again.
With all the strength left, I mustered it one more time.
Run!
Run! Damn it! Seriously!
Slowly but steadily I gained distance.
But then…
Clunk!
"Ugh!"
I spewed out blood.
With the sudden momentum of the impact, something dashed its way behind my torso.
I looked back…
It was the beast… The fucking beast…
It's huge mouth was galloping to my sight.
Its teeth mercilessly struck my body with full force.
Swish! Swush!
Its huge canine teeth gnawed away my flesh.
And it grabbed me back and forth.
Bang!
Crash!
It swung me to any direction and slammed me hard to the surface.
"AHHHH!"
"HELP!"
Anyone..? Can someone just please help me here?
No one answered to my calls, what did I expect?
It's pointless to resist now… Isn't it?
"Fuck, If only I knew it sooner… That hope doesn't even exist in this world."
It's either to be killed or be the one killing.
"It's gone like this…? Am I just gonna die like this?"
The beast's teeth hugged and sunk deeper within my abdomen.
My clothes that were already ragged started to tear apart as the bite force was so intense.
The pain was indescribable.
Like being put into a grinder. I was being munched on.
"AHHH!"
"Why me?! Why? Why?"
I screamed but my voice slowly lost its energy.
'Why me of all places?'
Contemplating was my last ditch effort.
Like how other people get good memories when they're about to die.
Mine was the opposite, all kinds of negative thoughts just lingered on my deathbed.
The feeling of imminent death loomed again.
I closed my eyes slowly…
Just hoping this would end soon.
Slowly, everything came to a halt.
***
"Huh…?"
I woke up again in the same place as I was in before…
Did time reversed itself?