"I wonder if my bike made it..." "Who am I kidding? The bank probably already declared it a total loss just to avoid paying for repairs. I guess it was just bad luck, though my mom is definitely going to kill me for this."
The thought was ironic. Alex, a young man whose life had been abruptly snuffed out, was lamenting the state of his vehicle rather than his own existence. His death hadn't been heroic; it was caused at the hands—or rather, the feet—of a woman who confused the brake pedal with the gas at a traffic light.
However, resignation quickly gave way to confusion. Fate, for some inscrutable reason, hadn't sent him to heaven or hell, but rather to a place teeming with vegetation that defied all logic.
"Why is that mushroom so big?" he muttered, staring at the immense fungal structure before him. "Am I in Australia? I've heard the flora and fauna there are dangerously oversized."
Seeking to confirm his theory, Alex looked up, expecting to see the sun or perhaps storm clouds. But there was no sky. In its place, an immense vault of solid rock stretched above him, illuminated only by the phosphorescent glow of more giant mushrooms and crystals embedded in the stone.
Alex froze. He wasn't in Australia. He was somewhere unknown, underground, and possibly hostile.
His initial calm—a product of shock—began to fade rapidly, replaced by a cold panic that ran down his spine. He didn't even know which way to walk. After a few minutes of indecision, he set off in the direction his instinct dictated; given the lack of cardinal points, any direction seemed as good (or as bad) as another.
As he moved forward, Alex couldn't stop marveling at his surroundings. There were so many plants he had never seen in biology books. Since getting his driver's license a year ago, he had spent every weekend exploring his country: cities, countryside, forests, rivers, and beaches. If there was a road his bike could handle, he had visited it.
But this was different. These plants, as magnificent as they were strange, were something beyond his comprehension, and that alien beauty terrified him.
After what felt like an hour of walking, Alex slumped down beneath what he assumed was a tree, though its bark felt rubbery to the touch. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. The screen displayed a spiderweb of cracks, the result of the fatal accident. With a defeated sigh, he saw the signal bar was empty. He put it away, feeling disappointed but not surprised.
"I don't know what I expected... Did I really think my phone plan would have coverage in the center of the Earth?"
Once he caught his breath, he resumed his march. As he ventured deeper into the fungal forest, he began to notice movement around him. Small creatures fled as he passed.
He squinted and noticed that, despite being essentially similar in shape—like chubby little mollusks—they were radically different from one another. They ranged from vibrant colors to unique patterns on their skin, and their behaviors were just as distinct.
Some of these creatures rushed to hide in the hollows of trunks or under giant leaves. Others threw themselves into strange holes in the ground that spewed strong gusts of air, vanishing in an instant. However, there were also some braver ones—or perhaps just curious—that crossed his path, watching him with large, expressive eyes, apparently showing no fear of the new visitor to their world.
Finally, Alex managed to find something resembling a trail. He crouched down to examine the ground, looking closely at some fresh marks. They were unmistakable tire tracks, but that wasn't what captured his attention—it was what accompanied them.
Alongside the wheels, there were prints of what looked like hooves and, strangely, others that resembled the claws of large predators. Alex frowned, confused. Basic biology told him a predator wouldn't walk calmly alongside herbivorous prey, much less follow a vehicle.
"Maybe it's a carriage pulled by strange animals..." he muttered to himself, trying to rationalize the absurd. Without overthinking it further, he decided to follow the trail; where there were wheels, there would be civilization.
As he walked, his mind wandered, seeking explanations.
"I wonder if I'm in one of those typical fantasy worlds like in anime..." he thought, looking at his hands and then at the air, expecting to see a status window. "But I don't have any 'broken' superpowers, no magic, and no 'System' telling me what to do. Great."
A pang of anguish tightened his chest.
"Whatever this place is, or wherever the hell I am, I'm going to survive. I have to get back home."
His thoughts, charged with iron determination, were violently interrupted.
An explosion shook the ground, followed by another, and another. Amidst the roar, he clearly distinguished the sharp scream of a woman.
The air began to whistle, torn by what Alex instinctively identified as gunshots. However, something didn't fit. The sound wasn't the dry crack of gunpowder he was used to. Alex came from a country where security was a luxury and gang confrontations were daily bread; he knew the sound of a real firearm well. This sounded different: energy hums and wet splats.
Without hesitating, he began to jog toward the source of the noise. Curiosity mingled with adrenaline.
Upon getting closer and hiding behind some bushes, he confirmed his suspicions of a battle were not unfounded. A chaotic scene unfolded before him: a group of bandits was ambushing some travelers. What Alex didn't know yet was that those travelers were slug breeders transporting valuable cargo to a trade cavern, and those "bullets" he heard were, in fact, the same creatures he had seen in the forest, transformed into living projectiles.
"Luckily they're humans and not strange alien creatures," Alex thought, letting out a sigh of relief.
Knowing the dominant species—or at least the one in front of him—was human gave him a slight psychological edge. While he watched the pitched battle unfold from the safety of his bush, Alex placed his initial bets. Without prior knowledge of this world's weapon technology, he was guided by basic street logic: he bet on the group that possessed numerical superiority. It was five attackers against three defenders.
Alex waited patiently for the conflict to end. His plan was cold but necessary: wait for them to neutralize each other to scavenge information and supplies from the fallen. It wasn't cruelty; it was survival.
The battle ended after several minutes of intense shooting. To Alex's surprise, his prediction failed. Despite being only three, the group protecting the cargo emerged victorious, incapacitating the entire band of raiders. The winners didn't linger; they briefly checked the bodies, took what appeared to be money or items of immediate value, and quickly resumed their march, leaving the losers lying on the road.
"How did those guys lose?" questioned Alex, watching the caravan drift away. "They had numbers, the element of surprise, and the positional advantage. Are they just incompetent?"
Once the coast was clear, Alex emerged from his hiding spot after about five minutes of caution. It was time to see if he could get something useful out of this fortunate encounter.
He approached the five bandits. They were still alive, though in very bad shape. They groaned in pain, with evident fractures, burns from the energy shots, and deep cuts. Alex looked at them with a mixture of pity and pragmatism. He assumed some would die soon from the severity of their wounds, but he couldn't help them even if he wanted to; he had no medical knowledge nor a magical medkit in his pockets.
The looting began. Among the items Alex determined as priorities, he took one of the weapons he had seen in the battle: a sort of mechanical launcher. He also picked up some transparent tubes with blue caps that inserted into the weapon's chamber. He assumed they were magazines, but he knew well that a gun without ammo was nothing more than an expensive paperweight.
It was then that he noticed something that gave him the answer to his previous question.
Many of the small creatures they used as projectiles were piled on the ground, weak and trembling. Seeing Alex pull a packet of what looked like kibble from a stolen bag, the creatures threw themselves at the food with desperation. The speed with which they devoured the food indicated they hadn't eaten in a long time.
"No wonder these idiots lost," Alex muttered, understanding the situation. "Their projectiles had no energy. They were starving and too weak to fight."
He shook his head, disgusted by the bandits' stupidity.
"If you use an animal to fight, obviously you have to take care of it so it can use its maximum strength. It's common sense."
He gathered the slugs, which offered no resistance. They were apparently used to being handled, and certainly felt no loyalty toward their abusive former owners. After rummaging around and finding nothing resembling coins or bills (the winners must have taken it all), Alex turned his attention to the grand prize.
"Well, now for the most interesting part."
His eyes shone with excitement as he approached the mounts. The mechanical claw tracks he had seen earlier belonged to these machines: robotic animals.
The five bandits had the same vehicle model, shaped like a hyena. Alex chose the one that looked to have the least structural damage. He climbed onto the metal animal, running his hand over the cold chassis. As a motor enthusiast, he found the machine fascinating.
He looked for the ignition and, upon managing to activate it, his fascination turned to absolute astonishment.
There was no noise. Not the roar of combustion, nor violent vibrations. The engine was silent as a stone.
"How does it work?" he wondered, marveled. "Batteries?"
They were questions he couldn't answer for the moment. He had to get moving before anyone else appeared or the bandits woke up. He revved the Mecha Beast and began to follow the tire marks of the caravan. If they were going to sell merchandise, that road would lead him to civilization.