I stared at the falling leaves above me, which were green and painfully bright in a dark surrounding.
"Okay," I said aloud, my voice shaking slightly. "Let's assess the situation one by one."
I sat up, brushing the dirt off my hoodie.
The last thing I remembered was sitting in a plastic chair at a beach, enjoying a large boba milk tea. The over-enthusiastic inhale due to the taste had led me to slurp multiple balls at once, which bypassed my oesophagus and fixed themselves directly into my windpipe like a ball.
'Hmm.'
I, Kim Suho, twenty-two years old, in the prime of my life, had been assassinated by a mere drink topping.
"So fucking embarassing," I muttered, looking down at my hands.
They were the same hands.
Same calluses from gaming, also slightly crooked pinky from holding the controllers. "So, I'm dead. And this..." I gestured broadly at the aggressive amount of nature surrounding me. "...is this supposed to be the afterlife? It looks like a photo for 'Forest Ambience 4K' you would see in internet."
I waited for something to happen.
Usually, in the light novels I read, this is the part where a floating blue screen appears. A nice, sans-serif font telling me I've been selected by the Gods to wield the Hellfire Dragon Sword of Doom to defeat the king of hell.
I stood up and struck a pose like a hero.
"Status Open!" I commanded.
A bird chirped, and a squirrel chattered.
One leaf drifted down from the tree and landed on my nose.
"System?" I tried again, softer.
"Menu? Inventory? Character Sheet?" I waved my hands in the air like I was trying to swat a mosquito, hoping to trigger a motion sensor.
"Guidance Fairy? Someone please reply!"
Nothing.
Panic began to form in my chest.
'Don't tell me I'm an NPC', I thought, horrified by the situation.
Please, God, don't let me be 'Villager B' who dies in the prologue to motivate the real hero. I have a tragic backstory, too! I died choking on a fucking boba! That's tragic, right? Or at least pathetic enough to warrant a pity power.
I began frantically patting myself down.
Jeans? Check.
Sneakers? Check.
The hoodie? Still on.
I shoved my hands into my pockets. My right pocket contained a box of matches. My left pocket, however, crinkled with something.
"Aha!" I shouted triumphantly, startling a nearby crow. "This must be the Cheat Item!"
I pulled it out quickly to see a dragon ball or a secret pill to immortality, but it was a piece of paper.
Not a glowing scroll. Not a smartphone with an infinite battery and a direct line to God. It was a folded, beige piece of parchment that felt like a napkin left in the sun too long.
I unfolded it. It was a hand-drawn map, and a very bad one at that.
It looked like something a drunk pirate would draw on a ship at 2:00 AM. There was a zigzag line that probably meant 'river,' a bunch of triangles that definitely meant 'mountains,' and a small red 'X' labelled "YOU ARE HERE."
"That's it?" I stared at the paper. "My cheat ability is... basic navigation skills? I have Google Maps in my brain, but worse? Where's my super strength? Where's my affinity for all elemental magic?"
I looked at the tree beside me and narrowed my eyes.
Maybe I have passive super strength.
I pulled back my fist and punched the trunk as hard as I could.
BAM
"MOTHER OF—!"
I fell to my knees, clutching my hand, tears stinging my eyes. The tree remained entirely unbothered. Okay. Strength stat is definitely a solid 5 out of 100.
Painfully average for an isekai'd person like me.
I sat there for a moment, nursing my throbbing knuckles and the bruised ego that hurt significantly more.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
I was supposed to wake up, accidentally kill a demon lord, and have a princess pledge her eternal love to me within the first hour.
Instead, I was alone in the woods with a paper map and a sore hand.
"Fine," I grumbled, standing up and grabbing the map. "Hard mode it is. I'll grind. I'll level up the old-fashioned way. I'll hit rats with wooden sticks until I'm a god."
I looked at the map again. The red 'X' was in the middle of a triangle cluster. To the north, there was a crude drawing of what looked like a castle, or maybe a really excited turtle. It was so hard to decipher whatever the fuck the guy drew.
"North," I decided. "Castles mean civilisation. Civilisation means food. And food means I can wash the ghostly taste of bubble tea out of my mouth."
I started walking.
The forest was undeniably beautiful, in a terrifying, 'everything here wants to eat me' kind of way. The trees were massive, their roots twisting like frozen snakes across the floor, and the air was cold enough to make me shake while walking.
As I walked, my mind wandered to the important things.
If this is a fantasy world, I mused, kicking a stone, there have to be women of all races.
It's a multiversal law. You can't have an Isekai without a harem.
I pictured my future party. There'd be the knight captain, strict, blonde, probably hits me when I say something stupid, but secretly likes it. Then the mage, shy, glasses, explodes things by accident. And, of course, the obligatory cat-girl thief who steals my wallet and then my heart.
"I'd settle for just a regular human woman who doesn't try to kill me right now," I said to the empty woods. "Heck, I'd settle for a goblin if she had a nice personality."
A chilly wind swept through the trees, cutting through my hoodie. The temperature was dropping fast. The sun was setting below the tree line, casting long, creepy shadows that looked suspiciously like claws.
"Great. Freezing to death. Level 1 amateur death," I muttered, rubbing my arms. "Come on, Suho. Where's the plot hook?"
I checked the map again. According to the 'X', I had moved approximately three inches in two hours. At this rate, I'd reach the castle by the time I was forty.
Below me lay a small, bowl-shaped clearing after I jumped over the ridge. The trees here were different, paler, with bark that looked like white tiles.
Magic?
My heart did a little flip. Finally.
I crept closer, hiding behind a thick bush. I channelled my inner stealth archer, moving with what I assumed was grace but probably looked like a duck having a seizure.
Then, I saw it. Or rather, her.
She was sitting on a fallen log in the centre of the clearing.
My breath hitched.
She was... well, she was exactly what I had ordered from the cosmic menu. Long, silver hair that cascaded down her back like liquid moonlight. Pointed ears that twitched slightly at the sound of the wind. She was wearing a tunic that was definitely not designed for winter weather—thin, green fabric that looked more like silk than wool.
An elf.
A genuine, high-fantasy elf.