Monstrosity
Early dawn.
The cawing of a crow jolted him awake. Kim Woojin stirred groggily and blinked several times.
"…Am I still alive?"
He had been certain he'd died from blood loss, yet for some reason his eyes had opened again.
Where was he?
He looked around.
A narrow crevice between rocks, barely wide enough for a single person. Woojin was lying there, his body wedged tightly inside. He looked like a child who had crawled under a bed.
When he shifted his arm slightly, a pile of dry leaves that had been heaped over him rustled down. A familiar moldy smell stabbed at his nose.
"Ah, damn it."
The curse slipped out like a sigh. He had a rough idea where he was.
"This is… inside my nightmare."
This was the world of dreams that had tormented him for over a decade. There was no mistake. This rock crevice was the hiding place he had been using for the past few days.
To freely move between dream and reality, he needed a safe place to sleep.
Sleep was the stepping-stone connecting the two worlds. When he slept in reality, he came to this dream world. Likewise, if he slept inside the dream, he could return to reality.
That was why Woojin had worked so hard to secure a safe shelter here. Killing himself just to wake up was unpleasant in many ways…
…And as he thought that, a question surfaced.
If I die now, what happens?
In dreams, it didn't matter how many times he died.
He simply woke up. And if he lay down again in bed and fell asleep, he would return here.
But just moments ago, he had collapsed in the real world. Enough bleeding to be certain of death.
If his body in reality was already dead… then when he woke from this dream, where would his consciousness go?
"…I don't like the feeling of this."
It would be wiser to be cautious.
Still, he couldn't remain holed up in this crevice forever. To survive, he needed supplies. Water, food, firewood… nothing came easily in this barren land.
Refusing to act out of fear only invited greater danger.
"Let's move."
Woojin pushed aside the leaves covering him. Crawling out of the crevice, he surveyed his surroundings. A familiar, tiresome landscape came into view.
Trees, gaunt and twisted like the fingers of an old crone. Black mold and moss smothered the ground. The sky was thick with unnaturally dark clouds, allowing almost no sunlight through.
"At least I can see."
If he could see without a torch, it meant it was midday. After a brief look around, Woojin set off without hesitation.
He had no compass or map. But he had his own method for determining direction.
Toward the lighter shadows.
The deeper one went into the forest, the darker the clouds became, and the thicker the shadows cast upon the earth.
Monsters favored darkness and shade. The deeper regions harbored more dangerous creatures. Meeting them was something he preferred to avoid.
So whenever he entered this world, Woojin headed toward the areas where the shadows were faint.
It wasn't easy. When he died in the dream and revived, he returned to the original starting point from long ago.
The place where Kim Woojin had first encountered this world twelve years earlier—that starting point was far deeper in shadow than here.
"…I'd never manage that twice."
Escaping intact from the inner forest had been incredibly difficult. It had only been possible thanks to countless deaths and strokes of luck.
Compared to that, this outer region was peaceful.
Most visible predators were relatively small and timid, rarely attacking recklessly. Many even fled the moment they saw him.
Woojin walked calmly, unhurried.
But this quiet atmosphere itself was one of the traps that hunted the lives of travelers.
Whooo—
A strange gust of wind sounded.
Woojin instinctively dropped low.
Swish!
Something sliced past above his head. A bat with large black wings. Its honed claws gleamed coldly.
Blademaw Bat.
That was what Woojin called the creature.
The Blademaw Bat was a master of ambush. It clung to branches, waiting for prey to pass beneath. When the time came, it would glide down and rake its claws across the victim's throat.
Flap, flap—
The bat crash-landed on the ground, flailing wildly on its back. It seemed unable to steady itself. A dagger was embedded in its side.
That dagger belonged to Woojin.
"It hit."
When it had swooped past him earlier, he had thrown the dagger on instinct. He hadn't expected it to land. But by sheer luck, it had lodged cleanly into the bat's torso.
Woojin approached the thrashing creature. His hand wrapped around the machete at his waist. The dark blue blade shimmered with a peculiar sheen.
"Skreeeaaak!!"
The bat shrieked fiercely, baring its teeth. It was a meaningless struggle.
Crack!
The swung blade split the bat's skull cleanly in two.
The bat collapsed, lifeless.
When Woojin pulled the machete free with a twist of his wrist, thick blood stretched out in a sticky strand before dripping to the ground.
He ended the bat's life.
"Good… I need to deal with this quickly."
In truth, cleaning up afterward was more troublesome than killing it.
Woojin pulled the dagger from the bat's side. Then, without hesitation, he used the blade to slice off its head, split open its belly, and pinch out the entrails. His movements were astonishingly fast.
The carcass was dressed in moments.
Just as he was finishing, his hand suddenly froze.
He listened.
—Grrk.
A strange sound echoed from afar.
"It's coming."
His hands moved even faster. After wrapping up the dressing, he stood and swung his machete at a nearby tree.
The innocent trunk took a couple of heavy blows. From the split wood, thick black sap oozed out, carrying a stench even harsher than pine resin.
Woojin quickly washed his bloodstained hands and weapons in the sap. Then he wrapped the bat meat in leather soaked with it and buried the bundle deep beneath fallen leaves at the base of the tree.
"That should do."
With the task finished in an instant, he slipped behind a nearby boulder. After waiting briefly, he heard heavy footsteps approaching.
Thud. Thud.
What emerged was a grotesque mass of flesh that seemed to have been kneaded together from scraps. Its bloated body swayed with every step.
A monstrosity.
While creatures like the Blademaw Bat still somewhat resembled animals, heavily mutated beings like this had long since crossed the boundary of what could be called living creatures. Woojin lumped them together under one name: Monstrosities.
"That's a big one."
It easily stood over two meters tall. Its waist was as thick as a large tree trunk.
Grrk, grrk—
The monstrosity shuffled forward, letting out guttural noises. As it walked, its swollen fingers groped through the air, as if searching blindly.
It did so because it was blind. For reasons unknown, most monstrosities seemed afflicted by a disease that rotted their eyes into useless decay.
Sniff, sniff.
Its nostrils flared constantly.
Suddenly, it stopped. Its jaw split open sideways, and a long tongue slithered out.
The tongue crawled over the dirt like a snake and licked up the bat's blood and scattered entrails.
Naturally, that wasn't enough to satisfy such a massive body.
The monstrosity continued sniffing, searching for the hidden meat—and for whoever had taken it. But all it could smell was the pungent tree sap.
Grruugh…
After wandering for a while, it finally gave up and turned away. Its hulking back receded into the distance.
"…Now it's safe."
Judging so, Woojin stepped out from behind the rock.
Avoiding monstrosities this way was beneficial in many respects. They were savage, immensely strong, and unnaturally tough. High-risk prey.
The reason the smaller predators in this region behaved timidly was likely because of this creature's presence. If a fight dragged on, the noise would draw it in.
"No need to clash with one for nothing."
If he truly wanted to, he could have killed that monstrosity earlier… but there was no reason to take unnecessary risks.
It simply wasn't worth it.
Woojin retrieved the bat meat from beneath the leaves. Then he looked up at the sky.
"Sunset's coming."
The clouds had grown darker. It was time to prepare for night.
He had already scouted a shelter earlier: beneath a tree stump with its trunk severed, there was a suitably sized burrow.
After settling nearby, Woojin gathered branches for firewood. Before long, a modest campfire crackled to life.
He pulled a burning log from the flames and held it as a torch, then approached the burrow entrance and carefully illuminated the inside.
"…Empty."
Judging from the cobwebs and lack of tracks, it had been abandoned for quite some time.
If another occupant had claimed it first, he would have killed and claimed the spot. Fortunately, there was no need for that tonight.
After burning away the webs at the entrance, he returned to the fire and sat down. He checked his current arsenal.
Three daggers. A versatile machete. A round wooden shield reinforced with iron along its rim.
"I should maintain them while I have the time."
He wiped the dagger he had used earlier with a thick cloth. Sticky sap smeared across the fabric.
Then he paused, staring at the blade's polished surface. It reflected his face like a mirror.
Disheveled ash-gray hair. Beneath it, the face of a young man who looked no older than his mid-twenties.
"…It always feels strange."
Seeing a stranger's face in the reflection never ceased to unsettle him.
Every time he dreamed, he awoke from the perspective of this young man. In certain subcultures, they would call it "possession."
For years now, Woojin had lived in this dream world through this body.
A body he had inhabited for a long time.
Yet he knew nothing about the man in the reflection. Not his origins. Not his age. Not even his name.
"…Well, I suppose there is one thing I know."
He remembered an item he had nearly forgotten.
Reaching into his clothing, he pulled out a round metal medallion. A line of unfamiliar script was engraved upon it.
The characters were foreign, belonging to no country he recognized. Yet somehow, he could read and understand them.
[ Grade 3 Mercenary ]
He had possessed this badge from the very first moment he awoke in this world. That was why he assumed the original owner of this body had been a mercenary.
Grade 3 Mercenary… not exactly a flattering ring.
An ambiguous number. Not so low as to be pitiful, yet not impressive either. Certainly not high enough to inspire pride.
The fact that no name was engraved on it supported his guess. If it had been a rank worth coveting, the owner would have carved his name into it to prevent theft.
Woojin felt no particular attachment to the badge. He casually set it aside and stared into the campfire's white-hot flames.
"…Time to check."
Enough time had passed.
Using a long stick, he pushed aside the burning logs and dug into the soil and ash beneath. A round lump of clay rolled out.
He tapped it with the stick. The hardened exterior cracked open, revealing what had been sealed inside.
Perfectly cooked bat meat.
He had wrapped it in clay and buried it beneath the fire, letting the residual heat cook it slowly. That way, no scent of roasting meat would spread through the air.
Woojin tore into a well-cooked bat leg and chewed thoughtfully.
Then he gave a small nod.
"A bit tough, but edible."
All in all, not a bad way to end the day.