Ch.3Fall (3)

My mind snapped to clarity as if cold water had been poured over my head.

Perhaps due to drowsiness, fatigue, and pain clouding my thoughts, things I hadn’t noticed before suddenly etched themselves into my consciousness.

I was a monster.

And not just any monster—a monster in a dark fantasy world teeming with beasts, aberrations, and humans who were worse than both.

I was the very monster that even the most wicked, those with human faces but beast-like hearts, feared and only encountered in nightmares.

As such a creature, I stood here now.

The wind rustled my collar. Despite its coldness, I barely felt it—proof that I had already become a monster.

What had happened?

Why was this woman showing hostility toward me?

If I were to imagine, the answer seemed quite simple.

My fallen body couldn’t possibly have been intact. If discovered just a bit earlier, one might have witnessed the rare sight of a regenerating homunculus.

In a dark fantasy world overflowing with all manner of supernatural phenomena, witnessing such a sight would lead to a simple conclusion.

In the woman’s eyes, I was a monster. A definite monster, without a shadow of doubt or need for reconsideration.

I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t attacked preemptively, or ambushed me while I slept, but I couldn’t view the situation favorably.

If there was even the slightest possibility of my death, I couldn’t just let things slide.

I stood silently, facing the wind.

As my bangs, grown long, brushed lightly against my eyes,

I observed the weapons in the woman’s hands.

A sling. Looking closer, I could see another weapon behind her waist.

It was long, so she hadn’t drawn it. She seemed prepared for an urgent situation.

The sling itself wouldn’t be a major threat to me, but if aimed well, that would be a different story. If it hit my head, even a homunculus like me would lose consciousness.

That was because I wasn’t a species whose sense of pain or other sensations had died.

She probably chose that weapon with this in mind. She wasn’t spinning the sling yet, but beastkin generally had physical abilities superior to ordinary humans.

She might throw it the moment I rushed to attack or subdue her. So I didn’t hurry.

The initiative clearly seemed to be in the woman’s hands, but looking closely, it appeared to be in mine.

“Your attitude is different from before. Is there a reason?”

No answer came. Her tail swayed left and right as if searching, and her blue-gray eyes scanned me.

I stood straight under her gaze. I couldn’t see inside the sling properly. That meant it was either empty or loaded with small ammunition.

In the game, sling ammunition came in three types: coal, lead, and iron.

What’s probably loaded now is lead. The smallest in size but most powerful, with good penetration and accuracy.

Though slings generally have low accuracy, judging by the woman’s experienced demeanor and appearance, her proficiency seemed high enough to hit her target.

If she deliberately aimed for my head, could I block it?

Using a homunculus’s reaction speed, I could probably block it, but wouldn’t I have to sacrifice an arm?

And if I gave up an arm, how long would regeneration take?

Unlike my inexperience, the woman stood unwavering, staring at me.

It wasn’t just confidence she had.

There was a certain conviction. A conviction as if she already knew the outcome of this confrontation.

I faced that conviction and pondered.

I thought perhaps I should attack first, then reconsidered.

Someone who could have killed me long ago had kept me alive, and there must be a reason for that.

But I couldn’t figure out that reason. I tried to draw out an answer, but all I got was an expressionless face and a slightly twitching tail.

Having never raised a cat in my life, I couldn’t read her attitude.

Besides, are beastkin emotions even similar to those of animals?

Even if she was already certain, it wouldn’t be strange, so why ask me to answer carefully?

Just as I was growing tired of pondering,

Suddenly, the woman’s tail stopped swaying.

“Too late.”

Rustle.

And then I heard a sound from behind me.

A sound that followed even faster than the woman finished speaking.

The noise of something quickly cutting through the air. Reflexively, I turned my body and covered my head following my instinct.

Thwack!

Pain shot through as something protruded from my forearm.

Beyond the familiar burning and coolness, the hot sensation of flowing blood, I saw an arrow sticking out of my arm.

It was a long arrow. A low-quality one optimized for mass production and available at a cheap price.

The awl-like arrowhead had pierced through my flesh and was sticking out.

It wasn’t the woman’s.

Only then did I see the humans lurking in the forest.

Crouching postures and shabby attire. Leather coats crudely stitched together from human pelts, hunting shortbows, harpoons, javelins, and the like.

Familiar figures. Ones I never thought I’d see in this cold land.

Cannibals.

“He blocked it!”

Someone shouted in astonishment. But I couldn’t say I had completely blocked it. I was just lucky.

And luck couldn’t last forever.

A chilling intuition shook my mind. I slightly ducked my head, and just then, something passed by where my head had been.

Most wouldn’t be able to see it, but I could. A lead bullet with a burning mountain pattern engraved on it. A precise shot from the sling.

Whizzzz, CRACK!

The cannibal who had shouted at me collapsed with his skull crushed. Faster than the sound of him falling, I assessed the situation.

The sling shot wasn’t aimed at me. Before I could feel relieved, another arrow grazed past me and stuck into the ground.

They weren’t allies. Sensing this, I glared in the direction the arrow had come from.

The cannibals, revealing themselves between the sparsely grown conifers, were aiming their bows at me with shock but composure.

They were experienced in hunting humans. I knew that much.

The most common enemy in Grim Darker. Twisted humans following bandits and aberrations.

Cannibals. Pitiful bastards who barely survive by hunting the most abundant prey due to the difficulty of finding food.

They were pitiful yet annoying in the game, but now only one emotion surged within me.

Indignation.

My forearm burned. It throbbed. Despite being accustomed to pain for a year, resentment welled up.

Why me, of all people?

What the hell did I do to face these cannibal bastards in a place like this?

What sin must one commit to be dropped in such a place?

If this was punishment, my crime was being a poor nobody who was good at a game.

Life was shit, and I just wanted to understand my sister, so I worked hard and set some records.

That was my crime. The bloodshot-eyed jurors glaring at me, licking their lips, seemed to think so.

My sister probably had a similar crime. Doing her best to raise her only brother and occasionally playing games to relax.

Thinking about it made me angry.

My teeth gritted with a crunch.

I felt sorry for my sister, who had died after being tortured and butchered in this strange land, farther than any foreign country.

It made my blood boil that I had to learn about her fate only through information that all homunculi had been slaughtered, without even a corpse remaining.

And I still remembered the vampire bastards who had tried to kill me after all that.

Anger is typically a volatile emotion. I consciously held onto my fading anger.

That was my mourning.

[Mourning]

[Temporarily immune to status ailments and adds Constitution modifier to hit rolls, damage rolls, and defense rolls.]

[Remaining duration: 60 seconds]

I faced the numerous killing intents aimed at me with wide-open eyes.

The first shot aimed at my head was luck. If I was careful about that, there was nothing to fear. I kicked the ground from my crouched position.

Snow flew up, and my body was pulled forward as if shot.

“Huh…?”

The distance closed. At a speed I couldn’t even control, I rushed forward until I was right in front of them.

A middle-aged cannibal, aiming his bow, frozen in hesitation, wearing human skin like a cloak, looking up at me with dull eyes.

My accelerating body crashed into that unsightly figure, legs first.

CRACK!

The cannibal’s body bent, and blood gushed from his mouth. Before I could even think about my newly stained clothes, my anger guided my body.

With a quick glance, I saw a man dropping his bow and drawing a mando from his waist. He was well-built. But not as much as me.

CRUNCH!

The sound of a jawbone being crushed and a neck breaking. The human, struck in the head by my backhand, fell as a corpse.

The place that should have been filled with shock and guilt was consumed by rising anger.

An involuntary growl. The cannibals filled the space my eyes swept over.

They clearly outnumbered me. But these man-eating pigs were afraid.

Like humans before a predator, they couldn’t move properly.

Fear slowed their legs, and hesitation put the brakes on their thoughts.

And in the space where reason and fear collided, only my monstrous body, beyond human, moved freely.

“Run—”

So I killed them all.

My extended fist crushed a chest. A human, hit by my swinging leg, collided with a tree and rolled on the ground.

After stomping and crushing the head of the fallen human, a spear pierced my back. I pulled it along with me and struck with my forearm, causing a neck to fold backward.

A mando stabbed my side, but I ignored it, repeatedly pounding a head with my fist until it burst.

“Huh, aaaaargh!”

I grabbed the nape of a fleeing one and threw him into the air. Flailing his limbs, he crashed into the ground and died with a comical scream.

“This isn’t, this isn’t right! This isn’t riiiight!”

One who seemed to be having a panic attack screamed as I lifted him with one hand and squeezed his neck until he died shrieking.

As the remaining cannibals dwindled, the winter forest, blanketed with snow, grew quiet, and in the end, only silence lingered.

Standing on the snow, now stained bright red, I caught my rough breath.

Feeling the tickle of new flesh growing, I looked down at the last remaining one.

“Mo-monster…”

Indeed, he was right. I stood silently amidst the carnage I had created.

Despite being stabbed by spears from behind, having a knife lodged in my side, and my forearm turned into a porcupine with arrows,

I was still alive. Undeniable proof that I was a monster.

I should finish this like the monster I am. As I took a step forward through the weariness washing over me,

SPLAT!

The head of the last cannibal, leaning against a tree, suddenly burst.

What rolled down was an oval bullet that would fit perfectly in one’s palm.

Only then did I remember there had been a visitor before.

The nameless woman. The snow leopard who could have cracked my skull at any time but had observed instead.

As I turned my head, the woman was looking at me with the same expression as when she had questioned me earlier.

An expression as if waiting for something. After staring at her for a while, I realized I owed her an answer.

Though I wondered if she really needed to hear it from my mouth.

“You asked about my identity before.”

The snow leopard raised an eyebrow and perked up her ears. Seeing her tail start to move again, I said,

“It’s as this bastard said.”

I nodded toward the direction where the last cannibal lay with his skull cracked.

The beastkin with blue-gray eyes still stared at me blankly, seemingly wanting a definite answer. I sighed and said,

“Monster.”

As my arrow-pierced arm regenerated, emitting the smell of blood, and the mando lodged in my side pushed itself out and rolled onto the ground,

The snow leopard blinked for a while before nodding her head primly.

“That’s good.”

Seeing the faint smile that appeared, I let out a hollow laugh.

Good, my ass.

In the pleasant breeze that blew, I unclenched my fist.