*Crack.*
*Crack…*
The cocoon split wide, shards of blackened sludge breaking away and dissolving into mist. From within, a figure emerged—his body bathed in violet light, skin glistening with the residue of nightmare energy.
Kimura stumbled forward, landing on one knee. His breath came sharp, his chest heaving like a man dragged back from the grave. Slowly, he raised his head.
His reflection gleamed faintly in a broken piece of rusted metal nearby. For a moment, he thought it wasn't him. His frame had grown taller, broader, muscles sharpened and defined as if carved by a cruel sculptor. His once broken body had been restored—rebuilt into something stronger, harder.
He clenched his fists, staring at the smooth unscarred skin of his hands. Before, they had been mangled beyond recognition. Now, they looked as if forged anew.
"I… I'm alive?" His voice was low, deeper than before, carrying a strange echo.
*Swish!*
A translucent screen flared into existence above his head.
[Congratulations. You have become a resident of the Dimension of Endless Nightmares.]
[You have successfully inherited the title: Hunter.]
Kimura froze, staring at the words. They didn't vanish like hallucinations. They hovered, solid, undeniable, their glow reflected in his widened pupils.
"Hunter…?" His voice cracked between disbelief and awe.
He pushed himself fully upright, realizing now the change in perspective. The broken wall that once loomed over him barely reached his shoulders. His body, once 5'11, now towered at nearly 6'2, his shadow long and imposing even in the dim ruin.
For a moment, he simply breathed—testing the air in his lungs, the pulse of blood in his veins. No pain. No broken ribs. No punctured lungs. Only raw, seething energy coursing through him.
The screen shifted again.
[Trial Cleared.]
[All injuries healed.]
[Basic Hunter Integration Complete.]
He exhaled, a shaky laugh escaping his lips. "So… it wasn't a dream after all."
But beneath his relief, a darker current surged. The images of Saki and Airi returned—burning, screaming, torn apart by Vanko's cruelty. His hands trembled, not from weakness now, but from something sharper.
Resolve.
"Vanko…" His voice was colder than before, his eyes narrowed into slits. "Your sins… they won't vanish. I'll carve every one of them into your flesh."
The purple veins still glowing faintly across the cracked cocoon pulsed once, as if answering his oath.
Kimura straightened fully, standing taller than he ever had in his life. His new beginning had come—not as a soldier, not as a broken man, but as a Hunter of nightmares.
-
---
**Section 2 – The Question**
Kimura stood tall, the faint glow of the broken cocoon flickering against his skin. His breath hung heavy in the cold, stale air, mixing with the bitter scent of rust and charred stone. The screen above his head continued to pulse, announcing his rebirth as a "Hunter."
Yet instead of awe, suspicion filled his chest. His instincts as a soldier screamed that none of this added up.
He narrowed his eyes at the glowing text. "Alright then… answer me this—what the hell is this place?"
The silence lingered, broken only by the faint *crackle* of collapsing debris around the ruins. His mind raced. The last thing he remembered before waking here was Vanko. The mercenary lord, clad in black armor, leering at Saki with sickening hunger, before tearing his family apart.
The memory sent a spasm of rage through his chest. He clenched his fists, but forced himself to breathe steadily, just as he had been trained. Control the heart. Control the hands.
He kept speaking, his voice sharp, interrogative. "The last time I checked, there was no such place on any map. No Scaletron City. No… skeletons with golden horns firing explosive arrows. If things like that existed, I'd know. Hell, *every soldier would know.*" His tone hardened, military precision bleeding through. "And yet here I am, staring one in the face. So tell me—what kind of battlefield have I been dropped into?"
*Swish! Swish! Swish!*
A dozen more translucent screens bloomed into existence around him, forming a ring of shifting light. Kimura flinched, his soldier's instinct immediately cataloguing the sudden shift in environment. His eyes darted between them, tracking movement the way he would with incoming fire.
On the center screen, glowing lines appeared.
[An intellectual question has been detected by the Hunter.]
Kimura raised an eyebrow, lips twisting into a dry grin. "So… not a sapient being after all. Just a pre-programmed AI, running responses." His voice carried both relief and caution.
But as soon as the thought escaped his lips, a heavier realization crashed into him. His breath hitched, the grin fading. *If it's an AI… then what happens when it grows?*
He muttered under his breath, almost afraid to voice it fully. "Could this thing… evolve? Gain real intelligence? Even… sapience?" The idea twisted his gut. He had seen autonomous drones malfunction, programs misfire, machines turn on their creators. But something like *this*? It was on a scale far beyond Earth's technology.
He sighed, shaking his head. "Not that I can do anything about it now."
The central screen flickered.
[Processing the question...]
[Requesting access to the D.E.N.]
Kimura froze, his jaw tightening. "D.E.N…?" The words tasted foreign, ominous.
The screens pulsed again, as if waiting for something—or someone—to answer.
---
---
**Section 3 – The Extraction**
The glowing screens pulsed brighter, their light reflecting against the fractured steel and scorched pavement. Kimura's jaw tensed as the glyphs shifted, forming coherent text.
*Swish. Swish.*
The sound was soft, but sharp enough to rattle the silence.
[…Request accepted.]
[Access level: Basic – Granted.]
[Submitting the question to the D.E.N.]
Kimura's brow furrowed. "So it really has a chain of command…" His instincts kicked in, cataloguing each line of information as if they were radio transmissions on a battlefield.
[…Answer located. Subject: Chris Vanko.]
[File Type: Origin.]
[Please say the keyword 'origin' to download.]
The name struck like a hammer. His hands curled into fists, nails digging into his palm until fresh crescent marks formed. *Vanko.* Even here, the bastard's shadow followed.
Then came the warning.
[…Forced Transference Data Unit: 60 GB.]
[Estimated safe download time: 15,291 days, 17 hours, 32 minutes, 57 seconds, 120 milliseconds.]
[During transfer, Hunter will remain in a coma.]
The words made his gut twist. A soldier in the field knew one rule above all else: **never surrender your consciousness.** Comas, illusions, drugs—they all meant death on the battlefield. And this cursed place was nothing if not one giant battlefield.
His lips pulled into a thin, grim smile. "No. Extract only what I asked for. Align the information with my question. Leave the rest to rot."
The screens rippled, like an obedient machine.
[Affirmative.]
*Shisk! Swish! Swish!*
Dozens of displays bloomed around him, fragments of glowing data hanging in the ruined sky. His eyes scanned each one like tactical readouts.
Finally, he found the one he needed—its heading glowing brighter than the rest.
[…Sorted Origin File Located.]
[Target: Hunter Chris Vanko.]
[File Size: 25.789 MB.]
[Estimated Safe Download Time: 18 minutes.]
[Note: Includes baseline knowledge of the Dimension of Endless Nightmares and duties of a Hunter.]
Kimura's throat tightened. *Twenty-five megabytes.* That was small enough to carry—but even compressed, data this alien could crush a mind.
The system spoke again, almost mocking in its politeness.
[Would you like to extract the information?]
[Y/N]
He inhaled slowly, steadying his pulse the way he once had under artillery fire. His mind repeated the soldier's mantra: *assess, decide, act.*
His voice dropped into a cold growl. "Do it."
[Acknowledgement received.]
[Initiating function: Data Extraction – Forced Transference.]
The air shivered. Suddenly, a white-hot current seared through his skull. Kimura staggered, gripping his temples as though a knife had been driven between them. His vision warped—the streets around him bending, colors splitting like shattered glass.
A bar appeared on the corner of his vision, glowing faintly.
[1% ↑ 1.96% ↑]
[Estimated Time: 00:16:46:09]
"Damn…!" He bit down hard, refusing to cry out. The last thing he would give this parasite was the satisfaction of seeing him break.
Screens kept flickering in his periphery until he snarled through gritted teeth: "Dismiss everything—except the meter and timer. The rest is just noise."
[Apologies for the incompetence, Hunter.]
[Shutting down auxiliary displays.]
The glow dimmed, leaving only the faint countdown. Silence fell again, save for his ragged breathing.
Kimura closed his eyes, inhaling deep, exhaling slow. "Control the heart… control the hands…" He whispered the old drill sergeant's words, forcing his mind to anchor itself against the flood of alien knowledge.
But even then, he could feel it—like molten steel pouring into his skull, rewriting him piece by piece.
He cracked a bitter grin. "Tch. Life's cruel… but at least this time, I get to choose how I suffer."
The streets stood still, frozen skeletons locked in molasses-like movement, as Kimura braced himself for the storm of knowledge yet to come.
---
---
**Section 4 – The Mental Battlefield**
[Acknowledgement received!]
[Initiating function: Data Extraction and Forced Data Transference...]
The words weren't just text. They were a verdict.
Kimura staggered as the first wave of information slammed into his skull. His vision fractured, the world around him splitting into mirrored shards. The cracked buildings, the frozen skeletons, even the sky—all blurred into lines of code, dissolving into alien symbols that pulsed with a rhythm like a second heartbeat.
His knees hit the ground. The pain was different from bullets, knives, or broken bones. Those he could understand, compartmentalize, endure. This was something else—like his mind was being stretched across an ocean of fire, every neuron forced to carry weight it was never built for.
The percentile meter ticked upward.
[1% ↑ 1.96% ↑]
[00:16:46:09]
Kimura clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached. "Damn parasite…" His soldier's discipline screamed at him: *control, endure, adapt.*
The torrent of data carried flashes—glimpses of Vanko's face, grinning with monstrous arrogance. Maps of cities he didn't recognize. Creatures birthed in the D.E.N., bone and shadow entwined. And beneath it all, a single truth pulsing like a drum: **this world was no accident.**
Kimura forced himself upright, swaying like a man in the middle of an artillery strike. He barked at the glowing walls of text. "Dismiss all the screens—except the meter and timer! Everything else is noise!"
The voice responded with calm obedience:
[Apologies for the incompetence, Hunter...]
[Shutting down auxiliary systems...]
The flood slowed, the fragments vanishing until only the timer and bar remained.
Kimura let out a breath through gritted teeth, muscles shaking. His chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, but his eyes burned with focus. He wasn't just surviving this transfer. He was *conquering* it.
"Even hellfire won't break me," he growled under his breath. "Not until Vanko's blood is on my hands."
---
**Section 5 – The Frozen March**
"Hmm~~" He exhaled, his voice unsteady but tinged with defiance. Slowly, he shifted into the rhythm drilled into him years ago: calm the heart, calm the lungs.
*Inhale.*
*Exhale.*
*Control the hands. Control the eyes.*
He spoke softly, to himself, like a man balancing on the edge of madness. "Life can be harsh…" His lips twisted into a bitter smile. "But during these past twenty-four hours, it's been harsher with me than anyone."
The words steadied him, even as the torrent of alien knowledge still pulsed faintly in his skull.
Kimura pushed himself upright and scanned the ruins with a soldier's eye. His gaze locked onto the figures surrounding him. Dozens—no, hundreds—of skeletons, armored in rusted bone, swords frozen mid-swing, jaws locked open in silent screams.
At first, he thought they were statues. Then he noticed it—the slightest motion, like the creeping hand of a broken clock. They were moving, but at a speed so impossibly slow it was almost imperceptible.
He squinted, his trained instincts gauging the pace. "Seventy meters an hour… no faster."
The realization chilled him more than if they'd been charging. A battlefield where time itself bent, where enemies crept in motions unseen—this wasn't just war. This was nightmare made manifest.
His fists clenched as the soldier inside him rose again. "Now… what's going on here?"
The question wasn't just for the screens. It was for the world itself—the frozen city, the crawling dead, and the cursed system binding him as its Hunter.
And for the first time since he'd awakened, his eyes narrowed with something colder than despair.
Purpose.
---